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"We can continue to allow the coronavirus to spread rapidly throughout the country or we can commit to a more restrictive lockdown, state by state, for up to six weeks to crush the spread of the virus to less than one new case per 100,000 people per day."

-- Dr. Michael Osterholm

News and Opinion

Dr. Michael Osterholm, named to the Biden coronavirus taskforce, calls for a national lockdown

If current projections hold for the United States, another 160,000 people will needlessly perish due to COVID-19 infections by February 1, 2021, a period less than three months from today and just over one year into the country’s foray with the pandemic. This would bring the total number of deaths to a staggering 400,000, and even that horrific total is a conservative estimate since excess deaths are not counted.

On Tuesday, the US saw a single-day high of 142,212 new cases of COVID-19 infections, bringing the cumulative total of 10.65 million. The present acceleration in cases is quite extreme. The current seven-day average reached 124,556 infections per day, up from 92,856 cases per day just a week ago, a 34 percent increase. Daily fatalities had a one-day jump to 1,465. The seven-day moving average for deaths has also exceeded the threshold of 1,000 per day. ...

The Biden administration is touting its coronavirus taskforce as highly experienced and committed to the pandemic’s science. It would be revealing to hear what Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center of Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota and recently appointed task force member said on the MSNBC program “Morning Joe.”

In the first week of August, Neel Kashkari, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, and I, we wrote an op-ed piece in the New York Times that basically said we need, in a sense, lockdown to drive this infection level to a place where we can actually control it with testing and tracing and follow up that way just like the Asian countries have done. I’m talking about everything from Australia to New Zealand all the way right up through China and Japan. All those countries have done it already.

What it would take, however, is to really to deal with the pain and suffering economically. What we basically proposed was because the saving rate in this country has gone through the roof since the pandemic—we’ve gone from 8 percent to over 22 percent—we could borrow the money from ourselves at a historically low-interest rate, we can pay people to lose their jobs, we can pay small businesses, we can take care of the city, state, and county governments, if we just elected to do that.

If Washington could get together and make that happen, that would be a very different kind of lockdown where people wouldn’t suffer, and we could get this virus under control … if we are a raging house on fire with the coronavirus in this country our economy is not going to do well. So, we have to understand we have a way to do it, but we have elected not to do it.

We would argue with Dr. Osterholm that the massive profits made by corporations during the pandemic on the backs of workers who have become infected in millions and dying in hundreds of thousands should pay for the lockdowns. Still, Dr. Osterholm’s perspective is clear on what is required, as he has been making the argument that the lockdowns in the spring were lifted far too soon to be effective. His position stands in stark contrast to Biden’s complete lack of commitment to these necessary measures. After all, Biden is a capitalist politician for whom the concerns raised by the representatives of the financial markets are the top consideration. Osterholm, by contrast, is a distinguished world-renowned epidemiologist who has been active in the field for over 40 years.

Notably, in his August op-ed piece, Dr. Osterholm made it clear that though he supports mask-wearing, mask mandates, which are in place in some form within 49 of 50 states (Nebraska has no requirement), will not be enough to control the pandemic. He added that to gain control over the epidemic, community transmission rates need to be reduced below one per 100,000 per day, and public health infrastructure is rapidly developed. Presently the infection rate in the US exceeds 36 per 100,000 per day.

One of Biden's new coronavirus task force doctors floating the idea of a 4-6 week lockdown:

“We could pay for a package right now to cover all of the lost wages for individual workers ... if we did that, then we could lockdown for 4 to 6 weeks."pic.twitter.com/zNmuQvPpIJ

— Zack Guzman (@zGuz) November 11, 2020

‘It must be made to fail’: Trump's desperate bid to cling to power

Donald Trump stepped out of the White House for a public event for the first time in six days on Wednesday as Americans strained to interpret a flurry of sudden personnel changes inside the administration, including at the Pentagon, while top Republicans refused to admit that Joe Biden had won the presidency. Instead of ushering in a becalmed moment of transition, the US election eight days ago has given way to escalating concerns over the president’s shocking visible effort to cling to power – and over top Republicans’ failure to dispute the president’s wild claims of election fraud.

