Today’s edition of quick hits.
* The looming rail strike: “President Joe Biden stepped up calls for Congress to avert a looming rail strike in a meeting at the White House Tuesday with top lawmakers, warning that the economy was at risk if they failed to act in the coming days.”
* Also at the White House today: “Congressional leaders signaled that talks on reaching a long-term agreement to fund the government remained difficult ahead of a mid-December deadline, following a meeting with President Biden at the White House. Top Democrats said they are seeking a full-year deal, dubbed an omnibus, that would allow lawmakers to boost spending and allocate money to new priorities. But they acknowledged they might have to settle for a continuing resolution that would extend funding at current levels, without giving Congress the flexibility to deploy money to areas of new importance.”
* Mark Meadows’ latest defeat: “South Carolina’s Supreme Court has ordered former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to testify to an Atlanta-area grand jury investigating Donald Trump’s effort to overturn the election in Georgia. ‘We have reviewed the arguments raised by Appellant and find them to be manifestly without merit,’ South Carolina’s Supreme Court justices wrote.”
* SCOTUS: “The Supreme Court on Tuesday wrestled with a politically tinged dispute over a Biden administration policy that would prioritize deportation of people in the country illegally who pose the greatest public safety risk.”
* All is not well at Twitter, Part I: “Twitter said it will no longer enforce its longstanding Covid misinformation policy, yet another sign of how Elon Musk plans to transform the social media company he bought a month ago. In 2020, Twitter developed an extensive set of rules that sought to prohibit “harmful misinformation” about the virus and its vaccines.”
* All is not well at Twitter, Part II: “Elon Musk has dramatically reduced the size of the Twitter Inc. team devoted to tackling child sexual exploitation on the platform, cutting the global team of experts in half and leaving behind an overwhelmed skeleton crew, people familiar with the matter said.
* Diplomacy matters: “French President Emmanuel Macron is headed to Washington for the first state visit of Joe Biden’s presidency — a revival of diplomatic pageantry that had been put on hold because of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
See you tomorrow.