'A cause for concern, not a cause for panic'

President Biden is urging Americans not to panic about Omicron, the latest COVID-19 variant threatening the world. And shutdowns or lockdowns? They're off the table. Omicron was identified last week, having first been detected in Africa. The World Health Organization said that the "variant of concern" carries a very high risk of infection surges, but no deaths have yet been linked to it. As with past variants of COVID-19, it is inevitable that Omicron cases will emerge in the U.S., Biden said. In the meantime, the message from the administration is the same—get vaccinated, get boosters, and wear masks.

• — "We're going to fight and beat this new variant." The variant has led countries around the globe to limit travel from southern Africa. The U.S. travel ban took effect yesterday, blocking most visitors from eight southern African nations from entering the country. Earlier flights from South Africa to the U.S. did not screen passengers after the variant was found. Biden said the travel restrictions were put in place to give the country time to get more people vaccinated.
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• — Vaccine hesitancy in the U.S. and around the world has thwarted efforts to get the pandemic under control. Only a quarter of the population in South Africa is fully vaccinated. Just 59% of all Americans are fully vaccinated, although nearly 70% have had at least one shot. U.S. government workers were required to get vaccinated by Nov. 22, but the White House informed federal agencies yesterday that they can delay punishing those who have not complied.
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• — "In the event, hopefully unlikely, that updated vaccinations or boosters are needed to respond to this new variant, we will accelerate their development and deployment with every available tool," Biden said, adding that he would direct the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to make those vaccines available quickly. The president is expected to lay out his strategy for combating the pandemic over the winter on Thursday. —Reuters

We really shouldn't be writing about this 

We should be writing about what Congress is doing to keep the government from shutting down. But unfortunately, the Dividers are sucking all of the air out of the room, and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is letting them get away with it…again. In a video that has circulated online, Rep. Lauren Boebert referred to Rep. Ilhan Omar, one of three Muslim members of Congress, as a member of the "Jihad Squad." She also shared an anecdote that portrayed Omar as a potential suicide bomber within the Capitol building. McCarthy never condemned the comments; he just made a milquetoast statement about "facilitating a meeting" between the congresswomen. Omar said she accepted a call from Boebert "in the hope of receiving a direct apology." It did not go well. "She instead doubled down on her rhetoric, and I decided to end the unproductive call," Omar said. "I believe in engaging with those we disagree with respectfully, but not when that disagreement is rooted in outright bigotry and hate." —The Hill

MORE: Greg Sargent: There's a huge hole in the debate over how Democrats can save themselves —The Washington Post

Palmer: Don't listen to the populists. Democracy makes economies great

"Autocrats are more likely to use their power to smother innovations that threaten existing capital configurations and the interests that benefit from them than to advance disruptive innovations whose usefulness they have no expertise to judge. The notion that the right dictator will resist the urge to use his or her uncontrolled power to meddle in the economy—just a bit!—and pick the right winners is a triumph of hope over reality. It's the presumption of liberty, including the liberty to compete with the established players (whether firms or politicians), that makes an economic system innovative." —Tom Palmer on The Unpopulist

Tom Palmer is the executive vice president for international programs at Atlas Network, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, and the co-author of "Development with Dignity: Self-determination, Localization, and the End to Poverty."

MORE: Major retailers tell Biden shelves are stocked for holiday season —Al Jazeera

'The American people deserve a full and unvarnished history'

Former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper has filed a lawsuit against the Pentagon for not clearing the manuscript for his forthcoming book, "A Sacred Oath." A pre-publication review is a typical process required for government officials to receive approval when writing about their service, so that state secrets and other protected information isn't made public. The Defense Department informed Esper in October that he needed to take out parts of the book about his time working under Donald Trump, with whom he disagreed at various times before being fired in November 2020. "What I aimed to do was to provide important insights and anecdotes and color to what was arguably one of the most tumultuous second halves of an administration in history," Esper told Jake Tapper yesterday. "So I don't know what the reason is, but…it just does injustice to this important part of America's history that the people need to know about and need to understand in depth." —CNN

MORE: Inside the 'misinformation' wars —The New York Times

Ed. Board: Why we need federal election reform

"This year, 19 Republican-controlled states passed laws making it harder to vote. Many target early voting and absentee ballots, the focus of baseless accusations of fraud in the 2020 election. Four states have introduced or increased criminal penalties—to go along with the existing harassment—for things like handing out water to voters waiting in line or helping people with disabilities turn in their ballots. A sweeping new law in Texas specifically targets voter access initiatives that proved successful in Democratic Houston. Gerrymandering makes certain voters irrelevant; these state laws prevent others from voting in the first place. The two strategies are working in tandem to give Republicans an overwhelming advantage." —The Christian Century

