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Eighty-Six Years Ago This Morning, Amelia Earhart and Electra Disappeared Over The Pacific Ocean. The Wreck Was Never Found.

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Some claim she was spotted in much later photos (in the 1940s), elsewhere in the South Pacific. Some claim to have found pieces of aluminum off a small Pacific island, but nothing remotely conclusive exists.

She was a heroine, and role model — for millions of young girls from the 1920s to ’50s. So we remember her daring spirit and measured risk-taking, even today. Here’s a bit, from her bio:

…One afternoon in April 1928, a phone call came for Earhart at work. “I’m too busy to answer just now,” she said. After hearing that it was important, Earhart relented, though she thought it was a prank. It wasn’t until the caller supplied excellent references that she realized the man was serious. “How would you like to be the first woman to fly the Atlantic?” he asked, to which Earhart promptly replied, “Yes!”

After an interview in New York with the project coordinators, including book publisher and publicist George P. Putnam, she was asked to join pilot Wilmer “Bill” Stultz and co-pilot/mechanic Louis E. “Slim” Gordon. The team left Trepassey Harbor, Newfoundland, in a Fokker F7 named Friendship (on June 17, 1928), and arrived at Burry Port, Wales approximately 21 hours later.

Their landmark flight made headlines worldwide because three pilots had died within the year trying to be that first women to fly across the Atlantic. When the crew returned to the United States, they were greeted with a ticker-tape parade in New York and a reception held by President Calvin Coolidge at the White House….

This too is what patriotism looks like. Onward, smiling into a rain-soaked Sunday afternoon here (with no NASCAR, thank goodness!)….

नमस्ते

So… Mirengoff Makes Some Wildly Racist Assumptions — And Misses That Colleges Will Mostly Ignore The Supremes, In The Process…

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Anyone who quotes the race-baiting charlatan Heather Mac Donald for… anything… is making a… self-refuting argument.

So it is this Sunday morning, with Paul Mirengoff. He purports to tell kids who live daily with food scarcity that they ought to pay $3,000 cash for ACT/SAT prep tutoring, and do lots of after-school clubs, instead of taking jobs to feed their siblings. What a feckless… ass.

This, in response to the well-documented (and sensible) responses of US universities (as invited by Chief Justice Roberts, no less) to keep using essays and the information in them as setting plus factors.

It is no wonder that SAT and ACT scores are less often a litmus test these days, when Paul concedes that with enough money, they can be manipulated in the favor of the wealthy (mostly whyte) applicants.

Let’s just name this brand of hatred, for what it plainly is — Paul, John, Bitsy and Steve and Scott harbor it: it is the hatred of the loss of unearned privilege, in the form of their parents’ wealth.

Or now, theirs — bestowed on their offspring — being less and less able to get the seats (largely undeserved) at the best institutions.

Get over yourselves, mediocre whyte losers.

The world has passed your Jim Crow era views… by.

You reside on the ash-heaps of US History now.

Out.

I Gather Scott Has Never Read, Or Heard Of, Pres. Johnson’s 1965 NEA — And Nearly 60 Years Of Law Under It.

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Scott Johnson goes on a exquisitely ill-informed rant this rain-soaked Sunday morning — in two respects.

First, he would liken an act by a sitting President, pursuant to exactly the same authority his immediate predecessor used (multiple times, and all as contemplated by an explicit statute) to a monarch’s overreach. Heh. WTH?

But more eye-popping is his clear ignorance of a new approach, laid out Friday night, by that same sitting President — to rely on the “Great Society” measures Congress passed under LBJ, in 1965. Ones repeatedly held Constitutional over the last 60 or so years.

The National Education Act gives Mr. Biden this explicit authority, as we’ve shown, here. Scott should revisit (or read for the first time, carefully) his 20th Century American History, under Johnson, Lyndon Baines. Any one of those old high school textbooks.

Hilarious.

ESA Has Succeeded — Euclid Space ‘Scope On Its Way To L2…

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This is a nice clean ESA launch from Cape Canaveral. [As we mentioned earlier this week, this scope will — come early 2028 — team up efforts and share data with NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman space telescope, by then also sitting pretty at L2, and cooled down for science operations.]

Now the planet’s newest space scope is heading out toward L2… and a stable perch from which to map potential evidence of dark energy and dark matter. Here’s a link to the liftoff video, and a bit:

…Euclid will observe billions of galaxies out to 10 billion light-years to create the largest, most accurate 3D map of the Universe, with the third dimension representing time itself.

