Category: Uncategorized

Updating Our Assessment — Of Moderna’s Prospects…

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Back in November of 2024, we first offered our comprehensive assessment of what was then deeply undervalued Moderna. Our assessment is that it still remains undervalued (but now by less than 30%).

That said, on November 18, 2025, it was trading down around $22 a share — during peak lunacy from RFK on vaccines, generally.

Here in early March 2026, Vinay Prashad has once again left / been pushed out(?) of FDA for the second time in a year — after spouting nonsense about various bioscience matters. That is good news, if long overdue, for all vaccine makers, but especially Moderna.

And so, we noticed that Moderna is now up over 130% since November of 2025, trading above $57, early last week (but pulling back a touch, to $52 by Friday).

Even so, we stand by our original analysis / conclusion — that the stock is worth closer to $85, when fairly valued for the long-lived vaccine franchises. RFK’s lunacy about vaccines will fade in time, and while it is unlikely that Moderna will return to the $448 level it saw in the chaos of Covid in 2021, $100 a share is possible — once sensible science takes full-hold again.

Here is that news on Prashad, but do not be afraid that Moderna has reached overvalued stage… the firm still has quite a ways to run:

…The Food and Drug Administration’s embattled vaccine chief, Dr. Vinay Prasad, is once again leaving the agency — the second time in less than a year that he’s departed after controversial decisions involving the review of vaccinations and specialty drugs for rare diseases.

FDA Commissioner Marty Makary announced the news to FDA staff in an email late Friday, saying Prasad would depart at the end of April. Makary said Prasad would return to his academic job at the University of California, San Francisco….

It is truly unfortunate that ill-informed political winds still are endangering the health of American children, but hopefully that time is coming to an end. And with it, Moderna’s RSV vaccine, and mRNA vaccine makers generally — should flourish. Onward.

नमस्ते

Unfortunate News: ESA’s Solar Coronagraph / Twinning Mission Has Lost Touch With The “Camera” Component / Spacecraft…

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The very bad news is… that the batteries are likely drained — based on the time since a confirmed sun-facing attitude, for the heavier “photo-shooter” component.

Here is the latest, from last night — at the European Space Agency:

…The anomaly caused an apparent chain reaction that prevented the Coronagraph from entering safe mode and led to a “progressive loss of attitude,” the ESA update said. The change in orientation pointed the spacecraft’s solar panels away from the sun, quickly draining its batteries and triggering a “survival mode.”

As they search for a cause, mission operators are investigating how they might safely steer the Occulter probe closer to the Coronagraph to assist in diagnosing the issue and reestablishing contact. ESA officials said they will provide updates “as new information becomes available….”

The Proba-3 spacecraft entered [a] precise station-keeping formation in May 2025, demonstrating for the first time ever the ability for two spacecraft to remain in such synchronicity. Then, in June 2025, the mission captured its first photos of an artificial solar eclipse.

Now, ESA is trying to determine what exactly went wrong last month. “The root cause of the anomaly is under investigation, and mission teams are working hard to recover the situation,” the agency said in an update on March 6….

Here’s to still-hoping for a good outcome — but normal solar battery chemistry / physics would tell us that that is now… unlikely. The clock has wound down. Onward, just the same [and I think we can officially declare MAVEN, at Mars… DOA, for NASA.]

नमस्ते

In Which Rigby Runs Rings Around… Old Paulie — The Serial Fabulist.

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 This is one of Paul’s more troublingly stupid and dishonest posts. I can’t count the number of falsehoods and fallacies, but here are two that stood out:

[The country] can prosper and flourish without Medicare for all, as it has throughout our history.

Paul conveniently elides the fact that individuals and families have been ruined, driven into bankruptcy and destitution, by crushing medical debt, a problem that exists only in our country in all of the Western world. He also seems to have forgotten that the country flourished—flourished—from the New Deal to Reagan due to socialistic government programs and policies that kept the rich in check and provided support for the people who most needed it. It’s how we built the most successful and prosperous middle class in the history of the world. Then came Reagan, deregulation, and ruin. How’s that working out? For CEOs and shareholders, pretty great, actually. For everybody else, not so much. Then there’s this:

Thus, the dispute is really about Anthropic’s attempt to place limits beyond those required by law on how America protects its national security. It’s an attempt by a private company to substitute its judgment for that of our elected officials in the all-important realm of national security.

 Well, no. It’s a private company that has decided how its product can be used. Anthropic isn’t insisting that the government use its software. It accepted the loss of its government contract, and the financial hit that entailed, without complaint. The government is free to develop its own software or to make an arrangement with another company. This is free speech and the free market at its finest, something Paul should celebrate. Also, Paul’s dismissal of the potential dangers of using AI for mass surveillance or to control lethal weapons systems with no oversight is either staggeringly dumb or staggeringly dishonest. Or both.

Hinderaker’s Whining Again — About Canada. (He never even visits there.)

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John Hinderaker would tell us this afternoon that we should worry more about Canada‘s healthcare system than our own deplorable deaths by gun problem.

