by Lowell
Here are a few national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Friday, December 11.
- Greta Thunberg: ‘We are speeding in the wrong direction’ on climate crisis (“Exclusive: Climate striker speaks before UN event marking five years since the Paris accord”)
- Paris climate agreement: 54 cities on track to meet targets (“Mayor of Paris praises ‘important milestone’ on fifth anniversary of the landmark agreement”)
- Wind, solar and storage still cheapest by far, latest CSIRO GenCost report says
- No-deal Brexit is now likeliest, Ursula von der Leyen tells EU leaders (So, so stupid.)
- Rebound in carbon emissions expected in 2021 after fall caused by Covid (“Scientists brand 7% decline a ‘drop in the ocean’ and call on governments to push ahead with structural changes”)
- Morocco and Israel plan to normalize ties. Trump changed US policy to make it happen. (“The US will recognize Morocco’s decades-long claim on Western Sahara. In exchange, Morocco will openly recognize Israel.”)
- Merkel’s Deal With Hungary and Poland Is a Compromise Too Far (“For the sake of an important budget and stimulus deal, the European Union is close to selling its democratic soul.”)
- Global trade is booming — just without the U.S.
- How the Pandemic Will End (“Not with a bang, but with a whimper.”)
- U.S. Looks Ahead to First Vaccinations as Early as Next Week (“F.D.A. Could Issue Emergency Authorization on Saturday; The authorization will be the start of a complex, monthslong distribution plan coordinated by health authorities, hospitals and pharmacies. Health care workers and nursing home residents are first in line to begin receiving shots. Here’s the latest.”)
- ‘Numb’ and ‘Heartbroken,’ the U.S. Confronts Record Virus Deaths
- Covid Vaccine Setbacks Temper Optimism After Upbeat News
- Pfizer vaccine gets key endorsement from FDA panel (“The action makes it all but certain the FDA will authorize it on an emergency basis soon The prospect of relief came as a record 107,000 people were hospitalized with covid-19, and 3,347 deaths were reported by state health departments, topping the milestone reached one day earlier.”)
- Vaccines are unlikely to impact the dark and deadly days ahead
- Many Black Americans, Republicans, Women Aren’t Sure About Taking A COVID-19 Vaccine (That’s very, very unfortunate.)
- Covid-19 aid stalls as shutdown looms (“Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s aides have told top staff in both parties he doesn’t see a way to resolve some major disagreements over a relief package”)
- McConnell is Getting Away with Murder
- Trump Tries to Kill Covid Relief
- Pressure builds for a breakthrough in COVID-19 relief talks
- U.S. Covid-19 Relief Talks Hit Snag Over Lawsuit Protections
- The ‘Trump Won’ Farce Isn’t Funny Anymore (It never was.)
- More Than Half of House Republicans Sign On to Trump’s Election Coup
- With time running out, Trump and GOP allies turn up pressure on Supreme Court in election assault
- The GOP Abandons Democracy
- Don’t look past Trump’s coup attempt: This is a dark moment in American history (“Trump’s attempt to overturn the election has failed. But the larger plan to subvert democracy is working perfectly”)
- Inside Clean Energy: The Era of Fossil Fuel Power Plants Is Rapidly Receding. Here Is Their Life Expectancy (“New research shows that most fossil fuel plants will have reached the end of their expected lives by 2035, making it easier to envision Joe Biden’s climate plan.”)
- Electric Utilities Are Slow to Address the Climate Crisis, Reports Indicate
- It’s Not Just Trump’s War on Democracy Anymore (“Republicans have gone far beyond merely humoring their losing leader.”)
- Texas-led election lawsuit becomes conservative litmus test (There’s nothing particularly “conservative” about this extreme and radical insanity.)
- Republicans Are Going Down a Dangerous Road
- 60% View Joe Biden’s 2020 Presidential Victory As Legitimate, Quinnipiac University National Poll Finds; 77% Of Republicans Believe There Was Widespread Voter Fraud (So, 77% of Republicans are just completely detached from facts and reality.)
