Saturday News: “Blast damages only bridge linking Russia and Crimea”; “Biden Heads for the Midterms with Ten Million New Jobs”; “Think you already know crazy? Meet the House GOP Class of ’22.” (Including Yesli Vega and Hung Cao)

by Lowell

Here are a few international, national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Saturday, October 8.

• Biden will attend COP27 — the U.N’s climate change summit — in Egypt
• Greta Thunberg on the climate delusion: ‘We’ve been greenwashed out of our senses. It’s time to stand our ground’
• Climate change: World aviation agrees ‘aspirational’ net zero plan
• The world’s largest offshore wind farm is going to get even larger (“A, B, and C alone will be capable of powering up to six million UK homes once it’s completed in 2026 – and there are approximately 28.1 million households in the country. If the fourth phase is carried out, the capacity of the world’s largest offshore wind farm would reach nearly 5 gigawatts.” The US should be doing the same!)
• Blast damages only bridge linking Russia and Crimea; Zelenskyy advisor calls it ‘the beginning’
• Key Russian Bridge to Crimea Shut As Blast Hits Fuel Train
• Crimean bridge: What’s next, asks Ukraine, after explosion
• Blast causes only Crimea-Russia road bridge to collapse
• Fiery Damage to Crimea Bridge Imperils Russian Supply Route
• After Russian retreat in east Ukraine, police find dozens of torture sites
• Blast hits Crimea bridge, key supply route in Russia’s war
• White House: Biden’s “Armageddon” warning not based on any new intel
• NATO Once Feared a Putin Victory. Now It Worries Over His Defeat
• Are Putin’s nuclear threats really likely to lead to Armageddon? (“If Putin decided to gamble everything and if his military officers went along with him and managed to detonate a weapon in or around Ukraine, then Biden and his team would be faced with choices that all modern US presidents have hoped they would never have to make.”)
• Analysis: President Biden turned to lessons from the Cuban Missile Crisis to deal with Vladimir Putin’s threats.
• Himars Transform the Battle for Ukraine—and Modern Warfare
• A Distracted Russia Is Losing Its Grip on Its Old Soviet Sphere (“Russia’s domination of Central Asia and the Caucasus region is unraveling as the Kremlin focuses on the war in Ukraine — and border violence is flaring.”)
• One Ukrainian Family’s Harrowing Wartime Saga (“Three children survived the siege of Mariupol, forced relocation, their father’s horrific detainment, and their own exile—to Russia.”)
• ‘It’s Like a War Out There.’ Iran’s Women Haven’t Been This Angry in a Generation.
• Xi Jinping Is the Second Coming of Mao Zedong (That’s highly unlikely, but still not good.)
• U.S. tries to hobble China chip industry with new export rules
• OPEC+ oil output cut shows widening rift between Biden and Saudi royals
• Biden Heads for the Midterms with Ten Million New Jobs (“Inflation is still a cause for concern, but no other President has had this pace of job growth in their first two years in office.”)
• Unemployment rate falls to 3.5% in September, payrolls rise by 263,000 as job market stays strong
• Pace of Fed’s Rate Increases Worries Some Economists
• Hurricane Ian may have caused $67 billion in damage, a top 5 U.S. storm
• The Roberts court should end its assault on the Voting Rights Act (It should never have started its assault on the Voting Rights Act, and it should reverse the damage it’s already done!)
• Right-wing media react to Biden pardoning federal marijuana offenses with fearmongering and deflection (Yep, that’s what they do.)
• We Had to Force the Constitution to Accommodate Democracy, and It Shows
• Far-right influencers are targeting individual doctors. Some see echoes of the ‘anti-abortion playbook.’
• Think you already know crazy? Meet the House GOP Class of ’22. (“In Virginia, nominee Yesli Vega argued that it was less likely for a rape victim to become pregnant because ‘it’s not something that’s happening organically.’ Also in Virginia, nominee Hung Cao asserted that more ‘people get bludgeoned to death and stabbed to death than they get shot,’ which is wrong by an order of magnitude.”)
• Lindsey Graham Told Cops They Should Have Shot Jan. 6 Trump Rioters In The Head: Book
• Justice Department Asking if Trump Stashed Documents in Trump Tower
• Donald Trump seeks to withhold two folders seized at Mar-a-Lago
• Kanye West, Herschel Walker and the politics of toxic Black men