The proportion of Biden’s victory in the popular vote crept up to 50.8% on Wednesday, the highest percentage for a challenger since Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1932. Judges in six states had thrown out at least 13 lawsuits brought by the Trump campaign to challenge the vote while agreeing to hear zero. There is every indication that Biden will be inaugurated on 20 January.

But continued leaks about the Trump team’s long-shot strategies for overturning the election result, and references such as one by the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, on Tuesday to a “smooth transition to a second Trump administration”, fed a sense of alarm that America was witnessing more than just hardball politics, cynical fundraising or Trumpian sour grapes.

10/20. Coups are defeated quickly or not at all. While they take place we are meant to look away, as many of us are doing. When they are complete we are powerless.

— Timothy Snyder (@TimothyDSnyder) November 11, 2020

Simultaneous to the Trump campaign’s move against election results in six key states, Trump was installing loyalists in the defense department and in other key security-related government posts. That was activity that might have prompted a warning from the United States about an authoritarian takeover if it happened in Turkey or the Democratic Republic of Congo. Trump fired the defense secretary, Mark Esper, by tweet on Monday and appointed as chief of staff Kashyap Patel, a key Republican operative during the Russia investigation. Trump also replaced the heads of intelligence and policy inside the Pentagon with political apparatchiks, while a fourth Republican political operative, Michael Ellis, was installed as general counsel of the national security agency. A further move by Trump to fire the FBI director was also reportedly under consideration. ...

Trump’s attacks on the election result have been equally determined. Baseless fraud conspiracies spread by his Twitter account and by his sons are the subject of top-viewed posts Facebook, and polling indicates that the campaign to destroy faith in the election is working, with a majority of Republicans believing there was significant election fraud – on zero evidence. ... As many times as it has already lost in court, the Trump campaign continues to bring lawsuits challenging the validity of ballots, with the ultimate aim of interrupting states’ efforts to certify their results, analysts say. If states cannot certify election results, the Trump campaign could pressure Republican-led state legislators to flip electoral votes – although that scenario, again, would be historically unprecedented and is seen as highly unlikely.

“More of an Exorcism Than an Election”: Priya Gopal on What Biden Win Means for Britain & Ireland

Another Official Dismissed at the Pentagon as Trump Continues Unusual Shake-Up

The sweeping dismissal of Pentagon officials, an overhaul that began on Monday with President Donald Trump’s sudden firing of Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, has continued. The Intercept has learned that Mark Tomb, the deputy chief of staff to the undersecretary of defense for policy, was ousted from his position yesterday. Tomb, who declined to comment when reached by phone, was forced into retirement as part of a wave of firings of top Defense Department officials that included James Anderson, the Pentagon’s acting policy chief; Joseph Kernan, the undersecretary for intelligence; and Esper’s former chief of staff Jennifer Stewart.

The Tuesday exodus represents a major shake-up that has been planned for months, according to one Trump administration official briefed on the effort, with more firings to come across the department. That official, who shared a draft list of other Pentagon officials under consideration for removal, said that Ellen Lord, the undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, would likely be dismissed next.

“The president is taking back control of DOD. It’s a rebirth of foreign policy. This is Trump foreign policy,” said the official, who spoke anonymously and without authorization.

The personnel changes, the official claimed, would help clear the way for a more loyal Pentagon apparatus to carry out Trump’s goals, including the last-minute withdrawal of troops from foreign conflicts. Trump has promised a withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan by Christmas, a pledge that has reportedly rankled senior figures in the military, including several of the Pentagon leaders dismissed this week.

The official’s explanation is at odds with possible explanations discussed around Washington, D.C., that the dismissals are solely designed to punish dissent and to politicize the Pentagon, a charge made by Democratic lawmakers.

Democrats' alarm as Trump stacks Pentagon with loyalists

Extreme Republican partisans have been installed in important roles in the Pentagon, following the summary dismissal of the defense secretary, Mark Esper, at a time Donald Trump is refusing to accept his election defeat. Democrats immediately demanded explanations for the eleventh-hour personnel changes and warned that the US was entering dangerous “uncharted territory” with the reshuffling of key national security roles during a presidential transition.

