"Tropical Depression 31 in the central Caribbean Sea evolved into record-breaking Tropical Storm Iota Friday afternoon. Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center predict it will hit Central America early next week as a major hurricane carrying winds of 120 mph."
"President Trump says an emergency use authorization for Pfizer's promising new COVID-19 vaccine will come 'extremely soon,' delivering his first public remarks since Joe Biden was declared the winner of the presidential election last Saturday." Pfizer still hasn't hit the extremely reduced hurdles of validation yet.
"Coronavirus cases are surging across the U.S., prompting many state and local leaders to impose new restrictions. But some experts say these efforts may be too little, too late — like a Band-Aid on a bullet wound."
"It's hard to overstate how much the U.S. coronavirus outbreak has deteriorated this past week, with each day ushering in new, disturbing records… On Thursday, there were more than 150,000 new infections. It was only last week that the U.S. reached a record of more than 100,000 infections in a single day for the first time ever."
So how's that "we don't need to mask" campaign going? "Hospitals are nearing capacity in North and South Dakota, two states where coronavirus has hit disproportionately hard for their small population size and where cases continue to rise daily." And then there's this… "The situation is so dire that North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum announced this week that health care workers who are positive for COVID-19 but are not showing symptoms can keep working in COVID-19 units."
"A national lockdown of businesses and schools is a 'measure of last resort,' Dr. Vivek Murthy, a former U.S. surgeon general who is a top health advisor to President-elect Joe Biden, said Sunday."
How go the Trade Wars? "Fifteen Asia-Pacific economies formed the world’s largest free trade bloc on Sunday, a China-backed deal that excludes the United States, which had left a rival Asia-Pacific grouping under President Donald Trump… The signing of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) at a regional summit in Hanoi, is a further blow to the group pushed by former U.S. president Barack Obama, which his successor Trump exited in 2017."
Because I'm seeing this everywhere… "Tim Thomas, a U.S. captain on the fishing vessel Northern Jaeger, encountered the Russian activities on Aug. 26 when his ship was operating more than 20 nautical miles inside the U.S. economic zone. After a Russian plane directed Captain Thomas to take his boat out of the area, he said, he responded that he was within the U.S. zone, not on the Russian side, and that the Russians could not order them to leave… At that point, he said, a Russian military ship joined in and issued similar orders. 'At this point, I’m going, "What’s going on here? Are we getting invaded?"' Captain Thomas said in an interview." Settle down, Francis. First of all, yes, the Russians have been probing us more often than they have in the past 20 years. But two, while these are claimed by the US are our "Exclusive Economic Zone", all that means is we're the only fishing fleet that should be harvesting these waters. These are international waters, outside the claim of the boundary of nations (more than 20 miles from the shoreline). Any ship has right of passage through these waters (yes, yes, maritime law and tradition, blah blah). Just as we claim the right of Free Navigation in the South China Sea, the Russians have the same rights here. Our fishing vessels should have been notified of the exercises well in advance (that's on the US for that failure) and were being ordered out of the area not as a territorial issue, but for their own safety (the Russians were conducting live fire exercises). This isn't new, it was reported at the time. For exercises like this, nations coordinate and give notice to each other and typically reserve air and ocean area saying "we will limit our exercise and any potential damage here." North Korea also gives warnings when launching missiles. We give notices when launching space craft (or conducting our own military exercises). It's easy to forget that these waters are not our sovereign territory the same way neighbors argue over the exact placement of property lines. Since our fishing fleet has been using these waters they form a sense of ownership that is misguided (and have their own rules about what is proper behavior and respect each others' rights). It it worrying, yes and no. Yes, the Russians are getting frisky and are marking territory for the newly opened North Sea (waves to our Russian friends). No, the Russians still can't project their power very far from their military bases.
Now, had the Russian fishing fleet been right behind their navy and proceeded to harvest thousands of tons of pollock and king crab with the navy acting as a screen, that would be a whole 'nother ball of wax. But rest assured they were just testing our defenses, getting as much signal intelligence as they could, seeing how we would react. It's a test of our abilities and way for them to get information about our systems. I'm sure we also had our ears out for them seeing if they could find the submarines listening in, pick up our eavesdropping, detect our counter detection systems. That's probably why their submarine surface so close to our waters, or it could be because their subs aren't very good. I think it's a safer bet that this was a test. Could we find their sub so close to our waters? Same as when their bombers approach our airspace. The cargo they carry probably isn't live weapons, or at the very least it's a reduced weapons load to haul their signal intelligence equipment. How soon do we react, what frequencies do we use, where are our radars, what are their capabilities. Trust that we don't give them everything, we don't respond to the earliest warnings, that kind of thing. And yes, they also factor that into their estimates of our abilities. There's also tons of other intelligence gathered on both sides, including finding out whom it captaining what ships and refining our estimates of their abilities. How do they signal each other, how well do they coordinate, what systems do they use for command and control, can they go off script easily, all of that and more gets measured.
