We respond…
Hinderaker tonight fails to mention that all of the above statements (which he seeks to mock, as exaggerations) are deadly accurate — and fair, in context summations — of repeated public statements of the GOP leadership.
In sum, John complains because… a newspaper is reporting… facts. Relevant facts.
Come, let us marvel… at how far he’s… fallen.
Out.
[Since the boys are saying nothing of any import today… we offer a Sen. Lummis national security issue update, from another of our properties this morning.]
Well… I guess… I get it. She’s so “free-market” — she wants Chinese owned high throughput computing centers running within a mile of the fence of a US Air Force base that houses some of our nuclear arsenal.
I think I have that down, about right, anyway.
Y I K E S.
Mr. Biden’s Administration has forced the shutdown of this MineOne operation, nearly on the perimeter fence, at Warren AFB, with proof that though nominally a British Virgin Islands based entity, the ultimate owners are Chinese state actors.
The company may move its rigs more than a mile away from the fence, and re-open, though more likely than not… it won’t. [I suspect it was less about spying, and more about disrupting communications with the silos — in the event of the unthinkable.]
In sum, don’t think crypto mining was ever the goal, in truth here.
But this should give the above GOP supplicant / Senator a wake-up call… about why she’s in such a hurry to loosen all regulations, on all things… crypto.
Now you know.
Just… yikes.
Grinning… into a Spring rain, softly falling here now.
नमस्ते
Trump — via Esquire, in NJ Saturday, verbatim:
“…Has anyone ever seen The Silence of the Lambs? The late, great Hannibal Lecter.
He’s a wonderful man. He oftentimes would have a friend for dinner. Remember the last scene? ‘Excuse me, I’m about to have a friend for dinner,’ as this poor doctor walked by. ‘I’m about to have a friend for dinner.’ But Hannibal Lecter.
Congratulations. The late, great Hannibal Lecter. We have people that have been released into our country that we don’t want in our country….”
That’s… totally… crackers. Utterly… deranged. In context. Damn.
In his campaign speech?!
Wow. Just… wow.
But the boys won’t even ask after it — or, of him.
Very… courageous. Or… not, actually.
Out.
This bit of fluff is so… insipid, as to not merit any considered response, or analysis.
Every court that has considered this dispute, has soundly either expressly, or impliedly… rejected Texas’s claims.
Now back at the trial level, in the able USDC Senior Judge Ezra’s courtroom in West Texas, it will lose (again), as well.
So it goes. Onward.
नमस्ते
A clinical trial involving another anti-TIGIT antibody melanoma candidate in combination with Keytruda will be ended, due to the number of patients leaving the trial, citing immune response system off-target effects. [However, it is likely that most patients will keep taking pembrolizumab, without the second candidate.]
But to be clear, Merck’s pembrolizumab remains firmly in control of this market (as the globe’s highest revenue drug) — with multiple melanoma approvals in its own right, and probably over $25 billion in sales coming in this full year 2024. In addition, it has a clear path to continued US market exclusivity through the mid-2030s. So this one event (or even a series of these later stage combo-trials ending) won’t change that narrative arc in any material way. Here’s Fierce on it all:
…Merck & Co. has bailed early on a phase 3 test of the anti-TIGIT antibody vibostolimab after a high rate of discontinuations rendered the trial’s success unlikely.
The Big Pharma had been evaluating vibostolimab in combination with anti-PD-1 immunotherapy Keytruda in the KeyVibe-010 trial as an adjuvant treatment for patients with resected high-risk melanoma.
But a higher rate of discontinuations mainly due to “immune-mediated adverse experiences” among patients taking the combination regimen meant it was “highly unlikely that the trial could achieve a statistically significant improvement” in the primary endpoint of recurrence-free survival, the company said….
So it goes — and yet, the morning’s sunshine… is amazing, here, just the same.
नमस्ते
Just a small footnote here.
Overnight, Paul tries to tell us that our own State Dept. assessment that Israel may be violating international law, in the conduct of its Gaza offensives… is a lazy argument, intellectually.
