Today, we have a lot to get through on the last episode of Quick News Daily for the week. We discuss another allergic reaction to the COVID vaccine, the extra doses found in the vials for the vaccine, and French President Emmanuel Macron testing positive for the coronavirus. We also discuss Biden's latest nominee, why you shouldn't be worried about Republicans objecting Electoral College votes in the House, MacKenzie Scott, and more!

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Find Quick News Daily on your favorite podcast player: https://rebrand.ly/QuickNews

Sources:

Alaskan has allergic reaction after getting Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine

FDA says Pfizer vaccine vials hold extra doses, expanding supply 

McConnell warns GOP off Electoral College brawl in Congress

Sales top 3 million for Barack Obama's "A Promised Land'

MacKenzie Scott Has Donated More Than $4 Billion In Last 4 Months

French President Emmanuel Macron tests positive for Covid-19

Biden expected to nominate North Carolina environmental official to run EPA

(Mostly Accurate) Transcript:

OPEN 

 

Today is Thursday, December 17th, thanks for listening once again. There were actually a ton of really interesting stories out there today, so it was tough to narrow them down. I tried to choose the ones that would be most relevant to our lives, just like the mission of this show is supposed to be, so you’ll have to let me know how I do with that. *WILLY WONKA EFFECT* There are some pretty hot takes in here, so it’s going to be a fun one. To amend those words of Willy Wonka, let’s get caught up right away. 

COVID REACTION AND EXTRA DOSES

 

So, here’s the deal: I’m going to talk about this first story because we all need to be informed and aware of the risks. That said, we should keep this in perspective. I’ll explain more about what I mean in just a second. 

 

The story I’m talking about is the news from Alaska yesterday that a health worker who received the COVID vaccine had a severe allergic reaction. It happened within minutes of getting the shot, they had to give him a shot of epinephrine, and then he was fine after that. The health officials there said that this reaction was similar to the ones in the UK last week. The only problem is that this patient did not have a history of allergic reactions, whereas the two from last week did. In that way, those made sense, and it’s why this one is scarier. It’s human nature to fear the unknown. It’s why we’re afraid of the dark. 

 

So the caution and perspective that I want to give is that I feel like all of these reactions wouldn’t be big stories if this was a typical disease instead of COVID. If we only heard about 3 severe reactions to even something like the regular flu vaccine, I’m sure doctors would be thrilled. The data isn’t real easy to find, but a study from 2009 showed thousands of really serious side effects from the flu vaccine, so I just want to emphasize that the actual news story here is that there are only 3 news-making allergic reactions. 

 

The other side of that coin is that millions of flu vaccines go out every year, whereas, realistically, there have maybe been a couple hundred thousand COVID vaccines that have been given to the regular public. That same argument I just made about “only 3” is the same one that the idiots used this spring to justify why we shouldn’t be in lockdowns. They always said “the flu kills more people per year” after like 2 weeks of knowing about the coronavirus. It’s comparing apples to oranges. I guess, what I’m trying to say is that we should acknowledge these cases, we should study them, we should be cautious, but don’t let this scare you out of getting the vaccine altogether. Talk to an actual doctor, don’t just take my word for it. 

 

But hey, let’s hear some good news about the vaccine, which is actually more of a story about how our pharmacists are pretty smart people. As early as Monday, and for sure by Tuesday, pharmacists nationwide began noticing that there was still quite a bit of vaccine l

Today, I go through several stories that will save you from having to look at those clickbait articles with all the pop-up ads, including FDA-approved at-home COVID testing, Trump's legal troubles in the state of New York, and a possible COVID mutation in the UK. Also, I go over the latest nominees and appointees to the Biden Administration.

Find Quick News Daily on your favorite podcast player: https://rebrand.ly/QuickNews

Questions, comments, and/or suggestions? Email the show at [email protected] or message us on social media:

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Sources:

Biden poised to nominate former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm to lead Department of Energy

Pete Buttigieg, Transportation Secretary nominee 

Biden to name Gina McCarthy to top domestic climate job

UK finds new mutation of COVID-19 behind rapid spread across London

FDA approves first over-the-counter home test for COVID-19   

Trump Org must turn over documents to NY AG, judge rules

On this episode of Quick News Daily, we wrap up our story on the Electoral College vote from Monday, the lengths that some of the electors had to go to just to vote, and why the Seditious 126 are so dangerous. We also cover the bizarre shooting at a New York City cathedral, the Wisconsin Supreme Court, and Bill Barr's resignation.

