Author: condor

[U] Tonight, Hinderaker Typed About 15 Paragraphs… To Say… He Doesn’t Have Even A Vague Idea — About Tyre Nichols’ Murder.

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And so — though I link it here for a complete record, there is no reason to read his. None.

He tries for a bit to make the argument that Derek Chauvin was not a murderer… despite a jury finding he was. He murdered George Floyd — also on video.

And then he tries to argue that it is impossible for black police officers to be acting with racial animus against a black man in a traffic stop. A stop where they murdered him.

But John will only say that the beating seemed… unprovoked. [It is astonishing that John thinks he can know the hearts of the black police officers, just by judging their skin color. As a whyte idiot, it lets him draw conclusions about them not being capable of racism. All of which leads Hayward to add an “update”: that perhaps the murder of Mr. Nichols was due to these officers being “affirmative action” hires — again, without a scintilla of evidence, from either malevolent moron.]

Then Hinderaker hints that maybe Mr. Nichols was on drugs (without any evidence for that libelous assertion).

So, yeh — John has no idea — about much of anything, any longer.

What a useless… tool he is.

Updated, on 01.28.2023 @ 8 AM: Contrary to fevered hopes of Faux Newscasters (and Powerliners) last night, all the protests remained entirely peaceful according to verified local news reports, and… nationwide.

So I ask you, who exactly seeks to divide Americans, on racial bases? Right. The frothy hard right does. The above (including the AA remark) is… Exhibit A here.

Out.

Trump Nominated Aileen Cannon — And The GOP Rammed Her Through. ‘Nuff Said.

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And we saw that she cannot… read. Actually… we saw that she REFUSES to read… the US Constitution.

Down in Ft. Pierce, Florida — we all saw that she believes she is a law of her own — answerable unto… no one. Even after the Eleventh Circuit roundly mocked her opinions on the Mar-A-Lago search warrant execution. And… only after the Supremes slapped it all down, did she enter an order which marginally complied with her duties as a jurist. And Hinderaker cheered it all on.

So, geeez Hinderaker — you’ve lost the right to complain here.

John Hinderaker is simply… pandering now.

That is all.

On Page 294(!) — As Against Letitia James, AG of NY — Tangerine Makes A Stupefyingly-Crazy Allegation, Overnight… Of “Ancient And Customary Norms”?!

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Many a morning here — in 2023 — this column will write itself. Today is one of those.

Overnight, Tangerine personally purported to answer the NY AG’s civil frauds suit in the State of New York courts. While it is appropriate to say when one doesn’t have specific, actionable knowledge adequate to either confirm or deny the allegations in any particular part of a complaint… Trump does so, about 320 times. And he is the head of all these organizations, yet he knows… essentially nothing. Hilarious.

[Actually, as to worldly knowledge, that is likely mostly… true. But all the documents bear his signature — so he confesses that in his business — he doesn’t read anything he signs?! Sheesh.]

In truth, I digressed there… for my main point is that he thinks it an “Affirmative Defense” to say (without citation to any authority) that State AGs are bound by “ancient norms”… not to enforce any law, against … the “Crown” (i.e., him — solely in his own fevered imaginings).

That’s what he means, at the bottom of page 294, of a 320 some page vomitus… of nonsense:

…The Attorney General in her conduct and public statements has acted contrary to the ancient and customary norms that prescribe the manner in which prosecutors are expected to conduct themselves under the rule of law….

That is so… officious — and impudent — as to be sanctionable, standing on its own.

Yep — I think the able NY Judge Arthur Engoron will slap his lawyers around, some more — perhaps even suggesting contempt of court, for them (again!) — as he’s long and repeatedly ruled that Trump’s claims to some form of “Lex Regis” is utterly poppycock.

The law of the case is that he is barred from making these specious arguments.

Damn. Buckle up — and pop the popcorn, folks. He’s gonna get roasted. Again.

Merck Is Still Pretty Compelling — At $106… With Q4 2022 Earnings Due Next Wednesday

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In times of general consumer price inflation, and a fairly stagnant job market, overall… the “counter-cyclicals” — or defensive stocks… often become screaming buys (as was true in the late 1970s). This is — again — one of those times.

True, in the heady “go-go” times of early 2022, these big pharmas looked pretty… boring (cough! when compared to… Bitcoin!)… but while Bitcoin is now down over 75% in the last 12 months, Merck is up over 44%.

