Today’s edition of quick hits.
* The war turns hot again: “The U.S. military hit targets in Iran on Tuesday and Tehran fired missiles and drones in response as hostilities flare once again in an intermittent war that has lasted more than six months. The U.S. strikes followed others on Sunday that abruptly ended a month without military action and threatened to fully reignite a conflict that has spiked global oil prices and posed political problems for Republicans in November’s midterm congressional elections.”
* The rapidly unfolding USPS scandal: “A whistleblower is claiming that the US Postal Service’s process to implement the Trump administration’s mail-in ballot restrictions is technically fraught, citing a rushed timeline and lack of testing on the system to get it done, according to a letter sent to the postmaster general from Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn.”
* With the NATO alliance in mind, accusations like these are critically important: “After weeks of reticence, German officials on Tuesday blamed Russia for an attempted drone attack last month at Leipzig/Halle Airport and announced they would summon Moscow’s ambassador to Berlin, close a Russian consulate and take other measures in response.”
* The next shutdown deadline is Dec. 11: “The normal cadence of government funding is that Congress runs up against a cliff, and lawmakers pass an extension to buy themselves more time for a larger deal. On Tuesday, Republicans and Democrats did something a little different: They passed their stopgap a month before the deadline.”
* I continue to believe that when the bond market is generating headlines, it’s inherently worrisome: “A global sell-off in government bonds intensified on Tuesday, pushing borrowing costs in some of the world’s largest economies to the highest levels in decades. The moves threaten to ripple through a wide range of debt, including business loans and mortgages for already-stretched consumers.”
* Venezuelan oil: “President Donald Trump is touting the deal to acquire a vast stake in Venezuela’s oil reserves as a game-changing breakthrough that will drive down prices at the pump and begin to refill depleted emergency government oil inventories in the United States. But many in the oil industry are warning not to expect quick relief — that extracting this oil will be a dangerous, laborious and costly endeavor, and it’s not clear how it’s all going to come together.”
* A scary trend: “Federal judges are operating in an ‘increasingly hostile landscape of threats, harassment and intimidation’ and require more resources for their protection, according to a new report released Monday based on interviews with dozens of sitting and retired jurists. The report, by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, details a sharp rise in the threats faced by federal judges over the past decade amid deepening political divisions, the spread of social media and inflammatory rhetoric by the Trump administration when judges place limits on executive power.”
* The dreadful consequences of a war on science: “The percentage of parents and caregivers in the United States refusing a standard vitamin K shot for infants at birth has accelerated sharply this year, an exclusive data analysis for Reuters found, putting more newborns at risk of life-threatening bleeding episodes.”
See you tomorrow.
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