Today’s edition of quick hits:
* What could possibly go wrong? “The Trump administration’s unwillingness to acknowledge that former Vice President Joe Biden is projected to have won the election has led to an unusual restriction on the flow of national security information to the president-elect.”
* Birds of a feather: “Russian President Vladimir Putin was one of the first world leaders to congratulate Donald Trump for winning the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Yet on Monday, days after Joe Biden was projected to have won the presidency, Putin remained silent…. Speaking to reporters Monday in Moscow, Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov explained the silence in diplomatic terms: Russia does not believe it would be correct to congratulate a winner before an official ruling has been made, and he noted that Trump is moving forward with legal challenges to the results.”
* Meanwhile, at the White House: “A senior administration official confirmed to NBC News that presidential personnel director John McEntee, who formerly served as the president’s personal aide, has communicated to departments that they should terminate any political appointees looking for new work while President Trump refuses to concede and disputes the results of last week’s election.”
* A worthwhile message: “Democratic House committee chairmen Tuesday sent letters to the White House and more than 50 federal agencies demanding that they preserve all records now that Joe Biden is projected as president-elect.”
* Bannon’s pushing misinformation? Imagine that: “Facebook took down a widespread network of pages tied to President Trump’s former chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon for pushing misinformation about voter fraud and delegitimizing election results. Bannon’s page also incurred penalties, including not being allowed to post content, but was not removed from Facebook.” * An interesting tweet yesterday from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.): “Voters in four more states just voted to legalize adult recreational use of marijuana. It’s past time to end the federal prohibition on marijuana and work to undo the harms done by the War on Drugs, particularly in Black and brown communities.” * I’m not sure if this is available to non-subscribers, but the Wall Street Journal did a really nice data-visualization job with this report: “The 2020 election results are just the latest indicator of how Americans have been drifting apart for decades.” 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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