Category: Uncategorized

And, A Perhaps Unpopular Opinion… It’s Been 21 Long Years.

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We live in a world wildly different than the feckless, clueless, largely care-free and frankly mean spirited time that preceded 9/11. Bush and Cheney were glibly claiming a new mandate to take away safety net programs from people of limited means, restrict asylum seekers and rip off ordinary Americans, for oil and mineral profits.

Since then, we’ve seen two wars in the middle east, a pandemic, and now Russia getting its ass handed to it in Ukraine. The world has… moved on.

But the airlines still charge what they call a “9/11 fee”, 21 years on. The pandemic nearly ended commercial air travel in the US for over a year.

There is no “COVID-19 fee”, listed in my ticket price.

It is time to let it go, Scott. You choose to immortalize the privileged few — the Dartmouth alums. [Not a single janitor’s — or secretary’s — life has ever. . . been mentioned on your 21 years of pages at Powerline. Never. That speaks volumes, in its mute testament to who you think… matters.]

Sure. Never forget those who perished, including my friends at Cantor Fitzgerald. But… the world has moved on. The total death count (~3,000) was about equal to two Titanics.

OTOH, over a million in the USA are gone now — from COVID-19. [Yet many of the same people who say all of the Muslim world attacked the US on 9/11… say COVID was a fake virus — manufactured to “control” them. They also are the same people who mostly deny the outcome of the 2020 elections. Right. Nuts.]

We need to completely accept (and thus move on; ask forgiveness of neighbors we slighted, intentionally or otherwise) that the vast majority of people of Muslim faith wanted, and still want, nothing to do with the radical violence that led to 9/11.

It is well-past time to move on.

This is the last time I’ll post a remembrance of the 9/11 victims here.

DART Will Impact Asteroid Dimorphos — A Celestial Object — In 15 Days…

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The goal of the Johns Hopkins-infused NASA mission is of course to test whether we may safely alter the near Earth orbital path. . . of a smallish asteroid… by directly ramming into it, at a precise angle of inflection.

We’ve covered it since August of 2020… but the time is finally (almost) here:

…Monday, Sept. 26 (DART Impact Day)

Media interested in covering the DART impact from APL must complete this form by 3 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 2.

6 p.m. – Live coverage of DART’s impact with the asteroid Dimorphos will air on NASA TV and the agency’s website. The public also can watch live on agency social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

7:14 p.m. – DART’s kinetic impact with asteroid Dimorphos….

We will be watching NASA-TV… for the confirmation of both the impact, and the change in trajectory of Dimorphos. Sometimes, even small nudges… far out into the night… make significant differences — in the lives of others… over time. Smile… be excellent to one another.

नमस्ते

EmptyWheel Gets It All — ALL Of It… Exactly Right…

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As to the politics / optics of all this. . . EmptyWheel is ever spot on. Go read it all.

And here on a quiet Saturday morning, we want to point out how little Tangerine actually… cares. This is always and forever… only about him. There is no other star in the sky.

That his continuously-ridiculous demands on the proposed special master process certainly guarantee that all the oxygen in all mid-term races will go toward defending or villifying Trumpism… and Trump… is all he wants.

It doesn’t matter to him at all that he (and his acolytes) will lose, and lose bigly — on all fronts, thus:

…[I]f new specifics about Trump’s negligence and efforts to obstruct the investigation are made public, then November’s election will be precisely what Republicans are trying to avoid it being: not just a response to the Dobbs ruling overturning protection for abortion access, but a referendum on the way Republicans have sacrificed American security in their fealty to Donald Trump….

That from Dr. Wheeler… is absolutely… dead bang perfect. Take it to the bank. Smiling — off, to a warm bike-ride by the clear blue-green lake waters now….

नमस्ते

John Whines… And The World… Yawns.

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His inability to see anything… that doesn’t fit into his forever falsified rear view mirror on the 1940s / 1950s… reeks of… encroaching senility.

