| Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... |
by Lowell
Here are a few international, national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Wednesday, March 26.
- Renewables surged globally in 2024, new data shows (“The report from the International Renewable Energy Agency shows that 585 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity were added worldwide, accounting for more than 90% of total power expansion last year.”)
- Renewable energy jumps to new high, powered by China solar boom
- Tackling climate crisis will increase economic growth, OECD research finds (“Third of global GDP could be lost this century if climate crisis runs unchecked, says report”)
- What comes after the American-led world order (“The demise of U.S. hegemony marks a new era for global politics.” Very, VERY bad.)
- Ukraine war briefing: Black Sea deal will allow Russia to profit from grain markets, Lavrov says
- Attacks show Moscow not moving towards ‘real peace’ despite ceasefire talks, says Zelenskyy
- Trump Says It’s Possible Putin Is Dragging His Feet on Ceasefire (No shit Sherlock!)
- As top Trump aides sent texts on Signal, flight data show a member of the group chat was in Russia
- Russia and Ukraine agree naval ceasefire in Black Sea
- The long, slow road to a ceasefire, with no guarantee of success
- Trump has blown up the world order – and left Europe’s leaders scrabbling
- U.S. blacklists over 50 Chinese companies in bid to curb Beijing’s AI, chip capabilities
- Erdogan Wins Trump Praise as Turkish Assets Steady After Rout (Trump is praising authoritarianism yet again. Get it???)
- ‘It’s disinformation’: Turkish state TV avoids any coverage of mass street protests (“News of protests has been preserve of a few newspapers and channels outside well funded pro-government networks”)
- Is Turkey’s Declining Democracy a Model for Trump’s America?
- Anti-Hamas slogans shouted at Gaza protest against the war in rare show of dissent
- Danish PM accuses US of ‘unacceptable pressure’ as JD Vance says he will join Greenland visit (“US vice-president says he will join unsolicited visit to Arctic island, which Mette Frederiksen says is ‘not what Greenland needs or wants’”)
- Trump Administration Live Updates: Vance to Join Trip That Drew Objections From Greenland
- Greenlanders Are Angry and Confused Over Unwanted U.S. Visit
- Judge blocks funding freeze for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
- Trump Says He Doesn’t Want ‘Too Many’ Exceptions in Tariff Push
- A Hostile Northern Border (“Defending the country against the United States is now the sole issue in Canadian politics.”)
- Alien Enemies Act Deportations Were Carefully Orchestrated To Keep Courts In The Dark
- Judge Orders U.S. to Stop Attempts to Deport Columbia Undergraduate (“The administration has been seeking to arrest and deport Yunseo Chung, who immigrated from South Korea as a child, after she participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations.” You can’t just deport arrest and deport someone because of their speech; that’s protected by the First Amendment.)
- ‘They tricked us’: migrants who braved the Darién Gap forced home by Trump deal (“Under a $6m US deal, hundreds of migrants from Colombia and Ecuador were deported back to their home countries”)
- Corporate America’s Euphoria Over Trump’s ‘Golden Age’ Is Giving Way to Distress (Morons.)
- CDC is pulling back $11B in Covid funding sent to health departments across the U.S. (If this money was authorized and allocated by Congress, it’s illegal and unconstitutional for the CDC to just pull it back.)
- Vaccine skeptic hired to head federal study of immunizations and autism (“A long-discredited researcher and vaccine skeptic will conduct a government study on whether vaccines cause autism.” This is insanity. And very damaging.)
- The Justice Department Just Debuted a New Defense of Trump. It’s Terrifying. (“Does the “mandate of the electorate” give the president absolute power to defy the courts? ” Absolutely not – that is NOT how democracy or the rule of law works, at all. Plus, it was very narrow win for Trump, definitely no major “mandate” there.)
- Trump is blasting through norms, testing limits of his power, legal experts and scholars say
- Trump’s executive order on elections is far-reaching. But will it actually stick?
- Trump Order Could Disenfranchise Millions of Voters (“The order attempts to wrest control from the states, which are primarily responsible for regulating and administering elections for federal office, while punishing states that do not comply. It also attempts to make registering to vote more difficult. The Democratic election lawyer Marc Elias was among those who said he will sue over Trump’s order, and Democratic election officials quickly decried the order.”)
