[U] And Yet Again, Oh Manchurian Cantaloupe, You Cannot Morph The US Post Office… Into Your Private Election Goon-Squad. Damn.

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Once again — for at least the fifth time, across Tangerine 1.0 and 2.0, Baby-T has been TRO-ed or enjoined, from using the US Post Office as a means of political intimidation. [The legacy graphic at right is from Tangerine 1.0, as old DeJoy tried some similar lawlessness — and was thwarted by a WA State federal court. I won’t bother to make a new graphic — Trump’s lawlessness here is simply… obvious — again. And now a Boston federal court has said so, again — after a DC one did a month ago.]

Here is the very well-reasoned ruling. It will be affirmed as the law of the land, but not until after Novemebr will it reach the Supremes (so the purported rule will not impact the mid-terms):

…On emergency review, on August 24, 2026, the United States Supreme Court concluded that this court lacked jurisdiction to review challenges to the EO’s constitutionality where it was speculative as to whether the USPS would (1) propose a rule; (2) weigh the comments; and (3) issue a final rule consistent with the EO’s directives. Trump v. California, 609 U.S. __, 2026 WL 2473573, at *4 (Aug. 24, 2026) (per curiam). . . . The Supreme Court explicitly noted, however, that the disposition of the government’s emergency application “does not mean that any measure taken by the Government to implement the Order will necessarily be lawful[….]”

[Almost immediately,] the USPS [has] gone ahead and noticed a proposed rule, solicited and reviewed comments, and issued a Final Rule. See 91 Fed. Reg. 54966….

[Under the proposed final rule,] State or local election officials must submit their ballot envelope and return envelope designs to the USPS for approval, id.; and (3) after obtaining approval of the return ballot envelopes, but precludes election officials from uploading voter information until the USPS approves the ballot envelopes and return ballot envelopes. 91 Fed. Reg. at 54991 (DMM 705.24.4.2(f)). And where a State or local election official does not obtain envelope and return envelope design approval, or does not upload voter information, or does not include unique intelligent mail barcodes on ballot envelopes, the USPS will not mail ballots to voters. 91 Fed. Reg. at 54991 ballot envelope and return envelope designs, State or local election officials must input each voter’s information into a USPS-run electronic portal, 91 Fed. Reg. at 549991 (DMM 705.24.4.2).

The Final Rule provides no timeline for USPS’s approval of ballot envelopes and return ballot envelopes, but precludes election officials from uploading voter information until the USPS approves the ballot envelopes and return ballot envelopes. 91 Fed. Reg. at 54991 (DMM 705.24.4.2(f)). And where a State or local election official does not obtain envelope and return envelope design approval, or does not upload voter information, or does not include unique intelligent mail barcodes on ballot envelopes, the USPS will not mail ballots to voters. 91 Fed. Reg. at 54991….

Plaintiff States promptly challenged the Final Rule in a new action, and Plaintiff Organizations promptly supplemented their complaint to add allegations regarding the Final Rule. In the pending motions, both groups of Plaintiffs seek preliminary injunctive relief and request that the court stay Defendants’ implementation of the Final Rule, pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 65….

Defendants now claim that Plaintiffs are too late “because appellate review in the ordinary course would come too late for the 2026 midterms.” But the question is not when appellate review will be completed. The issue before the court is whether Plaintiffs have met the traditional standards for emergency relief…. [And so, the court TROs the inane rule.]

Updated — 08.28.2026 PM: Yawn. Silly Trumpers have appealed a “TEMPORARY” restraining order. This sort of brainless gambit has failed them repeatedly before. But they never learn. That’s the whole Friday night update — you cannot appeal a temporary order, knuckleheads. Only final orders may be appealed, silly rabbits. End, update.

It is as plain as the nose on your face — as a matter of black letter federal law — that the Post Office cannot be used by 1600 Penn to change state and local law, on mail in voting (to suppress votes from less mobile humans).

That is not a federal concern, at all — unless the mail-in process is disenfranchising protected classes of would-be voters — and then, it is the sole province of the DoJ. Here, Tangerine would purport to stand the law on its head, to stop lawful votes from being counted. Insane — but onward, resolutely just the same. Ever, onward.

नमस्ते

The Lament Is “Too Little; Too Late”, Mr. Hinderaker. For The Damage YOU’VE Done.

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This man’s rhetoric has evolved into pure lunacy.

