Today’s edition of quick hits.
* The Oak Fire: “A rapidly expanding wildfire near Yosemite National Park, California’s largest of the season, at 17,000 acres, prompted thousands of evacuations Monday and sent smoke to the San Francisco Bay Area and Sacramento.”
* One of the longer Jan. 6 sentences: “A Donald Trump supporter who assaulted police officers at the Capitol on Jan. 6 because he believed the former president’s lies about the 2020 presidential election was sentenced to more than five years in prison on Tuesday. Mark Ponder, one of just four D.C. residents arrested for their actions on Jan. 6, was given 63 months in federal prison by Judge Tanya Chutkan.”
* Today’s least surprising news: “Sen. Rand Paul is pushing to amend the Senate’s treaty approving Finland’s and Sweden’s accession to NATO, delaying the measure despite his own party leader’s desire to pass it swiftly.”
* A relevant detail about inflation: “Inflation has dominated the news about America’s economy in recent months as prices for food, gas and other goods have increased faster than they have in four decades. But inflation is a global phenomenon right now — and the U.S. has actually fared better than other countries in recent months.”
* Indiana’s special session: “The messiness of American politics post-Roe v. Wade erupted at the Indiana Statehouse on Monday as thousands of abortion rights protesters swarmed into the building and chanted outside the senate’s doors.
* Further isolation: “Russia said Tuesday it will withdraw from the International Space Station after 2024, signaling the end of a joint project that has served as a key symbol of post-Cold War cooperation with Washington.”
* Harm reduction works, and I’m glad Dr. Rahul Gupta, President Biden’s drug czar, knows it: “Support for supervised consumption from the Biden administration would be a major turning point in how the government addresses an epidemic of addiction and overdoses that has endured for decades and now claims more than 100,000 lives a year. Instead of discouraging drug use, such sites aim to keep users from dying, with trained personnel providing syringes and other sterile equipment for using drugs and working to reverse overdoses on the spot.” * Donald Trump claimed in print that “Fox & Friends” has gone to the “dark side,” and he didn’t appear to be kidding: “Former President Trump tore into Fox News’s flagship morning program on Monday, lashing out at its hosts for their coverage of his polling as he eyes another run for president in 2024.” * Awkward: “A Republican lawmaker attended his gay son’s wedding just three days after joining the majority of his GOP colleagues in voting against a House bill that would codify federal protections for same-sex marriage.” 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."
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