Category: Uncategorized

Of The Hellscape That Is Texas State Law, Post Dobbs… Damn.

~ condor ~ Leave a comment

This is the story of a married woman in Texas — a mom of two, already — who wishes to have another child, but the current zygote she’s carrying has a rare genetic defect — one that almost always results in a still-birth (all based on actual life science findings). This in turn means she would endure astonishing agony (both emotional and physical), should she be forced to carry to term (as Texas’s unconstitutional law… now plainly states). Her doctor (understandably) fears being jailed in Texas — if he does what is considered medically needed by all responsible MDs nationwide, here.

I know: you may say… but she can fly to Colorado, and solve it.

No… instead, she and her husband have courageously brought a very public declaratory judgment action in Texas, likely in part to show the world… what a fascists’ state Texas has become. Texas believes it has the right to jail doctors… for protecting the life of a mother. Here is the NBC News story, at noon-time today:

…A Texas judge on Thursday granted an emergency order allowing a pregnant woman whose fetus has a fatal diagnosis to get an abortion in the state.

Late last month, Kate Cox, a 31-year-old Dallas-area mother of two who is about 20 weeks pregnant, found out that her developing fetus has trisomy 18, a rare chromosomal disorder likely to cause stillbirth or the death of the baby shortly after he or she is born. . . .

Judge Maya Guerra Gamble quickly granted the requested order, which also allows Cox’s doctor to perform the abortion without fear of prosecution.

“The idea that Miss Cox wants desperately to be a parent, and this law might actually cause her to lose that ability is shocking and would be a genuine miscarriage of justice,” the judge said.

Johnathan Stone, an attorney with the Texas attorney general’s office who represented the state in the hearing, argued that Cox and her husband had not sufficiently demonstrated that they would suffer “immediate and irreparable injury” without an abortion.

“The only party that’s going to suffer an immediate and irreparable harm in this case” if the judge grants the requested order, Stone continued, “is the state….”

Now that is some Orwellian nonsense, Mr. Stone — you now claim that Texas owns a property right, in a particular woman’s uterus? You’ll have to answer to your maker for that, I guess… “THE STATE”?! Damn.

नमस्ते

Bill Otis Agrees With Scott Johnson: Tangerine Will Be The GOP Nominee. But Both Are Hilariously Wrong, After That.

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Look. I really don’t care. They are… delusional, as to the ultimate outcome, though. The both of them.

Of course Tangerine leads in every poll they cite. [But all those polls were wrong, in 2016 (missed HRC negative votes — will be Trump’s negatives in 2024); and they were wrong about 2020 (again underestimated Trump negative votes) and 2022 — well, that was a… tidal wave for real democracy — and a woman’s right to control her own uterus.]

That same effect… is magnified for 2024.

Democrats are playing the low information GOP pundits perfectly: let them think Tangerine has a cake walk.

Keep the dark horse Haley off the podium. And then… no matter whom the Democrats nominate, the GOP is over. Done.

And Johnson is right about this much: Trump will be a felony convict — perhaps even serving a sentence — when election day rolls around.

Charming — oh you feckless GOP regulars.

Out, grinning.

Border Patrol And Homeland Security Explain Why Gov. Abbott Cannot Have An Injunction In Fifth Cir… YAWN.

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Obviously, when the trial court ruled — solely on the law — and correctly, at that — that Texas could not even bring a suit, let alone win one… it would be obvious that the Fifth shouldn’t let an end run occur.

So overnight, the federal agencies have explained just that. Here it is — these 27 pages will control, in New Orleans:

…Exercising its unquestioned authority, Congress has provided that an “alien present in the United States who has not been admitted” “shall be inspected by immigration officers.” 8 U.S.C. § 1225(a)(1), (3). Without a warrant, Border Patrol agents may “interrogate any alien or person believed to be an alien,” “arrest any alien who in his presence or view is entering or attempting to enter the United States in violation of any law,” and “have access to private lands” within 25 miles of the border “for the purpose of patrolling the border to prevent the illegal entry of aliens into the United States.” Id. § 1357(a)(1)-(3).

In recent months, Texas began installing concertina wire — a type of coiled razor wire — near the banks of the Rio Grande in the vicinity of Eagle Pass, Texas. Because the international border lies in the river, a noncitizen who crosses the river and approaches the wire is within the United States. The wire can impede Border Patrol agents from inspecting these individuals and block them from responding to persons in danger in the river or on the riverbank. Consistent with their statutory authority and longstanding practice — with respect to any border-adjacent barriers, no matter the owner — agents therefore sometimes cut or move the wire to access the migrants.

Texas contends that state tort law bars federal agents from exercising this authority. [Poppycock!]

While the district court plainly took issue with aspects of federal officials’ enforcement of federal law, it nonetheless correctly recognized that the United States is immune from suits seeking injunctive relief under state tort law. See Mot.Ex-P 13-20. It also rejected Texas’s contention that cutting the wire is ultra vires….

Gov. Abbott and AG Ken Paxton will lose in this appeal. Full stop. The stay may be lifted as early as this coming Monday. This in turn would allow CBP to cut razor wire whenever and wherever it needs to, on land — around Eagle Pass. Onward.

