Category: Uncategorized

I Won’t Make Too Much… Of The Supposed “Trump’s Judge” Effect…

~ condor ~ Leave a comment

But I will note that she actually sent out an order, in a civil lawsuit BEFORE Trump’s team had even filed to get (let alone served) a summons. That is unprecedented, at the trial court level — where a TRO proceeding is NOT underway. And Team Trump couldn’t even figure out how to ask for a TRO, or file an actual complaint at law. No, they started with an entirely… unserved “motion”. Crazy.

Judge Cannon did so even though Team Trump had not asked for a TRO, or other “emergency” relief. Wild.

I won’t make too much of it… because she won’t matter, in the bigger picture.

And that is so, because the DoJ under Merrick Garland already answered her in a measured. . . but entirely acid-washing fashion. Mr. Bratt let her know just now (at 10 AM Eastern on Monday)… politely of course… that she is. just. too. late. And he closed with this ominous sentence — not even very… politely:

…Additionally, the Department of Justice and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (“ODNI”) are currently facilitating a classification review of materials recovered pursuant to the search. As the Director of National Intelligence advised Congress, ODNI is also leading an intelligence community assessment of the potential risk to national security that would result from the disclosure of these materials….

That’s short for… you, and your boy Tangerine (should you persist in trying to “out” these national defense documents) are putting our people’s very lives in danger. What a clown show — from Trumpland.

Of course, the actual malevolence is from Tangerine — as he had these for 15 months minimum, in an insecure location. But USDC Judge Cannon, by shilling here for the guy who appointed her… is out of her depth, off the map — and may make a fatal / lethal mistake — if she doesn’t start actually following the federal rules of civil procedure, in her court-room — and “preliminary” rulings.

Yikes. 18 USC § 793(e) is no joking matter, madame.

नमस्ते

Update On Seagen — Merck: Asking Price / Paying Price Disagreements… Over $10 Billion Apart?

~ condor ~ Leave a comment

Toward the end of last week, we saw this — but were awaiting some more solid confirmation as to how big the price gap is.

It seems we are not likely to get that information, in the near term — but my experienced hunch is that the parties are at least $10 billion apart, on a ~$40 billion deal. So. . . this may take a bit — settle in, if it is to happen at all:

…[T]he company, formerly known as Seattle Genetics, [has become] one of the world’s most successful biotechs. In short order, it became an industry leader in antibody-drug conjugate research. Seagen has earned FDA approvals for three cancer treatments since 2019 after its first nod for Adcetris in 2011.

An acquisition would likely become the largest in the biopharma industry since AbbVie’s $63 billion buyout of Allergan in 2019. The same year, Bristol Myers Squibb snapped up Celgene for $74 billion.

But the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) would likely scrutinize a deal between the companies. The antitrust enforcement unit has been tasked by the Biden administration to curb monopolies and to specifically target the pharma industry to combat high drug prices….

Over the last few months, as Merck and Seagen considered the move, one of the key factors at play in determining the value of Seagen was impending data from a trial of its bladder cancer drug Padcev in combination with Merck’s Keytruda….

Now you know. Onward, grinnin… ever grinning… these things do vibrate to their own rhythms in time.

नमस्ते

Launch: Scrubbed — Engine Flange Leak Issue Re-Appears…

~ condor ~ Leave a comment

So… this is unfortunate news, for everyone.

Apparently, in an echo of the late 2020 original leaking problems seen in test firing these engines, this morning NASA had to scrub the launch, due to leaking in a flange, on fuel-up, with hundreds of tons of liquid oxygen.

Again, I want only the best here — but perhaps it is time to rethink this budget, and mission sequence.

…The launch director halted today’s Artemis I launch attempt at approximately 8:34 a.m. EDT. The Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft remain in a safe and stable configuration.

Launch controllers were continuing to evaluate why a bleed test to get the RS-25 engines on the bottom of the core stage to the proper temperature range for liftoff was not successful, and ran out of time in the two-hour launch window. Engineers are continuing to gather additional data….

In any event, onward — grinning into a sunny but later likely stormy end of August Monday. Be excellent to one another.

नमस्ते

Scott: Again? Et Tu?!!?