- Trump Signs Order Requiring Citizenship Proof to Vote in Federal Elections (This is completely ridiculous; no non-citizens vote in US elections, so this hasn’t been a problem at all, but requiring “citizenship proofs” will make it much harder for many people to vote.)
- Trump floats possibility of compensation for Jan. 6 rioters (Insane and evil.)
- Speaker Mike Johnson floats eliminating federal courts as GOP ramps up attacks on judges (Johnson is a fascist for sure.)
- Trump targets Jenner & Block in latest executive order aimed at law firms (The Trump administration is waging war on the judiciary, the legal system more broadly, and also the rule of law.)
- As Trump’s orders target attorneys, big law faces pressure to speak out: ‘It’s a capitalistic cowardice’ (“Trump signed executive orders aimed at firms challenging his administration’s priorities, roiling the legal community”)
- What the group chat leak reveals about how Trump officials see the world (“After an embarrassing security breach, the White House is doubling down on alternate facts and attacks against perceived enemies”)
- The Worst Part of Pete Hegseth’s Group Chat Debacle
- Signal Leak Is Latest Mistake in Hegseth’s Rocky Time at the Pentagon
- Trump’s Proudly Incompetent Cabinet
- It’s a 🤦🤦♂️🤦🏽 week for Trump’s 🤡🤡🤡 national security team
- SignalGate Is Bad; But OPSEC Isn’t Even the Worst Part Of It
- It’s war and peace with Donald and Pete – and the worst group chat the world has ever seen
- The Worst Part of Pete Hegseth’s Group Chat Debacle
- The Leaked Signal Chat, Annotated
- NSA warned of vulnerabilities in Signal app a month before Houthi strike chat
- Pete Hegseth Sued Over Signal Text Debacle
- Waltz takes ‘full responsibility’ – and calls Atlantic editor ‘scum’ (Yep, that’s not taking “full responsibility.” Also, how is someone “scum” for being added, without his knowledge, to a chat?)
- Days after the Signal leak, the Pentagon warned the app was the target of hackers
- The deep divide lurking in Trump officials’ leaked group chat (“The chat logs revealed an administration that wants to both dominate the world and withdraw from it.”)
- Signal Gate: The Criminal Law Precedents That Are Most Relevant
- 60% of Republicans think the Trump administration’s military leak is a very or somewhat serious problem
- Trump Goes After the Messenger (“The president is privately upset with the sloppiness of his advisers. Publicly, he’s focused on attacking the press.”)
- In their own words: Trump officials shrugging off Signal leak once decried Clinton’s server
- Trump downplays national security team texting military operation plan on Signal as a minor ‘glitch’
- Trump Blows Huge Hole in Adviser’s Excuse for War Plan Leak (“The administration couldn’t get its story straight—for the second straight day.”)
- The Senate Intelligence Committee Lit Up Trump Officials Over the Group-Chat Debacle
- If Not Atlantic Editor Jeff Goldberg, Who Did Pete Hegseth’s Group Chat Think “JG” Was?
- Trump Administration Attacks Journalist for Its Own National Security Screw-Up
- Chat Blunder Shows Pitfalls of Trump’s Ad Hoc Approach to Foreign Policy
- Hillary Clinton reacts to military plans leak: ‘You have got to be kidding me’
- Fox propagandists scramble to explain former colleagues texting war plans to a reporter
- DOGE efforts should be counted alongside megabill’s cost-cutting, Thune says (Absolutely not.)
- Exclusive: DOGE staffer, ‘Big Balls’, provided tech support to cybercrime ring (Of course!)
- Republican lawmakers seek to put PBS and NPR in the hot seat (As the story notes, the US already spends WAAAAYYY less than other developed countries – like the UK and the BBC – on public media.)
- Wisconsin court race tests Trump’s approval as Musk pours millions into campaign
- Rising (“Democrat James Malone just pulled off a narrow victory in a Pennsylvania state senate special election a bright red district where Trump won resoundingly with 57% of the vote last November. The 36th district hasn’t elected a Democrat since it moved from Philadelphia to Lancaster County in 1979, according to Lancaster Online. Malone made Musk and recent events in Washington DC a central part of his campaign.”)
- Social Security official ended program for Maine newborns because he was ‘ticked’ at Mills (WTF???)
- Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett mocks Greg Abbott, who uses a wheelchair, as ‘Gov. Hot Wheels’ (Not cool. Kinda like when Trump crudely mocked disabled people.)