नमस्ते

[U] Hinderaker: Suddenly A Suppressor Of Heterodox Ideas, For A Price?

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John’s… lost the plot — again, tonight.

Y A W N.

He spent his whole adult life… barking about the evil of any academic speech code.

Now he screams that Harvard and MIT must immediately enforce theirs, against all who might disagree — even mildly — with Israel’s current posture, as to/on Gaza.

And the only thing that has changed… is that he cynically sees new donors at his blog — and think tank — as a possibility if he cuts against what he’s claimed to believe for his whole adult life.

Update — late on 12.07.2023: Bill Otis is now trying the same gambit. Maybe he and Paul should re-join John’s blog. Heh.

Charming. Both of their bedrock principles are… for sale.

Nope — zero surprise in that — especially on John Hinderaker’s part.

Out.

I Understand: Mirengoff Is Emotionally Wounded By The Hamas Attack. So Are We All… But The Black/White Reaction… Is Mostly PTSD.

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Just like the speech codes he tried to create, a few weeks back, after an entire life-time of arguing against such things (see at right)… this one today… his reaction, is borne primarily, and still… of a post trauma stress disorder.

He wants his Hammurabi Code pounds of flesh — his enemies’ eyes, plucked out, and right hands, severed… and stacked in bloody buckets, over-flowing.

Understandable — given the atrocity of Oct. 7.

But also… deeply unwise.

All his “eradication” advocacy will lead to… is a nation of blinded men, women and children.

And many more… dead ones.

It won’t end the enmity. That’s been here (in deep spades) for 2,300 years — minimum.

And when, in 2011, three teen aged Israelis intentionally ran over Palestinian kids playing soccer in the street with their hatch-back car, and drove off, leaving the kids for dead — on video, unprovoked… there was no immediate violence in retaliation.

No… it simmered. It simmered in Gaza, for a decade. Then two more years beyond that.

Then… it exploded.

It is ALL horrible. It is all wrong, on all sides. But as a product of PTSD, people want to start the story only at their own latest personal injury.

And they want blood. That’s defective thinking — and very bad policy, Paul. Get some therapy (you were on the receiving end of this, from Steve about 19 months ago — when he completely exploded on you, over a very tiny affront — you wrote an addition to his article, as you three regularly did — remember?). No, I am not equating the two — I’m simply saying both are versions of deeply defective reasoning / policy approaches.

To therapy, then — you’ll thank me later.

Out.

“Not Our” Merck, The German One (KGaA) — Suffers A Non-Surprising MS Drug Candidate Wash-Out, In Phase 3 Clinical Trials…

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If you’d been a regular reader here — you were already expecting this — as we covered it, on preliminary results, back in April 2023.

Here is the company’s press release, but it very closely echoes the preliminary readout from April 2023 we covered. . . on the Evolution clinical trials.

And here is the Bloomberg take, repeating what Morgan Stanley now has updated as its forecasts — for the firm. Disappointing, indeed — from a financial point of view — but especially so, for patients suffering from MS, and their families and care-givers:

…[German] Merck KGaA plunged after an experimental multiple-sclerosis drug failed in late-stage trials, a blow to the company’s plans to drive growth with another blockbuster medicine.

Evobrutinib didn’t show strong enough efficacy in two final-stage studies of people with relapsing multiple sclerosis, [German] Merck said late Tuesday. On Wednesday morning its shares dropped as much as 14% in Frankfurt trading, the most since 2009, erasing more than €5 billion in market value.

The [not so!] surprise drug failure creates a third big challenge for the German conglomerate. Its life science unit has been suffering from a collapse in demand for Covid-related products while the electronics division is reeling from a prolonged slump in the semiconductor industry.

[German] Merck’s healthcare division — its third pillar — had been banking on evobrutinib to help drive growth in the coming years. Instead, revenue for the unit could stay flat through 2027 and profitability may suffer, Thibault Boutherin of Morgan Stanley said in a note….

Now you know — onward — on the hope for some better news, tomorrow… overall, in the life sciences.

नमस्ते

NASA Investigating More “Mining” Missions — This Time, To Drill Under The Icy Crusts Of Europa And/Or Enceladus… To Plumb The Oceans…

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The motto “Dare mighty things!” here certainly applies.

In truth, NASA’s first real extra-terrestrial mining attempt — out there, on Mars — encountered unexpected near-sub-surface conditions. As we covered the ambitious effort in real time, it turns out that the regolith there is a grainy, icy sand, that readily clumped into tiny balls — not unlike “Dippin’ Dots”. And… that stuff, in the deep freeze on Mars, simply absorbed the impact of the hammer / drill tip. . . and repeatedly fell in, on itself — caved back in, around the drill head. There was no “bite” possible, with the tip. So, the Insight probe never made it more than 20 inches down — let alone the aimed for depth of 15 feet.

Now, consider: the likely conditions on these distant moons, orbiting the gas giants, are very different (more challenging) — miles and miles of thick, solid, rock hard ice. Moreover, NASA will need to drill down through all those miles — not just 15 feet.

