Author: condor

Hey Hinderaker! Accountability For Trump’s Crony — 10X Overcharge — At DC Reflecting Pool?!?

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Tonight, John laments the fact that there had been some extrinsic fraud that was not detected by forces inside Minnesota state government, until the past ten or so months.

Fraud by third parties — unfortunate, truly — but it has been rooted out and is being prosecuted.

Oddly, John has nothing to say about the fact that inside the White House right now, many a directly engineered (by Trump & family) bevy of FRAUDS are underway — against all our federal taxpayer dollars.

Just the latest one of which is a no bid contract to refurbish the reflecting pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial. Trump promised us and the Congress it would cost no more than $1.4 million.

The no-bid contractor (Trump called him a “close friend” — but now claims he doesn’t know the guy!) has already been paid over $14 million — and the entire project is awfully behind schedule. It will likely end up costing more like $30 million instead of $1.4 million.

Just curious here, John Hinderaker: these phone calls are coming from inside the house.

Moreover, federal law is pretty clearly being violated here – since these sorts of projects are required to be competitively bid — and then awarded to the lowest bidder. None of that happened here — all at 1600 Penn openly admit these facts.

What (to quote Sean Connery in “The Untouchables”) are you willing to do about it, John?!

Right — not a damn thing.

Loser.

The Able USDC Judge Xinis Has Put The Lie To Most Of The Blanche / Tangerine 2.0 Positions — In Maryland, As To Mr. Abrego Garcia, This Afternoon.

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You’ll likely recall that (the idiotic AUSAs who are beholden to the MAGA AG, Todd Blanche), i.e., the lawyers for Tangerine 2.0… have filed an appeal complaining that USDC Judge Xinis isn’t ruling on their specious motions rapidly enough.

Preposterous — as we’ve shown, over and over. Today’s hearing was one where most of the federales’ positions were tossed, and now the remaining issue is to be briefed: when, and whether, an appeal may be taken — if there is no final order from which to appeal. Here’s the latest — all good news, for Abrego Garcia, now:

…PAPERLESS ORDER

For the reasons discussed during today’s Motions Hearing, the parties SHALL meet and confer and propose a Joint Briefing Schedule to resolve the remaining counts of the Petition by no later than 12:00 PM on May 13, 2026.

Signed by Judge Paula Xinis on 5/12/2026….

Onward. These people are ruining their careers in the law, at least [but maybe they can work for Trumpian real estate ventures, as a door-person — or catch on, as a crypto huckster, for $MELANIA, or the FIGHT – FIGHT – FIGHT token offering; or the “UN-” Truth Social (dying) platform]. YIKES.

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This Strain of Hantavirus, From The Cruise Liner, Is Alarmingly… Contagious. At Least 12 Dutch Health Care Workers Now In Six Week Isolation…

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While Hantavirus strains common in North and Central America are not particularly easily passed from human to human (one must aspirate / ingest the aerosolized rodent feces powder directly, in some fairly concentrated doses)… the unique strain that has afflicted the Hondius liner is apparently of an original source known to circulate in Argentina, where one infected human may transmit the virus — simply by coughing on or near another human.

That is, intimate contact is not needed.

This news is why the CDC and the WHO and the EU Commissioners are paying very close attention to rigorous isolation protocols. Moreover, the Hantavirus also often presents with a rather longish incubation period — up to four weeks, after exposure. Here’s the latest, in any event:

…A Dutch hospital has quarantined 12 staff members as a preventive measure after blood and urine from a hantavirus patient were handled without observing strict ​protocols, as medics around the world work to stop the spread of the outbreak.

The 12 will be quarantined for six weeks, the Radboudumc hospital in the city of ‌Nijmegen said, adding that the infection risk was very low and patient care continued uninterrupted….

The great work (now ongoing, since 2023) on an mRNA vaccine candidate — at Moderna (just as in COVID-19, and Mpox) cannot come quickly enough. Onward, resolutely. And… as I’ve said a thousand times — RFK, Jr. ought to wake the hell up.

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Abortion Pills — By Mail — Remain Completely Lawful In The US… Now, And Forward: Condor Predicts.

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Decided just a term ago, this is the final word from the Supremes on the topic. And so, this one is just housekeeping.

Federalism — if it is to mean anything… must mean that one or two states cannot hold all the other 48 or 49 hostage, to their supposed “moral” — not legal… beliefs.

While the Justices are working on procedural niceties to give adequate time for Thomas and Alito to vent their spleens to the other seven… we will see some more temporary orders.

But we will not see the reversal of this recent decision protecting choice. It is deeply rooted in the notion that a doctor and her patient are the arbiters of this decision. Not some supposed fundamentalist / religious faction of some southern state house — not for the entire nation.