However defence experts argued there was little the new Trump appointees could do to use their positions to the president’s advantage, given the firm refusal of the uniformed armed services to get involved in domestic politics.

Anthony Tata – a retired army brigadier general, novelist and Fox News commentator who called Barack Obama a “terrorist leader” – has taken control of the Pentagon’s policy department, following the resignation of the acting undersecretary of defence for policy, James Anderson. Tata had been unable to win Senate confirmation after old tweets surfaced in which he expressed virulent Islamophobic views. ...

The fate of CIA director, Gina Haspel, was also in question. In a show of support, Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell invited Haspel to his office on Tuesday and Republican Senator John Cornyn tweeted: “Intelligence should not be partisan”. But he was attacked on Twitter by the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr, who asked if he or other Republicans backing Haspel had “actually discussed this with anyone in the Admin[istration] who actually works with her … or are you just taking a trained liar’s word for it on everything?”

The reasons for the post-election personnel changes 10 weeks before the end of Donald Trump’s tenure were unclear.

US postal worker recants voter-fraud claims after Republicans call for inquiry

A postal worker whose allegations of ballot tampering are the basis of Republican calls for investigations has reportedly recanted his story.

Democrats on the House oversight committee said that Richard Hopkins – the worker who claimed in a signed affidavit that a supervisor at the US Postal Service (USPS) in Erie, Pennsylvania, instructed staff to tamper with ballots by backdating ones that arrived late – had recanted the allegations in an interview with investigators for the USPS inspector general. The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that it had learned from three officials that Hopkins had admitted to fabricating his claims.

Investigators told the committee that Hopkins “did not explain why he signed a false affidavit”, the committee wrote in a statement. ...

Hopkins denied he had recanted his testimony in a video posted to YouTube on Tuesday night. “I did not recant my statements,” he said.

The USPS inspector general’s office has not yet publicly disclosed the findings of their investigation.

Texas politician offers $1m for proof of voter fraud and pushes baseless claims

An ultra-conservative Texas politician who believes seniors would rather die from Covid-19 than allow the pandemic to harm the economy is pushing another baseless theory, and dangling a million-dollar bounty for proof that Donald Trump is being cheated of victory in the presidential election.

Dan Patrick, the lieutenant governor of the lone star state, says he is offering the money to “incentivize, encourage and reward” citizens who can provide evidence of voter fraud, even though the president beat Joe Biden in Texas by almost 650,000 votes.

“I support President Trump’s efforts to identify voter fraud in the presidential election and his commitment to making sure that every legal vote is counted and every illegal vote is disqualified,” Patrick said in a statement, reported by ABC13 in Austin.

“The delays in counting mail-in ballots in other states raises more questions about voter fraud and potential mistakes.”

To that end, Patrick is offering the payout in chunks of at least $25,000 to every person who provides information that leads to a conviction. The money will come from Patrick’s campaign funds, according to a spokesperson.

Brazil: Trump Ally Bolsonaro Refuses to Acknowledge Biden Win & Downplays COVID as Death Toll Mount

Two Days After Pfizer's Hopeful Vaccine News, 82% of Doses Already Bought by World's Richest Nations

Campaigners in the United Kingdom on Wednesday warned that just two days after pharmaceutical giant Pfizer shared positive early results of its coronavirus vaccine trial, mass purchases of the vaccine by the world's richest countries have left more than 85% of the global population—namely, the world's poorest—without any way to access it.

Pfizer says it can produce 1.35 billion doses of the vaccine, which was shown according to Pfizer's first formal review to be 90% effective at preventing coronavirus infection in patients who have never had the virus, by the end of 2021. More than one billion of those doses—82% of the supply—have already been purchased by wealthy countries.

Over 80% of #Pfizer's vaccine doses have already been bought by the richest governments (= only 14% of global population). This shows just how screwed the pharma system is, and how empty the promises of western leaders like Johnson. #PeoplesVaccine Now! https://t.co/BiHlvfASvg

— Nick Dearden (@nickdearden75) November 11, 2020

The U.S. has purchased 100 million doses with an option to buy 500 million, enough to potentially immunize its entire population against the coronavirus with hundreds of millions of doses left over. Since Monday Pfizer has also sold 40 million doses to the U.K. and 200 million doses to the E.U., with an option to buy 100 million more.

