'I'm the most concerned I've been since this pandemic started'

And with good reason. As of yesterday, COVID-19 has claimed at least 250,016 lives in the United States of America—1,400 in the past 24 hours. Nearly 79,000 COVID-19 patients were reported in U.S. hospitals as of yesterday, the highest number yet for a single day throughout the pandemic.

• — It's not looking good. Forty-one U.S. states have reported daily record increases in COVID-19 cases this month, 20 have registered all-time highs in coronavirus-related deaths from day to day, and 26 have reported peaks in hospitalizations. And winter hasn't even begun yet.
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• — The most wonderful time of the year? Ahead of the holiday season, government officials in at least 21 states, representing both sides of the U.S. political divide, have issued sweeping new public health mandates to combat the surge—ranging from school closures to stricter limits on social gatherings and non-essential businesses to new requirements for wearing masks in public places.
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• — The epicenter has shifted. The hardest hit area of the country right now is the upper Midwest, which reported a half-million cases over the past week. More than 900 Mayo Clinic personnel in Minnesota and Wisconsin have been diagnosed with the virus in the past two weeks, adding to the strain on healthcare workers, and the highest COVID-19 mortality rate in the world is currently in North Dakota. —Reuters

Big dreams and anti-democracy schemes

President Trump is still pushing forward with his efforts to overturn the presidential election result. In some cases, he's encouraging local officials to refuse to certify the vote counts in their county, based on specious accusations of fraud or unfair rule changes. His goal is to force Republican legislatures in key states to overturn the count and seat the electors themselves. In Wisconsin, after a contentious, hours-long debate, the state elections commission agreed to recount ballots cast in Milwaukee and Dane counties, as requested by Trump. One commissioner pointed out that the very same system was in place in 2016, when Trump won by nearly the same margin as President-elect Joe Biden did this year. But needless to say, it went unquestioned by Trump then. —CBS News

• — Meanwhile, the transition awaits. As the General Services Administration continues to hold out on green-lighting the transition to a Biden Administration, a handful of current Trump Administration officials and political appointees who've left in recent months have reportedly started to reach out to members of Biden's team. The unofficial conversations are not as detailed as the formal briefings that would normally take place, but they at least could help incoming Biden transition members have a sense of the issues they might have to deal with upon taking office. —CNN
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• — "There's no presidential responsibility more important than protecting the American people." Prevented by Trump from being briefed on national security issues by current government officials, Biden convened his own circle of experts for guidance this week via a virtual meeting. He told the 13 former military, diplomatic, and intelligence officials who attended, "I am unable to get the briefings that ordinarily would come by now. And so I just wanted to get your input on what you see ahead." —The New York Times
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• — Politics over public health. Despite warnings from public health experts about the dangers of delaying the transition during a pandemic, Health and Human Services Sec. Alex Azar reiterated his commitment to non-cooperation at a press briefing yesterday. He said his department will not communicate or share data with Biden's team until the GSA formally acknowledges Trump's loss, at which time "we will ensure complete, cooperative, professional transitions and planning." How nice. —New York Magazine

MORE: Trump invites Michigan Republican leaders to meet him at White House as he escalates attempts to overturn election results —The Washington Post

Wolf: In defeat, Trump sets more fires

"Trump's administration is working actively in ways to make Biden's life more difficult. The goal is to set so many fires that it will be hard for the Biden Administration to put them all out, an administration official tells CNN in a [national security] report. Intentionally making things more difficult for Biden could set up Trump's argument for a 2024 rematch... And Trump's last-minute change of civilian leadership at the Pentagon is part of this effort." —Zachary Wolf on CNN

Zachary Wolf is a senior political writer at CNN.

MORE: Trump to saddle Biden with last-minute flurry of policy moves —Bloomberg

Graham faces possible ethics probe

The Senate Ethics Committee has been asked to investigate whether Sen. Lindsey Graham broke chamber rules by pressuring an official in Georgia to disqualify thousands of legal ballots. Richard Painter, who was chief ethics lawyer for former President George W. Bush; Walter Shaub, a former government ethics official; and Claire Finkelstein, of the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law, requested the probe to determine whether Graham sought to "disenfranchise Georgia voters by not counting votes lawfully cast for the office of president."

• — Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger says Graham asked him whether election workers could have accepted ballots with mismatched signatures because they were biased toward Democrats, and whether Raffensperger could throw out all mail ballots cast in counties with higher rates of signature issues. 
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• — Graham calls the claims "ridiculous" and says he never suggested disqualifying mail-in ballots. "I called up the secretary of state to find out how you verify a signature and what database you use," he said, adding that he had similar conversations with officials in Arizona and Nevada.
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• — The three ethics experts also requested that the Senate Ethics Committee look at whether Graham "threatened anyone with a Senate investigation of the Georgia vote tally." Earlier this month, Graham said the Senate Judiciary Committee that he chairs would investigate "all credible allegations of voting irregularities and misconduct" in the election. —Business Insider

Mahler: Should Trump be prosecuted?

"The stakes of an indictment would be very high. The commander-in-chief's broad powers under the Constitution could make it difficult to secure convictions. The damage to democracy that would be caused by a failed prosecution of a former president is hard to even fathom. An acquittal could also set back future efforts at accountability, and embolden aspiring abusers of authority.

Even once he's out of office, Trump is going to be a powerful force in the country's political life; putting him on trial for his conduct as president would be tantamount to putting on trial the more than 72 million Americans who voted for his re-election. One institution that Biden will no doubt be focused on trying to rebuild is the Justice Department; prosecuting Trump could complicate any effort to restore the agency's reputation for independence and integrity." —Jonathan Mahler in The New York Times

Jonathan Mahler is a staff writer for the New York Times magazine and the author of "Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx Is Burning" and "The Challenge."

MORE: House asks Supreme Court to postpone Mueller grand jury case —Politico

Michigan militia planned mayhem

More disturbing information has emerged about last month's alleged militia plot against Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. The 14 men charged in the foiled plan had other violent ideas in mind as well, according to government documents now on file in a lower Michigan court.

• — The federal and state filings claim the group had drawn up a "Plan B" that involved a takeover of the Michigan capitol building in Lansing by 200 combatants, who would then stage a week-long series of televised executions of public officials. There was also a "Plan C" to burn down the state house, leaving no survivors.
   
• — "We are one of the few states that does not ban guns in our state capitol building, and clearly there have been threats made on the lives of our legislators," said Michigan's attorney general, Dana Nessel, who is prosecuting some of the militiamen. "So that remains a big concern to me in a very scary scenario."
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• — Despite the violent nature of the charges, including the primary plan to kidnap Whitmer and hold a mock treason trial for her, several of the defendants have had bond reductions and are currently free. —ABC News

Greenbaum: Keep the lines of communication open

"Social media has become an important space for political discourse, but too many people quickly block those with diverging political views. Liberal people bristle at the thought of reading conservative news commentary or asking friends about their fears regarding a more progressive America. Unfortunately, too, our headlines have become overrun by false news, which has been inflamed by Trump and social media algorithms that target those prone to misinformation. Even in light of this sad reality, I argue that we need to keep the lines of communication open to multiple political views, irrespective of discomfort. Doing so will provide us with education, perspective, and opportunities to provide healthy influence, backed by legitimate news sources and information." —Rebecca Greenbaum on NJ.com

Rebecca Greenbaum is a professor of human resource management in the School of Management and Labor Relations at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.

MORE: The battle over truth looks likely to play out on a new suite of social-media alternatives —The Washington Post

"Trump's behavior is not a temper tantrum. It's a carefully planned assault on America democracy, which will have an impact even after he's left the White House." —Anne Applebaum, author of "Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism" (@anneapplebaum)

To follow up on yesterday's post about the lies propagated by Newt Gingrich, an email arrived today for my mother (passed away three years ago!) claiming, as the Senate Conservatives Fund asks for money:

"If the Democrats take over the Senate, they will abolish the filibuster, grant statehood to D.C. and Puerto Rico, and expand the seats in our courts so they can pack them with liberal activists.

They want to pass the Green New Deal, gun confiscation, open borders and to defund the police!!

We must act now to create a conservative firewall in the Senate to stop the liberals from destroying our country."

Same old scare tactics. We who voted for decency in this past election don't need to use outlandish scare tactics; the reality of the last four years is scary enough. —Read G., Utah

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.