Nope. Onward. [The Voting Rights Act decision, on the other hand — is a deeply troubling / non-realistic rendering. Damn.]

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Merck Has A Very Promising FDA PRV, For Lowering LDL-C With A Pill: Enlicitide / Phase III CORALreef AddOn Trial Data…

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There can be no doubt: high cholesterol (and the diseases it engenders) are certainly a public health calamity, especially in the rural US. So, having a pill — as opposed to an injection — would be a huge step forward. [BTW, here’s just one of several prior backgrounders of mine, on this oral compound.] Late last year, the FDA granted the compound a priority review voucher, so it might reach market now even before year end 2026.

And that will be excellent news — for prescribing general practice / family doctors, and their high LDL-C patients across the nation. In rural America, there will be no need to see a specialist before switching meds. Here’s a bit of all of this, from BioSpace:

…At ACC, Merck reviewed results from its Phase III CORALreef AddOn study, in which enlicitide demonstrated a statistically significant reduction in LDL-C after eight weeks of treatment compared to current cholesterol-lowering medicines bempedoic acid, ezetimibe or bempedoic acid with ezetimibe….

Joerg Koglin, senior vice president, global clinical development at Merck, told BioSpace… “When you look at the LDL goals as they are right now, approximately 70% of patients on statins don’t reach those goals….”

And so — gone forever are the days of “very expensive placebos” like old SGP’s Vytorin. What a train wreck Fred Hassan was, about 18 years ago now. Dang. It is… indeed, a new day in America. Smile.

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In Which Hinderaker… Runs His Reality Distortion Bubble: MAGA Out Of Touch…

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Tonight, Hinderaker burps up a piece claiming that Democrats have no rational relationship with objective reality.

Riiiiiight.

For this proposition, he offers some polling which might suggest that a reasonably large proportion of America believes that the latest purported attempt to harm Tangerine 2.0… was largely a reality TV show. [After all, it happened among a giant assembly of people who could immediately send it out (sympathetically to Trump) over network TV from their phones.]

My point here isn’t whether anyone might objectively establish what really happened in Butler — or at that press dinner, for that matter.

Frankly, I no longer care.

No, my point here is that Hinderaker is talking about this trivial poll, solely because he well knows that everyone (except for the 10% hardest core MAGA cultists — not even including himself any longer!) agrees: the price of gas is too high, and the elected occupant of 1600 Penn., in ignoring the laws requiring competitive bidding — while promising that the rework of the Reflecting Pool would cost under $2 million — and now it turns out that a crony received a no bid $13 million contract… And the work is still not done…

AND that Trump‘s (often self-contradictory) position(s) on his undeclared war in Iran, gyrate wildly — for weeks on end on a sub-36 hour cycle (or less). These things… 80% of us agree… are broken.

John, these things the vast majority of Americans now agree are ALSO disqualifying — for serving as the occupant of 1600 Penn.

You delusional jamokes just won’t face reality — but not long after November 2026, the Congress will be available to blunt him (as well as impeach him) again.

Do buckle up. Out.

Larry Ellison Plays It “Small — On The Big Stage”. He “Gypped” Much Of His Tech Help Out Of — In Many Cases — More Than $1 Million Each, In RSU/Equity Pay…

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Technically, the law does allow the moves he’s made. He didn’t pay them WARN Act (extra 30 days of cash), saying they were remote workers. Okay — sharp practice — but I get the argument.

HOWEVER, in the case of his (higher paid) core tech workers, much of their actual pay comes in the form of RSUs, or restricted stock units — that are fully vested only well-after the year end numbers are hit, and you need to stay on — as a form of “retention bonus / golden handcuffs” — in order to see the units in your paystub. Well over a thousand of those laid off would have each been paid an added $200,000 to even low seven figures, had they not been laid off, just weeks before full vesting. That is… a very small-minded disrespect — of his likely best, but now mostly out-moded long term help.

Yes, he’s a gazzillionaire, but we all know… “what goes around. . . really. . . goes around.”

That is, he should worry (at least a bit) that some of the brightest (and most hot-headed) of them are yet able to (through remaining back doors — they themselves left?) slip in undetected, and mess with his offerings, in nefarious, embarrassing but largely long term non-harmful ways. In front of partners — and large customers. [AI movies / images of him in various states of undress, on a commode, anyone? (Much like we’ve all seen of Tangerine — but propagated across the corporate web presence?)] Karma, indeed, that would be.

Here is the whole story, from this past March:

…In exchange for signing a release waiving their right to sue, employees received four weeks of pay for the first year, plus one additional week per year of service, capped at 26 weeks. The company was also paying for one month of COBRA insurance.

The catch: Although stock compensation often makes up a good chunk of a tech worker’s pay, particularly at Oracle, the company did not accelerate soon-to-vest RSUs. Any shares that hadn’t vested by the termination date were forfeited.