In a statement, the British campaign group Global Justice Now noted that Pfizer's partner in the development of the vaccine, German manufacturer BioNTech, has received financing of €375 million ($441 million) from the German government and €100 million ($117 million) from the European Investment Bank.

"Pfizer claims not to have had any state support, but the advance purchase of a billion doses of an unproven drug, not to mention the tax breaks and direct public funding of Pfizer’s partner suggests their claim is misleading at best," said Global Justice Now director Nick Dearden. "Unless we break the stranglehold of these massive corporations over our medicines, the injustice will continue."

Global Justice Now noted that Pfizer is likely to give some doses to developing countries through the World Health Organization's Covid-19 Vaccines Global Access Facility (COVAX). However, those doses are expected to make up a small fraction of those produced by Pfizer, leaving billions of people without access to the vaccine.

COVAX has been undermined by the refusal of some wealthy countries, including the U.S., to take part in the global effort to ensure vaccine access, and now by mass purchases by some of those same countries.

Biden Appoints Chief Of Staff As Advisor Floats FOUR TO SIX WEEK Lockdown

Joe Biden names Ron Klain, Obama's Ebola tsar, as his chief of staff

Joe Biden has named Ron Klain, who served as the “Ebola tsar” during the Obama administration, as his chief of staff. Klain, 59, has been a vocal critic of Donald Trump’s pandemic response. He first worked with Biden in the 1980s.

In a statement sharing the news, the president-elect praised Klain’s “deep, varied experience”. ...

Klain has had a long career in government. He served as the chief of staff to the former vice-president Al Gore, and the staff director of the Senate Democratic leadership committee. He has worked with several Democratic presidential campaigns, including Biden’s 1988 and 2008 presidential campaigns. He was also the lead Democratic lawyer for Gore during the 2000 presidential election recount.

From 2008 to 2011, he served as then-vice-president Biden’s chief of staff and helped oversee the $787bn stimulus package that Barack Obama signed in response to the Great Recession.

Klain’s experience in a global health pandemic and a recession have been cited as among his top qualifications to help Biden in this moment. The president-elect made the coronavirus pandemic and the economic recession it has triggered central to his presidential campaign, promising to help lead Americans out of the crisis.

Panel: Bernie Floats Himself As Biden Labor Secretary, Should He Do It?

Senate GOP Blasted for Proposing OSHA Cuts as Covid-19 Crisis 'Makes Many Jobs Much More Dangerous'

Senate Republicans came under fire Tuesday after proposing to slash millions of dollars in funding for an important Occupational Safety and Health Administration training grant program.

Safety+Health reports the Senate Appropriations Committee—which also on Tuesday called for nearly $700 billion in new military expenditures—released a series of spending bills over the past week in which it seeks to cut $11.5 million from the proposed $581.8 million OSHA budget for fiscal year 2021. 

All of the new OSHA cuts would affect the Susan Harwood Training Grant Program, which according to the agency provides funding for nonprofit organizations offering training and education "for employers and workers on the recognition, avoidance, and prevention of safety and health hazards in their workplaces."

The Trump administration has attempted to cut funding for the grant program every year, but Congress has not yet done so. ...

Worker safety advocates condemned Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and other members of the Appropriations Committee for seeking to cut funding for an important safety program during the middle of a pandemic that poses unique training challenges.

‘We’re in power now’: Evo Morales makes gleeful return to town he fled

Wednesday, two days after re-entering Bolivia at the start of an emotional, politically-charged homecoming, Evo Morales made a gleeful return to the same town – to a rapturous reception. In a highly symbolic move, tens of thousands of followers from across the country had gathered on the runway from which Morales took flight.