I think the report measured and fair. And the only lazy argument I’ve seen, here… was clickety-clacked out from Paul’s keyboard. [Oh. And a separate one, from Scott Johnson, as we mentioned over the weekend.]
Mirengoff’s too lazy to admit that he fully supported Ronald Reagan and the then same State Dept., in a nearly identical set of facts — in the Summer of 1982, when Israel ended up invading Lebanon (after a series of escalations on both sides — that this time it was precipitated by a single horrific attack on October 7, 2023 is irrelevant, to the legal analysis)… Mirengoff was all for the suspension of WMD sales to Israel… on much the same set of facts.
Damn, son — your hypocrisy is out on front street.
Out.
This last happened, on this scale in about 2003.
But thus far, in the highly-orange-light-polluted Chicago skies, the aurorae have been essentially invisible. Out in the northern wilds, toward Wisconsin (an hour’s trek from here), I am reliably informed, in those darkened skies though its been quite the show. This, via NASA’s SDO blog:
…Solar flares are powerful bursts of energy. Flares and solar eruptions can impact radio communications, electric power grids, navigation signals, and pose risks to spacecraft and astronauts.
This flare is classified as an X3.9 flare. X-class denotes the most intense flares, while the number provides more information about its strength.
To see how such space weather may affect Earth, please visit NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center https://spaceweather.gov/, the U.S. government’s official source for space weather forecasts, watches, warnings, and alerts. NASA works as a research arm of the nation’s space weather effort….
Now you know — smiling. May just drive on northward, tonight — for grins.
नमस्ते
This is not so much to be seen as a woeful passing (from my perspective) — as it may be a beacon of hope, for end stage renal patients worldwide.
That Rick made it off the operating table at all was a huge victory. In fact, he left the hospital and was living without dialysis — at home, until he finally succumbed now 60 days on — of likely unrelated causes. We have long written about the four decade journey — the journey, that led to this moment — this Slayman success, at Mass General. [Prior to Rick, no patient with a pig kidney had lived more than a week, all in the ICU.]
So. . . here’s just one of those long ago (2009-era) backgrounders — and here is the news of his passing, from the BBC (UK):
…Richard “Rick” Slayman, 62, was suffering with end-stage kidney disease before undergoing the operation in March.
Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) said on Sunday there was no indication his death was a result of the transplant.
Transplants of other organs from genetically modified pigs have failed in the past, but the operation on Mr Slayman was hailed as a historic milestone.
In addition to kidney disease, Mr. Slayman also suffered from Type 2 diabetes and hypertension. In 2018, he had a human kidney transplant, but it began to fail after five years.
Following his pig kidney transplant on 16 March, his doctors confirmed he no longer needed dialysis after the new organ was said to be functioning well….
Now you know. And, be excellent to all mothers, everywhere — today — and always. Human… and all other kinds. All.
नमस्ते
Since when is it at all controversial to say that people we sell weapons of mass destruction to… must not (to the extent humanly possible) unleash our WMDs on defenseless civilians — starving women and children, specifically?!
Since… when, Scott?
Johnson today preposterously argues that we (as a nation) are required to “help” Israel violate all sorts of international laws and treaties — ones we’ve both signed onto, and abided by — since the 1970s…
He argues — by inference — that Ronald Reagan “stabbed Israel in the back” during the latter’s invasion of Lebanon, in 1982.
Even Saint Ronnie knew that this path Scott and Paul are now bleating for… leads to the ultimate WMD being used, by someone hostile to us — and our interests: Nukes.
If we won’t avoid war crimes with our sold weapons, we may expect that some hostile power in the nuclear club… will soon use one, against Israel (in a city) or, simply wipe them clean. These idiot / codgers seem to forget we live in a nuclear age. Damn.
[No other, even hostile, power… is stupid enough to try to nuke any US city, as that would be the end of the Earth, as we all well know.]
But Scott and Paul are openly advocating for an escalation scenario — and if any Mideast power possesses a nuke… then these boys will have to answer for Tel Aviv being wiped clean.
So, taken to their logical conclusions, these idiots essentially argue for — and in fact clamber for Holocaust 2.0… inside Israel, somewhere.
