Daily-Dose

Contents

• From New Yorker
• From Vox
• From The Hindu: Sports
• From The Hindu: National News
• From BBC: Europe
• From Ars Technica
• From Jokes Subreddit

From New Yorker

• Dianne Feinstein’s Missteps Raise a Painful Age Question Among Senate Democrats - Older lawmakers’ foibles and infirmities are coming under new scrutiny, violating an unspoken culture of complicity and coverup. - link

• The Distinct Political Paths of Barack Obama and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - In elevating the New York congresswoman and gently criticizing her ideas, Obama has opened up a new conversation in the Democratic Party. - link

• Britain’s Vaccine Program Brings Joy and Chauvinism - Brexit colors a rare bright day in the country’s management of the pandemic. - link

• Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya Is Overcoming Her Fears - “Every country has its own path to democracy,” Tsikhanouskaya, who calls herself the leader of democratic Belarus, says. “And this is ours.” - link

• The G.O.P. Can No Longer Be Relied On to Protect Democracy - The gall of Kevin McCarthy and his fellow-backers of Trump’s attempts to overturn the results of the election is only surpassed by their irresponsibility and fecklessness. - link

From Vox

• The US will start Covid-19 vaccinations this week, FDA says -

  

As vaccine distribution begins, the Covid-19 pandemic is only getting worse.

On Sunday, the first batches of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine were loaded onto trucks and cargo planes to be distributed around the United States.

Doses of the vaccine, which received an emergency use authorization (EUA) from the Food and Drug Administration on Friday, will be sent to all 50 states, and vaccinations could begin as soon as Monday, FDA commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn said Sunday.

Nearly 3 million doses will be delivered in the first round of shipments, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told CBS News’s Margaret Brennan on Face The Nation this Sunday.

“We’re shipping 2.9 million doses of vaccine,” Azar said. “So whenever they get them in arms, that’s 2.9 million people getting vaccinated.”

Azar also said that a second shipment of doses — the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine requires two separate shots, administered three weeks apart, to be fully effective — would be reserved to ensure those who received the first dose would be able to complete their course.

The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is estimated to be about 95 percent effective in preventing Covid-19.

According to recommendations published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, health care workers, as well as essential workers in other industries, and people over the age of 65 or with “underlying medical conditions” that place them in a high-risk category, will be first in line for the vaccine. A committee that advises the CDC has further recommenced that health care workers and residents of long-term care facilities — a group of about 24 million people — be at the very front of the line.

Exactly how quickly these at-risk populations will be able to receive the vaccine is not clear, however. On Sunday, Azar said he was optimistic about the initial vaccine distribution.

“We could have every nursing home patient vaccinated in the United States by Christmas,” Azar told Brennan, and as many as 20 million people vaccinated by the end of the December.

HHS, however, has reportedly offered different guidance, telling health providers to begin vaccinating those in care homes on December 21, which would likely mean that all residents would not be vaccinated by Christmas. Former FDA commissioner and current Pfizer board member Dr. Scott Gottlieb told CBS News this delay was mandated to allow time for residents and guardians to provide consent. “It’s a very costly delay,” Gottlieb said.

Azar also predicted that as many as 100 million Americans will be vaccinated by the end of February, an estimate that aligns closely with President-elect Joe Biden’s plan to see 50 million people vaccinated within his first 100 days in office.

On Fox News Sunday, Dr. Moncef Slaoui — the chief medical adviser of Operation Warp Speed, the federal vaccine development program — clarified that those projections rely on further vaccine candidates being granted EUAs.

A second EUA, for Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine, could be forthcoming shortly. An FDA advisory panel is scheduled to review the vaccine on December 17, and the US has ordered 200 million total doses in anticipation of its approval. And Slaoui said Johnson and Johnson’s vaccine candidate — which would require only one dose — could be approved in late January or early February.

US authorization of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine trails that of the UK — which cleared it for emergency use last week and started vaccinations Tuesday — as well as that of Canada.

This led the White House to pressure the FDA to get the EUA over the finish line by Friday. In a tweet, President Donald Trump attacked the agency as “a big, old, slow turtle.”

Separately, the Washington Post reported Friday that White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows told the FDA’s Stephen Hahn that Hahn might be forced to resign if the EUA wasn’t issued that day. Hahn defended the timeline Sunday, saying that his agency worked with all possible speed to get the vaccine authorized.