How’z ’bout them marbles?

And, with this recent pull-back to around $106 this week, on the NYSE… it is hard to argue with the name remaining a very solid buy in 2023 — its longer term demographic markets are… compelling. Life-saving, in fact.

Condor predicts… the company will post results that are either in-line, or a slight beat, at the GAAP EPS line, net of acquisitions, this coming Wednesday. [And that is no mean feat — in and of itself, in these volatile times.]

And in a choppy market, getting a cash juggernaut, at about a 12 or 13 Earnings Multiple… knowing that will continue to mid 2030s… is a very solid risk adjusted bet.

I’ll hush now — have a great weekend.

नमस्ते

Hayward Proves The Adage, From the ‘60s, True… Unintentionally About Conservatives, Of Course.

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This — in the grand pantheon of utterly stupid stuff Steve believes… may be minor. But I’ll call him out on… his utter cluelessness, on race… since he wants to believe a fairy tale version of who he really is. And so do his fellow hard right frothers, at Powerline.

This afternoon, he posts a chart that is… laughable in several respects. Self mocking.

First, Steve fails to consider that most of those he calls “liberals” long ago came to grips with the sad reality: very few whyte people who say they have “very close Black friends…” would hear in return, that the Black people they imagine in their statements… considered them a close friend.

But not Hayward’s MAGA GOP-ers! They are shamelessly unaware of their… myopic view of the world.

These whyte MAGAts (despite clear math suggesting that fewer than 5% of all Black people consider themselves even moderately hard right Republicans — or less than 1% of all GOP party members) think that ALL 200 or so hard right black Americans… are their personal, very close friends.

No — it is just a delusion held by people who’ve never had dinner in a black person’s home, let alone spend several weeks each year vacationing together. Nope, all that Steve’s chart proves… is most hard righters (in having missed every lesson of the 60s and 70s) have a very loose grip on reality, when it comes to close inter-racial friendships.

Face it Steve: there simply aren’t enough Black people in America… for half of ALL Republicans… to have actually personally befriended them, and closely so.

Thus, his only proves that the racism we saw Tangerine shout openly, when on the tarmac at one of his 2019 rallies, he shouted “look at my African American, there!”… runs deep in GOP.

A single black guy. But ask Trump: he’s a good friend of his.

Sheesh. Be honest Steve… what home cooked meal did you last eat in a Black family’s home?

Out. [Keep a peaceful thought for Memphis tonight.]

More — And More — Of Our History, Long Lost In The Sands — Some Four Millennia In The Past In Egypt, Being Rediscovered By The Egyptians…

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I do find it stirring, that yet another necropolis laid under the sands for nearly 4,000 years… undisturbed… slumbering as the world above utterly forgot it was ever there.

And now, Dr. Zahi Hawass, perhaps the most recognizable face of archeology in Egypt — is bit by painstaking bit — letting these long muted voices… call out, and speak to us, from their sarcophagi. Here’s the latest, from AP’s reporting, this morning:

…The artifacts, unearthed during a year-long excavation, were found beneath an ancient stone enclosure near the Saqqara pyramids and date back to the fifth and sixth dynasties of the Old Kingdom, spanning from roughly 2500 B.C to 2100 B.C., the excavation team said. . . .

The Saqqara site is part of a sprawling necropolis at Egypt’s ancient capital of Memphis, that includes the famed Giza Pyramids as well as smaller pyramids at Abu Sir, Dahshur and Abu Ruwaysh. The ruins of Memphis were designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in the 1970s….

This history of human life runs long, and it runs deep — deep, into Africa, into the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania — stretching back almost two million years, give or take… and it is decidedly not primarily the history of pale Europeans. We would do well to bear that in mind.

And keep a sense of humility about our place in the much larger pantheon of time, out of mind. Do keep a peaceful thought, in your meditations — for the other Memphis, tonight… and the life and legacy of young Tyre Nichols. His horrific end was indeed… murder, by cops.

नमस्ते

Sort Of Like Opening Off-Broadway, In “Previews”… “Lucy” Will Get A Early Look — At A ~700 Meter Asteroid, By November 4, 2023…

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Due to some nifty calculations worked out by Raphael Marschall, a Lucy collaborator at the Nice Observatory in France (see image — but if I remember correctly, he was the first to spot an interstellar visitor, in 2019, as well), the NASA team has given a green-light, to adjust the trajectory, ever so slightly — starting in May 2023, so that the lithe lil’ craft might send us imagery a full year early, of at least one asteroid of interest by November 4, 2023. Cool!

