Author: condor

“Dumb — Dumber — Dumber-er”. And Chief Justice Roberts Dissents: Trump Lacks Power To Tear Down And Rebuild Ballroom (Without Congressional Say-So).

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Truly this is trivial — compared to all his other criminality. And, in any event, perhaps it is good (relatively speaking) to let this reprobate waste his days obsessing over gold leaf in a new ballroom, rather than waging wars of choice and vastly destructive (to ordinary Americans) trade wars with Canada.

Perhaps that is what the Chief now thinks. But it is clear that the other five are wrong: only Congress has this power.

As soon as a plaintiff appears with standing (like a taxpayer, in a new suit) this will all end.

But do read this: Amy Howe — over at ScotusBlog has it exactly right:

…In his six-page dissent, which Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson joined, Roberts countered that “[a] historic preservationist such as Hoagland can be aesthetically injured in a concrete, particularized way by the transformation of a historic building that she frequently enjoys, just as,” based on prior court precedent, “an environmentalist can sustain a concrete, particularized aesthetic injury from the extinction of a particular animal or the transformation of a particular forest or river that he regularly enjoys.” Roberts ended the opinion by quoting Winston Churchill, who said that “[w]e shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us.” “All the more reason,” according to Roberts, “to ensure that those responsible follow the rules in deciding what to tear down and what to build up at the People’s House….”

Now you know… with an exciting week ahead. Smile.

नमस्ते

The Actual Total Is Likely Under-Reported By A 2X Factor, But Officially There Are Now Over 6,000 Ebola/Bundibugyo Sufferers In DRC — Over 3,000 Are Already Dead.

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As I’ve written what seems like a million times, already here — this is directly the fault of Donald Trump and Elon Musk. They essentially ended preventative public health aid outside the US — by gutting USAID. Now the world rides the lightning on it all.

Still out of control — and spreading, in the mountainous rural mining camps in Ituri and several other provinces. Here’s the latest, from AP news reporters this morning:

…Congo’s authorities said Monday that the fastest-growing Ebola outbreak in history has topped 6,000 cases… [and likely well-over 3,000 deaths].

More than 1,360 people have recovered from the virus, in what authorities said was an “encouraging” development.

The outbreak in eastern Congo is spreading under extremely difficult conditions, fueled by insecurity, displacement, a health workers’ strike and intense population movements. The situation is particularly concerning at displacement sites, where residents already live in extremely precarious conditions….

The World Health Organization has said that it remains out of control and is on track to surpass the 2014-2016 West Africa Ebola outbreak, the deadliest on record, which killed more than 11,000 people, primarily in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone….

On a brighter note, my daughter has already decamped to Côte d’Or / Cannes (as her 90 days’ work visa was up, in the UK) — awaiting the rest of us this weekend, down in Nice. Racing — then on, to Florence, Italy for about ten days. Woot! Flying back home, out of Rome — at Sept. month’s end.

नमस्ते

TANGENT: TIKR Analysis Seems A Lil’ Too Optimistic, But Correct As To Where The Pivot Point Sits.

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This — at least in its concluding paragraph — gets it mostly right. Riot faces a near term existential crisis: vast cap ex needed — very lil’ revenue, before late 2028. Watch Q3 for the proverbial “canary in the coal mine“, says TIKR. I agree.

The TIKR analyst thinks Riot might be able to use a strategy its CFO calls “recycling financing”. I highly doubt that (not to its intended effect, in any event).
Moreover, and of equal importance, the management of Riot was an abject failure, the last time it tried to be a customer service / contractor (for third party computes, then running Bitcoin miners — all under these same West Texas roofs).

My strong suspicion is that Riot hasn’t transformed its culture from “pirate rules” — to a true “customer service mentality”… at the rank and file / operating levels.

And that will all be deeply damaging to Riot — with demanding clients like AMD and Anthropic pushing the limit of what is humanly possible, 24×7.

Note that Riot is still embroiled in a $546 million suit with a Japanese mega tech co., over what is claimed to have been “deceptive accounting”, for electric power credit sharing, when the company was hosting others’ Bitcoin mining racks.

That is a strong tell. And those sorts of shenanigans will cause Anthropic and AMD to take the side exit, very early — if that is what the CFO means by “recycling financing”.

Here’s TIKR — and it is correct, speaking in directionality — if a lil’ too rosy:

…The cleanest test comes in late October or early November, when Riot reports its third quarter. Two things decide whether the cheap price is opportunity or trap. First, does the Corsicana LOI convert into a signed lease, turning a two-tenant company into a three-tenant platform with more than $1 billion of additional annual rent behind it?

Second, does the AMD project financing close at nearly double the initial equity, as management guided, proving the capital-recycling engine works outside a slide deck? Both would validate the thesis that the stock refuses to pay for. Another quarter of “advanced discussions” with nothing executed, against a widening cash burn, tells that the market’s caution was correct. Riot’s backlog says one thing, and its share price says another, and only delivery breaks the tie….

Now you know — onward (the second, legacy-2021 era graphic tells the tale — from last time around, with GMO Internet).

