Category: Uncategorized

Something Odd… Must Have Happened In Philly — And Milwaukee, Yesterday…

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I can accept that men who never finished high school voted about 85-15 for Tangerine. That I can believe.

But after having knocked on doors in South Milwaukee and Kenosha… I am baffled.

[And after speaking to several relatives who did the same, in South Philly] I cannot believe how anemic the turnout for the truth ended up being.

I may need a minute or two. May not post much today or tomorrow. Lies — many of them, preposterous on their face, told by a convicted-for-frauds felon… were apparently accepted as facts, by some good-sized chunk of the electorate yesterday. And the truth, as spoken (and documented!) by a woman of color… was dismissed, out of hand.

It seems Swift, Pepys — and later, Twain — had it down about right. That’s disappointing.

But his sentencing will go forward on November 26, 2024 — in NYC, in Judge Merchan’s courtroom. And if jail is part of the sentence, Tangerine will appeal. As these are state level felonies, he cannot self-pardon, though. Out.

नमस्ते

[U X2] I Would Remind Scott That Philly Came In On Saturday… In 2020.

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Final Update: AP declares Tangerine will win. Prediction: Judge Merchan will now see Trump sentenced to at least some weekends in jail on November 26, in the NYAG 34 felony fraud convictions. Trump will appeal.

UPDATE, after midnight CST: Scott softened his headline that originally read “Trump Sets Win”… to “Trump on the Verge”… I suspect someone reminded him of Truman, or he independently remembered how Joe Biden won in 2020. On a Saturday. Four days after election day. There are lots of ballots still to be counted in Pennsylvania and in Arizona and Wisconsin and Michigan. So even with the revised headline… I will opine that Scott is a moron. End, updated portion.

Call me… crazy, but I think we should wait until all ballots in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania have been counted, Scott “Dewey” Johnson. That may not be before… Friday. Same — Arizona and Michigan.

I would further remind him we voted on a Tuesday in 2020… and Mr. Biden used the slow/late counting of votes… to win Pennsylvania, and the White House.

So maybe Scott ought to… be less… idiotic in his predictions.

More than any election either he or I have witnessed in our entire lifetimes, this one is going to go down to the last few thousand votes.

And in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. The blue wall will hold.

Scott will regret being such a fool.

Onward.

It Turns Out That Texas State Lawyers / Gov. Abbott Filed A Fifth Circuit Request IN THE WRONG FEDERAL CASE JACKET. Denied. Hilarious!!

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We mentioned this morning that it wasn’t clear quite precisely… why the trial had been postponed (from this Thursday) in the floating razor wire case — and discovery reopened.

Now we know. Texas filed a motion to have the full Fifth Circuit re-hear an argument Texas lost, on navigability. But Texas filed it under the wrong case number. So quite correctly, the Fifth Circuit said it will take no action.

Then, this morning, at a hearing, the trial court in West Texas reopened discovery itself, to hear evidence on whether future navigability can be established, among many other issues. The State of Texas filing contains numerous obvious grammatical errors and typos. It was clearly filed in extreme haste. And it has failed. Even so, it does obliquely explain why the trial date has been pushed off, thus:

…At the conference, the district court refused to rule on which opinion from the en banc Fifth Circuit controls proceedings on remand, even though trial was scheduled to begin in days, and the district court had previously indicated that it would “‘need to make a ruling on’” which opinion controls “‘prior to trial.’” See State’s Motion to Clarify, United States v. Abbott, No. 1:23-cv-00853, ECF 250 (W.D. Tex. Nov. 1, 2024) (quoting the district court). Instead, the district court sua sponte continued the trial, which the United States had never requested. It sua sponte re-opened discovery on all issues, which again the United States had never requested, and the court had previously assured “will not happen.” And it directed the United States to offer evidence about the future navigability issues that the United States — the plaintiff in this case — had expressly abandoned….