That shouldn’t undermine confidence in the vaccine, though: It was reviewed by an independent advisory panel on Thursday prior to the EUA, and the FDA concluded that the vaccine had “a favorable safety profile, with no specific safety concerns.”

Despite a vaccine, the US is entering the darkest phase of the pandemic

Sunday’s vaccine shipments come not a moment too soon. The coronavirus is currently spreading out of control in the US as deaths and hospitalizations from the virus rise to unprecedented levels.

As of Saturday, the country was averaging more than 208,000 new Covid-19 cases per day, according to the New York Times, after crossing the 200,000 per day mark for the first time on November 27.

And on Wednesday, the US reported more than 3,000 deaths in a single day for the first time ever. Hospitalizations broke the 100,000 mark for the first time earlier this month, and have climbed steadily ever since.

Things aren’t likely to get better for some time, either. According to CDC Director Robert Redfield, the US may well “have more deaths per day than we had in 9/11” for the next 60 to 90 days.

Biden, who has put his Covid-19 response plan front and center during the presidential transition, has been equally dire in his warnings.

“Christmas is going to be a lot harder,” he said last week. “I don’t want to scare anybody here, but understand the facts — we’re likely to lose another 250,000 people dead between now and January.”

Currently, the US death toll stands at more than 298,000 people, according to the New York Times.

The pandemic is also leaving hospitals and health care workers depleted and exhausted. According to Dr. Vin Gupta, “there’s just not enough doctors, nurses and respiratory therapists to staff intensive care unit beds” in some places. In Mississippi, for instance, there are no ICU beds left.

“People are going to get suboptimal care,” Gupta told NBC.

In California, dwindling ICU capacity triggered a wave of new shutdowns last weekend. With intensive care units below 15 percent capacity in some parts of the state, more than 33 million Californians are once again under lockdown orders.

Beyond the immediate crisis, public health experts have also emphasized that now is not the time to relax best practices in anticipation of a vaccine. As Vox’s Umair Irfan explained last month, there are lots of steps that need to be taken to scale up distribution for a mass vaccination campaign:

A global supply chain, from the glass vials that hold the vaccine to the syringes used to inject them, needs to spool up to make huge quantities of the vaccine. Manufacturers will also have to ensure that vaccines remain intact and under strict temperature controls from the factory to the hospitals and clinics where they will be used. The process of manufacturing, distributing, and administering a vaccine could take months.

...

It’s also important to remember that a vaccine is not enough on its own to end the pandemic. Measures like social distancing, good hygiene, and wearing face masks will remain essential to control the spread of Covid-19 until a vaccine is widely available. Public acceptance will also be a major issue, and health officials will have to overcome a rising wave of vaccine hesitancy.

In the meantime, Americans will need to do everything possible to tamp down the virus’s uncontrolled spread — and no matter what, Redfield warns, the coming months may be “the most difficult time in the public health history of this nation.”

• Pro-Trump protesters rally for a coup: “We’re not going anywhere” -

  

Pro-Trump protests in Washington, DC, and Washington state turn violent as court defeats pile up.

Supporters of President Donald Trump demonstrated against the results of the 2020 presidential election on Saturday, in a series of rallies that underscored the hold the president retains on backers both within and outside the Republican Party.

At least two of these protests ultimately became violent — four people were stabbed in Washington, DC, and one person was shot in the city of Olympia, in Washington state. No deaths were reported, though all four stabbing victims are said to be hospitalized in critical condition as of Sunday. As of early Sunday, no information is available about the status of the shooting victim in Washington state.

In addition to the four people who were stabbed, at least five others were hospitalized in DC on Saturday, and more than 20 people were arrested on a variety of charges, including assault. Three people, including the suspected shooter, were arrested in Olympia, according to the Olympian.

Members of the Proud Boys — a violent, neofascist hate group that frequently traffics in white nationalism and misogyny — were also recorded in DC assaulting bystanders and destroying property. Among other incidents, the group tore down Black Lives Matter signs from multiple DC churches, and burned at least one sign.

The Proud Boys were in Washington, DC, for overlapping protests meant to show support for Trump’s false claim that the election was stolen from him. Members of the religious far right, as well as attendees of a second “Million MAGA March” — a sequel to a November event that saw tens of thousands of Trump supporters protest in the capital — all converged on DC.

Saturday’s event was far smaller than the one in November, featuring a few thousand people, but was nevertheless celebrated by the president.