नमस्ते

Hinderaker Assumes (Falsely) That It Takes No New Cap Ex To Get More Oil From Venezuela.

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John would be… funny if he weren’t so naïve.

In truth, I suspect he knows all this, but refuses to admit it in his writings — as that would be seen as “disloyal” — to Tangerine 2.0.

Tonight, Hinderaker cheers the supposed deal to export more oil out of Venezuela — to the United States. Riiiiight.

But people who know more about oil than Hinderaker does (which amounts to knowing something / anything about oil) know that the Venezuelan oil requires greater capital investment in order to extract and be processed, as it is essentially a super heavy version of crude oil. [It is thick like peanut butter and very high in sulfur content. It requires much more refining — to become usable as a fuel, or even a lubricant.] This is — of course — as compared to the light sweet Brent crude that comes out of the Middle East.

This Chevron has long known and now is talking about making vast capital investments to bring Venezuelan oil to the United States. But either Chevron or the US government will have to make significant new capital investments in Venezuela (and at the US home refineries, too!) to achieve the fever dreams that Trump has laid out. Those investments could take 5 to 7 years to bear fruit.

So once again, Trump promises things he can’t deliver and expects other people or the US taxpayer to pay for it. But he clearly needs to say something about how irresponsibly he has managed our oil reserves… with the midterms looming.

And so tonight, John becomes a lame-brained cheerleader shaking his lil’ gold and orange pom-poms.

Pathetic — and disingenuous. The truth is out there, John, go find it.

Out.

Exhibit A, For How Inept Tangerine 2.0’s Lawyers Are — In The Post Office Rules Cases — On Appeal.

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Just as we saw with the DeJoy version, in Tangerine 1.0, these silly jamokes will lose. And lose decisively.

The scatter-shot appeals filings indicate they likely already know this. It is all… inevitable. Do read here, out of Boston, over the weekend:

…At 8:29 PM yesterday, Defendants filed a “Motion to Stay Pending Appeal,” Dkt. No. 228, concerning the Court’s grant in part of a temporary restraining order, see Dkt. No. 218. Defendant/Intervenors followed with their own stay motion at 10:34 PM last night.

Neither motion asks for a decision by a particular date or requests expedition of the typical 14-day briefing schedule under Local Rule 7.1(b)(2), nor have Defendants or Defendant-Intervenors conferred with Plaintiffs as to timing for an alternative briefing schedule. For the purposes of clarity, Plaintiffs intend to file their opposition to these stay motions by 11:00 PM on Monday, August 31, unless the Court requests a response on a different timeline….

Now you know… onward, into the warm Sunday night air — getting a rather large hard case black plastic bike transport contraption together, for the South of France, and such… smile.

नमस्ते

The Roman Space Telescope Is On Its Way To L2 — A Million Miles Off… Flawless Execution!

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This, folks, is how it is done. The best and brightest certainly showed their stuff — early this Sunday morning, down at the Cape.

Roman is powered up, in perfect radio communication with the Deep Space Network dishes, and headed out to the assigned LaGrange Point. Here’s NASA’s blog team on it all (but I’ve edited out the gratuitous commercials, for Musk’s Falcon Heavy lauch vehicle):

…Now on a three-month, million-mile journey to its final orbit, NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will soon reveal the universe’s darkest secrets. The mission launched at 7:26 a.m. EDT Sunday aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Roman pairs a large field of view with crisp infrared vision to explore vast swaths of the sky and probe deeply into cosmic history. This flagship mission will help astronomers explore dark matter, dark energy, and worlds outside of our solar system, known as exoplanets. Its surveys will support a broad range of research extending far beyond the mission’s main science goals.

“Roman is exactly the kind of success story we want to see across NASA… delivered ahead of schedule and on budget, this mission reflects more than a decade of dedication from the NASA workforce and our industry partners. Now, Roman will give us a new atlas of the universe, push the boundaries of discovery, and demonstrate what is possible when America’s space program pairs bold ambition with disciplined execution….”

The ground control team at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, began receiving telemetry data from Roman seven minutes after launch….

Throughout the rest of Roman’s three-month commissioning period, scientists will run the instruments through a series of calibrations and tests. NASA anticipates releasing Roman’s first images by early 2027.

Roman will send back 1.4 terabytes of data every day, the highest data rate of any NASA astrophysics mission, so far. Machine learning, artificial intelligence, and citizen scientists will help sift through it and flag significant findings, which astronomers can then study.

“We’ve never been able to view the universe with eyes like Roman’s before,” said Julie McEnery, Roman’s senior project scientist at NASA Goddard. “There’s no telling what more we’ll know and have seen by this time next year….”

Onward — grinning widely. A “paler hidden figure” no more — thank you for your decades of tireless service Nancy Grace Roman — this is a very fitting legacy to remember your name by.

नमस्ते

As Trump Loses, Essentially Endlessly, On His Overreaches In The Trial Courts, We Chuckle.

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Tangerine 2.0 has, in the past week — filed immediate appeals in four federal trial level cases he has already lost.

