by Lowell
Here are a few national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Friday, New Year’s Day 2021. Thanks to photographer/activist Alex Sakes for the cover image of photos from 2020.
- Why Markets Boomed in a Year of Human Misery (“It wasn’t just the Fed or the stimulus. The rise in savings among white-collar workers created a tide lifting nearly all financial assets.”)
- Stocks Surge in Crazy Year for Financial Markets
- The pandemic taught us how not to deal with climate change. (“We must transform the economy, not halt it, to prevent runaway warming. And we’re doing it far, far too slowly today.”)
- A Monster Wind Turbine Is Upending an Industry (“G.E.’s giant machine, which can light up a small town, is stoking a renewable-energy arms race…The G.E. machines will have a generating capacity that would have been almost unimaginable a decade ago. A single one will be able to turn out 13 megawatts of power, enough to light up a town of roughly 12,000 homes.”)
- Britain Leaps Into Unknown With Split From EU at Critical Moment (“U.K. left the EU’s single market at 11 p.m. London time; Businesses will face new red tape when trading with the bloc”)
- With little ado, a divided United Kingdom casts off into the Brexit unknown (So stupid.)
- WHO issues its first emergency use validation for a COVID-19 vaccine and emphasizes need for equitable global access
- The Mutated Virus Is a Ticking Time Bomb
- Flattening the curve worked — until it didn’t
- World takes in muted New Year’s Eve under Covid shadow
- Microsoft says Russians hacked its network, viewing source code
- U.S. vaccinations in 2020 fall far short of target of 20 million people (“Only about 2.8 million Americans had received a COVID-19 vaccine going into the last day of December, putting the United States far short of the government’s target to vaccinate 20 million people this month.”)
- 1968 Is No Longer the Worst Year I’ve Experienced, But a New Year Starts Tomorrow
- After a catastrophic 2020, the big story of 2021 could be a hopeful one (“Thanks to the new vaccines, we’ll turn the tables on covid in 2021, with plenty of promising effects, from releasing a pent-up economy to maybe even restoring faith in America’s battered institutions.”)
- ‘Covid, Covid, Covid’: In Trump’s Final Chapter, a Failure to Rise to the Moment
- Trump boasts about his Covid response after largely ignoring crisis during deadliest month yet
- We Came All This Way to Let Vaccines Go Bad in the Freezer? (“America did not sufficiently plan for how to get millions of people vaccinated.”)
- Hospitals Say They Will Publish Previously Secret Prices
- Millions of Americans Are Calling In Sick, Stunting the Recovery
- Trump extends immigration bans despite opposition from U.S. business groups
- Things Will Get Better. Seriously. (“Reasons to be hopeful about the Biden economy”)
- There will be 20 more days of Trump and he will be on fire (“The President has brought his drama show back to Washington early”)
- What’s happening with the latest Trump appeals to the Supreme Court
- Pence: Gohmert’s fight to overturn the 2020 election results is with Congress, not me
- Pence Seeks to Dismiss GOP Lawsuit Aiming to Let Him Overturn Election
- On Mike Pence’s Behalf, DOJ Tells Court That Louie Gohmert’s Attempt to Sue VP Is ‘A Walking Legal Contradiction’
- McConnell calls Jan. 6 certification his “most consequential vote” (Utterly absurd.)
- At least 140 House Republicans to vote against counting electoral votes, two GOP lawmakers say (Everyone of them is violating his/her oath of office and basically committing sedition.)
- Josh Hawley’s heedless ambition is a threat to the republic
- In dueling New Year messages, Trump reflects while Biden looks ahead (Trump doesn’t “reflect,” he stews in grievances.)
- Hawley faces heat from Senate Republicans over Electoral College plans
- Jan. 6 will be a glorious tribute to Trump’s failure (“No one seriously denies that the Republican base has utterly lost its mind; the only question is how shamelessly GOP politicians will pander to that lunacy. For Hawley, the limit has not yet been reached…So bring it on, Mr. President, and Sen. Hawley, too. Take your spectacle of sore loserdom to the floor. Show us how pathetic you are, one more time. We’ll all watch while you make a last attempt to bend the system to your crude and selfish will. At a time of so much misery and despair, the sound of that gavel banging down will give us something to feel good about.”)
- Josh Hawley reminds us that the GOP is the sedition party (“Another cynical assault on elections.”)
