Slip-Streaming on the Grift

When Donald J. Trump’s childhood home in Queens was on the market four years ago, Mr. Trump, then a candidate for president, publicly mused about buying it himself.

Now, he might not have to: The home’s latest owner is launching a crowdfunding campaign with the goal of giving the five-bedroom Tudor in Jamaica Estates to the president as a gift — once the $3 million price tag is met.

The unusual real estate maneuver seeks to capitalize on the devotion of some of Mr. Trump’s supporters, in the hopes that the same commitment that has driven them to attend his large rallies in the middle of a pandemic will also induce them to open their wallets. The sellers hope donations might also be fueled by an impulse to mollify Mr. Trump with a personalized parting gift as his presidential term nears its end.

The article goes on to show how prvious owners have been trying to capitalize on the fact that Our National Orange-Haired Dumpster Fire lived there when he was a child. His family moved away when he was four, so it's not as though he would remember it.

But this is just another Trump-related grift, though not by anyone who is associated with Trump. So far as we know.

Chuck Yeager Goes West

Retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Charles “Chuck” Yeager, the World War II fighter pilot ace and quintessential test pilot who showed he had the “right stuff” when in 1947 he became the first person to fly faster than sound, has died. He was 97.

Trump Failed to Procure Enough Vaccine for Americans

The Trump administration opted last summer not to lock in a chance to buy millions of additional doses of one of the leading coronavirus vaccine contenders, a decision that could delay the delivery of a second batch of doses until manufacturer Pfizer fulfills other international contracts.

The revelation, confirmed Monday by people familiar with the matter, came a day before President Donald Trump aimed to take credit for the speedy development of forthcoming coronavirus vaccines at a White House summit Tuesday.

Vaccine development and procurement was supposedly being done like a wartime program: Identify problems and throw money at them until they're fixed. Fund multiple lines of development so you can get at least one thing that works. It's better to have too much than not enough.

The Army Air Force was a master of this during the war. They bought several different makers' fighters. For a long-range heavy bomber, they first bought the B-17 and the B-24, then for a very heavy, bought the B-29 and the B-32.

In the midst of a national emergency is no time to cut corners, to cheap out. But that's what Trump did.

And we may pay heavily for it. But one thing has been clear from day 1 of this pandemic: Trump doesn't give a fuck about the American people.

Heh. Heh. Heh.

Following the revelation by President Trump that Rudy Giuliani has tested positive for COVID-19, the former mayor of New York City is refusing to concede to the pandemic virus and has vowed to overturn the medical finding in the courts.

“This is a fraudulent respiratory infection that’s sent me to hospital, which I will prove through the judicial process.”

Trump the Traitorous Loser: Now With Even More Losing!

U.S. judges on Monday rejected bids led by an ally of President Donald Trump to decertify President-elect Joe Biden’s victories in Michigan and Georgia because of unsubstantiated election irregularities and to have Trump declared the winner in both states, the latest failed efforts to upend the election results.

Both lawsuits were filed on Nov. 25 by Sidney Powell, a former lawyer for the Trump campaign, on behalf of groups of Republican voters. Trump and his allies have lost numerous cases aimed at overturning election results in states Trump lost in the Nov. 3 election after winning them in 2016, making unfounded claims of fraud.

Trump and his pack of crybabies are done, at least in court.

Georgia recertified the state’s results in the Nov. 3 presidential election on Monday, confirming that Democratic President-elect Joe Biden had won the state, according to a press release from Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

The recertification followed a hand recount that was triggered by an audit and a formal recount that was requested by Republican President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign, both of which upheld Biden’s victory in the state, the press release said.

Meanwhile, in Michigan, the Sore Loser Crybaby Trump Militia has been "protesting":

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said dozens of armed protesters gathered in a threatening manner outside her home on Saturday evening chanting “bogus” claims about electoral fraud.