That held true even for stock granted as retention incentives or in place of salary increases tied to promotions. One long-tenured employee lost $1 million in stock that was just four months from vesting; RSUs made up about 70% of his compensation….

What a rat, he is. [He even resembles one, albeit only slightly — but to say that does nothing more than insult… all rodents.]

This is the item I hinted at this morning. Not sure if I’ll make an ongoing project of Oracle and Ellison, as I have of Musk, Tesla, Bezos and Amazon. We shall see. Onward, to the morrow. Out.

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This Friday, Psyche will “Sling-Shot” Around Barsoom, To Gather Additional Speed — And Then Onward, To Reach Its Asteroid / Destination, In 2029…

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To be clear, this is a mission primarily to observe a far-off asteroid, but it offers a nice close-up view of Mars, in crescent formation, as we catch a gravity boost, by slingshotting past… Barsoom. [My much earlier 2023 backgrounder, here.]

Here is the latest from NASA, and a bit of it:

..NASA’s Psyche spacecraft will get a boost from Mars on Friday, May 15, passing just 2,800 miles (4,500 kilometers) from the planet’s surface at some 12,333 mph (19,848 kph). The spacecraft will harness the planet’s gravitational pull to speed up and adjust its trajectory toward the metal-rich asteroid Psyche, one of the more unusual objects in our solar system….

Mars won’t initially look like the illuminated reddish disk seen in so many photos of the planet. “We are approaching Mars at a very high phase angle, which means we are catching up with the planet from its night side with only a sliver of sunlight creating a thin crescent,” said Jim Bell, the Psyche imager instrument lead at Arizona State University in Tempe. “The thin crescent on approach and the nearly ‘full Mars’ view after we fly past create opportunities for the imaging team for both great calibration observations as well as just plain beautiful photos.”

It’s possible that Mars may possess a faint dusty ring, or torus — the result of micrometeorites striking the surfaces of the planet’s two moons, Phobos and Deimos, and ejecting dust particles into space. The Sun’s alignment with Psyche and Mars may cause dusty material to scatter sunlight, making it visible in the processed observations.

The imager will also capture “satellite search” observations of the space surrounding the planet — a practice run for when the team will be searching for any moonlets around the asteroid Psyche. There could be an opportunity to learn more about Mars as well. The spacecraft’s magnetometer will likely detect the planet’s magnetic field redirecting charged particles from the Sun, and the gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer will monitor how the flux of cosmic rays (highly energetic subatomic particles from interstellar space) changes during the flyby.

“Ultimately, though, the only reason for this flyby is to get a little help from Mars to speed us up and tilt our trajectory in the direction of the asteroid Psyche,” said Lindy Elkins-Tanton, principal investigator for Psyche at the University of California, Berkeley. “But if all our instruments are powered up, and we can do important testing and calibration of the science instruments, that would be the icing on the cake….”

And, now the about three minute video explainer:

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And Yes, Moderna’s Stock Is On The Rise, Since It Is The Leader — In Getting An mRNA Vaccine, For Hantavirus — To Market, Now…

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Perhaps some may see it as a bit unseemly, that I might mention this financial turn of fortune — in part, from dire circumstances, onboard that stricken liner. That is not my intent — at all.

As a point of five year fact, do recall that Moderna traded up to $340-ish, during the teeth of the COVID pandemic.

Then, in my view, Wall Street foolishly abandoned the company, after the emergency waned. It fell to the low $20s — and, in my mind — that was a screaming buy. [So this (mine) is about a sober, long term view.] Here’s a bit of the latest — and, in any event it is over $53 as I write this:

. . .Moderna is the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based biotechnology company that perfected messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines during the Covid-19 pandemic. Following the announcement that Moderna was developing a hantavirus vaccine using this same technology, the drugmaker’s stock rose from $49 on May 7 to $55 the next day. But it is important to note that Moderna did not begin work on immunization in the wake of the outbreak at MV Hondius. In fact, the drugmaker undertook this collaborative project with VIC-K in 2023. . . .

It has come in a bit — but this is why I see it as a long term must have, in a life-science portfolio. As I’ve long said — this is (very conservatively). . . an $85 plus dollar stock, right now — even without an approved mRNA hanta- vaccine.

Much more, once approved — so. . . perhaps a ~$100 stock, once again, by next year(?). We shall see. Onward.

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Our New Series: A First Look, At How Oracle’s Lobby Spend Compares To Amazon’s — And US Pharma, Generally…

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Mostly on a whim, we decided this morning to look at what Ellison’s Oracle lobbies about, and how much the company throws at the Congress. [We will shortly have a follow-up item, about how it has treated the 10,000 to 15,000 employees it chose to lay off this year.]

