Author: condor

“Might Well Be… Problematic”?! Damnation Mirengoff! You Screeched About The Mueller / Russia Matter!

~ condor ~ Leave a comment

But you agreed — in Tangerine 1.0’s time — that Trump could not “fire” Mr. Mueller.

How quickly you’ve forgotten… your principles — whatever those once were.

This morning, in trying to shill for Tangerine 2.0’s largely impotent attempts at taking actions that require the Congress to pass new laws (and ones they haven’t even considered), Paul claims all this is like simple corporate down-sizing. As to the able Assistant US Attorneys let go… this was pure vindictive reprisal for pursuing the actual felonies Trump committed — at least 34 of them still stand under NY State law — as completed felonies. He’s a felon — and he’s tried to fire anyone who called him on it. [BTW, you yourself in 2020 said his classified document-stealing offenses were clearly beyond the pale. Damn, son. Own your own prior statements.] Moreover…

I offer three points: one — downsizing is tough, even in private industry where workers have unions. There are unions a go-go, in the federal sector. These NLRA creates statutory rights that Trump is powerless to undo, acting alone.

Two, most civil servants may — by contract — only be let go for well documented, written cause. And they usually are entitled to an internal, individualized hearing of some sort before being let go — also by statute, in most cases. None of that has happened here.

And… three, most important, of the bunch: most if not all of these firings are simply misplaced personal animus. Trump is angry with ever person and branch he’s targeted, lawlessly.

That is the purest definition of “capricious“. His complaints are based on his cult of personality / reality distortion bubble.

And you feed it with yours.

You sir, are a feckless… putz. And he is an impotent lil’ tyrant — in orange face-paint.

New Analysis Of Phoenix Cluster: Finds “The Skiers, At Mid-Mountain” — And Helps Clear Up Star Forming Mechanics, In Hot Gasses.

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This is both excellent new analysis — making use of older data, alongside new… AND a very accessible metaphor, for the non-technical thermodynamic / astro-sciences crowd.

The authors of this new study explain that an enduring mystery of star formation was that very hot gasses were seen (skiers hopping off the chair-lifts at the mountain-top) — but only a small portion of those gasses were cooling enough to form stars (skiers turning gracefully back into the lift line, at the bottom of the mountain).

Well, using both X-ray data, mapped onto infrared in the same expanse of the Phoenix cluster, the teams discovered that very large structures were interacting at “mid-mountain” — where a good chunk of the skiers pull into a bistro, on the mountainside, before skiing on down, to catch the chair back up again. This is where they. . . “cool“. Here’s that (at NASA) — and a far more technical paper on it, from the journal Nature:

…Researchers using NASA’s [JWST] have finally solved the mystery of how a massive galaxy cluster is forming stars at such a high rate. The confirmation from JWST builds on more than a decade of studies using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and Hubble Space Telescope, as well as several ground-based observatories.

The Phoenix cluster, a grouping of galaxies bound together by gravity 5.8 billion light-years from Earth, has been a target of interest for astronomers due to a few unique properties. In particular, ones that are surprising: a suspected extreme cooling of gas and a furious star formation rate despite a roughly 10 billion solar mass supermassive black hole at its core. In other observed galaxy clusters, the central supermassive black hole powers energetic particles and radiation that prevents gas from cooling enough to form stars. Researchers have been studying gas flows within this cluster to try to understand how it is driving such extreme star formation….

“We can compare our previous studies of the Phoenix cluster, which found differing cooling rates at different temperatures, to a ski slope,” said Michael McDonald of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, principal investigator of the program. “The Phoenix cluster has the largest reservoir of hot, cooling gas of any galaxy cluster — analogous to having the busiest chair lift, bringing the most skiers to the top of the mountain. However, not all of those skiers were making it down the mountain, meaning not all the gas was cooling to low temperatures. If you had a ski slope where there were significantly more people getting off the ski lift at the top than were arriving at the bottom, that would be a problem!”

To date, in the Phoenix cluster, the numbers weren’t adding up, and researchers were missing a piece of the process. [The team] has now found those proverbial skiers at the middle of the mountain, in that it has tracked and mapped the missing cooling gas that will ultimately feed star formation. Most importantly, this intermediary warm gas was found within cavities tracing the very hot gas, a searing 18 million degrees Fahrenheit, and the already cooled gas around 18,000 degrees Fahrenheit….

“In the mid-infrared wavelengths detected by [JWST], the neon VI signature was absolutely booming,” explained Michael Reefe, also of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, lead author on the paper published in Nature. “Even though this emission is usually more difficult to detect, the new scope’s sensitivity in the mid-infrared cuts through all of the noise….”