On September 20, 2024, the panel issued a published decision in this case refusing to the [sic] correct the denial of Texas’s jury demand. See In re Abbott, 117 F.4th 729 (5th Cir. 2024)….

[That request for an en banc rehearing was also denied this morning.]

MAGA Gov. Greg Abbott and his AG Ken Paxton (and appointed minions) clearly are the gang that couldn’t shoot straight. Hilarious!

नमस्ते

Tonix Pharma Partnering In Kenya, For A Third Vaccine Candidate To Arrest Mpox — Phase I Trial Beginning, Now…

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This is moving the ball forward (we’d mentioned the research program, at the end of August) — and it is hoped that there will be a large enough ‘n’ to establish effectiveness.

We expect that the vaccine will be well-tolerated in humans since it closely tracks tech used in many prior successful vaccine programs. In any event, here’s the latest, from Tonix Pharmaceuticals:

…Tonix today announced that it has entered into a sponsored research agreement with the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) to design, plan and seek regulatory approval for a Phase I clinical study in Kenya to test the safety, tolerability, and immunogenicity of TNX-801 (horsepox, live virus) as a vaccine to prevent mpox and smallpox. Tonix will be the sponsor and KEMRI will lead the execution of the proposed clinical trial.

“We are excited to advance development of TNX-801 under this research agreement with KEMRI,” said Seth Lederman, M.D., Chief Executive Officer of Tonix Pharmaceuticals. “There is an urgent need for the worldwide availability of a single dose mpox vaccine with durable protection….

TNX-801 has demonstrated encouraging preclinical data and was recently shown to align with the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) newly issued preferred target product profile (TPP) for mpox vaccines. Further, TNX-801 can be scaled up for manufacturing, distribution and storage without a costly supply chain. We believe TNX-801 has the potential to address and help interrupt the spread of mpox worldwide….”

TNX-801 is a live minimally-replicating attenuated horsepox vaccine that is believed to provide immune protection against mpox in animals with better tolerability than 20th century vaccinia viruses. Vaccinia vaccines from the 20th century are descendants of Edward Jenner’s circa 1800 that have become more virulent in connection with losing regulatory elements in their genomes. Given the modern understanding that Jenner’s circa 1800 vaccine would be called “horsepox” today, TNX-801 was designed to be similar to Jenner’s vaccine. After a single dose vaccination, TNX-801 protected animals against lethal challenge with intratracheal Clade Ia monkeypox virus.

Onward now — to a win for ordered liberty, dignity and equality… and for… moving forward, not back. Grin.

नमस्ते

UPDATE: The Able US Magistrate Judge In Floating Razor Wire Case Re-Opened Discovery, And Postponed Next Week’s Trial Date…

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Just a short note here, as it seems both sides need more discovery in order to be ready to try the barbarous floating razor wire case, on the Rio Grande, at Eagle Pass.

Here’s the full two pager, with scant detail — on what is now open, as a factual matter, that requires more evidence / document collections:

…At the hearing, the parties agreed that the Motion to Preclude had been mooted by a continuance of the trial date and reopening of discovery….

Now you know. And… more importantly, she’s gonna’ WIN!

नमस्ते

Civil War Is Loony Hinderaker’s “Last Best Hope”?!

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Yep. Hinderaker has gone full-on…

Chance, the Gardener.

If you know, you know.

Hinderaker will hate hearing “Madame President” almost as much as he’ll hate being…

an irrelevant old coot.

Onward, resolutely… onward.

With warm, clear weather forecast over most of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin… Hinderaker likely has no path to any destination that doesn’t lead to orange jumpsuits, and jail — for his boy Tangerine.

And I for one am… perfectly okay with that.

As Midnight Arrives — Now Election Day — Paul Knows Trump Has Lost.

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As Mr. Mirengoff admits, Tangerine could scarcely have been a worse candidate for the GOP in 2024.

Later today, America will tell the GOP that hate is a losing brand.

