Status Report/UPDATE: On The Four DECADES Of Flores Class Litigation — In LA — About Treatment Of… Children (And All Others) At The Southern Border…

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The orders are clear, from the US Supreme Court, down to the trial courts: children must be have unlimed access to drinking water, fed nutritious food, given toothpaste and toothbrushes, provided warm and sensible bedding, private sleeping arrangements, and regular showers with soap, and daily outdoor recreation and once of school age — meaningful educational opportunities — via computers, in their own native language(s).

That is the minimum our own signed protocols on refugees has required, since 1978. [You will recall, that we earlier learned in this litigation, that as of May 31, 2026, Trump agents had held a 12- and 14-year old, locked in a windowless hotel room for more than nine days (by the government agents’ own admissions), without access to any outside contact… utterly… alone. Disgusting.]

Both versions of Trumpian 1.0 and 2.0 cruelty have intentionally violated these laws — mostly at the direction of Stephen Miller. When this is over, he should be held accountable for his “war crimes” — since the malign idiot claims preposterously this is an “invasion” — and has tried to invoke emergency/war powers, here [both times].

These people must be brought to justice, once we hold the reigns of power in the Congress, once more. Here’s the latest court filed status report, out of LA:

…Both sides acknowledge that since mediation started in January, the number of class members at Dilley and the average time in custody have decreased; educational services offered to younger children have been enhanced; older children have been provided some access to educational activities on computers; and there have been some improvements with respect to the menu and hygiene products.

[The children’s lawyers /] Plaintiffs’ position is that the improvements to the menu and hygiene products have been insufficient. In addition, Defendants have allowed Dr. Paul Wise to conduct site visits at Dilley on March 5, 2026, March 24, 2026, and April 23-24, 2026 and received his recommendations and feedback….

With respect to the notice of Flores rights, Plaintiffs provided Defendants a proposed written notice of Flores rights on April 15, 2026. [Trump] Defendants have not yet responded to Plaintiffs’ proposal or offered a counterproposal….

As a result, [the children’s lawyers /] Plaintiffs see no reason to think progress will be made on this issue. Defendants’ position is that they are still considering Plaintiffs’ proposal and their own position or alternate proposal….

[The Trumpian] Defendants assert that their consideration has taken time because of the weighty issues and numerous agency components involved. [Ed. Note: this is purely foot-dragging, while violating existing court orders Trump himself agreed to — in the era of Tangerine 1.0, when faced with both Ninth Circuit, and Supreme Court losses.]

As set forth in the parties’ recent reports to the Court and during the June 1, 2026 status conference, Plaintiffs’ position is that the conditions at Dilley continue to violate the FSA, and Defendants’ position is that they do not.

At this time, Plaintiffs believe that the parties’ mediation efforts are at an impasse due to Defendants’ current position on some issues and the lengthy delay in response time on other urgent issues….

So it is likely to still be in issue — at least until Trump leaves office, in 2028. Damnation — these are… children. This may require USDC Judge Dolly Gee in LA to start to impose sanctions, on the Trumpian lawyers, for willfully violating her eight years’ worth of remedial orders. Damn. Again, these… are…

CHILDREN. Out.

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A THIRD Fatality, Caused By Kenyan Police, Identified — From The Protests Against Trump’s “Ebola Camps”: Sylvester Muigai Ndung’u, A Student.

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All of this bloodshed (scores injured), and death — is directly attributable to Donald Trump’s lawlessness, and malign idiocy — in matters of public health / epidemic abatement.

We have several Ebola treatment facilities in the US — all first rate. We have a collective bargaining agreement — one that promises foreign service workers a pass home, and treatment in these facilities, should they contract Ebola. But Trump — feckless dotard that he is — is forcing Kenyan authorities to build “leper colonies / camps” in that country — instead of honoring his obligations to our own citizens.

Unsurprisingly, ordinary Kenyans do not want Ebola stricken US citizens housed inside their cities. So they have been taking to the streets, by the thousands. And the police have shot and killed at least three protesters, including the teenage student at right.

Here’s the Sunday Beeb — on these deplorable developments:

…The mother of teenager Sylvester Muigai Ndung’u found his body in a mortuary in the central Kenyan town of Nanyuki two days after he went missing.

The 17-year-old was killed on Tuesday in clashes between police and demonstrators during a protest over a US plan to build an Ebola quarantine centre at a nearby military base.

Lucy Kagure had been searching for her son in hospitals and police stations and eventually discovered his body at the mortuary, where he was listed as an unidentified male. . . .

“When I found him, half of his head had been split open. His clothes were soaked in blood,” she told the BBC….

His head was likely split open by a tear gas cannister fired at him, from very close range.

