Today’s edition of quick hits:
* Today’s mass shooting: “A police officer, three civilians and two suspects were killed Tuesday afternoon during a shootout and standoff in Jersey City, New Jersey, authorities said.”
* Fallout from last week’s shooting in north Florida: “The Navy has grounded Saudi military trainees in Florida, suspending their flight instruction indefinitely in the wake of a shooting last week at Naval Air Station Pensacola by a member of the Saudi Royal Air Force.”
* This seemed inevitable: “Former FBI lawyer Lisa Page sued her old employers on Tuesday, charging they unlawfully released inflammatory text messages between her and FBI agent Peter Strzok in order to redirect Republican anger from top officials at the Department of Justice.”
* Delicate negotiations: “Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky agreed to a renewed cease-fire and to exchange all known prisoners when they met for the first time in Paris on Monday, making modest gains in peace talks designed to end a deadly war in eastern Ukraine.”
* Why would anyone find it suspicious that Bill Barr doesn’t want to say when the Justice Department’s holiday party is? “Attorney General William P. Barr had planned to hold a 200-person holiday party at the Trump hotel in Washington Sunday night, but the event was rescheduled, according to a Justice Department spokeswoman. The spokeswoman declined to say when the event would take place but said it would still be at the Trump International Hotel.” * This seems like a reasonable suggestion: “Rep. Joe Kennedy (D-Mass.) Monday became the first lawmaker to call on the official overseeing Medicare, Medicaid and Obamacare to resign over POLITICO reports he said reveal ‘a gross misuse of public funds.’” * A curious story about a 20-year-old college student who works as Rudy Giuliani’s spokesperson: “The gatekeeper to the lawyer for the most powerful man in the world is a 20-year-old conservative activist with a thin resume, an inflated biography and an impossible job.” 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." Recommended
