Today’s edition of quick hits:
* So many questions need answers: “Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock wired $100,000 to an account in his live-in girlfriend’s home country of the Philippines in the week before he unleashed the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history, according to multiple senior law enforcement officials.”
* Really? “The IRS will pay Equifax $7.25 million to verify taxpayer identities and help prevent fraud under a no-bid contract issued last week, even as lawmakers lash the embattled company about a massive security breach that exposed personal information of as many as 145.5 million Americans.”
* On a related note: “Millions more people were affected by Equifax’s data breach than the credit bureau initially estimated, Equifax said on Monday. The company increased its estimate on the number of Americans whose personal information was potentially exposed to 145.5 million, some 2.5 million more than it had previously disclosed.”
* Cuba: “The Trump administration expelled 15 Cuban diplomats from the embassy in Washington in an escalating response to mysterious illnesses afflicting American embassy personnel in Havana.”
* A story to watch: “A Democratic group led by the former attorney general Eric H. Holder Jr. has accused the State of Georgia of flouting the Voting Rights Act, claiming that Georgia Republicans reshaped two state legislative districts to minimize the electoral influence of African-American voters.” * This seemed like a pretty bad idea, even at the time: “The Office of Special Counsel (OSC) on Tuesday reprimanded United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley for violating the Hatch Act by retweeting President Donald Trump’s endorsement of a Republican candidate for Congress.” * He’s apparently not going away: “Anthony Scaramucci officially launched his media organization in the basement of his New York City restaurant on Monday. But the two dozen journalists in attendance were often left scratching their heads as to what exactly the former White House director of communications was doing or what the ‘Scaramucci Post’ really is.” 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