- Hawley jams GOP with Electoral College fight
- Plan to Challenge Election Results Exposes Rift Among Republicans
- The Unbearable Weakness of Trump’s Minions (“Senator Josh Hawley isn’t just engaging in civic vandalism—he is an emblem of a weak and rotten Republican Party…The single most worrisome political fact in America right now is that a significant portion of the Republican Party lives in a fantasy world, a place where facts and truth don’t hold sway, where ‘owning the libs’ is an end in itself, and where seceding from reality is a symbol of tribal loyalty, rather than a sign of mental illness. This is leading the party, and America itself, to places we’ve never been before, including the spectacle of a defeated president and his supporters engaging in a sustained effort to steal an election.”)
- McConnell refuses to budge on $2,000 stimulus checks as Schumer offers separate votes on other Trump demands
- McConnell: $2,000 stimulus checks ‘socialism for rich’ (McConnell has been doling out “socialism for the rich” – aka, “taxpayer-funded corporate welfare” and tax cuts for the super-rich – for years. But $2,000 checks is his red line…got it. Scumbag.)
- Meet the Trump saboteur in charge of undermining Biden — and America
- Trump Budget Chief Hampers Biden Transition With Ban on Meetings
- The Real Republican Radicals (“The Republican Party’s problem is that no one ever stays. In the space of a few short years, its leadership has pinged from neoliberalism to radical libertarianism to minoritarian institutionalism to authoritarian nationalism, hauling the conservative citizens of Sterling Heights along in their wake. Partisanship, rather than ideology, is keeping the Republicans glued together. If there were reasons to think that nationalism would be a stopping point, the events since Election Day have undermined them. Come January, conservatives will be in the minority, awaiting new instructions from new leaders to come.”)
- Lin Wood’s Ex-Law Partners Claim He Was Taped Admitting to Assaults, Asserting He May Be ‘Christ Coming Back for Second Time’
- Why so many candidates tell us they’ll ‘fight’ (“The system rewards showy, pointless conflict over actual accomplishment.” Another good one is when they say they’ll “stand up.” What the hell does that even mean?)
- Minneapolis Police Shoot and Kill Man During Traffic Stop
- Millions of Americans moved during the pandemic — and most aren’t looking back
- The death penalty lost more ground in 2020 — except in the Trump administration
- Georgia Republicans Deliver Persistent Message: Fear the Democrats (That’s what Republicans do – appeal to fear, rant about “socialism,” etc. – and what they’ve been doing for decades, really.)
- Georgia GOP senator to quarantine just days ahead of runoff
- Georgia Sen. David Perdue Quarantines After Possible Coronavirus Exposure
- Axios’ Mike Allen: Some Republicans think Trump is trying to sabotage GOP in Georgia Senate races
- Congressman Raskin Announces Loss of Son Tommy Raskin (Condolences.)
- Wisconsin hospital worker arrested for spoiled vaccine doses
- Newsmax May Not Destroy Fox News, but Will Annoy the Shit Out of It (“How Low Can You Go?”)
- Leaving Congress, Rep. Riggleman says ‘there is no home for me in the Republican Party’
- Attorney General Mark Herring’s “Top 20 of 2020”
- Virginia could crack down on illegal evictions, if 2 lawmakers have their way
- Thursday (12/31) Virginia Data on COVID-19 Finds +5,239 Confirmed/Probable Cases (to 349,584), +131 Hospitalizations (to 18,041), +48 Deaths (to 5,032) (Highest one-day increase in cases since pandemic began; hospitalizations hit another record high)
- Del. Lee Carter and Paul Goldman Call on Fellow Candidates to Hold Off On In-Person Petition Circulation During Pandemic (Virginia just reported >5,000 new COVID-19 cases in a single day…)
- The Free Lance–Star’s top 10 news stories of 2020
- Former National Teacher of the Year Rodney Robinson apologizes for tweet about Rand Paul, Mitch McConnell (“Rodney Robinson, a senior adviser for Richmond Public Schools and a former National Teacher of the Year, apologized Thursday for a since-deleted tweet in which he called U.S. Sen. Rand Paul’s 2017 attacker a ‘true Kentucky hero’ and said it was Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s neighbors’ ‘turn to step up.'”)
- In a first for Newport News, businesses can pay city taxes online
- New Year, new rain. 2021 starts damp and chilly.
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