Friday News: “Decline and Fall of the American Empire”; “Why Aren’t Markets Freaking Out?”; “The CDC. The Fed. The FBI. The National Guard. Do you get it now?”; “Crisis within CDC is spilling into real world”; “The Sycophancy Must Be Televised”

by Lowell

Here are a few international, national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Friday, August 29.

• Climate.gov will re-launch under new URL thanks to a secret team of web ninjas (“The data, writings and reports will be hosted at climate.us, according to Rebecca Lindsey, a former project manager for climate.gov, and will focus on information that is readily understandable by the public.”)
• China Finds Buyers for Surplus Solar: Africa’s Energy-Hungry Countries (“China’s solar exports to Africa are surging.”)
• How much trouble is the world’s biggest offshore-wind developer in? (“Orsted is suffering from Donald Trump’s grudge against ‘windmills'” (You know someone is clueless about wind power when they call wind turbines “windmills”)
• Russia turns a Ukrainian nuclear city into a stronghold of fear (“Once a thriving city of 50,000, Enerhodar, home of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, is a ghost town. The Russian occupation is using intimidation and seemingly arbitrary detentions to scrub the region of its Ukrainian identity.”)
• Trump admin offers subdued response to Russia’s assault on Kyiv, and Europe’s outrage (Effectively, Trump is working for Putin – not just re: Ukraine, but also re: undermining America’s core strengths, severely weakening our country, which is EXACTLY what Putin wants. And yet most Americans seem…checked out?)
• Kyiv residents fatalistic but defiant as city again comes under mass air attack
• At least 23 dead in overnight Kyiv attack as UK and EU summon Russian envoys (Seize Russia’s frozen assets immediately – and give them to Ukraine.)
• Did the White House Not Understand What Putin Was Really Offering? (“Europeans can’t tell what American officials agreed to with the Russian leader.” The White House is filled with incompetent buffoons and extremists, so…yeah.)
• Steve Witkoff’s go-it-alone diplomacy is frustrating US and European officials (So far, and not surprisingly, Witkoff has been a complete and disastrous failure on all fronts.)
• Scoop: Inside Trump’s Gaza meeting with Tony Blair and Jared Kushner (“They tried to give an idea of how Gaza could be governed and how you create an environment for investment so that reconstruction can happen. The goal was to run the ideas by Trump to see if he likes them and want to move forward, so that Witkoff and Rubio can use them”)
• Israel says bodies of 2 hostages returned as military begins Gaza City offensive
• IDF declares famine-hit Gaza City a combat zone, ending ‘tactical pauses’ that allowed limited food delivery (UGH – this is insane.)
• Inside Trump’s gunboat diplomacy with Venezuela (“While administration officials have refused to rule out an invasion, nearly all privately believe it unlikely. However, Trump’s deployment does include 2,200 Marines, the boots-on-the-beach branch of the military. That’s hardly typical in drug enforcement.”)
• Trump’s Venezuela gunboat diplomacy: sabre-rattling or prelude to invasion? (“Hawks on both sides have warned the US dispatch of three warships to patrol off the South American coast may be part of a regime-change operation – but is it?”)
• Read: Judge rejects Saudi Arabia’s bid to dismiss 9/11 families lawsuit
• Lula Authorizes Retaliation Process Against Trump’s Tariffs
• Thailand’s prime minister removed from office over leaked phone call scandal with Cambodian strongman
• Decline and Fall of the American Empire (“Alliances were what made us great”)
• Trump tariffs: global parcel shipments to US lose exemption (“Customs agency starts collecting full duties on Friday as Donald Trump ends de minimis exemption for packages worth under $800”)
• End of US low-value package tariff exemption is permanent, Trump officials say
• Kilmar Abrego Garcia asks for gag order against Bondi, Noem
• Border Patrol arrests 2 firefighters for being in the country illegally as they battled Washington’s biggest wildfire (These people are deranged.)
• ICE Eyes Naval Base Outside Chicago as Operations Center (“Border czar Tom Homan says to expect a ramp up of enforcement in sanctuary cities” So much for “state’s rights,” “local government is best,” etc. Conservatives were always completely full of crap on this, and everything really – including free markets, free peoples, free ideas, etc., none of which they actually support.)
• Who Wants to Work for ICE? They Do. (At this point, if you actually want to work for Trump’s thuggish version of ICE, you really should NOT be working for ICE!)
• ‘It Feels Like the CDC Is Over’ (“The CDC’s departing leaders discuss the agency’s future—or lack thereof.”)
• Amid chaos at CDC, Kennedy consolidates his power (“The secretary faced little resistance from the White House or Congress as he pushed out a key leader”)
• RFK Jr. cannot be contained (“The ouster of Susan Monarez from the CDC is an ominous sign for American public health.”)
