Author: condor

[U, X2] What The First Amendment DOES NOT Read Upon… Geez. Louisiana Trump Appointee Gets It All Wrong, Over 155 Pages.

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Updated 07.05.2023 8 pm: The Administration has already filed a notice of appeal from this nonsense. The decision will be wiped from the books, as completely untethered from existing law. End update.

To call this preposterous opinion political grandstanding… is to insult political grandstanders.

This USDC Judge decided to come in to the office on the Fourth, precisely to release what he regards as his “manifesto”. [Updated on the morning of July 5: Mr. Johnson cheers the fact that a federal judge is so utterly ignorant of federal law. Charming. End update.]

The entire opinion rests on a laughably insipid false premise: this judge pretends that a right to say something — anything — means the NYT (for example) “must carry” it. Preposterous. Saint Ronnie Reagan got rid of the “must carry” rules — even in broadcast — in about 1985.

No one’s right to speak is abridged, just because I (a purely private actor, like FB or the NYT) refuse to sell you my bull-horn, or worse — give you a free one. Damn, Doughty. They can go to Times Square, and bark madly into the night sky. That’s freedom — but no one says I have to host them in my private living room. That’s pure idiocy.

So, his “opinion” will be stricken on appeal — and never matter in any real world scenario.

But it is some great red political meat — around the fireworks — for the Trumpers. I link it here — only for… derision. I guess the Administration should remain silent in pandemics, when idiot doctors endanger the lives of the public with false health claims(?!). This is lunacy, as a matter of policy — and in no manner reads on the First Amendment — properly understood:

…Defendants also argue that Plaintiffs are attempting to create a “deception” theory of government involvement with regards to the FBI Defendants. Plaintiffs allege the FBI told the social-media companies to watch out for Russian disinformation prior to the 2020 Presidential election and then failed to tell the companies that the Hunter Biden laptop was not Russian disinformation. The Plaintiffs further allege Dr. Fauci colluded with others to cover up the Government’s involvement in “gain of function” research at the Wuhan lab in China, which may have resulted in the creation of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Although this Court agrees there is no specified “deception” test for government action, a state may not induce private persons to accomplish what it is constitutionally forbidden to accomplish. Norwood, 413 U.S. at 455. It follows, then, that the government may not deceive a private party either—it is just another form of coercion. The Court has evaluated Defendants’ conduct under the “coercion” and/or “significant encouragement” theories of government action, and finds that the FBI Defendants likely exercised “significant encouragement” over social-media companies….

Plaintiffs met their burden to show “significant encouragement” by the White House Defendants, the Surgeon General Defendants, the CDC Defendants, the FBI Defendants, the NIAID Defendants, the CISA Defendants, and the State Department Defendants, this Court finds the Plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits that Defendants “jointly participated” in the actions of the private social-media companies as well, by insinuating themselves into the social-media companies’ private affairs and blurring the line between public and private action. . . .

However, this Court finds Plaintiffs are not likely to succeed on the merits that the “joint participation” occurred as a result of a conspiracy with the social-media companies….

So — even he admits the theory has no basis in law — yet, astonishingly he lets them have an injunction. Tellingly, the guy cites not a shred of actually applicable federal law. But onward, grinning — at the desperation.

नमस्ते

“Gee, Mr. Otis — That Brown Shirt Sure Looks Nice.” But Isn’t It… A Lil’ TIGHT?!

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Bill… has decided he’s no limited government conservative.

No — he’s a totalitarian. This is the only logical way to read his.

And it tells us just how afraid he and Paul and the Powerliners are that the Supremes largely lost their legitimacy last week — reverting to a purely political organ. Bill knows what comes next: a court of 13 or more.

And the end of all this nonsense.

So… he now supports deeply personally intrusive legislation into peoples’ private relationships with their doctors.

Legislation — to try (vainly) to put it all beyond the reach of a court that may soon (2026) have seven Democratic but law abiding nominees, to the six GOP lawless zealots we just saw show their horrid faces, last week.

D A M N.

[U] Paul Mirengoff Would Tell Us That ONLY Test Scores And GPA Are “Determinants”… Of Merit, Or Even More Preposterously, “Odds Of Success”?!

~ condor ~ 3 Comments

This morning, Paul condescends to tell us all why (in his warped view) only GPA and SAT / ACT / LSAT / MCAT / GRE scores should be the yard-sticks by which we decide who gets in to which schools, and whether or if they get in anywhere, at all.

Of course, rather than honestly admit that he wants to advance that silly notion, he instead attacks all other schemes as “race-based“. [So, once again, using the fallacy of composition, he attacks a non-existent opponent. And what… a goofy guy.]