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Find Quick News on your favorite podcast platform: https://rebrand.ly/QuickNews 

Sources:

'Democracy prevailed,' Biden says after U.S. Electoral College confirms his win 

GOP Rep removed from committees after saying he can't guarantee safety in Lansing on Monday 

A gunman is dead after a shooting at a New York City cathedral

Attorney General William Barr resigns

To start the new week, we have a lot to get through, including the COVID vaccine deployment, the Electoral College vote, the protests in DC this weekend (thanks to the Seditious 126), and the Russians hacking major government departments and agencies.

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Find Quick News Daily on other podcast platforms: https://rebrand.ly/QuickNews

Sources:

COVID-19 vaccines head to California; Western states' medical experts confirm safety 

US coronavirus: CDC officially allows vaccine to be administered as shipments begin 

White House staff members will be among the first to be vaccinated. 

Electoral college vote may be knockout blow to Trump's ploy to subvert election | US elections 2020 | The Guardian  

https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1337815329158950913?s=20 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/historic-black-churches-attacked-during-pro-trump-rallies-saturday/2020/12/13/d897bfb0-3d54-11eb-8bc0-ae155bee4aff_story.html?itid=pr_hybrid_experimentrandom_with_top_mostshared_2_na-ans_2 

Russian government spies are behind a broad hacking campaign that has breached U.S. agencies and a top cyber firm

Michigan House punishes GOP Rep. Gary Eisen for hinting at Electoral College disruption

Live: Here Are the Electoral College Results, By State   

(Mostly Accurate) Transcript:

OPEN

 

Today is December 14th, welcome to another Monday edition of Quick News Daily. I’d say it’s a pretty exciting and historic day in US history: the COVID vaccine is being distributed as we speak; maybe some of you listening have already been lucky enough to have gotten it. I’d say you’re both brave for trusting this, as well as lucky to be one step closer to beating this virus. We’ll talk more about that in just a bit, as well as the Electoral College, as well as the protests from this weekend. It’s some important stuff, so let’s get caught up right away.  

COVID VACCINES

 

We’ll start right there with the deployment of Pfizer’s COVID vaccine to all 50 states. The first shipments of the vaccine left Portage, Michigan early Sunday. States will get vaccines based on their adult population, and more shipments are coming later this week. About 189,000 vials of vaccine departed the plant and are expected to arrive in all 50 states Monday. 400 boxes packed with about 390,000 vials will ship on Monday, meaning they’ll arrive Tuesday. There are five doses of vaccine per vial, according to Pfizer, so doing the rough math, that adds up to 2,895,000 doses that have gone out on Sunday and Monday. 

 

The vaccine is heading to sites across the country (mainly hospitals) that can store it at the 94 degrees below zero that it requires, which is colder than Antarctica. Pfizer is using containers with dry ice and GPS-enabled sensors to ensure each shipment stays cold enough to be useful. 

 

As for where we’re heading with this and what it could mean, the head of US coronavirus vaccine efforts told Fox News Sunday that "all in all, we hope to have immunized 100 million people" by the end of the first quarter of 2021. 

 

Honestly, the sooner the better, because we are breaking records across the country right now. The Public Health Director for Los Angeles County summed up what we’re seeing right now by saying "the issue right now is what we call the Thanksgiving surge. We had a surge, and now we have a surge on top of a surge, and it's really hard for us to calculate exactly what we're going to see in the next week or two." She’s specifically talking about Christmas and people traveling for the holidays, which could be a real problem because there’s always a 2-3 week period in between the superspreader events and the surge at hospitals. 

 

In the country's 10 largest cities, the number of hospital patients who had the virus ranged from about 9% in New York to 23% in Chicago. In El Paso, Texas, more than 50% of patients in city hospitals had COVID between November 27 and December 3, which was nearly double the national average for that period.

 

HYP

Catch up on this week's top headlines on our weekly recap show. This week's top stories include the suspicious raid on data analyst Rebekah Jones' house in Florida, the eventual pre-approval of the Pfizer COVID vaccine by the U.S. (and it's deployment in the UK), more appointees and nominees for the Biden/Harris Administration, and more!

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Find podcast platforms to listen to Quick News Daily for free: https://rebrand.ly/QuickNews

Have any thoughts on possible YouTube/Facebook/Instagram live, interactive videos (that would later become podcasts)? Let me know on social media (Facebook | Instagram | Twitter), or by emailing [email protected].