I won’t link the appeals (they are uniformly idiotic) — but the cases he’s appealed, after lossses, are about:

➢ The US Post Office’s newly unconstitutional mail-in balloting rule (actually mostly a redux of a case he lost in Trump 1.0, through DeJoy).

➢ The remedies recently ordered, in Flores (an open class action immigrants’ rights case, since 1985!) to protect children [many separated from their parents, with some under age 10] in Camp Dilley, an ICE/DHS prison complex (also a case he previously lost, in Trump 1.0).

➢ Orders to keep paying construction workers (from Congressionally-ordered funds) in the Hudson Tunnel project in NY — and not try to rename the project as the Trump Tunnel.

➢ Orders requring the immediate release of detainees about whom ICE lied — and said there were judicial warrants issued, in Chicago and Minneapolis and LA.

Note: Not a single appeal, in over a year — on any of his losses, as to his commercial grafts/bribe-seeking. Fascinating.

He will ultimately lose, on all the four above — and many more. He professes zero understanding of our system of ordered liberty.

Out.

नमस्ते

Hinderaker Disingenuously Has Claimed The Post Office Order/Proposed Rules Are A “Nothing Burger”.

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Forgive me for looking askance — at that, his preposterous… suggestion.

The Tangerine 2.0 lawyers took ANOTHER emergency measure appeals — to the Supremes — for a nothing burger?! Really, John?

Just this morning, they AGAIN took what looks to be a THIRD appeal… of a TEMPORARY TRO.

That certainly suggests the Trumpians regard it as a “life or death” measure.

John, you very well (still) know that TROs are almost never appealable. They are never “final” orders. But here we are — three notices of… federal appeals, from Team Tangerine.

So, why is the government taking these baseless appeals, in under 30 elapsed hours, no less — if this is a nuthin’ burger?

Do ‘splain that to me, Mr. Hinderaker. And please use small words, and short sentences. [If you can — but I suspect you cannot.]

In sum, make your [purported] position… make sense.

Oh. Right.

You… cannot. You. Are. An. Idiotic. LIAR.

Out.

Swift Space ‘Scope Now Predicted To Burn Up — In Earth’s Atmosphere — In One To Two Months’ Time…

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NASA tonight provided a new estimate, for the remaining time that Swift might be operable.

That comes in at one to two months more, at the outside. It was a very game effort, on a very tight time-frame, to try to lift the aging Swift space ‘scope — to a higher orbit, but in the end this mostly proves that… space is hard — and unforgiving. Guidance systems were not 4×4 on the Link craft, so it repeatedly displayed a tumbling motion. That won’t do, at all — for grappling operations in zero-G. Here is likely the last update — on the Katalyst Link craft itself, from NASA, then:

…NASA predictions had shown the shift to low-drag operations had extended Swift’s time above 185 miles (300 kilometers) until October. Below this point, operating the telescope becomes difficult, and the spacecraft’s rate of descent quickly increases.

With the resumption of science observations, the team anticipates Swift will reach that milestone sometime in the next one to two months….

Now you know — with only about eight days left, until Nice, France (and Florence and Rome — and maybe Paris, on the tail-end) for a month. Smile.

नमस्ते

The GOP Gov. In Wyoming Bristles At Trump/MAGA Primary Election Interference, In Cheyenne. This Is… Banana Republic Stuff.

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I am tempted to say… when you elect an inept mobster, this is the natural consequence. But GOP Gov. Gordon is right: this is both lawless — and Un-American.

Sure, Tangerine may have backed another primary candidate — but sending a DoJ goon squad in, to pester voters… is simply well beyond the pale. Here’s The New York Times‘ version of it all:

…Two election monitors from the Justice Department tried to interview voters and examine voting machines at polling places during Wyoming’s primaries last week, local officials said, drawing pushback from the state’s Republican governor.

The federal election monitors arrived at a polling site in Cheyenne, Wyoming’s capital and its largest city, without advance notice around 7 a.m. last Tuesday, said the Laramie County clerk, Debra Lee. They asked to interview voters and inspect the machines, but were denied, officials said.

“It was aggressive, unexpected, disruptive — certainly didn’t seem to show respect for the state,” Gov. Mark Gordon of Wyoming said in an interview on Thursday. “We’re going to get to the bottom of it as best we can.”

The Justice Department often monitors polling sites during elections. [Ed. Note: Based on three decades of my own in-person, in-polling-place experience — across both red and blue states and cities (at least five national election cycles) — almost always, the DoJ people sit silently, and try to be as unobtrusive as humanly possible. Not these jamokes, though last week — in Cheyenne.]

But the visits to Wyoming came amid President Trump’s ongoing fixation with finding evidence of fraud and vote tampering. Mr. Trump and his allies made fantastical claims that voting machines had switched votes for him to his opponent Joseph R. Biden Jr. in 2020, and he has tried and failed to find evidence of widespread fraud or vote tampering ever since….

What an entirely abberant time in America, indeed. We are led by… a straight-up felonious crook. Out.

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