- Four State A.G.s Ask Supreme Court to Reject Texas Election Lawsuit
- Trump’s last-ditch effort to steal the election is the biggest farce of all
- Why the Texas lawsuit to overturn the 2020 election may be the most outlandish effort yet
- More than half of House Republicans support Texas lawsuit (This party is completely batshit.)
- Battleground states issue blistering rebukes to Texas’ lawsuit to invalidate millions of votes
- ‘Seditious abuse of the judicial process’: States reject Texas effort to overturn Biden’s election
- Biden builds a team of allies, with few fresh faces at the top (“In naming Susan E. Rice and Denis McDonough to his administration, President-elect Joe Biden cemented his strategy of turning to trusted associates and longtime operatives. But where does that leave the next generation of Democrats?”)
- Trump and his GOP enablers are slandering American democracy
- No, Trump’s 11th hour deregulation blitz won’t help the economy
- The case for Merrick Garland as attorney general
- ‘It Is Roiling Him’: Reporter Maggie Haberman Unpacks Trump’s Refusal To Admit He Lost (Whether it’s “roiling” him or not, he needs to conceded and cut the coup crap.)
- Advisers warn Trump against defense bill veto
- Shutdown a possibility as Rand [Paul] holds up defense bill
- No, Mitt, It’s Not ‘Appropriate’ for the President to File Frivolous Lawsuits for a Month After the Election (“This is not ‘part of the democratic process.’ It’s not normal or acceptable.”)
- Mitch McConnell is destroying the case for Georgia’s GOP senators
- Do not forget how insane it has been all along (“Normalcy never looked so good.”)
- Joe Biden and Kamala Harris Are TIME’s 2020 Person of the Year
- When it Comes to Facebook, the Need for Action Has Been Obvious for a Long Time (Facebook is definitely helping to kill democracy.)
- The Trustbusters Come for Facebook. Finally. (That should have happened YEARS ago.)
- Biden On The Defensive After Leaked Audio Reveals Push For Police Reform Delay (Actually, Biden seemed to be talking about “Defund the Police” messaging, which he and Barack Obama and many others believe is harmful.)
- Watchdog finds VA Secretary Robert Wilkie questioned the credibility of a House aide who reported a sexual assault at hospital
- Kamala Harris can offer what Joe Biden is missing: Fresh perspective
- Morale Down, Federal Workforce Gets Ready For A New Boss (“The federal workforce has often been pilloried by President Trump, but still there are far more applicants than there are federal jobs.”)
- Trump’s Band of Democracy Killers Deserve No Cushy Gigs
- A Vile Website Doxxing Trump’s Enemies Has Caught the Eye of the FBI (“A Vile Website Doxxing Trump’s Enemies Has Caught the Eye of the FBI”)
- Cabinet of Curiosities (“Joe Biden starts putting familiar names in strange places.”)
- Biden’s Cabinet picks give Kamala an edge in 2024 (“Biden has opted for seasoned technocrats over ambitious pols for key jobs, denying potential political rivals to Harris a political springboard.”)
- State AGs behind lawsuit seeking to overturn the election won’t speak to CNN — while Texas’ AG has been on a right-wing media tour (“Coincidentally, the Texas AG is under federal investigation and could use a pardon”)
- Three thousand Americans are dying of COVID-19 a day. Fox News couldn’t care less. (“Fox News didn’t mention the death toll in primetime at all”)
- A Fox “straight news” program mentioned Benghazi more than the over 3,100 people who died from the pandemic yesterday (Disgusting.)
- Nearly 90 percent of Black women voters in Georgia say they’re likely to vote in runoffs: survey
- The Confederacy of Dunces Is on the March
- Apparently None of the Experimental Drugs Rudy Giuliani Is on Have Brought Him Back to Reality
- Pompeo claims he’s ‘fully vindicated’ for wife’s travel, but watchdog finds fault with documentation
- After coming under fire from Pompeo, State Department watchdog to leave, citing vacancies act
- The Conservative Idea That Would Let Biden Seize Control of Washington (“It might be time for Biden to show he can get behind the unitary executive theory, too.”)
