Author: condor

[U] Has Hinderaker’s Silly Trivia Re Thomas’s Law Clerk — Dead To Rights.

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Updated: Friday, March 1, 2024 — This morning, The New Yorker points out how utterly… unbelievable this whole “I was the victim” saga cum lately has become. Do read it all. End of updated portion.

Courtesy erstwhile commenter Rigby — nailing Hinderaker’s churlish lilly-gilding:

John’s other post yesterday, about law clerk Crystal Clanton, was equally hilarious (and dishonest). I have no idea if the accusations against Ms. Clanton are accurate, but even John would have to admit that her denial is less that emphatic:

I have no recollection of these messages and they do not reflect what I believe or who I am, and the same was true when I was a teenager.

“I have no recollection” is often lawyer-speak for “there’s enough evidence out there that I can’t come right out and deny it.” Again, I have no insight into the truthfullness of these accusations, but that non-denial gives me pause. If it were I, I would have said that those messages were unequivocally not mine. Notably, Clanton didn’t say that.

John also leaves out the rest of the racist message attributed to Ms. Clanton (“Like f—them all . . . I hate blacks. End of story!”), as well as the fact that this wasn’t the only racist language attributed to her.

John concludes:

The moral of the story, I suppose, is that the Left never forgets. No matter that she was cleared by an investigation by one of the nation’s courts of appeals; once the Left gets its hands on a smear it never lets go. It will never stop trying to destroy your life.

Riiiiight.

Anita Hill would like a word. So would Hillary Clinton (Vince Foster, anyone?). So would Ray Epps. So would Wandrea “Shaye” Moss and Ruby Freeman. So would John Kerry. So would Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. And on and on and on….

And Condor adds, as his own take on it:

I would also note that i find it extremely odd, that she “lived with” Ginny Thomas for over a year, in the Justice’s home… while “recovering” from being outed as a racist.

I hate to say it, but it makes me wonder… even more, about Justice Clarence Thomas himself. WTAH?

Anyway… it is all largely trivial, except that it speaks to some sort of dysfunction there. Wow. Onward.

WHO Reports Out Improved Standards For Protecting Health Workers, In Ebola And Marburg Outbreaks…

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The new WHO-generated advice is the result of deep experience in the last decade, during prior flare ups.

The central message is to ease back on the spraying of aerosolized higher concentration chlorine solutions creates more problems and risks than it ameliorates. Here’s the latest — and a bit, from MedPage Today:

…Excessive or inappropriate use of PPE is associated with adverse effects for healthcare workers and negative impacts on the environment, they noted. Spraying workers and the environment with chlorine during Ebola and Marburg virus outbreaks remains a common practice, but causes adverse ocular, respiratory, and skin reactions. Instead, the WHO recommends wiping potentially contaminated surfaces with disinfectant.

One example of confusion surrounding PPE use is that some facilities rely on double gloving with variable approaches to changing gloves between patients and glove disinfection, Willet and colleagues pointed out. The new guidelines, which were published last August, clarify when double or single gloving should be used, how to disinfect gloves, and when to change gloves between patients….

We all know there will be another outbreak, the question is simply… when — and how best to minimize the number of deaths, when it comes… as “the fire, next time“. Onward… smiling into the sunshine just the same.

नमस्ते

Hinderaker: Fear-Mongering Energy… Idiot.

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Tonight (again!), he offers ignorant, wild-eyed fear mongering… on energy rationing (which he considers “socialism”) — across the pond.

But here at home, he ignores that Texas provides corporate welfare, in the form of transfer payments to large businesses, that drive sky-rocketing prices per kWh that residential consumers (most of limited means) must pay.

In many cases, during increasingly frequent cold snaps, the price reaches over $3,000 in a month, to heat a home. So, GOP Texas (and MAGA Gov. Abbott) gets to the same socialist state of affairs as the UK — but gives the gravy to energy hogging Bitcoin miners.

In sum — John has met his boogeyman: it’s his own political party, and parasitic capitalism on energy — right here (in Texas).

Sheesh.

CHMP Favorable On Merck’s Pembrolizumab In Resectable NSCLC at High Risk of Recurrence — With Chemo…

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Again, not material, but still good EU news for US Merck, this past week.

The approvals continue to pile up — for the juggernaut. Here’s the latest:

…Merck today announced that the European Medicines Agency’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) adopted a positive opinion recommending approval of KEYTRUDA, Merck’s anti-PD-1 therapy, in combination with platinum-containing chemotherapy as neoadjuvant treatment, then continued as a monotherapy as adjuvant treatment, for the treatment of resectable non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) at high risk of recurrence in adults….

“The CHMP’s positive opinion puts us another step closer to helping certain patients in Europe with earlier stages of non-small cell lung cancer, regardless of PD-L1 expression,” said Dr. Marjorie Green, senior vice president and head of oncology, global clinical development, Merck Research Laboratories. “We look forward to the European Commission’s decision, as we continue to build on the legacy of KEYTRUDA in certain types of lung cancer and pursue meaningful advances that may help extend the lives of patients….”

Now you know — onward, to catch a matinee of “Origin“, this afternoon — smiling.

नमस्ते

And… Fox News Wants The 46th President To Be “Responsible” For The Death Of A Georgia Nursing Student?! WHY?

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This seems to be the new pet jingoists’ talking point:

Fox is bleating like Hinderacket and Billingspuss. Funny — they never asked Tangerine to explain the grandson / mass murders in Colo. Springs, at left.

Seems it has more to do with skin color, than any actual concern for any individual human life.

Fox, Dylan Roof would like an interview — from his life without parole cell.

Please swing into action — to help him out. It’s totally on brand for you jamokes.

Out.

