BREAKING! The “Direct Purchasers” Have Been Paid By Merck & Glenmark To Settle — But The Other Plaintiffs Continue Against Retail Pharmacies

No figures are likely to be disclosed until the SEC Form 8-K is filed (if material to Merck), but this resolves about one-half of the antitrust action now set to begin picking a federal class action jury — starting tomorrow.

I would expect that this settlement was for boxcar numbers. I can’t imagine going this far (around a decade or more, now), and not getting some big numbers — on the proof as I’ve seen it come in, over the years.

In any event — we will learn more tomorrow, as jury selection begins, in the federal district courts in Norfolk, Virginia:

…Before jury selection commenced as scheduled, the court was advised that Direct Purchaser Plaintiffs (DPPs) had reached a settlement agreement with the Merck Defendants and the Glenmark Defendants.

Thus, the jury panel was released for the remainder of the day and jury selection was continued for remaining parties to April 19, 2023 at 11:00 a.m….

Fascinating. More as we get it.

नमस्ते

Scott Retreads The BS Comer Is Peddling About Mr. Biden’s Family. Still Silent On Trump’s.

I continue to find it precious that Scott never mentions the over $166 million Trump hisself personally made by having the taxpayers foot the bill at his clubs and businesses. And the money he steered to Ivanka and Jared and Junior.

Tangerine was absolutely the most corrupt preznit America has ever seen. Consider this, from CREW:

Donald Trump made up to $160 million from international business dealings while he was serving as president of the United States, according to an analysis of his tax returns by CREW.

Throughout his time in office, President Trump, his family and his Republican allies repeatedly assured the public that his refusal to divest from his businesses wouldn’t lead to any conflicts of interest.

Americans were promised that Trump would donate his salary, which he did, until maybe he didn’t—all while siphoning millions from taxpayers that more than offset his presidential pay. When it came to foreign conflicts of interest, Trump and his company pledged to pause foreign business. They did not….

In 2019, Trump stunned the US foreign policy establishment by pulling US troops out of northeast Syria. The decision had no obvious benefits to the US and was a bombshell reversal to allied Kurds, but it was a victory for Turkey, where Trump had done business for years. In China, Trump again shocked even his GOP allies when he pledged to help sanctioned Chinese company ZTE because, as he tweeted, there were “[t]oo many jobs in China lost,” despite warnings from US intelligence officials that the company’s products may be used by the Chinese government to spy on Americans….

Today’s Scott Johnson item and last week’s from Ms. Stauffer regular drumbeat of “what-about-ism” posts are all to deflect from the above (about Tangerine), of course.

In any event, it is no wonder Tangerine wants to run again — it lets him make back all the graft he’s lost — in defending rape charges, and hush money payment cases and stolen top secret documents — on top of tax and bank fraud investigations.

Damn.

UPDATE On That Multi-Billion Dollar Civil Zetia® “Pay To Delay” Federal Antitrust Class Action Trial

As expected, the parties are still working through the final flurry of motions to exclude certain evidence, and to admit / include other batches of evidence, in the federal courthouse in Norfolk, Virginia.

Thus, the parties have not yet begun to pick a jury. That may happen Thursday or Friday. Here’s the latest order (plus a note that a transcript of yesterday’s hearings will be available after July 17, 2023):

So… this antitrust matter crawls slowly to opening statements. . . .

…Set Hearings: Discovery Hearing / Status Conference set for 4/17/2023 at 12:00 PM in Norfolk Mag Courtroom 1 w/OCR before Magistrate Judge Douglas E. Miller….

In the end, this trial is likely to demonstrate that even far more careful attempts to corner a drug market, and extend the exclusivity of a drug patent portfolio… and thus either maintain or increase selling prices, is unlawful — to the tune of billions in damages. [Martin Shkreli’s schemes were a sledgehammer compared to this scalpel, here.]

Now you know, with 30 degree warmer sunshine ahead! Ah… Spring — everything… exploding with fragrance and color! Grin….

नमस्ते

In Which Hinderaker Decides A Jury Of 12… Got It Wrong. TWICE.