Hinderaker preposterously believes that he is exonerated from all the evil that Tangerine 1.0 and 2.0 have wrought, simply because once in a while, he might mildly scold him.

Hinderaker and Trump do have one thing in common: they both are increasingly senile, and delusional.

That would matter very little for a has been Minnesota racists’ racist lawyer, who is independently wealthy, and about whom no one cares any more.

But that guy admits he voted for this monster three times. Even though this monster takes a 1940s era, widely-published / idiot chart ranking the presidents, doesn’t even bother to update it for Kennedy or Reagan, or Nixon or Eisenhower — nor even either of the Bush presidencies… and then proclaims hisssself the “greatest president in US history”.

This sort of BS is exactly what John voted for. Thrice. This was all widely known — the “manchurian cantaloupe” has always just been a venial, small-minded criminal.

And for Hinderaker to suggest otherwise… just makes him not only a liar but a very stupidly transparent liar.

Out.

Mere Words Won’t Suffice — Nor Will Images — You Must See The Energy Of It, For Yourself. The Crowds Are The Whole Story.

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I will offer only the below pull-quote, to explain what the words at the top of the building mean.

The crowd provides incredibly positive, joyous energy — but the rest of the wonder… you will have to discover for yourself, if you can score a ticket:

…What Are These Words?

Out these windows, Chicago’s South and West sides unfold.

It’s an image framed by what President Obama has called some of the most important words of his presidency — capturing his idea of what America can, and should, be.

You are America. Unconstrained by habit and convention.

Unencumbered by what is, and ready to seize what ought to be. Everywhere in this country, there are first steps to be taken, there’s new ground to cover, there are more bridges to be crossed.

America is not the project of any one person. The single-most powerful word in our democracy is the word “We.” “We The People.” “We Shall Overcome.” “Yes We Can.” That word is owned by no one. It belongs to everyone.

Oh, what a glorious task we are given, to continually try to improve this great nation of ours.

— President Barack Obama
Selma, Alabama, March 7, 2015….

Onward, grinning… and grinning, widely. But, you’ll likely not depart without shedding at least a few tears — some of joy; some of sorrow, for what’s been lost. But we will “run this back” — that, I vow. Onward.

नमस्ते

More Encouraging Vaccine Candidate News, To Fight Bundibugyo/Ebola — From An Egyptian/German Bio-Collaboration…

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The Lord knows, we need additional approaches, inside Ituri and Bas-Uele — in DRC, with over 5,500 now afflicted, and over 2,700 dead — and still expanding rather wildly.

Basing its approach on the Zaire model that worked well in prior outbreaks, Egyptian Minipharm (with the assist of its German unit, called ProBioGen) is now ready to test a new vaccine candidate against Bundibugyo, on the ground. Here’s all that, from Fierce BioTech — as ever:

…The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) has committed up to $16.5 million to push Minapharm’s Bundibugyo vaccine candidate into the clinic, furthering its response to the Ebola outbreak.

In recent months, more than 2,700 people have died in the Bundibugyo ebolavirus outbreak, primarily in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Seeking to suppress what is now the second-largest Ebola outbreak on record, CEPI called (PDF) for proposals from companies with promising vaccine candidates against the pathogen.

Minapharm answered the call. Working with its Berlin-based unit ProBioGen, the Egyptian drugmaker is developing a vaccine candidate based on the modified vaccinia Ankara platform. A similar technology has provided long-term immunity against Zaire ebolavirus, a related pathogen….

Now you know — and the Obama Center is well-worth a cross country trip — if you can secure timed admission tix. I’ll have more here later, including some sample imagery. Smile… a lovely morning here.

नमस्ते

NASA | Goddard Spaceflight’s “Pandora” Mission Is Intently Imaging Exo-Planet Transits, From A Low Earth Orbit: Mini-‘Scope Tech!

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Using only a very small craft, and a low Earth orbital trajectory — this lil’ guy is both very economical, and very efficient. It will help inform future JWST passes of these exo-wonders, looking for liquid water signatures at the most promising of them. Do read the Goddard Spcelight introduction — and watch the clever YouTube, below.

My tickets for four hours inside the Obama Presidential Library are up today at noon — so I’ll have more on that, tomorrow — but in the mean-time, this will likely be today’s only entry. Here’s Goddard’s blog:

…The results of the mission will lay a firm foundation for interpreting measurements by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, as well as future observatories focused on finding habitable worlds. In fact, Pandora’s near-infrared detector is a spare originally developed for Webb.