On today's Quick News Daily, we discuss the latest news about the FDA pre-approving the Pfizer COVID vaccine, as well as the news from the UK about 2 people who had serious allergic reactions to it. Then, I talk about the potentially game-changing antitrust lawsuit against Facebook, as well as an update on the Rebekah Jones raid in Florida.

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Find Quick News on your favorite podcast platform: rebrand.ly/QuickNews

Sources:

Lawyers' group calls for disciplining Trump legal team over 'dangerous' fraud allegations 

Facebook antitrust case: FTC and several states launch lawsuits 

The antitrust case against Facebook: Here's what you need to know 

Florida state police release body cam video of raid on ex-Covid data's scientist home 

Evidence to justify raid on home of Rebekah Jones weak, experts say 

Pfizer Faces Enormous Task Of Covid Vaccine Distribution After FDA Panel Recommends Urgent Use 

FDA advisers recommend authorization of Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine

https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/09/health/covid-vaccine-allergies-health-workers-uk-intl-gbr/index.html 

 (Mostly Accurate) Transcript:

COVID

 

The big news from yesterday (that I think we all expected) was that vaccine advisers to the FDA voted to recommend emergency use authorization for the Pfizer vaccine. On this panel, the vote was 17-4-1. 

 

I thought that this was like the final say, but now the FDA has to decide whether to accept the recommendation, but has signaled that it will issue the EUA for the vaccine. 

Then, after that, there’s still another step where the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices must meet to decide whether it recommends that the vaccine be deployed for use. That group has a meeting scheduled for today, and expects to vote during a meeting scheduled for Sunday.

Operation Warp Speed officials say they will start shipping the vaccine within 24 hours of FDA authorization. 

 

The FDA group is scheduled to meet again December 17 to discuss Moderna's EUA application. 

 

This is all good news, and I think when you weigh the amount of testing that has happened with this, I think it’s safe. At the same time, there is some unsettling news about a couple of allergic reactions that happened in the UK. 

 

The UK regulators issued new advice to healthcare professionals stating that any person with a significant allergic reaction to a vaccine, medicine or food -- such as previous history of anaphylactoid reaction, or those who have been advised to carry an adrenaline autoinjector -- should not receive the Pfizer vaccine. The two staff members who had that reaction both carried an Epipen and had a history of allergic reactions, and they developed symptoms of anaphylactoid reaction after receiving the vaccine on Tuesday. 

I think the scariest wording was that this advice also states that vaccines "should only be carried out in facilities where resuscitation measures are available." 

 

Finally, this advice recommends that people who carry an EpiPen to delay having a vaccination until the reason for the allergic reaction has been clarified. 

 

Again, I want to be careful on this because I think the benefits greatly outweigh the alternatives, and I don’t want to start any unnecessary vaccine panic because these were just two people, and the study alone was 44,000, but it’s definitely something to know. I also read that Pfizer’s trial protocols said that to be in that study, you couldn’t have a history of severe allergic reaction “to any component of the study intervention”. That might explain why this didn’t happen in the trial. Another expert in this CNN article said that until we know what part of the vaccine actually caused these reactions, the general public shouldn’t be worried, which makes sense; maybe it was something that was very rare. Just something to keep in mind though as we get closer and closer to this. 

FACEBOOK

 

Some other news that I was happy to hear is that both the government and regulators want Facebook

On this episode of Quick News Daily, I go over President-elect Biden's latest nominees and appointees, including his surprising (to me) pick of retired Gen. Lloyd Austin for Defense Secretary, as well as the great news that Dr. Fauci will be his COVID expert. Also, we talk about Chris Krebs' lawsuit, a follow up to the raid on Rebekah Jones' home, and that useless executive order from Trump.

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Have any thoughts on possible YouTube/Facebook/Instagram live, interactive videos (that would later become podcasts)? Let me know on social media (Facebook | Instagram | Twitter), or by emailing [email protected].

Find how to listen on your favorite podcast platform: www.rebrand.ly/QuickNews

Transcript:

BIDEN NOMINEES

Flipping over to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which wackjob Dr. Ben Carson is currently leading, Biden has selected Rep. Marcia Fudge as his nominee. She has been lobbying to be the first Black female Agriculture Secretary, but the rumor is that Biden is planning on choosing former Obama agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack, so here she is. 

This is kind of interesting because as early as last month, Fudge had an interview with POLITICO where she said “As this country becomes more and more diverse, we're going to have to stop looking at only certain agencies as those that people like me fit in. You know, it's always ‘we want to put the Black person in Labor or HUD.’” I’m not exactly sure what changed in that time period, but I suppose you never know how you’re going to react until you get the call. 

