Pandemic tops Biden priority list

President-elect Joe Biden, still 69 days out from inauguration, is soon going to have his hands full. On Tuesday, the number of people with COVID-19 at U.S. hospitals topped 60,000 for the first time. On Wednesday, Texas became the first state to surpass 1 million confirmed cases. And the current president is far too distracted by his legal battles surrounding the election to care. In the meantime, Biden is keeping a presidential schedule. He held a news conference regarding the pandemic on Tuesday, and has been consulting regularly with his newly appointed coronavirus advisory board.

• — States are taking action again. With no federal plan currently in place, states are beginning to enforce their own pandemic restrictions again. Indiana, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, and Wisconsin have all announced tighter restrictions over the past two days, regarding everything from mask-wearing to social distancing to school and business closures.
   
• — States are also ramping up for a vaccine, which could come as early as next month, when the first vaccine may be authorized for emergency use. Specifically, they're working on the infrastructure to distribute hundreds of millions of doses, prioritizing who's first in line, and determining how to ensure that people who get the initial shot return for the necessary second one.
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• — But they're going to need help. So far, states have received far less money than they say they need for vaccine distribution, and it's unclear if any more federal help is coming. Public health groups estimate that an additional $8.4 billion is needed to pay for staff, data systems and outreach, and supply costs. —Associated Press

No fraud? No worries!

As Donald Trump's ongoing refusal to accept the election results drags on, security experts are warning about "dangerous gaps" this failure to commit to a smooth transition could cause. So at long last, some Republican senators—though not nearly enough—are gently pushing the president in the direction of at least allowing a transition process to begin for the sake of the nation. But in the meantime, Trump is pressing on with his fraud claims...despite having found none. —Axios

• — Arizona. Last night, Arizona was finally officially declared for President-elect Joe Biden, bringing his electoral count to 290. Around the same time, Judge Daniel Kiley granted a request by the law firm Snell & Wilmer to withdraw as counsel of record for the Republican National Committee in its lawsuit challenging votes in Maricopa Co. —Reuters
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• — Georgia. Georgia still hasn't officially been called yet, but it is currently favoring Biden. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, announced yesterday that the state will conduct an audit of the 2020 presidential race, recounting by hand the millions of ballots cast in the state. "With the margin being so close, it will require a full by hand recount in each county," Raffensperger said. "This will help build confidence." —CNN
   
• — Pennsylvania. A Pennsylvania postal worker whose claims have been cited by top Republicans as potential evidence of widespread voting irregularities admitted to U.S. Postal Service investigators that he fabricated the allegations and then signed an affidavit recanting his claims. And so the Great Fraud Search continues... —The Washington Post

MORE: No, Dominion voting machines did not cause widespread voting problems —The New York Times

Snyder: The lie that threatens the Republic

"We might like to think that this is all some strategy to find the president an exit ramp. But perhaps that is wishful thinking. The transition office refuses to begin its work. The secretary of Defense, who did not want the Army attacking civilians, was fired. The Department of Justice, exceeding its traditional mandate, has authorized investigations of the vote count. The talk shows on Fox this week contradict the news released by Fox last week. Republican lawmakers find ever new verbal formulations that directly or indirectly support Trump's claims. The longer this goes on, the greater the danger to the Republic." —Timothy Snyder in The Boston Globe

Timothy Snyder, a professor of history at Yale University, is the author of "On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons From the Twentieth Century" and "Our Malady: Lessons in Liberty From a Hospital Diary."

MORE: GOP leaders' embrace of Trump's refusal to concede fits pattern of rising authoritarianism, data shows —The Washington Post

The Trump bubble hasn't popped yet

The Trump Administration's fight to question the outcome of the 2020 presidential election is providing a massive field test of the effectiveness of online "filter bubbles" and "echo chambers"—both names for the idea that partisans use the internet to create preferred alternate versions of truth. Users are served up material that aligns with their worldviews, and algorithms supercharge this self-segregation, learning what people like and reinforcing it.

• — In the "Trump bubble," figures from President Trump and his family to Sen. Ted Cruz to top GOP officials embracing and promoting falsehoods about election fraud reinforce Trump's claim—without proof or even evidence—that the election was rigged. Long-term, it helps create a sense of instability and a deepening crisis of legitimacy.
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• — Among Republicans, though 60% do admit that President-elect Joe Biden won the election, some 70% believe the election itself was not free and fair, according to a Politico/Morning Consult poll. A full 86% of Trump voters do not believe Biden won legitimately, an Economist/YouGov poll found.
   
