Friday News: House GOP Passed “The Largest Upward Transfer of Wealth in American History”; Trump’s Crypto “Orgy of Corruption”; “Trump’s Move Against Harvard as ‘Stuff of Tyranny’”; “In the end, Reps. Kiggans and Wittman sold out their constituents”

by Lowell

Here are a few international, national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Friday, May 23.

• U.S. reports cases of new COVID variant NB.1.8.1 behind surge in China
• U.S., China hold first call since Geneva meeting, signaling progress in trade talks
• In Attacks on Harvard, Chinese See Yet Another Reason to Write Off the U.S.
• ‘Harvard refugee’: Chinese students hunker down as US blocks foreign enrollment
• Trump’s image of dead ‘white farmers’ came from Reuters footage in Congo, not South Africa
• The Trump administration is rallying around Israel, but not Netanyahu
• Netanyahu accuses Starmer, Macron and Carney of siding with Hamas
• FBI raids Chicago home linked to D.C. shooting of Israeli Embassy staff
• Suspect in Fatal Israeli Embassy Staffer Shooting Charged With Murder
• A Dangerous Disguise for Anti-Semitism (“The person charged with attacking an American Jewish gathering and killing two Israeli-embassy aides disingenuously invoked the Palestinian struggle as a pretext to harm Jews.”; “Every single act & word that can associate the Palestinian cause with terrorism, hatred & antisemitism is an act or word that hurts Palestinians in Washington, DC. [This] act of terrorism did all three”)
• Two terrible truths about the antisemitic murders in DC (“How violence like this became thinkable — and what it means for the future of Palestine.”)
• Trump administration seeks to end basic rights and protections for child immigrants in its custody (“Flores Settlement Agreement limits how long children can be detained and requires they be provided with food, water and clean clothes”)
• Federal judge blocks Trump administration from revoking international students’ legal status
• Trump takes new pages out of strongman’s playbook with Harvard crackdown and crypto gala
• Summers Slams Trump’s Move Against Harvard as ‘Stuff of Tyranny’
• Harvard ban is warning to other universities, Noem says (Noem is a puppy-killing psychopath and a facist, ignoramus, etc.)
• Kristi Noem’s proud MAGA bimbo act builds on the legacy of Sarah Palin (“The GOP adores a woman who plays dumb to build up the man she’s serving”)
• Trump Administration Says It Is Halting Harvard’s Ability to Enroll International Students (Seems completely illegal, not to mention authoritarian/fascistic, also incredibly stupid.)
• Mahmoud Khalil permitted to hold newborn son for the first time despite government objections (What POSSIBLE reason could there be for the government to object to this???)
• Supreme Court Kills The Independent Agency. Trump Is King
• Supreme Court grants Trump request to fire independent agency members (This Supreme Court is a f’ing disgrace.)
• Supreme Court tie vote dooms taxpayer funded Catholic charter school in Oklahoma (Only because Coney Barrett recused herself.)
• This doctor calls LGBTQ+ rights ‘satanic’. He could now undo healthcare for millions (“Exclusive: A rightwing activist behind a current supreme court challenge has spent decades railing against ‘homosexual behavior’”)
• The Bond Market Is Shaking Wall Street Again, This Time Because Of Worries About Tax Cuts
• Did Republicans Just Lose the Majority?
• The Republican Party’s Populist Betrayal
• Make No Mistake: Republicans Are Trying to Cut Medicaid
• Trump just handed Democrats their midterm message (“Trump and the GOP agenda of corruption, chaos and cruelty should be burnished in public’s mind.”)
