Thursday News: “Russia abandons Snake Island”; Liz Cheney Says Rs “cannot be both loyal to Donald Trump and loyal to the Constitution”; Ketanji Brown Jackson to Take Oath of Office at Noon; Daily Progress Rips Yesli Vega’s Rape Comments as “false, dangerous”

by Lowell

Here are a few international, national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Thursday, June 30.

• Fossil fuel industry faces surge in climate lawsuits
• Offshore wind industry growth falling short of net zero goals
• Swamps Can Protect Against Climate Change, If We Only Let Them (“Wetlands absorb carbon dioxide and buffer the excesses of drought and flood, yet we’ve drained much of this land. Can we learn to love our swamps?”)
• Four Charts Reveal Seismic Shifts in Global Energy Within One Lifetime
• Meat, monopolies, mega farms: how the US food system fuels climate crisis (The U.S. food system is almost completely f’ed up from environmental, health, labor and animal welfare points of view.)
• Climate concerns grow as US helps Europe replace Russian gas
• “Rapid and irreversible:” AEMO says energy crisis is accelerating switch to renewables (“The country’s main grid is expected to surge from around 30 per cent now to a share of 83 per cent renewables by 2030, which just happens to be consistent with Labor’s new target, before growing to 96 per cent by 2040 and 98 per cent by 2050.”)
• Analysis: A Confident Vladimir Putin Shifts Out of Wartime Crisis Mode (“The Russian leader now appears publicly, projecting the aura of a calm, paternalistic leader shielding his people from the dangers of the world.” In fact, Putin is greatly increasing the dangers his country – and the rest of the world – faces.)
• NATO Moves to Tackle Military Greenhouse Gas Emissions Even While Girding Against Russia
• NATO is united on Ukraine. Good, but plenty could still go wrong.
• Putin: Western leaders would look ‘disgusting’ topless (Putin is completely deranged.)
• Russia and China slam NATO after alliance raises alarm
• ‘Everything was going fine between us’ Putin says of NATO expansion; Russian forces withdraw from Snake Island (Nutjob.)
• Putin says possible NATO expansion will create ‘tensions’ (Putin is 100% responsible for any “tensions” with NATO)
• Putin still wants most of Ukraine, war outlook grim -U.S. intelligence chief
• Putin Should Be Very Worried About Ukraine’s New Kamikaze Drone (“These new, cheaply made drones only need to get lucky once.”)
• Russia open to dialogue on nuclear non-proliferation, Putin says
• Putin is forcing Germans to get real about the military
• Russia abandons Snake Island in strategic victory for Ukraine
• Israel’s Spies Have Hit Iran Hard. In Tehran, Some Big Names Paid the Price.
• Israel’s parliament dissolves, sets 5th election in 4 years
• Proud Boys, the Base labeled far-right terrorist groups by New Zealand
• Paris attacker given France’s most severe sentence
• Ferdinand Marcos Jr sworn in as Philippines president, replacing Duterte (The Philippines go from one horrendous president to another.)
• China’s Xi Declares Hong Kong Is ‘Reborn’ After Overcoming Risks (What a joke.)
• Fauci says he’s taking 2nd course of Paxlovid after experiencing rebound with the antiviral treatment
• The Pandemic Is Waning. Anthony Fauci Has a Few More Lessons to Share.
• Covid spiked the maternal death rate in U.S. Roe’s fall will make it even worse.
• Senate Democrats see ‘major progress’ on Biden agenda bill, hope for July vote (“Schumer and Manchin are close to a deal on prescription drug savings, new details obtained by NBC News show. They’re also negotiating energy and tax provisions in the bill.”)
• Democrats forge ahead on drug pricing, eyeing wider deal with Manchin
• Republicans seek to install ‘permanent election integrity infrastructure’ across US (“Leading election denier promoting local groups to ‘oversee’ elections and determine if officials are ‘friend or foe’” VERY dangerous and anti-democracy.)
• Don’t Forget That 43 Senate Republicans Let Trump Get Away With It (“The former president attempted to violently overthrow the government of the United States, and his party ensured that he would face no consequences for doing so.”)
• The People v. Donald Trump (“The evidence for a possible criminal case against the former president is piling up.”)
• The Reason Liz Cheney Is Narrating the January 6 Story (“The committee is laying out the facts in a way optimally designed to cultivate trust.”)
• Jan. 6 Poll: 52% already say Trump should be prosecuted. How that number could grow after Cassidy Hutchinson’s bombshells.
• Republican Party must choose between Trump and the Constitution, Liz Cheney says in California speech
• Liz Cheney says US is ‘confronting a domestic threat’ in Donald Trump
• Will Trump Finally Be Held Accountable?
  (“The January 6 committee — and witnesses like Cassidy Hutchinson — are showing prosecutors a potential path to charging the former president and his allies.”)
• Trump’s electoral scheme allies caught in DOJ crosshairs
• As Jan. 6 hearings portray an unhinged Trump, DeSantis may be biggest winner
• Trump wanted loyalty above all. He got just the opposite.
• Trump’s silly new ‘defense’ against Hutchinson is full of holes (“Do Trump’s propagandists actually want a full accounting from the Secret Service?”)
• ‘There Was No Way to Have a Rational Conversation With Him’ (“Filmmaker Alex Holder on his interviews with Trump after January 6.”)
• Jan. 6 committee revelations may give Republicans opening to take on Trump in 2024
• Right-Wing News Site Declares Trump ‘Unfit To Be Anywhere Near Power Ever Again’ (“The Washington Examiner published the blistering editorial in the wake of bombshell testimony from the Jan. 6 committee hearings.”)