She will have an important job since a lot of folks are going to be facing eviction and back-rent bills, as well as the existing homelessness problems. She will also be reinstating the rule from the Obama era that aims to help fair housing. That rule required local governments to track patterns of segregation with a checklist of 92 questions in order to gain access to federal housing funds. Lastly, she’ll be stopping a Ben Carson rule that required plaintiffs to meet a higher threshold to prove unintentional discrimination, known as disparate impact, and gave defendants more leeway to rebut the claims.

Honestly, the one downside to Marcia Fudge being nominated here: it’s not Cory Booker! Remember how Trump was campaigning at the end and kept telling “suburban women” that big, scary Cory Booker was going to come in and destroy their neighborhoods? What a shame. 

BIDEN COVID PLAN AND NOMINEES

Sticking with Biden just a bit more, he also unveiled a three-point plan to fight the coronavirus in his first 100 days in office. Point one is to get at least 100 million Americans vaccinated in his initial 100 days, point two is his pledge to sign a face mask mandate on his first day in office, and point three is getting kids back to school safely. I was actually surprised about the mask mandate because I thought he said he wasn’t going to do that, but actually it seems like it’s a little more targeted and specific than just saying everyone has to wear one. His mandate would require masks in places like federal buildings and on planes, trains and buses for interstate travel. Biden also said that he would work with governors and mayors to pass masking mandates in communities across the country.

In terms of getting kids back to school, which helps kids’ learning as well as opening up the economy since parents don’t have to be home with them, Biden says Congress will need to provide the necessary funding to protect students, educators and staff.

This plan came on the same day that he announced a lot of his nominees for key public health positions. He announced that his chief medical adviser on the pandemic will be Dr. Fauci. Xavier Becerra, California's current attorney general, will be his nominee for secretary of Health and Human Services (I’m sure Kamala Harris had some say in that, seeing as that was her old position). Dr. Vivek Murthy, who was US surgeon general for President Obama, will be h

For your quick news today, we cover the possible intimidation of a Florida whistleblower by Governor Ron DeSantis and his goons, new possibilities for the Biden/Harris inauguration, and all things related to the COVID vaccines. We also take a quick break for humor and talk about Trump floating the idea of holding a rally in Florida on inauguration day instead of attending.

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(Mostly Accurate) Transcript:

OPEN

Today is Tuesday, December 8th, thanks for choosing Quick News Daily. For our stories today, they may seem like they’re all local stories, or stories that only affect a certain community or city, but what I try to do with this show is explain how everything is connected. We really do have an impact on people everywhere around the world. The world is so interconnected now because of the internet and transportation being easier (well, in a non-COVID world), so I think it’s crucial to try and cover stories from almost anywhere. I’ll try to show you what I mean today. Let’s get caught up!

FLORIDA

Let’s start with a scary situation that went down in Florida yesterday that was all because of a small, weak, pathetic governor. For all of you Florida listeners, I’m sure it’s no secret down there that Governor Ron DeSantis, whose face just says “my wife doesn’t love me”, has handled the coronavirus absolutely terribly. He tried to deny it and keep everything open for as long as he could, and because he went full Trump, many people died that didn’t need to die. I mean, he did this knowing that he’s the governor of the retirement capital of the United States. 

Based on that, I’m sure it won’t surprise you if I tell you that he hasn’t exactly been transparent with reporting the COVID stats in his state. In fact, he was so misleading that, thankfully, the geographic information system manager for the Florida Department of Health spoke out and got fired for it. Since that time, this employee, named Rebekah Jones, decided to create her own website that reports information about Florida’s COVID numbers, including the numbers for hospital bed availability for specific facilities and nationwide COVID cases by school, which DeSantis did not allow to be released publicly.  

Well, yesterday morning, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement raided her house at 8:30 am, with guns drawn, because they said that she hacked into the state email system and sent a message to other government employees, which isn’t allowed because that system is supposed to be for emergencies only. They say that they entered the home so forcefully because Jones wasn’t opening the door and hung up on an agent, but Jones says she was taking her time opening the door because she was getting dressed since she thought she was being arrested. 

It’s not confirmed that this raid was ordered by DeSantis himself, but it does seem pretty suspicious that the officers on this raid were so heavily armed for a “data breach” that was really just an email telling other employees to not be afraid to speak out. Jones denies that she even wrote the email, and I think she’s hinting at this email being part of a plot to frame her and silence her for reporting these numbers. I think the most unforgivable part of this is these thugs came in and pointed guns at her and her kids, including her 2-year-old. What does that accomplish? Is the baby really a threat? 