And so, the current lead proposal calls for a nuke-fuel-powered “melting drill-rig“, one that uses both downward biting motions, and the intense heat of a nuke generator, to melt the associated tunnel, under the miles of crust — and to do all this, entirely robotically. Nope — no repair crew, if you throw a 20 foot section of pipe, and it binds up, below (for example, if one or more of these vast ice plates… snap, or shift, under the immense tidal forces of the nearby gas giant it orbits).

This is a formidable engineering and space science challenge, indeed. Here’s the latest, from NASA:

…Various concepts for ocean access have been investigated over the past decades, ranging from robots that descend through crevasses to drills of varying types. One concept that has emerged as a leading candidate is the cryobot. A cryobot is a self-contained cylindrical probe that uses heat to melt the ice beneath it. The melted water then flows around the probe before refreezing behind it. Thermal ice drilling is so simple and effective that it has become a common tool for studying terrestrial glaciers and ice sheets. But how can we translate this technology to a system that can penetrate planetary icy crusts, which are colder, thicker, and more uncertain? [To say nothing of… perhaps wildly buckling, under the gravity of the nearby gas giant!]

This dilemma has been a core focus of researchers — many of whom are supported by NASA’s Scientific Exploration Subsurface Access Mechanism for Europa (SESAME) and Concepts for Ocean worlds Life Detection Technology (COLDTech) programs — for the past several years. In February 2023, NASA’s Planetary Exploration Science Technology Office (PESTO) convened a workshop at the California Institute of Technology, which brought together nearly 40 top researchers from diverse fields and institutions around the country to discuss progress in maturing this technology and to assess the challenges that remain. Recent studies have made significant progress in refining our understanding of the ice shell environment, detailing a mission architecture, and maturing critical subsystems and technologies. In particular, workshop participants identified four key subsystems that drive the roadmap for developing a flight-ready architecture: the power, thermal, mobility, and communication subsystems….

We will keep an eye on this, but it is certainly more than a decade away — from any possible launch date. Smiling just the same… so, about 380 million miles out into the night, we’d be drilling into… a deeply hidden ocean, and with a smokin’ hot drill bit, to boot. What a time to be… alive!

नमस्ते

Rock Solid Evidence (From Jack Smith In DC!): Tangerine Fully Intended To Cause Riots, Post 2020 Election…

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In DC federal trial court, under the very able, no-nonsense USDC Judge Chutkan, the Special Counsel’s office is… positively on fyre, of late.

This morning, the prosecution moved to have an advance ruling on its right to introduce lots of extrinsic evidence of Tangerine’s intent to subvert the election; to suppress truthful information about states where he lost the vote, and by how much; and worst of all — to cause rioting and chaos in polling places where it was clear he was losing, specifically targeting black voters, to deprive them of the efficacy of their votes.

It would be hard to overstate how corrosive these bad faith efforts were, to our 240 year history of ordered liberty under law. Here’s the full nine page filing today, and a bit:

…The Government also plans to introduce evidence of an effort undertaken by an agent (and unindicted co-conspirator) of the defendant who worked for his campaign (“the Campaign Employee”) to, immediately following the election, obstruct the vote count. On November 4, 2020, the Campaign Employee exchanged a series of text messages with an attorney supporting the Campaign’s election day operations at the TCF Center in Detroit, where votes were being counted; in the messages, the Campaign Employee encouraged rioting and other methods of obstruction when he learned that the vote count was trending in favor of the defendant’s opponent….

[A redacted paragraph follows; then resumes as follows:]

The Government will also show that around the time of these messages, an election official at the TCF Center observed that as Biden began to take the lead, a large number of untrained individuals flooded the TCF Center and began making illegitimate and aggressive challenges to the vote count. Thereafter, Trump made repeated false claims regarding election activities at the TCF Center, when in truth his agent was seeking to cause a riot to disrupt the count. This evidence is admissible to demonstrate that the defendant, his co-conspirators, and agents had knowledge that the defendant had lost the election, as well as their intent and motive to obstruct and overturn the legitimate results….

[In addition, Trump, as] defendant, and his co-conspirators’ and agents’ aggression in stifling dissent against election fraud claims before, during, and after the charged conspiracies is admissible to demonstrate the defendant and his co-conspirators’ knowledge that their fraud claims were false, to establish their plan for depicting their election lies as true, and to show their intent to silence anyone who refuted their false claims….

Welp. That’s gonna leave a mark. He’s goin’ to… jail.

Out.

In Which… Hinderaker Wants… Genocide — S’more! [Gaza Edition]

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This is all getting rather dreadfully… monotonous.

Boring, even.

Hinderaker pretends to understand things… he doesn’t.

In his lil’ pea-brain, the history of Gaza began on October 7, 2023.

In his lil’ pea brain, this justifies simply (as he’s repeatedly directly said) eradicating all Gazans who are not Jews.

He truly is… a malign lil’ moron. He doesn’t care a whit, about 2,300 years of mutual atrocities committed in the region. He just needed an excuse to decimate some brown people — whose religion he despises. So, for John — its a double bonus. Even Bibi isn’t this feckless, Hinderaker.

Out.