Category: Uncategorized

It Took Powerline Less Than 24 Hours… To Bash A Freed P.O.W. Charming.

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Not that it is in any manner surprising, but Powerline doesn’t recall that “women and children, first” has been the US military (and civilian sea rescue) motto… for about two and a half centuries. Marines know it.

Scott whines that an ex-Marine wasn’t the item traded for. Vlad will never trade an ex-Marine, Whelan — or Fogel, one for one. He won’t.

Thus, Johnson’s — and Faux News’ — complaints are… idiotic and insulting, to anyone with a sense of reality, about world affairs. And deeply unpatriotic (insulting Susan Rice’s decade past time with 44’s Admin. as a hostage freer as well, in his rant). Lovely.

Yep — it bears repeating: Faux New’s complaints / smears are. . . deeply unpatriotic. They must hate America.

And, along the way, Scott specifically sneers about Brittney’s wife, and insults her skin color (as “hating America”).

This I suppose because she proved repeatedly that she supports Black Lives Matter. But a civilian US woman, wrongly sentenced to nine years in Siberia… is home for Christmas now. [Scott may f*ck right off.]

But the America I love allows dissent. So I’ll allow Powerline… its cry-baby fits.

Even so, I don’t have to like it.

Scott is a bitter old whyte loser.

And Cherelle now has her spouse and life partner home.

A miracle, indeed.

Unrelated PS: I might ask what makes their gender relevant, in Scott’s bashing of them (a separate story this morning). Oh. Right.

Scott’s a bigot. Out.

[U: Good Plaintiffs’ Brief Filed!] In The Federal Class Action Expressly Invalidating All Non-Disclosure Agreements Tangerine Forced On Employees, From His Time At 1600 Penn… He’s Failed To Meet Settlement Terms. Yawn.

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UPDATED 12.10.2022 — The plaintiffs filed a very cogent brief on Thursday night, late. Do read it. End, update.

Look. I get it. Tangerine is certainly in much, much “hotter water” elsewhere around the nation’s federal court houses. But this one too, needs attention. It is in the federal district court, in Manhattan, and goes by the case number 20-cv-4737, there. [Many dozens of aids and employees and consultants are covered by this class action.]

And. . .Tangerine is late (again) — after promising to work out a settlement with Omorosa and many others, related to his unlawful insistence that all of them sign NDAs before working in the White House, or on his campaigns (or for his wife, 2017-2021). Each involved employee should see a sizeable cash settlement. The Commander in Chief cannot forbid underlings from telling the truth about non-National Secret matters, when they saw his misconduct, or Melania’s or Jared’s or Ivanka’s or Junior’s. [It would also arguably invalidate the Wolkoff NDA at issue in the publishing of the book at right, on Melania.] Here’s the latest:

…On November 2, 2022, this Court entered an order scheduling a settlement conference for December 13, 2022 at 2:00 p.m., and directing the parties to complete the Settlement Conference Summary Report and prepare pre-conference submissions, by no later than Tuesday, December 6, 2022.

The parties are directed to submit their pre-conference submissions by no later end of day on Friday, December 9, 2022, or the settlement conference will be adjourned. For further details, please refer to Judge Figueredos’ Standing Order Applicable to Settlement Conferences….

Never a dull moment, around this [largely dis-]organized crime syndicate. Wow.

Oh — and the complete humiliation USDC Judge Aileen Cannon (SD FL), and Tangerine, both suffered — in the Eleventh Circuit… is now final. He did not appeal to the Supremes in time. Hilarious.

नमस्ते

BREAKING: Mr. Biden And VP Harris Secure Release Of WNBA All-Star Brittney Griner! Home For… Christmas 2022!

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To be clear, we still very much need to free Paul Whelan, also a POW in Russia.

But this is outstanding news… pictured at right, is her wife Cherelle, with the team. Here’s the latest:

…In exchange for her release, the U.S. government will reportedly send convicted international arms dealer Viktor Bout back to Russia, according to CBS News.

Bout, nicknamed the “Merchant of Death,” was sentenced to 25 years in prison after being convicted of, among other things, conspiracy to kill Americans. Retired U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, who is also currently imprisoned in Russia for the past four years on espionage charges, is reportedly not part of the prisoner swap….

Now you know. Grinning, ear to ear!

नमस्ते

[U] Hinderaker Wants… Antitrust Law Re-Cast… As A Version Of “Woke” Capitalism?!

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It is sad.

John Hinderaker… needs a gripping (and wedge issue/divisive) narrative, desperately. Three weeks ago now, it was — being racist, in suggesting falsely that most of Target’s crime upsurge was primarily from black and brown people… to tonight, where when the Sherman and Clayton Acts have something to say about Kroegers and Albertsons groceries getting together… it is (wait for it!) a form of “woke capitalism” at play.

That’s just… precious. When gas prices rise, John won’t blame the oil oligopoly. He blames Democratic politicians. But it is actually due to Clayton Act-violative suppression of US market price competition at work, there.

