South Carolina Republican Committee Chairman Drew McKissick was reelected to his post Saturday in a landslide, defeating The Big Lie and QAnon conspiracy theorist L. Lin Wood, Politico reports.  Wood claimed the vote was rigged.

With a vote of 68% to 28%, McKissick won the seat in what Wood wanted to turn into a “chaos election.”  The election was held during a social distant meeting where there was no large general meeting, which Wood decried because he wanted to rile up the crowd.

“Drew is a cheater,” Wood, without evidence, said on Telegram before the vote. “If he ‘wins’ today, he will be a Fake Chairman just like Biden is a Fake President!”

UPDATE: I just checked in with Officer Mike Fanone to see if @GOPLeader McCarthy has reached out for a meeting.

Answer: Crickets.

What a disgrace. Don’t say you back the blue when you won’t meet the blue. #PoliceWeek

— Rep. Eric Swalwell (@RepSwalwell) May 15, 2021

“Researchers in Australia want to use lasers to track wayward particles of space junk, and even shove them out of the way before they cause problems,” IEEE Spectrum reports. “NASA says there are more than half a million pieces of debris, from disused satellites to flecks of paint, speeding around the earth at up to 17,500 mph.” The method is ultimately an interstellar version of the sport of curling, where athletes “sweep” the ice to maximize the travel of a stone.

“Syracuse, N.Y. – An 8-month-old baby boy from Baldwinsville (a suburb of Syracuse, NY) is the youngest person in the world to receive two doses of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine,” reports Syracuse.com. “Vincenzo “Enzo” Mincolla got his second dose Wednesday at SUNY Upstate Medical University where he is participating in a clinical trial.”

“Upstate is just one of four sites in the U.S. , the only places in the world, testing the Pfizer vaccine in children under age 5. So far the federal government has only approved the vaccine for children as young as 12.”

“The barren landscape of Mars makes the planet seem like a quiet, frozen desert where nothing has happened for billions of years except for the occasional dust storm. New research, however, suggests that the red planet has a more recent history of activity – and it could still be volcanically active. Scientists still are trying to understand the history of Mars, and NASA rovers like Curiosity and Perseverance can help uncover evidence to piece together the planet’s time line. Mars was once much wetter and warmer than it is today about 4 billion years ago. Something happened to cause the planet to lose its atmosphere and send its water beneath the surface about 3 billion years ago – but the cause remains a mystery. Scientists had believed much of the planet’s volcanic activity occurred between 3 and 4 billion years ago, along with some isolated eruptions happening about 3 million years ago. Now, orbiters circling Mars have provided imagery and data of a previously unknown area of interest. This latest information shows evidence of volcanic activity that happened within the last 50,000 years – which is fairly young, astronomically speaking. The smooth, dark area stretches for 8 miles. It’s surrounded by a 20-mile-long volcanic fissure in the Cerberus Fossae system of faults where the Martian crust has pulled apart.”

“While neither of the rovers are close enough to investigate this feature, NASA’s InSight Lander is about 1,000 miles away. The stationary craft has been studying seismic activity on Mars since it landed in November 2018. While tracking seismic activity, InSight detected two Marsquakes – like earthquakes but not caused by tectonic plates since Mars doesn’t have any – that originated from the region around Cerberus Fossae. Since tectonic activity isn’t the cause, scientists think magma could be moving deep within the planet’s interior to cause these quakes. ‘The young age of this deposit absolutely raises the possibility that there could still be volcanic activity on Mars, and it is intriguing that recent Marsquakes detected by the InSight mission are sourced from the Cerberus Fossae,’ Horvath said” – CNN.

“Arizona Republicans have an opportunity in 2022 to claw back ground they’ve lost as the state shifted towards Democrats. But first, the fight over 2020 has to end. Republicans in the state are still divided over the results of the last election, months after President Joe Biden was sworn into office. An ongoing and extraordinary audit of the 2020 vote count in the state’s largest county – rooted in conspiracy theories and the false belief that Biden’s election was not legitimate – is deepening the schism six months after the election, with no clear end in sight. The GOP-controlled state Senate subpoenaed ballots from Maricopa County, where more than half of Arizona’s voters live, and hired a previously unknown private firm to conduct the audit. Republican supporters say the effort is necessary to ease concerns of voters about the 2020 vote count.”

