Author: condor

NASA Sees Two Of Its Vehicles Named [By Time] As Top 25 “Groundbreaking” — Here, In The Young New Millennium. Sweet.

~ condor ~ Leave a comment

It must be said: even with all the Tangerine 2.0 caused-chaos, this agency continues to… shine.

Since the mid- to late-1950s… “the best and brightest” have uniformly, and spectacularly… applied themselves, at NASA. The Barsoomian rover, NASA’s rolling science lab — has spent more than a decade uncovering clues that Mars once could have supported life (in exactly the forms as we understand that term) — transforming our understanding of our planetary neighbor. Truly, these discoveries could not have happened, without the hardy lil’ rover.

And despite the initial naming controversy — there is now no room for doubt: JWST is (far and away) the finest telescope [of any kind!] in all of human history. The stunning images — and resulting discoveries — arrive almost daily, now. It sits out at L2, the Lagrange Point, where it floats in gravitational equilibrium, under its mylar shades (in very nearly absolute zero temps).

Here’s the story from the mavens at NASA:

…Two icons of discovery, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope [JWST] and NASA’s Curiosity rover, have earned places in TIME’s “Best Inventions Hall of Fame,” which recognizes the 25 groundbreaking inventions of the past quarter century that have had the most global impact, since TIME began its annual Best Inventions list in 2000. The inventions are celebrated in TIME’s December print issue.

“NASA does the impossible every day, and it starts with the visionary science that propels humanity farther than ever before,” said Nicky Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Congratulations to the teams who made the world’s great engineering feats, the JWST and the Mars Curiosity Rover, a reality. Through their work, distant galaxies feel closer, and the red sands of Mars are more familiar, as they expanded and redefined the bounds of human achievement in the cosmos — for the benefit of all….”

Excellent — now you know. And here’s to hoping that we soon hear a ping-back from the orbiting MAVEN, around Barsoom, having operated for some 11 years, almost flawlessly — but now having fallen silent… with each passing day, the probability fades, that we will ever hear from it again. And so, I’m smiling a rather sad smile, tonight. But as ever, tomorrow is… a new day.

नमस्ते

Hinderaker Lies About Not Taking Govt. Bailout Money…

~ condor ~ Leave a comment

Tonight Hinderaker bloviates about the state of US charitable giving in 2025.

He claims that Democratic organizations get far more money from the federal government in the form of charitable funding / donations than do Republican ones. I am certain that is false in 2025. Consider USAID, as just one example.

But the real reason I write is to note that he claims his charitable organization does not take — and has never taken — government money.

That statement is wildly false — and from his own mouth, no less — in 2021. He took about a fifth of a million dollars in PPP funding. Most recently, he filed disclosure forms that indicated he took PPP funding during Covid ostensibly to continue paying paychecks to his staff. But then a few months later, he crowed that he wasn’t ever going to pay back any of the money that theoretically he had borrowed. [He’s a millionaire, many times over.]

Charming.

The man is reprobate and a liar, and he’s given us all the proof… himself.

Out.

UPDATE: Abrego Garcia Remains Safe, At Home — With His Family — Until At Least Mid-January 2026.

~ condor ~ Leave a comment

Yawn. No surprise. The able USDC Judge Paula Xinis in Maryland agrees that we don’t run star chambers, where fake ICE employees claiming to be “judges” may completely re-write, and then “enter” orders on six year old cases, to make someone lawfully here… immediately removable — without any notice, or opportunity to be heard in opposition (violating due process).

That is antithetical to our system of ordered liberty. But it is just… Thursday, to the Noemites, and Tangeriners 2.0. Here’s the order, and a bit:

…See 8 U.S.C. § 1231 (a)(1)(A) (“when an alien is ordered removed, the Attorney General shall remove the alien from the United States within a period of 90 days.”). Respondents also have detained Abrego Garcia for the six-month presumptive period articulated in Zadvydas, when conservatively considering the time spent in ICE detention since 2019, combined with the time spent in detention in El Salvador, and in ICE custody after securing his release in the Tennessee Criminal Matter. Nor had Respondents done anything to secure Abrego Garcia’s third-country removal between 2019 and August 2025. Cf. Zavvar v. Scott, Civ. No. TDC-25-2104, 2025 WL 2592543 at *4 (D. Md. Sept. 8, 2025). Thus, for the reasons previously articulated in ECF No. 110 and in this Order, Abrego Garcia is likely to succeed on the merits of any further Zadvydas claim….