• The Largest Upward Transfer of Wealth in American History
• Trump and Johnson’s Big Ugly Lie
• Contrary to right-wing media claims, the GOP’s Medicaid cuts are for far more than “able-bodied men”
• US Debt Limit Nail-Biter Looms as Senate Ponders Trump Tax Bill
• ‘We can’t afford it’: Senate GOP balks at House megabill as messy fight awaits
• Senate Republicans Won’t Accept House Tax And Spending Cut Bill
• Gun Silencers, Tanning Beds And Other Weird Stuff Tucked Into The GOP’s Tax Bill
• RFK Jr. walks back timeline for determining cause of autism
• The findings — and scientific problems — in White House ‘MAHA report’
• RFK’s health report omits key facts in painting dark vision for US children (“Maha report ignores leading causes of death for children, firearms and crashes, and focuses on lifestyle and vaccines” Total bullshit.)
• Judge Vacates Federal Rules Requiring Employers To Provide Accommodations For Abortions (“Joseph, who was appointed by President Donald Trump during his first term, ruled that the EEOC exceeded its authority by including abortion in its regulations. ” Far-right activist judge, in other words.)
• The Mystery of Trump’s Secretive Memecoin Dinner (“Dem senator calls the event ‘close to the top of the most corrupt things the president has done.'”)
• Protestors accuse Trump of corruption as he hosts crypto gala dinner
• Trump dines with top meme coin holders, dismissing concerns that he’s profiting from presidency (WILD corruption.)
• Hundreds Join Trump at ‘Exclusive’ Dinner, With Dreams of Crypto Fortunes in Mind
• The Father Pursues Trump’s Diplomatic Deals. The Son Chases Crypto Deals. (“While Steve Witkoff travels the world as Middle East envoy, his son Zach is pitching foreign deals for his cryptocurrency venture with the Trumps”)
• Donald Trump’s Cashing in on Crypto Is Denounced as an “Orgy of Corruption” (“The White House is defending Trump’s Thursday dinner with meme coin investors—including the guy who dropped $6 million on banana art—while Democrats sound off. “He thinks if he commits the offenses in public,” Sen. Chris Murphy tells VF, “you won’t believe that it’s wrong.””)
• A Crypto Billionaire Who Feared Arrest in the U.S. Returns for Dinner With Trump (“Justin Sun, whose digital-currency network is popular with the crypto industry’s criminal underbelly, is a top investor in Trump’s memecoin” This administration is BY FAR the most corrupt in US history.)
• Trump’s $600 million war chest: How he plans to wield his power in the midterms and beyond (“Trump is keeping an aggressive fundraising schedule with the ultimate goal of raising $1 billion or more to back his agenda and hold the House and Senate next November, according to the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity to share internal details of the fundraising efforts. The preoccupation with fundraising might seem highly unusual for a president who was notably averse to dialing for dollars when he first ran. But according to people familiar with his thinking, it makes perfect sense: By amassing money, Trump amasses power.”)
• Upending norms, the Senate votes to undo California’s EV rules (“…there are significant questions about whether this use of the CRA is legal; the Government Accountability Office and the Senate parliamentarian, who serve as referees within the federal government, both determined that it is not…California Attorney General Rob Bonta says this use of the CRA is unlawful, and that California will challenge it in court”)
• New head of Social Security, hired from Wall Street, tells staff he had to Google the job when he was offered it
• Why Pete Hegseth leading a Christian prayer service at the Pentagon is so problematic (“For those concerned about the administration and the emergence of Christian nationalism, the Pentagon chief’s service was a step in an unsettling direction.”)
• Disarray at Department of Veterans Affairs imperils patient care, internal documents reveal
• Exclusive: Musk’s DOGE expanding his Grok AI in US government, raising conflict concerns
• Scoop: House Democrats want a long-awaited age reckoning
• Regulators Are Investigating Whether Media Matters Colluded With Advertisers (” Elon Musk previously sued the advocacy group over critical research on his social media platform X over claims it drove away advertisers.” MediaMatters, in fact, does SUPERB work.)
• FTC probes Media Matters over Musk’s X boycott claims, document shows
• Everyone Has an Opinion on Jake Tapper (Tapper represents the absolute WORST of “journalism” – f’ing disgrace for many reasons.)
