Today’s edition of quick hits:
* Set your calendars: “A federal appeals court on Thursday granted a request from former President Donald Trump to temporarily block the National Archives from turning over his White House records to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol…. A three-judge panel granted Trump ‘an administrative injunction’ late Thursday, and set arguments for the case on Nov. 30.”
* An important warning: “Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said on Wednesday that Russia’s intentions behind its latest military buildup along Ukraine’s eastern border were unclear, but that Moscow would be making a ‘serious mistake’ by committing new aggression against its embattled neighbor.”
* The latest from Beijing: “Chinese President Xi Jinping wants to dominate his country’s future. To do that, he’s putting a whole new spin on its past. The ruling Communist Party adopted a landmark resolution Thursday that both rewrote its own history according to Xi, and elevated the president to a level only rivaled by iconic past leaders Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping.”
* Veterans Day: “President Joe Biden on Thursday participated in a ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, marking the first Veterans Day in 20 years that the U.S. has not been at war. Speaking to a crowd of over 600 people at the Memorial Amphitheater, Biden said that veterans have ‘endured challenges most Americans will never know’ and vowed to work with Congress to make sure veterans receive the ‘world-class benefits that they have earned.’”
* FAA: “Ten passengers have been hit with fines totaling $225,287 due to alleged unruly behavior on flights, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.”
* Texas: “A federal judge in Texas ruled Wednesday that Gov. Greg Abbott’s executive order banning mask mandates in schools violates the Americans with Disabilities Act, setting the stage for school districts in the state to decide whether they want to impose mask rules.”
* Flint: “A judge on Wednesday approved a $626 million deal to settle lawsuits filed by Flint residents who found their tap water contaminated by lead following disastrous decisions to switch the city’s water source and a failure to swiftly acknowledge the problem.”
* The Ahmaud Arbery case: “One of the three white men standing trial for the death of Ahmaud Arbery said they had the 25-year-old Black man ‘trapped like a rat’ before he was fatally shot, a police investigator testified Wednesday.” * A story we’ve been following: “The brother-in-law of Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) has been ordered to testify in an insider trading probe that is investigating stock sales he and the senator made before the stock market plummeted as COVID-19 was starting to spread in the U.S.” * A judicial story worth watching: “Democratic lawmakers on the U.S. House of Representatives’ Judiciary Committee urged the federal judiciary on Wednesday to investigate the conduct of two Republican-appointed federal judges who have hired a law clerk with a ‘history of nakedly racist and hateful conduct.’ Seven lawmakers including U.S. Representatives Jerrold Nadler of New York, the committee’s chairman, and Hank Johnson of Georgia, who heads its courts, intellectual property and internet subcommittee, in a letter called the clerk’s past conduct ‘alarming.’” 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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