So… like the inappropriate uncle at holiday meals… we mostly learn to ignore him.

But cities were never as his delusions imagined them. In fact, most small towns weren’t, either.

But people almost always did this stuff behind closed doors, so he could pretend it didn’t exist.

And jailing addicts… solves nothing. Ever.

Out.

Whilst On The Topic Of US Pricing / Out Of Pocket Drug Co-Pays…

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There could certainly be a lively, full-time blog devoted just to covering the litigation to-and-fro — and the insanity that makes up the crazy quilt of US laws, rules and sharp (pharma, PBM and insurer) practices… which decide how much a given individual US consumer (with or without health insurance) has to pay out of pocket — for any of his or her life saving medicines.

During the Trump administration, GOP legislators, GOP agency leaders and Tangerine (despite talking about reducing drug prices) worked together to institute new CMS rules that allowed PBMs and pharmacies and insurers to require that patients “accumulate their co-pays” before the benefits of capped out of pockets would kick in. This effectively greatly increased the amount individuals, many on very limited incomes, with life-long medication needs… actually paid from 2018 to 2021.

And since my post of this morning paints pharma as having been treated unfairly, under 340B — I will mention this FierceHealthcare countervailing item, from about two weeks ago, now. “Regrettably, the federal agencies charged with implementing the ACA have endorsed the efforts of large insurers and pharmacy benefit managers to impede access to innovative medicine by denying patients the benefit of contributions provided by drug manufacturers when calculating patient payment obligations… “

And so, in DC, a federal lawsuit is challenging this bit of ledger-domain rammed through by the PhRMA lobbyists, under a pliant GOP Senate and House in the early part of the former guy’s time.

Here’s the full federal complaint at law, and a bit from Fierce:

…A collection of patient advocacy groups is suing to demand the federal government outlaw copay accumulator programs they say inflate healthcare costs.

The three groups filed the lawsuit Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia challenging the legality of a Trump-era rule that allows insurers to avoid counting the value of drugmaker coupons toward patient out-of-pocket costs and deductibles. …

Now you know. Be excellent to one another, on this fine weekend of late summer.

नमस्ते

Tangerine Is Hell Bent On Being Indicted, Tried And Convicted For Crimes Of National Disloyalty…

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This gab[dot]com post is pretty self explanatory. He is correct that people are far safer in Central Park’s wilds, even at night — than being within 2,000 yards of him.

He’s a semi-mobile crime spree, still on the hoof.

These plainly bad faith, public (written, and broadcast) lies, about the FBI “planting evidence” though… will be used by the able AUSAs to prove he had a guilty mind, from the go.

He knew he was caught red-handed, so he has been lying — about the actual national defense secrets he stole, and took to Mar-A-Lago. 18 U.S. Code § 793(e) is going to bury him.

Effectively, a life sentence — for the Tangerine knuckle-walker.

J U S T I C E.

Merck Adds Its Name To A Growing List Of Large Pharmas Suing HHS On 340B Threats Of Fines; Removal

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This all-star wrestling match has been brewing for over two years, and we have a quiet, and yet sunny Friday, so let’s catch up on it all.

Below are collected a fair number of recent cases in which large pharmas (imaged at right) have sued the federal government, or Health and Human Services, specifically, for threatening action against them if they did not continue to offer so-called 340B discount pricing in on covered drugs.

As Policy & Medicine explains, “Merck is trying to avoid potential fines for cutting off 340B contract pharmacies from receiving discounted prescriptions.”

Under the 340B program, pharmaceutical companies offer discounted pills and solutions to certain providers in exchange for Medicare and Medicaid participation.

Multinational public company pharmaceutical manufacturers now argue that the HHS program has “gotten too big” (apparently, with no irony intended… hilarious!) and so, 340B is no longer benefiting patients. That’s the gist of it. And so, in 2021, several companies cut off their sales of 340B discounted drugs — to various contract pharmacies.