“The spacecraft is healthy and all of the instruments are performing as well as we could have hoped,” said Jordan Karburn, Pandora’s deputy project manager at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. “Our team’s hard work throughout the commissioning process has paid off, and we can now confidently start science….”

Launched into low Earth orbit on Jan. 11, Pandora is an ambitious small satellite (SmallSat) funded by NASA’s Astrophysics Pioneers program. Pioneers are designed to explore compelling questions about the universe with fast-paced, low-cost missions that require a higher-than-usual tolerance for failure.

Three factors make Pandora unique. It carries a novel all-aluminum telescope about 18 inches (45 centimeters) in diameter, it will study planets and their host stars simultaneously in both visible and infrared light, and it will observe targets for a much longer time than flagship observatories like Webb are able to….

And, Goddard’s video explainer:

नमस्ते

This Sunday Morning, The Nancy Grace Roman Space ‘Scope Will Liftoff, For A Minimum 5 Year Mission…

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Now almost two decades in the planning-to-execution, this excellent deep space science project is. . . ready to take to the inky black depths, about one million miles from home.

I am keeping my fingers crossed that the Musk rocket will perform to specs on this lift. Here’s the latest, on scheduling:

…NASA and SpaceX are targeting Roman’s liftoff for no earlier than 7:26 a.m. EDT Sunday, Aug. 30, aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Launch coverage begins at 6:20 a.m….

Named for NASA’s first chief astronomer, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will pair sharp infrared vision with a field of view at least 100 times larger than the agency’s Hubble Space Telescope. Its crisp, sweeping surveys will help scientists investigate dark energy and dark matter, discover and characterize exoplanets, map billions of galaxies, study black holes, and explore objects from our own solar system to the edge of the observable universe.

After launch and separation from the rocket, Roman will travel to the second Sun-Earth Lagrange point, or L2, about one million miles from Earth. The mission has a five-year primary lifetime with a goal of operating for 10 years, and Roman’s science data will be publicly available after processing….

Now you know, on a flawlessly cool and sunny day. here — with baby grrls coming over for after school fun this evening! Woot!

नमस्ते

Evanston Will Keep Marching Forward, With Its Entirely Lawful Reparations Payments — Even As AUSA Boutros Tries To Slow Roll This Coming Dismissal…

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This nonsense suit, nominally filed by some whyte crisis actors who never lived in Evanston. . . just keeps dragging on (since 2024 at this point, on a program for which applications closed in 2021). But all the while, we in Evanston (we people of good will) go about our lawful, sane and compassionate official business.

We will dutifully ignore the Fitton-financed morons — as well as the MAGA USA in Chicago (Boutros) who writes and files far-right political tracts, instead of any actual legal briefs, in this matter at least. Trust that.

And, trust that yours truly will be sitting in the courtroom, in the Dirksen federal building — on the morning below:

…MINUTE entry before the Honorable John F. Kness:

At the Court’s instance and in view of the parties’ briefing on Defendant’s motion to bifurcate discovery [45] and the US’s motion to intervene as a plaintiff [48], the hearing set for 8/25/2026 is stricken and reset to 10/7/2026 at 10:00 A.M….

Onward — with just two weeks, until a month in the EU… Nice, France — then Florence, Italy… then Rome, or Paris (depending on weather, mostly — but back by October 2, even if I am in Northern Ireland for a few days). Smile.

नमस्ते

Tangent [Exclusive]: Mr. Mulleady Has Apparently Agreed To Plead Guilty To Some Charges, In Miami, Florida…

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While I was in the High Rockies, apparently Mr. Mulleady offered to plead guilty to at least some charges, related to his true threats of harm, including a picture of a gun — sent by means of interstate commerce (the web) — to Martin Shkreli and others.

Many regular readers here will recall that the jury in his multi-count federal felony menacing trial… deadlocked, last Spring.

But both sides have agreed to a 30 day continuance on a motion, in order to document the plea deal. Here’s that — in text:

…The parties have negotiated a plea in this case, and are currently working out the details and documents. Both the undersigned and the government will be in trial next week during the current hearing date. Mr. Mulleady thus respectfully requests that this Court continue the currently set hearing date for 30 days. Once the documents are finalized, the parties will reach out to the Court to set a change of plea date.

