FASTER, PLEASE: Architect of the Capitol Decides Anti-Cop Painting Violates Rules, Will Come Down Tuesday.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Self-Defense Against Animals. I find a .475 H&H puts most of them down nicely. For the rest, there’s always the .700 Nitro Express. Why no, I don’t worry much about overpenetration. Why do you ask? But I don’t bother with the .950 JDJ. That’s just silly.

UPDATE: Here’s my lightweight carry gun.

NEVER CHANGE, SLATE:

JOHN LEWIS (D-GA) SAYS TRUMP IS NOT A ‘LEGITIMATE PRESIDENT:’ “Lewis questioned the validity of the previous Republican president, George W. Bush, on multiple occasions, as well. He told the Wall Street Journal ‘some of us think [Al Gore] won last time’ during an interview in 2001, and also supported the idea of impeaching Bush in 2005 over the NSA’s warrantless surveillance activity.”

Regarding that last item, “Lewis was Once Erroneously Placed on No-Fly List He Wants to Use to Deny Due Process,” PJM noted last year, when Lewis was part of the Democrats’ Congressional “sit-in.”

And as Glenn noted in 2010, “CORRECTING THE NEW YORK TIMES: Congressman John Lewis was NOT ‘Showered With Hateful Epithets Outside the Capitol’ Last March. And Andrew Breitbart has the video, and the unclaimed $100K reward, to prove it.”

Two years later, Lewis further besmirched his civil rights-era credibility by asking delegates at the Democratic National Convention “whether they want to go back to a society where blacks were beaten, presumably by voting for Mitt Romney,” Eliana Johnson wrote at NRO.

In the prior month that year, Joe Biden shouted to a group of black Democratic constituents that Republicans such as Romney are “going to put y’all back in chains.”

And Democrats wonder how Trump flourished last year.

UPDATE: Lewis skipped Bush #43 inaugural too, said he was not president.

I GUESS I’LL JUST HAVE TO CONVERT A GELANDEWAGEN INTO A SHORT-BED: Don’t Get Your Hopes Up For The Mercedes X-Class Pickup In The United States.

AT AMAZON, New Year, New You: Savings in Sports & Outdoors, Health & Personal Care, and more.

Plus, Fresh Deals on Most Wished-For Items.

TAKING A BREATHER FROM THE BATTLE OF THE BULGE: Today’s StrategyPage Battle of the Bulge photo. Three GIs enroute to the front take a break. The photo was snapped December 29, 1944. That’s a lot of gear to lug.

TEXAS PUBLIC POLICY FOUNDATION: I spent the Wednesday, Thursday and today at the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s 2017 Texas Legislature policy orientation conference. Today I heard an excellent panel discussion on water resource development. The conference included a panel discussion featuring Senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz. The conference was held in Austin, TX.

WHY IS ANGELA MERKEL’S GERMANY SO FRIENDLY TO ANTI-SEMITIC ACTS OF TERROR? German court calls synagogue torching an act to ‘criticize Israel.’ “The court sentenced the three men – the 31-year-old Mohamad E., the 26 year-old Ismail A. and the 20-year-old Mohammad A.—to suspended sentences.”

So is it okay to burn down a mosque to criticize Erdogan? No suspended sentences there, I’ll bet.

SIXTY YEAR ITCH: The Lost Footage of Marilyn Monroe.

STAND UP FOR PROF. JACOBSON AND LEGAL INSURRECTION: YouTube removes influential conservative website’s channel.

SO TRUMP CAN’T HAVE ORDERED THIS BECAUSE HE’S NOT PRESIDENT YET. SO WHO DID? Head of D.C. National Guard to be removed from post in middle of inauguration. “The U.S. Army general who heads the D.C. National Guard and is an integral part of overseeing the inauguration said Friday he will be removed from command effective Jan. 20 at 12:01 p.m., just as Donald Trump is sworn in as president.”

UPDATE: More:

As is customary, Schwartz, like other presidential appointees, submitted a letter of resignation to give the new administration a clean start. He had done so before, but the Obama administration twice declined to accept.

The Trump transition team made the decision to accept Schwartz’s resignation, according to a military official with knowledge of the situation.

Members of Trump’s transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Schwartz got the news in an email from the Pentagon that announced the appointment of the interim commander.

Another military official with knowledge of the process said the Trump transition team receives lists of political appointees and can decide which resignations to accept. Army officials declined to comment on that part of the process. All resignations are effective at 12:01 p.m. on Inauguration Day.