“But other Republicans are speaking out to warn that the amateurish conduct of the audit and the conspiracy theories it has amplified could cause lasting damage to the party. Next year they must defend an open governor’s seat and try to flip back one of the two Senate seats Democrats took in the last two elections. Instead of a wake-up call spurred by those two Trump-era losses and Biden’s narrow statewide victory, they worry the audit is the latest sign of the Republican Party marginalizing itself in a state where it once reigned supreme. ‘First of all, you do need to get to a point where you say, ‘Okay, we’re done. We have sufficiently addressed concerns that might be out there in the community.’ And I feel like we had gotten to that point,’ Bill Gates, a Republican Maricopa County supervisor, said in an interview. He said the county’s previous audit and recounts of ballots already determined there were no issues in the election. ‘I believe that this is only appealing to a certain segment of the Republican Party,’ Gates said. ‘I think there are many Republicans who are horrified by what’s going on. I think there are very few independents who aren’t horrified by what’s going on” – Politico.

Washington Post: “‘We aren’t going to let one party take over our democracy under the false pretense of saving it,’ Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Tuesday, speaking against the For the People Act, a Democratic elections bill. ‘The Democratic Party wants to rewrite the ground rules of American politics for partisan benefit.’ Mr. McConnell is right. The For the People Act, which Senate Democrats gave the symbolically significant designation S.B. 1, might help Democrats. That does not mean it, or other voting reform bills Democrats are considering, is bad. The sprawling bill requires states to adopt universal voter registration, same-day registration, ample early voting, no-excuse absentee balloting and nonpartisan commissions to draw legislative district maps. The John Lewis Voting Rights Act, a separate, narrower bill, would shore up anti-discrimination voting laws that the Supreme Court gutted in 2013.”

“Passing either might help Democrats. Or it might benefit Republicans; after all, GOP congressional candidates fared well in the high-turnout 2020 election. If a fairer system aided one party over the other, it would be because more voters want that party to govern. Maintaining the status quo, which needlessly discourages turnout, keeps the playing field tilted in a manner generally thought to help Republicans. Imposing new voting laws that make voting harder, as state-level Republicans are doing across the country, would tilt it further in their direction. Democrats have a reasonable complaint, and sensible national voting rules should alarm no one committed to the notion that the people are sovereign. Mr. McConnell pointed out that Democrats favored passing a sweeping voting law before the 2020 election, implying that their motivation cannot be merely to counter post-2020 GOP voter-suppression efforts. That is true. Voting standards were inconsistent and unsatisfactory across the country before Republicans began in earnest to make them worse following last year’s vote. In fact, Republicans have for many years pushed laws designed to suppress Democratic turnout, and after the 2010 Census they wrung illegitimate partisan advantage out of the redistricting process. The bills would address a decade of anti-democratic behavior on the part of Republicans and decades more of bad policy, poor management, and neglect on the part of states and localities running elections.”

Statement from President Un-Elect Trump: “Wall Street Journal has reported (they finally got something right), that 2020 was the ‘Worst Presidential Poll Miss in 40 Years.’ The public opinion surveys ahead of the 2020 Presidential Election were the most inaccurate ever, according to a major polling panel. This was done purposely. The polls were a joke. I won States in a landslide that I was predicted to lose days before the election. Other states had me purposely so far down that it would force people, even fans, to say ‘Let’s stay home Darling. We love our President, but he can’t win.’ And then I would win those states or at least come very close.”

“In one state that I actually won, but the results were rigged, ABC and the Washington Post had me down by 17 points. Even the rigged final result was extremely close. It’s called SUPPRESSION POLLING and it should be illegal. These are crooked, disgusting, and very dishonest media outlets and they know exactly what they are doing. The 2020 Presidential Election was, by far, the greatest Election Fraud in the history of our Country. The good news is, the American people get it and the truth is rapidly coming out! Had Mike Pence had the courage to send the Electoral College vote back to states for recertification, and had Mitch McConnell fought for us instead of being the weak and pathetic leader he is, we would right now have a Republican President who would be VETOING the horrific Socialistic Bills that are rapidly going through Congress, including Open Borders, High Taxes, Massive Regulations, and so much else!”

Earlier statement: “As our Country is being destroyed, both inside and out, the Presidential Election of 2020 will go down as THE CRIME OF THE CENTURY!”

“Yeah, take a week off to give the leftists some extra time to scheme and try to throw more wrenches in the gears. Sounds brilliant…”

– The current top comment on the Gateway Pundit article “Maricopa County Ballot Audit Takes a Pause for a Week, Massive Irregularities Already Found With Only About 25% Counted“.

