Today’s edition of quick hits.
* The 38th strike: “A U.S. military boat strike, the third this year, blew up a vessel suspected of carrying drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean on Monday, killing two people and leaving a lone survivor, the Pentagon’s Southern Command said. Southern Command, or Southcom, said that it had notified the U.S. Coast Guard to begin search-and-rescue operations.”
* A million sounds like a lot: “Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) told Axios in an interview Tuesday that when he searched President Trump’s name in the unredacted Epstein files the previous day, it came up ‘more than a million times.’”
* In related news: “Lawmakers laid into Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on Tuesday about his association with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, hammering him over the Epstein files showing the two having ties long after Lutnick claimed he’d cut them.”
* The deadline is Friday night: “Democratic leaders say a proposal from the White House is ‘incomplete and insufficient’ as they demand new restrictions on President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown and threaten a shutdown of the Homeland Security Department.”
* I didn’t fully appreciate just how extraordinary the number of habeas petitions is: “The Trump administration’s push for mass deportations has resulted in more than 18,000 challenges in federal court from immigrants claiming their detention is illegal, more than were filed under the last three administrations combined — including President Donald Trump’s first term.”
* Trump’s rationale for abandoning New START is coming into focus: “In the five days since the last remaining nuclear treaty between the United States and Russia expired, statements by administration officials have made two things clear: Washington is actively weighing the deployment of more nuclear weapons, and it is also likely to conduct a nuclear test of some kind. Both steps would reverse nearly 40 years of stricter nuclear control by the United States.” * A case worth watching: “A group of multifaith organizations sued President Donald Trump’s administration on Feb. 9 over what they contend is an illegal lack of religious and ideological diversity on the Department of Justice’s Religious Liberty Commission.” * The fact that Lummis is retiring, and is therefore immune to partisan threats, seems like a relevant detail: “A Republican senator is claiming to have seen the light after new revelations from the government’s Jeffrey Epstein files. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming said Monday that she suddenly understands ‘what the big deal is,’ saying she had ‘not been one of the members who has glommed on to this as an issue.’” 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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