Dammit — this makes American “policy” just… the worst — of the worst.

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[Kicker: Knicks, Champs!] USDC Judge Cummings In Chicago Releases Another 10 People Grabbed (Lawlessly) In The Last Six Months By Noem/Bovino/ICE, Under Order To Enforce Consent Decree Of 2019.

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Bit by bit, the courts are ending last summer’s reign of terror — by Noem and Bovino and Miller… AND Tangerine 2.0.

I won’t link the full PDF as it lists too many identifying details as to the ten, and I will not put them at risk from private militias — or even rogue ICE agents, again — but here is the central feature, in anonymized text:

…For any of the above ten individuals that remain detained, defendants are ordered to facilitate their immediate release on their own recognizance and without bond or conditions of release as specified in Section IV(E)(2) of the Decree, (Dckt. #155-1 at 9), by no later than 5:00 p.m. CT on June 16, 2026.

With respect to those individuals who have already been released, but on bond and with conditions, defendants must take action to refund any bonds and remove all conditions on or before 5:00 p.m. CT on June 16, 2026. Defendants shall file a certification by 5:00 p.m. CT on June 17, 2026, that all individuals have been released on their own recognizance and without bond or conditions of release as required by Section IV(E)(2) of the Consent Decree….

As stated on the record, defendants will produce the remaining approximately 100 files for the individuals purportedly subject to targeted arrests on a rolling basis, and shall complete that production by no later than July 3, 2026….

Now you know — and onward, to a grilled, dry-rubbed ribeye tonight (rare) — and now, actually — at 11 PM… a Knicks title — the first, since 1973 and the days of a young Walt “Clyde” Frazier. Woot!

नमस्ते

Children And Refugees — In A Crowded Camp Of 30,000+, In DRC Conflict Zone — Now Presenting With… Ebola. Awful.

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This is going to get much worse.

And it didn’t have to be this way. [This, even as Gilead donates 2,000 vials of remdesivir — a therapeutic — to the DRC health missions. This amount is far short of what will be needed though, to be clear.] Here’s the latest — from CIDRAP:

…Among the dead are two victims who were living in a displacement camp in eastern DRC, which has been plagued by conflict between the government and rebel groups. According to Reuters, the mother and daughter, who died on May 31 and June 1 and later tested positive for Ebola, were living in a camp that’s hosting 30,000 internally displaced people in cramped and unsanitary conditions.

“We are all really worried that Ebola in these camps will spread extremely quickly and that there will be panic and people will flee all over whether or not they’re contacts, whether or not they’re ill,” Caitlin Brady, country director for the Danish Refugee Council in Congo, told the news agency.

Officials with the World Health Organization (WHO) said the number of affected health zones in DRC is growing.

“Every day, cases are being identified in new health zones. And that reflects really the scale of this outbreak, a scale that is much bigger than what is being detected and the high mobility of the population in this part of the DRC,” Olivier le Polain, PhD, of the WHO said at a press conference today….

This may well become the second worst outbreak in recorded history — even as world-wide, various entities are racing to develop both therapeutics — and a mRNA vaccine, for the current “Bundibugyo” variant of the Ebola virus.

[We won’t update our totals in the graphic, as it is not clear that the “official” counts are accurate. They ignore hundreds who were ill and died — before the world became aware that a new outbreak was underway. We will update our counts to match the official WHO count, when/if the totals reach 1,000 “official” deaths, next.]

This is a fraught moment, indeed. Onward, resolutely — just the same.

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Hinderaker: Utterly (And Disingenuously) Confused — About Why People Don’t Like Musk.

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Tonight, and preposterously so, Hinderaker claims that it is only “the liberals” — who distain Elon Musk.

Nope.

In fact, John himself admits that he would not invest in Musk’s SpaceX, unless the stock price falls — to one-half of where it is, now.

He correctly observes that absolutely nothing in the stable of businesses as presently constituted remotely justifies $1 trillion valuation.

But instead of saying Elon Musk is a serial securities fraudster, John leaps to the wild eyed conclusion — that “liberals” are just envious — and hate/reject the idea of anyone having their “own” property. What a preposterous load of crap that — and he — represents.

Let us instead consider the fact that Musk regularly lies about his public companies; consider that… is a felony under the ‘34 Act, John.

Thus, the Twitter/X-itter case study:

…In a pitch to private investors, Elon Musk once predicted that one of his companies would quintuple its revenue to more than $26 billion and nearly quintuple its customer base by 2028.

That company was Twitter and those projections were made as Mr. Musk prepared to buy the social media company for $44 billion in 2022.