Jones thinks that this wasn’t really about the email, and that it was more to scare her into silence and stopping her work on her COVID website. I think that certainly makes sense. She also thinks it’s funny that she’s being accused of being a hacker because “DeSantis publicly said I’m not a data scientist, I’m not a computer scientist and I wouldn’t even know what to do if I saw a database”. He said that back in May after she was first fired. That’s the sort of two-faced attack that Trump uses. It’s like when he said that

On this Monday episode of Quick News Daily, we have a strong international theme going since I take a deep dive into the protests across France and South Korea's response to a large (for them) COVID infection spike. Then, I talk about Trump's relationship with Twitter going forward, as well as Rudy Giuliani's COVID diagnosis.

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Here's the link to my story https://www.quicknewsdaily.com/e/hitler-failed-first-too-gop-election-2020/ 

Find where to listen to Quick News for free: https://www.podpage.com/quick-news/latest

Mostly accurate transcript:

OPEN

Hello again everyone, once again coming off the long weekend. Today is Monday, December 7th, and this wouldn’t be a news show unless I played the most cliche soundbite that every show plays on this date...Yes, it has been 79 years since the attack on Pearl Harbor, and I actually forget how many people died: 2,335 servicemen, plus 68 civilians. There were also 1,143 service members and 35 civilians wounded, with 3 civilian aircraft being shot down. I honestly don’t know which one would be worse: the people caught on the sinking battleships, or trapped inside for hours as they slowly sunk, or to be some random dude out for a Sunday morning flight with my new plane and then out of nowhere, here comes the Japanese army shooting at me! I choose neither. Certainly, our thoughts go out to any families still affected by this. 

As for the rest of our show, it’s certainly a more internationally-focused show than usual, with stops in France and South Korea. Let’s get right to it and get caught up. 

 

FRANCE

In fact, we’ll start in France, where they’ve had some pretty substantial protests these past two weeks. This article says “hooded anarchists launched projectiles at riot police, smashed up shop fronts, torched cars and burned barricades during a demonstration in the French capital on Saturday against police violence and a draft security law.” 

The police then took those as invitations to launch back tear gas and charge at the protesters, I’m sure with clubs and riot shields or something of that sort. Other protests took place in Marseille and other French cities, but they’re not Paris, so our American news services don’t really ask for details on those. 

The official story for the Paris demonstrations are that they started peacefully with folks waving banners that said things like “France, land of police rights” and “Withdrawal of the security law”. Then, police said 500 hoodlums or rioters, depending on the translation, joined in on the protests, which is when the “violence” started happening. In the end, 30 people had been arrested. 

So what’s the reason for these protests? One reason is that President Emmanuel Macron is advocating a new bill that wants to increase surveillance tools and restrict sharing images of police officers in the media and online. Boy, doesn’t that sound like a fun little mix: the police can watch you and do who knows what with your personal information, maybe even your picture, but you can’t share pictures of the police. Awww, are the widdle police officers scared of consequences for their actions? 

And it’s not like the protesters are just protesting something theoretical. As recently as the end of November, video footage came out of police beating up music producer Michael Zecler, who is black. 

I’m honestly pretty disappointed by Macron here. I was really hopeful for him since he won with 66% of the vote, but I guess maybe it’s because he was going against a right-wing crazy. Although, if that happened in America, the right-wing crazy would have been elected. I also read this really interesting article from a journalist who followed him throughout the campaign and in the early days of his presidency, and there was that awesome behind-the-scenes documentary about his campaign, and Macron really seemed like a great new leader. That’s why it’s so disappointing to see him make this turn. There was one thing that I never understood: just a fe

On this week of Quick News Daily shows, there's plenty to discuss, and not much of it is Donald Trump! Early in the week, we discuss the assassination of an Iranian scientist, Biden's bad foot, the loss of Darth Vader actor David Prowse, and the certification of results in Wisconsin and Ohio. Then, we discuss the formation of the Biden/Harris Inaugural Committee, the Utah monolith mystery, and a BUNCH of COVID news later in the week.

Here's my article: Hitler Failed First Too: Why the GOP’s Attack on the Election Spells Trouble 

Here's Artur's article: How To Cope And Move Forward After Losing Your Job To Covid-19 

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The ending song today was "Beautiful People" by Ed Sheeran feat. Khalid, and belongs to them and/or their respective record labels. You can see the official lyric video on YouTube here, and stream or download the song here.