[T]he public retains keen interest in ensuring that government agencies comply with court orders, especially those necessary to protect individual liberties. In this respect, the Court reminds Respondents that … [f]or the public to have any faith in the orderly administration of justice, the Court’s narrowly crafted remedy cannot be so quickly and easily upended without further briefing and consideration….

Onward, resolutely — to a matinee later today, of the “Nutcracker on Ice” — little kids’ edition! Wind-chills are now between minus 14 and minus 25… so, “on ice” — quite literally!

नमस्ते

Hinderaker Is Right About One Thing…

~ condor ~ Leave a comment

That is, that Donald J. Trump‘s time — with any real power — any clearly operative authority, or vibrant ability to act broadly — and complete any particular “policy” initiative… is already almost over.

Hinderaker knows this to be true — and says so, tonight. But along the way he wants to point to externalities that (he imagines) are causing it, rather than admitting that Trump never had any moral authority to do anything, and completely eradicated any sense of “the high ground”, literally from his first day in office on.

So yes, John, you are right (as to outcome): Trump‘s time is nearly at an end. The Democrats will control the US House — and they probably will win control of the Senate. Excellent — you have only yourselves to blame, for every bit of it.

So far, no one at Powerline as far as I’ve seen, has exhibited the courage to admit that for the first time in over a quarter of a century, after last week, there is a Democrat holding the office of Mayor in Miami. This is not only in Trump‘s kitchen, but it’s also in the MAGA / faux theocrat DeSantis’… that’s a very bad omen for these boys.

Correspondingly, it is a pretty good barometer of how disgusted ordinary Americans are with the way the corrupt MAGA agenda’s “rubber meets the road”.

So the midterm losses for the GOP are likely to be worse even than John imagines.

I for one cannot wait for November of 2026 to show up on my calendar.

Grin!

What The Nancy Grace Roman ‘Scope Will See / Map… In About A Year. Amazing!

~ condor ~ Leave a comment

To be certain, in most of the sciences (despite the odd examples we report on here), the dank darkness — of ignorance. . . is being pushed backward, into the background, day by day — and illuminated, by excellent — and more than occasionally… female genius scientists.

And Nancy Grace Roman clearly fits all those bills.

We’ve spoken of her before — and of the coming 2026 mission… but now we have… video, to explain what she’s looking for: a map of our Milky Way galaxy, edge on… across its whole breadth. That is nearly a million light years across. Wow. Here is all that, from NASA | JPL:

…This visualization begins with a view of the Homunculus Nebula, which houses the massive binary star Eta Carinae, as imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope. The view pulls back to reveal the wider Carina Nebula — a giant, relatively nearby star-forming region in the southern sky. A single Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope pointing will cover more than the Hubble image, which was built from multiple pointings. Roman will view more of the Carina Nebula repeatedly over time with six pointings, allowing astronomers to observe any changes that take place.

The entire nebula as well as its surroundings, including a 10,000 light-year-long swath of the spiral arm it resides in, are included in the overall Roman Galactic Plane Survey. The full survey will cover 691 square degrees and is to be completed over the course of two years. The observations will offer an unparalleled opportunity to watch how stars grow, interact, and sculpt their environments, and it’s just one of many thousands of highlights astronomers are looking forward to from this Roman survey. . . .

“The Galactic Plane Survey will revolutionize our understanding of the Milky Way,” said Julie McEnery, Roman’s senior project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “We’ll be able to explore the mysterious far side of our galaxy and its star-studded heart. Because of the survey’s breadth and depth, it will be a scientific mother lode.”