“Wow! Thousands of people forming in Washington (D.C.) for Stop the Steal,” he tweeted Saturday morning. “Didn’t know about this, but I’ll be seeing them!”

Trump later shared video of the rally on Twitter, which showed a tightly packed crowd of maskless supporters cheering on Marine One as it flew overhead.

It was a similar story in Olympia, albeit without any cameos from presidential aircraft, and on a smaller scale. According to the Seattle Times, pro-Trump rallies have become “a regular weekend occurrence at Washington’s Capitol campus,” and Trump supporters clashed with counterprotesters throughout the day Saturday.

Both events came as Trump approaches his sixth week of denying President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election, which took place on November 3, and as the president continues to spread disinformation about the election’s results. Those results will be further cemented Monday, when the Electoral College votes to formally elect Biden.

The rhetoric of the protesters and their leaders, however, suggests that fact will have little influence on false claims the election was stolen from Biden — and that the president’s supporters will remain loyal to him and his alternate-reality claims.

Trump’s rhetoric is emboldening his supporters — and solidifying their support

The events in Washington, DC, featured not just Proud Boys and grassroots activists, but an eclectic parade of well-known Trump allies, conspiracy theorists, and grifters, all of whom echoed Trump’s efforts to spread disinformation, encouraged the crowd to continue to reject the results of the election, and made their loyalty to Trump plain.

Recently pardoned former Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn told the crowd how important it was to let Trump know “that we love him.” And MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell joined many of the day’s speakers in placing the president’s struggle to overturn the election’s results in a religious context, saying the world may now be in “end times.”

Lindell also took time during his speech — as the president has done repeatedly in recent days — to call out Republicans who have been insufficiently fervent in their defenses of Trump’s lies about the election, calling them “cowards,” and warning them, “We’re not going anywhere.”

Other prominent figures went further than Lindell; speaking to a crowd of supporters, Nick Fuentes — a white nationalist leader in a far-right movement that views many Trump allies as insufficiently conservative — said, “We are going to destroy the GOP.”

The crowd responded by chanting, “Destroy the GOP,” and with boos when Fuentes brought up Georgia Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue. Both are running in January special elections, and the GOP’s Senate majority rests on both winning.

Other speakers included Alex Jones — a conspiracy theorist known for harassing the families of mass shooting victims and promoting 9/11 trutherism — and US Representative-elect Bob Good of Virginia, who began his speech by describing the coronavirus as a “phony pandemic,” despite the fact that nearly 300,000 people have now died of Covid-19 in the US.

QAnon, the insane pro-Trump conspiracy theory that posits the existence of a global cabal of Satanic pedophiles, was also represented at the rally.

Across the board, however, Saturday’s rallygoers emphasized their dedication to Trump — and his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and install himself to an unelected second term in office — above all else.

“If President Trump accepts [his election loss] and Vice President Pence accepts it, then we will accept it,” one attendee, a pastor from California, told the Washington Post. “But right now, this is a Godly protest.”

There’s no end in sight for Trump’s election fraud lies

Despite a rapid-fire string of legal defeats at every level of the federal court system, the energy — and money — that has been generated by the president’s efforts to overturn the election’s results seem to indicate that there’s no end in sight for Trump’s false election fraud rhetoric.

What’s more, the fervent dedication exhibited by rallygoers Saturday underscores an unfortunate reality: Republicans have an electoral incentive to continue their support of Trump’s anti-democratic efforts, in order to escape a primary challenge to the right.

Trump, for his part, has proven completely unwilling to give any ground in his fight to subvert democracy. As recently as Sunday morning, he tweeted without evidence that the 2020 presidential election, which he lost by more than 7 million votes, was the “MOST CORRUPT ELECTION IN U.S. HISTORY!”

These tweets have been backed up by action from the Trump campaign and Republican lawmakers, who have failed time and time again to turn up any evidence of voter fraud or other irregularities. According to Democratic voting-rights lawyer Marc Elias, the president and his supporters are now 1-59 in court, with their most recent loss coming Sunday in Georgia.

The Georgia Supreme Court on Sunday rejected an appeal by the Trump campaign in a case alleging large-scale voter fraud without evidence.

And separately, a Wisconsin state Supreme Court justice told a lawyer for the Trump campaign Saturday that its election lawsuit challenging the results “smacks of racism.”

