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Y A W N. So The CMS / Januvia® Price Negotiations Weren’t So Bad — To Merck — After All… Just As We Said.

~ condor ~ 1 Comment

The “silly whiners’” suit will now soon die.

And, Merck will dutifully, if not gladly, accept the US agencies’ pricing result for its juggernaut Januvia®. [After all, there will be, by May 2026, on US market generics — for Januvia. This simply speeds up that time-line, by a bit.] Here’s a bit, from the day’s MSM (but I might cheekily note that, in terms of percentage discounts, Merck sees the highest cut — perhaps because it was the first to choose such an obviously baseless federal litigation pathway — and then only later, found it had to fold its tent):

…The Biden administration says Medicare recipients will save about $1.5 billion on out-of-pocket costs for medications to treat diabetes, heart disease, types of arthritis and other ailments under new prices negotiated with drug companies that will take effect in 2026.

The savings range from 79 percent for Januvia, used to manage diabetes, to 38 percent for Imbruvica, which is used to treat blood cancers. That is the medication’s cost before any discounts or rebates are applied, but not what the price people actually pay when filling their prescriptions….

Now you know — in some ways, this is just another immaterial quasi-Hatch-Waxman early launch of a generic. So… Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris have ACTUALLY done What Tangerine promised he would do, in 2018 — but never even made a first attempt at: helping seniors with high drug costs.

Onward, smiling in spite of myself.

नमस्ते

Tough Update, Via BBC — On Starliner Prospects… At ISS.

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Here’s the update.

I wish it was better news, but this is reality at this point:

…Time and again Nasa officials were asked what they might learn that would reassure them that they would have a safe return despite the problems with the thruster system.

Each time they did not have an answer to that question.

Dr Simeon Barber, a space scientist at the Open University believes that there won’t be a new piece of information that will reassure those at the space agency who have concerns.

“It seems that there are decision makers at Nasa who are unconvinced that a safe return can be guaranteed, which is why they have brought in experts to look through the data to try and diagnose the fault in a small component in a complex propulsion system that is in space.

“It is hard to see how that will be possible, so it feels to me that we are heading inexorably towards a return on SpaceX’s Dragon Spacecraft”.

That is not a view shared by Boeing, who have repeatedly said they have full confidence in Starliner to bring Butch and Suni home safely….

Onward, but I no longer think that Suni and Butch will be allowed to ride a Soyuz home this Fall. Ugh.

नमस्ते

GOP Pollster Frank Luntz Now Says “We Should Consider” That Democrats May Sweep House & Senate, Too…

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Well — he says in his lifetime, he’s never once seen a seismic demographic shift like this — not in 30 elapsed days. [Mr. Obama in 2008 evinced a similar shift, but he led the race almost wire to wire.]

No — this is… uncharted territory, for the guru revered by the GOP — for at least the last five election cycles. He believes the most jaw-dropping shift is among women. Women who previously voted reliably GOP. That is mostly suburban whyte women. They intend to vote a woman for their next president — because they are disgusted by Tangerine.

We watched it happen, over the last four New Years’ long holidays in sunny Arizona — lawn signs for MAGA pulled down. People who’ve voted GOP all their adult lives, now see Kamala as a way out of the darkness that surrounds the entire Trump family — and “legacy vote”.

Here are the quotes — if you’d like to see ’em, oh you Powerline boys:

…“She’s got intensity now. She’s got an intensity advantage. She’s got a demographic advantage and I haven’t seen anything like this happen in 30 days in my lifetime,” he said. “Now my groups are broken up by young women saying, ‘I’m not voting for him anymore.’”

He added: “The people who are undecided have all collapsed towards Harris. The people who are ‘weak’ Trump have all collapsed towards undecided….”

“She’s bringing out people who are not interested in voting for either Trump or Biden, so the entire electoral pool has changed and if it continues in this direction you have to start to consider Democrats winning the Senate and Democrats winning the House,” Luntz said Wednesday on CNBC….

Read it, and weep, Powerline boys — this is what nine years of backing a crook and misogynist brings you — reap the whirlwind… now.

Out — on to the convention and a new 5 point bump nationwide next week.

To Be Clear, If Tangerine Doesn’t Carry At Least Five Of These Seven — He Cannot Win. Period.

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Said another way, assuming Harris | Walz simply holds on to the blue states where they are already wildly ahead, they only need win TWO of the SEVEN swing states, to close Tangerine out — entirely in the Electoral College math / results. And it is a certainty now that she will win the popular vote. She’s now pulling definitively ahead in five — three more than she needs. That’s a sizeable margin of safety. Yup.