Bringing guns to a protest to intimidate the target of the protest is intellectually bankrupt. That there are precious few Republicans who have been unwilling to condemn the protestors, let alone condemn Trump's continuing attacks on the American electoral system tells me all that I need to know about the exceeding lack of patriotism of the Grand Old Party.

Just Leaving These Here

An Essential Truth: Trump Demolishes Everything That He Touches

Even after he exits the White House, President Donald Trump’s efforts to challenge the legitimacy of the election and seeking to overturn the will of voters could have staying power.

Trump’s tactics are already inspiring other candidates and have been embraced by a wide array of Republicans. Supporters include congressional candidates, state lawmakers, party chairs, conservative legal groups and appointees to previously little-known state vote-certification boards. The breadth of support for Trump’s effort could be a troubling sign for future elections.

Trump's business trajectory was characterized by bullying people, browbeating banks with lawyers (to the point that no American bank will take his paper anymore) and repeated business failures (Trump University, Trump steaks, Trump vodka, Trump casino, Trump Airlines).

And now he's doing his level best to ruin American democracy.

Trump is guilty of sedition and, to the point that he is egging on the militia movement, is criminally guilty of sedition. And so are many of his supporters.

Your Sunday Morning Jet Noise

The Blues, flying F-18s:

A 9-11 a Day

Nineteen years ago, on a single day, a similar number of Americans were killed. As a result, we twisted our country into knots and did things that we once thought were beyond the pale of civilized conduct. We got into two stupid wars, spending trillions of dollars and incurring obligations to those who served which will go into the 22nd Century.

But now? We're losing that many people a day and those same people who were beating their breasts about terrorism and needing to fight everywhere can't be bothered to wear a mask, practice social distancing and wash their hands.

We lost fewer people on December 7th, 1941 than will die of Covid-19 on December 7th, 2020. In 1941, we were led by a president who rallied the nation to the fight. In 2020, we have been led by a president who has been rage-tweeting about the election and using pandemic precautions as a weapon in his insane culture war.

Historians are going to look back upon this period with a mixture of bemusement and horror.

So Much Losing!

A judge hearing President Donald Trump’s federal lawsuit seeking to overturn Democrat Joe Biden’s win in Wisconsin said Friday that the president’s request to “remand” the case to the GOP-controlled Legislature to pick new electors was “bizarre.”
...
Republican Assembly Majority Leader Jim Steineke cast serious doubt in the week on whether the Legislature might change the state’s electors from Biden to Trump backers. Steineke tweeted a clip of actor Dana Carvey playing President George H.W. Bush saying, “Not gonna do it.”

But wait! There's still more losing!

The Nevada state Republican Party promised Friday to appeal a judge’s refusal to overturn the results of the statewide presidential election and stop the state’s six Democratic presidential electors from voting for President-elect Joe Biden.

A statement from GOP spokeswoman Jessica Hanson came after Judge James Todd Russell in Carson City said he saw no clear or convincing proof “under any standard of evidence” that he should declare President Donald Trump the winner in Nevada or throw out results of the statewide vote.

“Contestants did not prove ... that illegal votes were cast and counted that should have been rejected during the signature verification process, or legal votes were not counted that should have been accepted” in numbers that would have swayed the outcome, the judge said.

So much losing:

In an Associated Press tally of roughly 50 cases brought by Trump’s campaign and his allies, more than 30 have been rejected or dropped. About a dozen are awaiting action. Trump has notched just one small victory, a case challenging a decision to move the deadline to provide missing proof of identification for certain absentee ballots and mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania.

This persistent effort to deny reality, to invalidate millions of votes and to have either judges or legislatures choose who won is deeply undemocratic. That the Trumpist Republicans are trying to tear down the American electoral system, not because there was provable fraud, but because they lost, is somewhere on a continuum between unpatriotic and traitorous. There is not a measureable difference between the bleating of Trumpists and Putin's propaganda efforts.

It is evident that Trumpers hate America. They are free to leave, just like the Tories did over two centuries ago.