Jonathan Chait, New York Magazine: “One of the rationalizations Republicans have made for their party’s refusal to disavow Donald Trump’s authoritarianism is that asking a party to renounce a former president is categorically unreasonable. ‘He’s an ex-president. You can’t just excommunicate him,’ pleads Representative Dan Crenshaw. ‘People in their parties would also have thrown out people openly critical of Obama and Bush,’ says Republican pollster Patrick Ruffini. Parties don’t just disown their former presidents, right? Actually, it has happened. The Republican Party excommunicated George H.W. Bush after his 1992 defeat. That episode was a seminal moment in the formation of the party’s modern identity, and the contrast between its gleeful abandonment of the 41st president and continued fealty to the 45th one reveals a great deal.

“In 1990, Bush faced a rising budget deficit that was pushing up interest rates and threatening the recovery. Democrats, who controlled Congress, insisted that any deficit deal impose shared sacrifice on the rich (who had disproportionately benefited from the Reagan tax cuts that had largely caused the deficit). Bush had campaigned against any new taxes but had no choice but to compromise. The price he paid – a tiny increase in the top tax rate, from 28 percent to 31 percent – was small in comparison with the spending cuts he secured, which were in fact one of the toughest austerity measures ever enacted… When a Republican president had actually violated a core tenet of conservative belief, his fellow partisans knew what to do about it. They shunned him, turned his name into a synonym for ‘loser,’ and forced even his children to denounce him. The difference is that Bush had committed a truly unforgivable sin: agreeing to increase the top tax rate by three percentage points. Trump won’t be purged because he committed what is, in the eyes of the conservative movement, a more forgivable sin: fomenting the violent overthrow of the government in order to seize an unelected second term.”

“The head of Ethiopia’s election board said Saturday it would be impossible to hold a planned June 5 vote due to mounting logistical issues and postponed it without giving a new date. ‘The vote will not happen on June 5… we can’t tell you the date as the board has to examine the inputs it received from parties,’ said election board chairwoman Birutkan Mideksa.”

“She cited a plethora of logistical delays, such as finalising voter registration, training electoral staff, printing and distributing ballot papers. ‘Practically, it became impossible to deliver all these at the originally slated dates.’ She said the new date would take into account the rainy season – which runs from about June to September. The nation of 110 million people was due to choose national and regional parliamentarians in the election” – AFP.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “Three days after Christmas in 2004, Vernon Jones invited two women to his home for a casual party. Jones promised roasted marshmallows, drinks and dancing, and a viewing of ‘Finding Nemo.’ He called it a sleepover. By morning, Jones would later say, he had engaged in consensual sex with the women. One of them, however, told a different story: She said Jones raped her. Jones had just won a second term as DeKalb County’s top elected official, chief executive officer. It was years before the #MeToo movement forced a reexamination of how powerful men treat women, and Jones avoided both political ramifications and criminal prosecution when his accuser said pressing charges would cause her too much emotional distress.”

“Now, 16 years later, the episode complicates Jones’ recently announced candidacy for governor of Georgia. A Democrat until January, Jones is running as a Republican with the blessing, if not the formal endorsement, of former President Donald Trump. Like Trump, however, Jones has a long history of problematic behavior toward women, repeatedly accused of threatening, intimidating and harassing women in his personal and professional lives, an examination of his record by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution shows. The Journal-Constitution reviewed civil and criminal complaints filed against Jones and interviewed more than a dozen elected officials, activists and lawyers who have clashed with him. This examination found numerous previously unreported details about Jones’ conduct toward women spanning more than three decades. One woman accused Jones of threatening her with a gun in her home. Another, a DeKalb County commissioner, said he purposely bumped into her after a contentious public meeting. A community activist was so unnerved by an encounter with Jones that she upgraded her home security. “Vernon is a bully,” said Jan Selman, a longtime arts advocate who has tangled with Jones for more than 20 years. ‘He has issues with women – and he has issues with strong women, particularly.'”

“Israeli airstrike flattens high-rise building housing AP offices in Gaza City” reports the AP’s Jonathan Lemire.

David Frum, The Atlantic: “The first choice facing voters is a little-known union leader who leads a Marxist-Leninist party that wants to rewrite the constitution to eliminate congress. The alternative is the daughter of a former dictator who has surrounded herself with kleptocrats and COVID-19 deniers. Welcome to Round 2 of the Peruvian presidential election. How did one of the success stories of the developing world end up in such a crazy place?”