Paul fully accepts that, even though for almost 10 years… He and the Powerline boys helped create the monstrous mythology of… Trump — as anything other than the reprobate he actually is. And always has been — his whole adult life.

Only now does Mirengoff admit that the boys each, over the last decade, had a substantial hand in making America meaner, smaller and more backward than it has been in well-over 70 years (back to Barry Goldwater’s days on the national radar):

…In both cycles, Republicans will have come up short…

What a wasted decade they all set out to make, and in fact… made.

Game over.

The One Mpox Clade 1b Case In Britain… Has Become… Three Cases: Same Household.

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Not terribly surprising, but the health authorities will work feverishly now to contain it to the one household, and contacts of the same.

This is tough news, from the Beeb, indeed — but there are vaccines to deploy, now (and they certainly are being so deployed — in “rings of contacts” fashion):

…Two more cases of a new strain of the mpox virus have been detected in London, in household contacts of the first patient, health officials say.

The two individuals are now under specialist care at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust.

All three patients were infected with the Clade 1b variant of the virus, which was first detected in central Africa and appears to transmit more easily between people.

Prof Susan Hopkins, chief medical adviser at the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), said mpox – formally known as monkeypox – could spread quickly within households and further cases were “not unexpected”….

Now you know. Onward — to a very important day in the life of our fragile experiment in democracy, tomorrow — and the days and nights following. Onward!

नमस्ते

While Still Quite Rare Here In The US, Clade 1b Mpox Is A Looming Threat. Public Health Subsidized Vaccinations — For Those At Risk — Should Begin (Again).

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The NY Times has a well-sourced story, on what the longer term outbreak of Clade 1b Mpox might mean for the gay and bi-sexual communities (and sex workers of all genders), here in the US.

At about $300 per shot for the retail, branded Mpox vaccines (two varieties are available, and two doses are needed for maximum protection) — a reasonably high proportion of people at high risk of Mpox (including those who are already HIV+), are less likely to have any form of insurance at all. . . and the ACA/HHS gatekeepers have yet to establish a designated level of coverage — for Mpox co-infections.

So we wait, in a rather precarious position here now:

…A particularly deadly form of mpox, formerly called monkeypox, has led to more than 48,000 cases and more than 1,100 deaths in Africa this year. The Biden administration has donated one million doses of the vaccine to affected countries.

But in the United States, mpox vaccines are out of reach for many people who need them.

In the 2022 outbreak that reached this country, doses of the Mpox vaccine, Jynneos, were made available for free from the federal stockpile. That arrangement ended in April, when the vaccine became available commercially.

But insurance companies do not yet cover the vaccine or, if they do, reimburse only a tiny fraction of the cost. Some young gay or bisexual men hesitate to use insurance, because they are not out to their families….

Do be excellent to one another. In truth — we are all our brothers’, and sisters’ — keepers.

नमस्ते

EmptyWheel Is Spot On: Tangerine Will Be Charged With… Insurrection, Eventually.

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But that in no manner should be seen as a problem with Merrick Garland, or Jack Smith.

Tangerine himself has engineered all this delay, by aggressive campaigning as far back as later 2022, and by filing lots of criminal defense motions.

But his time in the barrel is coming. Democrats cannot decide to blame themselves for his using the rights afforded to criminal indictees, thus — even if they push the edge of the envelope, on good faith arguments for reversing existing procedural law:

…As I keep laying out, we know how long the investigation took. We know it took 14 months before the first crime scene defendants could be tried. We know it took over a year to exploit Tarrio’s phone. We know J6C caused at least three months of delay by withholding transcripts. We know it took ten months to get privilege-waived testimony from necessary witnesses.

And we know that John Roberts chose to delay the legal questions from December 2023 until August 2024, eight months.

Merrick Garland might yet charge Trump with insurrection. He might need to, to sustain the tie between Trump and his mob. But we have a pretty clear understanding of why that didn’t happen, couldn’t have happened, before tomorrow’s election….

So the hand-wringers ought to just shut it, and go vote. Period.