Today’s edition of quick hits:
* Sacramento: “An activist at a Sacramento demonstration protesting the police killing of an unarmed black man in his grandmother’s backyard was struck and injured by a Sheriff’s Department vehicle late Saturday as law enforcement officials tried to pass through the crowd.”
* Predictable retaliation: “The trade spat between the world’s two largest economies worsened over the weekend with China hiking tariffs on a slew of U.S. goods in response to Washington slapping duties on Chinese aluminum and steel. The measures announced Sunday matched a list of potential tariffs on up to $3 billion in U.S. goods published by China on March 23.”
* Summer Zervos’ case: “President Donald Trump’s lawyers are asking a New York state appeals court to throw out or freeze a defamation lawsuit by a former contestant on ‘The Apprentice’ who has accused Trump of unwanted kissing and groping.”
* Related news about Jessica Denson: “A Los Angeles woman who worked for President Donald Trump’s campaign has filed a federal lawsuit in Manhattan to void a confidentiality agreement she signed, claiming the agreement has been ‘weaponized’ to silence her allegations of discrimination.”
* Something Trump won’t tweet about: “Stocks tanked Monday, the first trading day of the new quarter, as panicked traders dumped their investments in the tech sector amid heightened concern over privacy breaches and continued consumer backlash.”
* Chicago: “Killings and shootings continue to dip in Chicago, a city long plagued by gun violence, according to crime figures released Sunday. March marked the 13th consecutive month of declining gun violence, the Chicago Police Department said.”
* The Alton Sterling case: “A police officer who fatally shot a black man in Baton Rouge, La., nearly two years ago was fired on Friday, and a fellow officer involved in the episode was suspended for three days. The disciplinary actions were the first serious consequences for the officers after both state and federal officials declined to bring criminal charges against them.”
* Rep. Elizabeth Esty (D-Conn.) today “asked the House Ethics Committee to investigate whether she did anything wrong in her handling of the firing of her former chief of staff accused of harassment, threats and violence against female staffers in her congressional office.” * Sinclair strikes again: “In March, TV anchors at broadcast stations across the U.S. began reading from an identical script passed down to them by their owner — Sinclair Broadcast Group.” * Even for Roseanne, this was weird: “Roseanne Barr capped a remarkable week of new media relevance with a tweet that seemed to fly out of nowhere — unless you’re a close observer of far-right media. On Friday night, the star of ABC’s revived smash-hit sitcom began rounding up praise for President Trump on the very specific issue of child trafficking. ‘He has broken up trafficking rings in high places everywhere,’ Barr tweeted. ‘Notice that.’ Over the next few hours, Barr retweeted supportive tweets and links to articles about the ‘untold story’ of how the administration was breaking up ‘pedophile rings.’” 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