It really is just about all over — but for the shouting (barring a debate catastrophe, I guess). Here’s the latest:

…According to the Cook Political Report Swing State Project Survey, released on August 14, when third party candidates are included, Harris is leading Trump in five of the seven battleground states. In May 2024, Trump was leading Biden in six of the states, while he and Biden were tied in one.

The report shows that Harris is two points ahead of Trump overall across the seven states, on 46 percent to Trump’s 44 percent, while she is two points ahead in North Carolina and Michigan, four points ahead in Arizona, and five points ahead in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. In Nevada, Trump is five points ahead, while they are tied in Georgia.

Across all seven states, Harris has reduced Trump’s margins from May 2024. The biggest swing is in North Carolina, where Harris has wiped out Trump’s 8 point lead and is now 2 points ahead, on 46 percent to Trump’s 44 percent. Harris has also reduced Trump’s lead in Nevada by 3 points….

And now… we see that most sensible adults will not vote for a felon. Not surprising, in the least… we’ve watched the Trump signs disappear from lawns all over Arizona in the last three winter breaks. He has lost that state, to be certain — and Rasmussen’s over-sampling of GOP households left them… effectively… blind — to it.

[Fine. Give Tangerine ID, MT, WY, FL, TX, MS, AL and even the swing states of GA — and NV. He still loses (as the states he will carry, excepting Florida, are very sparsely populated — game over!), by a sizeable margin, in the Electoral College, now.]

Indeed, and moreover, I expect to see Kamala get a new ~5% bump, nationwide, coming out of the convention in Chicago, late next week — all good news. Out.

नमस्ते

Courtesy Anon. — More Banksy London Shenanigans!

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This time, the message is… let the wild things… be… wild.

Do go read for yourselves, but his art is now defaced or stolen within hours… due to its collectible value — which also rings true, as an ironic counterpoint to the ideal… of letting the “wild” — stay wild. Here’s the CNN version:

…A mural by elusive street artist Banksy showed a gorilla holding up the entrance gate as birds took flight and a sea lion waddled away. Three sets of eyes peered out from the darkness inside.

The painting may explain why Bansky-created creatures — from a mountain goat perched on a building buttress to piranhas circling a police guard post to a rhinoceros mounting a car — have been showing up in the most unlikely places around London for nine straight days….

The rhino that appeared Monday was tagged with graffiti. A wolf silhouette on a roof-mounted satellite dish — appearing to howl at the moon — was stolen hours after word got out about the artwork last week.

A big cat, stretching out on the back of a dilapidated billboard, was removed within hours by three men who said they had been hired to take it down for safety reasons….

We all well-know… these majestic creatures… should never have been caged. We know it. Out.

नमस्ते

A Series Of Eight High Altitude Science Balloons, Launching From NASA New Mexico — This Week.

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The eight launches will support 16 separate science missions, as detailed below, in the pull-quote. The eight “piggyback missions” will ride along on flights to support science and technology development.

So… Fall is… both back-to-school time, and… apparently… balloon time!

Three of these piggyback missions are technology demonstrations led by the balloon program team at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. Here’s the latest, out of New Mexico’s high desert:

…[The] campaign is the cornerstone of the NASA Balloon Program operations,” said Andrew Hamilton, acting chief of NASA’s Balloon Program Office. “Not only are we launching a large number of missions, but these flights set the foundation for follow-on missions from our long-duration launch facilities in Antarctica, New Zealand, and Sweden. The Fort Sumner campaign is also a strong focus for our student-based payloads and is an excellent training opportunity for our up-and-coming scientists and engineers….”

Salter Test Flight: The test flight aims to verify system design and support several smaller payloads on the flight called piggyback missions.

HASP 1.0 (High-Altitude Student Platform): This platform supports up to 12 student payloads and assists in training the next generation of aerospace scientists and engineers. It is designed to flight test compact satellites, prototypes, and other small payloads.

HASP 2.0 (High-Altitude Student Platform 2): This engineering test flight of the upgraded gondola and systems for the HASP program aims to double the carrying capability of student payloads.

DR-TES (mini-Dilution Refrigerator and a Transition Edge Sensor): This flight will test a cooling system and a gamma-ray detector in a near-space environment.

TIM Test Flight (Terahertz Intensity Mapper): This experiment will study galaxy evolution and the history of cosmic star formation.

THAI-SPICE (Testbed for High-Acuity Imaging Stable Photometry and Image-motion Compensation Experiment): The goal of this project is to build and demonstrate a fine-pointing system for stratospheric payloads with balloon-borne telescopes.