Addressing them from a stage decked with green, yellow and red balloons, Morales declared: “We knew we were not alone. We knew we would return.” Wreathed in white flowers and coca leaves, the former coca growers union leader thanked the crowd for its support during his year-long banishment, railed against the US and mocked Jeanine Áñez, the conservative senator who took power after he was forced from office.

Morales, 61, recalled how in January Áñez had urged the Bolivian people to stop “the savages” from regaining power. “The Bolivian right and the global right should know: the savages are back in government,” he added sarcastically. “We’re in power now.”

Morales decision to return to Bolivia, just weeks after his party reclaimed the presidency in a re-run of last year’s election, has enraged opponents and unnerved some within his own party, the Movement For Socialism (Mas). Bolivia’s new leftwing president, Luís Arce, has distanced himself from his predecessor and has not taken part in Morales’s caravan to Chapare province.

But Morales is still adored in many parts of the country for the social, economic and racial strides Bolivia made during his three terms in power. There have been scenes of joy this week as the exiled politician crossed Bolivia’s southern border with Argentina and headed north towards the jungle-covered Chapare region where he began his political career in the 1980s.

Tall order for Biden to fix immigration system after four years of Trump

From ending prolonged detention to a 100-day moratorium on deportations, president-elect Joe Biden’s vision for a new chapter in US immigration policy departs dramatically from the border wall construction, family separations and kids in cages that marked the Trump era.

But fixing chronically broken statutes while reversing more than 400 of Donald Trump’s immigration-related executive actions requires time, resources and in many cases bipartisan support, a tall order for the incoming administration. “They’re just gonna have too much else on their plate,” said Sarah Pierce, a policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute. “There’s no way that a Biden administration will be able to get through and undo all of those changes in four years, and maybe not even eight.” ...

Biden will create a taskforce to reunite 545 children still separated from their parents after cruel mismanagement of migrants at the US-Mexico border. He will immediately do away with Trump’s travel ban that sparked cries of Islamophobia and bigotry after it infamously singled out Muslim-majority countries. And, in an overwhelmingly popular move, he has promised to reinstate safeguards for “Dreamers” – undocumented immigrants who came to the US as children. Biden is also expected to get rid of sweeping restrictions on work- and family-based visas that Trump instituted earlier this year.

Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy, which leaves migrants stranded across the southern border to await US immigration court hearings, will likewise be terminated without much to-do. But the real question is what could happen to about 68,000 people who have already been subjected to the program, Pierce said.

US deports migrants who accuse detention center gynecologist of abuse

The Trump administration is trying to deport several women who allege they were mistreated by a Georgia gynecologist at an immigration detention center, according to their lawyers. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) has already deported six former patients who complained about Dr Mahendra Amin, who has been accused of operating on migrant women without their consent or performing procedures that were medically unnecessary and potentially endangered their ability to have children.

At least seven others at the Irwin county detention center in Ocilla, Georgia, who had made allegations against the doctor, have received word that they could soon be removed from the country, the lawyers said.

Hours after one detained woman spoke to federal investigators, she said Ice told her that it had lifted a hold on her deportation and she faced “imminent” removal. Another woman was taken to a rural Georgia airport early Monday and told to sign deportation papers, only to be brought back to the facility as her lawyers sued in federal court. ...

While people who have been deported might still be able to serve as witnesses in a criminal or civil case, many end up in unstable countries or situations where it becomes difficult to maintain contact with them.

Matt Taibbi - A Dangerous Moment for the Democratic Party

Democratic Officials Lied About Role in Alex Morse Smear, Internal Report Finds

Massachusetts Democratic Party leadership lied to The Intercept when it denied involvement with a College Democrats of Massachusetts effort that undermined the insurgent congressional campaign of Alex Morse, a new internal report produced by the party has found. Among other damning revelations, the report paints a portrait of a party that at best mishandled the situation from start to finish, and at worst deliberately stoked a homophobic smear to undermine Morse’s challenge.

The report is the latest chapter in a saga that began on August 7 when University of Massachusetts Amherst’s college newspaper, the Daily Collegian, reported that the College Democrats of Massachusetts had accused Morse of unspecified inappropriate behavior. The bombshell dropped a week before the first debate between incumbent Rep. Richard Neal and Holyoke mayor Morse, whose campaign was gathering steam. 

