Friday News: “Joe Biden and Liz Cheney share the same misunderstanding about the GOP”; “Today’s Republicans are cartoon villains — who pose a dire threat”; “Mark Zuckerberg Doesn’t Want to Fix It”; “Virginia G.O.P.’s Choices for Governor: ‘Trumpy, Trumpier, Trumpiest’”

by Lowell

Here are a few national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Friday, May 7.

• Chinese greenhouse gas emissions now larger than those of developed countries combined (Huge problem, but also an opportunity if China gets much more aggressive about switching to clean energy.)
• Merkel Pushes Back on Vaccine Patent Waiver in Row With U.S. (“Intellectual property must be protected: German spokeswoman; WTO discussions likely to take months, officials caution”)
• Long March 5B, a Chinese Rocket, Expected to Tumble Back to Earth
• Pentagon Struggles to Wean Afghan Military Off American Air Support
• The global chip shortage is starting to have major real-world consequences
• Covid: Putin says Sputnik vaccines ‘reliable as Kalashnikovs’ (Charming analogy, eh?)
• Biden Team Likely to Proceed With Trump China Investment Ban
• Nuclear Talks With Iran Could Reach Agreement Within Weeks, U.S. Says
• Elon Musk Is Maybe, Actually, Strangely, Going to Do This Mars Thing (“From his private Cape Canaveral, the billionaire is manifesting his own interplanetary reality—whatever the cost.”)
• Gandhi warns ‘explosive’ COVID wave threatens India and the world
• Personal ties: Harris’ family in India grapples with COVID
• India reports over 400,000 daily cases for the third time in a week as second wave hammers country
• How Bitcoin Mining Keeps Old Fossil-Fuel Plants Alive (Not good.)
• Biden administration may bring whole families to U.S. to reunite with separated children, not just parents
• New Study Estimates More Than 900,000 People Have Died Of COVID-19 In U.S.
• If the nationwide eviction freeze is thrown out, renters will be on their own
• April jobs report to shine light on growing tension over availability of U.S. workers
• April jobs expected to top 1 million as consumers boost the economy
• Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Boom?
• The census shows the US needs to increase immigration — by a lot
• The GOP’s biggest attack on Biden may be about to hit a snag (“What happens if the administration can manage the border ‘crisis’?”)
• ‘Belonging Is Stronger Than Facts’: The Age of Misinformation (“Social and psychological forces are making the sharing and believing of misinformation an endemic problem with no easy solution, our Interpreter columnist writes”)
• Republicans insist on opposing popular things (“Standing against everything President Biden proposes doesn’t seem very smart.”)
• Joe Biden and Liz Cheney share the same misunderstanding about the GOP (“Republicans just aren’t interested in governing.”)
• Trump’s Republicans assault democracy while Biden gets down to work (“Republicans fixated on personality cult loyalty tests”)
• Today’s Republicans are cartoon villains — who pose a dire threat to America’s health and safety (“Republicans are behaving like sullen children with overly obvious evil plans. That makes them more dangerous”)
• “Crackdown on democracy”: Republican lawmakers across the country are trying to overrule voters (“Republicans are trying to reverse or undermine voter-approved measures on Medicaid, marijuana, schools and more”)
• Liz Cheney, Mitt Romney and the last stand of Republican royalty
• When Trump’s Next Coup Happens, the Republican Party Will Fully Support It
• Forced to Choose Between Trump’s “Big Lie” and Liz Cheney, the House G.O.P. Chooses the Lie
• Biden once asserted Republicans would have an ‘epiphany.’ Now he admits he doesn’t understand them.
• MAGAworld pans Stefanik
• Auditioning to replace Cheney, Stefanik calls Trump ‘the strongest supporter’ of the Constitution. (Bonkers.)
• Liz Cheney Has Only Herself to Blame (“The representative from Wyoming is taking a stand against an authoritarian streak in the Republican Party that she helped cultivate.”)
• Here’s just how much people have stopped talking about Trump on Facebook and Twitter
• Mark Zuckerberg Doesn’t Want to Fix It (“The Facebook founder doesn’t want the responsibility of dealing with Trump and other extremists—he just wants to pass the buck, Kara Swish says on The New Abnormal.”)
• Facebook told to investigate its role in insurrection
• Social media’s ban on Trump: Our ‘silence of the lambs’ moment
• Twitter suspends account that was posting Trump statements
• F.E.C. Drops Case Reviewing Trump Hush-Money Payments to Women
• What Trump has to fear from Rudy Giuliani (“The raid of Giuliani’s apartment is bad news for the once esteemed lawyer — and for his former client, Donald Trump.”)
• The Secret Papers of Lee Atwater, Who Invented the Scurrilous Tactics That Trump Normalized (“An infamous Republican political operative’s unpublished memoir shows how the Party came to embrace lies, racial fearmongering, and winning at any cost.”)
• FBI still after ‘worst of the worst’ in Capitol riot as new arrests come at steady pace (“Four months after the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, FBI agents maintain a steady pace of arresting people accused of taking part, as one of the largest criminal investigations in American history keeps growing.”)
• More House Democrats have their eyes on the exit — a danger signal for their majority
• Offshore wind has huge potential. Here’s how it could change the US. (“Offshore wind, though not without its challenges, could provide a large wedge of the country’s future power needs. And much like solar power, wind power costs (including offshore wind) have dropped since the first turbines cropped up. Though there are few offshore turbines in the US currently, offshore wind farm development in Europe and Asia has led to costs plummeting”)
• The Wave of GOP Anti-Protest Bills Will Criminalize Protesters—and Sabotage Police Reform, Too (“Racist, unconstitutional, and anti-democratic, plain and simple.”)