Look — we all know dozens, if not hundreds, of people who are “Phi Beta Kappa / No Common Sense” — people who got great grades, and test off the chart on standardized tests… but are utter disasters in real life — in the working world, or in anything other than a cloistered research lab or musty small college lecture hall.

So, when Paul pretends that “only numbers” are a workable live proxy for merit… his own lived experience tells him he’s lying. What it (his proposition) mostly is… is a good predictor of wealth, and mostly whyte cultural advantages that come with it. [Increasingly, it also skews in favor of Asian-Americans who’ve lived here for more than two generations.]

So — another way to look at Paul’s “perfected world” is to realize that it allows for a maximized number of “legacy admissions” — which, due to three centuries of overt bias (in favor of whyte males), in turn means there are almost uniformly whyte legacy admittees coming in the door, that way. Another unearned skew in favor of whyteness. Color me… utterly unsurprised.

No, at bottom, Paul and his ilk seek a return to the days when only the best families got into Dartmouth, Harvard, Yale and Stanford.

Because he thinks his family is among that lot.

The dishonesty of his (and the Supremes’) arguments would be comical… if they weren’t so sad.

As he knows, the fact is — it won’t amount to a hill of beans, as colleges will use essays to achieve “merit” diversity.

So prattle on, Paul. No one cares.

Out. [Same goes for Hinderaker’s bleatings, this morning. Updated @ 11:47 pm — and his whine, of this evening. Ugly.]

Of Charlemagne… 1,210 Years Ago — In What Is Now France…

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An era previously unknown in what passed for civilization in what became Western Europe… had opened.

A peaceful, stable monarchy… spanning the whole of those lands. [The recent unrest in France has reminded me that from 814 to the French Revolution, an unbroken line of royalty ruled France.]

Even so, directly to the south — by about 1,600 miles, in Africa, a settlement of the humans from whom Charlemagne’s line (we now know, via genetic sequences) directly descended, had already been thriving for… 132,000 years.

Consider this: All these people — protestors against brutality, and older, mostly whyte people who oppose them — are truly brothers and sisters, through the Nama.

It makes the current unrest… smaller, in perspective. No doubt the protests are justified, as police killings of unarmed motorists are rare and deplorable, there.

Onward.

Bitsy Stauffer Thinks Mr. Biden (Wait for it!) Wants To “Dim The Sun” — Via Covert Means!?

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Okay — for a good half-year now, I’ve been running a satirical graphic that suggests Hinderaker’s mind has gone buggly.

Tonight, Ms. Stauffer firmly joins that camp. She put out a piece intimating that the Biden Administration is conducting covert research (despite the research having been mandated by prior federal statutes!) into a massive “Manhattan Project” / “Project Bright-Boy” — the goal of which would be to dim the Sun.

Uh huh.

She claims this is going to be the Biden/Harris administration’s “fix” for global warming. [That is, if it “works” — they will permanently send the globe into an ice age, in her telling. Geez. JFKM.]

Perhaps surprisingly, and very quickly, Steve Hayward updated / edited hers, to suggest that the project is not as even remotely as she’s described — and in any event… may be needed in some form (around 2050).

But let’s not lose sight of the fact that she is truly gullible enough to believe everything the Posse Commitatus guys email her.

D A M N.

Truly. . . loony-tunes.

Out.

Eighty-Six Years Ago This Morning, Amelia Earhart and Electra Disappeared Over The Pacific Ocean. The Wreck Was Never Found.

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Some claim she was spotted in much later photos (in the 1940s), elsewhere in the South Pacific. Some claim to have found pieces of aluminum off a small Pacific island, but nothing remotely conclusive exists.

She was a heroine, and role model — for millions of young girls from the 1920s to ’50s. So we remember her daring spirit and measured risk-taking, even today. Here’s a bit, from her bio:

…One afternoon in April 1928, a phone call came for Earhart at work. “I’m too busy to answer just now,” she said. After hearing that it was important, Earhart relented, though she thought it was a prank. It wasn’t until the caller supplied excellent references that she realized the man was serious. “How would you like to be the first woman to fly the Atlantic?” he asked, to which Earhart promptly replied, “Yes!”

After an interview in New York with the project coordinators, including book publisher and publicist George P. Putnam, she was asked to join pilot Wilmer “Bill” Stultz and co-pilot/mechanic Louis E. “Slim” Gordon. The team left Trepassey Harbor, Newfoundland, in a Fokker F7 named Friendship (on June 17, 1928), and arrived at Burry Port, Wales approximately 21 hours later.

