Today’s edition of quick hits:
* Sounds about right: “A federal judge blasted Florida legislators and election officials during a Thursday hearing to extend the recount deadline in Palm Beach County, saying the state is ‘the laughingstock of the world election after election and we chose not to fix this.’”
* Rising death toll: “Authorities made public a list of 297 people still unaccounted for Wednesday night as they announced that the number of people who had been killed in the deadliest wildfire in California history had grown to 56.”
* A Senate version of this still needs to be drafted: “President Donald Trump pledged his support for a major overhaul of sentencing laws and prisoner re-entry programs at the White House on Wednesday.”
* A story that keeps getting worse: “Acting attorney general Matthew G. Whitaker received early warnings that customers were complaining that an invention-marketing company he advised might be a fraud, according to several people familiar with his role, but Whitaker vigorously defended the company and remained on its board until joining the Justice Department in 2017.”
* Hmm: “Six days before WikiLeaks began releasing Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s emails, Roger Stone had a text message conversation with a friend about WikiLeaks, according to copies of phone records obtained exclusively by NBC News.”
* Ricardel’s ouster: “Melania Trump got her wish when the Trump administration said Wednesday that Deputy National Security Adviser Mira Ricardel was leaving the White House a day after the first lady called for Ricardel to be fired.”
* HUD: “From his earliest days in office, HUD Secretary Ben Carson has repeatedly said he joined the Trump administration to fix the ‘rats, roaches, bed bugs, mold, lead and violence’ that he witnessed as a surgeon in low-income communities. Under the Trump administration, the number of HUD apartments cited for unsafe, unhealthy and physically deteriorating living conditions has been on the rise.” * Not normal for a presidential lawyer: “It wasn’t clear why Rudy Giuliani took a day in November 2017 to travel to the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv. Now, more light has been shed on Giuliani and his oddball Ukrainian associates — according to a new profile of Russian-Ukrainian oligarch Pavel Fuchs, Giuliani is working to ‘create a U.S. office for supporting investment in the city.’ The profile was published Nov. 12 in the Ukrainian magazine Novoye Vremya.” * A scary scene: “A man shouting a pro-Nazi and pro-Trump salute during a performance of ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ in Baltimore has reignited discussions of anti-Semitism amid increases in hate crimes in Maryland and nationwide.” 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
