We respond…
Last week, the Supremes denied (without any explanation) Candace Owens any review of her utter loss, in Delaware — on claims that fact-checkers had libeled her, and that (she claimed) FB and Twitter had interfered with her contractual relations.
Hilarious — see the top of page 10, right here.
Onward, grinning — what a sad and delusional… loser she is.
Actually, the able US AG filed almost an hour… early. And she just buried Trump:
If Justice Thomas has any other notion in his mind — other than dismissing Tangerine, outright — I am certain there are five solid votes at the Supremes to deny him, via a terse opinion. Here’s the government’s fine 34 page argument, hot off the digi-presses — as it were:
…[N]otably, applicant [Trump] has not even attempted to explain how he is irreparably injured by the court of appeals’ partial stay, which simply prevents disclosure of the documents bearing classification markings in the special-master review during the pendency of the government’s expedited appeal.
Applicant’s inability to demonstrate irreparable injury is itself sufficient reason to deny the extraordinary relief he seeks in this Court. Indeed, applicant does not challenge the court of appeals’ determinations that applicant will suffer no meaningful harm from the limited stay, App. A at 27-28; that the government would have been irreparably injured absent a stay, id. at 23-27; and that the public interest favors a stay, id. at 28-29. As the court explained, “allowing the special master and [applicant’s] counsel to examine the classified records” would irreparably injure the government because “for reasons ‘too obvious to call for enlarged discussion, the protection of classified information must be committed to the broad discretion of the agency responsible, and this must include broad discretion to determine who may have access to it.’” Id. at 27 (quoting Department of the Navy v. Egan, 484 U.S. 518, 529 (1988))….
[After over 16 months of obstruction by Trump,] [t]he government executed the warrant on August 8, 2022. The search recovered more than 11,000 documents from the storage room and applicant’s private office, roughly 100 of which bore classification markings, with some indicating the highest levels of classification and extremely restricted distribution. App. B at 4 & n.4; see App. D at A51 (photograph); App. G (inventory). In some instances, even FBI counterintelligence personnel required additional clearances to review the seized. D. Ct. Doc. 48, at 12-13 (Aug. 30, 2022). ….
In sum, Tangerine will not (because he cannot!) explain how he is harmed by the government having access to its own top secret documents, to prosecute a grand jury proceeding, after a judicially-sanctioned search warrant was issued, properly served and executed — the obvious objective of which is to obtain an indictment (on suspicion of numerous felonies), against Trump himself. Game over.
Onward, grinning….
It is unclear whether the single case is being monitored in Karachi, or Islamabad — these would be the two cities with most of the international flight traffic. I suspect Karachi, but that is unknown. What is known is… that Pakistan’s NIH has adopted the same procedures for flights out of Uganda, that the US had, as of October 6, 2022 (as we reported).
Obviously, with no working and approved vaccine in hand for this variant, any spread away from the local central Africa geographies is of concern. It is not alarmist to worry that a plane, with an exposed person’s fluids, left Pakistan… and then flew on to other points, toward Asia (if it was headed north and east, out of Uganda, originally). I would expect similar screening fences to go up throughout Asia and Europe shortly. Here’s the latest from SAMAA, an in country Pakistani TV outlet:
…The NIH issued on Tuesday an advisory about the possible Ebola outbreak in Pakistan, instructing institutions concerned to stay alert….
According to the latest advisory, the Central Health Establishment will monitor people arriving from Uganda, while the suspected Ebola cases coming to Pakistan will be reported to the NIH.
Suspected Ebola cases arriving in Pakistan will be quarantined while samples from suspected cases will be sent for testing under the national guidelines, the NIH said….
Now you know — and do stay safe in crowded indoor public places, even here in landlocked US cities. The mask certainly cannot hurt. Onward… looking for some smiles now, out of the DART briefing from NASA, but with Italian space science teams on the dais as well, at 2:00 PM Eastern.
नमस्ते
About a week ago, Ginkgo Bioworks announced an up to $500 million stock mix and match equity shelf offering, for longer term capital needs. This news today will help offset the decline in its share price occasioned by that coming dilution. But that raise was not one of desperation, like we are seeing in many other verticals outside of the life sciences.
It is a solid move, by a long term player. And this announcement confirms that. This is also good news for Merck, finding more environmentally friendly ways of getting from raw materials, to finished drugs and therapies. The roster of Ginko’s existing collaborations reads like a who’s who of 21st Century pharma (as the first paragraph of the pull quote indicates):
…Ginkgo, which has also partnered with Roche, Biogen and Moderna to improve their manufacturing formulas, will develop up to four enzymes for Merck in a deal that could be worth up to $144 million if specified milestones are met.
As explained by Ginkgo, biocatalysis is an alternative to some chemical synthesis and purification steps, allowing for cost savings in manufacturing. . . .