- Democrats flip deep-red Pennsylvania district in special election shocker
- Musk’s super PAC jumps into Florida’s special elections
- Ex-North Dakota lawmaker to be sentenced for traveling to Europe to pay for sex with minors (Note: this is a white, male, cisgender Republican.)
- Video: In Response to Sen. Mark Warner, Tulsi Gabbard Claims “there was no classified material that was shared in that Signal chat,” But Won’t Share It with the Intelligence Committee (Meanwhile, John Ratcliffe blames the *Biden administration* for his improper use of Signal)
- ‘Plain sloppiness’: Sen. Mark Warner says on Signal chat fiasco
- Video: Ranking House Oversight Committee Democratic Member Rep. Gerry Connolly Rebukes Committee Republicans’ “Dismantling Government Act” (“H.R. 1295 dramatically and recklessly expands the power it would give to President Trump and Elon Musk, and without those key limitations and guardrails”)
- Virginia’s congressional delegation gets average marks for effectiveness (I didn’t cover this because I think the methodology is badly flawed, and the results largely laughable and nonsensical.)
- Youngkin Vetoes Bills That Would Help Working Families Get Ahead, Improve Public Safety (Youngkin’s vetoes “a clear and brazen act of ignoring the needs—and the very real demands—of Virginians across our Commonwealth.”)
- Virginia’s governor is again at odds with Democrats as he vetoes labor and gun reform
- 15 important things that Gov. Youngkin did with bills and the budget
- A fight over the budget could take center stage in the upcoming reconvene session
- Governor unleashes veto storm to drown progressive legislation
- Youngkin’s vetoes take another hit on cannabis reform in Virginia
- Youngkin’s budget amendments face scrutiny from Democrats (“’The only way he can put that money in the reserve fund is by cutting K-12, cutting health care, cutting free clinics, cutting homebuyer assistance,’ Senator Scott Surovell warned.”)
- Stark difference: Youngkin says these bills would hurt businesses, Spanberger says they would help employees
- Youngkin guts contraception bill with amendment protecting religious objections
- In WTOP exclusive, candidates in Va. governor’s race sound off on federal cuts (Winsome Earle-Sears’ message, “do not fret” and that nuclear scientists or whoever in the federal government can find equivalent jobs in Virginia is truly delusional. This person is completely unfit to be governor.)
- Virginia establishes food pantry program for public colleges
- Youngkin wants to create a Gaming Commission; the General Assembly has already said no
- Localities, Rural Lawmakers Win in Halting Solar Siting Reform in Virginia (“Advocates sought change to reach clean energy goals amid an uptick in local permit denials.”)
- Gov. Youngkin proposes withholding state funding from Virginia’s ‘sanctuary cities’
- A top Trump adviser is suing for defamation in Richmond federal court (“Chris LaCivita announced his lawsuit on social media with a flourish, reposting a news story from the outlet Axios regarding the suit and adding ‘F*** around and Find Out.'”)
- Virginia Tech will dissolve its DEI office. Some students fear doing so will increase discrimination on campus. (“The university’s board of visitors voted 12-2 on Tuesday to comply with President Donald Trump’s order to end diversity, equity and inclusion programs.”)
- Students protest as Virginia Tech dissolves office that promoted diversity and inclusion
- Powering Roanoke’s economic renaissance (“Shifting energy policies with expansive, unclear mandates create uncertainty and could ultimately harm our ability to compete with other regions. While access to clean, reliable and affordable energy alone is no guarantee of future economic success, its absence will almost certainly forestall future investment in the region. “)
- Elon Musk and Gov. Youngkin target Fairfax County over education on gender identity (“Last June, the Fairfax County School Board voted unanimously to accept recommended changes to the district’s sex education curriculum, known as Family Life Education (FLE). Among the changes was the addition of a PBS video explaining puberty for seventh-grade students that acknowledges the existence of transgender, nonbinary and agender people.”)
- What to expect from Norfolk’s proposed $1.6 billion operating budget
- Norfolk council asks School Board for plan to close at least 10 schools
- The Best Place to Live in America? This Arlington Neighborhood (“Nestled near Courthouse and Rosslyn, this historic apartment community earned top grades for commute times, nightlife, schools, health and fitness.”)
- CWG Live updates: Breeziness returns today; big weekend warm-up could be on the way
