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Ron Klain will be Joe Biden’s chief of staff

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President-elect Joe Biden’s first staffing choice is perhaps his most obvious one—Ron Klain will be his chief of staff, considered to be perhaps the toughest job in D.C. And it’s a great choice. 

Klain is perfectly suited for the role. He has been chief of staff to both vice-presidents Al Gore and Joe Biden, as well as Bill Clinton Attorney General Janet Reno at just 31 years of age.

Wednesday Night Owls: Biden should choose new disarmament agenda—starting with the Mine Ban Treaty

Night Owls, a themed open thread, appears at Daily Kos seven days a week

At Defense News, Arms Control Association senior fellow Jeff Abramson writes—Biden should embrace the humanitarian disarmament agenda:

In his first speech upon being declared the president-elect, Joe Biden flagged making “America respected around the world again” among top-line priorities.

Republican state senator on getting COVID-19 amid pandemic: ‘I finally got my wish’

With most eyes on the presidential election and a growing national interest in the Georgia Senate runoffs this January, it sometimes feels that the novel coronavirus pandemic is not getting as much national media attention as it should. And given the rising case numbers across the nation, the pandemic certainly should be getting a lot of coverage. After all, we’ve now surpassed 10 million coronavirus cases in the United States, with more than 60,000 related hospitalizations.

Rand Paul owns self once again over election security

Sen. Rand Paul, the Kentucky Republican probably voted most punchable by his colleagues in the Senate, had another embarrassing self-own on Twitter this week. “One way of determining fraud in mail-in ballots would be to examine a random sample of a few thousand to find the rate of fraud,” he wrote. “If fraud rate is low, voters may be convinced of the elections legitimacy. If the fraud rate is high, then every mail-in ballot should be examined.

Evangelical said COVID-19 might be a ‘wake-up call’ from God for female ‘fornication’ dies of …

On Nov. 3, long-time evangelical pastor and big-time Trump supporter Rev. Irvin Baxter Jr. died of complications from COVID-19. Based in Plano, Texas, his ministry announced his death at the age of 75. Baxter, a televangelist who appeared on End of the Age syndicated television and radio program and founded Endtime Ministries, preached an apocalyptic-brand of Pentecostal Christianity that has been practiced in the United States since the early 1900s.

The Atlantic Daily: COVID-19 Hospitalizations Reach an All-Time High

Every weekday evening, our editors guide you through the biggest stories of the day, help you discover new ideas, and surprise you with moments of delight. Subscribe to get this delivered to your inbox.GO NAKAMURA / GETTYThis pandemic never stopped being serious. But the situation just got more so.COVID-19 hospitalizations are up to an all-time high, and with them, fears that America’s hospitals could be overwhelmed.

Sexual Attraction Is the Oldest Story on Earth

It’s pretty hard to catch single-celled organisms in the middle of sex.“It’s sort of like if you put a male and a female together in the zoo. You can’t necessarily get them to do the thing,” John Logsdon, an early-eukaryotic-sex expert at the University of Iowa, told me. “If you were a Martian looking down on Earth and asking if humans were sexual or not, if you couldn’t look through the windows, you’d never see humans having sex. Well, rarely.

Winners of Close-Up Photographer of the Year

The second year of the Close-Up Photographer of the Year competition has just come to a close, and the winners have been announced. The contest “celebrates close-up, macro, and micro photography,” among seven separate categories. More than 6,500 entries were received from 52 countries this year. Organizers have been kind enough to share some of the winners and finalists with us below.

The Crown Takes the Shine Off Queen Elizabeth’s Reign

Early in its fourth season, The Crown finds Britain at a low. It’s 1982, and the so-called , but the 2006 drama covers the aftermath of Diana’s death, sympathizing with Elizabeth as she learns to change her perspective on public opinion. In this season, he’s less generous with the Queen, showing how her rigid adherence to duty contributed as much to Charles and Diana’s crumbling marriage as the young couple’s affairs and incompatibility did.

Amid SCOTUS Fight over ACA, Advocates Say Medicare for All Remains Best Way to Expand Healthcare

In oral arguments Tuesday, the Supreme Court appeared to reject arguments to strike down the Affordable Care Act in the middle of the pandemic. The case was filed by a group of 18 Republican-led states, backed by the Trump administration, who argue the ACA’s individual mandate is unconstitutional, and the rest of law should fall with it. “This was a terrible third attempt to have the Supreme Court strike down Obamacare. The first two had failed.