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About 50,000 Years Ago… Neanderthals — In What Is Now North America… Last Saw This Green Comet…

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If the skies are moderately-clear over Middle America this evening, it should be visible to the naked eye. But because it is on such an elliptical orbit, it takes over 50,000 years to make the trip around our Sun… and it may well be that it will be pulled off course on this trip out of the Solar plane. Thus, it may never, ever… pass the way, again.

Certainly, none of even your 12th generation great grandchildren will see it. Perhaps no human ever again will. So — do at least give it a shot — go out after 10 pm, brave the cold… and at least… look. I will, since we are likely to have fairly-clear skies — even with the city’s light pollution, it might be detectable with binoculars. Here’s a bit, but tonight will be your best chance as it will dim throughout February now:

…After midnight Tuesday, into Wednesday, the comet will reach its closest point to Earth, known as perigee. Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) hasn’t been this close in 50,000 years and according to some predictions, it may never be seen again. [It is very small, tiny, in fact, by space science standards — and thus easily pulled away, by any larger bodies’ gravitational tugs….

[O]n the early morning hours of Wednesday (February 1), the comet will be in the constellation Camelopardalis, above the North Star, in the northern skies, but below the Moon (and to the left of it) for most of the night.

While at perigee, the comet will be within 26 million miles (42 million kilometers) of Earth, equal to roughly 28% of the distance between the Sun and Earth….

Now you know. Do go out, and have an… adventure, tonight — knowing some sitting around a communal campfire on these plains likely looked up and saw it, 50,000 years ago. And they… wondered. So should… you. Do. . . go enjoy. And do remember those you visited, those who passed this way for the last time seven years ago now, later this week. Smile.

नमस्ते

As We Said, The NY AG Is Now Seeking Renewed Sanctions Against Tangerine, And His Lawyers… For Ignoring Judge Engoron’s Prior Explicit Orders.

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The lawyers representing Trump have now imperiled their own licenses to practice law. Charming. But just as we said last Friday — this is going to end badly for Team Trump.

Here’s just a bit of the overnight letter from the NY AG’s office, in the civil frauds trial in Manhattan.

…As explained in greater detail below, each of the Verified Answers is deficient in a host of ways. Defendants [Team Trump] falsely deny facts they have admitted in other proceedings, they deny knowledge sufficient to respond to factual allegations that are plainly within their knowledge, and they propound affirmative defenses that have been repeatedly rejected by this Court as frivolous and without merit….

Each of the Verified Answers asserts dozens of “Affirmative Defenses” that have already been (repeatedly) rejected by the Court. For example, the Court recently ruled that the Defendants’ claims that the Attorney General lacks capacity or standing to sue “were borderline frivolous even the first time defendants made them.” NYSCEF No. 453 at 3. Nevertheless Mr. Trump and his co-defendants raise those claims—standing, authority, capacity to sue, etc. — yet again, this time as putative affirmative defenses….

In a word… I N S A N E.

नमस्ते

The Amount Tangerine Must Pay In Class Action Legal Fees Settlement Will Be Revealed, In NDA Invalidation Matter In Manhattan Federal Court.

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This morning, the able USDC Judge Paul Gardephe has given the Team Tangerine the option of either indicating how much in legal fees were spent, and going forward with the settlement — which ends this pure loser piece of litigation, on his side… or, he may reject settling and go to trial — and almost certainly lose a multiple of what the settlement offer now provides.

Correctly noting that the law is clear that these figures are extremely relevant: the nature, percentages and amount of fees, and incentive payments (called “Lodestar” amounts in this context)… to a decision by any given plaintiff, to enter the class, and accept the net money offered immediately — or, instead sue on their own, individually — and very likely win, and win perhaps get much more — but (at a minimum have to wait years), for certain… (by which time Tangerine might be insolvent or incarcerated and otherwise unable to pay). So… here is the order, without additional adu:

…The parties request that this Court seal those portions of their settlement agreement referencing the amount of attorneys’ fees and the incentive award. (Dkt. No. 103) None of the case citations submitted by the parties suggests that sealing is appropriate under the standard set forth in Lugosch v. Pyramid Co. of Onondaga, 435 F.3d 110 (2d Cir. 2006). Accordingly, the motion to seal (Dkt. No. 103) is denied.

The Court notes, however, that the settlement agreement contains Plaintiff’s counsel’s bank account number. Pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 5.2 and this Court’s Rule of Individual Practice II.A, “a party or nonparty making [such a] filing may include only… the last four digits of the financial account number.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 5.2(a)(4).

Accordingly, in the event that the parties wish to proceed with their settlement, the account number referenced in the settlement agreement may be redacted to reflect only the last four digits. The parties are directed to file a letter with the Court by February 3, 2023 indicating whether they still seek approval of the settlement class (see Dkt. No. 102).

