Wednesday News: “U.S. Oil Companies Lag Far Behind Greener Europe Rivals”; “Joe Manchin holds the fate of [gun legislation] in his hands”; “What The Virginia Governor’s Race Says About Where The Two Parties Are Headed”; “Northam to Virginians: Vaccinations For All Coming Soon”

by Lowell

Here are a few national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Wednesday, March 24.

…and now here we are again. Joe Manchin holds the fate of this in his hands. And he promised this was an issue that moved him, in tears, as a parent, as a grandparent. He promised that he could get it done. He could get it done actually now. If he wanted to. pic.twitter.com/mmEm65Akf6

— Maddow Blog (@MaddowBlog) March 24, 2021

• We Must Start Planning For a Permanent Pandemic (“With coronavirus mutations pitted against vaccinations in a global arms race, we may never go back to normal.”)
• Merkel Calls Emergency Meeting as Pandemic Tension Intensifies
• U.S. Oil Companies Lag Far Behind Greener Europe Rivals (Disgraceful.)
• Suez Canal Snarled by Giant Ship Choking Key Trade Route
• One simple reason U.S.-China relations are bad: Beijing’s hostage-taking
• Banishing Coal for Power Holds Key to India’s Net-Zero Goal
• Experts Urge World Leaders to ‘Put Marine Ecosystems at the Heart of Climate Policy’
• Myanmar protesters join ‘silent strike’ after soldiers kill 7-year-old girl in her father’s arms
• Big banks’ trillion-dollar finance for fossil fuels ‘shocking’, says report (That needs to go to ZERO, immediately!)
• Deeply Polarized Israel Fails to Anoint a Leader Once Again (“No clear winner emerged from Israel’s fourth election in two years.”)
• ‘Netanyahu Is Playing With Fire With the Democrats’ (“As Israel goes to the polls, the country’s opposition leader sets out the risks Benjamin Netanyahu’s reelection would pose to ties with the U.S.”)
• Israel Election Live: With Nearly 90 Percent of Vote Counted, Netanyahu Lacks Clear Path to Majority
• Capitalism and greed gave Britain its vaccine success, PM Johnson says (Wuuuut? Is Ayn Rand the Prime Minister of Britain? LOL)
• Coronavirus: ‘Double mutant’ Covid variant found in India
• Over 30 million people ‘one step away from starvation’, UN warns
• Biden Uses Trump’s ‘America First’ Vaccine Plan to Corner Market
• Brazil Is Looking Like The Worst Place On Earth For COVID-19 (Brazil, not coincidentally, has one of the worst “leaders” – in air quotes – in the world.)
• The Global Auto Plants Now Idle as Chip Supplies Dry Up
• World’s biggest coal company bets on solar power
• North Korea missiles: Biden says launch ‘not provocation’
• The Future Of The Pandemic In The U.S.: Experts Look Ahead
• Biden’s Recovery Plan Bets Big on Clean Energy (“The president’s plan, worth up to $4 trillion, represents a fundamental shift in the way Democrats talk about tackling climate change: It’s no longer a side issue.”)
• Biden sees himself as a two-term president
• So After All That There Is No Border Surge? (“This is what the political media gets for swallowing Republican narratives.” Much of the media just completely sucks at their job.)
• How Too Much Media Attention Could Hurt The Democrats’ New Infrastructure Bill (Especially given how badly the national political media sucks.)
• Biden allies eye two-step strategy on infrastructure
• Joe Biden touts $1.9tn Covid rescue package on anniversary of Affordable Care Act
• We should be concerned about voting security, just not in the way Republicans suggest (“Security also means making sure every legal vote counts.”)
• Blue-state Republicans slump without Trump as foil (“Some of the nation’s most popular governors have been knocked off their pedestals.”)
• Republicans want to make voting hard and gun ownership easy
• Gun-Nut Representative Fundraised Hours After Shooting
• Republicans seem determined to lose safe Senate seats (“A Roy Moore redux?”)
• Every Democrat who fears filibuster reform should read these two new works
• Here’s Why the Filibuster Is a Jim Crow Relic (And yet again, Mitch McConnell is completely full of crap.)
• Dems plan to squeeze GOP over filibuster (“Democrats say the strategy is two-fold: It will make Republicans go on the record in opposition and could demonstrate to Democrats wary of reforming the legislative filibuster that much of their agenda will be stuck in limbo without reforms.”)
• 83 Republicans who now oppose overturning elections after they tried and failed (These people are utterly amoral and shameless.)
• Senate Democrats need GOP help to pass sweeping gun reform
• Supreme Court to discuss case that could expand Second Amendment rights (This country is such an outlier in the world when it comes to guns.)
• Is this time different? The latest GOP lunacy on guns demands a tougher response. (“Not even measures supported by 90 percent of Americans can get a hearing.”)
• These killings can happen because the U.S. celebrates the sale of weapons made for war
• Six Leading Rationalizations for Doing Nothing About Gun Violence (“Excuses and evasions follow every mass shooting”)
• Biden Calls on Senate to Immediately Pass Gun Reform Laws in Wake of Mass Shootings
• Two mass shootings just days apart. Experts call it a return to normal.
• Two mass shootings within a week: America’s gruesome “bingo card” total keeps growing (“As usual, a wave of grief and horror will lead to nothing, because a minority of Americans likes it this way” A VERY small minority.)
• Boulder shootings: suspect allegedly bought assault rifle after ban on sale was blocked (“Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa purchased a weapon shortly after a judge lifted a previous ban on their sale in the Colorado city, according to court documents”)
• “Only a Matter of Time”: Weary Coloradans Mourn Another Mass Shooting in Their State