Their landmark flight made headlines worldwide because three pilots had died within the year trying to be that first women to fly across the Atlantic. When the crew returned to the United States, they were greeted with a ticker-tape parade in New York and a reception held by President Calvin Coolidge at the White House….

This too is what patriotism looks like. Onward, smiling into a rain-soaked Sunday afternoon here (with no NASCAR, thank goodness!)….

नमस्ते

So… Mirengoff Makes Some Wildly Racist Assumptions — And Misses That Colleges Will Mostly Ignore The Supremes, In The Process…

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Anyone who quotes the race-baiting charlatan Heather Mac Donald for… anything… is making a… self-refuting argument.

So it is this Sunday morning, with Paul Mirengoff. He purports to tell kids who live daily with food scarcity that they ought to pay $3,000 cash for ACT/SAT prep tutoring, and do lots of after-school clubs, instead of taking jobs to feed their siblings. What a feckless… ass.

This, in response to the well-documented (and sensible) responses of US universities (as invited by Chief Justice Roberts, no less) to keep using essays and the information in them as setting plus factors.

It is no wonder that SAT and ACT scores are less often a litmus test these days, when Paul concedes that with enough money, they can be manipulated in the favor of the wealthy (mostly whyte) applicants.

Let’s just name this brand of hatred, for what it plainly is — Paul, John, Bitsy and Steve and Scott harbor it: it is the hatred of the loss of unearned privilege, in the form of their parents’ wealth.

Or now, theirs — bestowed on their offspring — being less and less able to get the seats (largely undeserved) at the best institutions.

Get over yourselves, mediocre whyte losers.

The world has passed your Jim Crow era views… by.

You reside on the ash-heaps of US History now.

Out.

I Gather Scott Has Never Read, Or Heard Of, Pres. Johnson’s 1965 NEA — And Nearly 60 Years Of Law Under It.

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Scott Johnson goes on a exquisitely ill-informed rant this rain-soaked Sunday morning — in two respects.

First, he would liken an act by a sitting President, pursuant to exactly the same authority his immediate predecessor used (multiple times, and all as contemplated by an explicit statute) to a monarch’s overreach. Heh. WTH?

But more eye-popping is his clear ignorance of a new approach, laid out Friday night, by that same sitting President — to rely on the “Great Society” measures Congress passed under LBJ, in 1965. Ones repeatedly held Constitutional over the last 60 or so years.

The National Education Act gives Mr. Biden this explicit authority, as we’ve shown, here. Scott should revisit (or read for the first time, carefully) his 20th Century American History, under Johnson, Lyndon Baines. Any one of those old high school textbooks.

Hilarious.

ESA Has Succeeded — Euclid Space ‘Scope On Its Way To L2…

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This is a nice clean ESA launch from Cape Canaveral. [As we mentioned earlier this week, this scope will — come early 2028 — team up efforts and share data with NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman space telescope, by then also sitting pretty at L2, and cooled down for science operations.]

Now the planet’s newest space scope is heading out toward L2… and a stable perch from which to map potential evidence of dark energy and dark matter. Here’s a link to the liftoff video, and a bit:

…Euclid will observe billions of galaxies out to 10 billion light-years to create the largest, most accurate 3D map of the Universe, with the third dimension representing time itself.

This detailed chart of the shape, position and movement of galaxies will reveal how matter is distributed across immense distances and how the expansion of the Universe has evolved over cosmic history, enabling astronomers to infer the properties of dark energy and dark matter.

This will help theorists to improve our understanding of the role of gravity and pin down the nature of these enigmatic entities….

And, now you know… grin.

नमस्ते

Mr. Mirengoff: We Say “OUR” Democracy… Because It INCLUDES All Of Us — Even You…

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Paul Mirengoff (behind a paywall) tonight finds fault with liberal/left leaners who would use the phrase “our democracy“.

Uh-huh.

Speaking for myself, I use that phrase because — despite Powerliners and Ringsiders regularly excluding us (and, Trumpers universally doing so) from their invocations of what America is about… I (and we) INCLUDE you… all of you… in our vision of America.

Yes, Paul — American democracy is sloppy, inefficient and fraught with tensions. It is filled with jangling discords, as well as the more than occasional sweet harmonies.

And we — the we of “our democracy” — intend to include you all — in all of it.

It is unfortunate in the extreme… that you cannot reciprocate (even behind a paywall) — and that Hinderaker, Stauffer, Hayward and Johnson uniformly despise real democratic outcomes, of all sorts.

But here on the Fourth long weekend… we continue to reach out to you in good will — even though we rarely see it returned. We still believe in the unlikely dream that is… America.

Do you?

Seriously — do… you?