~ condor ~ Leave a comment

Damn. These idiots don’t know when to quit.

This morning, Scott digs his own hypocrisy hole deeper, by the minute. I think this is his THIRD post purporting to say there are things wrong with forgiving about $10,000 in student loans to the average lower income borrower.

He does so, by claiming it is… (inexplicably, for him at least) unconstitutional.

Funny — he was mum when Tangerine used this same legal maneuver to give vets a break during the middle of the bared teeth of… COVID-19.

But even funnier, I think he and Hinderaker still own substantial stakes in the local Minnesota bank they long ran, as law partners. That bank, I am told, received PPP loans into the millions of dollars.

Those loans were never repaid — they were wiped out — and in favor of a guy with a more than $5 million liquid net worth. A guy in the top one half of one per cent of all Americans, in terms of stored wealth.

The irony meter… she’s pegged off, scale high, to the right now.

S H E E S H.

What We May See, Added To, In The Barrack Seven Count Felony Trial

~ condor ~ Leave a comment

By mid-September, we will be deep into covering Thomas Barrack’s felony trial.

But tonight, we see some more of the sort of things his lawyers are trying to keep away from the eyes of the jurors.

I mention this, because it is our operating assumption that at least some of the national defense documents already reviewed and sorted any Main Justice from the Mar-A-Lago search warrant returns… include previously missing originals that implicate Mr. Barrack, and perhaps, Mr. Trump.

We will wait to see.

But you heard it here first.

Bub-bye, Tangerine-man.

[Bumped] John’s Evidence Free Claims About Lockdowns… Are Sad, Really.

~ condor ~ Leave a comment

Hinderaker once again tells demonstrable lies about public health. In most jurisdictions, this is a civil offense. But in some, it is a… crime.

When will the powers take notice? We shall see.

Original Dateline — 12.28.2020: Here now — Mr. Hinderaker, let us reason together, with some actual… science. Not mythical opinion pieces built on a single physician’s… Canadian anecdotes.

The proof is pretty clear from CDC that stay at home orders do mitigate the effect of subsequent surges.

“…Although the “distancing” produced by the mandated business closures and by the restrictions on nonessential out-of-home activities slowed the spread of the COVID-19 virus, the analysis also suggests that business closures played a disproportionately larger role in reducing the positivity rate. This finding can inform the debate over the tradeoffs faced in the development of anticontagion policies and may affect calculations of the net economic cost of those policies (19). The economic disruptions resulting from the mandated business closures, which included a historic increase in
the number of people out of work, may be very damaging (20,21). At the same time, those closures led to a considerable decrease in the positivity rate, resulting in fewer serious illnesses (and fatalities) and potentially large reductions in health care costs….”

Let us at least use real data, John. You are better than this implies. Or, you once were.

Geez.

[U] The Davy Crockett / John Hinderaker Feckless Irony Tour Rolls Into Town…

~ condor ~ Leave a comment

Updated — 08.28.2022 @ 8 PM EDT: So, it turns out that there are other interests, including a bank, in which Hinderaker still owns a substantial stake, that also took PPP welfare queen bucks. I’m trying to run down those totals… how very… whyte of him. End update.

Well… when Hinderaker decides to double down on idiotic sophistry… he certainly overshoots his target!

I. Cannot. Even.

Here, on a Sunday morning, fresh from his church service, no doubt — John would sneer, and lecture us anew — using none other than the voice of Davy Crockett, the pro-slavery (and enslaving) Tennessee legislator, and previous largely mythical Tennessee frontiersman.

Wow. This is… rich.

John is yammering on about not providing government give-aways to widows of war dead (in the coon-skin cap of Crockett). As we proved last week, John’s think-tank took about a fifth of a million dollars in… government give-aways, under Trump, less than two years ago — while he was residing in the top one tenth of one per cent (no-doubt) on net worth, in the USA.

At least the Naval widow Crockett would have denied living sustenance to was abjectly… poor. Nearly starving.

But John took his piggy-trough / snout-full, all while being a likely $8 plus millionaire.

Damn. What an a-hole.

And he begrudges kids a $10,000 per student relief measure, each likely making one one-hundredth of what he makes a year.

Hinderaker’s blog: where irony goes… to die. [Candace Owens’ TV show, too.]

