We respond…
Note that (yet again!) she doesn’t ANYWHERE mention that should Tangerine NOT be the GOP nominee… any sensible human well-knows he’ll run third party.
In sum, he’s… the latter day Ross Perot in that scenario. Professor West (whatever else I think of him)… will not prevent any Democratic candidate from winning the White House in 2024.
No one can.
The duopoly of DeSantis / Trump will make sure of it — all, from the GOP side.
Cheers, Bits — but believe whatever nonsense you and your frothers want.
According to Stauffer, Tucker said tonight that Ukraine forces blew up their own dam, flooded their own land, and risked a nuclear meltdown at their own power plant… to “embarrass” Russia.
That’s… even more loony than his suggestion that US “men in black” are hiding alien spacecraft, and dead extraterrestrial pilot corpses… somewhere.
Yikes, Bits, you sure have a knack for promoting… certifiable nut cases.
Cheers.
For John, Bitsy and Stevie — a federal judge in Tallahassee ruled just moments ago… that you kids… aren’t MDs. YAWN.
And that none of you (and certainly not Gov. DeSantis) could be empowered to invade the privacy of treatment conversations between people experiencing gender dysphoria and their doctors.
Nor is that power granted to any state legislature. The stupid wedge issue, affecting less than 1% of all Floridians… dies… now.
Here is that full 44 page opinion of law, and some real common sense, from it:
…We put band-aids on cuts to keep dirt out not because there is “high” quality research-generated evidence supporting the practice but because we know, from clinical experience, that cuts come with a risk of infection and band-aids can reduce the risk….
Gender dysphoria is far more complicated, and one cannot know, with the same level of confidence, how to treat it. But there is now extensive clinical experience showing excellent results from treatment with GnRH agonists and cross-sex hormones. If these treatments are prohibited, many patients will suffer needlessly….
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s impotent attempts to return to phrenology — and the ugly ignorant prejudgices of the early 19th Century… end now.
Smoke that, you hateful, impotent, bitter old coots.
As we earlier indicated, there are still several larger plaintiffs who are not settling, and will go forward with individual trials, in their respective home districts, so that $600 million will likely creep north, eclipsing $1 billion in a year or so.
But as to the companies that are settling with Merck and Glenmark, here is the document lining out the schedule, for notice dates, etc.
Onward. . . grinning now. Busy day — in Rahway, NJ.
नमस्ते
Updated — 06.10.2023 @ Noon: Here about five days later, the US Chamber of Commerce has said it will also bring an offensive suit, on the same general allegations. What is interesting about that is that PhRMA, the trade group for pharma companies… has remained silent about a suit. Of course, PhRMA has published white papers, and so on — but will not sue the feds on this. Mr. Davis should think deeply, about why that is so… and ask whether he really thinks this suit serves his shareholders’ interests, long term (or just his own egotistical ones). End update.
In general, I’d been impressed with the way Mr. Davis had matured since his ultra-right reactionary days, at Lilly, and then Baxter… before joining Merck. And I had been impressed with how much Ken Frazier was able to moderate his more… rash instincts, over the prior five or so years.
But this morning, in what will likely turn out to be a career defining mistake, Rob Davis (a tax lawyer by early specialty) decided — in a move no other pharma has EVER taken — to directly and preemptively, bring an offensive federal suit against the federal government (that cuts it billions of dollars in checks each year), to prevent required price negotiations — on a schedule of various drugs.
Sadly, this looks like the re-emergence of wild libertarian notions, in Mr. Davis’ head. He argues that it violates fourth and fifth amendment rights, to require price negotiations — with the federal government.
[Question: what does he think Boeing and General Dynamics do, when they negotiate for defense contracts — also with the much larger federal government as the buyer?] This errant notion — that companies should not have to negotiate on price, but automatically be awarded “cost plus contracts”, on various life-saving medicines… died over 20 years ago.
Mr. Davis also forgets that all of pharma wildly benefits from the 340B discount programs — and that those may immediately go away, if Mr. Davis improbably wins, and gets his way — gets rid of any requirement to bargain on prices.
. . .Americans pay more for prescription medicines than any other country. The Biden administration’s drug pricing reform aims to save $25 billion annually by 2031 through price negotiations for drugs paid for by Medicare, the government health plan for those age 65 and over. . . .
Merck called the talks with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) coercive and said it forces drugmakers to participate in “political Kabuki theater” by pretending negotiations are voluntary.
“This is not ‘negotiation.’ It is tantamount to extortion,” Merck said in the suit.
The drugmaker also argues that the law will force companies to sign agreements conceding that the prices are fair, which it claims is a violation of the First Amendment’s protections of free speech….
Some years ago, a former Schering-Plough executive was widely mocked for saying that Mr. Obama’s efforts to require such negotiations were “un-American”. He argued that taxes on pharma concerns (another way to go at getting to fair pricing on drugs sold inside the US) were also. . . un-American. Mr. Davis is today looking and sounding quite a bit like Brent Saunders. And that’s not a good thing.
He is going to get embarrassed here, in the DC District. And in the court of public opinion. His company reaps vast profits, on very good products — but he wants to behave like Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong?! He’s about to find out what he cost his company. . . and his industry sector today. Damnation. Out.
नमस्ते
This lunchtime, old Bitsy is back to shilling for a supposed dark horse spoiler at the ’24 DNC. His name is omitted, because… he’s a clown. A pure… loon.
But sure, Bits — you keep on pushin’ him.