And so, those Leadvillian “missing skiers” — taking an afternoon in the sun, and eating croissants and sipping hot cocoa at mid mountain… are hidden no longer. Smile.

नमस्ते

A Small Bit Of Agreement: There Is Certainly Room To Cut US Defense Spending…

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Hinderaker and Hegseth are almost uniformly wrong about how to go about it — and where the cuts ought to be made, but directionally… I agree.

It is a certainty, though, that instead of helping their brothers and sisters, these two will take the “savings” and plow them into… tax cuts, for billionaires.

Me? I’d feed more kids in poverty — about a one out of every five US children live with persistent food scarcity.

That is… deplorable.

So — as I say — only the narrowest sliver of agreement.

But I’ll note it just the same.

The Able USDC Judge Cooper In DC Rules That At Least Some Union Claims (For Now) Must Go To The NLRB Process, On Federal Firings.

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Okay — so, I guess this puts Tangerine 2.0 at… 2 for 24.

Y A W N.

Since Judge Cooper was appointed by BHO 44, and unanimously approved by the US Senate (after he clerked for Abner Mikva)…

…my educated guess is that he is a very able judge, and so he is probably… right, about this.

Not much else to see here — the union filed in the wrong court / venue — should have chosen the NLRB process. [And so, Tangerine’s reprieve will last only until the union gets across the street to the filing desk at the NLRB — or the federal employees’ version of that agency, to be more precise about it.]

नमस्ते

USDC Judge Alikhan In DC Extends “Freeze, Frozen” TRO — And Will Rule On Prelim. Inj. Before Too Long…

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Moments ago, the TRO against the Freeze nonsense (flip flopping / un-flopping) was extended in DC — as it has been in Rhode Island — both as nationwide orders.

And it is highly likely there will be an injunction pretty shortly. Trump loses — again. See this:

…By Order of the Court, the Temporary Restraining Order (“TRO”) will remain in place and a Preliminary Injunction ruling will be issued in due course. Order to follow….

Onward, grinning ever-wider now. Out.

नमस्ते

[U: What A Crock!] Team Tangerine 2.0 Owes Briefing By Noon Today, In USDC Judge Nichols Courtroom In DC: Purported Cutting Of Fed. Govt. Workers Case…

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Updated, at Noon Eastern: Well, the latest Peter Morocco sworn statement is now on file. And the upshot here is — the guy who had most of the operational responsibility for the USAID debacle… really didn’t spend time thinking about… much of anything, on a logistical / planning basis — before just dashing off an email firing nearly three thousand people (and in many cases, their young families) living in remote geographies (many of them quite dangerous). Just read all seven pages of it — and shake your head. Damn. This level of ineptitude is pretty much the opposite of an APA compliant “carefully reasoned” change in policy, at an agency. End update.

The unions have made the very clear case for — and received — a TRO against the purported exec. order(s) / Sharpie scribbles that Tangerine 2.0 lawlessly signed about two weeks ago now, to attempt to end the employment of thousands upon thousands of federal workers (with a pen stroke) — ones that may only be let go for well-documented (individualized written), and investigated and adjudicated so-called “cause“.

Do recall that many if not most of these USAID workers were in a precarious / war zone setting in far flung geographies overseas, when Tangerine simply cut them loose without so much as cell-phone access.

We expect that this new brief will only tread old ground, and fail — but we will link it, when it is filed, here. Do recall that Judge Nichols is a Tangerine 1.0 appointee — and is the guy who hemmed in the J6 prosecutions last time around (so anything is possible, here — despite crystal clear black letter law of long standing):

…Minute Entry for proceedings held before Judge Carl J. Nichols: Telephone Conference held on 2/19/2025. Defendants’ supplemental brief and declaration due by noon on 2/20/2025….

In the mean time, while we await more court hearings and filings… take a look here — for granular detail on all this — courtesy our erstwhile Anon. commenter. [Do also read the comment box, below.] Hat tip!

Onward, into the chilly sunshine in the steel and glass canyons. . . all as Tangerine wildly libels and defames the honorable people of Ukraine, and licks the boots of Vlad Putin. Yes, GOP regulars… this is your guy. And you won’t even make a peep about him selling our allies down the river?! Sheesh. Out.

नमस्ते

Overnight, The Ninth Circuit Bounces Tangerine 2.0 Out — There Is No “Emergency” To Create A Novel Interpretation Of Birthright Citizenship. None.

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I think this now puts Trump at 1-for-24 — and, clearly in the losers’ column.

