Courtesy Of Rigby: We See The Conspiracy-Minded Conservatives — Like Hinderaker!

Oh boy. You should check out Steve’s daily chart today, purporting to debunk the notion that conservatives and Republicans are more likely to believe conspiracy theories than liberals and Democrats. ”This is nonsense to anyone with common sense perception,” Steve opines.

But then John goes ahead and tacks on his thoughts on the matter, which (unintentionally, but also hilariously) serve to rebut the point Steve is trying to make.

I would also point out that, while all of the listed conspiracies to which liberals subscribe are absurd… a good share of the “conspiracy theories” which some conservatives believe are actually true.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

Check out the comments for an even deeper dive into the madness.

Condor would add only that he started this site to avoid reading the comments over there, and to note his disagreements — while not encouraging more loons to engage over there.

So, Condor never reads comments at Powerline — but if you can manage to read them… without getting brain cancer… feel free, one and all!

Heh — out, grinning — again.

Taking Care Of The Earth Includes Protecting All Low Earth Orbital Planes…

As we begin to think about Earth Day, we will note this story out of NASA.

Space debris has essentially enshrouded the Earth (over the 70 some years since Sputnik first flew) in a cloud of what would be, in many cases, lethal debris, some of it moving at over 10,000 mph.

The proliferation of commercial space operations, while welcome, will serve to generate new challenges, such as an operating environment more crowded with spacecraft — and correspondingly increased debris fields. Understanding the risks and benefits associated with this growth is crucial for space sustainability.  Do read it all:

…To address a rapidly changing space operating environment and ensure its preservation for generations to come, NASA released the first part of its integrated Space Sustainability Strategy, on Tuesday advancing the agency’s role as a global leader on this crucial issue.

“The release of this strategy marks true progress for NASA on space sustainability,” said NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy. “Space is busy – and only getting busier. If we want to make sure that critical parts of space are preserved so that our children and grandchildren can continue to use them for the benefit of humanity, the time to act is now. NASA is making sure that we’re aligning our resources to support sustainable activity for us and for all.”

For decades, NASA has served as a proactive leader for responsible and sustainable space operations. Entities across the agency develop best practices, analytic tools, and technologies widely adopted by operators around the world. The new strategy seeks to integrate those efforts through a whole-of-agency approach – allowing NASA to focus its resources on the most pressing issues. To facilitate that integration, NASA will appoint a new director of space sustainability to coordinate activities across the agency….

Now you know — onward, grinning.

नमस्ते

[U] Aimee Harris Will Spend One Month Incarcerated, For Stealing A Biden’s Diary — And Transporting It To NYC…

After seemingly endless delays, lies and dodges, Aimee Harris appeared live in Manhattan today, and was sentenced by the able USDC Chief Judge Swain… to a month in jail.

She would have had six months of probation, had she not engaged in a campaign of ignoring court orders. [Hopefully, this bid (likely in a Florida federal facility) will help her see that she is doing her children no favors — with her errant life-style / ways.]

And now, her admitted co-felon — Robert Kurlander — will see a delay in his sentencing by a few months, due to a request from BoP.

Updated: 04.12.2024 — She has asked to be assigned to a Florida federal facility, thus — and it will likely be allowed: “…After consultation with Ms. Harris, we respectfully request that the Court recommend to the Bureau of Prisons that she be designated to FCI Marianna or FCI Tallahassee, and that she be permitted to voluntarily surrender to her designated facility by 2 p.m. on July 5, 2024, rather than July 11, 2024….”

End updated portion.

Hinderaker’s boys should take note: “F#ck around… and find out.”

Out.

So… Mirengoff Utterly Ignores That Cannon Is Openly Dragging Her Feet, On The Most Important Case She’s Ever Drawn.

…Or, at least the most important since she was eviscerated for being dead wrong on the law, in the appeals of the other Tangerine related case she’s seen in Ft. Pierce, Florida.

And today, Paul claims that Special Counsel Jack Smith’s language is… uncourtly.

When a judge is wildly wrong on the entire area of the law, one with national security implications, and she is dragging her feet, in favor of the guy who appointed her, to stave off a series of felony convictions, for him — before the ’24 elections — “uncourtly language” may be… more than required.

Mandamus may be needed, soon.

So, Paul assumes away the gravity of the situation… to say that a lawyer was… impolite. [These are not two insurance companies arguing over who is responsible to fix a wind damaged warehouse roof, somewhere in a backwater stretch of the Florida panhandle, man.]

Jeebus, Paul… read the room.

Those were top secret national matters — in a shitter, in his club, that anyone could sit down, lock the doors — and read — if they so desired (and / or were allowed to, for a bribe… while visiting), by Tangerine’s handlers. Or Tangerine himself.