Every 19 minutes in America, someone dies from a gunshot wound.

That’s 47,000 people a year.

But lately in Canada about 14,000 people in a year choose medically assisted suicide as part of the Canadian way of dealing with end of life issues. John falls on his fainting couch (again) about what other countries do — while ignoring his own part in enabling the US death machines.

Funny, he doesn’t bother to mention the thousands of younger women of limited means here — who die in childbirth each year, either — because of our horrible healthcare non-system (in the rural South), primarily.

So much for his right to life stance. [This is a largely GOP created outcome, too.]

Out.

In Which Mirengoff Tries To Mis-Label A Jarring Texas Shift In The Electorate… As “Woke”. Nope. It’s… “Sanity”.

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The issue here is not that Texas is going “woke“ — whatever nonsense Paul might mean by that term — no, the issue is that Texans are sick to death of Abbott / Paxson MAGA / GOP corruption culture (one party rule), with its brown people demonization — and no real affordable health care — on top of runaway, wildly-expensive electricity — because GOP oligarchs (have since ENRON controlled, and still) control the monopoly electric grid (disconnected from all other states) for private profit — not universal access.

That is primarily (see what I did there?!) what explains “new” Democrats winning in Texas’s formerly ruby red districts.

Paul mentions “gun-boat diplomacy” — as though it is a vestige of the late 19th Century — and in the same breath, talks Venezuela (wildly claiming that it was… not). INSANE. Trump took out the head of state, and is trying to control a ruling junta — NO ELECTIONS — not “just” floating gun-boats by the harbors.

This theory is much worse than gun-boat diplomacy.

Paul must have missed that he said, on successive days, no less — that the guys he wanted to lead in Iran, post war… were all killed by him — and Bibi.

Then just a day later, he said the bombing “won’t end” until every last Iranian puts down their guns and walks away. “Total unconditional surrender” he called it. The man is… senile. And banal. As all evil ever is.

How will he and Bibi know that every last soldier is done fighting?! This is why you leave the head of state, so that they might enforce a “surrender” of the Iranian troops.

This is what the majority of the American electorate sees: Trump is a nine-year old, leaning over an ant hill, on a sunny day — with a magnifying glass to burn everything that comes out of the hole.

Not even one thought ahead — for what comes next.

That’s the issue, Paul — and the midterm results will prove it.

In Merck Vs. Merck Name Fight — Global Mediation Ahead — Trial Date Temporarily Stayed… [Power-Alley]

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I am well-gratified to see this (finally). It has been a long time coming, but it makes a lot of sense. And it may yet… fail.

But… in at least some important ways, this federal Lanham Act name fight… is a humongous… “divorce” — and subsequent splitting of IP assets. A mediation allows both sides to win on certain points — and concede some — without losing it all. Not a “zero sum game.” Or, so it is hoped. Here’s that:

…Dear Judge Hammer:

We, along with Sidley Austin LLP, represent Plaintiffs Merck & Co., Inc. and Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp. in the above-referenced matter. We write on behalf of all parties to submit this joint status report regarding the selection of a mediator pursuant to the Court’s February 19, 2026 Order. (ECF No. 316).

The parties have met and conferred and agree to the selection of Judge Faith S. Hochberg as mediator for global mediation.

Each side has counsel who are familiar with Judge Hochberg through her longstanding presence within the legal community. The parties have disclosed to each other specific circumstances of the prior contacts described below and agree they do not present any conflict to this mediation.

Plaintiffs’ counsel had a brief contact with Judge Hochberg for the Malaysia case between the parties in December 2023. Plaintiffs were looking for an expert on New Jersey contract law for that matter. Plaintiffs’ counsel asked Judge Hochberg whether her consulting services include such expert work. She was not able to take on that engagement. No documents or substantive information were shared with her, and no further discussions occurred.

Defendant’s counsel, Judge Stephen M. Orlofsky, knows Judge Hochberg, as they were colleagues and friends on the bench. Since leaving the bench, Judge Orlofsky and Judge Hochberg have sat on arbitration panels together. All of those arbitrations are concluded and involved different parties and different issues. Judge Orlofsky has never discussed this case with Judge Hochberg and does not see any of this as presenting a conflict.

We appreciate the Court’s assistance with this matter….

This is a genuinely… encouraging development — in the decades of open litigation, around the globe. Onward.

नमस्ते

Johnson — Goes “Down, For A Third Time”: And “The Song Remains The Same”!

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That’s… THREE times, of lying by omission (in a week) — about the ability US attorneys to make a noisy withdrawal, when their clients intentionally violate federal court orders. Repeatedly.

I titled the original version of this post “Lies, damn lies, and then there’s… Scott Johnson.”

I rerun it now in full — since he and the Kelly lady (also a MN lawyer, apparently) refuse to accurately present the framing around the dangers of ICE / DHS holding on to a detainee’s papers (after a habeas grant) that establish the rights to be here.

Let’s drop them both in Moscow or Beijing, without papers… and see how long it takes — before they are in a Gulag or a reeducation camp.

Cheers, you racist losers.