[My prior backgrounder, on the NASA /SWRI Boulder Lucy mission here.]

Although it will mostly be a demonstration of the new techniques for accurately capturing close up images of very small asteroids, we are likely to get some real “Mr. DeMille close ups” from this encounter. That is, we are likely to beam back high res photographic images of it — from a distance of only about 280 miles. Whoosh….

The rock involved is under a half mile in size, and is (in the prose of Norman Maclean) “from the basement of time,” itself. It was almost certainly formed of the ancient primordial dust… not long after our local disk began to accrete matter, into larger clumps… so perhaps over 6 billion years ago. It is, quite literally, early star stuff. Here’s the SWRI Boulder / NASA story:

“…There are millions of asteroids in the main asteroid belt,” said Raphael Marschall, Lucy collaborator of the Nice Observatory in France, who identified asteroid 1999 VD57 as an object of special interest for Lucy. “I selected 500,000 asteroids with well-defined orbits to see if Lucy might be traveling close enough to get a good look at any of them, even from a distance. This asteroid really stood out. Lucy’s trajectory as originally designed will take it within 40,000 miles of the asteroid, at least three times closer than the next closest asteroid….”

This asteroid was not identified as a target earlier because it is extremely small. In fact, 1999 VD57, estimated to be a mere 0.4 miles (700 m) in size, will be the smallest main belt asteroid ever visited by a spacecraft. It is… more similar in size to the near-Earth asteroids visited by recent NASA missions OSIRIS-REx and DART than to previously visited main belt asteroids.

The Lucy team will carry out a series of maneuvers starting in early May 2023 to place the spacecraft on a trajectory that will pass approximately 280 miles (450 km) from this small asteroid….

We will await this particular day, in November of 2023… with much excitement, indeed. Grin. Snow ending; some sunshine emerging here, now.

नमस्ते

Johnson: Somehow This Guy Thinks Novels… In France — Are Americans’… Reality. Wow.

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Scott Johnson is not usually quite as delusional as Hinderaker or Hayward… which is to say he is usually wrong, but not lost in a time-tunnel.

Today, though — he’s lost in a… time-tunnel. His cheese has slid, off his cracker.

He neglects to mention that a fair portion of the people without papers in NYC are there because Gov. Abbott and Gov. DeSantis… have declared war on blue states.

Florida and Texas — or the state GOP, more precisely, in each of those states… has decided that committing the felony of kidnapping people who have lawful federal asylum hearings in their states, as a condition of being released on bond… is not a big deal.

Even though it is these states’ official actions that are causing the federal felony kidnappings.

So — whatever some goofy old French novel might posit, it cannot compare even remotely, to the reality of GOP Governors… committing pattern felonies against other humans, day in and day out — for over a year now.

Do sit down, Scott.

Out.

Hinderaker’s Mind: Gone — 100% “Buggy” — Still. Damn.

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Perhaps after being pulled aside by one of his saner brothers, at his father’s memorial yesterday — in the Dakotas… Hinderaker grudgingly now admits that “leftists” cannot “make” anyone in the US eat bugs.

So it is, that John has felt the need to (again!) explain what he sees as a vast liberal conspiracy… in which only liberals own cattle ranches, and in which they alone are the ones making red meat more expensive. Uh-huh.

This is just sad, really — and I am sure one or two of his brothers told him so, over drinks a couple nights ago — or last night, even.

Even his “walked back” version tonight has all the markings of a paranoid, delusional and yes, now mostly-senile… mind:

“…If you think liberals are just trying to expand our field of choice — it’s up to you whether you want to eat bugs or not! — you don’t know liberals. After all, we could have been eating crickets and mealworms all along if that was our idea of a good dinner. But we have already seen skyrocketing prices for meat and other commodities in grocery stores. The liberals’ plan is to make meat prohibitively expensive before extinguishing its consumption altogether….”

His attempt at being more “plausibly reasonable” — in his buggy accusations… is actually more frightening than his earlier (more fantastical) versions… because it is now clear that he is not in on the joke that the hard right is playing on its rubes: Hinderaker, it seems, is the butt of the inside joke, and wholly unawares, too.

It is hard, truly… to watch the real-time, day-by-day decline, of what was at least some years ago… an agile mind.

Damn. Out.