The Galactic Plane Survey is Roman’s first selected general astrophysics survey — one of many observation programs Roman will do in addition to its three core surveys and Coronagraph technology demonstration. At least 25% of Roman’s five-year primary mission is reserved for astronomers worldwide to propose more surveys beyond the core programs, fully leveraging Roman’s capabilities to conduct groundbreaking science. Roman is slated to launch by May 2027, but the team is on track for launch as early as fall 2026….

Now you know — grinning — what an amazing time to be alive, and in possession of the ability to learn… all the sciences!

नमस्ते

A Goofy / Corrupt[?] Admin. Immig. Judge Claims A “Right” To Modify, Sua Sponte — An Order Undisturbed Since 2019?! WTAH?! Abrego Case In Maryland…

~ condor ~ Leave a comment

As ever, when Tangerine / Miller / Noem / Rubio are confronted with a loss — because they plainly violated our laws, and our Constitution [here, in Abrego Garcia’s case — repeatedly]… they simply try to rewrite the history of the case, in a fraudulent fashion. It will not work.

Here, six years later — and after being repeatedly warned by the courts that the government’s OWN record plainly indicated that Abrego was here LAWFULLY — these jamokes claim he is deportable, as they vainly try to reach back six years to “correct” what they disingenuously call a “scriveners’ error” — and enter an entirely NEW order. That is simply… insane — and a banana dictator’s move, unbecoming a nation of limited governemental authority over her peoples. Here’s the deal, from this evening:

…[Last night, at] approximately 7:01 p.m., an immigration judge issued a document with the heading “Order of the Immigration Judge,” and the subheading “Immigration Court’s Sua Sponte Order Correcting Scrivener’s Error.” Ex. B. This sua sponte order states that, in the October 10, 2019, order granting Petitioner withholding of removal, “the order of removal to El Salvador, which should have preceded the order granting him withholding of removal to El Salvador, was erroneously omitted.” Id. at 4.

It then goes on to state: “The Immigration Court now corrects that scrivener’s error and amends the written decision in this case by adding the following: The Respondent is ordered removed to El Salvador based on the charge contained in the Notice to Appear, but the Respondent’s application for withholding of removal to El Salvador pursuant to INA § 241(b)(3) is granted.”

The Order further states that “These corrections are hereby issued nunc pro tunc to the Immigration Court’s written decision and order of October 10, 2019….”

The Government’s attempt to manufacture a removal order sua sponte through an ex parte proceeding, without notice to Petitioner and without any opportunity to be heard, violates the INA and due process. See 8 U.S.C. § 1229a. The opportunity to be heard is essential to due process. Sagastizado v. Noem, 2025 WL 2957003, at *2 (S.D. Tex. Sept. 10, 2025) (“Noncitizens have a right to meaningful notice and opportunity to be heard before being deported to a third country.”); see also ECF No. 110 at 30 (citing Nguyen v. Scott, — F. Supp. 3d —, 2025 WL 2419288 (W.D. Wash. Aug. 21, 2025) (granting immediate release and enjoining removal absent meaningful opportunity to be heard in reopened removal proceedings).

The Government had six years to identify and correct any alleged “scrivener’s error,” and Petitioner has repeatedly pointed out the lack of an Order throughout these proceedings. See ECF No. 1 ¶¶ 54, 68–69; ECF No. 32 at 3, 9, 10, 20; ECF No. 87 at 11, 18. The Government chose to pursue this path only after losing on habeas and only through a process that denied Petitioner any opportunity to be heard….

Detention is also inconsistent with Zadvydas v. Davis, 533 U.S. 678 (2001). Yesterday, this Court held that Petitioner’s removal could not be considered “reasonably foreseeable, imminent, or consistent with due process” because the government lacked statutory authority to remove him absent a final order of removal. . . .

Tangerine 2.0 mostly runs. . . a crime syndicate — not a… government, under any recognized principles. This gambit will of course… fail. And Abrego is safe at home, tonight — he will remain there. Bank on it. Out.

नमस्ते

Courtesy Rigby, This Deserves A MUCH Wider Audience — On Hinderaker’s Latest Lies.

~ condor ~ Leave a comment

Oh boy. I have a lot to say about Mr. Hinderaker’s staggeringly dishonest post, which is just chock-full of falsehoods, mischaracterizations, and bad-faith arguments. Let’s take a look at them one by one:

Will the Abrego Garcia story go on forever? Apparently so. Although why Democrats want to keep it in the news is a mystery.