The investigation was conducted by former state Sen. Cheryl Jacques, and was demanded by party regulars after The Intercept uncovered evidence that the attack on Morse was a coordinated and manufactured smear campaign put together jointly by party officials and student activists. ... While the report details the failings of party leadership to properly handle the allegations, and levels criticism for those leaders involving themselves in the primary, some unanswered questions remain. Morse, however, sees it as vindication of the claim that he was specifically targeted. “It stated pretty clearly that the chair of the party violated their bylaws and that the executive director also violated the bylaws, and that the leadership of the Democratic Party essentially tipped the scales to favor an incumbent and against the challenger,” said Morse. “And it said that pretty unequivocally.”

American discontent

Big Tech Oligarchs in Biden Administration overseeing Censorship!

One Third of Biden's Pentagon Transition Team Hails From Organizations Financed by the Weapons Industry

In July 2019, while campaigning for the Democratic nomination for president, Joe Biden declared in a foreign policy speech, ​“It’s past time to end the Forever Wars, which have cost us untold blood and treasure.” But the president-elect — who as vice president over­saw wars in Yemen, Libya, Afghanistan and more — is already embracing personnel with strong ties to the military apparatus driving this endless combat.

Of the 23 people who comprise the Department of Defense agency review team, eight of them — or just over a third — list their “most recent employment” as organizations, think tanks or companies that either directly receive money from the weapons industry, or are part of this industry. These figures may be an under­count, as In These Times was not immediately able to exhaustively source the funding of every employer. ...

The news prompted disappoint­ment from anti-war groups. ​“Biden build­ing a team of peo­ple with con­nec­tions to weapons manufacturers and the military industrial complex is a prime example of how militarism and imperialism are bipartisan,” says Sidney Miralao, an organizer with Dissenters, a group of young people who oppose U.S. militarism and the war industry. ​“Democ­rats and Republicans alike perpetuate and profit off of war and violence in our communities at home and abroad. By continuing the legacy of the revolving door with the defense industry, Biden and his team are set­ting them­selves up to be able to continue growing the military and strengthening the narrative that war is necessary to safety.”

Pelosi To Be Speaker AGAIN As Dems Too Cowardly To Challenge Her

Biden EPA Transition Team Member Helped DuPont Dodge Responsibility for PFOA

The Biden transition team has appointed Michael McCabe to its agency review team at the Environmental Protection Agency. McCabe, who served as Biden’s communications and projects director between 1987 and 1995 and as deputy administrator of the EPA at the end of the Clinton administration, led DuPont’s defense of the toxic PFAS chemical PFOA.

McCabe began managing DuPont’s communications with the EPA about the toxic chemical in 2003, two years after he left his job as deputy administrator of the agency, and continued in that role until at least 2006. As The Intercept previously reported, his still fresh relationships with his former colleagues in government came in handy as McCabe skillfully and successfully helped the giant corporation dodge the agency’s efforts to set binding limits on the chemical. ...

McCabe’s team worked so closely with EPA staff that they sometimes knew what was contained in the agency’s documents before they became public and saw at least one presentation before it was given. The DuPont team also drafted quotes that they attributed to EPA officials in DuPont press releases. In 2007, attorney Rob Bilott, who sued DuPont over the contamination, deposed McCabe. When asked about requesting quotes from the EPA, McCabe said the practice was “customary.”

Ultimately, his team succeeded in avoiding regulation that would have cost DuPont dearly. One of the upshots of the months of negotiations was an agreement to phase out PFOA. As part of the negotiations for that deal, McCabe’s team requested that the EPA issue reassuring statements about the safety of chemicals and products that contained PFOA. The EPA obliged. Asked about the EPA’s highly favorable statements about PFOA in his December 2007 deposition, McCabe insisted that they were “not a quid pro quo” for the DuPont’s agreement to phase it out.

Biden, who represented Delaware in the Senate for 36 years, has a long and complicated relationship with DuPont, which has been headquartered in the state for more than 200 years. McCabe’s consulting company, which led the defense of PFOA, is headquartered in Delaware as well.

