If we make it through December

Reading the news, and it’s all bad

• “I have my own army in the NYPD, which is the seventh biggest army in the world.”
  –Mayor Mike. See also this
• “No one is arguing for rule of law as we once knew it. Rather, it’s a fight between those espousing martial rule of law and those espousing unilateral intelligence ops.”
  –Marcy Wheeler, The Rule of Martial Law Vs. the Unitary Spookery
• According to the study’s authors, the United States’ poor performance and relatively slow improvement compared with other nations may be attributable to “the lack of universal coverage and high costs of care.”
  —U.S. Ranks Last Among High-Income Nations on Preventable Deaths
• “Still, the world is watching a geopolitical game of chicken: Western powers are raising the stakes, threatening economic warfare and even kinetic military action unless Iran backs down; Iran believes it can withstand whatever the West and Israel is plausibly going to throw at it, and is firing symbolic warning shots of its own. To avoid an escalation that could lead to war, both sides would have to be offered acceptable off-ramps. But that takes diplomacy, which isn’t exactly in vogue in Western relations with Iran, right now.”
  –Tony Karon, After the Embassy Attack: Are Iran and the West Lurching Toward War?