Friday News: Trump’s Completely Unhinged Wilkes-Barre Rally; “A Reckless Scheme on Auto Emissions”; “Corey Stewart and his race-baiting friends”

by Lowell

Here are a few national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Friday, August 3.

• Pompeo says North Korea weapons work counter to denuclearization pledge
• Trump and Erdogan square up for a fight
• Emmerson Mnangagwa of Zimbabwe’s ruling party declared winner of first post-Mugabe elections
• During unhinged speech, Trump suggests he may still lock up Hillary and mimics MS-13 stabbings (“The president smeared immigrants as murders and called journalists ‘horrible, horrendous people.'”)
• Trump takes us-versus-them media war to new heights (Try “lows.”)
• Trump rallies in Pennsylvania as his fortunes there sag
• Trump’s Fuel-Efficiency Rollback Breaks With 50 Years of Precedent (“The proposal would undermine California’s ability to regulate toxic air pollution.”)
• Trump Bashes ‘Fake News’: ‘They Can Make Anything Bad’ (Absolutely appalling.)
• Trump’s Biggest Climate Move Yet Is Bad for Everyone
• A Reckless Scheme on Auto Emissions (“The administration’s plan to roll back auto mileage standards is based on bad science, bad math and bad faith.”)
• Krugman: Stop Calling Trump a Populist (“You can describe what Trump is doing without using words that give him credit where it isn’t due. He’s scamming his supporters; you don’t have to help him do it.” I’d argue that Trump is a “populist” in the absolute worst senses of the word. Check out What Is Populism?, which explains how populism “is not just antiliberal, it is antidemocratic—the permanent shadow of representative politics…at populism’s core is a rejection of pluralism… if populists have enough power, they will end up creating an authoritarian state that excludes all those not considered part of the proper ‘people.'”)
• Russia reaction shows gap between Trump and his top administration officials
• Crossing Jordan (“Rep. Jim Jordan is trying to silence the former students who have accused him of knowing about sexual abuse.”)
• ‘Completely unhinged and getting worse’: MSNBC’s Mika says Trump’s latest rally shows his ‘mental decline’
• A list of the right-wing amplifiers of the QAnon conspiracy theory (Hey look, Corey Stewart’s pal Paul Nehlen is on the list!)
• It’s True: Trump Is Lying More, and He’s Doing It on Purpose.
• First Large US Offshore Wind Project Sets Record-Low Price Starting at $74 per MWh (And meanwhile in Virginia, Dominion is holding us back for absolutely no good reason.)
• Worker Charged With Sexually Molesting Eight Children at Immigrant Shelter (“A youth care worker for Southwest Key has been charged with 11 sex offenses after authorities accused him of molesting at least eight unaccompanied immigrant boys over nearly a year at one of the company’s shelters in Mesa, Arizona, federal court records show.”)
• Manafort’s bookkeeper testifies against him, alleging efforts to inflate income
• Trump begins his biggest assault yet on the environment (“Rolling back emission standards would be a threat to public health.”)
• The world is burning, and the Trump administration wants to make it worse (“The timing of the administration’s proposal to roll back fuel standards is downright villainous.”)
• We’ve finally learned Trump’s grand plan for fixing health care (“‘Short-term’ insurance doesn’t actually have to insure anything.” Junk insurance, junk “president.”)
• To the GOP’s base, Trump can do no wrong (“The president’s core supporters will never abandon him — not over Russia, not over family separations, and certainly not over his attacks on the media.”)
• Trump trashes media as ‘fake, fake disgusting news’ at rall (So says the fake, fake disgusting “president.”)
• Hours after White House warns of new election meddling, Trump again points to ‘Russian hoax’
• Donald Trump Jr. co-hosts Dinesh D’Souza’s very conservative D.C. film premiere (Not sure which one of these guys is more evil…I guess Trump Jr., but tough call.)
• Donald Trump Jr. Says Democrats Are More Like Nazis Than Republicans Are (Alrighty then.)
• Top Trump Donor Paid Michael Cohen to Score Him a $5 Billion Federal Loan
• In Latest Concession to Conservative Trolls, New York Times Blames Bigotry on Many Sides (The NY Times has really lost its way. Very unfortunate.)
• Did the National Archives throw a wrench into McConnell’s confirmation plan for Brett Kavanaugh? (“On Thursday, Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA), received a letter from National Archives’ general counsel Gary Stern explaining that the organization would not be able to meet an Aug. 15 deadline to provide all documents pertaining to Kavanaugh’s service as a White House lawyer under former President George W. Bush. According to Stern’s letter, it simply would not be realistic for the Archives to compile and submit all of the necessary documentation in such an abbreviated period of time.”)
• The Only Thing Trump Knows Is That He Hates Obama (“When in doubt, roll back the Obama policy—consequences be damned.”)
• Once a favorite, Rep. Diane Black loses the Tennessee governor’s primary race
• Exclusive: Bannon blasts ‘con artist’ Kochs, ‘lame duck’ Ryan, ‘diminished’ Kelly
• The Gender Gap Among Midterm Voters Looks Huge — Maybe Even Record-Breaking
• Sanders, Acosta in intense clash over Trump, press
• Kaine Stands Opposed to 3-D Printed Guns
• A Virginia City Is Being Partially Evacuated as Heavy Rains Could Cause Dam Failure (“A failure of the College Lake Dam near Lynchburg could flood the city with 17 feet (5 meters) of water in seven minutes, news outlets reported Thursday evening, citing statements from the National Weather Service.”)
• Bob Goodlatte column: Current Judiciary investigation isn’t about politics (Hahahahahahaha, “good” one BADlatte!)
• In Buckingham’s Union Hill, a center of resistance for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, Dominion brings in a ringer (F’ing Dominion.)
• Corey Stewart and his race-baiting friends (Corey “is mortified — simply aghast — that anyone could imagine he shares the racist, white-supremacist views of a lengthy and growing list of his political allies, backers and advisers…Mr. Stewart hasn’t repudiated those views or Mr. Shaftan, who remains an adviser to his campaign for the Senate. Instead, he falls back on the usual defense deployed by race-card-playing politicians, insisting he doesn’t have a racist bone in his body. “)
• SCC trims Dominion transmission rate to give federal tax savings to customers
• Kaine urges GE to reconsider closing Salem plant, save more than 200 jobs
• A Democrat announces campaign to erase the last spot of red from Northern Virginia (That’s not the “last spot of red” in Northern Virginia; there are a bunch of them, including on the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, the Prince William County Board of Supervisors, also in the State Senate with Dick Black, etc.)
• Contractors plan to bore new tunnel under harbor in HRBT expansion
• Mistrial declared after jury deadlocks in Shaun Brown federal fraud trial (“What does the jury do when one juror does not accept evidence as fact?…He set a new trial — with a new jury — to begin on Oct. 9 and run for seven days.”)
• Fairfax Co. reports 1st human case of West Nile virus amid ‘surge’ in infected mosquitoes
• Fairfax officials launch investigation into racist posts about county’s first black fire chief
• Virginia asks Supreme Court for delay in resentencing Beltway sniper Lee Boyd Malvo
• Fairfax County adopts rules taxing Airbnb-style rentals
• Downpours and storms once more. Change begins tomorrow. We can make it!