• Manchin on collision course with Warren, Sanders
• Don’t be fooled. GOP ‘moderates’ will back McConnell’s scheme to stop Biden. (There really aren’t any Republican “moderates” left…just conservatives and extremists.)
• Lawyer Says Capitol Defendant Had ‘Foxmania’ From Watching Too Much Fox News (“For roughly six months after he was laid off, Anthony Antonio was in a home where Fox News played constantly, his attorney told a court.”)
• Capitol police condemned by US states for January attack failures, emails show
• New Survey Finds Republicans More Eager to Get Vaccinated (“Enthusiasm has plateaued, but there are positive developments in the rush to inoculate the country, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.”)
• A New Supreme Court and the Second Amendment (“An upcoming decision could gut state laws.”)
• ‘A historic surge’: Anti-Asian American hate incidents continue to skyrocket despite public awareness campaign
• The Newest Conservative Conjuring Words: ‘Critical Race Theory’
• Sorry, Tucker Carlson. Polling suggests your anti-vax campaign is failing. (“Many Republicans are still resistant to getting vaccinated, but their numbers are falling.”)
• Fox has undermined coronavirus science in at least 325 segments since January 25 (So, the First Amendment really was intended to cover this?!?)
• Tucker Carlson May Be America’s Biggest Public Health Problem (If it’s not allowed to yell “FIRE!” in a crowded theater, why is Carlson allowed to spew his dangerous shit on the air?)
• Tucker Carlson Doubles Down on Batsh** Vaccine Fearmongering, Blames Biden For His Inability to Understand Facts
• Sean Hannity used to rule Fox. But in the post-Trump era, Tucker Carlson is king
• Arizona Review of 2020 Vote Is Riddled With Flaws, Says Secretary of State
• Melinda Gates Warned Bill About Jeffrey Epstein
• Facebook Is Worried Starbucks May Delete Its Page Over Hateful Comments
• BREAKING: Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms won’t run for reelection
• The Wealthy Lobbyist Behind Andrew Yang’s Campaign for Mayor
• Caitlyn Jenner is running for governor because her private-jet-flying friends are sick of the homeless (Beyond parody.)
• Florida governor signs new restrictive bill in ‘blatant attack on right to vote’
• Texas lawmakers advance restrictive election bill despite Democrats’ all-night fight
• DeSantis ban on vaccine proof may send one company’s cruise ships out of Florida
• Warner urges venue operators to apply for federal grant quickly as a possible
• American Conservative Union Scores For Virginia Legislators…Including Statewide Candidates for Governor, LG, AG (The *least* right-wing Republican in the Virginia House of Delegates is Glenn Davis, who’s running for LG.)
• Video: Neo-Confederate Corey Stewart Endorses Glenn Youngkin, Who Has Now Definitively Shown Who He Is and What He’s All About (Here’s a reminder of who Corey Stewart is and what he believes…and it is NOT pretty!)
• Virginia G.O.P.’s Choices for Governor: ‘Trumpy, Trumpier, Trumpiest’ (“As the party prepares to pick its nominee this weekend, the race embodies the collapse of Republican power in a state that has tilted more sharply to Democrats than perhaps any other.”)
• Can Pete Snyder Ride the Trump Wave? (“The candidate for Virginia governor is running a campaign straight out of the MAGA playbook.”)
• Virginia appeared poised to break the glass ceiling. What happened?
• Police reform, Amazon deal, Petersburg among key topics as Democratic candidates for governor debate in Bristol
• Audio: Dr. Bob Holsworth Discusses “Bizarre,” “Ridiculous” VA GOP Nominating Process; Says Most Delegates Don’t Understand It(“I would think that the gubernatorial race could be counted in a day or two; I’d be surprised if that goes on to the 13th”)
• Video: Second (of Four) Democratic Gubernatorial Debate From 7 to 8 pm
• Report: “Significant chaos as Virginia Rs get ready to go to the polls” Saturday; Will Provide “poignant look into a post-Trump party that is shaping up to be bonkers” (Also: Trump Doesn’t Want “Loser” Tag If VA GOP Nominee “gets clobbered this fall by Democrats”)
• Ahead of the Rigged Convention, the Virginia GOP is Facing Chaos, Division, and Third-Party Threats (Amanda Chase: “If Pete Snyder comes out as the victor I will run as an independent and I’ve been very consistent on that”)
• Sen. Ted Cruz stumps for Glenn Youngkin in Pittsylvania County
• Here’s a pre-convention glance at the six GOP candidates for lieutenant governor
• 1st debate in Democratic race for Virginia attorney general turns personal
• Editorial: Virginia voters say they’re right of center, so why do they elect liberals? (Actually, what the poll showed is that on issue after issue, most Virginians agree with Democratic policies, so the question is why do they vote *Republican*??? As usual, the Roanoke Times editorial dude has it backwards.)
• Poll: Majority of Virginia parents willing to have kids vaccinated
• Video: Gov. Northam Says “I’ve had COVID and I’ve had the vaccine, and between the two, it’s an easy choice – I’ll take the vaccine any day” (Northam notes, “I had COVID myself last October and seven months later, I still can’t smell or taste anything.”)
• Northam: Virginia on Track to See COVID-19 Restrictions Lifted on June 15th
• Northam hopes to lift COVID-19 restrictions on June 15, will follow CDC guidance on masks
• More than 400,000 kids ages 12 to 15 could be eligible for a vaccine next week in Va. Here’s what parents can expect
• Virginia has chance for change with $1 billion infusion for affordable housing
• Editorial: Outreach needed to address Virginia’s teacher shortage
• Fairfax County board hosts Q&A session with FCPD Chief Davis to address public’s concerns
• UMW’s Class of 2020 gets its commencement ceremony, one year late
• Cool weekend ahead, and there are periodic rain chances starting today