And tonight he cheers GOP Congress-critters (Arkansas’ GOP Rep. Tom Cotton, primarily) telling one of the two grocery chains… the GOP doesn’t want to see the law evenly applied here.

UPDATED: I realized, about an hour after writing this, that my mocking him might be mistaken for a view that I don’t think the cynical GOP stance on US antitrust enforcement is a serious problem. It certainly IS.

This idea of Rep. Cotton’s, that he will not evenly apply the black letter US law — a law that has nearly nothing to do with any “(imagined) liberal” cause, but instead is about robust market competition… solely to punish business interests that do not donate enough to GOP coffers (a direct bribe), or more indirectly — and commonly, by using non-enforcement, to punish companies that support LBGTQ+ friendly policies, or are progressive on social equity, or seek to end racist policing / profiling… is truly totalitarian. Russian, even. Cotton will not press the Antitrust Div. of the DoJ to look at a merger which injures price competition in many markets for groceries, because the one to be wiped out… was too liberal for his tastes — and so, his constituents will pay arguably unlawful higher prices… for his vanity.

That is… in a nutshell, everything wrong with Hinderaker’s GOP compatriots. End updated portion.

So — when John soon has to pay $15 for a pound of coffee in his Marianos (owned by these chains), he will again blame “Democratic politicians” — instead of the failure of Republicans to insist that violating the US antitrust laws (in force, since the end of the 19th Century)… is somehow whatever he thinks “woke capitalism” is, and is at fault.

The guy really is out to lunch. Senile. Utterly.

Out.

Epilogue: Not Since FDR, In 1936…

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The graphic pretty much says it all.

In every mid-term election from 1940 until this morning, the sitting President’s party had lost seats in the Senate, at the mid-terms.

The conventional poly sci wisdom was that in the modern era, most often at least some substantial part of the electorate always feels the new administration is moving too fast, or too radically — so they turn out to blunt that in the Senate, the upper chamber.

Here, as last was true in 1936, with Senator Warnock’s historic Georgia win (the first full term for a black Senator from Georgia, since Reconstruction), Mr. Biden’s party has not lost seats… in the Senate.

And, personally, it is gratifying to me at least that Sen. Joe Manchin (nearly R.) will not be the gate-keeper of the Democratic initiatives in the United States Senate — he is no longer the “blocking” vote.

We may move forward, even if he opposes a measure, or a hearing, or… a criminal referral.

S W E E T.

नमस्ते

Uganda Has No More Patients “In Hospital” — So, It May Mean No Sudan Vaccine Candidate Trials, This Time Around…

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Clearly, we are thrilled to see no new cases, now in about four elapsed weeks… and yet, this means there may be two few contacts remaining, to vaccinate with any candidate, for a sufficiently powered “n” in the clinicals.

Thus, there may be no clinical trial of any Sudan variant Ebola vaccine this time around — and while that is a potential loss for science, and more importantly, for those who will become ill, the next time this unique strain appears… it is good to know that Uganda is now only a few weeks away from an “all clear” declaration.

We bring you the latest (mixed news), then — from the online magazine curated by Science.org:

…Last week, Uganda announced uplifting news about the Ebola outbreak that surfaced there in mid-September: The last known patient had recovered and been discharged from a hospital. Health officials hope that signals the spread of the virus has slowed dramatically, if not stopped altogether. Yet the aggressive containment efforts that led to the waning of the outbreak also means a quickly arranged trial of experimental ebolavirus vaccines faces formidable hurdles.

The goal of the so-called ring trial is to test the efficacy of the vaccines by giving them to contacts of known cases. But the number of potential participants is dwindling fast….

But Mark Feinberg, who heads IAVI, a New York City–based nonprofit that has the rights to a Sudan ebolavirus vaccine, says, “Whether the study will start or not I think is an open question….”

Now you know. And it does not make any ethical sense to run a trial on “contacts” who are no longer at any real risk. While all the vaccine candidates appear to be very safe, even a small risk is… not defensible, now. Onward — smiling on a gray morning, just the same: progress.

नमस्ते

Of Continuing, But Absolutely Trivial, Pursuits: Hinderaker And Johnson… Cannot Understand Why A Business… Might Make… “Business” Decisions. Damn.

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Again, John and Scott are whining this morning.

They whine and wail, because no one — literally, no one — besides the sad, embittered and misshapen losers from the 2020 cycle (they lost by over 8 million votes!)… think there is any real “story” — let alone, any remotely disconcerting legal import, to the Musk/Twitter thread on some dumb old laptop.

It is almost as if the Powerline boys forget that they were very vocal proponents of the Supreme Court’s social engineering… in the Citizens’ United holding.