Hmm. Let’s see if I can solve the mystery. It might be because Garcia was illegally rendered to a foreign prison, with no due process and in violation of a court order barring his removal. Every single court all the way up to SCOTUS agrees that the government’s actions here were illegal. SCOTUS’s decision was 9-0. Key quote: “To this day, the Government has cited no basis in law for Abrego Garcia’s warrantless arrest, his removal to El Salvador, or his confinement in a Salvadoran prison.”

The administration has also asserted that there was a removal order for Mr. Garcia, but later court proceedings have revealed that no such removal order exists. If there was never a final order of removal, Abrego Garcia should never have been on whatever removal list the government kept that led to his rendition. No immigration judge has ever ordered his removal, so the entire episode is a crystal-clear example of the administration’s lawlessness. Maybe that’s why the Democrats keep talking about it. Just spitballing here.

When the Speaker of the Minnesota House filed to run against Walz, was it breaking news?

Well, no. But maybe that’s because nobody outside of Minnesota has any idea who the Speaker of the Minnesota House is. Mike Lindell is a national figure. Maybe that’s why it was reported. Again, just spitballing.

The “Affordable Care Act” was a disaster, and Congress should stop bailing it out.

Well, the ACA is pretty popular. It’s responsible for insuring millions of Americans who never had health insurance before. The Trump administration and the Republican Congress did their best to hobble the the ACA by reducting the mandate to $0 and illegally refusing to pay the risk corridor payments to insurance companies, as required by the law (until SCOTUS made them). The ACA also forbade insurance companies from denying coverage for pre-existing conditiions. Remember the dark days when insurance companies could deny you coverage for your cancer treatments because you had cancer before you got insurance? Anybody want to go back to that? Also, President Trump and the Republican party have had more than a decade to come up with something better, and still haven’t, despite Pres. Trump comically promising for all four years of his first term that his plan was “a couple of weeks away” from being released.

Letitia James was obviously guilty of mortgage fraud.

Gee, if John’s got proof of that, he might want to share it with the Justice Department, so maybe they can stop embarrassing themselves in court. This wasn’t jury nullification, as John baselessly claims. Every single prosecutor with an ounce of professionalism passed on this case, because the “evidence” is mostly exculpatory. Also, that evidence was very likely obtained illegally by Trump loyalist William J. Pulte, but that’s another story.

Has the Times acknowledged that its party, the Democrats, has been for many years the kings of gerrymandering?

This one’s a rather large whopper. Both Republicans and Democrats engage in gerrymandering, but analyses consistently show that Republicans have benefited more significantly and more frequently due to controlling the redistricting process in a greater number of states. Maybe the Times should have mentioned that In 2021, all U.S. House Republicans except two (who were absent) voted against H.R. 1, called the “For the People Act.” The law would have required states to establish independent redistricting commissions, nonlegislative bodies that would draw non-partisan political district lines. All House Democrats but one voted for it. Seems like a weird thing for “the kings of gerrymandering” to do.

Several Democrat-led states have enacted anti-gerrymandering legislation on their own. In fact, California had to ask its citizens to repeal their anti-gerrymandering law so that it could counter Texas’s egregious maps. The Indiana map would have resulted in zero Democrat-majority districts. Is that a representative government for the people or a naked power grab by the GOP? Good for Indiana Republicans for showing some integry in this matter.

If you use a second missile, it is “against the law.” I have not yet seen anyone show me the “law” in question. Let’s see a citation to the United States Code.

Yikes! Whoever John paid to take the bar exam for him didn’t do him any favors. Here you go, John, from the Department of Defense Law of War Manual:

The requirement to refuse to comply with orders to commit law of war violations applies to orders to perform conduct that is clearly illegal or orders that the subordinate knows, in fact, are illegal. For example, orders to fire upon the shipwrecked would be clearly illegal.