Today, Twitter, which has been renamed X, has fallen far short of what Mr. Musk said would happen. The social media platform’s ad revenue plunged 65 percent last year. And it was ultimately folded into SpaceX, Mr. Musk’s rocket company, this year ….

Those are facts, John. Not wildly irrational prejudices.

Prejudices — like the ones which you clearly hold — about “liberals”.

Personally, over the last five years, I have now heard dozens of GOP voters / genuine conservatives… lament the level of dishonesty that both Trump and Musk regularly exhibit.

Some of them even specifically call Musk a securities fraudster. That’s not a liberal opinion, and that’s not a hatred of all property. That’s a respect for the rule of law. Sadly, you are no longer similarly afflicted.

You’re just a bitter and old man.

Cheers.

This Marks 28 Close Passes — Around Sol — For Speedy Parker. Well Beyond Designed Life, Already. Cool!

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We have closely followed this mission for nearly a decade now, when the probe was being assembled. This is hugely gratifying, that it has performed flawlessly — and for so long. This is what the best and brightest can do.

Here’s the latest, from NASA | JPL this morning:

…During this 28th solar encounter, which started June 3 and ends Saturday, June 13, Parker’s four scientific instrument packages gathered data from inside the Sun’s atmosphere, or corona. Parker will begin returning detailed spacecraft telemetry on June 14, with science data transmission set to run from Wednesday, June 17 to Tuesday, June 30.

Parker’s observations of the solar wind and solar events, such as coronal mass ejections and the aftermaths of flares, are critical to advancing humanity’s understanding of the Sun and the phenomena that drive high-energy space weather events that pose risks to astronauts, satellites, air travel, and even power grids on Earth. Understanding the fundamental physics of space weather enables more reliable prediction of astronaut safety during future deep-space missions to the Moon and Mars.

Parker also equaled its record-setting speed of 430,000 mph — a mark that, like Parker’s distance to the Sun, was set during a close approach on Dec. 24, 2024, and matched during five flybys since, most recently on March 11. Parker will continue matching these speed and distance records during future flybys….

Onward — and skyward, indeed. Let’s see what Spielberg sees — beyond the close encounters — to sustained terrestrial contact/co-habitation, now. Smile….

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Merck Continues Its Animal Health Empire-Building, Here In The US — Thus, Decreasing Price Competition… So It Goes.

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Ahem. Many longer term readers will recall all the back and forth, and deal-doing / swapping that took place about 15 years ago — to resolve antitrust concerns, when Merck acquired Schering-Plough, and thus its Animal Health businesses (which SGP itself had earlier acquired by buying EU / Organon). Those days are long gone — but the bottom portion of the graphic recalls that era.

This present era involves Rahway buying up the portion it does not already own — of the privately-held poultry health company called Targan (which makes the WingScan assembly, depicted above right — for diagnosing and then innoculating chicken, at scale). There is still some concern that between Pfizer and Merck, there are only really two in the US on this field. But antitrust enforcement is no priority of the current administration. So it makes sense to get this deal done, now. Here’s that, from local NJ outlets:

…Rahway-based Merck Animal Health, a division of Merck & Co., Inc., announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire TARGAN, a privately held innovator in developing and commercializing biodevice solutions to improve performance outcomes for the poultry industry, for an undisclosed purchase price.

Merck Animal Health has invested in TARGAN since 2017 and has been one of the company’s largest shareholders.

The proposed acquisition is expected to be completed in the third quarter of 2026, subject to approvals from applicable regulatory authorities and other customary closing conditions.

“The acquisition of TARGAN’s best-in-class biodevice technology for use in commercial hatcheries complements and accelerates our growing biopharmaceutical presence in poultry and increases our ability to deliver significant customer value globally,” said Rick DeLuca, president, Merck Animal Health….

Now you know — onward, to a matinee of “Disclosure Day“… the new Spielberg offering. . . smile.

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[U: Market Cap = ~$2 Trillion?!] Me? I Believe “A Fool And His Money… Soon Go Separate Ways.” That Said, I Could Be Wrong About The SpaceX IPO — But I Doubt I Am.

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Updated @ 11:50 am EDT: the stock made its second trade at $150 — well over the $135 issuance pricing. It is now trading around $160/share, on the NASDAQ — giving the company an over $2 trillion market cap, for the moment. Hilarious. End update.

We previously “looked under the hood” — to see that this set of companies (previously privately held under Musk’s cone of silence — as to GAAP financials) are very much about sizzle — and very little actual… steak, today.

Some financial pundits are loudly decrying the relative dearth of the original issuance shares in the IPO set aside — the “allocation”, reserved for retail / mom and pop investors. [Personally, I am glad. Most will own it anyway, at least in small portions — in a blended form — through mutual funds / institutions that will buy in tonight, and start trading tomorrow.] Some are also upset about the “take it or leave it” (unprecedented) approach to pricing the offering. I concur — that is… stupid (for the retail investors).

