Today’s edition of quick hits.
* These exercises sent an unsubtle message to international audiences: “China fired rockets, massed assault ships and flew bombers around Taiwan on Tuesday, simulating a military blockade in an apparent warning to the United States against supporting the Beijing-claimed island. The second day of the large-scale war games, called ‘Justice Mission 2025,’ saw the Chinese military encircle Taiwan in its biggest such exercise in eight months.”
* The 30th such boat strike: “The U.S. military said Monday that it had conducted another strike against a boat accused of smuggling drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean, killing two people. The strike, which was announced by U.S. Southern Command on social media, has brought the total number of known boat strikes to 30 and the number of people killed at least 107 since early September, according to numbers announced by the Trump administration.”
* The pipe bomb case: “The Virginia man accused of planting pipe bombs at the nation’s capital on Jan. 5, 2021, is requesting a conditional release from jail as his attorney cites his autism diagnosis.”
* An ongoing fiasco: “An acclaimed jazz group has canceled two New Year’s Eve concerts at the Kennedy Center, joining a growing list of artists who have scrapped plans to perform at the famed arts institution since President Donald Trump’s handpicked board of directors voted to add Trump’s name to the center.”
* An encouraging ruling: “A federal judge on Tuesday ruled that funding for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau cannot lapse, a blow to the Trump administration, which had declared the agency’s cash stream illegal. In her motion, Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the Federal District Court in Washington wrote that the C.F.P.B. could continue to receive funding from the Federal Reserve even though the Fed had been operating at a loss since 2022.” * Preservations have argued that the “emergency” conditions claimed by the Department of Homeland Security to justify this policy don’t actually exist: “The Trump administration is looking to tear down more historic buildings in Washington as the president, nearly a year into his final term, looks for ways to leave his mark on the District of Columbia.” * Claims like these are exasperating, not only because they’re wrong, but also because they’re lazy: “President Trump just said that no hostages were released from Gaza during the Biden administration. That’s not true. In the 2023 cease-fire, 105 hostages were released.” I’ll be off for the next couple of days, but I’ll return to the usual publishing schedule on Friday, Jan. 2. Happy New Year.
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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