On Friday, the US Supreme Court also rejected for lack of standing a Texas lawsuit attempting to overturn election results in four key swing states won by Biden. The suit — referred to by Trump as “the big one” — was supported by 17 state attorneys general, as well as more than half of the House Republican conference.

With an Electoral College vote imminent on Monday, both Trump and the Republican establishment are quickly running out of venues to challenge the election results, but as of Sunday, they show few signs of acknowledging reality. On Fox News Sunday, House Minority Whip Steve Scalise — the second most powerful Republican in the chamber — again refused to recognize Biden as the president-elect when pressed by anchor Chris Wallace.

Scalise’s acknowledgement isn’t necessary — the presidential transition has already begun and Biden will be sworn in as president on January 20. But it presages a likely fight in Congress over the official counting of Electoral College votes on January 6 — one that Republicans can’t win, as Vox’s Andrew Prokop explains — and it’s an alarming sign in its own right that leaders of one of the country’s two major political parties are unwilling to accept the results of a free and fair election.

The GOP’s willingness to support Trump in his disinformation campaign could have long-term consequences: In a Saturday Fox News poll, for example, 56 percent of registered voters indicated that Trump’s continued refusal to concede was “weakening American democracy.”

But Trump appears unconcerned about the damage he’s doing to the country. “WE HAVE JUST BEGUN TO FIGHT!!!” he tweeted Saturday.

• SNL explains the nation’s crush on Anthony Fauci in a vaccine-focused cold open -

  

A re-cast Anthony Fauci returns to talk about the vaccine in SNL’s latest cold open.

For December 12’s Saturday Night Live cold open, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, played by Beck Bennett, addressed the topic on everyone’s minds: The recently authorized Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine.

Bennett’s Blitzer — who introduced himself as “an indoor man with an outdoor name” — opened the show with news of the Food and Drug Administration’s decision to issue an emergency use authorization (EUA) for the vaccine before introducing White House coronavirus task force members Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx.

“It’s just like the PS5,” Bennett quipped of the vaccine. “Everybody wants it, nobody can get it, and if you’re rich, you already had it a month ago.”

Fauci — played this time by SNL’s Kate McKinnon rather than by Brad Pitt — confirmed the good news for Blitzer and announced his decision to join the Biden administration as a chief medical adviser in addition to his current role as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

“And I think I’ll be joining as well,” Heidi Gardner’s Birx, whose real-world position in the Biden administration is less certain, chimed in. “Remember when Trump said to inject bleach ... and I almost whispered, ‘No’?”

Bennett pressed the pair — who he dubbed “the American Gothic of the whole coronavirus situation” — on vaccine logistics, distribution priorities, and more.

“We’re doing this vaccine World War II-style,” McKinnon said as Fauci. “We made England” — which began vaccinations on Tuesday — “go in first, see what’s what, and then we swoop in at the end and steal the spotlight.”

McKinnon also gave poor marks to the federal vaccine plan, telling Bennett that “this president has done about as good a job with this rollout as I did throwing out that first pitch at the Nationals game.”

In July, a Fauci first pitch went badly askew — which he said at the time was because he spent too long practicing before throwing out the pitch.

After Bennett aired a clip of the real-world Fauci’s pitch, Gardner tried to cheer McKinnon up.

“It’s okay, little guy,” she said. “We all mess up sometime. You threw the ball wrong, I didn’t say, ‘Don’t drink the bleach.’ It happens!”

Throughout the skit, McKinnon was also barraged with thrown bras, a phenomenon which she explained as common because “throughout this whole thing I’ve been the only one saying facts, so some people got a crush on me.”

And the pair offered a variety of regionally tailored vaccine distribution strategies.

“In New Orleans we’re tossing the vaccines up to balconies like Mardi Gras beads,” McKinnon said, and Gardner told Bennett that “North Carolina’s vaccine will be vinegar-based, while South Carolina’s will be mustard-based.”

(There’s a longstanding schism between the Carolinas when it comes to vinegar- and mustard-based BBQ sauces.)

New York, meanwhile, will get vaccine vials that are “very thin on the bottom,” in contrast to Chicago’s “deep dish” vials.

After another bra-throwing event — and an off-screen scream of “marry me” — McKinnon explained her hopes for the vaccine to close the segment.

“If enough Americans get this vaccine, you’ll all forget who I am,” she said. “That’s my goal, to have zero name recognition with Americans because that means I’ll have done my job well. I want to go back to being an anonymous hunk.”