Seems like much ado over nothing.

FUNDAMENTALLY TRANSFORMED: Millennials earn 20% less than Boomers did at same stage of life.

Baby Boomers: your millennial children are worse off than you.

With a median household income of $40,581, millennials earn 20 percent less than boomers did at the same stage of life, despite being better educated, according to a new analysis of Federal Reserve data by the advocacy group Young Invincibles.

The analysis being released Friday gives concrete details about a troubling generational divide that helps to explain much of the anxiety that defined the 2016 election. Millennials have half the net worth of boomers. Their home ownership rate is lower, while their student debt is drastically higher.

The piece calls this “a central dilemma for the incoming presidency of Donald Trump,” but, tellingly, doesn’t even mention Barack Obama, who’s been president for 8 years.

MAD DUCK: In Rush To Regulate, Obama EPA Issues Edict Ahead Of Schedule On Efficiency Standards.

MESSENGER OF FORGIVENESS: NYPD Detective Steven McDonald, RIP.

THE GOVERNMENT LIKES TO YANK THE RUG OUT FROM UNDER YOU ON THIS STUFF: Parents View New Peanut Guidelines With Guilt and Skepticism. “The about-face on peanuts has stunned parents around the country who are coping with the challenges of severe peanut allergies. Like many parents, Ms. Lepke is now plagued with guilt. By restricting peanuts early, did she inadvertently cause the very allergy she was trying to prevent?” Maybe anger is more appropriate than guilt.

JUDGE THWARTS OBAMA EPA’S LAWLESS WAR ON COAL, Andrew McCarthy writes.

Hopefully that’s merely a sneak preview of what’s to come.

FASTER, PLEASE: Search begins for universal influenza vaccine.

The smallpox vaccine was the first to use the “empirical paradigm” of vaccinology – the same strategy we largely use today. It relies on a trial-and-error approach to mimic the immunity induced by natural infection.

In other words, vaccine developers believe the body will mount an antibody response to something in the inoculation. But they don’t focus on which specific patch of the virus is causing an immune response. It doesn’t really matter if it’s a reaction to a small patch of HA that many strains share, for instance. When using an entire virus as starting material, it’s possible to get many different antibodies recognizing many different parts of the virus used in the vaccine.

The seasonal flu shot generally fits into this empirical approach. Each year, epidemiologists forecast which flu strains are most likely to infect populations, typically settling on three or four. Researchers then attenuate or inactivate these strains so they can act as the mimics in that year’s influenza vaccine without giving recipients the full-blown flu. The hope is that an individual’s immune system will respond to the vaccine by creating antibodies that target these strains; then when he or she comes into contact with the flu, the antibodies will be waiting to neutralize those strains.

But there’s a different way to design a vaccine. It’s called rational design and represents a potentially game-changing paradigm shift in vaccinology.

The goal is to design some molecule – or “immunogen” – that can cause effective antibodies to be produced without requiring exposure to the virus. Relative to current vaccines, the engineered immunogen may even allow for more specific responses, meaning the immune response targets particular parts of the virus, and greater breadth, meaning it could target multiple strains or even related viruses.

This season’s bug moved so quickly that it hit me and one of my sons before we could get in for our already scheduled flu shots.

WHEN EVERYONE IS FAMOUS FOR 15 MINUTES, more famous people will die each year.

SHOW-ME THE AMMO: Missouri Legislator Offers to Loan Firearms to Constituents.

THEY TOLD ME FEAR AND HATRED WOULD RULE IF TRUMP WERE ELECTED. AND THEY WERE RIGHT! My USA Today column: Oikophobia on the rise after Trump win: Irrational fear of fellow countrymen is spreading among America’s ruling class.

HECKUVA JOB, BARRY:

21ST CENTURY PROBLEMS: Eggs from Skin Cells? Here’s Why the Next Fertility Technology Will Open Pandora’s Box.

FUNDAMENTALLY TRANSFORMED: Millennials are falling behind their boomer parents.

With a median household income of $40,581, millennials earn 20 percent less than boomers did at the same stage of life, despite being better educated, according to a new analysis of Federal Reserve data by the advocacy group Young Invincibles.

The analysis being released Friday gives concrete details about a troubling generational divide that helps to explain much of the anxiety that defined the 2016 election. Millennials have half the net worth of boomers. Their home ownership rate is lower, while their student debt is drastically higher.

If Millennials ever wake up to how badly they’ve been robbed and by whom, the political reckoning will be earth-shattering.