Veterans Day News: “COVID-19 hospitalizations are now at an all-time high”; “Enough is enough: Republicans’ fealty to Trump imperils America itself”; “What Is Trump Playing at?”; “How Trump Sold Failure to 70 Million People”

by Lowell

Here are a few national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Wednesday, November 11 – Veterans Day. Thank you to all veterans!

• After McCarrick report, pope vows to ‘uproot evil’ of clerical sexual abuse
• Hong Kong Opposition Quits En Masse to Protest New China Powers
• Trump Still Has 70 Days to Wreak Havoc Around the World (“Biden wants to undo the chaos Trump has inflicted from the Middle East to China and beyond. It won’t be easy.”)
• Five big challenges for the Biden foreign policy team (“Can we build back our foreign policy better?”)
• Renewable Power Grows Strongly, Despite the Pandemic (“Sources of renewable energy are expected together to be the main generators of electricity by 2025, eclipsing coal, the International Energy Agency said.”)
• Biden’s Big Climate Opportunity
• Climate Change Will Make Parts of the U.S. Uninhabitable. Americans Are Still Moving There. (“Instead of moving away from areas in climate crisis, Americans are flocking to them. As land in places like Phoenix, Houston and Miami becomes less habitable, the country’s migration patterns will be forced to change.”)
• U.S. Covid-19 Cases Hit Fresh High
• The Worst Day of the Pandemic Since May (“COVID-19 hospitalizations are now at an all-time high.”)
• The Surging Coronavirus Finds a Federal Leadership Vacuum
• Limiting Indoor Capacity Can Reduce Covid Infections Significantly, New Study Shows
• Alarm grows over Trump’s ‘dictator moves’ as he denies election defeat (“Trump’s administration looks like a tottering regime, with attacks on the military chain of command, a bunker mentality and delusional claims of victory”)
• Biden moves ahead by announcing transition teams despite Trump’s denial
• Trump is handling his election loss like every other setback. It can’t work
• Nearly 80% of Americans say Biden won White House, ignoring Trump’s refusal to concede – Reuters/Ipsos poll
• A furious behind-the-scenes battle to counter Trump’s threat to national security
• ‘Devastating’: Top Pentagon leadership gutted as fears rise over national security
• The crisis at the top of the Pentagon is just beginning
• Trump administration installs loyalists in senior Pentagon ranks (“The changes, including President Trump’s firing of his defense secretary, have alarmed Democrats and some Republicans and have promised to complicate a transition to a Biden administration.”)
• Team Biden sees Trump’s post-election fight as comedy of errors
• What Is Trump Playing at? (“The president’s refusal to concede that he lost the election is taking us into dangerous territory.”)
• Esper’s firing is a danger to national security
• Fighting Election Results, Trump Employs a New Weapon: The Government
• The Times Called Officials in Every State: No Evidence of Voter Fraud (“The president and his allies have baselessly claimed that rampant voter fraud stole victory from him. Officials contacted by The Times said that there were no irregularities that affected the outcome.”)
• U.S. Republicans hint at limited time for Trump to make his post-election case
• Postal worker recanted allegations of ballot tampering, officials say (“A Pennsylvania postal worker whose claims have been cited by top Republicans as potential evidence of widespread voting irregularities recanted to U.S. Postal Service investigators.”)
• Pelosi floats above Democrats’ civil war
• Joe Biden is right: It is time to move on
• Biden not getting intelligence reports because Trump officials won’t recognize him as president-elect (“Biden transition officials confirmed the president-elect is not receiving the President’s Daily Brief, the intel report that goes to senior U.S. officials.”)
• Pompeo: “There Will Be a Smooth Transition to a Second Trump Administration”
• Biden Says Trump’s Refusal To Concede Won’t Impede Transition
• By humoring Trump, the GOP is enabling authoritarianism
• Biden, planning his administration, says GOP leaders ignoring his win are ‘intimidated’ by Trump
• Biden, Democrats push back against Trump and Republicans’ recalcitrance over election results
• Trump advisers privately express pessimism about heading off Biden’s win
• Biden-voting counties equal 70% of America’s economy. What does this mean for the nation’s political-economic divide?
• Why GOP superlawyer Ben Ginsberg is bucking his party and blasting Trump’s baseless election claims
• The Real Threat of Trump’s Ridiculous Coup Attempt (“Republicans are extending their position that Democrats in power are illegitimate to suggest that Democrats voting shouldn’t count either.”)
• Trump Is Making a Serious Attempt to Hold Onto Power (“After years of railing against the ‘deep state,’ he’s trying to build his own.”)
• Lincoln Project Targets Law Firms Working for GOP on Election
• The life-threatening costs of a delayed transition
• Just About Every Justice Is Sick of People Bringing Lame-Ass Arguments About the Affordable Care Act
• A Supreme Court that still backs Obamacare won’t endorse Trump’s cockamamie coup