From The Hindu: Sports

• Quick century in pink ball warm-up game was big confidence-booster: Pant - Indian wicketkeeper-batsman Rishabh Pant says the hundred that he struck in the recently-concluded pink-ball warm-up game here was just the confidenc

• Ind-Oz series: All-rounder Henriques added to Australia squad, injured Abbott ruled out - All-rounder Henriques added to Australia squad, injured Abbott ruled out

• Ashwa Bravo impresses - Ashwa Bravo impressed when the horses were exercised here on Monday (Dec. 14) morning.Inner sand:600m: Epistoiary (M. Carim) 40.5. Fit for the fray.8

• There will be no pressure of captaincy on Ajinkya Rahane: Sunil Gavaskar - The opening Test begins at Adelaide on December 17.

• Prevalent Force has an edge - Prevalent Force has an edge over his rivals in the A. Cheriyan Memorial Guindy Gold Cup (1,600m), the chief event of the races to be held here on Mon

From The Hindu: National News

• Popular fishing vloggers are making a splash on cyberspace - The vloggers talk about creating content and the challenges involved

• Pratap Sarnaik submits privilege notice against Kangana Ranaut for ‘tweet’ - Pratap Sarnaik, being probed by the ED in a money-laundering case, said he has submitted the notice against Kangana Ranaut to the office of Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Nana Patole.

• “Foetus secure”, U.P. pregnant woman to undergo microscopic examination: U.P. child rights chairperson - The Uttar Pradesh State Commission for Protection of Child Rights would submit a report on the incident to the State government.

• Involve CMs to end farmers’ impasse, Anand Sharma tells government - Urges govt to make money available to poor sections as that will help revive economy by improving consumption

• UGC asks universities to encourage students to visit Atal Tunnel - Students will appreciate the ‘technological marvel’, UGC Secretary said.

From BBC: Europe

• Brexit: Negotiators to enter 'extra mile' talks - It comes after the two sides agreed on Sunday there had been enough progress for talks to continue.

• Gerard Houllier: Former Liverpool manager dies aged 73 - Former Liverpool manager Gerard Houllier has died at the age of 73.

• Coronavirus: Germany to go into lockdown over Christmas - The authorities have been struggling to control a growing number of infections and deaths.

• John le Carré: Espionage writer dies aged 89 - The renowned Cold War novelist, author of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, died following a short illness.

• Nagorno-Karabakh conflict flares despite ceasefire - The tension comes after a six-week war killed thousands over the disputed territory in the Caucasus.

From Ars Technica

• The Ars Technica ultimate holiday gift guide 2020 - We propose some last-minute tech gift ideas for the various people in your life. - link

• Russian hackers hit US government using widespread supply chain attack - Russia's Cozy Bear is trojanizing business software to infect organizations worldwide. - link

• Stroll down memory lane with this 1996 instructional video on How to Internet - Everything You Need to Know About... Introduction to the Internet is on the Internet Archive. - link

• We have a winner in the world’s first quantum chess tournament - It’s like playing in a multiverse “but the different boards are connected to each other.” - link

• Phosphorus equivalent of graphene makes reconfigurable transistors - May be useful for security, as it’s hard to tell how the circuitry might execute. - link

From Jokes Subreddit

• Monopoly is fun but it has some really old stuff that isn’t valid anymore. -

  There’s free parking, a luxury tax and rich people can actually go to jail.

  submitted by /u/Po1sonator
  [link] [comments]

• How many times do you have to tickle an octopus to make it laugh? -

  Ten-tickles.

  Of course it only has 8 of those.

  So the first two were test-tickles!

  submitted by /u/JackZodiac2008
  [link] [comments]

• A guy rides his motorcycle through the border from Spain to France every week carrying two bags of sand. -

  The border guard searched the bags every time, but never found anything, so he had to let him through. The guard has his last day at work before retiring and the guy comes to the border again, carrying his two bags of sand. The guard says "look, man, it's my last day, I'm not going to bust you. You're clearly smuggling something across the border all this time but we never find anything, what is it.". The guy says "I'm smuggling motorcycles"

  submitted by /u/The_Dylmyster
  [link] [comments]

• "I can't think until after I ejaculate," -

  I came to realize.

  submitted by /u/Danc777
  [link] [comments]

• Give a Man a Fish and You Will Feed Him for a Day. -

  Teach a man to fish and he will spend a fortune on gear he will only use twice a year.

  submitted by /u/TATERBONE
  [link] [comments]