MORE: Trump allies work to place supporters in key election posts across the country, spurring fears about future vote challenges —The Washington Post

Focus on the Jan. 6 select committee

Former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows is cooperating with the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol—providing records and agreeing to appear for an initial interview—and thus staving off a criminal contempt referral for now. Even though Meadows has begun engaging with the committee, whether he will try to claim executive privilege during testimony remains an open question. Still, his engagement stands in stark contrast to Steve Bannon, who has been charged with two counts of contempt of Congress for failing to comply with a subpoena from the committee, and former Department of Justice official Jeffrey Clark, on whom the committee will vote on a criminal contempt referral report tomorrow. —CNN

• — "We have one president at a time under our Constitution." Three federal appellate judges appear likely to reject Donald Trump's effort to block Jan. 6 investigators from obtaining his White House records—a potential boost for the committee, as it seeks details about the ex-president's actions during the attack. The judges repeatedly expressed skepticism today that a former president could override a decision by the sitting president—in this case, Joe Biden—to release documents to Congress, particularly when the incumbent has decided it's in the national interest to release records to investigators. —Politico
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• — "The only strategy we can follow is to object to numerous states and raise issues." Hours before the attack, Trump made several calls from the White House to top allies, including lawyers Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, and Boris Epshteyn, as well as Bannon, at the Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C., to discuss ways to stop the certification of Biden's election win. The discussion came after former Vice President Mike Pence balked at the idea of using his ceremonial role to halt the certification. —The Guardian
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• — Up to no good. The committee may be adding a few more witnesses to its subpoena list. Organizers of the "Stop the Steal" rally that preceded the attack reportedly communicated with members of Trump's family and administration via burner phones. Kylie Kremer, an organizer for the rally, had an aide purchase the phones "with cash" a few days before Jan. 6. They were used to communicate with Meadows, Trump's son Eric Trump, daughter-in-law and former campaign official Lara Trump, and former Trump surrogate Katrina Pierson. Stay tuned. —Rolling Stone

Halpern: Our democracy needs a shakeup

"There is something deeply wishful about hosting a summit to bolster democracy around the world when our own is, at best, floundering. One of the central premises of American exceptionalism is the belief that, against all odds, our democracy will endure, that it 'shall not perish from the earth.' Yet the paradox at the core of all democracies is that they can be legislated out of existence. The anti-democratic movement that coalesced around Trump's insistence that he was the rightful winner last November persists with the blessing of a number of Republican members of Congress, in order to sow doubt in the legitimacy of the electoral process. It is an accomplice to every legislative effort by Republican state legislatures to undermine future elections." —Sue Halpern in The New Yorker

Sue Halpern is an author and a staff writer at The New Yorker.

MORE: U.S. Jan. 6 Capitol attack shows democracy under threat, NATO chief says —Bloomberg

Our troubled nation…when I hear and see the hate, death, and violence against the police during the Jan. 6 insurrection; the threatening of violence against our election administrators and politicians simply doing their jobs; the discrimination, corruption, lies, and division here in our America, I find that I lack the ability to understand those Americans who have chosen to accept and follow those people who encourage these behaviors.

It seems to me that their tactics are designed to change our fragile experimental democracy into an Arian-style totalitarian dictatorship. Power corrupts, as we are seeing in many states now, and in the four years of our previous administration. I am a senior in my 83rd year and know that I will not have to experience, if it is allowed to occur, the loss of our freedom of speech, of the press, of individual choice, and of religion, or, for those who stand up for those lost freedoms, as in dictatorships around the world today, incarceration or death. Human history shows us what power can wreak—in our own history, through the genocide of Native Americans and slavery, and in world history in the 20th century, with Hitler, Stalin, and the like. Millions of humans were killed because of prejudice, hatred, and to further power and riches for a few. 

How can a cult of subservient followers work so diligently to change our ability to have free and open elections, without being stopped, in our democracy? I do what I can to sign petitions and donate to those individuals that are working to protect our democracy as ethical politicians within our local, state, and federal government. But time is short for our current administration to educate us on the democratic reforms being negotiated, and how they will positively impact us for the better. 2022 voting is critical to supporting our democracy, and American voters need to know the benefits. 

Dictators around the world want to see our democracy fail, and they all are attempting to feed us misinformation to encourage radical cult followers to rise up against our democracy and, if possible, initiate a civil American conflict. At an Iowa weekend rally recently, as reported by the press, Trump made this statement loud and clear: "I see a civil war coming!" And indeed, there are military-style white supremacist supporters who will gladly take up arms in a civil conflict against our democracy. —Kerry S., California

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.