Yes, Hinderaker has long lied about the evidence adduced at Derek Chauvin’s murder trial.

He was unanimously convicted. On both state and federal charges — in two separate trials.

But here’s John blaming the handcuffed, face down on the pavement George Floyd for having the bad judgment to “let” Derek Chauvin kneel on his neck for over eight minutes.

Not content with his horrific dissembling tonight, John goes on to say that Minneapolis should not have to pay for Chauvin’s prior — PROVED — excessive force. [It just paid over $8 million.]

John does not even attempt to justify Chauvin’s brutality. He just feels brutal cops… are a good thing — when acting on brown or Black bodies.

It really comes down to only that. He feels this is too much money if the victims are not permanently confined to a wheelchair or worse. [Yep, this means… John is off his meds, again.]

Hinderaker is a lost soul.

Mirengoff Makes Plain What Both DeSantis And Powerline Try To “Dance Around”: “No Teaching Of… FACTS.”

Paul Mirengoff did a service to the nation today — just not in the way he intended.

He set out to explain why DeSantis trying to kill off lines of public education in Florida is a GOOD thing — in his view.

So he directly explained why he doesn’t like Illinois and Rhode Island and Minnesota’s public school teaching ideas.

Here it is — Paul and DeSantis and Powerline and Govs. Lee (TN) and Abbott (TX) don’t want kids learning that many people were (and many people still are…) racists.

They don’t want it explained that Sheriffs aided lawless Jim Crow policies. Here:

On economics, Rhode Island’s anchor standards instruct teachers to “argue how different economic systems can create more equitable outcomes for individuals and communities, particularly for those traditionally marginalized from the economic system.” That standard is cross-referenced in the U.S. history unit on the “Second New Deal.” That unit, in turn, suggests the Southern Tenant Farmers Union (STFU) as an example. Since the Socialist Party of America organized the STFU, this union is often cited by American history textbooks to illustrate the political goals of America’s socialists during the Depression. STFU organized poor black and white sharecroppers and tenant farmers, but its work was largely stifled by violent opposition from Southern white landowners and sheriffs.

There’s nothing wrong with studying STFU, but the anchor standards make that impossible to do without also advocating for socialism. Currently fashionable leftist histories, moreover, argue that capitalism is inseparable from slavery and racism. In that spirit, the deck is stacked against the free market and in favor of socialism by having students weigh alternative economic systems using an example in which a market economy is intertwined with segregation and racism….

There is more of this at his site… but you get the drift.

He doesn’t like… FACTS.

Lil’ whyte kids (and brown and yellow and red) can certainly learn some real FACTS of the shameful truths of America’s history — and not automatically become communists or socialists.

In point of fact, the colonists came to America to be free to choose what sort of political order they wished to establish.

In fact, Gov. DeSantis, Paul and the Powerliners would seek to deny the children of America the right to an open education — one that lets THEM decide whether Jim Crow “de facto” bondage, and de jure bondage before it… were good things for anyone but whyte men who owned land.

So — do not be conned by these a-holes.

They are selling a “one view” education — to make kids fall in line, buy guns, enlist and go to war… whenever the overlords say.

Me?

No thanks.

Just go take a seat Mirengoff — we aren’t buying DeSantis’ shineola.

Solid Totals Are Hard To Come By — But The Guinea Marburg Outbreak Is Continuing, Even As Tanzania’s Draws To An End…

This is the first ever recorded Marburg outbreak in two countries at once. But the good news is that the one in Tanzania seems to have been arrested (or is at least subsiding). No new cases in weeks.

However, the one in Guinea continues to record new cases, and deaths, week after week. As many as twenty early on were buried without tests — so the total is a moving target, but there have been at least 34 fatal cases — and all the recent ones suspected have been confirmed by lab tests as Marburg. Some 1,600 people are being monitored now, in Guinea — as contacts of known cases.

Do go read it all, at the UK Telegraph, here — as to what is known, as of this past weekend. And what is… as yet… unknown.

This indeed is a relay race, of sorts — the baton is passed by one runner on the team to the next, with all on the ground trying to put distance between themselves… and the team with the virus. Now you know. Onward — going from 29 this morning to 78 by Wednesday. Crazy.