Overnight, the Ninth Circuit told Tangerine 2.0 it could not show that gutting the plain meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment was any form of supportable law, let alone some “burning emergency”. It dismissed Trump’s appeal, in a terse order. The case will be heard on a more normal June 2025 timeframe. Here’s that, on appeal out of Seattle (of Trump’s loss on a TRO / prelim. inj.):

…ORDER FILED. (William C. CANBY, Milan D. SMITH, Jr., Danielle J. FORREST, Circuit Judges.) Order by Judges CANBY and M. SMITH; Concurrence by Judge FORREST. Appellants have not made a “strong showing that [they are] likely to succeed on the merits” of this appeal. See Nken v. Holder, 556 U.S. 418, 434 (2009) (quoting Hilton v. Braunskill, 481 U.S. 770, 776 (1987)). The emergency motion (Docket Entry No. 21) for a partial stay of the district court’s February 6, 2025 preliminary injunction is denied. The existing briefing schedule remains in effect. The clerk will place this case on the calendar for June 2025….

Here, the Government has not shown that it is entitled to immediate relief. Its sole basis for seeking emergency action from this court is that “[t]he district court has. . . stymied the implementation of an Executive Branch policy… nationwide for almost three weeks.” That alone is insufficient. It is routine for both executive and legislative policies to be challenged in court, particularly where a new policy is a significant shift from prior understanding and practice….

[It] appears that the exception to birthright citizenship urged by the Government has never been recognized by the judiciary, see United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649, 693 (1898), and where executive-branch interpretations before the challenged executive order was issued were contrary, see, e.g., Walter Dellinger, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel, Legislation Denying Citizenship at Birth to Certain Children Born in the United States, 19 O.L.C. 340, 340–47 (1995)….

Onward, smiling… erh… that’s quite a… spanking, there Donald. Onward, indeed.

नमस्ते

We Are Still Awaiting The End Of A Second 21 Day “No New Cases” Period, But All Eight Ebola Patients Are Out Of Hospital… In Kampala.

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This is very good news for Kampala, Uganda — where a single index case (now deceased) sparked a single chain of positive tests, and some illness — but no additional fatalities (beyond the man’s wife).

Everyone in close contact with the index patient has now spent 21 days isolated, with no Ebola viral eruption. So they’ve all been cleared and released. There were perhaps a few hundred additional contacts of contacts, that consented to be part of the clinical trial of the candidate vaccine, for this Sudan variant of Ebola. So far, none have shown significant adverse, off-target effects. Here’s the latest, as we await a total of forty-two days, with no new Ebola cases — in Uganda:

…Uganda discharged on Tuesday the last eight patients who recovered from Ebola, health authorities reported, and there were no other positive cases in the outbreak declared last month.

World Health Organization described the recoveries as a milestone that “reflects the power of Uganda’s quick and coordinated response.”

Most of the Ebola patients were treated at the main referral facility in the Ugandan capital, Kampala.

The lone Ebola victim was a male nurse who died the day before the outbreak was declared in Kampala on Jan. 30. His relatives are among those later hospitalized with Ebola….

Ugandan officials documented at least 265 contacts… they were monitored for signs of Ebola, Health Minister Jane Ruth Aceng told reporters in Kampala….

Here is to keeping a good thought that these last ten days of the 42 day period prove uneventful. Onward, even as Tangerine 2.0 purports to do many a preposterous thing (things he has no lawful power to do — same, Elon Musk). It is up to all of us to resist him in the courts, to prevent these various dread diseases… from overrunning our ability to scientifically contain them. Yikes.

नमस्ते

Except, Hinderaker… That Not A Word Of That Stupid Black Sharpie Scribble… Is Enforceable. These “Ideas” Need New ACTS, Of The Congress.

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Gosh.

Someone must be threatening John, with Politburo style Siberian internal exile orders, and a one way train ticket… if he doesn’t step up the boot licking of Tangerine 2.0.

Hinderaker well-knows that the SEC was created by Congressional Act. He knows that for over 85 years, the POTUS has seen its ascendency ebb and flow — and no POTUS May constitutionally terminate Acts of Congress. It is self funding — the registration fees, from the deepest and most liquid capital markets on Earth allow it to RETURN billions of dollars to the general federal fisc, each year.

If Congress were to decide it wants to “draw back” on the Securities Act of 1933, it may do so. But Tangerine? He cannot.

Tangerine 2.0… is in a word, impotent, here.

John says Trump’s black sharpie ravings are… reasserting “democracy“. That is poppy-cock.

To the extent that they do anything, they are just one old, deranged narcissist’s impotent fever dreams — they amuse his vanity, exclusively. He dreams of the opposite of a democracy. He dreams… dictator dreams.

So just take a seat, you silly Hinderaker.

Out.