Category: Uncategorized

[U: Newer Post] Another Young Man, In Louisiana — And Another, In Kenosha, Wisconsin… Overnight. Roger Goodell: “Too little; too late.”

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[See newer post. Hinderaker has decided to tell us what Mr. Blake “did wrong“. It is will be up — at that link in moments.] I will be brief — as I am largely out of words. NFL Commish Goodell, above and at right, tells us he wishes to “atone” for marginalizing Kap.

Trump continues to affirmatively lie — and will tonight, at his “Klan-demic gathering” — about what these kneelings, he now well-knows — mean. [Hinderaker — doing exactly the same as his “master“… for over four years, now. Here’s a nutty idea, Roger (and one that might actually do some good!) — why not now loudly denounce Trump, for his libelous lies about it all? Why, indeed?!]

And just this weekend, two more unarmed young black men are shot by local law enforcement.

This is… too little; too late, Roger.

Everyone else: get out and vote, either in person or by mail, and leave no doubt: get rid of the racist in chief.

Out.

नमस्ते

[U, X2: FDA statement; Hinderaker idiocy.] More Theatrics — Trump’s Abuse Of The Esteemed FDA…

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UPDATED, after Trump presser — the FDA weighs in on Sunday night, thus: “…The FDA continues to recommend that the designs of ongoing randomized clinical trials of COVID-19 convalescent plasma… remain unaltered, as COVID-19 convalescent plasma does not yet represent a new standard of care, based on the current available evidence….”

So, I see Mr. Hinderaker now thinks clinical trial good practices… are — in some unexplained manner — “Trump Derangement Syndrome”… me? Trusting real bio-science, I decline this invitation to join in John’s… delusions.

End, update.

I will say very little about this, since it really won’t change things much. And even with 70,000 patients in the trial, it is not immensely clear that the benefit is… durable. But there is a statistically significant benefit, based on early data.

So this gets added to a now-emerging suite of approaches — but it is no game changer. We may confidently predict that Trump will… lie about it, vastly overstating its importance — primarily to boost his own increasingly fragile ego, as he enters a lack-luster convention week. Here it is, as the Wa Po captures it, in real time:

…On the eve of the Republican National Convention where President Trump hopes to revive his flagging political fortunes, he will announce the emergency authorization of convalescent plasma for covid-19, a treatment that already has been given to more than 70,000 patients, according to officials familiar with the decision….

Y A W N. I do support finding the sweet-spots, in therapy — for this scourge, but I oppose the president’s political hectoring — about it all. Onward, grinning — at what a completely feckless idiot Trump is…. Bike time — by the lake — in the sunshine, now!

नमस्ते

Will Trump EVER Actually… Do Anything — On Pharma Pricing? I Bet… Not.

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[Back to my power-alley, for a moment at least, then… all as I last said on July 25, 2020:]

I greatly respect the writers — and especially, the editor in chief (a personal friend), over at STAT+. . . and they’ve nicely put forward the journalistic case for why tomorrow may be a very important day, for PhRMA members, on US pharmaceutical pricing.

But — but — but… based on now three plus years of bluster and no action — or impotent actions which plainly exceed his authority, under our founding documents — I am pretty firmly of the view that tomorrow, or the day after, PhRMA will collectively genuflect, toward… 1600 Penn… express some earnest concern. . . and then. . . do nothing. And Trump will likewise. . . do nothing, save of course to lie about actions he’s never signed, or the Congress has never passed — as he campaigns toward November.

His base is so congenitally stupid and non-curious — as we’ve long seen — he could tell them (preposterously!) Mexico would pay for a wall (and only use that lie to bilk his followers for charity money, via Bannon), and they’d believe him — and (stunningly, then) donate millions of dollars — to Bannon.

So, his lying about having done nothing on US drug pricing should come as scant surprise here. I doubt anything comes of it, but here is the STAT+ ($$ subs. req.) article just the same — do go read it all:

…Drug makers and their lobbyists are struggling to agree on a strategy that would convince President Trump to back off a highly controversial drug pricing policy that he vowed to enact on Monday.

This week, the group, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America convened three calls with member companies to discuss how to respond to an ultimatum that Trump laid out in July. . . .

Gee — three whole… calls?! I’d say there will be some polite promises, through clenched teeth, in a Boston Brahman accent… and… then poof… Nothing. As it has been — since 2010. On to November — and a change is gonna’ come… smile.

नमस्ते

[U: Video.] As A Cap-Stone — The Pledge WAS Recited “Under God”, John — By Kids, At The DNC… On TV.

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John’s lies are catching up to him, again.

In point of fact, on Night Four, the Democratic National Convention showcased a diverse group of brilliant elementary schoolers reciting the pledge (actual video footage HERE) — WITH the phrase “under God” prominently enunciated… so as to prove the frothy right is full of fear-mongering liars.

Liars like John. Of course, truly courageous Democratic atheists and agnostics take no affront, for they well know who most protects their right to dissent. And it is not the GOP. The atheists and agnostics in our big tent (rightly, I think) focus more closely on the “one nation” part, and realize that we Democrats are open to a system of no belief, or agnosticism as well.

