Today’s edition of quick hits.
* Members of Congress received a briefing on the deadly second strike in the Caribbean: “While top congressional leaders received a briefing Thursday from Adm. Frank Bradley — the man the White House and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have said was responsible for the ‘double-tap’ strike — immediate reactions on Capitol Hill were breaking along party lines.”
* The latest in a series of CDC messes: “In a chaotic meeting Thursday rife with misinformation, the CDC’s vaccine advisory panel — whose members Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired in June and replaced with a group that has largely expressed skepticism of vaccines — once again delayed an expected vote on hepatitis B vaccines.”
* In related news, there’s reason for concern about this selection: “The Food and Drug Administration has chosen Dr. Tracy Beth Hoeg, a sports medicine doctor and epidemiologist who has been a senior adviser, to run its drug division, according to a statement from the agency Wednesday evening. She will lead the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, which oversees novel prescription, over-the-counter and generic drugs.”
* Putin still doesn’t want peace: “Russian President Vladimir Putin says some proposals in a U.S. plan to end the war in Ukraine are unacceptable to the Kremlin, indicating in comments published Thursday that any deal is still some ways off.”
* A case worth watching: “The New York Times accused the Pentagon in a lawsuit on Thursday of infringing on the constitutional rights of journalists by imposing a set of new restrictions on reporting about the military.”
* The Jan. 6 civil suits have largely faded from view, but they’re unresolved and they matter: “President Donald Trump has asserted executive privilege to prevent courtroom adversaries from accessing evidence in a long-running lawsuit that accuses him of stoking violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.” * A sensible call: “Democrats on the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee on Tuesday sent a letter to the White House requesting the ‘immediate removal’ of Paul Ingrassia, President Trump’s appointee at the General Services Administration (GSA).” * Unhinged: “President Donald Trump promoted a bunch of unfounded conspiracy theories during a late-night social media posting spree on Monday. Trump wrote or shared more than 150 posts on his Truth Social platform between 9 p.m. and midnight. Many of them were unremarkable political fare, but others were bananas – outlandish conspiratorial tales the president shared with his 11-plus million followers even though they were detached from reality.” 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."
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