While Musk clearly re-invented the auto industry, over a decade ago, making electric vehicles both practical, and sought after, that may be his only truly revolutionary legacy. All the rest, to my eye — looks mostly like… snake oil. And it comes in a very misogynistic / racism-laced package. So — for me, that’s a hard pass, as I said.

In any event, here’s the latest, from a tech/financial expert panel, at the NYT, tonight:

…MIKE ISAAC: A lot of folks are (rightly) wowed by the astronomical valuations Musk’s bankers are proposing, which reach into the trillions. I’m more fascinated with the products he claims SpaceX will build to get them there.

They feel plucked straight out of a Philip K. Dick novel: Asteroid mining. Unlimited energy to power data centers. And those data centers, mind you, will not be situated on the ground, but rather in low-earth orbit. And last but not least, fashioning himself the first hotelier in charge of your vacations on the moon. [Ed. Note: All here know I am a huge booster of real space science — this from Musk is anything but that.]

All of that is built into forward-looking revenue projections for this company. This feels irrationally exuberant even for Musk, who is practically defined by rattling off things that feel ridiculous to even consider….

[T]he reason you’re seeing Musk and his bankers tout these high trillion-dollars figures for what is called the total addressable market, or TAM. Retail investors need to believe that the stock will grow if they are considering buying it, and Musk needs to convince them that we’re in early innings. But the company’s filings show it is losing money and spending a lot.

RYAN: If you believe in Musk’s vision, then you may think that the $1.77 trillion valuation is a great deal because eventually SpaceX will control orbital A.I. data centers, factories on the moon and a human colony on Mars. But Musk has a history of making promises and falling short….

RYAN: Much of what Musk says he or his companies will do simply does not come to fruition. Our colleagues recently tracked some of his promises over the years and how they’ve panned out. On the other hand, some achievements — Tesla’s mainstreaming of electric vehicles, or SpaceX’s development of semi-reusable rockets — have developed or shifted industries….

So, he’s had some successes, true — but in many ways, this feels like he is laying his least sensible private bets off, on a gullible set of external investors. We shall see. But it should pop tyomorrow — with the main question being whether the exuberance will still be evident. . . in a week’s — or a month’s — or a year’s… time. Hmmm.

नमस्ते

Mirengoff Cannot Distinguish Between Fictional Humans, And Exaggerated Finances, In Books…

~ condor ~ 3 Comments

On a day when the Senate has killed the Tangerine 2.0 nominee for head of the CIA, one would think that Paul would write something about that… since he excoriated the Preznint for choosing Pulte — in the first place.

But no, his blather today is all about how unfair is that a woman with wealth who wrote a memoir about her divorce travails, but exaggerated how little wealth she had left, after the divorce…

…wouldn’t be treated the same as a 20 year drug addict who entirely made up characters in his book and events, provoking a very public rebuke from Oprah Winfrey (two decades ago, no less).

Both books were sold as non-fiction so I get the general argument.

And true — the woman telling the divorce story is a well-known whyte heiress. She has lived her whole life in the lap of luxury. [And thus, she did libel and defame her
lawyer / ex-husband who turned out to be a hedge fund manager… also whyte. But that is much more a matter for the civil suit. Should he wish to bring it.]

But it is ridiculous that Paul thinks she is somehow worse than the drug addict of 20 years ago.

All of this wasted ink… is about Paul’s need to complain — curmudgeon that he is — about what he delusionally sees as reverse discrimination.

I just find it too precious by half.

And largely trivial.

Our nation faces many grave threats, and this is how he spends his time.

Charming.

In Evanston’s Reparations Challenge, Bifurcated Discovery Scheduling Set: USDC Judge Kness…

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The City of Evanston will get immediate discovery — to prove the Fitton shills blew the statute of limitations.

That will end this nonsense — and likely allow the City to recover its attorneys’ fees, from them. Here’s that text entry:

…MINUTE entry before the Honorable John F. Kness:

The Court adopts the parties’ proposed briefing schedule on Defendant’s motion to bifurcate discovery [45]: Plaintiffs’ response shall be filed on or before 7/10/2026. Defendant’s reply, if any, shall be filed on or before 7/24/2026.

An in-person motion hearing is set for 8/6/2026 at 10:00 A.M….

Now you know — and the Knicks’ OG Anunoby and Jalen Brunson engineered the most extreme come-back in NBA Finals history last night — causing Spike Lee to almost. . . stroke out. Hilarious.

One more win, to the first championship for the Big Apple since 1973, and Clyde the Glide. Wow.

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