This is so… unpatriotic, on Mirengoff’s part — shilling for the worst of the MAGA judges Trump appointed, all as they show demonstrable bias — in his favor, in felony matters.

Damn.

Last Week, Rahway Bought A Pre-Clinical ADC “Safety Play” — For $208 Million, Contingent On Milestones…

Again, plainly immaterial today — but if it improves the tolerability profile of the class of bio-pharm agents known as ADCs, it will… become material to Merck, in time.

The price is really a field bet, on improving the tolerance of antibody-drug conjugates, by oncology patients, as the same come to market. Here’s the Buffalo presser from last week:

. . .BUFFALO, N.Y. – Abceutics, Inc., a startup preclinical-stage biopharmaceutical company that was spun out of the laboratory of University at Buffalo researcher Joseph P. Balthasar, PhD, has been acquired by the global biopharmaceutical company Merck….

Merck acquired Abceutics for a potential consideration of up to $208 million, including contingent milestone payments based upon the progress of candidates under the agreement. . . .

The company’s core technology was licensed from University at Buffalo. The technology has been developed through grants from the National Institutes of Health, as well as $110,000 from the Buffalo Innovation Accelerator Fund, which is operated by UB’s Business and Entrepreneur Partnerships office.

Abceutics has operated out of incubator space in UB’s New York State Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences, which also provided the company $50,000 from Empire State Development’s Division of Science, Technology and Innovation. Additionally, the company has benefitted from the National Science Foundation’s Innovation Corps program at UB….

We should expect quite a few milestones-based deals in this space, in the coming years.

And, now… onward into the bright sunshine here — after UConn let me sweep every March Madness pool I entered… and, so sorry it is soggy in Music City. Smile, just the same….

नमस्ते

Hinderaker: “Black Studies Majors Don’t Become Astronomers”. Damn.

What would Eclipse Day 2024 in the US and Mexico be, without Hinderaker whyte-splaining away known barriers to high paying STEM jobs, for kids of color?

Right. It would be… a “normal Monday” — at Powerline.

His tonight drips with the contempt of his seven-tenths of a century of wholly unearned privileges — first at Dartmouth, then Harvard. [For the record, he personally couldn’t hack a STEM major at either institution, in the late 60s and early 70s.] Yet, oddly — he didn’t come from a single parent home — he came from a repressed, emotionally-barren, dusty, rural Dakota one.

Here’s his invidious racism in context:

…As to why any scientific fields have been “mainly out of reach for Black folks,” I can only point out that 1) single-parent households are not, on average, conducive to academic achievement; 2) a culture in which kids who get good grades in school are disdained [sic] for “acting white” is fatal to academic achievement; and 3) black students who are encouraged to major in Black Studies and similar fields don’t become astronomers. Those factors are evidently more than 50 years of affirmative action have been able to overcome….

He may be the most embittered, cynical 70 year old whyte codger I’ve ever met.

But this might as well ultimately be chiseled into his tombstone… as it (like all else he writes, and the man himself) is fading into irrelevance, as the world moves on from his cramped, and sad… world views.

Out.

Devin Nunes: Securities Fraudster — With DJT’s NASDAQ Price Now At Half What It Was Two Weeks Ago…

Okay — this is simply… shooting fish in a barrell… Devin and the Donald are out trying to shore up the DJT stock — and failing at it, as an MSM / Bloomberg Law piece today discusses the spotty record of the company’s audit firm.

And the overarching fact is that it will never be able to compete with… Twitter/X-itter.

Yet CEO Nunes went on Maria Bartiromo’s show over the weekend, and this triggered an SEC filing — because he made statements clearly intended to influence the DJT stock trading prices.

Here’s a bit of that — with actual truth, foot-noted:

Well, you know, look, it’s you know, we’re the only game in town1…. I mean, obviously those companies have been around for, you know, a decade, two decades, sometimes longer. And, you know, after that we’re the next big game in town, and we’re the only one that’s going to be able to compete with them2. So as you’ll remember, one of the things we set out to do when we built True [sic] Social was we looked at what’s the best of Facebook, what’s the best of Instagram3, what’s the best TikTok? What’s the best Twitter? How do we put it into one app? Well, now we’re doing something. Have been testing something that no one’s done4. And that is how do you give a home? To cancel channels? To cancel documentaries? How do you put streaming into our app? That’s something that we’re testing. We have tens of thousands of people that are actually now using it. And Maria, what we’re actually looking at is, you know, people are cutting the cord. So you have these legacy big, big companies, cable companies, satellite companies, etc… So how do we take the best of, say, a Netflix and Xfinity a sling? And how do you put that integrated into our app, where ultimately it can also be used to cut the cord as people want to get to more family friendly, pro-American type of content5. That’s what we’re going to provide6. Now, look, we’re a home for everything. We’re a home for everybody….