• The CDC Is Officially Done For. Welcome to the Era of Woo-Woo Science. (“People are going to die, but as long as Republicans keep winning elections, no one’s going to stop it.”)
• Scenes from CDC rally for officials who quit over RFK Jr.’s policies
• The bigger story behind the mass exodus of CDC leadership (“The CDC is collapsing. Will America’s health follow suit?” Yes, absolutely. This is an unmitigated disaster for EVERY SINGLE AMERICAN.)
• Massive CDC walkout erupts amid internal chaos
• Kennedy Sought to Fire C.D.C. Director Over Vaccine Policy (“The director, Susan Monarez, declined to fire agency leaders or to accept all recommendations from a vaccine advisory panel made over by Mr. Kennedy, according to people with knowledge of the events.” RFK Jr. is 100% insane and pure evil.)
• Inside the Trump Administration’s Vaccine Politics (“Trump embraced the MAHA movement’s antivaccine supporters; now a crisis is unfolding at the CDC under RFK Jr.’s leadership”)
• Crisis within CDC is spilling into real world, experts say (“From food safety to vaccine availability, loss of trust and talent threaten health: ‘We are in much worse shape’”)
• Trump Targets Agencies Long Seen as Above Politics. Critics See Big Risks. (Here we go again with the media’s cowardly “critics say” or “critics see” formulation.)
• White House taps top RFK Jr. deputy as acting CDC director
• ‘Lacking Legitimacy’: Sen. Bill Cassidy Breaks With RFK Jr. After CDC Leadership Exodus (F*** Bill Cassidy, the guy who voted to confirm RFK Jr. despite 100% knowing better! Cassidy’s name should live in infamy for generations to come.)
• Breaking News: Read three top CDC officials’ resignation emails. (“The end of an era.”)
• RFK Jr. renews attack on antidepressants after church shooting (What a f’ing asshole.)
• Who is Jim O’Neill? CDC chief set to bolster RFK Jr plan to remake vaccine policy (“Ally of health secretary worked as speechwriter in George W Bush administration and has no training in medicine” 100% unacceptable.)
• CVS Holds Off on Offering Covid Vaccines in 16 States (“Legal experts said that federal decisions were creating an extremely difficult situation for pharmacies to navigate.”)
• Pediatric Brain Cancer Trial Group to Be Phased Out (“A network of hospitals and cancer centers dedicated to early phase trials of novel treatments will no longer receive federal funding.” WTF???)
• Trump housing director Pulte lodges new criminal referral for Fed Governor Lisa Cook (Pulte is a thug.)
• The “Mini-Trump” Attacking Lisa Cook Had Paperwork Problems of His Own (It’s almost always “projection” with these people.)
• Fed Governor Lisa Cook Sues to Stop Trump From Firing Her
• Lisa Cook Forces the Supreme Court to Show Its True Colors on the Fed (“In her lawsuit against Trump, the law is firmly on the beleaguered Federal Reserve Governor’s side. But that doesn’t mean the high court is.” Nope, given that the current Supreme Court is completely lawless, contemptuous of the US constitution, illegitimate, etc.)
• How the Future of the Fed Came to Rest on Lisa Cook (“President Trump’s effort to oust the Federal Reserve governor has started a legal battle that will have major consequences for the institution’s independence. “)
• Paul Krugman Warns Of Trump’s ‘Wile E. Coyote Moment’: ‘Policy Disaster In The Making’ (“The famed economist explained why everything may appear to be fine for America… until the moment it’s really not.”)
• The CDC. The Fed. The FBI. The National Guard. Do you get it now? (“Trump is waging war against the American government. When he’s done, he’ll use his government to wage war against Americans.”)
• New in MAGA | Daily Wire reporter wants to classify ‘trans ideology’ as ‘domestic terrorism’ (They want to call anything/everything they don’t like, including trans people and the Democratic Party, “domestic terrorism.” That’s fascist garbage – period.)
• The invasion of America | How’s life under the MAGA occupation?
• Decline Is a Choice America Keeps Making (“…the second Trump administration appears more eager than ever before to hasten America’s decline.”)
• The Sycophancy Must Be Televised (“Notes from the longest, cringiest Trump Cabinet meeting yet.”)
• Alert the media: The White House is lying about Trump’s health (“Their explanations are absurd and it’s time to start asking questions.”)
• Democrats face critical choice in government funding battle as shutdown deadline looms
• Dem leaders push to reverse Trump cuts in shutdown fight
• DOJ drops charges against another client of AG Pam Bondi’s brother Brad (Massive corruption of Justice. Can you even IMAGINE if Merrick Garland had done something like this??? Republicans would have gone APESHIT!!!)
