Today’s edition of quick hits.
* Trump’s pardon won’t cover this: “Enrique Tarrio, the former Proud Boys leader granted clemency by President Donald Trump last month, was arrested outside the U.S. Capitol Friday and charged with allegedly assaulting a female protester. Tarrio was handcuffed, searched, and put in a police van by U.S. Capitol Police after he appeared on Capitol Hill with several other members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers for a ‘press conference.’ The police said he was charged with assault.”
* I shudder to think what Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will say about the measles outbreak: “In a rapidly growing measles outbreak in northwest Texas, 90 cases have been confirmed as of Friday, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services. The outbreak, which began in late January, has ballooned this week, with 32 new cases reported since Tuesday. Sixteen patients have been hospitalized. The virus is spreading primarily among people who are unvaccinated or whose vaccine status is unknown, the health department said.”
* A case worth watching: “The Trump administration has not fully complied with a court order pausing the freezing of foreign assistance grants and contracts, a federal judge ruled Thursday. U.S. District Judge Amir Ali last week ordered the administration to allow the disbursement of U.S. foreign assistance after hearing claims from federal contractors challenging an executive order signed by President Donald Trump pausing nearly all foreign assistance.”
* On Capitol Hill: “The Republican-controlled Senate on Friday morning adopted a $340 billion budget blueprint designed to boost funding for President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement efforts, energy production and the military. The mostly partly-line vote came just before 5 a.m. ET following an all-night ‘vote-a-rama,’ in which senators cast votes on 33 amendments over the course of a 10-hour span. The final vote was 52-48, with Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., as the lone Republican to join all 47 Democrats in voting against the budget resolution.”
* I wish reports like these were less common: “A small government team regulating the sort of autonomous cars that Elon Musk says represent the future of Tesla, his car company, is getting cut nearly in half by the Musk-led U.S. Doge Service, according to people briefed on the reductions.”
* In related news: “The U.S. Justice Department said Thursday that it would dismiss a case against Elon Musk’s SpaceX, in which the rocket company had been accused of discriminating against people based on their citizenship status.”
* The latest in a series of setbacks: “The first nationwide database tracking misconduct by federal police officers has been shut down by President Donald Trump, the Justice Department confirmed, deleting a resource that experts said improved public safety by helping to prevent bad officers from jumping to new agencies and starting over with clean records.” * At the DOJ: “Attorney General Pam Bondi removed the general counsel for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives on Thursday morning, terminating her employment with the Justice Department. Pamela Hicks, a 23-year veteran of the department, confirmed she was fired on LinkedIn. She did not say whether she was given a reason for the removal, but she is one of several general counsels from Justice Department component agencies to be fired or resign in the first month of the Trump administration.” * A stunning report out of Alabama: “The mayor of a city in Alabama has placed its entire police department on administrative leave, a day after officials announced that a grand jury had recommended the small department be abolished, saying it had ‘operated as more of a criminal enterprise than a law enforcement agency’ and is ‘an ongoing threat to public safety.’” 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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