• Colorado Suspect Purchased Assault Weapon 6 Days Before Shooting (“Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa bought the weapon on March 16, just six days before the attack at a King Soopers store in Boulder.”)
• Boulder shooting: suspect and 10 victims named by police
• The terrifying hour as employees and shoppers hid when a gunman went on a shooting spree at a Colorado grocery store
• Media coverage of the Atlanta shooting flouted best practices on race, motive (“After the shooting, some outlets immediately parroted police talking points without context or critique, extensively profiled the alleged shooter, and pushed negative tropes about sex workers” So, so bad.)
• What Joe Biden’s next victory looks like (“As long as Democrats don’t forget that it’s fine if Republicans oppose them, they’ll find their way to victory.”)
• Duckworth Steps Back From Ultimatum to Vote Against Biden Cabinet Nominees
• Georgia Prosecutors Eye ‘False Statement’ Charges for Rudy Giuliani and Team Trump (“Charging the ex-president’s lawyer with lying to officials would be unusual. But so were Rudy Giuliani’s antics after the election”)
• Vaccine misinformation still runs wild on Instagram (Make social media companies liable for this crap.)
• D.C. statehood may no longer be a pipe dream (“It is about race.”)
• First they answered Trump’s call to open their wallets. Then they stormed the Capitol.
• Zuckerberg faces Capitol attack grilling as Biden signals tougher line on big tech (Zuck sucks.)
• Sen. Mark Warner Says His Section 230 Bill Is Crafted With Help of Tech Companies (“Some say the bill doesn’t go far enough; some say it goes too far, but I’m sure we got at the right point.” I’d say it doesn’t go nearly far enough.)
• Sen. Mark Warner Calls For “full USPS Board to review DeJoy’s new 10-year plan for the Postal Service”
• Northam orders state agencies, colleges and universities to stop using single-use plastics
• Governor Northam Commits to Phasing Out Single-Use Plastics at State Agencies
• Tuesday (3/23) Virginia Data on COVID-19 Finds +1,267 Confirmed/Probable Cases (to 607,234), +128 Hospitalizations (to 25,948), +10 Deaths (to 10,137)
• Video: Gov. Northam’s 2 pm Press Conference on COVID-19, Vaccinations, etc.
• Gov. Northam Announces Limited Capacity Increases for Indoor and Outdoor Gatherings, Some Entertainment Venues as Vaccinations Rise (“Approximately one in four Virginians vaccinated with at least one dose”)
• Northam to Virginians: Vaccinations For All Coming Soon
• Northam announces rollback of some COVID-19 restrictions as experts warn against a ‘predictable’ spring surge
• Descano and Perryman: Progress made, unfinished business on criminal justice reform
• Virginia must preserve places of African American valor (By Delegates Alfonso Lopez and Lamont Bagby)
• Virginia is about to abolish the death penalty. It was a long, surprising road to get there. (“Gov. Ralph Northam plans to sign a bill that caught even longtime advocates off guard.”)
• What The Virginia Governor’s Race Says About Where The Two Parties Are Headed
• Virginia sets an example on voting rights
• Update on the parole board whistleblower and a Democratic House candidate endorsed a Republican in 2020 (“Democratic House of Delegates candidate Kim Melnyk was listed as an endorser for Republican Ben Loyola in the VA-02 congressional primary last year.” It’s VERY difficult, if not impossible, to explain how someone who says they’re a Democrat would endorse a right winger like Ben Loyola in 2020.)
• Video: VA GOP Gubernatorial Candidate Pete Snyder Vows to “beat up the Democrats, make them black and blue” (Snyder also falsely claims that “Democrats only see race and color”)
• Video: Sen. Jennifer McClellan Talks About “the same tired dog whistles that we have heard time and time again throughout the South” (“Virginians are tired of it.”)
• In Virginia, Health Care is On the Ballot (“Virginia Republicans have opposed the ACA at every turn and are committed to rolling back years of hard fought progress.”)
• Special Election in Virginia’s Deep-Red SD38 Today; The Choice Couldn’t Be Any Clearer
• Travis Hackworth wins special election for Southwest Virginia state Senate seat (Unless he changes a lot from his hard-right, loony-tunes campaign, this guy’s going to be a completely ineffective State Senator.)
• Travis Hackworth wins special election for Southwest Virginia state Senate seat
• Video, Photos: Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office Working to Remove Yellow Finch Tree Sitters, Who Have Been Fighting to Block the Environmentally Destructive Mountain Valley Pipeline for 931 Days
• 1 tree-sitter removed from Mountain Valley Protest protest site
• Editorial: How Roanoke County can save money on school construction. Go solar.
• Newport News to start school year after Labor Day
• Next stage of vaccine rollout, Phase 1c, will come mid-April for much of Hampton Roads
• Henrico County officials call for more weekly COVID-19 vaccines, to match new large scale clinics
• Farrell plans to retire as Henrico-based Altria Group’s board chairman this year (Formerly known as Phillip-Morris, the evil tobacco company.)
• Virginians and elected officials call for an end to Asian hate in solidarity with Georgia shooting victims
• Two Richmond City Council members pledge to push for more affordable housing funding in city budget
• Fairfax adopts zoning changes that make it easier to rent converted basements
• Listen: How The Arlington Free Clinic Is Vaccinating Uninsured Residents
• Loudoun County Parents Claim They Are Targeted Online for Their Views
• D.C.-area forecast: Periods of rain and cooler today, then warming up with highs approaching 80 on Friday