Our picksFDA Fully Approves Remdesivir | Helping the Crime World Go Dark | Election-Day Virus Surge, and more

My Week with the Baying Antifa Mob(Douglas Murray, The Spectator)
In the days when you could still watch a nature documentary without feeling as if you were sitting through a politics lecture I saw footage of a pack of smaller predators taking down an elephant. At the time I remember thinking: ‘Why don’t you keep running? Why don’t you knock the first one off and keep going?’ Strangely, I thought of that elephant again in the very different savannah of Portland, Oregon.
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Portland has been the epicenter of a confusion that has afflicted a smaller number of activists in our own country [the U.K.]. That is the taught perception that they live in a patriarchal, unequal, cis-heteronormative, irredeemably racist society. In time this defamation sank in and caused a reaction. For years, the city has seen regular rioting by the far-left group ‘Antifa’. In the name of pursuing non-existent fascists these activists laid waste to their city, dragged passing motorists from their cars, hospitalized journalists whose reporting was disobliging and otherwise turned the city into a first-world slum.
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Still the image comes to mind of the elephant brought down by the smaller predators. America is not being brought low by one beast, but by a whole pack of them. These predators include, though are not limited to: ignorance, educational failure, radical indoctrination, pandemic, poverty, narcissism, boredom, the disappearance of the adults, a belief that law enforcement is the enemy and much more. Why America didn’t throw off the first attacker and keep on moving is a question I cannot shake off, whether this pack brings the big beast crashing down or not.

FDA Fully Approves Remdesivir to Treat COVID-19(Berkeley Lovelace Jr., MSNBC)
The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday approved Gilead Sciences’ antiviral drug remdesivir as a treatment for the coronavirus.
In May, the FDA granted the drug an emergency use authorization, allowing hospitals and doctors to use it on patients hospitalized with the disease even though the medication had not been formally approved by the agency. The intravenous drug has helped shorten the recovery time of some hospitalized Covid-19 patients. It was one of the drugs used to treat President Donald Trump, who tested positive for the virus earlier this month.

The U.S. Is Sleepwalking into an Election-Day Virus Surge(Robinson Meyer, The Atlantic)
Cases are rising in all but nine states. Unlike the past two waves, this one has no epicenter.

Fake CIA Spy Almost Scammed His Way into Immunity(Justin Rohrlich, Daily Beast)
“It is chilling to consider what the defendant could have accomplished,” prosecutors wrote of Garrison Courtney.

How to Deal with Free Speech on Social Media(Economist)
It is too important to be determined by a handful of tech executives.

Bill Would Hold Tech Companies Responsible When Their Algorithms Promote Extremist Content (Frank Konkel, Nextgov)
The legislation would remove liability immunity from Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

Want Real Security? Create Better Global Digital Rules and Norms (C. Anthony Pfaff and Patrick Ganfield, Defense One)
The longer the U.S. waits to throw its weight behind efforts to create rules for today’s digital competition, the less hope it has of retaining advantage.

The Network: How a Secretive Phone Company Helped the Crime World Go Dark (Joseph Cox, Vice)
Vince Ramos wanted Phantom Secure to be the Uber of privacy-focused, luxury-branded phones—flood the market with devices, and sort out the law later. Then the FBI investigated him.

The Head of U.S. Intelligence Has Ceased to Be an Honest Broker (Emerson T. Brooking, Defense One)
The result has been grave damage to U.S. counterintelligence and electoral security efforts.