Hinderaker’s Demonstrably False Narrative — On Electricity Bills, 2022.

~ condor ~ 1 Comment

Hinderaker is a uniquely malevolent idiot.

Tonight he seeks to blame rolling black- and brown- outs on… green energy sources.

Uh-huh.

Well, we’ve spent no less than 50 posts explaining how the privatized Texas grid (the center of the storm John is whining about!)… is corrupt.

Not by green energy interests mind you, but by the legacy oil family wealth, and the “Enron by design” nature of that non-system.

So, sit down moron — and learn something.

GOP controlled Texas did essentially nothing to ameliorate the pernicious effects of the Enron debacle, even after Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling went to jail (and then Ken Lay died; two decades later, so too did Skilling).

The ERCOT privatized grid is run for the benefit of private energy family control, not the public good, in Texas. It has been this way for almost three decades now.

And Riot Blockchain chose to throw in, 100%, with those pirates. [Updated: Riot has shut down in Texas.] Hilarious. The latest is that Gov. Abbott is begging the ordinary people to sweat it out, and use less electricity, because the entire grid is about fifty years behind on capital investment and improvements.

But Texans as a group pay more than almost any other states’ retail residential customers (fifth highest rates / consumption, overall) — in their electrical (non-utility) bills.

Here’s the story:

…Texas gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke knocked Gov. Greg Abbott (R) on Sunday night after the state’s grid operator appealed to Texans to “voluntarily conserve electricity” during a statewide heat wave on Monday.

“The governor of the 9th largest economy on earth — the energy capital of the world — can’t guarantee the power will stay on tomorrow,” O’Rourke said in a Tweet. “We need change.”

The “conservation appeal” issued Monday by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) said no major outages were expected, but asked people to consider reducing electricity use from 2-8 p.m. local time….

And Riot Blockchain is already shutting down, from 3 to 7 each afternoon/evening. How many MORE hours will the company be “offline” each day, as to heat? And we know the company won’t get paid for NOT drawing the electricity, unless all the residential customers pay their bills (perhaps over $1,000 each, per household, here in June-July)… in full.

This is what a captive (to robber-barons) government looks like: death to the poorer people.

But Hinderaker cannot say that — that these deaths are the designed FEATURE of the legacy Texas oil family money. No — so he makes alternate forms of energy his whipping boy — even though there is no evidence to support that nonsense.

Out.

The Crypto- Ice Age Will Persist Into Late 2023…

~ condor ~ Leave a comment

It would seem that Coinbase’s CEO Armstrong is right about one thing: the Ice Age is far from over. Maybe late 2023, now.

Coinbase is completely revamping its fee model, knowing that the days of $300 per trade are gone… forever. It will now charge all users a tiered monthly subscription fee. [On the NASDAQ, Coinbase stock is down over 80 per cent since the November 2021 highs, in both its stock and Bitcoin broadly.]

This is particularly ominous news for Riot Blockchain, as trading churn is most of what drove prior Bitcoin price rallies. Now, these customers will have a real incentive against day trading, to keep fees manageable.

So… in the coming weeks, look for Riot to cut staff, mothball the second Texas facility buildout… and increase the prices it charges for hosting. All to conserve capital and cash.

Even so, it won’t be… enough. Down she goes… with a Bart Simpson haircut pattern (trading ranges saw-toothing). Grin…

Namaste…

Artemis (Uncrewed Version) To Launch Tomorrow… I Wish The Team The Very Best Of Luck.

~ condor ~ Leave a comment

Even as I do, and you know I love rocket launches… I will renew my concern that Artemis’s mission sequence — ultimately returning human boot-falls, to the lunar surface… is not of the same scientific discovery moment as say… different, more radical robotic missions into deeper space, to plumb the origin material of our galaxy (and the Universe, more generally).

Of course, if we had unlimited funds to spend in/on space exploration, this all wouldn’t matter. But we do not.

We will need to critically evaluate each of the next four proposals, and likely only two will be funded, in full — in the next decade.

So this moon money could go to completing two more very worthy missions, at lower all in costs — and likely greater scientific returns.

Now I will hush… grinning, just the same: Fly well, Artemis!

नमस्ते