नमस्ते

And Despite Having A Vast Structural Advantage — Fox Is Settling Rather Than Going To Trial…

Hey, you Powerliners!

Why do you think that is?! Fox is now offering to pay Dominion boxcare numbers, since Fox’s own documents show that it acted with actual malice in pushing the 2020 conspiracy lies. On air.

Actual malice because not even Tucker or Sean or Rupert believed them to have a shred of veracity.

Betsy, you in particular should think about what this means for your lies — in print — about private individuals, whom you’ve libeled.

The first amendment creates a high barrier, but in this case, it has been vaulted.

And Fox now will pay around $400 million to avoid a bankrupting perhaps $2 billion verdict.

Do take heed you idiots.

Hey Betsy — I’ll Take That Bet — Anywhere; Anytime. And You Are “A Deplorable”.

This morning Ms. Stauffer whines about how mean Democrats are when they “label her”.

Uh-huh.

Here’s a notion, Bitsy: stop cheering the brown-shirts on… stop applauding the ripping of babies from their mommas… stop blaming the women Trump raped for his rapes… stop covering up for a one man (if bumbling) decades long crime spree against the people of America… and sure… I’ll stop morphing your pics, and calling you… DEPLORABLE.

In the meantime — she says we were all better off under Trump. That’s a debate I’d win, anywhere… any time — against her.

As a starter, Bits, please show me how farmers benefited under his tariffs. Please explain why he made moves to REDUCE Chinese unemployment in favor of an Asian company (against America) when asked by an old business partner. Please show me the US benefit to his helping his Turkish business pals, and abandoning the Kurds to die — with our US money. Not his.

And although there are hundreds of these… please explain how his cheating and stealing on his taxes, bank loans and country club stays while preznit benefited all Americans in any manner.

In sum, Mr. Stauffer — you’d be utterly buried, in a fair debate — if you ever exited your echo chamber.

Cheers.

It Is Sad — Yet Wholly-Unmentioned By Hinderaker — Because It Happened In Ruby Red Alabama.

Hinderaker just a day ago breathlessly predicted the arrival of Armageddon for Chicago, after some youth unrest that led to two deaths and 15 arrests. These crimes are deplorable, to be certain — but they do not only occur solely (or even mostly) in blue states.

So, Hinderaker (no surprise there!) is and was wrong — tragic though it was.

See, it turns out that… on that very same evening, at a teen age birthday party in rural Alabama, as a state firmly in GOP control, AT A BIRTHDAY PARTY(!) four kids were killed and over 22 injured — in a mass shooting (a result of an earlier fist-fight among party attendees).

Not a peep from John. [In a state that “boasts” the lowest educational attainment in the nation, and nearly the worst health care for young mothers… nationwide, with LOTS of gun violence — but that is NO Armageddon to John — because the GOP holds a majority there.] So… not a peep.

Why? Because his faux-narrative doesn’t fit those facts.

Gun violence is the issue — and the easy availability of weapons of war. It is no more the Democratic new mayor’s fault in Chicago that the few kids shot each other near Millennium Park than it is the mayor and governor’s fault in Alabama.

But it is no less, either there.

Damn Hinderaker.

Grow up.

Hayward Shows Us He’s Dumber Than He Looks…

So, exhibiting a special kind of willful stupidity, Steve tonight suggests that our State Department would expect jihadis would answer a visa application… utterly… candidly.

He might be the only person in America who would be that credulous.

But it lets him (falsely) blame our immigration policies for terrorists inside the country.

My two main thoughts: no immigration policy set (not even a total lockdown) will prevent terrorists here. To say otherwise is to admit to being… childishly naive. Terrorists will cross from Canada undetected no matter what we do. Bank on it.

My second observation is that local terrorists are, by far and away greater numbers… home grown. They’ve lived here as citizens — for generations. They are, in the main, whyte, hard right racists claiming to be X-tains.

And Steve well-knows it. Many of them are Powerline’s regular readers.

If he were serious about blunting domestic terror, he’d be more responsible in his rhetoric.

He’s… not.

Out.