NEWS OF THE DAY
From Across the Nation
_1 Controversial writings: The nation’s financial watchdog has opened a formal investigation into writings and comments by Eric Blankenstein, a Republican appointee overseeing the agency’s anti-discrimination efforts, which he alleged that most hate crimes were fake and argued that using racial epithets did not mean a person was racist. Mick Mulvaney, the acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, asked the Federal Reserve’s Inspector General Office this week to investigate the writings. The CFPB does not have its own inspector general’s office, and uses the Fed’s inspectors when necessary. Blankenstein is one of a handful of political appointees that joined the CFPB after Mulvaney took over the bureau roughly a year ago.
_2 Murders mount: A day after 11 people were shot in Baltimore, the troubled police department said it’s shutting down its administrative functions so that more officers can hit the streets. The Baltimore Sun reports Interim Commissioner Gary Tuggle announced this week that 230 officers assigned to administrative duties will go on patrol, putting a total of 650 officers on the streets in a department struggling to fill 500 vacancies. Both Mayor Catherine Pugh and Tuggle blame the violence on the illegal drug trade. Baltimore has recorded 250 homicides so far this year, 44 of them in the last 30 days.
_3 White House Counsel: Don McGahn has left the Trump administration after a tumultuous tenure marked by questions over his handling of security clearances and his involvement as a key figure in investigations into Russian election meddling. McGahn’s last day was Wednesday. President Trump has selected Pat Cipollone, a Washington lawyer who worked under President George H. W. Bush at the Justice Department, to replace McGahn. _4 Pledge row: A Waterbury, Conn. teen has sued a teacher and the city’s school board, alleging she was “mocked and shamed” for not standing during the Pledge of Allegiance, a protest she said was over racial discrimination in the country. The suit, filed this week in U.S. District Court, alleges a First Amendment violation and names the teacher at Waterbury Arts Magnet School, Ralph Belvedere, and the district’s school board. The student, an unnamed, 14-year-old black girl, alleges in September and October she and other students were called upon by Belvedere to stand and recite the Pledge of Allegiance. But the girl and other students remained seated in what they said was a “peaceful and non-disruptive expression of their belief that African Americans suffer from racial discrimination in the United States,” according to the lawsuit. The student’s attorney, John Williams, wrote in the lawsuit that Belvedere thanked other students for standing during the pledge, while saying the student was “dishonest” for how she expressed her beliefs. Another teacher was also brought into the classroom to lecture the students on “their supposed lack of patriotism.”