- Secession? Rush Limbaugh floats a startling notion — then quickly backs off.
- Trump Administration Executes Brandon Bernard After Jurors Plead For His Life
- Brandon Bernard Was Just Put to Death In Trump’s Unprecedented Push for Executions
- Covid-19 caused the sudden death of a top state lawmaker in New Hampshire. (“The New Hampshire State Legislature was already fiercely divided over the coronavirus when the new Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, Richard Hinch, died suddenly on Wednesday.”)
- Do hominoids dream of solar sheep? (Nice job, as always, by super-smart hominoid Ivy Main. ;))
- U.S. Senator Tim Kaine hopeful for a COVID-19 relief package
- Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA07) Rips House Rs’ Amicus Brief: “you willingly follow suit in defending [Trump’s] baseless lies and his degradation of our electoral process”
- Video: In Powerful Farewell Address, Rep. Denver Riggleman (R-VA05) Declares, “radicalization through disinformation has no place in the United States, and in this fight I will not relent” (Riggleman says we must “inoculate against the social contagion of disinformation, conspiracies, anti-Semitism, dehumanization, racism, Deep State cabal nonsense, cults, and those grifters posing as servants of the people”)
- Reps. Rob Wittman (R-VA01), Ben Cline (R-VA06) Join Amicus Brief Supporting Efforts to Overthrow Election Results (“AG Herring joins coalition of 23 attorneys general in filing an amicus brief before the Supreme Court arguing that the Texas suit lacks legal support and offers zero evidence of systemic voter fraud”)
- Virginia rail plan depends on land transfer that is picking up speed in Congress
- Virginia State Senators Adam Ebbin and Louise Lucas Jointly Introduced SB1101 – The National Popular Vote Bill
- The Republican Party of Amanda Chase (“It is impossible to belong to the Republican Party of Amanda Chase who has more in common with your average Republican than she does with Abraham Lincoln, Edmund Burke, or Calvin Coolidge. State Senator Amanda Chase has brilliantly and cynically chosen to encapsulate the spirit of mass hysteria, of an actual mental health crisis, in order to rise to power.”)
- Q&A: Amanda Chase pitches herself as Virginia’s Donald Trump (She sounds completely off her rocker.)
- Governor Northam Announces New Mitigation Measures to Slow COVID-19 Spread
- Video: In His 2pm Press Conference, Gov. Northam Will Lay Out New COVID-19 Restrictions
- Thursday (12/10) Virginia Data on COVID-19: 2-Day (+8,313), 3-Day (+12,173), 10-Day (+31,308) New Cases All Hit Record Highs
- New COVID-19 restrictions: Northam calls for 12 to 5 a.m. curfew, orders stricter mask mandate and smaller gatherings
- Northam says ‘nothing good happens after midnight,’ in instituting a curfew to combat COVID-19/a>
- VHSL calls for athletes to wear masks during competition and training
- Editorial: 6 questions about Virginia election laws
- Absurd Leverage (“Lawmakers to reconsider mandatory minimum for assaulting law enforcement”)
- Virginia Education Association calls for classrooms to close across the state as COVID cases spike, governor levies new restrictions
- Revised numbers trigger return to distance learning in Loudoun County
- Fairfax Co. superintendent details tentative back-to-school plan
- Northam proposes major effort to reimagine public space around Robert E. Lee statue in Richmond
- Biologists say a wider American Legion Bridge would destroy critical research site
- Help could be coming for sea level rise and military child care, thanks in part to Hampton Roads
- Editorial: Poor Census response could prove costly to Hampton Roads cities
- Editorial: Capital Region Rail Vision is an economic enabler worth pursuing
- Arlington may swap Lee Highway name for Mildred and Richard Loving Avenue
- D.C.-area forecast: Fairly bright and a bit breezy as our warming trend continues
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