[Gosh, boys — it positively sucks, that the aging whyte right wing of the Supremes did not / could not foresee… that “old school” big, moneyed corporate interests… would not always predominate, in the decades ahead (and/or the rise of social media as a non-MSM, non-gate-kept, information sharing tool) and that… such “new economy” businesses might NOT always seek to tilt elections in a conservative manner. Sucks, for you embittered whyte codgers.]

Welcome to the post-2010 world, boys. Every bit of your Musk / Twitter / Hunter story is… silly. There is no “there, there” — even if it were all true. And it is not… all true.

H I L A R I O U S.

Making Very Big Strides, In Astronomy, With The Aid Of First Peoples, In Australia… Soon To Be World’s Largest…

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The SKA, a project lashing hundreds and hundreds of thousands of small “tree” receivers, and multiple hundreds of dishes together, via software that very precisely controls slewing motions on all, so that they work in unison as one very large scope… should be evident in mid-2024, when four dishes in Australia and six antenna stations in South Africa start working seamlessly together as a basic telescope. This proof-of-feasibility in the software will allow the much larger, multi-continent array’s full power-up.

It is indeed a privilege to be alive and well, right now — the moment in human history when contact might — just might — become possible, and… detectible, by our species. Here is all of it, from an excellent Beeb feed:

…”The SKA is going to contribute to so many areas of astronomy,” said Dr Shari Breen, the observatory’s head of science operations.

“One would be these ‘fast radio bursts’ that have been detected. These things output the equivalent of an entire year’s worth of energy from our Sun in just a fraction of a second. And we have no idea what they are. How is that possible? Hopefully the SKA will have an answer.”

The telescope is being built in areas already used for radio astronomy on a smaller scale.

To expand these sites, however, has required various land agreements, with farmers in the Karoo; and with the Wajarri Yamaji, the Aboriginal title holders in the Murchison.

The Wajarri community… organised a Monday celebration to inaugurate the SKA….

We will keep smiling into the night skies, those of our kin asleep now, in London, Belfast, Westport, Dakar and Tel Aviv… are smiling back… as are those closer to home — to the south….

नमस्ते

Michael Ramirez Is A Fabulously-Talented (If Hard Right) Political Cartoonist…

~ condor ~ 1 Comment

But I won’t begrudge him the ability to make a very comfortable living pandering to the hard right outlets, which in general, have long-lacked any really serious cartooning talent (since the 1980s, at least).

[Why that is true is a topic for an entire book, or at least a long post of another day. To sum up, hard-right wing fantasies are mostly… unfunny. Prime example of that, at immediate right.]

But Doonesbury — and my friend Rick Laurent (at left), and all the hundreds of other true geniuses… offer a reality based, or generally left to middle perspective. In any event, this Sunday morning, Powerline highlighted a Ramirez ‘toon, that purports to criticize Mr. Biden for NOT speaking up more forcefully, in support of the “blank paper” protests now coursing through China — related to lockdowns for COVID.

Maybe Mr. Biden could say more — but Mr. Ramirez misses the fact that overnight, right here at home… Tangerine went full-on “Ye”. [So I’ve helpfully improved his cartoon, as satire and commentary, at top-right. It goes with my critique of Mr. Hinderaker’s sophistry, of last night, late. Cheers.]

Donald Trump just called, in a clearly-prepared writing, for the repeal (or at least suspension) of all election laws, state and federal — and the US Constitution’s similar provisions… to declare him the 2020 winner… due to (wait for it!) some Tweets.

Wow.

Ahh… okay.

Y’all better come get yo’ boy.

He (like Ye) is clearly off his meds.

I just fervently hope… he stays in the race all the way to the GOP’s 2024 nominating Convention.

There will be NO GOP left, by then.

Flawless.

More Hinderaker Angst — About The Monster He Personally Created?!

~ condor ~ 1 Comment

Last night we watched Hinderaker whine about the notion that corporations have free speech and association rights (and the right not to speak), after Citizens United. That companies might do what maximizes ad revenue for them… or amplifies what a majority of their viewers want to talk about (or not talk about)… is unsurprising, and plainly lawful — ethical, even.

Tonight he’s in full-on pearl-clutch mode, because his formerly “serious president” wants to explicitly suspend the US Constitution, and declare himself winner / dictator from 2020.

That is indeed nuts, John. I agree with you.

Now, accept YOUR responsibility for the monster you’ve personally worked very hard to create — and promote.

The narcissist whose foibles you personally nourished for five long years.

He’s your (hard right GOP’s) abomination.

You must deal with him. We sane people were done with his malevolence five years ago — we resisted him for four, then voted him out by a margin of well over 8 million votes in 2020.

All the while you fed his crazy conspiracies, and seditionist-dreams. You weaponized his insane anger / fever — to launch Proud Boys and Oath Keeper attacks on our Capitol.

He’s solely… your mess, to clean up — not ours.

Out. Yes — he will hang around… until the GOP brand is dead and buried in a bright orange grave. And… likely, even beyond then, too.

Congrats!