When John And Lloyd Need To Vent, On Crime… At Best, Senility Is Seen.

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Any crime of sexual violence is tragic. That is clear.

But overnight, both Hinderaker and Billingsley speak of the same one — doubling up.

From one crime, the pair commits an age old logical blunder — intentionally.

They want us to infer that “what is true of one, is true of most or all…”

But in reality, they offer only racists’ fear mongering.

Tellingly, they’ll never mention whyte sexual predators in positions of trust, whyte domestic terrorists trying to start race wars, or the whyte suburban (Gilgo Beach) architect / serial killer of women in sex work.

And they’d never mention the whyte Colorado Springs mass murderer — whose family runs a large MAGA operation in San Diego, California.

We’ve never read those stories… on their pages.

I’ll let the readership figure out… why.

Out.

Gangs That Can’t Shoot Straight: Texas Anti-Immigrant Entities Edition.

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So, some knuckleheads wanted to oppose the DHS and CBP in the en banc rehearing of the floating razor wire case, in the Fifth Circuit.

But they filed their purported amicus brief in the one on appeal from Alia Moses’ orders. That is, they filed in the wrong case. Here’s the operative bit of their admission:

…Counsel for CRA mistakenly filed CRA’s brief yesterday, February 23, 2024, in related case, Texas v. U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security, Case No. 23-50869, because of a typographical error on the cover page of its brief. See Exhibit A attached hereto. Counsel for CRA is correcting that mistake now, filing CRA’s brief in this case today, and therefore humbly seeks leave for CRA’s brief to be filed….

All this grand-standing… is just silly. The State of Texas (and Gov. Abbott) is a clear loser in both cases.

Out.

Hinderaker Would Read Section Three Of The 14th Amendment As… A Nullity — But Only As To Tangerine…

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Well — this is… not surprising.

So much for originalism.

And… so much for principled debate.

At lunch today, Hinderaker completely ignores all the others who’ve been DQ-ed over the past century and a quarter, pointing to Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment.

He then goes on to blame (prospectively) “the Democrats” — if anyone invokes that Section Three against Tangerine. He says this result (should Tangerine win the popular vote) means that the Supremes must read Section Three out of the Fourteenth — but only as to Trump.

John says this outcome is compelled, to avoid “civil war”. “Just in case.” As a potential, that is. [He seems to utterly forget that the concept of “standing” (for three hundred years, now!) has required a “live controversy”, not a theoretical one.] Charming.

That entire Hinderakerian line of BS is… self refuting, and the subsequent DQs prove that the Section [US v. Classic (1941); Nixon v. Fitzgerald (1982)] is not solely a measure to DQ the former Confederate officers — he could look it up.

But he won’t.

What a putz.

Hilarious! Scott Johnson Would Blame… Wait For It! The FBI(?!) — For The GOP’s Goose Chase Through Russian Tainted Sources?!

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In the MAGA/GOP frenzy to find something — anything! — deleterious in Mr. Biden’s jacket, they chose to stake their careers (such as they are) on two informants who the FBI had long warned them… were unreliable, due to their captive thrall, in the nature of internal Russian power struggles. They. Were. Russian. Assets.

These were “Putin’s boys“, the FBI warned — and we all well-knew that Tangerine was lapping up every bit of dis-information Vlad fed him, without ever blinking an eye.

So now, five years later, as the entire claim of a Biden ethical lapse falls apart (yep, it was always a lie)… Scott Johnson blames not the churlish political hacks inside the GOP who pushed it (nor the assets, themselves)… but the FBI, who warned the GOP… not to rely on liars.

D A M N A T I O N.

Scott — seriously. Take a look at yourself. You were once a lawyer.

What happened to your critical thinking skills / understanding of how the probity of an unreliable set of witnesses worked?

Please. This is just… embarrassing.

Sit down.

The Odysseus Press Conference Last Night Revealed That The Lander Will Be Out Of Battery Life In Nine Days, No Matter What…

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This mission has still been a resounding success, as it was always known that by choosing to land near the lunar south pole, the solar panels would be out of sunlight for long stretches of time, sitting near that pole.

And yet, the lander ended up lying on its side — when it turned out, about nine hours before touchdown, that a hard wired safety switch on the laser guidance (to protect human eyes on the ground during the build) had not been shut off… so that laser guidance system had to swapped for a backup LiDAR, such that the team had to unload and reload software on the fly, and land using an older, back-up LiDAR system. Thus Odysseus set down on uneven ground, and tipped over. [The dark bottom half of the globe image at right is a fish-eye camera view of the lander, on its side.]

So yes — quite a success — but it also suggests that getting to Mars. . . with a crewed mission, probably sits out beyond 2035 (if at all). [The radiation exposure risk — as we’d sail away from Earth’s protective blankets… remains a largely unsolved technical problem, for human life, on a three year out and back journey.] But today, we celeberate another seven or so days of data being beamed home (albeit on a smaller pipe than hoped), per the NYT:

…The spacecraft, named Odysseus, set down in the moon’s south pole region on Thursday evening, the first U.S. vehicle to land softly on the moon since Apollo 17 in 1972.

“The vehicle is stable near or at our intended landing site,” Steve Altemus, the chief executive of Intuitive Machines said during a NASA news conference on Friday. “We do have communications with the lander.”

He added, “That’s phenomenal to begin with.”

But the landing did not go perfectly. Because the spacecraft fell over, its antennas are not pointed directly at Earth, limiting the amount of information that can go back and forth….

Now you know — once again proving that “space is… hard.” Even so, we are admiring about an inch of gleaming white snow here, under the bright morning sunshine… it will all be gone by afternoon, in the warmth — but it renders all so quiet… and clean for the moment. Smile….

नमस्ते