In Potential Nod to Biden Win, Federal Reserve Applies to Join Climate Network for Central Banks

In a decision seen by some as a subtle acknowledgement of President-elect Joe Biden's victory even as President Donald Trump still refuses to concede, the Federal Reserve has applied to join what Bloomberg called "the climate change club for central banks," a group that requires participation in the Paris climate agreement.

"We have requested membership. I expect that it will be granted," Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Randal Quarles said during a Senate Banking Committee hearing Tuesday, Bloomberg reported. Quarles added that the Fed may become a member of the Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS) before its annual meeting in April.

Launched in late 2017, the NGFS sets out to bolster the world's efforts to meet the goals of the Paris agreement and "to enhance the role of the financial system to manage risks and to mobilize capital for green and low-carbon investments in the broader context of environmentally sustainable development," according to its website. ...

Bloomberg's Akshat Rathi suggested on Twitter Wednesday that by seeking NGFS membership, "the Fed tacitly accepts that Biden has won the presidency."

Although Biden's win may be a factor, earlier this year, before the U.S. officially ditched the Paris agreement, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell suggested the country could join the NGFS, Newsweek noted Wednesday.

Florida braced for Eta as new study finds hurricanes staying stronger for longer

Storm Eta regained strength to become a hurricane again on Wednesday morning off the west coast of Florida after earlier devastating Honduras as a category 4 that had raged across Central America leaving death and destruction in its wake. A few hours later it slowed back to tropical storm status but central Florida was still braced for a major tempest as the worst of the weather was forecast to come overland in the next 24 hours in the Tampa area. ...

In a record year for Atlantic hurricanes, the latest news came as a new study showed hurricanes are keeping their staying power longer once they make landfall, spreading more inland destruction. Warmer ocean waters from climate change are likely making hurricanes lose power more slowly after landfall, because they act as a reserve fuel tank for moisture, the study found.

The new study looked at 71 Atlantic hurricanes with landfalls since 1967. It found that in the 1960s, hurricanes declined two-thirds in wind strength within 17 hours of landfall. But now it generally takes 33 hours for storms to weaken that same degree, according to a study in Wednesday’s journal Nature.

“This is a huge increase,” study author Pinaki Chakraborty, a professor of fluid dynamics at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology in Japan. “There’s been a huge slowdown in the decay of hurricanes.”

Also of Interest

Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.

Biden state media appointee advocated using propaganda against Americans and ‘rethinking’ First Amendment

Can Trump actually stage a coup and stay in office for a second term?

How Trump Might Still Win

Trump’s Pentagon Shake-Up Could Lead to Troop Withdrawals

'Assange's future looks brighter under Biden' - whistleblower's ex-representative

Questions Mount About Controversial Hunter Biden-China Dossier

Senator Sherrod Brown Calls for Breaking Up the Wall Street Banks; Elizabeth Warren Tells Fed: “I Don’t Believe You’re Doing Your Job”

DeSantis Responds to Racial Justice Protests With Expanded 'Stand Your Ground' Proposal Slammed as 'Legalized Lynching'

Evo Morales: Bolivia’s ex-president returns – in pictures

New Yorker fires Jeffrey Toobin

Democracy Now: Trump Loss Decreases Chance of Iran War, But Many Iraqis Fear U.S. Policy Under Biden, Too

Keiser Report | Waiting for the Free Money to Trickle Down

Rising: What Is Trump's Endgame As Georgia Recount Continues?

Alex Thompson: Why Biden Is Desperate To Avoid An Obama 2.0 Presidency

Jane Coaston: What Right, Left Are Getting Wrong About 2020 Results

A Little Night Music

The Coasters - Along Came Jones

The Coasters - Run Red Run

The Coasters - Poison Ivy

The Coasters - Zing Went The Strings Of My Heart

The Coasters - Little Egypt

The Coasters - Love Potion Number Nine

The Coasters - Shopping For Clothes

The Coasters - I'm a Hog For You

The Coasters - Let's Go Get Stoned

The Coasters - Charlie Brown

The Coasters - Talkin' Bout A Woman