Not so the vast majority of John’s GOP. See image at right.

Oh and… we can read… Amendment First, for comprehension, unlike 45 and his GOP goose-steppers. Separate church… and state. See?

Enough said. Finally — I’ve put this bit of John’s excrement at the bottom of the post, because it is such a bold-faced lie… and I don’t intend to dignify it with a considered response (it is here only in case John tries to delete it — down his “memory hole”):

“…Like its attack on white people – 65% or so of the electorate! – the Democrats’ attack on religious believers, probably more than 90% of voters, is hard to understand….”

Hard to understand… only until you realize Hinderaker is (again!)… lying through his teeth.

Out.

Here you go, John — you… liar:

On COVID-19, John Is… Stupid. Rinse. Repeat.

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Again tonight — with a British article — claiming it proves (what he claims was too harsh an) American approach… killed people needlessly.

He’s right, but in precisely the opposite way of that which he… imagines. It was Trump’s non-approach that has now killed nearly 176,000 — and will certainly kill more than 200,000 by mid Fall 2020. I’ll repeat my last one on this, below. [But John does admit now that we will see it with us, for many years to come. I guess that’s… progress(?) of a sort, on John’s part. I dunno.]

Cheers, moron.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

John Hinderaker tried to say… something… something… about his COVID-dissonance, tonight.

He decided to cut and paste some goofy charts made by a far right think tank’s doctor/talking head for (get this!) the supremacy of free enterprise… to suggest (falsely, of course) that the efforts to flatten the curve killed more than a “no approach at all” would have.

Uh-huh. He assumes a whole library of “facts” not anywhere in evidence, or even in… existence. [Common sense tells us that we cannot know — collectively — with any confidence, what a path we did not take would have looked like.]

He offers… Sweden, as his “woulda’ coulda’ shoulda‘” model. That’s preposterous — as I detailed when Paul M. tried it, about 30 days ago.

More concretely, he ignores, among other things, that with a nationalized health care system in Sweden, people there are generally far more healthy (via a better starting base) than the average American. He ignores that the Swedes are about 30 per cent wealthier — and ten years younger, on average than the average American, in no small part because the Swedes receive various benefits (like health) essentially without regard to anyone’s ability to pay for it.

There are only about 10 million Swedes in that country, and thus the pool he looks at is 1/30th the size of the US. It is thinner, younger, smokes less and shares a strong sense of united national identity.

But from this comparison of “fish, to bicycles“… he comically “deduces” that a “no lockdowns” scenario, nationwide, would have saved us many net lives, in the US. The main problem is… in his own chart… no less… he blithely ignores the Texas data — which (as his goofy doctor points out)… was (mostly) a no lockdowns approach.

And now it is a runaway kill-box. If there is any microcosm / comparator, John — for your argument — it is… Texas.

And it proves… almost conclusively… based on all data since July 15, 2020… that more people are dead because of it.

Moron. See your own chart. But use both inductive reasoning, and some bio-science — as well as some math skills, next time. What a chuckle-head.

More O/T Good Ju Ju: Billy Porter — For The Win, With A Buffalo Springfield Cover (S. Sills)…

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From evening number one, at the generally excellent Democratic National Convention:

Excellent, indeed!

Both Steve H. and John Hinderaker1 singled it out (the latter deludedly claiming that police are being abused, these days) for derision. So… of course it is staying here.

Out now… grinning!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

1. Hinderaker notes the lyric “what a field day — for the heat…” — which of course, was in the 60s a euphemism for the police — the heat. The original was released in December of 1966. I do remember it clearly: two years hence, as a protest song, this was it — referring later to the brutality of the Chicago cops at the ’68 Democratic convention (where one Bernie Sanders was beaten and arrested)… John implies that it is the police who are mostly being beaten in the streets, these days. Not even his own undercut remix supports the telling.

He is… one precious… lost little lamb, of course. Out.

[O/T] NASA/JPL Space Science Saturday: Following “One Hot Copper Ride”, To Mars — In A Sublime NASA/JPL CGI Rendered Model…

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We sorely once again need… to get off world — away from the ugliness that is (hopefully) the dying embers of the Trump maladministration… so — NASA obliges, with an enhanced HD version of its sublime “Eyes On…” app series.

See it all here — and download it to your phone, as an app, or to your laptop — from the links embedded there:

“…With all our orbital assets circling Mars as well as Curiosity and InSight on its surface, there is new data and imagery coming in all the time about the Red Planet,” said Jon Nelson, visualization technology and applications development supervisor at JPL. “Essentially, if you haven’t seen Mars lately through Eyes on the Solar System, you haven’t seen Mars.”

Dozens of controls on pop-up menus allow you to customize not just what you see – from faraway to right “on board” a spacecraft – but also how you see it: Choose the 3D mode, and all you need is a pair of red-cyan anaglyph glasses for a more immersive experience.

You don’t have to stop at Mars, either. You can travel throughout the solar system and even through time. The website not only uses real-time data and imagery from NASA’s fleet of spacecraft, it’s also populated with NASA data going back to 1950 and projected to 2050. Location, motion, and appearance are based on predicted and reconstructed mission data….”