This detailed chart of the shape, position and movement of galaxies will reveal how matter is distributed across immense distances and how the expansion of the Universe has evolved over cosmic history, enabling astronomers to infer the properties of dark energy and dark matter.

This will help theorists to improve our understanding of the role of gravity and pin down the nature of these enigmatic entities….

And, now you know… grin.

नमस्ते

Mr. Mirengoff: We Say “OUR” Democracy… Because It INCLUDES All Of Us — Even You…

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Paul Mirengoff (behind a paywall) tonight finds fault with liberal/left leaners who would use the phrase “our democracy“.

Uh-huh.

Speaking for myself, I use that phrase because — despite Powerliners and Ringsiders regularly excluding us (and, Trumpers universally doing so) from their invocations of what America is about… I (and we) INCLUDE you… all of you… in our vision of America.

Yes, Paul — American democracy is sloppy, inefficient and fraught with tensions. It is filled with jangling discords, as well as the more than occasional sweet harmonies.

And we — the we of “our democracy” — intend to include you all — in all of it.

It is unfortunate in the extreme… that you cannot reciprocate (even behind a paywall) — and that Hinderaker, Stauffer, Hayward and Johnson uniformly despise real democratic outcomes, of all sorts.

But here on the Fourth long weekend… we continue to reach out to you in good will — even though we rarely see it returned. We still believe in the unlikely dream that is… America.

Do you?

Seriously — do… you?

Bitsy Is Just Mad That We Will Be Able To Achieve Same Ends, Despite “Supreme Six’s” Unhinged Decisions.

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Of greatest import, these same Supremes upheld Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, in three momentous decisions in the last month.

That preserves Black and brown voting power.

And that, coupled to the fact that whytes — as a group — are soon to be a numerical minority in the states… means the die is already cast.

It may take a decade to play out, but her vaunted pro-whyte, exclusionary policies… will die out.

Bitsy knows it. She also knows that without racist appeals to “whyte replacement” theory, the GOP cannot win elections, even in the present day.

So hers is impotent bleating.

And as we’ve shown, all these pernicious decisions (except perhaps the anti-LBGTQ+ ones) are capable of ready work-arounds.

Ms. Stauffer is silent on it, but the 1965 Act authorizes the student loan forgiveness restart — which Mr. Biden adopted last night.

Harvard and UNC made plain (consistent with Roberts’ own statements in his opinion) they and all others will use essay content to score toward a diversity-infused student body. The Supremes well-know they cannot prevent that. All nine know it.

So while the Luddites ruling the Court are an ugly, unfortunate hangover from Tangerine… they amount to very little, in the bigger picture.

And via Dobbs and the anti-gay opinions, the Luddites continue to energize a strong, young “backlash voting bloc” — against repressive hard right GOP… BS.

Net, net… the Supremes have actually hurt the GOP more than aided it.

So… Cheers, Bits!

Tonight, The State Of Tenn. Has Appealed Its Complete Loss — On The Utterly Unconstitutional Anti-Drag Law

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Well… we did say it would come — and now it has.

Gov. Bill Lee cannot stand that his hypocritical brand of x-tianity makes him a laughing stock in front of the all those people in this nation blessed with working forebrains. So he… appeals.

Here’s the notice that it has been appealed, nominally by the local DA, in Memphis.

This appeal… is a dead bang loser.

Now you know.

Earlier Today, CMS Issued Some Revisions — Including On Confidentiality — To The Policies For Coming Drug Price Negotiations…

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Some trade publications have already suggested that the changes in policies are the direct result of pressures exerted in the federal suits filed. I think that unlikely. [In fact, almost all the changes were drafted before the first suit was filed.]

The simpler, and likely more accurate explanation is that the government wants to maximize the chances that both drug-makers see fair prices, and the public sees… meaningfully reduced, or at least flattened, prices… on many older but widely prescribed drugs. Here’s a bit from the factsheet, and the new guidance itself (of nearly 200 pages):

…Negotiation Process: CMS revised section 60.4.3 to clarify that CMS will respond in writing no later than 30 days after receipt of a manufacturer’s counteroffer regardless of whether CMS accepts or rejects the counteroffer. CMS has clarified that, to effectuate any MFP agreed upon by CMS and the Primary Manufacturer, both CMS and the Primary Manufacturer must sign and execute an Addendum to the Agreement. CMS also clarified in section 60.4.4 of the revised guidance that if an agreement on an MFP is not reached by the statutory end of the negotiation period, the Primary Manufacturer will enter a period during which an excise tax potentially may be assessed. The Primary Manufacturer can end this period by agreeing to an MFP or sending a notice terminating all of its applicable agreements under the Medicare and Medicaid programs and establishing that none of the Primary Manufacturer’s drugs are covered by an agreement under section 1860D-14A or section 1860D-14C of the Act….