• Supreme Court justices appear ready to uphold the Affordable Care Act (“Hearing a challenge from Republican-led states and the Trump administration, two key justices said that Congress’s decision in 2017 to zero out the penalty for not buying health insurance did not indicate a desire to kill the entire law.”)
• The Supreme Court’s Obamacare case is an early test. It should be an easy one.
• How Trump Sold Failure to 70 Million People
• Enough is enough: Republicans’ fealty to Trump imperils America itself
• Trump’s narcissism has become the GOP’s Achilles’ heel (“The president cannot accept reality, but why must the rest of the Republican Party play along?”)
• Dems clinch House control, but majority likely to shrink
• Progressives are an asset for the Democratic Party. It should treat them that way.
• Should We Stop Paying Attention to Election Polls?
• ‘My faith is shaken’: The QAnon conspiracy theory faces a post-Trump identity crisis
• America’s polarization problem isn’t what we thought it would be. It’s worse. (“Social media is partly to blame.”)
• White House tells federal agencies to proceed with plans for Trump’s February budget in latest sign of election defiance
• Trump White House Still Vetting for Job Openings For a Second Term That’s Not Happening
• GOP Sen. Pat Toomey calls on Trump to cooperate with Biden transition
• Loser: Donald Trump derided defeat – now he must live with it (“What was once the president’s go-to insult now unequivocally applies to him, as his record of failure finally catches up with him”)
• Tlaib lashes out at centrist Dems over election debacle: ‘I can’t be silent’
• As Trump Gained Latino Support in Florida, Biden’s Campaign Ignored Warnings
• The incredibly bizarre Dean Browning and “Dan Purdy” Twitter drama, explained (“A politician was accused of using a fake burner account for a gay Black Trump supporter. That’s when things got weird.”)
• Hate-spewing Staten Island sex offender arrested for threatening to kill Biden supporters
• Proposition 15, California’s sweeping property tax reform, defeated
• Georgia’s Runoffs Will Determine Control Of The Senate. Here’s What We Know So Far.
• The Jolt: The ‘orchestrated’ push to discredit Georgia’s election sparks more GOP infighting
• Secretary of State maintains no statewide voter fraud going on amid calls for his resignation
• The election-night fiasco in the states that will haunt Democrats for a decade
• U.S. Senator Kaine deeply disturbed President Trump will not concede to President-elect Joe Biden
• U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine criticizes Republicans’ silence regarding Trump’s post-election actions
• Video: Sen. Mark Warner’s Deputy Campaign Manager, Alice Lin Tong, Responds to Rep. Abigail Spanberger’s Comments
• Senators Mark Warner & Tim Kaine Urge General Services Administration to Begin Official Post-Election Transition Process
• Virginia lawmakers say proposed rules violate spirit of state’s clean energy laws, press for changes
• ‘We Cannot Get Complacent’: Virginia Gov. Urges Caution on Thanksgiving Amid Virus Surge
• Northam stresses Thanksgiving adjustments to prevent virus’ spread
• Virginia continues to grapple with testing delays as public officials seek workarounds
• Northam is stressing messaging — not mandates — to curb rising COVID-19 infections
• Video: VA Senate Minority Leader Tommy Norment (R)’s “Soliquy” (sic) on Not Letting the Media “Lynch” VMI
• Every criminal justice reform that passed in Virginia after George Floyd’s death
• Video: Del. Sam Rasoul (D-Roanoke) Announces 2021 Campaign for Virginia Lt. Governor
• AG Herring Asks SCOVA to Dissolve Injunction Keeping Up Lee Statue
• Lawmakers Set to Revisit Expungement Debate After Failing to Reach Agreement
• Tuesday (11/10) Virginia Data on COVID-19 Finds +1,435 Confirmed/Probable Cases (to 194,912), +67 Hospitalizations (to 13,183), +13 Deaths (to 3,726)
• Editorial: Virginia’s Veterans Day proclamation
• Virginia Democrat Who Flipped Off Trump Says It’s Time To Heal. Some Republicans Disagree
• Virginia Legislative Black Caucus Thanks Del. Joseph Lindsey, Who Was Appointed to the Norfolk General District Court
• Virginia attorney general asks court to let Northam remove Lee statue in Richmond
• Richmond judge files defamation suit against Daniel Gade over debate remarks
• Fairfax County Boasts Record Vote Tally, But Not Record Turnout
• What the Link Between Heat Islands and Redlining Looks Like in One Virginia City
• Driver gets conditional pardon after crash left a man disabled (“Rushin’s family said he did not fully understand what he was doing when he pleaded guilty in Virginia Beach to malicious wounding and hit and run. And experts enlisted by the family said the crash was not intentional and that his autism played a role.”)
• Chesterfield GOP files election complaint against county registrar; judge dismisses show cause order against her
• Northam prefers carrot over stick in beating back rising COVID numbers in Southwest Virginia
• Prosecutor decides to investigate $1.8 million contract to remove Richmond’s Confederate statues
• UVa doc to challenge Farriss in 59th
• Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney to isolate for possible COVID-19 exposure
• D.C.-area forecast: Spectacular stretch of weather comes to an end as rain moves in today