[Original item:]

Now, twice this week — even after sitting in the well, and listening to not one, but two multi-hour federal District Court civil contempt hearings in Minneapolis (largely because… his friends are in danger of… the same civil contempt), Scott turns up falsely framing the whole narrative as a tempest in a teapot, because some “misplaced” prisoner property was not immediately returned on release, under issued writs of habeas corpus. [His prior lies, here.]

Scott conveniently never mentions that the “property” is not underwear or shoelaces. Or even watches or wallets.

No, the “property NOT returned“… is, in each case, the papers that prove the wrongly-detained person is here in the USA… LAWFULLY.

What a damn liar he is.

Imagine that Scott is traveling in Russia. Or China. Further imagine that the local authorities detain him for spitting on a sidewalk (something video evidence proves he DID NOT do). Now, he miraculously gets in front of a real judge — and with the US Consulate, is able to secure his release. But the KGB [or Chinese Secret Police] “releases” him, minus his US passport — despite an express order (from this entirely-mythical judge) to give him back his passport (so he can safely walk the streets to the American Embassy — and in further mythical story-telling, fly home).

Nope — he’s now subject to immediate re-arrest, on the street, for not being able to prove he’s in the country lawfully — without his papers. So right back to Siberia [or another hell-hole] he goes.

[I suspect he’d not style that “a lost shoe-laces” case.]

Yeah, Scott — that is what these cases are about.

The federal judges expressly ordered that these detainees are not to be re-arrested, but their ability to avoid being profiled and re-detained, and shoved off to El Paso without a hearing… all hinges on having their PAPERS.

You, son — are an a$$hole — and a wanna’-be brown-shirt.

These MAGA AUSAs have a clear choice: they can tell their lawless clients that they won’t participate in frauds on the courts — and withdraw their appearance. They can dare Trump to fire them.

They can also make a noisy withdrawal, and say their clients are refusing to obey court orders.

Then they are protected from Trump retaliation.

So — yes Scott… they CHOOSE to be subject to contempt. Idiot.

Shut it.

It Is A Complex [Indicative] Ruling — But It Means The Minn. Federal Class Action, Against Noem/ICE Continues…

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As expected, the able District Court Judge Menendez has ruled, this evening.

She has given the upper court [Eighth Cir.] the ability to dispose of the appeal — which is always preferred, where no live issue still exists, as the basis for the appeal.

Sorry, Noemites — you are going to lose — again. From the indicative ruling then:

…Defendants’ arguments to the contrary are unpersuasive. First, Defendants emphasize that the Injunction covers plaintiffs who “record, observe, and/or protest Operation Metro Surge and related operations that have been ongoing in this District since December 4, 2025.” (Id. at 81 ¶ 1 (emphasis added).) But Defendants’ focus on “and related operations” strips this clause of its context. The plain language of the Injunction — both in its discussion of the Court’s limitations as to breadth and in the decretal language — clearly ties it to OMS, which is now over. Moreover, Defendants’ reading would vitiate any temporal limit whatsoever on the Injunction, which is far from the limited order the Court intended….

Defendants oppose dissolution of the Injunction because Plaintiffs refuse to dismiss the case as a whole. They argue that “if the preliminary injunction is moot, then so is Plaintiffs’ First Amended Complaint.” (Dkt. 245 at 5.) According to Defendants, Plaintiffs are engaged in a “gambit” designed “to evade a potential adverse decision from the Eighth Circuit.” (Id. at 7.) Defendants’ argument that the case as a whole suffers from the same mootness issues that Plaintiffs ascribe to the Injunction is not without some force. It is not yet apparent whether there is, in fact, any daylight between the Plaintiffs’ assertion that the Injunction is moot and their anticipated position that there nevertheless remains a live case or controversy in the Amended Complaint. However, the issue of whether the entire case is now moot is not currently before the Court, and the Court declines to address it prematurely. Should the Eighth Circuit remand this matter to this Court so it can grant a motion to dissolve the Injunction, nothing will prevent Defendants from then arguing that the entire case should be dismissed on mootness grounds as well. The Court will cross that bridge when it comes to it. But the tension in Plaintiffs’ position on these issues does not preclude a finding that the end of OMS has rendered the January 16 Injunction moot….

For the reasons stated herein, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that:

1. Plaintiffs’ Motion for an Indicative Ruling Pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 62.1 (Dkt. 237) is GRANTED.

2. Pursuant to Rule 62.1, the Court indicates that it would grant a motion to dissolve the January 16, 2026 Preliminary Injunction (Dkt. 85) as moot if the Court of Appeals remands for that purpose….

The injunction is at an end, but the case continues in the trial courts — and the Eighth Circuit appeal is going to be dismissed, as the DHS/ICE appeal is now of a non-existent injunction. Got that? Cool.

To be clear, among other things, the plaintiffs are still owed damages for ICE’s past violation of their free speech and assembly rights — as well as the right to orders against any additional lawless ICE/DHS sweep operations, aimed at the same protesters/detainees (sans warrants).

Onward.

नमस्ते