• Changes could be coming to Chesapeake Bay cleanup agreement.
• Video: Sen. Mark Warner Vows “to do everything I can in the Senate to either stop or dramatically reform” the House GOP’s “big bill – nothing beautiful about it…will do remarkable damage.” (On GOP Congressman from western VA forming their own interview committee to fill the US attorney seat for the Western District: “The idea that they’re setting up a separate partisan review is not the way the process works. It disappoints me.”)
• Warner criticizes GOP getting involved in the U.S. attorney selection process
• Virginia’s western congressional delegation forms own search committee for U.S. attorney post (Senators Warner and Kaine are NOT happy about this.)
• Kaine warns 267,000 in Virginia will lose health insurance under ‘Big, Ugly Bill’
• “At Donald Trump’s command, [all five Virginia Republican Congress members] voted to pass a cruel, billionaire-first budget that will devastate Virginia’s working families”
• Editorial: In the end, Reps. Kiggans and Wittman sold out their constituents (“In voting for the Republican spending bill, U.S. Reps. Jen Kiggans and Rob Wittman put their party and the president before the people they serve.” BINGO by the Virginian-Pilot and Daily Press!))
• Griffith, Cline among Republicans who backed Trump’s big bill
• Every Virginia House Republican voted to gut Medicaid, defund Planned Parenthood (“GOP Reps. Jen Kiggans and Rob Wittman had previously promised to oppose a bill ‘that includes any reduction in Medicaid coverage for vulnerable populations.’”)
• HIGHLIGHT REEL: Winsome Earle-Sears Lies About Her Extreme Record on Abortion Rights and Doubles Down on Her Opposition to Marriage Equality
• Roanoke College Poll Finds Spanberger Leads Earle-Sears by 17 Pts (43%-26%); Youngkin Underwater at 44%-50% – “his worst showing”; Trump’s 65% Disapproval Rating “the worst it has been”
• Many undecided as Spanberger leads new Roanoke College Poll (That’s a dumb headline; in fact, the high % of undecided voters is an artifact of Roanoke College polling weirdness.)
• RC Poll: Spanberger holds significant lead over Earle-Sears, but it’s still early
• New poll shows Spanberger with 17-point lead over Earle-Sears
• Pope & Schapiro: Federal cuts, a boycott, and remembering Gerry Connolly
• Commentary: Spanberger’s tepid support for ‘right to work’ is all politics (Maybe, but I’m told it’s what she really believes. Also, the author of this op-ed is a Republican, not that the RTD makes that clear…)
• Virginia Democratic Lt. Governor Candidates (Alex Bastani, Ghazala Hashmi, Babur Lateef, Aaron Rouse, Victor Salgado, Levar Stoney) Debate Tonight at 7 pm on Live TV
• Democratic lieutenant governor candidates agree on most issues but clash over gambling
• 6 Democratic candidates for Lt. Gov. attempt to distinguish themselves from their peers in debate (That’s a good headline, actually…)
• ‘A Spanberger Rouse ticket would be the strongest ticket’ State Senator Rouse says
• The Advocate Reports on Winsome Earle-Sears Delivering Commencement Addresses at Institutions with Extreme Records on LGBTQ and Abortion Rights
• Facing special ed teacher shortage, Va. education board votes to expand educator pipeline
• Virginia Supreme Court, examining new law, rules in railroad’s favor against internet provider
• Democratic leadership signals willingness to reexamine Virginia Clean Economy Act (“‘We went a long while with more supply than we had demand, now it’s flipped upside down,’ House Speaker Don Scott noted.”)
• Trump administration to probe Va. magnet school’s admissions (Witch hunt.)
• Records from Red Onion say investigation found ‘no staff misconduct’
• CWG Live updates: Breezy today and brighter skies. Probably dry this weekend. (“A brief shower possible today and Memorial Day but overall dry with fairly bright skies.”)