• Jon Stewart pokes holes in Arkansas’ plan to “protect” minors from their own gender identity
• Herschel Walker’s Candidacy Is Just Insulting (“The contrast with his opponent renders it all the more egregious.” In a sane world, Walker would get literally zero votes. OK, maybe one – his own. But that’s it.)
• The GOP’s Herschel Walker dilemma is Sean Hannity’s fault
• Herschel Walker: What’s One Little Abortion Here or There? (So right wingers believe abortion is murder, but also believe it’s ok that Herschel Walker was involved in several of them. Makes total sense, huh? LOL)
• Democrats Can’t Afford to Lose Nevada
• As Hurricane Ian pummeled Florida, Facebook allowed anti-science content to thrive (Facebook is a disaster, cesspool, you name it.)
• Trump’s Big Social Media Deal Could Soon Collapse. So What Went Wrong?
• House Democrats seek to censure Marjorie Taylor Greene over ‘Biden is Hitler’ comment
• Florida may have violated its own guidelines in flying migrants to Martha’s Vineyard
• Flynn, Gingrich testimony sought in Georgia election probe
• Uvalde school district suspends entire police force, superintendent to retire amid fallout from shooting
• Herschel Walker Urged Woman to Have a 2nd Abortion, She Says
• A Georgia Republican’s takedown of Trump and Herschel Walker nails it
• Herschel Walker’s Wife Reaches Out to His Abortion Accuser
• Texts show family strife between Herschel Walker’s wife and woman who alleged he paid for her abortion
• Herschel Walker’s campaign fires its political director in key Georgia Senate race
• Dr. Oz Stood in Front of One of Hitler’s Cars at a Fundraiser and Had Jordan Peterson Call In
• Dr. Oz Follows Up Dog-Killing Report With Speech in Same Room as Hitler’s Car
• Mark Kelly Used the Debate to Remind Arizonans How Radical Blake Masters Is
• Arizona court halts enforcement of near-total abortion ban
• Arizona GOP raised record money with misleading pitches on election audit
• Republicans slash ad buys in N.H. Senate race as Hassan leads
• Utah GOP congressman says it ‘stinks’ that he has to decide abortion issues for women
• JEC Chairman Beyer on September Jobs Report: “Since President Biden came into office, the United States has added 10 million jobs nationwide.” (“The unemployment rate ticked down to 3.5%, what it was before the pandemic, which was a 50-year low.”)
• Jen Kiggans Lies About Her Anti-Abortion Record, Gets Fact-Checked (In fact, “Kiggans did […] put restrictions on abortions”)
• Rep. Elaine Luria (D-VA02) Smashes Own Fundraising Record with More Than $2.85 Million Raised in Q3 (“The campaign has $2.9 million cash on hand heading into November”)
• Video: New Ad Highlights Rep. Elaine Luria’s 20 Years of Service in the US Navy, “doing good work for Coastal Virginia”
• Washington Post Highlights Yesli Vega as Part of “Crazy,” “Erratic” House GOP Class of ‘22 (“In Virginia, nominee Yesli Vega argued that it was less likely for a rape victim to become pregnant because ‘it’s not something that’s happening organically.”)
• SILENCE: Governor Youngkin Refuses to Denounce Campaign Staffer Who Assaulted A Police Officer During the January 6th Insurrection (The staffer was “a known associate with a white nationalist group”)
• “Can @GlennYoungkin, his campaign operation or the @FairfaxGOP [issue] at least just a little teeny condemnation for a Holocaust denier who…was paid by the @VA_GOP?”
• Schapiro: Oversight of Va. energy industry pits GOP against GOP
• Former Va. election official says prosecution is politically motivated (“Michele White called the corruption charges against her a ‘good show’ intended to justify a new ‘Election Integrity Unit’ in the state.”)
• Virginia medical schools aim to recruit Black doctors (“The ratio of Black doctors to Black patients in Virginia is about one to 1,000.”)
• Top Prince William election official says he’s quitting amid dispute with local GOP (It’s not a “dispute,” it’s the Republicans’ assault on our elections officials and, more broadly, on our democracy!)
• SCC to take public comments on Appalachian Power’s rate increase
• Biberaj ‘disappointed’ in Loudoun Co. sheriff ‘s office after man’s improper release
• Judge: Lawsuit against Windsor over ‘pattern of discriminatory policing’ will go forward
• Fairfax Co. school board passes resolution in response to rollback of transgender rights
• Fatal police shooting in Prince William was lawful, authorities say
• D.C.-area forecast: Brisk today and chilly tonight, then lots of nice