Friday News: “Climate change feels more real now than ever”; “This Was a Great Week for American Diplomacy”; “McCarthy Cedes Speakership to the Far Right Once Again”; “GOP war on the FBI”; On the Economy, “Everything’s Coming Up Soft Landing”

by Lowell

Here are a few international, national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Friday, July 14.

“Usually as a scientist you want to see your predictions come true. But as a climate scientist, you don’t. We’re seeing the manifestation of decades of inaction.” @MichaelEMann on the climate crisis. pic.twitter.com/vuCgcd0Rer

— Inside with Jen Psaki (@InsideWithPsaki) July 13, 2023

• Leaks Can Make Natural Gas as Bad for the Climate as Coal, a Study Says
• ‘Things Don’t Always Change in a Nice, Gradual Way’ (“Climate change feels more real now than ever.”)
• There’s no such thing as a disaster-resistant place anymore (“Climate risks are becoming increasingly expensive. Not just locally, but globally.”)
• It’s even hot in Antarctica, where it’s winter
• Good news for climate comes from the world’s greatest user of coal (“China’s emissions are set to peak ahead of target — and where one global power leads, others are compelled to follow.”)
• World Health Organization releases reports on artificial sweetener aspartame and cancer risk
• Artificial Sweetener Aspartame Is ‘Possibly’ Carcinogenic, Yet Safe at Common Use Levels, WHO Says
• Russia’s crude price exceeds G7 price cap as market braces for supply crunch
• Here are the 70 House Republicans who voted to cut off all US military aid to Ukraine (Insurrectionists/extremists Bob Good and Ben Cline from Virginia.
• This Was a Great Week for American Diplomacy (“But you might not know it from the headlines.”)
• Ukraine’s spymaster comes out of the shadows (“For an intelligence chief running Ukraine’s spy operations during war with Russia, Kyrylo Budanov, 37, has built up an unusually public profile that he has used to get his message out and to menace Russia from afar.”)
• Controversial U.S.-made cluster bombs arrive in Ukraine; Russia protests Olympics ‘discrimination’
• Putin says Wagner Group ‘simply does not exist’ (“The Russian President said he offered 35 Wagner commanders employment options following the group’s short-lived mutiny”)
• Ruined, Empty, Mined and Overgrown: Ukraine’s Forgotten Villages
• Russia’s Duma votes for law to ban gender reassignment surgery, in further crackdown on LGBTQ rights
• The Sneaky Master Plan Behind Erdogan’s Sudden Split From Putin
• 5, 4, 3, 2, 1… Indian rocket blasts into space for Moon mission
• Exclusive: China invites global investors for rare meeting as economy sputters
• Britain’s Conservatives Are Imploding
• The old consensus on U.S. foreign policy is dead (“Republican isolationism is dividing U.S. foreign policy.”)
• Everything’s Coming Up Soft Landing (Superb job by the Biden administration and by Democrats when they controlled Congress for two years!)
• Floods, tornadoes, heat: more extreme weather predicted across US (“Over a third of Americans under extreme heat warnings as Vermont, still recovering from historic flooding, prepares for more storms”)
• Summer of climate catastrophes brings risks for workers
• The meaning of an ‘optimal’ clean energy investment is changing as prices rise, analysts report (“IRA incentives and demand-supply imbalances due to suboptimal transmission, interconnection, supply chains and financing dynamics have developers and off-takers recalculating the value of clean energy.”)
• Fossil fuel workers are dying inhaling gases – despite US warnings to big oil
• First over-the-counter birth control pill gets FDA approval (“Perrigo will begin shipping Opill in early 2024, but it hasn’t announced the price of the new medication.”)
• Americans are widely pessimistic about democracy in the United States, an AP-NORC poll finds
• A Federal Judge Asks: Does the Supreme Court Realize How Bad It Smells?
• The Liberal Justices Have Found Their Voices (“They’re each saying something distinct about this court.”)
• US sets a grim milestone with new record for the deadliest six months of mass killings (It’s all about guns.)
• GOP passes amendments that threaten to doom defense bill
• Defense Bill’s Fate Teeters After G.O.P. Wedges In Social Issues
• The GOP’s anti-FBI turn, explained (“Republicans’ war on the FBI is really about protecting Trump.”)
• GOP war on the FBI: Republican attacks on Chris Way echo ideology of Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh (“Being a ‘good’ Republican means embracing the anti-government ideology that led to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing”)
• The House is in chaos again, but it’s just another week for Kevin McCarthy
• Kevin McCarthy Cedes Speakership to the Far Right Once Again (“Speaker Kevin McCarthy gave in to conservatives on the annual defense policy bill. Not only did he expose his members to controversial votes, but he may still not pass the bill.”)
• Buckle up: The federal Jan. 6 indictment might be around the corner
• DOJ opposes Trump bid to indefinitely delay classified documents trial