Ma href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/federal-judge-rules-acting-dhs-head-chad-wolf-unlawfully-appointed-n1247848">"A federal judge in New York City on Saturday said Chad Wolf has not been acting lawfully as the chief of Homeland Security and that, as such, his suspension of protections for a class of migrants brought to the United States illegally as children is invalid."
"With President Trump refusing to accept the results of the election, analysts are asking if he’s trying to wage a coup. On this week’s On the Media, why so many Republicans support the president’s claims, despite the evidence. Don’t miss On the Media, from WNYC Studios."
"Parler, founded in 2018, touts itself as 'the world's premier free speech platform.' On Saturday, CEO and co-founder John Matze said one of the privately owned company's early investors is Rebekah Mercer, who along with her father, hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer, has been a backer of President Trump and is also a major donor to conservative causes including Breitbart News and former White House strategist Steve Bannon." Bye, Nazis. Also, there is some concern of exactly where the funds for Parler came from.
"U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo discussed 'global challenges' with a handful of members of a Paris think tank Saturday at the start of a seven-country tour of Europe and the Middle East, travels that were certain to be awkward since all the nations on his schedule have congratulated President-elect Joe Biden for winning the White House."
"Republican leaders in Michigan and three other critical states won by President-elect Joe Biden say they won't participate in a legally dubious scheme to flip their state's electors to vote for President Donald Trump. Their comments effectively shut down a half-baked plot some Republicans floated as a last chance to keep Trump in the White House." The last-ditch, hail-Mary play falters.
"Donald Trump has insisted he is not conceding the US election, despite seemingly acknowledging for the first time that Democrat Joe Biden won… 'He won because the Election was Rigged,' the Republican president wrote on Twitter, repeating unsubstantiated claims of election fraud."
"In the effort to stop Joe Biden’s victory from being certified, so many lawsuits have been filed in so many state and federal courts that no one has an exact number. But one thing is certain: the Trump campaign has an almost perfect record, having won only one case and lost at least a dozen."
"President Trump's legal challenges to the election met with a series of defeats and setbacks on Friday as judges found the Trump campaign's arguments and evidence that there was widespread fraud and irregularities with the vote to be lacking."
"Campaign officials described the episode as disastrous, saying it scared off many of the lawyers they spent months recruiting, who now no longer wanted to be involved. With the campaign already facing exceedingly long odds in its recount efforts, there are widespread concerns within Trumpworld and GOP circles that Giuliani’s antics are thwarting the president’s legal machinery from within." Ah, but then there's the myth of Giuliani's wild-fox strategy that helped the president win against almost certain impeachment (and not that most GOP senators put party ahead of country). This is the classic example of failing up. Or the other thought is Giuliani sees there is more money to be syphoned off of Trump and will take all he can get.
"Thousands of President Trump's most fervent supporters were out in Washington, D.C., on Saturday for a day of rallying that echoed the false assertion that the presidential election was marked by fraud."
"But the journey from candidate to president-elect, and then president, is not quite complete. There are still a number of important steps yet to play out from November through January… Throwing a potential wrench in the process has been President Trump's refusal to concede, although there's no sign his efforts will derail Biden's inauguration on Jan. 20… Here is a timeline of what comes next."
"President-elect Joe Biden won the presidency in large part because he promised to be the anti-Trump on policy, temperament, tone and just about everything else. But two men who helped run the Obama White House are urging him to follow President Trump's example in a specific way: by unapologetically leaning on executive actions to implement key policies." As a personal note, this is a bad thing for democracy. On the other hand, shove the unitary president concept down their throats and make them choke on it.
"From tearing up documents and hiding transcripts of calls with foreign leaders to using encrypted messaging apps and personal email accounts for government business, the Trump White House’s skirting of records preservation rules could limit the incoming Biden administration’s visibility into highly sensitive foreign policy and national security secrets."
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