Author: condor

Hinderaker: Shilling Again, For Moscow / Putin’s Agit-Prop, In Ukraine…

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John tonight clutches his pearls — and worries that the US / NATO may “sleepwalk” into what turns into a nuclear conflict with Putin, over Ukraine — or at least that somehow (inexplicably), Mr. Zelenskyy will find a way to use a nuke against Russia / Putin.

Riiiiiiiight.

I think (once again!) Hinderaker is being paid (or, receiving “donations” at his 501(c)(3)) by Russian oligarchs or state actors (but I repeat myself)… to sow dissent in the US, and spread dis-information.

What a loser.

What a sad little man.

Settlement Discussions Continue In Multi-Billion Dollar Merck v. Merck Lanham Act Case…

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This one may well be nearing the finish line, over a decade on (or… a century, depending on how you count, from the end of World War I).

Of course there are lots of other companion cases like it, pending in courtrooms dotting the globe… but perhaps, just perhaps — here at near Christmas 2022 — this will be a truly global settlement. We can only hope — and specifically, this was filed overnight, on a Friday night in Newark:

…December 9, 2022

Dear Judge Hammer:

We, along with Sidley Austin, represent Plaintiffs Merck & Co., Inc. and Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp. in this matter. With the consent of Blank Rome LLP and Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, counsel for Defendant Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, we are writing with an update as requested by the Court’s Text Order of December 1, 2022 (D.E. 209).

The parties are continuing their discussions and therefore respectfully request a short extension to Monday, December 12, to provide a further update to Your Honor.

We appreciate the Court’s attention to this matter. . . .

/s/ [for] McCarter & English….

Getting excited for the return of my kiddos… out into the steel and glass canyons, and the half-light reflected there, from the emerging winter’s gloaming… to see “The Menu” — smiling. Ever, smiling.

नमस्ते

Hinderaker: Repudiating The Policies Of Citizens United, AGAIN.

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For 12 years John loved it.

Corporations are people — with the right to “speak” in political campaigns and debates, by spending money — airing commercials (or falling silent)… nearly without any limit. Any Super-PAC could obscure and bundle these corporate identities. That’s what the Supremes decided in 2010.

And ever since, Hinderaker praised it (because until at least 2019, the companies mostly supported GOP ideas and candidates).

But the odious excesses of Tangerine flipped it: now companies back nearly as many Democratic ideas and candidates, as GOP ones.

So — of course! — John yammers that it is “all censorship” of GOP views.

He can’t now accept that he and his fellow Federalists gave Twitter these rights, 12 years ago.

[And created the Tangerine, which generated the corporate backlash….]

Hilarious.

What a feckless, embittered, decrepit old moron. Again.

It Took Powerline Less Than 24 Hours… To Bash A Freed P.O.W. Charming.

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Not that it is in any manner surprising, but Powerline doesn’t recall that “women and children, first” has been the US military (and civilian sea rescue) motto… for about two and a half centuries. Marines know it.

Scott whines that an ex-Marine wasn’t the item traded for. Vlad will never trade an ex-Marine, Whelan — or Fogel, one for one. He won’t.

Thus, Johnson’s — and Faux News’ — complaints are… idiotic and insulting, to anyone with a sense of reality, about world affairs. And deeply unpatriotic (insulting Susan Rice’s decade past time with 44’s Admin. as a hostage freer as well, in his rant). Lovely.

Yep — it bears repeating: Faux New’s complaints / smears are. . . deeply unpatriotic. They must hate America.

And, along the way, Scott specifically sneers about Brittney’s wife, and insults her skin color (as “hating America”).

This I suppose because she proved repeatedly that she supports Black Lives Matter. But a civilian US woman, wrongly sentenced to nine years in Siberia… is home for Christmas now. [Scott may f*ck right off.]

But the America I love allows dissent. So I’ll allow Powerline… its cry-baby fits.

Even so, I don’t have to like it.

Scott is a bitter old whyte loser.

And Cherelle now has her spouse and life partner home.

A miracle, indeed.

Unrelated PS: I might ask what makes their gender relevant, in Scott’s bashing of them (a separate story this morning). Oh. Right.

Scott’s a bigot. Out.