“Many democracies have suffered a collapse of the political middle, but few so starkly as Peru – or so unexpectedly. For years, Peru reported some of the highest growth rates in South America. It reduced the proportion of its people in poverty from 58 percent in 2004 to 23 percent by 2014. Exciting new mining discoveries promise more growth ahead. Instead, even before COVID-19 struck, Peru faced a dissolution of familiar political structures. The country has rotated through five presidents or acting presidents since 2016. Then came the terrible shock of the pandemic. Peru has endured one of the highest excess-mortality rates on Earth from COVID-19, if not the very highest: 503 deaths per 100,000 persons, according to a global survey by The Economist. The economic carnage has been correspondingly awful, too. The disaster discredited whatever remained of the former political ways. Parties of the left and center collapsed. The round of voting on April 11 was topped by a union leader so obscure that nobody even bothered to poll for him until November 2020 – and who did not rise above 3 percent in the polls until early March 2021. Pedro Castillo was introduced to many Peruvians by a goofily endearing TikTok dance video. But the content of Castillo’s politics is troublingly resonant with the late Hugo Chávez’s attack on Venezuela’s once-democratic institutions. Castillo has called for the rewriting of Peru’s constitution to replace the elected congress with representatives of unions and other interest groups. He has spoken of nationalizing industries and restricting foreign investment and trade.”

“In shocked reaction, Peru’s non-left has rallied since April 11 to Keiko Fujimori, daughter of the president-dictator who crushed the Shining Path insurgency in the 1990s. Alberto Fujimori fell from power in 2000, and the question of what to do about him has bedeviled Peruvian politics ever since. He was convicted of human-rights abuses in 2009 and sentenced to 25 years in prison. Peru’s then president pardoned the elder Fujimori in 2017, but that act was overturned by the Peruvian supreme court in 2018. The release from prison of the now-82-year-old former dictator is a central issue of his daughter’s 2021 presidential campaign.”

“Motorists in southeast U.S. states on Saturday continued to hunt for fuel as a massive replenishment effort took hold, helping ease shortages from a cyberattack that cut supplies from Florida to New Jersey. The six-day Colonial Pipeline shutdown was the most disruptive cyberattack on record. Widespread panic buying continued days after the pipeline network restarted, leaving filling stations across the U.S. Southeast out of gas.”

“More than 14,000 gas stations surveyed by fuel tracking app GasBuddy were experiencing outages, down from a peak of 16,200 early on Friday. The nationwide average for a gallon of regular unleaded was $3.04, from $2.95 a week ago, according to AAA. An effort that involved ships under emergency waivers moving fuel from U.S. Gulf Coast refiners to the northeast and 18-wheel tanker trunks ferrying gasoline from Alabama to Virginia helped to stem the losses” – Reuters.

https://youtu.be/6w0gVu41hek

At the end of the Friday broadcast, CNN anchor Don Lemon announced that he was leaving CNN Tonight, a show he has hosted since January 2018. It is unclear if Lemon is leaving the network or just ending his tenure at the show.

• Can someone clarify if Republicans voting Liz Cheney out of House Party leadership was “virtue signaling” or “cancel culture”?
• Schadenfreude, thy name is Matt Gaetz.  It’s doubtful, but not impossible, that he’ll travel to Wyoming to campaign against Cheney again.
• Lifting the mask mandate is a major accomplishment in the pandemic.  Is it too soon?  Only time will tell, but I trust the judgement of the scientists in this administration more than the politicians in the last one.
• Republicans introduced legislation against transgender teens getting any type of medical treatment, claiming that it’s irreversible mutilation of the body, but they’ve never discussed teen girls getting fake boobs, botox or nose jobs.  This is the Ivanka Trump exception to their outrage.  
  Read More ▶ “Random thoughts Friday, Volume XIX”

https://youtu.be/aVUrFDYY1MI

In another sign that the GOP has nothing tangible on which to attack President Joe Biden, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy tells Fox Host (and Rock ’em Sock ’em Robot figurine) Sean Hannity that Biden was “with it and engaging and giving him numbers” but, McCarthy claims, Biden was not nearly as energetic as Donald Trump.

Trump, of course, was famously attention-deprived and narcissistic, jumping from topic to topic, unengaged unless the conversation was about him, and typically ignorant of facts.  But… energy.

The New York Times reports that a Chinese rover has been deployed on American soil on Mars. The fourth planet of the solar system was irrevocably claimed as American territory upon the Viking probe landings in 1976 and as such China has committed a grave incursion. The Biden Administration has not told Beijing to find their own goddamned planet at press time.

MAGA-billy: “It’s cool I don’t have to wear a mask, I’ve had the vaccine.”

Store clerk: “Do you have your vaccine card?”

MAGA-billy: “Hey ya know, by law you can’t even ask me that, I’m totally vaxxed, it’s cool, I just forgot my card at home.”

MAGA-billy (who is not vaxxed) disappears into aisles of store, grinning to himself that he just “owned the libs” by going out un-vaccinated and without a mask, and the store clerk walks away thinking “I’m done.  I just don’t care anymore.”