In early 2020, Ginkgo teamed with Moderna to help process optimization for raw materials used in mRNA vaccines. A Ginkgo deal last year with Biogen was designed to develop recombinant AAV vectors….
Now you know… smiling at the sunny fall mornings we are enjoying.
नमस्ते
I don’t know who is feeding these old geezers their meds… or more likely is cutting the doses short… but this is embarrassing — on John Hinderaker’s behalf.
In describing a Canadian border crossing, he tells us that the Irish and English may legally migrate here without papers — of any sort.
Obviously that is untrue, as John’s own quoted US Border Patrol press release indicated. Clearly US BP had proof they were not mere tourists, otherwise they could not stop them. But John tells us… what so many racists always say: they could come as tourists, and then just disappear into the interior.
But given his racist stripes… he thinks no Mexican or Venezuelan may do the same (because he presumes they cannot afford air travel). Damn. [OTOH, I suppose he must (errantly) believe that the lawless Trump rules are still in effect — about favoring whyte immigrants from English speaking geographies / northern EU countries.] Here that is, in context:
…Since when do we get illegal immigrants from Ireland and the U.K.? They are generally happy where they are, and can easily get here legally….
No more “easily” than someone from… say… Mexico, son.
Just damn.
He’s a lost… soul. Wearing the stars & bars, on the regular — now.
Y I K E S.
It is no doubt true that hard right male frothers — especially younger ones — face very slim pickins’, for female dates who share their warped views, regardless of mundane things like income level and/or physical appearances.
And it would not shock me to learn that the “dating app” in question was created by subversive progressives / leftists. Very privately. That is plainly lawful activity.
But unlike John, I seriously doubt that the FBI would create such a thing. [As to any agency of government — spying on US citizens is a no-no, without full probable cause, on US soil — under the Fourth Amendment, you see.]
But could a hacker collective / group like Anonymous… create a faux dating app pitched to hard right boneheads, collect their data and answers — and then leak it to law enforcement?
Of course. That is exactly what Mr. O’Keefe, and his Project Veritas have been doing now for seven long years — but directly targeting progressive political movement adherents.
Even so, wiretapping is still a felony in this setting, as O’Keefe is finding out.
But back to John’s fever dream: he took it seriously, and signed up for the dating app, because someone told him it asks the candidates to answer an open ended question, viz:
“January 6, 2021 was __________________________________________.”
So, even though Steve Martin, Farah Fawcett-Majors and Arnold Schwarzenegger (as very young people), among others… appeared on the original “Dating Game” on ABC… I highly doubt John will make the cut, here.
And I highly doubt his loony spin on it all as a mole operation.
Geez, John — up your evening doses — of Ketamine.
This is a relief, for Merck. Not that it cannot afford ~$11 billion between friends, but much better for the shareholders that it won’t turn out to be a dry hole in the ground, now.
Here is our 2021 concluding backgrounder on the orginal acquisition deal back and forth (and to be sure, there are about 10 more if you search the name “Acceleron” in the box, at right). And here is Fierce Biotech — with all the morning’s deets:
…Cardiovascular med sotatercept passed a phase 3 test as an add-on treatment for patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), improving patients’ six-minute walk distance after 24 weeks, the company reported Monday. Sotatercept also showed statistical significance on eight of nine secondary endpoints.
In a release, President of Merck Research Labs Dean Li, highlighted the med’s ability to extend time to a clinical worsening event, saying that was “especially noteworthy.” There was no statistically significant improvement in patients’ score of their cognitive and emotional state, the sole secondary endpoint failure. The company did not expand on the drug’s safety profile but said it was similar, “in general,” to the phase 2 safety profile.
“We are moving with urgency on our regulatory applications to bring this investigational therapy to these patients,” Li said….
Now you know — smiling on a perfectly sunny and cool fall Monday morning, here.…
नमस्ते
We could say so many things about how malignantly idiotic the NY Post is, on the daily. So too, its would-be Minnesotan pied piper, Scott Johnson.
Here at noon on Sunday, while the Bears battle his Vikings, he writes of an immigration crisis. But it is, like so many things MAGA… not quite the one he imagines.
First, the numbers have increased because Tangerine used unlawful means to choke off immigration — for four years. Now we are back to a lawful approach. The numbers will naturally rise.
But more than this, the ACTUAL “crisis” is being felt nationwide: workers are in very short supply, especially outside of major cities in the US. And doubly so, in the building trades and so called “blue-ish” collar jobs.
As the coastal Floridians in red zones are about to learn very painfully… in addition to being unable to rebuild in a flood plain (no insurance payment) there, they will be unable to find enough people — to pound the nails, essentially at any price.
Scott may very shortly find that he will no longer have a reasonably priced gardener, because that guy can make more (up to 5X a week!) building slap-dash replacement homes now, down in sunny Florida all winter — and escape the minus 45 degree insanity of January, outside Minneapolis.
