Bon Voyage, Henri

Henri le Chat Noir has died. He was 17. The Internet is mourning

(H/T)

Operation Just Let Them Speak Continues

Gov. Ron DeSantis just a few days ago said that Americans need to unify behind the science that has led to the rapid development of vaccines. So it was a bit strange that DeSantis on Friday said that perhaps the number of Florida residents who receive COVID-19 vaccinations could be boosted — by not following Pfizer Inc.’s recommended instructions for its vaccine candidate.
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Instead of giving two doses, as recommended by the pharmaceutical manufacturer, to high-risk populations such as nursing home residents and front-line hospital workers, perhaps one dose could do, the Governor suggested Friday.

So, instead of following the dosing regimen that was determined by actual scientific tests by people who are professionals at that, ol' Gov. DeathSentence thinks its better to not properly vaccinate Floridians.

One dose of the Pfizer vaccine is 52% effective, two doses are 95% effective. That's from, you know, actual research.

But Florida Man who is serving as a governor thinks he knows better. This is from the same low-wattage jerkoff who is suppressing a Whtie House Task Force report that contradicts his cherished beliefs.

No wonder Trump is moving to Florida. The governor there is as dumb as Trump is.

Biden's Aides are Smoking Crack If They Think This Will Happen (and Why the U.S. May Be Done as a Democracy)

Joe Biden’s aides have a message for President Donald Trump and his supporters: It’s long past time to move on.

They aren't going to. you can tell the Trumpanzees until you're blue in the face that Biden won 81 milion votes and none of them will listen. They are only listening to seditionists like Limbaugh and The Great Orange Narcissist who are promoting their "we were stabbed in the back" myth.[1]

We have, in this country a significant number of people who don't believe in fair elections. They only believe in elections if Trump wins. If Trump loses, it can't be fair.

Couple this with Trump's political party, which is openly saying that the key to winning an election is to prevent people from voting, at least those people.[2] They want voting to be as hard as possible, at least in some neighborhoods.[3] They can't win a contest of ideas, of political philosophies, so they have to rely on race-baiting and fraudulent claims of massive voter fraud.

Which, by the way, doesn't exist. Trump and his cabal of sheet-wearers formed a voter fraud task force in 2017, which closed a year later after finding nothing.[4]

How do you have a functioning democracy when one side makes its mission to deny people the right to vote? It took a hundred years to stop the Southern fascists from overtly denying people the right to vote, but they are still at it by other means. And now, when the forces of racial fascism lose, they cry that there had to be fraud because their efforts to keep people from voting didn't pay off.

How do you have a functioning Democracy when one side refuses to accept it when they lose?[5] Don't be surprised when the Cabal of Sedition starts blaming the Jews, as some are already inching there.
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[1] A myth that didn't work out well for Germany.
[2] Blacks, Latinos, young people and women.
[3] Those where minorities and poor people live.
[4] Trump, a hard-core conspiracy whackaloon, cast the failure of his task force to find meaningful fraud as more proof that the conspiracy to commit voter fraud was really working.
[5] Before the "bothsiderists" kick in, allow me to point out that Hillary Clinton conceded to Donald Trump. Despite the protests in Washington the day after Inauguration Day, few were saying that the election was stolen. Thsoe were protests to let Trump and the GOP know that the opponents of Trumpism hadn't been cowed. Unlike now; this time, the sore losers are saying that they didn't lose. They were stabbed in the back.

The Rifles of Losers and Traitors

The Trump 2020 rifle.

Kahr Arms wasn't the only chuckleheads to make rifles commemorating the presidency of the Seditious Loser.

Just Going to Leave These Here

Your Sunday Morning Airplane Noise

Various airplanes.

Just Going to Leave These Here

More Lies From Team Trump's Lawyers

The witness is code-named “Spyder.” Or sometimes “Spider.” His identity is so closely guarded that lawyer Sidney Powell has sought to keep it even from opposing counsel. And his account of vulnerability to international sabotage is a key part of Powell’s failing multistate effort to invalidate President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.