And since — of late — Oracle has been more brutish with its workforce moves than even ugly Amazon… I thought we’d look at how it continues — like Amazon — to try to remove worker protections from the long standing federal law. Damn. Here’s what Larry’s company jaw-boned about in Q1 2026 (compared to Amazon, in the bottom graphic, and to mid-tier — or mega — pharma, at right):

…[On Budgeting:] Issues related to Defense Appropriations, specifically IT modernization and oversight at the Department of War; Issues related to government-wide IT modernization and cloud adoption, including issues related to modernization of Department of War business systems; Issues related to government certification and cybersecurity standards for Cloud Service Providers; Issues and provisions related to Appropriations for electronic health records systems and implementation of Department of Veterans Affairs and Indian Health Service electronic health record systems….

[US House & Senate:] E.O. 14306 – Sustaining Select Efforts to Strengthen the Nation’s Cybersecurity and Amending Executive Order 13694 and Executive Order 14144; E.O. 14320 – Promoting the Export of the American AI Technology Stack; E.O. 14318 – Accelerating Federal Permitting of Data Center Infrastructure; E.O. 14363 – Launching the Genesis Mission; H.R. 5885/S. 3150 – Guaranteeing Access and Innovation for National Artificial Intelligence Act of 2025 (GAIN AI Act of 2025); H.R. 2683 – Remote Access Security Act; H.R. 6875 – AI Overwatch; Issues related to IT modernization, procurement, services, trade, licensing and security and cybersecurity standards in the software development and hardware industry; Issues related to Artificial Intelligence Action Plan; Issues related to global competitiveness and the roles of government agencies in these issues; Issues related to cloud computing and cloud security, adoption, and migration; Issues related to data centers; Issues related to government cloud security standards; Issues related to technology platforms, including consumer data privacy and protection, data transfer, interoperability, portability, and data valuation; Issues related to data governance; Issues relating to telecommunications and network security; Issues relating to supply chain security, privacy, and the Internet of Things; Issues related to Artificial Intelligence and machine learning innovation policy, research, development, and related export controls; Issues related to government procurement and standards for multi-cloud acquisition; Issues related to Rare Earths supply chain….

[US Defense:] Issues relating to IT procurement, modernization, acquisition, oversight and transparency; Issues related to cloud adoption; Issues related to Artificial Intelligence Action Plan; Issues related to defense, information systems, information security, and government cybersecurity regulations; Issues related to Department of War and veteran health facilities; Issues related to Department of War adoption of electronic health records, veteran’s health and population health; Issues related to supply chain security and semiconductors; Issues related to Artificial Intelligence and machine learning innovation policy, research, and development; Issues related to Airspace Management….

[At 1600 Penn.:] E.O. 14306 – Sustaining Select Efforts to Strengthen the Nation’s Cybersecurity and Amending Executive Order 13694 and Executive Order 14144; E.O. 14179 – Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence; Issues related to government IT modernization, procurement, and workforce; Issues related to policy, cybersecurity, and security standards related to IT and cloud services procurement by government agencies; Issues related to government software development and licensing; Issues related to Artificial Intelligence Action Plan; Issues relating to Artificial Intelligence and machine learning innovation policy, research, development, and related export controls….

[At Homeland Security:] Issues related to IT modernization, software development, procurement, cloud adoption, and security; Issues related to global competitiveness in IT software, hardware, services, and other online services and the roles of government agencies and industry in these issues; Issues related to Artificial Intelligence and machine learning innovation policy, research, and development; Issues related to Airspace Management….

[At US Dept. of State:] Issues relating to government cloud procurement and adoption, IT and data center modernization, software assurance, artificial intelligence, and IT supply chain security; Issues relating to Artificial Intelligence and machine learning innovation policy, research, development, and related export controls….

[On Foreign Trade Policy:] E.O. 14320 – Promoting the Export of the American AI Technology Stack; Issues related to trade relations, including digital trade, data governance, tariffs, and intellectual property policy in trade agreements; Issues relating to Artificial Intelligence and related export controls….

[On Veterans’ Affairs:] H.R. 7280 – Veteran Data Accountability for Third-party Actors Act (Veteran DATA Act); Issues related to Department of Veterans Affairs adoption and oversight of Electronic Health Records; Issues related to Electronic Health Record modernization and implementation; Issues related to IT and supply chain modernization….

[At US Dept. of Justice:] Issues related to Indian Health Services modernization of [nationwide offender] electronic health records systems….

[At Dept. of Education:] Issues related to the implementation of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. . . .

[At The EPA:] Issues related to Artificial Intelligence data centers; Issues related to Artificial Intelligence Action Plan….

As you can readily see — Oracle has its hands all over the federal government machinery — bending the same to its will. Dammit. Onward, resolutely, just the same — on a sunny crisp Spring Monday — lakeside bike riding next!

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