And he likely won’t come back, to the upper Great Lakes — next summer.
Yes — the crisis is here — but it is one of… Trump’s crippling our economy (and driving inflation as well, on a two-year delay) by removing perhaps up to three million new laborers (eager to make at least a near-living wage) from our markets.
But Scott and the editors of the NY Post prefer to traffic in racist tropes, and hope to energize the listlessly idiotic MAGA-nauts with invective, toward November.
DAMN, Scott. Just… damn.
Grow up.
Under 18 U.S.C. § 951, a felony statute, Mr. Barrack was required to disclose very specific things, about his ongoing efforts inside the UAE, to give the oil-sheiks things they wanted, from Donald Trump as president of the US. He disclosed none of those things — choosing instead to fax in a bunch of blank pages, signed by him.
He then had his lawyers argue, two weeks ago — that it was just “harmless business stuff”. Paperwork. Like not having a water permit. But he was purporting to sell American interests, in secret — to a foreign power. And he did just that, the evidence so far shows. He will be convicted, Condor predicts.
This week (week four in Brooklyn, I think) the government will offer experts to explain why we the people must know when someone with the president’s ear (like Barrack and his billions) is actually being paid by, and working for… frenemy governments. Here’s how the able government attorneys describe what’s coming, and a bit:
…[T]he defendants [Barrack, et al.] will doubtless (continue to) argue that business-related aspects of their conduct suggest that they were acting lawfully. The arguments clearly suggest, as all but expressly stated by Mr. Schachter in his opening statement, that the jury should not care about the charged conduct. Having argued to the jury that the charged conduct constituted a lawful commercial transaction, that the acts were “literally, the most meaningless, most inconsequential acts that you can imagine,” and that the charges “are nothing short of ridiculous,” the government is entitled to ensure that the jury weighs the relevant facts with an appropriate understanding that engaging in political influence activity without registering under FARA is unlawful (regardless of knowledge of the statute), and that the (multi-page) forms required to be submitted serve a real and important purpose, including with respect to the information gathered and its dissemination to the Secretary of State, Congress, and the American people. In this connection, Ms. Hunt’s testimony will briefly explain the sorts of conduct that fall within the registration requirements by reference to the forms that registrants are required to submit….
The government emphasizes that it does not intend to elicit testimony regarding the availability of criminal prosecution for FARA violations, or regarding the mens rea (or any other) element of civil or criminal liability under FARA. Rather, the testimony will orient the jury to the nature of the information that must be provided to the government, and to the American people, by agents engaging in political influence activities on U.S. soil at the direction of a foreign government and add facts necessary to complete the highly misleading picture painted by defense references to meaningless conduct and single-page [largely blank] faxes….
[Updated on 10.11.2022 — Judge Cogan has ruled that this FARA testimony is not needed, and potentially confusing — but the basic 951 stuff will come in.] It is hard to overstate… how egregiously the bulk of America’s interests, around the globe, were being auctioned off — in secret — by friends of Tangerine… for four long years. It is time to bring them to heel, in orange jumpsuits, too — for it all.
Out.
नमस्ते
So… the political tool — who sits as Florida Surgeon General, under DeSantis… put out a deceptive, non-peer reviewed “press release — pretending to be a study“.
The “study” simply aggregated self-reported Florida hospital based events, and is of the kind that is classically subject to (even unconscious) human post hoc researcher bias.
Significantly, it excluded anyone who was boosted — and it excluded everyone who actually contracted COVID-19 at any point. [More on that in a second — but that, right there, is your researcher bias problem — exclusions.]
But DeSantis (and now Hinderaker) willfully lied when he said young people (19-35 year olds) are dying at “alarming” rates (cardiac events, is the claim), after first vaccination. In this case, “alarming” simply means that 4 people, as opposed to three, in the otherwise-healthy 19 to 35 year old group had a cardiac event. Damn.
It is subject to the classic fallacy of “drawing wide conclusions, from small numbers” (limited sample size).
And the political presser itself admits that the risks, all in — from getting COVID-19 (or a variant), and not surviving — even on the FL / skewed data — greatly outweigh the tiny risk of a cardiac event. Greatly outweigh here means an over 40 times risk reduction from accepting the vaccine, as opposed to foregoing it — if your fear is a cardiac event, from a vaccine. [That’s a vanishingly-small risk.]
But these GOP/MAGA forces need a Florida wedge issue, to drive the ignorant toward the polls — so… this will be it, going into November. [“The govmint’ gonna’ force yo’ children to get a deadly shot!”]
And Hinderaker is happy to put ignorant young Floridians at substantial risk for this.
He is a… senile, embittered old… monster, now. Apparently, all that matters… are political soundbites.
