Today’s edition of quick hits:
* Quite a sight: “Thousands of protesters gathered Friday at the Lincoln Memorial to call for overall criminal justice restructuring and racial equality while honoring the 57th anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s ‘I Have a Dream’ address from the same location.”
* Hurricane Laura: “The most intense hurricane to hit Louisiana in more than a century has left at least six people dead, hundreds of thousands of people without power and an untold number of homes and buildings in ruins.”
* Kenosha: “The two Kenosha, Wisconsin, police officers involved in the shooting of Jacob Blake during an attempted arrest were identified Friday by the state’s Department of Justice.”
* FDA: “Two senior public relations experts advising the Food and Drug Administration have been fired from their positions after President Trump and the head of the F.D.A. exaggerated the proven benefits of a blood plasma treatment for Covid-19.”
* USPS problems persist: “One week after Postmaster General Louis DeJoy announced he was temporarily suspending changes to the United States Postal Service, NBC News spoke with eight postal union representatives from throughout the nation, all of whom expressed concerns and provided examples of ongoing delays in mail delivery. They said the recent removal of hundreds of postal sorting machines and rigid new operational directives for mail trucks and carriers have exacerbated the slowdown.”
* Contempt proceedings: “The chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee announced Friday that he’ll seek to have Secretary of State Mike Pompeo held in contempt for ignoring congressional demands that he turn over State Department documents.”
* The obviously right call: “A federal judge has ordered the State Department to issue a U.S. passport to the daughter of a married gay couple whom the Trump administration had argued in court was ineligible for birthright citizenship.”
* Tokyo: “Teary-eyed and taking a bow, Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, Shinzo Abe, on Friday announced he was resigning due to ill health. ‘I cannot be prime minister if I cannot make the best decisions for the people,’ Abe, 65, said during a live public broadcast to the nation.” * CDC: “The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, seeking to clarify recommendations on coronavirus testing that incited an uproar, said that ‘testing may be considered for all close contacts of confirmed or probable Covid-19 patients.’ But his clarification may have further confused the issue.” * At the actual convention: “Two attendees and two local support staff at the Republican National Convention in Charlotte tested positive for COVID-19, Mecklenburg County and GOP officials announced Friday.” * This was weird: “Donald Trump’s middle son, Eric, hung out awkwardly Thursday during the president’s meeting with officials of the Federal Emergency Management Agency — and no one revealed what he was doing there.” Have a safe weekend.
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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