The Clerk of Court is directed to terminate the motion to seal (Dkt. No. 103).

SO ORDERED. (Signed by Judge Paul G. Gardephe on 1/30/2023)….

Put that in your pipe, and smoke it — Baby T. Heh.

नमस्ते

Manhattan DA Presenting To A Grand Jury: On Election Crimes, And False Statements, In The Hush Money Paid To Stormy Daniels

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As The New York Times indicates at lunchtime local, this is a dramatic escalation in Tangerine’s ongoing criminal exposures.

We already well knew (from EW’s multi-years of reporting) that federal prosecutors were looking at taking much of this same evidence to a grand jury (but a federal one, in Manhattan), as Tangerine was packing to leave 1600 Penn.

That all, after he had his minions fire various AUSAs in the tri-borough area, who were looking into his alleged criminal violations.

So today, given what we know of the documents and testimony, largely from Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels, herself — Trump is pretty clearly chargeable — for election disclosure crimes, and likely… perjury about the same… somewhere.

We shall see.

Amgen, And German Merck: Two Major Pharmas Announce January 2023 Layoffs…

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To be sure, layoffs are roiling several vertical industry groups, both in the US — and globally. But in general, only the smaller pharma concerns have (at least during 2022) shown larger layoff figures, as a percentage of total workforces — and usually due to a specific clinical trial failure, at that.

So these two back-to-back layoff announcements, in US based teams, that cover research and development, and commercial operations teams more broadly at German Merck, and Amgen, respectively… ought to be of deeper concern — for the industry in 2023. This would suggest that pharma in the US sees a diminished return on general commercial team hiring, and on R&D more broadly — and certainly at Amgen — and Merck KGaA.

To be clear, this is not “our” Merck, but the German one — which does business in the US under the additional name EMD Serono. In any event, here’s a bit from the Merck KGaA one, via Fierce Biotech:

…A spokesperson for the German pharma confirmed to Fierce Biotech that 133 employees were leaving the company’s Billerica, Massachusetts outpost.

“We will keep our strong research unit footprints for neuroscience and immunology and oncology, focusing on selected biological areas and scientific capabilities,” according to a statement. The cuts represent a 26% reduction to the Billerica staff, which has roughly 500 employees, and a 11% reduction in the entire U.S. wing of the company, EMD Serono….

And for the record, here is the Endpoints News item of Sunday, on Amgen’s cuts. We feel for all the workers — and families — and communities… affected. Onward, into the snow-squalls, indeed.

नमस्ते

The “Wow Factor” Optical Imaging Juno-Cam Has Lasted 7X Longer Than Expected — In Harsh Radiation Field Plunges: Coming Up On 49th…

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Well, by all accounts — if this is its last hurrah — it served very, very well. The camera that has provided most of the optical light images of Jupiter over the prior seven years. . . may finally be succumbing to the ravages of a radiation field about 50,000 times more intense than the one above Earth’s cloud-tops. All these instruments are in a titanium bathtub for protection, but after the 47th pass, it was noted that about 36 minutes of imagery went missing.

On the most recent 48th pass, the camera was offline for about 23 hours, due to a temperature spike. In electronic imaging, the likely cause for such a spike would be… a short somewhere in its circuitry. And while there are redundant relays, we do know that intense radiation blasts will, over time, degrade even the backup circuits — causing… yep, shorts.

To be clear, all of that analysis above is purely my… conjecture. So take it with a grain of salt. [But that lithe lil’ copper clad spacecraft last tasted the oxygen of Earth on the morning of August 5, 2011 — quite an engineering marvel, nearly a dozen years on.]

In any event, we should probably expect that it may acquire only a few images, on this record-breaking pass, due on March 1, 2023. Here’s the story from NASA | JPL:

…[T]he issue persisted for a longer period of time (23 hours compared to 36 minutes during the December close pass), leaving the first 214 JunoCam images planned for the flyby unusable. As with the previous occurrence, once the anomaly that caused the temperature rise cleared, the camera returned to normal operation and the remaining 44 images were of good quality and usable.

The mission team is evaluating JunoCam engineering data acquired during the two recent flybys — the 47th and 48th of the mission — and is investigating the root cause of the anomaly and mitigation strategies. JunoCam will remain powered on for the time being and the camera continues to operate in its nominal state.

JunoCam is a color, visible-light camera designed to capture pictures of Jupiter’s cloud tops. It was included on the spacecraft specifically for purposes of public engagement but has proven to be important for science investigations also. The camera was originally designed to operate in Jupiter’s high-energy particle environment for at least seven orbits but has survived far longer.