• The Dumbest Coup Attempt (“America was saved by pure indolence.”)
• Hutchinson Testimony Exposes Tensions Between Parallel Jan. 6 Inquiries
• Jan. 6 committee subpoenas former White House counsel Pat Cipollone
• Former prosecutors say blockbuster January 6 testimony increases Trump’s criminal exposure
• Secret Service: Jan. 6 panel didn’t reach out before Hutchinson’s explosive Trump testimony
• Are we supposed to believe the Republicans didn’t know?
• Antiabortion lawmakers want to block patients from crossing state lines (“Some advocacy groups and their allies are crafting legislative language that could be adopted in Republican-led state capitals.”)
• Abortion activists are wrong to criticize Biden. Here’s why. (“Biden is not the bad guy here.” Agreed, that’s completely asinine.)
• Democrats Finally Figured Out Their Post-Dobbs Message
• Biden unlikely to meet bold Democrat demands after abortion ruling, sources say
• Republicans who backed Trump Jan. 6 probe face fierce backlash at the polls
• Dobbs Is Not the Only Reason to Question the Legitimacy of the Supreme Court
• Ketanji Brown Jackson to be sworn in as first Black woman on the Supreme Court (“Ketanji Brown Jackson, President Biden’s first Supreme Court pick, will be sworn in as the 116th justice today at noon ET.”)
• Justice Stephen Breyer Officially Retires From Supreme Court Thursday
• Right-wing media claim gay marriage is not at risk. They said the same about Roe v. Wade.
• First look: Pence joins multimillion-dollar anti-abortion midterms ad campaign
• Five takeaways from the finalized House maps (“The number of so-called swing districts has trended downward for decades. In 1992, for instance, roughly 100 or so members of Congress were elected from these battleground districts. In 2022, that number looks to be somewhere around 40.”)
• Obama Blames Liberal NIMBYs for the Housing Crisis Too
• ‘Ordinary self-defense’ doesn’t exactly apply to Black people
• Four men charged after police find links to Texas migrant deaths
• 1955 warrant in Emmett Till case found, family seeks arrest
• R. Kelly given 30 years in jail for sex abuse
• Two workers fired for not attending company’s prayers, lawsuit says
• “Women Are Fed Up”: Democrats See Ron Johnson’s Abortion Record as Their Path to Victory
• Uh-oh. Has Ron Johnson gotten into the ivermectin?
• A Republican Insider Studies His Burned Bridges and a Combustible G.O.P. (“For Miller, leaving the Republican establishment was a zigzagging personal journey of fits and starts. He worked for Ken Cuccinelli, the Republican nominee for governor of Virginia in 2013, despite Cuccinelli’s opposition to same-sex marriage and his defense of the state’s anti-sodomy law.”)
• Video: Former Rep. Denver Riggleman (R-VA05) Says Mark Meadows the “Rosetta Stone of the Investigation” Into the 1/6 Coup Attempt; “I don’t think the American public has seen anything yet.” (“Meadows and others are fighting their call detail records…Because ones and zeroes is a tremendous weapon.”)
• Vega’s comments could be just the beginning of abortion debate for elections this fall (Weird, neutral/bland framing for Vega’s outrageous, extremist, batsh*t-crazy, Todd Akin-like comments. This is how the media normalizes the wildly abnormal and dangerous.)
• EDITORIAL: Virginia cannot move backwards — keep abortion legal
• Opinion/Editorial: Rape comments by Yesli Vega false, dangerous (“The rape-almost-never-makes-you-pregnant myth is a long-running canard perpetrated and perpetuated by the anti-women’s-choice, forced pregnancy movement and its willing accomplices in the Republican Party.”)
• PolitiFact VA: Spanberger goes after meat packer profits
• Four takeaways from Virginia’s 2021 crime stats
• Virginia declines to join federal-state offshore wind partnership (Inexcusable and appalling. Andrew Wheeler’s influence?)
• Virginia lawmakers punt on bills aimed at limiting partisan election oversight
• Video: Virginia House, Senate Democrats Condemn Governor Youngkin’s “Totalitarian” Attacks on the Virginia Community College System Board (“Dedicated state employees were given a deadline of tomorrow to either give Governor Youngkin what he wants or resign.”)
• Community college board relents on search after Youngkin threatens to replace members
• Youngkin to community college board: work with his administration or resign Thursday
• Video: On Abortion, Virginia LG Winsome Sears “the mother is not having a lizard, she’s having a human being” and “The blood running through the veins of the baby don’t [sic] belong to her, it’s not her blood”
• Number of possible or confirmed monkeypox cases in Virginia rises to eight
• Virginia 10-Day New COVID-19 Cases Down 85% Compared to 1/19; Hospitalizations Down to 571 From ~4,000 in January; Both Up From a Couple Months Ago
• Shyam Raman To Serve as DPVA’s Next Executive Director (DPVA Chair Susan Swecker: “At such a crucial time for Virginians, we need someone with the experience of electing Democrats that Shyam has”)
• COVID reopening, TJ admissions: Outgoing Fairfax Co. superintendent reflects on great debates that marked his tenure
• Chesterfield Supervisors appoint former county Republican committee chair to Midlothian seat
• Most local governments are led by men—this Va. program is trying to change that
• ‘America First’ Proponents Attack LCPS With New Lawsuit
• Portsmouth council majority inserts $400K severance provision into new city manager’s contract
• Suspect Arrested in Killing of Fairfax Nonprofit Owner in His Home (“Gret Glyer, founder of a charitable giving platform called DonorSee, was found fatally shot Friday in his home on Bolton Village Court”)
• D.C.-area forecast: Hot sunshine through Friday before a steamy weekend offers storm chances