Powell describes Spyder in court filings as a former “Military Intelligence expert,” and his testimony is offered to support one of her central claims. In a declaration filed in four states, Spyder alleges that publicly available data about server traffic shows that voting systems in the United States were “certainly compromised by rogue actors, such as Iran and China.”

Sounds damning, no? Except that it's all a lie. Powell's mystery witness wasn't a military intel analyst. He was a wheeled-vehicle mechanic, who left the Army as an E-4 after ten years of service.

Records show that Merritt is an Army veteran and that he enrolled in a training program at the 305th Military Intelligence Battalion, the unit he cites in his declaration. But he never completed the entry-level training course, according to Meredith Mingledorff, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Army Intelligence Center of Excellence, which includes the battalion.

“He kept washing out of courses,” said Mingledorff, citing his education records. “He’s not an intelligence analyst.”

In an interview, Merritt maintained that he graduated from the intelligence training program. But even by his own account, he was only a trainee with the 305th, at Fort Huachuca in Arizona, and for just seven months more than 15 years ago.

His separation papers, which he provided to The Post, make no mention of intelligence training. They show that he spent the bulk of his decade in the Army as a wheeled vehicle mechanic. He deployed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he said he worked in security and route clearance. He held the rank of specialist when he was honorably discharged in 2013, having received several commendations.

As the article explains, the 305th MI Battallion is a training outfit. They analyze nothing. This self-styled "military intelligence expert" couldn't complete the inital training courses. he was an E-4 who was, in essence, pushed out at the end of his enlsitment because the Army has little use for career members of the E-4 Mafia.

Gee. So it seems that one of Trump's lawyers has been repeatedly fibbing to several courts over the strength of her case and the qualification of her witnesses. "I can prove corruption, my expert witness, a truck mechanic, saw the conspiracy!"

Funny thing: Most good lawyers know that shading the truth in filings to a court is a very bad thing. It causes the judges hearing the case to treat what the lawyer says with considerable skepticism. Even bad lawyers know that if one really fibs to a court and gets a judge upset, that can result in disciplinary action.

But the rules always seem to be different for Team Trump.

The Roster of Sedition and Shame

Here is a list of the seditious bastards who tried to assit Trump in his misbegotten coup attempt:

First, the attorneys general, the chief law enforcement officers of their states, who joined Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in this legal monstrosity: Eric Schmitt, Missouri (he goes first because Missouri filed the brief); Steve Marshall, Alabama; Leslie Rutledge, Arkansas; Ashley Moody, Florida; Curtis Hill, Indiana; Derek Schmidt, Kansas; Jeff Landry, Louisiana; Lynn Fitch, Mississippi; Tim Fox, Montana; Doug Peterson, Nebraska; Wayne Stenehjem, North Dakota; Mike Hunter, Oklahoma; Alan Wilson, South Carolina; Jason Ravnsborg, South Dakota; Herbert H. Slatery III, Tennessee; Sean Reyes, Utah; Patrick Morrisey, West Virginia.

Second, the House members, including McCarthy, Whip Steve Scalise (La.); Jim Jordan (Ohio), ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee; Kevin Brady (Tex.), ranking member of the Ways and Means Committee; Rep. Gary Palmer (Ala.), head of the Republican Policy Committee; and Mike Johnson (La.), who organized this constitutional abomination.

The rest, listed in order of their home state: Alabama (Robert B. Aderholt, Mo Brooks, Bradley Byrne), Arizona (Andy Biggs, Debbie Lesko), Arkansas (Eric A. “Rick” Crawford, Bruce Westerman), California (Ken Calvert, Doug LaMalfa, Tom McClintock), Colorado (Ken Buck, Doug Lamborn), Florida (Gus M. Bilirakis, Mario Diaz-Balart, Neal Dunn, Matt Gaetz, Bill Posey, John Rutherford, Ross Spano, Michael Waltz, Daniel Webster, Ted Yoho), Georgia (Rick Allen, Earl L. “Buddy” Carter, Douglas A. Collins, Drew Ferguson, Jody Hice, Barry Loudermilk, Austin Scott), Idaho (Russ Fulcher, Mike Simpson), Illinois (Mike Bost, Darin LaHood), Indiana (Jim Baird, Jim Banks, Trey Hollingsworth, Greg Pence, Jackie Walorski), Iowa (Steve King), Kansas (Ron Estes, Roger Marshall), Louisiana (Ralph Abraham, Clay Higgins).