Merck’s is the latest of the suits — and it is in ample, if not necessarily… good company:

…AstraZeneca Pharms. LP v. Becerra, C.A. No. 21-27-LPS, 2022 WL 484587, at *6 (D. Del. Feb. 16, 2022) (“Because the Violation Letter rests on essentially the same flawed statutory interpretation that the Court already rejected, the Violation Letter cannot stand.”), appeal docketed, No. 22-1676 (3d Cir. Apr. 15, 2022); id. at *6, *9 (stating, on two separate grounds, that the court will vacate and set aside HRSA’s “Violation Letter”); see also Eli Lilly & Co. v. U.S. Dep’t of Health & Hum. Servs., No. 1:21-cv-00081-SEB-MJD, 2021 WL 5039566, at *1, *24 (S.D. Ind. Oct. 29, 2021) (stating that the court is “set[ting] aside and vacat[ing] . . . the May 17 Letter” “because HRSA has failed even to acknowledge any change in its position”), appeal
docketed, Nos. 21-3128 & 21-3405 (7th Cir. Nov. 15, 2021, Dec. 30, 2021); Sanofi-Aventis U.S., LLC v. U.S. Dep’t of Health & Hum. Servs., CV Nos. CV 21-00634 and 21-00806 (FLW), 2021 WL 5150464, at *43 (D.N.J. Nov. 5, 2021) (vacating HRSA’s “Violation Letter” “to the extent that such determinations may depend on the number of permissible contract pharmacy arrangements under the 340B statute”), appeal docketed, Nos. 21-3167 et al. (3d Cir. Nov. 26, 2021)….

We will keep a weather eye on this (but I do expect that PhRMA has the upper hand here). We will also keep a weather eye out, in Southern California (where a year’s worth of rain may fall in just the next 16 or so hours)… stay safe one and all — climate change is… a thing.

नमस्ते

Merrick Garland Decides To Say “Way ‘Mint, There Judge Cannon…”

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And he is of course right. He will win.

I am a lil’ concerned about this being gamed by Tangerine for added delay.

But I am sure DoJ… is ready to prosecute — when the indictment is unsealed, even on the consented to documents, as I earlier said. DoJ may always file a superseding indictment with the contested ones, here — when this is sorted out.

I know Mr. Garland knows well what he is doing. Here is that well-argued filing, tonight — in full. He will get this crook — and on the “merits” before Judge Cannon (if Trump is in fact innocent — highly unlikely, now, given the photos):

…As the Supreme Court has made clear, “the cost, anxiety, and inconvenience of having to defend against” potential criminal prosecution cannot“ by themselves be considered ‘irreparable’ in the special legal sense of that term.” Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37, 46 (1971); cf. Cobbledick, 309 U.S. at 325 (“Bearing the discomfiture and cost of a prosecution for crime even by an innocent person is one of the painful obligations of citizenship.”).

That is why courts have exercised great caution before interfering through civil actions with criminal investigations or pending cases. See also Deaver v. Seymour, 822 F.2d 66, 69-71 (D.C. Cir. 1987) (applying Younger’s principles with regard to potential federal charges); Ramsden v. United States, 2 F.3d 322, 326 (9th Cir. 1993) (“The mere threat of prosecution is not sufficient to constitute irreparable harm.”). And those fundamental principles strongly support the limited stay the government seeks here….

So there you have it. Tangerine is soon buying me root beer floats, all over the Twitterverse, too. Grin.

नमस्ते

Hinderaker Pays Grifters… $21… Yawn.

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I think it is clear that the frothy right has nothing meaningful to say — on any topic — these days.

And Hinderaker is desperate to distance himself from his prior defenses of Tangerine’s national defense related felonies at Mar-A-Lago.

So he tells us of a fictional movie made in Serbia on a shoestring… hoping we will accept the theatrics as a… documentary.

Yawn. Glad you wasted $21 John.

None of us are that fecklessly gullible. But almost all MAGAts are. So it will break even, or better (as about 1/10th of America is as idiotic as the doddering old Powerline boys).

See ya’.