• Trump reveals new details about $1 billion in earnings in revised filing
• Prosecutors Ask Witnesses Whether Trump Acknowledged He Lost 2020 Race
• Jared Kushner and Hope Hicks testified before grand jury investigating 2020 election interference, sources say
• Trump loses Iowa endorser days after attacking the state’s governor
• Trump says he’s too busy campaigning to go to trial for his alleged crimes (Imagine if a bank robber or murderer could just say, “I’m busy, no time for a trial right now?”)
• Arizona escalates probe into alleged efforts to swing election for Trump
• Trump Super PAC Made $155,000 Payment to Melania Trump in 2021
• Christie ‘can’t imagine’ pardon for Trump in documents case
• Be very afraid: Trump’s “Agenda 47” is no joke (“This is not a joke or funny: You should be very afraid of Trump’s fascist Agenda 47 plan”)
• Hunter Biden’s lawyer sends cease-and-desist letter to Trump over social media posts
• Manchin opposes Julie Su for Labor secretary, jeopardizing nomination
• Leaked audio of Marianne Williamson volunteer staff call reveals a bleak state of her campaign (The question is, who’s wackier, Marianne Williamson or batsh**-crazy RFK Jr?)
• House Ethics Committee reaching out to witnesses in revived Matt Gaetz probe
• DeSantis faces potential make-or-break moment with first GOP debate
• Ron DeSantis’s Lack of Personality Is Now Costing Him GOP Sugar Daddies: Report (DeSantis has a personality…of a psychopath!)
• Mike Pence says he’d force women to carry nonviable pregnancies to term (“The former vice president would ban abortion even if there is no chance for the fetus to live outside the uterus.” Pence is a horrible, horrible person.)
• GOP attorneys general tee off on large corporations over diversity policies (These people suck. No sign of Jason Miyares on here, btw.)
• Former police chief convicted after defending self with false Jan. 6 claims
• No fingerprints, DNA sample or leads from cocaine found at the White House, the Secret Service says
• WATCH: GOP Congressman Goes on Wild ‘Colored People’ Rant on House Floor
• Biden White House goes after Republicans over Tuberville’s military blockade
• First Thing: Florida Republicans target voter registration groups with thousands in fines (Disgraceful.)
• Fresh congressional New York map could boost Democrats’ chances for 2024 House majority (“State appeals court ordered the new lines to be drawn after a lawsuit was filed on behalf of 10 voters who want new maps”)
• More than 1 in 4 staffers in these senators’ offices are LGBTQ (Sen. Tim Kaine’s office is at 17%; Sen. Mark Warner’s office is at 4%)
• Mark Zuckerberg claims he wants Meta’s Threads app to be “friendly.” So far, unmoderated hate speech and misinformation are proliferating. (“The platform is already rife with election misinformation, racism, and anti-LGBTQ bigotry”)
• SAG-AFTRA actors strike begins, joining Hollywood writers
• Disney CEO Bob Iger Says Writers and Actors Are Not Being ‘Realistic’ With Strikes: ‘It’s Very Disturbing to Me’
• Fox News’ Legal S–tstorm Is Only Getting Worse—Thanks to Tucker Carlson
• Far right Twitter influencers first on Elon Musk’s monetization scheme
• Right-wing misinformers and bad actors have already earned tens of thousands of dollars under Twitter’s new ad revenue sharing program
• Reps. Wexton, Beyer, Connolly Condemn House Republicans for Defunding New FBI Headquarters (When (never, most likely) will Glenn Youngkin also condemn House Republicans for this?)
• Dems in three Richmond-area House races among targets of GOP digital ads (This article is better than the WaPo stenography, as this one provides responses from the targeted Dems. Although it still doesn’t say, point blank, that the ads are FALSE.)
• Badly Broken WaPo Out with Another Wildly Irresponsible Piece of Anti-Democratic, Pro-Republican Stenography (In this case, the WaPo amplifies wildly false GOP smears, without even allowing a single Democrat to respond)
• Virginia’s Youngkin surpasses previous governors’ annual fundraising records in a single quarter (This article doesn’t mention Nazi memorabilia dude Harlan Crow. Weird.)
• FOIA Friday: What Virginia officials withheld or disclosed, July 7–July 14, 2023
• Virginia’s tax holiday on school supplies has come to an end because legislators forgot to renew it
• Pope & Schapiro: Lessons from the 2001 caboose budget impasse
• Virginia offers wetland permit guidance following Supreme Court’s Sackett ruling
• Video, Photos From Last Night’s Democratic Unity Event in Fredericksburg (Ben Litchfield: “Joel [Griffin] is the best of us, I’m proud to support him, I’m proud to do what I can to elect him. We need to beat the Republicans with shoe leather, with dollars, with sweat, with everything we’ve got!”)
• After losing Republican primary, Sen. Chase says she may run as a write-in. Could she tip that seat to Democrats? Here’s the math. (“Chase would need to take 15% of the vote — and take it all from Sturtevant — to drop him to 42% and give McKenzie the seat.”)
• One independent drops out, endorses another in Albemarle County race
• D.C.-area forecast: Hot and humid, with occasional storms to dodge