Today’s edition of quick hits.
* In D.C.: “A federal judge on Thursday ordered the Trump administration to end its monthslong deployment of National Guard troops to help police the nation’s capital. U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb concluded that President Donald Trump’s military takeover in Washington, D.C., illegally intrudes on local officials’ authority to direct law enforcement in the district. She put her order on hold for 21 days to allow for an appeal, however.”
* Unsettling news out of Iran: “Iran said Thursday that it was withdrawing from an agreement to allow a resumption of international inspections of its nuclear sites. The decision came hours after a U.N. watchdog agency demanded information about the status of Iran’s enriched uranium stock and its nuclear sites that Israel bombed in June.”
* The lawsuit in response to this policy is going to be a doozy: “The Trump administration unveiled plans Thursday to open the coast of California to offshore drilling, a major provocation against a state that has for decades fought to protect its coastal waters.”
* I wonder what the governor is hiding?: “Months after fighting to keep secret the emails exchanged between Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s office and tech billionaire Elon Musk’s companies, state officials released nearly 1,400 pages to The Texas Newsroom. The records, however, reveal little about the two men’s relationship or Musk’s influence over state government. In fact, all but about 200 of the pages are entirely blacked out.”
* This one warrants some additional scrutiny: “The U.S. Border Patrol is monitoring millions of American drivers nationwide in a secretive program to identify and detain people whose travel patterns it deems suspicious, The Associated Press has found. The predictive intelligence program has resulted in people being stopped, searched and in some cases arrested.”
* Since the White House is desperate to destroy the CFPB, this nomination is more symbolic than significant: “The White House late Tuesday nominated a new permanent director for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a tactical move that will extend Russell T. Vought’s time as the acting director and help the Trump administration push ahead with efforts to shut down the consumer watchdog agency. The nominee, Stuart Levenbach, was not expected to actually fill the role.” * A temporary reprieve: “The Trump administration will freeze potential plans to paint the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next to the White House this year, new court filings show, granting a temporary victory to historic preservation groups who sued to block renovation of the 137-year-old building.” * A stunning report out of New Jersey: “A 26-year-old Ocean City woman who claimed she was brutally assaulted because she worked for Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-Ocean City) instead orchestrated the entire incident — paying a scarification artist to wound her and staging the scene with zip ties and ‘Trump Whore’ written on her stomach and ‘Van Drew is a racist’ on her back, federal prosecutors alleged today.” See you tomorrow.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
Latest Post
Recommended