• Jan. 6 Rioter Killed As She Stormed Capitol Will Receive Military Funeral Honors (Absolutely f’ed up.)
• YouTube and Fox reach a deal to keep Fox content available on streaming platform
• FBI investigating Minnesota school shooting as hate crime against Catholics (In fact, what experts are saying is that the shooter was mentally disturbed, hated basically EVERYBODY, and was fascinated with previous mass shooters.)
• entagon Is Reinstalling Portrait of Confederate General at West Point Library (“The Pentagon is putting back up a portrait of Gen. Robert E. Lee at the military academy, as the Trump administration seeks to restore honors for American figures who fought to preserve slavery.”)
• ‘We need to ban assault weapons’: Minnesota Lt. Gov. says we need action at federal level (Yes, but there’s ZERO chance that’s going to happen.)
• Minneapolis school attacker ‘obsessed with idea of killing children’, officials say
• The failed indictment of sandwich guy shows the limits of Fox’s propaganda
• Alabama Republican Booed Out Of Town Hall While Attempting To Defend Trump
• Atlanta Journal-Constitution to Quit Print Cold Turkey
• Murdoch media find a scapegoat for New Jersey’s high electric rates (“As data centers demand enormous energy outputs and Garden State grid operators reportedly slow-walk new projects, right-wing media take shots at renewable energy” Spoiler: renewable energy is NOT the problem, but the solution! As always, the right wing has everything backwards, upside down, inside out, etc.)
• Trump Wants Every Federal Building to Look Like His White House (“The president wants D.C. to look just the way he likes it.”)
• The Political Awakening of the Oyster Farmer Gunning for Susan Collins (“Graham Platner’s campaign launch has been a sudden sensation. But what he’s building now is rooted in the work of a lifetime.” Hopefully Susan Collins is “concerned” LOL)
• Senator Mark Warner visits Kilmar Abrego Garcia in Farmville jail
• Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA08): “If Trump does not remove Kennedy before this kook fully unleashes his crackpot conspiracy theories on America’s vaccination efforts, Trump will bear the responsibility for the unnecessary and preventable illnesses and deaths that result.”
• Beyer: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a ‘kook’ | Congressman calls on Trump to fire HHS director
• Heading Into the 2025 VA Elections, Is It True That “Virginia Democrats have the issues and the money, Virginia Republicans have [a media (mis)information] ecosystem?” (Also, do “people underestimate how much harder the information environment [for Democrats] is today when compared to 2017?”)
• VA House Democrats Kick Off “Standing Up for Virginia” Tour with Petersburg Town Hall (VA Speaker Don Scott: “There are folks right now who do not know what it means to stand up to a tyrant. They are licking the boots of someone who is not worthy of having his boots licked.”)
• Virginia House Democrats Make Earliest Ever $1 Million+ Investment Across All 18 Battleground Districts (“With less than 70 days to go, Virginians deserve to know their leaders are in the fight for them.” – Speaker Don Scott)
• Labor Days past: When politics leapt from summer doldrums to its fall stretch run (“Local reporters’ past dispatches from Labor Day venues weren’t breaking news, but without them, Virginians will learn a little less about candidates, writes columnist Bob Lewis.”)
• Survey shows Earle-Sears’ opposition to LGBTQ+ workplace protections, adoptions, marriages (“Survey from her 2004 congressional run shows opposition to several rights for non-heterosexual people”)
• Commentary: When Earle-Sears chose a deadly prop for a costume
• Video: VA Senate Democrats Reject Governor Youngkin’s University Appointments, Defend Virginia’s Higher Education (“The Trump administration’s meddling in Virginia’s higher education system is political interference at its worst” – Senate P&E Chair Aaron Rouse)
• Senate Democrats block 14 more university appointments, ask Youngkin to cease making more
• Virginia Senate panel rejects 14 more Youngkin appointees to university boards
• Senate Democrats vote down more Youngkin college board appointees
• RPV wants accountability with coordinated campaign
• Pope & Schapiro: A new chief justice, new ads, and a new U. S. Attorney
• Virginia Natural Gas proposes rate hike, consumer advocates fear big impact on low-income homes (Natural gas is dirty and expensive.)
• Virginia has grown an organizational unicorn to track political money. Here’s the story behind it.
• Violence at home in Haiti and the promise of a good job brought them to Danville. They don’t know where they’ll go now.
• Eco-tourism project, affordable veterinary clinic among Southwest Virginia projects receiving abandoned mine land grants (“The federal AMLER grants, which total $6.12 million, are intended to transform former coal mining land into sites for economic development.”)
• Fairfax County leaders talk about goal to create 10,000 affordable housing units
• Botetourt County Public Schools reinstated random student drug testing
• CWG Live updates: Mainly sunny and comfortable for the next week