Today’s edition of quick hits:
* Chicago: “The white Chicago police officer who shot a black teenager 16 times in 2014 was convicted of murder Friday in a case that ignited protests throughout the city. A jury took barely 24 hours to find Jason Van Dyke guilty of second-degree murder for the fatal October 2014 shooting of Laquan McDonald, 17.”
* I’ll follow up on this next week: “President Trump on Friday replaced his federal personnel director, who had been in office only a matter of months, and assigned that role to a senior official of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget.”
* I can only hope Trump doesn’t complain about not receiving the award: “In the midst of a global reckoning over sexual violence, a woman who was forced into sexual slavery by the Islamic State and a Congolese gynecological surgeon were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for their campaigns to end the use of mass rape as a weapon of war.”
* Typical: “Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina has been one of the biggest proponents of President Trump’s crackdown on China…. But behind the scenes, Mr. Graham has been working to help chemical and textile companies in his home state avoid the pain of Mr. Trump’s trade war.”
* The scheduled pay raise the White House opposes: “Congressional Republicans have tentatively agreed to a 1.9 percent pay raise for the nation’s 2 million civilian federal workers, overruling President Trump who sought to freeze their pay.” * A story we’ve been watching: “The Supreme Court is passing up, for now, the Trump administration’s request to block Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross from having to give testimony in lawsuits challenging the addition of a question on citizenship to the 2020 U.S. Census.” * And for the record, that video you’ve probably seen of Donald Trump boarding Air Force One with some kind of paper stuck to his shoe is, in fact, real. Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.
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." Recommended
