Today’s edition of quick hits:
* He’s right: “President-elect Joe Biden on Tuesday tore into President Donald Trump’s recent reaction to a hacking campaign that has torn through U.S. government agencies and businesses and that experts believe is the work of Russian intelligence.”
* 2020: “This is the deadliest year in U.S. history, with deaths expected to top 3 million for the first time — due mainly to the coronavirus pandemic. Final mortality data for this year will not be available for months. But preliminary numbers suggest that the United States is on track to see more than 3.2 million deaths this year, or at least 400,000 more than in 2019.”
* On this, Thune’s right: “Sen. John Thune (S.D.), the No. 2 Senate Republican, warned on Monday that efforts to challenge the Electoral College vote in Congress next month would fall short in the Senate.”
* Also on the Hill: ‘Congress has passed a requirement for carbon monoxide alarms in federally subsidized housing — the first time that the federal government would mandate these safety devices in public housing, following years of incidents in which the poisonous gas seeped into residents’ homes and left them hospitalized or dead.”
* Pentagon: “It’s like a low murmur just below the surface. ‘We don’t know what he might do,’ says one officer in the Pentagon. ‘We are in strange times,’ says another officer. Some senior military officers are trying to steer clear of the White House for the next month, rather than be in the President Donald Trump’s orbit.”
* Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) lost on this one: “Congress approved legislation Monday to start the process of creating a national Latino museum as part of a $900 billion must-pass Covid-19 relief spending bill that President Donald Trump is likely to sign.”
* Really? “Facebook Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google agreed to ‘cooperate and assist one another’ if they ever faced an investigation into their pact to work together in online advertising, according to an unredacted version of a lawsuit filed by 10 states against Google last week.” * Rebekah Jones’ court case is worth watching: “The Florida data scientist who says state officials fired her for refusing to change coronavirus numbers sued authorities Monday, alleging that a police raid on her home earlier this month was an illegal act of retaliation.” * Make plans next week accordingly: “Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) announced early Tuesday morning that the Senate will return to Washington on Dec. 29 to respond to a potential veto from President Trump of a mammoth defense bill.” 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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