I suppose he has about the same chance that Tangerine has… in a general.
And I suppose he won’t likely by in jail awaiting trial, as Tangerine is likely to be… by then.
And — he won’t be facing indictments for kidnapping would be asylum seekers, and depriving them of their federal rights to hearings — as Gov. Ron DeSantis may well be, by then.
So… I guess he’s got ALL THAT(!) — over your main leading candidates, Betsy.
Cheers, chucklehead.
Do you ever even pre-read aloud / hear yourself (edit even a syllable), in connection with the illogical garbage you spew daily, over at Powerline?! It seems it’s all just whatever sludge spills from your keyboard, on any given morning, there. Strictly first draft stuff, for any competent writer… but I guess we know why that would be so.
Yours. Is. Lunacy.
The Onion really blew the bars off the doors, with this one:
…BRYAN, TX — Jumping up and down and shouting when the answer she’d spent years searching for finally came into focus, prison inmate Elizabeth Holmes reportedly discovered how to make the Theranos blood analyzer work last week at the exact moment the cell door closed on her for the first time. “Oh my God, that’s it—that’s it,” said the former biotech entrepreneur, who then gasped, grabbed her new cellmate, and screamed that she’d “finally done it,” only to have cell bars immediately slammed in her face. “Finally, I understand. It was right in front of me the whole time. I’m going to save humanity! Soon, everyone in the world will be able to analyze their health information from a single drop of blood using my genius portable device. You have to believe me! Please!” At press time, Holmes could be seen carving a new blueprint for the device into the wall of her prison cell, pricking her finger, and asking any prison guard who would listen for $700 million….
F L A W L E S S.
That is all I’ve got. Be excellent to one another. Out.
The metal rich asteroid visiting mission is now back on a launch schedule. It should arrive at the target in later 2029, now. For reference, here’s our prior backgrounder, on the mission objectives and status. And yes, we should celebrate it — as this is a robust, independent error correction protocol, in action.
That’s all very good news — with green lights across the board, from NASA’s review process documentation set:
…The IRB assessment celebrated the Psyche team’s exceptional efforts to develop a credible plan and implement corrective actions to achieve the later October 2023 launch. We are thrilled that the IRB has concluded that the overall probability of mission success is high. We concur with the IRB’s assessment that a significant amount of work remains in operations planning, and that continued emphasis is needed in areas such as the line management’s technical oversight, and improvements to programmatic plans, assessment approaches, and metrics…
Now you know… off to snooze, grinning….
नमस्ते
A ten year felony, in fact. Even if you fly the potential asylee by private jet, and even if you pay all expenses — the intentional removal of a person due a federal hearing on “credible fear” — if refouled — is the interference with a federal statutory right, under color of state law, and is thus not materially different (at criminal law) than… kidnapping.
And make no mistake: with probably only ten flights on private jets in and out of Sacramento in the last few days, from Texas by way of New Mexico… these apparently rich idiots will be found.
This is functionally the same (albeit at a higher per-head price point!) as the mule transporters regularly caught and sent to prison outside Brownsville, Texas… and San Diego.
These morons [the pilots and the miscreant(s) who hired them] are… going to jail.
The asylees will be well cared for, and provided with new hearing dates, in the Bay Area, and will face no additional penalties. They are the victims here, clearly.
And just as DeSantis was implicated last year — in flying migrants to Martha’s Vineyard, under eerily similar circumstances… don’t be shocked if he or Abbott in Texas directly authorized these kidnappings.
That is what they are.
Elizabeth Stauffer would perhaps like to be an accessory, after the fact, in a forthcoming felony indictment — by helping these apparently high-net-worth pigglies hide their identities — the ones that bought and paid for, and scheduled and engineered… these flights.
Charming, Bits.
Updated: 2 pm EDT I just translated the words on the Malay graphic she used to “illustrate her story.” I’ve shown the graphic, enlarged as proof. [I suspect she filched it — being wholly unable to read that language over the door.]
In any event, it offers a comment on the rich Texans or Floridians or New Mexicans who paid to fly these would-be asylees to Sacramento by private jet. Probably not the comment she intends though.
Clearly in the original artist’s telling, the guy with the clip-board, putting the blind-folded asylees on a flight… to nowhere… is the predator.
Welp, that is exactly right, Bits… even though I am sure you didn’t mean it that way — maybe you are “Baby Spicy / Che Guevara“… after all!
Cheers!
Out.
This is just truly… baffling. At least baffling if one believes in even a moderate dose of symbolic logic — in one’s rhetoric.
Bill Otis at Ringside/Reckoning this morning would tell us that “the left” uses false scare-tactics, to force good, if frothy, hard right GOP-ers… to surrender “muh freedums”.
Hilarious. His second highest list item is the “debt ceiling fight”.
Then — in under four paragraphs later, at the back half of the things Bill thinks the frother MAGAts should TRULY be afraid about… he lists… the approaching $30 trillion in national debt (over 40% of which was driven up just under Trump’s four year watch, BTW!).
Precious. So… when Mr. Biden acts reasonably to avoid a US debt default/liquidity crunch, it is false scare-mongering, solely by Democratic operatives, Mr. Oris? But now, as the debt continues (due primarily to tax giveaways to billionaires from Trump, and wild “Space Force” and Defense spending authorized by Tangerine graft) to grow, he wants the GOP-ers to run another armed revolution against the same government that they voted for, to bulk up the national debt.
Erh… good luck with all that, there… son.
Out.