Publication of MFPs for Selected Drugs: CMS clarified in section 60.6 of the revised guidance that CMS will publish the following on the CMS website by September 1, 2024 for all initial price applicability year 2026 selected drugs where an MFP was agreed upon: the selected drug, the initial price applicability year, and the MFP pricing file (which would be updated annually to show the inflation-adjusted MFP for a selected drug). CMS will strive to publish the explanation of the MFP earlier than March 1, 2025, if feasible….

More on all this, as it develops — but the suits were and are… losers. The larger point would be that Americans are likely to see hundreds of billions of dollars in annual savings, on government spending for drugs. And that is something the Supreme Six cannot stop.

Smile.

नमस्ते

[U] Over The Fourth, Let’s Reflect Back In Time, To President Johnson’s “Great Society” Congressional Victories, In 1965… This Too, Is What Patriotism Looks Like.

~ condor ~ 2 Comments

Updated @ 6 pm EDT — Mr. Biden is already underway on exactly the plan I mentioned below, as proposed to and then by, Sen. Warren. Flawless. And he’s added another year of no payments, effective immediately for people of limited means. [All of which means Scott Johnson’s of this morning is going to turn out to be… ultimately, impotent blather.] End update.

So — as promised — the work-around, from when most of America felt we all have/had a duty to lift one another up.

Please do go read the Higher Education Act of 1965, as signed by President Johnson. It would also pretty plainly allow Mr. Biden to simply re-issue his student loans forgiveness executive order, relying on that older, and never before challenged statute.

I will quote just a bit from a Harvard Law memo, to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, here:

. . .Amongst the general powers conferred by Congress to the Secretary in the HEA is the power to “enforce, pay, compromise, waive, or release any right, title, claim, lien, or demand, however acquired, including any equity or any right of redemption.” 20 U.S.C. § 1082(a)(6) (emphasis added). This compromise authority was contained in the HEA from its initial enactment. Any exercise of this compromise authority “shall be final and conclusive upon all accounting and other officers of the Government.” 20 U.S.C. § 1082(b). The only statutory limitation on this authority is the requirement that the Secretary “may not enter into any settlement of any claim under [Title IV] that exceeds $1,000,000” without requesting “a review of the proposed settlement of such claim by the Attorney General,” 20 U.S.C. § 1082(b).

In 1988, the Secretary finalized a regulation, 34 C.F.R. § 30.70, which explains how the Secretary exercises discretion to compromise a debt. . . .

The Secretary has the authority to modify a loan to zero, and exercise this authority even in the absence of any implementing regulations.

Such modification (and, likewise, any act to compromise existing student loans), is permissible under the budgetary standards that govern Title IV programs. . . .

Again, these six Supremes were just offering political fund-raising theater to the GOP this morning. This work-around is well within existing federal statutory authority — stretching back over 60 years, now. To a more optimistic time — in our Nation. Be excellent to one another. I’m… off for a mountain bike ride, by the cool lake waters [knowing I’m taking a risk — one akin to smoking a pack of cigarettes, today (so not me — smoking?! never.) with the skies so gray from the smoke plumes]. Smile.

नमस्ते

Something To Ponder, As We Celebrate Our Freedoms This Long Weekend… Please Be Informed By Real Science — Not Small Minded Flat Earth Theories.

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NASA is increasingly taking a leadership role, in highlighting climate science. And I am… thrilled.

So, as we wander off for the long weekend, and most of us in the middle of the nation breathe bad air (from forest fires not just coincidentally made worse — by well-documented relatively-recent global climate shifts)… do consider this:

…Understanding the Earth gives us the means to better protect it. Join NASA, as we monitor, study, and observe our planet 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year — to learn more and to protect and improve life on Earth….

Smiling at a welcome sojourner’s appearance, here this morning, at 9:32 am. Be well, one and all!

नमस्ते