I N S A N E.
This has dragged on for nearly 3/4th a year now: there is a presumed right of contemporaneous public and press access to all public docket court filings in federal courts.
The parties have 10 days from yesterday to make sealing, or redaction motions, according to a local PACER docket entry. But sealing here is wholly inappropriate. The public has a right to know about the potential positions, and experts, in this multi-billion dollar, and decade long lawsuit — involving two very large multinational pharma concerns’… names and trademarks.
So, I will rerun mine of last year, as to why this is so — and forward a copy of it to internal and external counsel for both Mercks. I will file on the docket if an at least redacted version is not on file in the Newark court-house by end of day, on June 15, 2024.
[My October 2023 item — in part, and as original:] It is certainly… newsworthy. In any event, here is a bit of what I’ll send to chambers as a non-party, shortly, to encourage the unsealing under that last docketed order… before the real press writes about some form of dual docket / purported “local practice rules“:
…My [entirely pro bono] clients recognize that the court has myriad other demands on its time and limited staffing resources, but absent a documented showing of unreasonable administrative burdens (and a two page order, published at the same moment, makes it plain that this is no administrative burden!), the public’s right to contemporaneous access to judicial records cannot be overcome. See, e.g., Courthouse News Serv. v. Planet, No. CV 11-08083 SJO (FFMx), 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 105197, at *62 (C.D. Cal. May 26, 2016) (“to the extent Planet might argue that such a practice would have been cost-prohibitive or unduly labor intensive, she has not quantified the cost… nor has she detailed the additional labor that would have been required)….
Absent such evidence, the Court cannot ‘articulate facts demonstrating an administrative burden sufficient to deny access.’”) (citation omitted), aff’ in part rev’d in part, 947 F.3d 581, 597 (9th Cir. 2020) (holding that “Ventura County’s no-access-before-process policy bears no real relationship to the County’s legitimate administrative concerns about… efficient court administration”); see also United States v. Valenti, 987 F.2d 708, 715 (11th Cir. 1993) (holding unconstitutional the district court’s maintenance of a dual-docketing system, where certain docket entries were visible only to the parties, and expressly rejecting the argument that unsealing would bind the court to a “formal procedure that is unduly burdensome”).
Specifically, a pre-trial scheduling order (Cause No. 16-cv-266; ECF Doc. No. 227) in this matter has been repeatedly debated, and apparently repeatedly revised — but not filed for over eight months now, and never placed on the public docket, by the court in even a redacted form — and so, remains entirely invisible to the public.
Of course, while redactions for trade secrets and sensitive, personally identifying information would be normal, there has been no such effort made, on the part of the counsel to the parties. It seems court staff sua sponte designated the ECF Proposed Pre-Trial Order Document as “attorneys’ eyes” only.
Based on my review of the ECF record in this matter, it would seem no public court order — whether in writing or issued orally from the bench — has set forth the findings required by the First Amendment, prior to the removal of this judicial document (No. 227) from the record. See, e.g., Oregonian Publ’g Co. v. U.S. Dist. Ct., 920 F.2d 1462 (9th Cir. 1990).
However, rather than waste more of the court’s resources and time, I have chosen (as a non-party member of the public, and at this point, non-intervenor) to simply write to counsel of record directly, and copy the parties’ general counsels on this. I am hopeful the lawyers will prepare and file an agreed redacted version of ECF Doc. No. 227, as required by long-standing, uncontroverted black letter First Amendment law.
To be clear, this need not (and perhaps should not) require my filing as an intervenor, in the Newark, NJ federal district courtroom — to achieve Doc. 227 being placed on the public docket (even in redacted form), as it sensibly ought to be resolved without need for appearances in the record, on my clients’ behalf.
Please instruct counsel for all parties to prepare and publish an agreed redacted version of the proposed Pre-Trial Order, on the public docket before June 16, 2024. Kind regards…. /s/
Well… we shall wait and see (again!) if counsel handles it quietly and promptly. These are, afterall… the peoples’ courts. Onward.
नमस्ते
Powerline Lies... 