The spacecraft will make its 49th pass of Jupiter on March 1….

If this is the end of those jaw-dropping images, we will be sad — but we do have literally a thousand or more gorgeous close ups, to filter through. So that is some consolation. Smile. And, from the night it first reached a safe orbit some seven years ago, over the July 4 weekend in 2016:

नमस्ते

In Which Hinderaker Imagines Some Vast DeSantis “Victory” Over “The Left”… Sad.

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I gather that John thinks something big was done here by DeSantis, and his hard right frothers, in Florida.

YAWN…

All I see… are some frothy hard right book burners, and AP course deniers… trying to overturn decisions made in a local community. So much for GOP “leave it alone” doctrines.

But yeah, that’s considered “owning the libs” in that backward swampland. The one in which DeSantis imagines he’s a latter-day Huey Long. Damn.

Pretty pathetic, all of them, in truth.

Out.

[U] Tonight, Hinderaker Typed About 15 Paragraphs… To Say… He Doesn’t Have Even A Vague Idea — About Tyre Nichols’ Murder.

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And so — though I link it here for a complete record, there is no reason to read his. None.

He tries for a bit to make the argument that Derek Chauvin was not a murderer… despite a jury finding he was. He murdered George Floyd — also on video.

And then he tries to argue that it is impossible for black police officers to be acting with racial animus against a black man in a traffic stop. A stop where they murdered him.

But John will only say that the beating seemed… unprovoked. [It is astonishing that John thinks he can know the hearts of the black police officers, just by judging their skin color. As a whyte idiot, it lets him draw conclusions about them not being capable of racism. All of which leads Hayward to add an “update”: that perhaps the murder of Mr. Nichols was due to these officers being “affirmative action” hires — again, without a scintilla of evidence, from either malevolent moron.]

Then Hinderaker hints that maybe Mr. Nichols was on drugs (without any evidence for that libelous assertion).

So, yeh — John has no idea — about much of anything, any longer.

What a useless… tool he is.

Updated, on 01.28.2023 @ 8 AM: Contrary to fevered hopes of Faux Newscasters (and Powerliners) last night, all the protests remained entirely peaceful according to verified local news reports, and… nationwide.

So I ask you, who exactly seeks to divide Americans, on racial bases? Right. The frothy hard right does. The above (including the AA remark) is… Exhibit A here.

Out.

Trump Nominated Aileen Cannon — And The GOP Rammed Her Through. ‘Nuff Said.

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And we saw that she cannot… read. Actually… we saw that she REFUSES to read… the US Constitution.

Down in Ft. Pierce, Florida — we all saw that she believes she is a law of her own — answerable unto… no one. Even after the Eleventh Circuit roundly mocked her opinions on the Mar-A-Lago search warrant execution. And… only after the Supremes slapped it all down, did she enter an order which marginally complied with her duties as a jurist. And Hinderaker cheered it all on.

So, geeez Hinderaker — you’ve lost the right to complain here.

John Hinderaker is simply… pandering now.

That is all.

On Page 294(!) — As Against Letitia James, AG of NY — Tangerine Makes A Stupefyingly-Crazy Allegation, Overnight… Of “Ancient And Customary Norms”?!

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Many a morning here — in 2023 — this column will write itself. Today is one of those.

Overnight, Tangerine personally purported to answer the NY AG’s civil frauds suit in the State of New York courts. While it is appropriate to say when one doesn’t have specific, actionable knowledge adequate to either confirm or deny the allegations in any particular part of a complaint… Trump does so, about 320 times. And he is the head of all these organizations, yet he knows… essentially nothing. Hilarious.

[Actually, as to worldly knowledge, that is likely mostly… true. But all the documents bear his signature — so he confesses that in his business — he doesn’t read anything he signs?! Sheesh.]

In truth, I digressed there… for my main point is that he thinks it an “Affirmative Defense” to say (without citation to any authority) that State AGs are bound by “ancient norms”… not to enforce any law, against … the “Crown” (i.e., him — solely in his own fevered imaginings).

That’s what he means, at the bottom of page 294, of a 320 some page vomitus… of nonsense:

…The Attorney General in her conduct and public statements has acted contrary to the ancient and customary norms that prescribe the manner in which prosecutors are expected to conduct themselves under the rule of law….

That is so… officious — and impudent — as to be sanctionable, standing on its own.

Yep — I think the able NY Judge Arthur Engoron will slap his lawyers around, some more — perhaps even suggesting contempt of court, for them (again!) — as he’s long and repeatedly ruled that Trump’s claims to some form of “Lex Regis” is utterly poppycock.

The law of the case is that he is barred from making these specious arguments.

Damn. Buckle up — and pop the popcorn, folks. He’s gonna get roasted. Again.