Let us all try to remember — there are no visible lines, de-marking borders (allowing claims of rights to exclude peoples, who may or may not look. . . like some of us) — as we look back at Earth in real time.

We are all just month to month tenants here, not landlords, at all — on this tiny, fragile shiny blue… life-raft… in a nearly-endless sea of empty… night. What we do (or fail to do) for our fellow humans, young and old (on COVID-19 protections, or asylum requests)… will echo — in eternity — now. So do be excellent — to one another.

नमस्ते

Proof That The Parties Have Hit An Impasse (Due Solely To Trumpian Lawlessness): Govt. Clearly Stone-Walling In Flores Litigation…

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Team Trump, via Sarah Fabian, has now stopped cooperating in meet and confer sessions, despite ongoing orders from the able Judge Dolly Gee in Los Angeles, that Ms. Fabian, and the Trumpian DHS, ORR, ICE, HHS and BPS are required by the terms of the Flores consent decree, to do so.

Overnight, a status report, marked to show changes from the last one (in blue) — makes clear that Ms. Fabian is doing nearly nothing to advance compliance with court orders. See this six page PDF (a bit is quoted below).

Given this, and the fact that children are suffering ongoing harms, due primarily to these lawyers’ foot-dragging — it is now appropriate for the able judge to start issuing contempt citations — to all the involved government lawyers (ones with heightened duties here, since child welfare is clearly being impacted by this US malfeasance) — all as we’ve repeatedly previously set forth. Here’s the latest bit:

…[The Trumpian] Defendants have known that in addition to other concerns relating to data collection which as stated above have now been resolved, under Paragraph 28 of the FSA the Juvenile Coordinator is required for each detained Class Member to “collect information regarding the reasons for every placement of a minor in a detention facility…” (Emphasis added). Paragraph 29, in turn, states that Defendants “shall” provide to Class Counsel “the information collected pursuant to Paragraph 28… and each… policy or instruction issued to [Defendants’] employees regarding the implementation of this Agreement.” This concern is not “vague” as Defendants state below. Neither the FSA’s language nor what Plaintiffs seek is “vague…”

As clearly explained in the Joint Status Report filed July 31, 2020, at 17-18, Defendants have simply not provided Class Counsel with the information identified above. This is hardly news to Defendants….

I now truly hope the DC bar authorities give Ms. Fabian a call (or dash off a less formal e-mail), and explain her duties to her, in detail — before they send out a letter of formal complaint.

Onward — to an evening under the stars… grinning just the same.

नमस्ते

[U: Tiny Counter Rally.] In Which John Offers More False Equivalency… Y A W N.

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UPDATED @ 10 PM EDT — 08.22.2020: It seems the MAGA-ats cannot draw much of a crowd, even if Hinderaker tries to get the word out, in little old Hugo, Minnesota.

The image at right is probably too generous in depiction of actual crowd size. Here is from that local account — not quite the coverage Hinderaker had hoped for, I gather:

“…Organizers at Saturday’s event had harsh words for Republican leadership for canceling.

“Your Republican representatives left you high and dry today,” said organizer Michele Even. “Rather than represent the citizens of this state they chose political indifference….”

That’s just… precious. End updated portion.

Here again, underneath all his to-be-expected illogical forms of argument, he makes it increasingly clear that “Black” — insofar as “people” are concerned — is not… “normal“… in his view.

Given that MAGA people are now taking over this local rally, it is on margin, more — rather than less — likely to be a complete snooze-fest turn violent. That is a documented fact, in the Midwest, at least. Here’s John, overnight:

“…I think that is good. There is no reason for normal people to be intimidated by Black Lives Matter thugs. My guess is that the Democrats’ threats will come to nothing…. It is unlikely that any “mainstream” news outlet will break the media vow of silence when it comes to Black Lives Matter….

UPDATE: A group of Trump supporters called MAGA-sota is stepping into the breach….”

John Hinderaker: racists’ racist. No doubt left, about it. WTAF — with the “normal people“, John? John…? John…?!

Out.

Sarah Fabian, Dissembling — Again. No Surprise — But… Deplorable.

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I won’t spend much (any) time dissecting what scant legal argument / analysis may actually be offered in these two filings, tonight — other than to say… most charitably… Ms. Fabian is being… pedantic (again). Here is one (on Title 42); and here is the other, a more general opposition/objection.

And she is — as ever — wrong, on the law.

Underneath all of that, though… is the unmistakable fact that these are… children. In most cases, isolated, vulnerable and very young… children. Most do not speak the language the government agents speak — and these children are… in government custody (jail, effectively).

To read Ms. Fabian, one might think each of them is a hardened criminal, a high-value drug cartel detainee (perhaps), with a history of murders and mayhem, in their personal wake.

As I argued before — Ms. Fabian is now subject to bar discipline in DC, for failing her duties as an officer of the court — as to the safety and welfare of these children (in my experienced opinion), under California and federal law.

I. Am. Done. With. This. “Machinery of Death…”… to borrow a phrase.

And yes, I am now (based on the copious prior evidence, in multiple trial and appellate open court hearings) firmly of the opinion that she is… what HRC called a quintessential “deplorable“.