And the foot-noted ACTUAL truths?:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

1. The “only game?!” They are nearly the smallest of some 25 games… “in town”!

2. With what capital?! $200 million?! Musk has already sunk over $49 BILLION into X-itter. That is the entry fee — and DJT doesn’t have one-one-hundredth of this admission price. Hilarious. [To be clear, even the 700 pound gorilla in the arena — Twitter, isnt making money as a business (thus, Truth never wiil).]

3. The others (FB, Insta- and the rest) are intentionally NOT making it easy for Truth users to cross post. This is simple fence-building — these others have no need and no desire to give a 500,000 person community easy crossings to their 400 million person platforms.

4. No one? Actually, Tik-Tok, Twitter, AND FACEBOOK already do… ALL of this — with much bigger engagement numbers. They EACH host easy cross posting. Damn — a churlish lie.

5. This clearly suggest that Truth has a contract, or series of them, to provide Netflix and Xfinity offerings DIRECTLY through the waifish platform. It hasn’t even asked the content companies — and they will NEVER give them this right. Ever. X-itter has (despite its flaws)… over 5,000 times as many regular users — if such a deal is done, it will be there, not on Truth.

6. This is an affirmation, not a projection — “we will” — not “we intend to“. When DJT fails to deliver it, it is… a completed securities fraud, as the stock keeps falling — from $78, to now around $34 this evening. Damn.

Oh — and I should add that various members of former team have pled to being liable for insider trading — but Devin says “Well, look, it’s important to remember, Maria, that those numbers are based on what was the longest IPO in history. So we were over-regulated….” No, son — you are… a crime syndicate… being caught in a Quentin Tarantino style slow mo shootout / action scene.

Buckle up, butter-cup — the SEC Enforcement staffers are on to you!

नमस्ते

Fifth Cir… Goes Pretty Far Out, Into Right Field — But It Will Help The Federal CBP and DHS Case; Texas Comes Up A Loser (Again!) Here…

In the losing case to defend Texas SB-4, the Texas state lawyers (Paxton’s boys) made the argument that the federal statutory rights to police the border are constrained by “equitable principles” in favor of the State of Texas (despite the fact that there has never been a case so holding, and no one can point to any such express authorization, from the United States Congress, in favor of any state, in this arena).

Texas pointed to other cases of equitable remedies (in wholly unrelated areas), in its argument. Charming.

So now the Fifth wants to have Texas expressly acknowledge that it does NOT apply to border matters (a proposition the feds set forth at great length a few weeks ago). So the Fifth wants new, post-argument letter briefs on the topic, by THIS Friday, thus:

…At oral argument in this matter, counsel for the State of Texas noted that Congress has statutorily authorized the United States to seek equitable relief. See, e.g., 15 U.S.C. § 4; 15 U.S.C. § 25; 15 U.S.C. § 78u(d)(5); 18 U.S.C. § 1345; 29 U.S.C. § 160(j); 42 U.S.C. § 1971(c); 42 U.S.C. § 2000a-3; 42 U.S.C. § 2000a-5; 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-6; 42 U.S.C. § 12188; 52 U.S.C. § 10308(d). Counsel are directed to file simultaneous letter briefs identifying all other instances of equitable remedies statutorily authorized in suits by the United States. Briefs are due at 5:00 p.m. on Friday, April 12, 2024….

That’s five elapsed days; four really, since the eclipse ate most of today. As my legacy graphics indicate — the Supremes definitively decided this matter in 2013, when Arizona tried some similar BS. See the 2012 video from the ACLU, above.

And it seems plain that the court is telling AG Paxton he’s wasting their scarce resources — with patently wrong, non-logical — stupid, in fact — stretches of non-existent precedent. Perfect.

नमस्ते

Mirengoff’s Must Be… A Careless Typo.

As to the age at which Ukrainian boys should be subject to the draft, he wrote “18 to 14.

The reverse age order of 14 coming second very likely indicates he meant to type 24.

Here it is:

“…Why won’t Ukraine conscript people in the 18-14 age range? I gather it’s because Zelensky believes doing so would make the war unpopular, and he along with it…”

Yes, Paul — putting unwilling 14 year olds on the front line would be… unpopular.

And… criminal — many of them would not yet have seen their voices (and other parts) descend / change.

If you’re gonna’ advocate the marching of kids off to die — and ask kids to do the killing for you — Paul, you should double check your typing skills. 14?!

Even 18 is (IMHO) too young to die.

No… 25 is plenty young enough (it was 27, until this weekend). But he goes on to argue that the US shouldn’t fully support a nation that won’t force its youngest boys to fight.

That’s… frankly… insane.

[Maybe we should ask Paul whether he thinks innocent 14 year old Hebrew boys in Tel Aviv, some possibly not yet bar mitzvah-ed, should be likewise conscripted into the IDF in Israel.]

Damn. War is indeed… Hell.