Today’s edition of quick hits:
* Dakota Access pipeline: “A federal judge has ordered the Dakota Access pipeline to shut down pending further environmental review, a victory for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. In his order on Monday, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg wrote that the closure must take place in the next 30 days.”
* SCOTUS: “The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to strike down a federal law banning automated calls to the nation’s cellphone users. By a vote of 6-3, the court rejected a challenge to a federal law passed in 1991, the Telephone Consumer Protect Act, intended to stop the nuisance of computer-dialed cellphone numbers. In 2015, Congress added an exception to the law, allowing robocalls made to collect debts owed to the federal government.”
* He’s getting worse: “President Donald Trump on Monday took aim at NASCAR’s Darrell ‘Bubba’ Wallace, a prominent Black driver, falsely claiming on Twitter that the sport’s recent anti-racist stance had lowered its television ratings.”
* Should be interesting: “A book by Mary Trump, President Donald Trump’s niece, will be released two weeks early, publisher Simon & Schuster announced Monday.”
* Trump probably won’t care for this: “Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has turned down a White House invitation to celebrate the new regional free trade agreement in Washington with U.S President Donald Trump and Mexican President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador. Trump and Lopez Obrador are due to meet Wednesday Washington, but Trudeau spokesperson Chantal Gagnon said Monday that while Canada wishes the U.S. and Mexico well, Trudeau won’t be there.”
* Why was a lawsuit necessary? “Early numbers had shown that Black and Latino people were being harmed by the virus at higher rates. But the new federal data — made available after The New York Times sued the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — reveals a clearer and more complete picture.”
* From late last week: “Iranian authorities said they were investigating a blast Thursday at the country’s main nuclear facility that caused damage to a building identified by experts as an advanced centrifuge assembly plant.” * Bayonets: “The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has confirmed a report by The Associated Press that some of the service members who were mobilized to Washington, D.C., last month in response to civil unrest over the killing of George Floyd were issued bayonets. Defense documents obtained by the AP show some were not trained in riot response.” * Quite a report: “Clint Lorance had been in charge of his platoon for only three days when he ordered his men to kill three Afghans stopped on a dirt road. A second-degree murder conviction and pardon followed. Today, Lorance is hailed as a hero by President Trump. His troops have suffered a very different fate.” 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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