[U: Good Plaintiffs’ Brief Filed!] In The Federal Class Action Expressly Invalidating All Non-Disclosure Agreements Tangerine Forced On Employees, From His Time At 1600 Penn… He’s Failed To Meet Settlement Terms. Yawn.

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UPDATED 12.10.2022 — The plaintiffs filed a very cogent brief on Thursday night, late. Do read it. End, update.

Look. I get it. Tangerine is certainly in much, much “hotter water” elsewhere around the nation’s federal court houses. But this one too, needs attention. It is in the federal district court, in Manhattan, and goes by the case number 20-cv-4737, there. [Many dozens of aids and employees and consultants are covered by this class action.]

And. . .Tangerine is late (again) — after promising to work out a settlement with Omorosa and many others, related to his unlawful insistence that all of them sign NDAs before working in the White House, or on his campaigns (or for his wife, 2017-2021). Each involved employee should see a sizeable cash settlement. The Commander in Chief cannot forbid underlings from telling the truth about non-National Secret matters, when they saw his misconduct, or Melania’s or Jared’s or Ivanka’s or Junior’s. [It would also arguably invalidate the Wolkoff NDA at issue in the publishing of the book at right, on Melania.] Here’s the latest:

…On November 2, 2022, this Court entered an order scheduling a settlement conference for December 13, 2022 at 2:00 p.m., and directing the parties to complete the Settlement Conference Summary Report and prepare pre-conference submissions, by no later than Tuesday, December 6, 2022.

The parties are directed to submit their pre-conference submissions by no later end of day on Friday, December 9, 2022, or the settlement conference will be adjourned. For further details, please refer to Judge Figueredos’ Standing Order Applicable to Settlement Conferences….

Never a dull moment, around this [largely dis-]organized crime syndicate. Wow.

Oh — and the complete humiliation USDC Judge Aileen Cannon (SD FL), and Tangerine, both suffered — in the Eleventh Circuit… is now final. He did not appeal to the Supremes in time. Hilarious.

नमस्ते

BREAKING: Mr. Biden And VP Harris Secure Release Of WNBA All-Star Brittney Griner! Home For… Christmas 2022!

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To be clear, we still very much need to free Paul Whelan, also a POW in Russia.

But this is outstanding news… pictured at right, is her wife Cherelle, with the team. Here’s the latest:

…In exchange for her release, the U.S. government will reportedly send convicted international arms dealer Viktor Bout back to Russia, according to CBS News.

Bout, nicknamed the “Merchant of Death,” was sentenced to 25 years in prison after being convicted of, among other things, conspiracy to kill Americans. Retired U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, who is also currently imprisoned in Russia for the past four years on espionage charges, is reportedly not part of the prisoner swap….

Now you know. Grinning, ear to ear!

नमस्ते

[U] Hinderaker Wants… Antitrust Law Re-Cast… As A Version Of “Woke” Capitalism?!

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It is sad.

John Hinderaker… needs a gripping (and wedge issue/divisive) narrative, desperately. Three weeks ago now, it was — being racist, in suggesting falsely that most of Target’s crime upsurge was primarily from black and brown people… to tonight, where when the Sherman and Clayton Acts have something to say about Kroegers and Albertsons groceries getting together… it is (wait for it!) a form of “woke capitalism” at play.

That’s just… precious. When gas prices rise, John won’t blame the oil oligopoly. He blames Democratic politicians. But it is actually due to Clayton Act-violative suppression of US market price competition at work, there.

And tonight he cheers GOP Congress-critters (Arkansas’ GOP Rep. Tom Cotton, primarily) telling one of the two grocery chains… the GOP doesn’t want to see the law evenly applied here.

UPDATED: I realized, about an hour after writing this, that my mocking him might be mistaken for a view that I don’t think the cynical GOP stance on US antitrust enforcement is a serious problem. It certainly IS.

This idea of Rep. Cotton’s, that he will not evenly apply the black letter US law — a law that has nearly nothing to do with any “(imagined) liberal” cause, but instead is about robust market competition… solely to punish business interests that do not donate enough to GOP coffers (a direct bribe), or more indirectly — and commonly, by using non-enforcement, to punish companies that support LBGTQ+ friendly policies, or are progressive on social equity, or seek to end racist policing / profiling… is truly totalitarian. Russian, even. Cotton will not press the Antitrust Div. of the DoJ to look at a merger which injures price competition in many markets for groceries, because the one to be wiped out… was too liberal for his tastes — and so, his constituents will pay arguably unlawful higher prices… for his vanity.