• — In reality, Biden's margin of victory in decisive states is too wide to be explained by fraud, which every state, as well as independent observers, both domestic and international, agree is rare and small-scale in the U.S. —Axios

Harwell & Timberg: Crisis in the Quniverse

"President Trump's election loss and the week-long silence of 'Q,' the QAnon movement's mysterious prophet, have wrenched some believers into a crisis of faith, with factions voicing unease about their future or rallying others to stay calm and 'trust the plan.' ... Q has gone quiet before. But the abrupt lack of posts since last Tuesday—Election Day, which the anonymous figure had touted for months as a key moment of reckoning—has sparked speculation and alarm among the movement's most ardent followers." —Drew Harwell & Craig Timberg in The Washington Post

Drew Harwell is a technology reporter covering artificial intelligence and algorithms. Craig Timberg is a national technology reporter who contributed to The Washington Post's Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the National Security Agency.

MORE: House GOP leader defends newly elected members who have supported QAnon —Axios

'The president might himself pose a danger to national security'

Appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe testified that the bureau had reason to believe President Trump was a threat to national security, as he defended its investigation into the president and his campaign's alleged links to Russia. He cited Trump's decision to fire then-FBI Director James Comey in May 2017 after he refused to close an investigation into former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.

• — "It became pretty clear to us that he did not want us to continue investigating what the Russians had done," McCabe testified. The FBI investigation examined possible links between Trump's campaign and Moscow and whether there was collusion to defeat Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.
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• — Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz looked into the investigation after complaints by Trump that the bureau unlawfully spied on members of his 2016 campaign because it was politically motivated to help Clinton. His inquiry found no evidence to support those claims.
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• — "We didn't open a case because we liked one candidate or didn't like the other one," McCabe said. "We didn't open a case because we intended to stage a coup or overthrow the government ... we opened a case to find out how the Russians might be undermining our elections. We opened a case because it was our obligation—our duty—to do so. We did our job." —UPI

Baron: Give us that Democracy Summit, President-elect Biden

"If Biden is serious about this Democracy Summit, he will have to prove it. Nobody on earth but the president of the United States has the power or clout to pull it off. He will have to declare loudly and plainly that he will host a summit of world leaders, in the United States if possible, to reset and restate their unified commitment to democracy, freedom, and human rights. (He could simply read what's listed in the 75-year old United Nations charter.) Just that moment and document alone would be worth the effort, but it would be even more valuable if it started in motion a reimagining, reorganization, and realignment of the liberal international order around modern issues, like climate change, with a modern map." —Kevin Baron in Defense One

Kevin Baron is the Polk Award-winning founding executive editor of Defense One.

"Everything must be done to keep as many people in the community of shared truth and shared sacrifice. This is why Biden's message of unity is crucial, even if rejected by most GOP. Society cannot survive too much fragmentation, which is what Putin is betting on. A unity message also rejected by many on the left, btw, and unwisely so. You do not have to have empathy for those who hate you, but you have to recognize their humanity and the need for their participation in society or there will be no society. But you can never make peace with extremists who would destroy you and your society, who would bring down the institutions that protect all. Reducing their number is paramount, and it can only be done by breaking through the walls they have built against truth." —Garry Kasparov, Russian chess master and political activist, @Kasparov63

We are all at risk because of the hurt feelings of this unstable, incompetent individual in the White House. The Republican cowards in the Senate, who are as complicit in this criminal enterprise as he is, know the risks his behavior pose, yet choose to do nothing. Have they no sense of how dangerous this man is? Has any one of them regretted not voting for his impeachment when they had the chance?

Trump has refused to acknowledge that Joe Biden won a fair and honest election, as have the majority of Republicans in Congress. He will not give Biden access to intelligence briefings. Greetings from world leaders are sitting at the State Dept. because the current administration won't let him access them. The head of the GSA refuses to allow the transition to begin.

It is time for the spineless, craven Republicans to stand up for all Americans and clue-in this person—who has caused untold destruction and chaos in the country, as well as untold deaths—that this is how it works in the United States when there's a general election: one person wins, one does not, and he did not. —Marylea L., New York

The views expressed in "What's Your Take?" are submitted by readers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff or the Stand Up Republic Foundation.