TinMan (Thermalized Neutron Measurement Experiment): This hand-launch mission features a 60-pound payload designed to help better understand how thermal neutrons may affect aircraft electronics….

Now you know — and onward, to eye-ball, and marvel at — Banksy’s latest London foray. Be excellent to one another. Smile.

नमस्ते

[U: Hinderaker AND] Hayward See “Bias” — I See Murderous Policies…

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Updated @ 9 PM EDT — Now John Hinderaker joins the reality distortion bubble, in claiming that Tangerine’s odious, cruel and retrograde (Nineteenth Century) policies (to the extent he’s ever articulated any) have nothing to do with the sort of harsh coverage he draws. It is all just the Fourth Estate, (or Deep State if you prefer), “being mean“, to him. Hilarious. End updated portion.

So silly Stevie… can only see the images at right, as media bias.

Precious.

This explains… essentially everything about MAGA world: their reality distortion bubble… is unassailable.

They cannot see the world the other 75 percent of us see — at all.

Hilarious.

Onward.

How Long Ago Was Dartmouth — 1969 — For Paul (“Never Happened”, Eh?!)…

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So this morning, one Paul Mirengoff tries to tell us that Kamala’s deft replies to people chanting pro-Palestine slogans at her own rally — letting them know that “everyone deserves a voice, but [she was] speaking right now…” is in some inexplicable manner, evidence of… wait for it… antisemitism, on her part.

Wake up Paul — she was hushing what you regard as Antisemites. [Was she supposed to have them arrested / beaten and run-out, as Tangerine has done to Oppo voices, at his 2020-era rallies?! Really Paul, you are complaining — about the jerseys, of the wrong color!]

The sitting Vice President went on to say that if you DON’T want for there to be a civilian, ecumenical, Palestinian “safe space” for children to survive somewhere in what was historically Gaza, go vote for… Trump. That is a simple fact. Trump has never once expressed any sense that Palestinians living in Gaza have a right to… survive.

But saying this — is again, in Paul’s warped, embittered mind, somehow an antisemitic position.

Poppycock.

So, once again, having decided there can be no shaded range of views — in America — over how much autonomy ordinary Palestinians might have, post this war in Israel… Paul tries to stop what he has long championed: open and robust debate.

That is a core American value. One Harris | Walz well understands and supports. As of last night, with Elon (after 45 minutes of tech difficulties!), Tangerine made plain — in HIS vision of America — there will be no dissent or debate.

In fact, we won’t need elections at all — he says, come 2028.

Hey Paul — come get your “pop-pop” — he’s sh!t hisself again.

Out.

Hayward Thinks The EU Reminding Elon Of His Legal Obligations As To X-itter — Is A “Threat”?!

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So… Elon Musk now owns and runs a global (but ostensibly private) social media platform business he calls “X”. We all call it (pronounced “Sh!tter”) formerly Twitter — now X-itter.

The EU this afternoon reminded him of his legal obligations in the EU, as to people accessing Musk’s interview with Tangerine tonight. Free expression works a lil’ differently there, than in the US’s relative Wild West. [I won’t listen. I don’t care. Nothing either of them will say interests me.] But compliance is a CEO job, to be sure — “tone at the top”, and all.

Probably because Hayward knows both Elon and Trump fully intend to violate the EU law, Steve has labeled this as a “threat”.

Once again, we see that MAGA is nothing more than an (rather poorly) organized crime spree/club. Legal compliance is considered threatening — to Steve Hayward.

Charming.

I think I’ve said all I need to say.

Out.

And… The Guy Is… Positively… Obsessed… With (His Imagined) “Size”. Heh.

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Literally everything he said falsely — about Mr. Biden — now seems to apply with immense force… to him.

It may seem trivial, except that it speaks to an addled, irascible, and increasingly demented… old man’s mind. He has now — over the last 30 or so hours, repeatedly claimed that the photo at right is “A.I. generated” — is a fake.

It is really getting under his skin that she is outdrawing him — essentially. . . everywhere. And he is repeatedly claiming that she is hiring “actors” — to attend her rallies (something it was proven he himself had done in the 2020 cycle). Wow. Here’s the bit:

…A photo authentically shows a crowd greeting Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris and vice presidential candidate Tim Walz at an Aug. 7, 2024, rally at Detroit Metro Airport….

Do go take a look at the full shot — it is more jammed than the AP cropped version that Trump objected to. Hilarious. Onward, to Wolverine!

नमस्ते