Undersigned counsel has conferred with AUSA Felipe Plechac-Diaz regarding the relief requested herein. The government has no objection to this continuance….

My hunch, then, is that it will limit Mulleady’s jail time to that which he has already served, in Dade… and the matter will be a five year supervised release, with deferred sentencing.

We shall see, but I doubt very much he will get the acquittal he was seeking — and he will remain a convicted felon, which makes any life in a white collar world. . . unlikely (unless he becomes a… POTUS, I guess).

Onward, grinning.

नमस्ते

I’ve Removed Some Political Bluster, In The Pull-Quote — But This Law Firm Memo Is Probably Right — About The Direction Of Amazon’s Current NLRB/Defense Cases…

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Now that billionaires have captured a 3-1 majority of the NLRB, some right leaning labor / corporate defense law firms are clucking and gloating about the coming bloodbath in the laws protecting US workers’ rights to organize union votes. [You may read lots more of that political invective here.]

It is a false-framing though, to cast these as Biden labor policies. These laws strech back to the early 1990s. And they were mostly given renewed teeth, in the two Obama administrations. In any event, they’ve been settled law for over 12 years. And now, Bezos and Musk will wipe them off the books. Here’s that:

…What Happened?

The NLRB has historically refrained from overturning precedent unless it has three votes to do so. Now that James Macy has been approved by the Senate, the Board has three Republican appointees (Macy, Chairman James Murphy, and Scott Mayer) and just one Democratic appointee (David Prouty). That means we can expect the Board to begin taking action to strip away many of the legal standards set [over the last 14 years]….

Speech and Expression During Union Campaigns / Captive Audience Meetings (Amazon.com Services)

There is no issue that our Labor team feels more strongly about. All of them provide a 100% prediction that that new Board will [permit] employers to require mandatory attendance at employer meetings regarding unionization.

This will overturn the… 2024 decision that… held that mandatory captive audience meetings violate the NLRA….

An employer forcing its employees to sit through anti-union lectures (on pain of being docked pay, or even losing their jobs, no less)… plainly violates what MAGA claims are rights to not listen, under the free association [or refusal to associate] jurisprudence, that they would say is embedded in our First Amendment rights.

These guys cannot keep the players straight — when employers want to lecture employees about participating in preventative health programs at work, these MAGA people cry that that violates their “freedom” to make poor healthcare choces in their lives. But just as unions cause increasing wages, and thus increasing costs, at companies — failure to join the fitness programs at companies clearly cost employers money, too. But no billionaires (save perhaps Bill Gates, Tim Cook and Phil Knight) are taking that to court.

In any event, the right leaning law firm is right: this Trumpain NLRB clearly now intends to strip workers’ rights, and benefit billionaires, like Bezos. Damn.

नमस्ते

CDC Says Mpox Is Likely Now Endemic In The US — “Here To Stay” Since 2022: CIDRAP

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A viral vector that could have been arrested even before last year, is now likely going to be a constant companion, in some circles — even in the United States, from here onward.

This is a story of US public policy / health care outreach… failure. This is what happens, when we stop helping with world-wide preventative health initiatives. Here’s the latest, from CIDRAP, at the U. of Minn. — while I was mostly off-grid, in the mountains last week:

…Although mpox cases related to the 2022 global outbreak were diagnosed in people who had traveled aboard, the virus now is spreading continuously in the United States.

Persistent, low levels of mpox “suggest a likely transition toward endemic circulation,” according to a report in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) flagship publication, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. The paper also quantifies the risk of hospitalization in unvaccinated mpox patients.

Mpox spreads through close contact, such as cuddling, kissing, or sex. Mpox can spread among household contacts, either from skin-to-skin contact or by sharing towels or bedding. In the current outbreak in Guinea-Bissau, half of cases are in children.

In the United States, mpox is most common among men who have sex with men. The CDC recommends that people at risk for mpox, including those traveling to countries with outbreaks of the virus, receive two doses of the Jynneos vaccine….

The global outbreak of clade 2b mpox that began in 2022 has infected 100,000 people in 122 total countries, including 115 countries in which mpox was not previously reported….

Truly, this is tragic.

Even so, here, elementary public schoolkids go back tomorrow now — how summers fly, nowadays! Smile… and, we travel onward, resolutely — as ever.

नमस्ते