In addition, we have the Geneva Convention guidelines, which explicitly state that attacks against persons who are recognized as “hors de combat” is prohibited. A person hors de combat is:

(a) anyone who is in the power of an adverse party;
(b) anyone who is defenceless because of unconsciousness, shipwreck, wounds or sickness; or
(c) anyone who clearly expresses an intention to surrender

So there you go. Now somebody has shown him the law. Also, if that’s not what happened with the second strike (and nobody in the administration has very convincingly denied it, amid all their ever-changing stories on this incident), let’s see the video. Pres. Trump said he’d have “no problem” releasing the video. So why hasn’t that happened?

But even if the double-tap story is false, the bombings are still illegal. The consensus among independent and international law experts is that the strikes constitute a war crime if they occurred within the context of an armed conflict (which it didn’t, since we’re not at war with Venezuela, and the boats posed an imminent threat to exactly nobody), or murder/extrajudicial killings if they did not occur within the context of an armed conflict. Either way, not good.

This has been the latest episode of “What has John Hinderaker lied about today?” We’ll see you next time.

This Year’s Lown Institute “Shkreli Award” Grand Prize Winner… Is Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. — Quite Richly-Deserved!

~ condor ~ Leave a comment

Well, it is by no means a surprise. And he certainly is… the worst US influence in the delivery of evidence based health care — in many decades.

In many ways, Shkreli was too small-time — for this level of system wide corruption of science. The people at Lown might consider renaming it the “Kennedy Malfeasance” Award… as Martin’s 15 minutes [ref. Andy Warhol] evaporated about seven years ago. Here’s MedPage Today, on it all, though:

…Lown Institute president Vikas Saini, MD, told MedPage Today the purpose of the awards is to call out “systemic problems” in which healthcare organizations and clinicians “chase money and greed to the point where they cut corners… with devastating results to patient care….”

Kennedy, Jr. garnered the lion’s share of judges’ votes for his baseless claims about causes of autism that have baffled the public and angered medical experts.

“Citing studies that showed correlation but no causal evidence, and despite clinicians, toxicologists, and major medical organizations having looked at the research and rejected the claim, he asserted a link between acetaminophen use during pregnancy and autism,” the Lown judges said.

Kennedy then suggested infants undergoing circumcision have higher rates of autism because they likely received acetaminophen for pain, yet his evidence was an unreviewed and unpublished preprint, judges said.

“While this spectacle of erratic scientific leadership around autism is supposedly tied to Making America Healthy Again, many are now asking not what Kennedy can do for his country, but how his country can undo what he has already done,” the judges wrote….

[He] may be asking reasonable questions, like what is causing autism. The problem is that he then “makes brash announcements… and trumpets them like the Second Coming, saying, ‘We’re going to just fix all this,’ which is playing fast and loose with the facts, and really undermines confidence in decision making and leadership.”

Onward, resolutely — what a… feckless putz.

नमस्ते

So Trump Pardoned The Felon CZ — And Now His Co., Binance Is Boosting Trump’s Crypto?! Shocking.

~ condor ~ Leave a comment

CZ was accused of money laundering tens of billions, for sex-traffickers and drug kingpins, among others across the globe. He realistically faced decades in prison.

But after donating to Trump’s campaign into the tens of millions, he got a full pardon, just weeks into his jail bid.

Now he’s allowing various trading pairs to settle on his exchange platform, by delivering in a Trump created Crypto-, through its World Liberty Financial entity.

This will boost trading volume in Trump’s coin — by orders of magnitude.

That alone is worth billions to the Trump family.

This stinks… of fetid graft. The GOP is now just a criminal organization. And all of us taxpayers are (in one way or another) footing the bill for it.

Out.

“Getting Exactly What He Voted For” — Hinderaker Is Now Butt-Sore About It.

~ condor ~ 2 Comments

So tonight, Hinderaker decried six or seven stories in The New York Times that he feels are evidence of bias against the GOP.

What all six stories have in common is egregious malfeasance, by various GOP actors.

So is it… biased — to report the news?

Or is the more likely explanation that Trump has built a party of (primarily) reprobates?

I’ll let the readership decide… but it is simply preposterous to claim that these stores — accurately reported — are not independently newsworthy.

Out.