by Lowell
Here are a few national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Sunday, February 4.
- White House Plans To Withdraw ‘Conspiracy Theorist And Anti-Science Extremist’ Pick (“Kathleen Hartnett-White’s views on fossil fuels and pollution proved too extreme for even some Republicans.” The fact that a wacko like this was ever nominated by Trump in the first place is an absolute disgrace.)
- Fox News’ Brit Hume smacks down claim Nunes memo ‘totally vindicates’ Trump
- Paul Ryan deletes tax bill tweet after being dragged for not understanding math
- Social media users slam Ryan for tweet on $1.50 pay hike
- Baldwin returns as Trump in ‘SNL’ parody of ‘Fox and Friends’
- At FBI, anger and fear of lasting damage amid GOP attacks (Republicans are trashing the FBI. Let’s make sure that they never get away with calling themselves patriotic or the “law and order” party again!)
- The Nunes memo wasn’t meant to win over everyone — just 34 senators (“Trump’s defense doesn’t need to convince dispassionate observers, but it needs to keep him in office.”)
- At least two dead, 50 injured in South Carolina train wreck
- Memo Leaves Trump Little New Ammunition Against Mueller (“Gowdy says there’ll be a Russia probe, dossier or no dossier”)
- Democrat Says Memo ‘Deliberately Misleading,’ Trump Says It ‘Totally Vindicates’ Him
- Carter Page Touted Kremlin Contacts in 2013 Letter
- Democratic rebuttal calls Nunes memo ‘deliberately misleading’
- The U.S. government is set to borrow nearly $1 trillion this year, an 84 percent jump from last year (Republicans,
exploding the deficit and the national debt, as is their wont…) - Trump seized on what memo could mean even before reading it (Forget the memo for a second; do we really want someone whose mind works like this – sloppy, lazy, hotheaded, etc. –
as president???) - Trump’s Unparalleled War on a Pillar of Society: Law Enforcement
- The Memo Provides More Proof of Obstruction (“We are seeing more signs of the president’s corrupt intent.”)
- Trump: Nunes memo ‘totally vindicates’ me (Hahahahahaha, can’t wait ’til he’s ranting and raving in retirement…or better yet in prison, where he belongs.)
- Nunes challenger seizes on FBI memo uproar (“The California district is a long shot for Democrats, but the House Intelligence chairman is giving his adversaries hope.”)
- 11 Historical Moments That Gave Us President Trump (“1989—Fall of the Berlin Wall…1992—The defeat of H. Ross Perot…2000—The Supremes pick a president…2010—Presidential Twitter accounts…2010—Mitch McConnell chooses party over country” I’d also point to the Tea Party movement, Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Fox, Rush, etc.))
- Poland’s Holocaust Law and the Right-Wing Desire to Rewrite History
- State of the Resistance (“Trump’s opposition understand themselves not simply as defenders of particular policy positions but as stalwarts of democracy.” Exactly.)
- Uma Thurman finally speaks out on Harvey Weinstein — and Quentin Tarantino (“The actress’s revelations are damning.”)
- Football’s Long Eclipse (“In the journalism of the past decade, more and more N.F.L. players and players’ families are describing the toll of the game on their bodies, their minds, and their lives. It is a collective portrait of pain, mental illness, physical debility, and, often enough, shattered families…How do you ‘fix’ a game in which the attraction of the game resides in its violence, in the crash of huge, super athletic men, down after down, game after game, year after year?” Probably unfixable.)
- A bill for consumers, not the power companies (“Financial analysts who follow the industry say the utilities, especially Dominion, are socking away billions of dollars to pay for costs of implementing an environmental plan that’s as dead as the proverbial doornail. In a world where logic reigns supreme, a law without a purpose would be repealed and the higher bills paid by customers would be rebated. But politics isn’t a world where logic reigns supreme, especially in the Commonwealth of Virginia where Dominion Energy has been the most powerful corporate player for decades…Our suggestion? A straight-out repeal of the 2015 law.” Mine too, although I’d actually add in a bunch of stuff regarding ambitious, mandatory goals for energy efficiency, solar and offshore wind.)
- Kaine addresses women, black Democrats in Hampton visit
- Editorial: A bad mix of politics and electricity (“So much of this debate — the wrangling with lawmakers, advocacy groups and members of the public — is due to a lack of faith in the company’s behavior. The distrust is painfully evident and should be deeply troubling to Dominion.”)
- Schapiro: Feeling sorry for big power, but not too sorry(“The late ‘Howlin’’ Henry Howell, Dominion’s populist tormentor in the 1970s, is somewhere, smiling…Watching Dominion against its opponents is like watching the British redcoats take on American colonists.” And we know how THAT one ended. Heh.)
- After wave of Democratic victories, a loss of political clout for Northern Va. (Yeah, so let’s keep incumbents – no matter how bad they are – to maintain our supposed “clout,” which I don’t think we really had anyway.)
- Why are black and Hispanic students underrepresented in this Northern Virginia gifted program? (“Reducing such barriers is considered crucial to help widen access to the selective Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, where less than 4 percent of students are black or Hispanic.” That situation needs to be addressed/fixed ASAP!)
- School system’s appeals process leaves some minorities out (“…hundreds of families file appeals every year, armed with private exams costing more than $500, to persuade bureaucrats their child is deserving. This system exacerbates a problem plaguing gifted-and-talented programs across the nation: Black and Hispanic students almost never file the appeals that can secure their admission.”)
- Metro’s new parking fees and policy get pushback from suburbs
- GOP lawmaker in Virginia goes ‘ballistic’ over anti-gun violence license plate (Todd Gilbert is the ultimate right-wing bully/snowflake combo. Delightful, eh?)
- Southwest Virginia delegation tackling mental health transport issues
- Meet the conservative Virginia House Republican who has to sit on the other side of the aisle
- Pat Robertson recovering after stroke
- Three found guilty of assaulting Kessler at Aug. 13 press conference
- Icy threat this morning, turning into a soggy Super Bowl Sunday
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