Maryland (Andy Harris), Michigan (Jack Bergman, Bill Huizenga, John Moolenaar, Tim Walberg), Minnesota (Tom Emmer, Jim Hagedorn, Pete Stauber), Mississippi (Michael Guest, Trent Kelly, Steven M. Palazzo), Missouri (Sam Graves, Billy Long, Vicky Hartzler, Blaine Luetkemeyer, Jason T. Smith, Ann Wagner), Montana (Greg Gianforte), Nebraska (Jeff Fortenberry, Adrian Smith), New Jersey (Gregory Steube, Jeff Van Drew), New York (Elise Stefanik, Lee Zeldin), North Carolina (Dan Bishop, Ted Budd, Virginia Foxx, Richard Hudson, Greg Murphy, David Rouzer, Mark Walker), Ohio (Bob Gibbs, Bill Johnson, Robert E. Latta, Brad Wenstrup), Oklahoma (Kevin Hern, Markwayne Mullin).

Pennsylvania (John Joyce, Frederick B. Keller, Mike Kelly, Dan Meuser, Scott Perry, Guy Reschenthaler, Glenn Thompson), South Carolina (Jeff Duncan, Ralph Norman, Tom Rice, William Timmons, Joe Wilson), Tennessee (Tim Burchett, Scott DesJarlais, Charles J. “Chuck” Fleischmann, Mark Green, David Kustoff, John Rose), Texas (Jodey Arrington, Brian Babin, Michael C. Burgess, Michael Cloud, K. Michael Conaway, Dan Crenshaw, Bill Flores, Louie Gohmert, Lance Gooden, Kenny Marchant, Randy Weber, Roger Williams, Ron Wright), Virginia (Ben Cline, H. Morgan Griffith, Rob Wittman, Ron Wright), Washington (Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Dan Newhouse), West Virginia (Carol Miller, Alex Mooney), Wisconsin (Tom Tiffany).

So much for the party that believes in federalism, hates activist judges and, now, endorses states rights. They all advocated using the judiciary to overturn election results in states that displeased them.

They believe only in loyalty to Trump. Not a single person listed above is loyal to the United States of America. They have all taken a massive dump on the Constitution and, by so doing, have betrayed their oath of office. Every one of them, if they had even an ounce of personal integrity, should resign their offices. They are all seditious losers, who deserve to be shunned by true patriots.

I am confident that history will judge them poorly. But hell, I'm not waiting around for that.

So, if you agree, do your part to ensure that their bout of sedition is remembered.

Trump Defiles Everything He Touches

The U.S. gave the final go-ahead Friday to the nation’s first COVID-19 vaccine, marking what could be the beginning of the end of an outbreak that has killed nearly 300,000 Americans.
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While the FDA decision came only after public review of data from a huge ongoing study, it has also been dogged by intense political pressure from the Trump administration, which has accused the agency of being too slow and even threatened to remove FDA chief Stephen Hahn if a ruling did not come Friday.

Was their some last review, some procedural steps, that were skipped over because Trump pressured the FDA to act? We may not soon know the answer to that.

But what we do know is that if it turns out that there is a significant problem with the Pfizer vaccine, a problem for which there was an indication in the clinical trials that was not noticed or glossed over, that problem will be blamed on Trump. The argument willb e "but for Trump, the FDa would have noticed the problem."

The smart thing, both politically and scientifically, would have been for Trump to keep his fat yap shut and let the FDA do its work. But that's not Trump's style.