That is… in a nutshell, everything wrong with Hinderaker’s GOP compatriots. End updated portion.

So — when John soon has to pay $15 for a pound of coffee in his Marianos (owned by these chains), he will again blame “Democratic politicians” — instead of the failure of Republicans to insist that violating the US antitrust laws (in force, since the end of the 19th Century)… is somehow whatever he thinks “woke capitalism” is, and is at fault.

The guy really is out to lunch. Senile. Utterly.

Out.

Epilogue: Not Since FDR, In 1936…

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The graphic pretty much says it all.

In every mid-term election from 1940 until this morning, the sitting President’s party had lost seats in the Senate, at the mid-terms.

The conventional poly sci wisdom was that in the modern era, most often at least some substantial part of the electorate always feels the new administration is moving too fast, or too radically — so they turn out to blunt that in the Senate, the upper chamber.

Here, as last was true in 1936, with Senator Warnock’s historic Georgia win (the first full term for a black Senator from Georgia, since Reconstruction), Mr. Biden’s party has not lost seats… in the Senate.

And, personally, it is gratifying to me at least that Sen. Joe Manchin (nearly R.) will not be the gate-keeper of the Democratic initiatives in the United States Senate — he is no longer the “blocking” vote.

We may move forward, even if he opposes a measure, or a hearing, or… a criminal referral.

S W E E T.

नमस्ते

Uganda Has No More Patients “In Hospital” — So, It May Mean No Sudan Vaccine Candidate Trials, This Time Around…

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Clearly, we are thrilled to see no new cases, now in about four elapsed weeks… and yet, this means there may be two few contacts remaining, to vaccinate with any candidate, for a sufficiently powered “n” in the clinicals.

Thus, there may be no clinical trial of any Sudan variant Ebola vaccine this time around — and while that is a potential loss for science, and more importantly, for those who will become ill, the next time this unique strain appears… it is good to know that Uganda is now only a few weeks away from an “all clear” declaration.

We bring you the latest (mixed news), then — from the online magazine curated by Science.org:

…Last week, Uganda announced uplifting news about the Ebola outbreak that surfaced there in mid-September: The last known patient had recovered and been discharged from a hospital. Health officials hope that signals the spread of the virus has slowed dramatically, if not stopped altogether. Yet the aggressive containment efforts that led to the waning of the outbreak also means a quickly arranged trial of experimental ebolavirus vaccines faces formidable hurdles.

The goal of the so-called ring trial is to test the efficacy of the vaccines by giving them to contacts of known cases. But the number of potential participants is dwindling fast….

But Mark Feinberg, who heads IAVI, a New York City–based nonprofit that has the rights to a Sudan ebolavirus vaccine, says, “Whether the study will start or not I think is an open question….”

Now you know. And it does not make any ethical sense to run a trial on “contacts” who are no longer at any real risk. While all the vaccine candidates appear to be very safe, even a small risk is… not defensible, now. Onward — smiling on a gray morning, just the same: progress.

नमस्ते

Of Continuing, But Absolutely Trivial, Pursuits: Hinderaker And Johnson… Cannot Understand Why A Business… Might Make… “Business” Decisions. Damn.

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Again, John and Scott are whining this morning.

They whine and wail, because no one — literally, no one — besides the sad, embittered and misshapen losers from the 2020 cycle (they lost by over 8 million votes!)… think there is any real “story” — let alone, any remotely disconcerting legal import, to the Musk/Twitter thread on some dumb old laptop.

It is almost as if the Powerline boys forget that they were very vocal proponents of the Supreme Court’s social engineering… in the Citizens’ United holding.

[Gosh, boys — it positively sucks, that the aging whyte right wing of the Supremes did not / could not foresee… that “old school” big, moneyed corporate interests… would not always predominate, in the decades ahead (and/or the rise of social media as a non-MSM, non-gate-kept, information sharing tool) and that… such “new economy” businesses might NOT always seek to tilt elections in a conservative manner. Sucks, for you embittered whyte codgers.]

Welcome to the post-2010 world, boys. Every bit of your Musk / Twitter / Hunter story is… silly. There is no “there, there” — even if it were all true. And it is not… all true.

H I L A R I O U S.