Category: Uncategorized

Drew Bruce Tipton: Soon To Be “Dressed Down”, By The Supremes, Come December 2022.

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Much ink is being spilled about the five conservatives not entering a stay.

I. Don’t. Care.

What is actually important is that the nine Supremes broadly hinted that the states have no Article III standing to even be in court.

Something young Bruce Drew Tipton got laughably wrong, and the Fifth Circuit acting en banc, along political lines (majority both appointed and voted pro-GOP)… just kicked up to the highest court.

Young Tipton will be a pure laughing stock at the Supremes, for having flunked Con. Law, First Semester.

Here’s most pertinent part of the the order’s actual text, effectively granting cert. on an expedited basis, this afternoon:

Don’t let Faux News snow you — not entering a stay is NOT deciding in favor of “no discretion” at the border. [What a bunch of… idiots.]

…Doing so, the petition is granted.

The parties are directed to brief and argue the following questions:

1. Whether the state plaintiffs have Article III standing to challenge the Department of Homeland Security’s Guidelines for the Enforcement of Civil Immigration Law; and

2. Whether the Guidelines are contrary to 8 U.S.C. §1226(c) or 8 U.S.C. §1231(a), or otherwise violate the Administrative Procedure Act; and 3. Whether 8 U.S.C. §1252(f)(1) prevents the entry of an order to “hold unlawful and set aside” the Guidelines under 5 U.S.C. §706(2).

The case will be set for argument in the first week of the December 2022 argument session.

Justice Sotomayor, Justice Kagan, Justice Barrett, and Justice Jackson would grant the application for stay….

UPDATE — As This One Lands Squarely In The Provider Space, We Note That Amazon Is Buying Up [Google-Backed] One Medical…

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Just another form of close out, on the Amazon story arc… but due to the size ($3.9 billion), and national scope — in trying to “fully-‘franchise’-out” the local primary care provider experience… we will cover it.

To be sure, seeing a local “doc in a box” is a frustrating endeavor. But I am not certain that new furniture, and some slick YouTubes are the main (or best) answers.

In any event, here is the M&A headliner story — let’s see how well the companies’ deal teams might be able to execute, and integrate a million employee shipper with. . . some boutiquey higher end doc in the boxes:

…Amazon’s two biggest acquisitions in its history have been Whole Foods ($13.7 billion) and the recently closed purchase of MGM ($8.45 billion), but now, if the deal closes, the third entry on that list will be a $3.9 billion buyout of One Medical. One Verge staffer who has been considering signing up for the company’s $199 primary care provider subscription (on top of insurance, just like any other doctor) called the company “healthcare for millennials.”

Backed by Alphabet’s GV unit (formerly Google Ventures), One Medical’s pitch includes an app, 24/7 access to on-demand telehealth services over video, and guaranteed same- or next-day appointments available through more than 125 offices….

The sheen is less evident in some of the reports that have popped up about One Medical since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. NPR reported that in early 2021 it let ineligible people skip the line to receive the vaccine, and some patients told The Verge they were charged for vaccine shots that should’ve been free….

As ever, we shall watch… and learn, and see… how it all plays out. Truly Amazon has a huge opportunity, even if it just runs its more than a million employees through the OneMedical ops, as a preferred provider network. [Assuming that the Amazon Labor Union ultimately wins full health care coverage, for all those hundreds of thousands part-time and contractor employees.] Do stay tuned. Out, grinning.

नमस्ते

“Veritas” In Eleventh Cir. Cannot Understand: CNN Cannot Libel “Garbage — By Saying It Stinks.”

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The boys at Project Veritas are hyping the fact that they’ve technically appealed their complete trial loss, on defamation, against CNN — to the Eleventh Circuit.

This is a turgid, non-informative 58 page “brief” from the jokers.

It is… DOA. I won’t quote it — CNN wins, hands down. Why?

Because what CNN said about O’Keefe and Project Veritas… has truth, at its heart — as the defense. That is all it needs.

Cheers, boys. [Here is how the actual law works, from the trial court opinion — and it is why Veritas’ claims were… dumped, in total.]

[Power Alley] Merck Will Be Fine, But Another Keytruda® Study Misses Endpoint This Morning…

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This time it is in head and neck cancers, a high burden portion of the diseases that are broadly called “cancers”.

Back in 2016-17, BMS’s Optivo® beat Merck, as first to win FDA approval in that arena, but both are presently in use — for this indication. I’d expect Keytruda® sales to keep growing overall, but see tougher sledding in this, and the colorectal arena… as we noted a day or two ago.

That said, this company is a strong contender for best conservative investment, in a stag-flationary environment, with rising interest rates… like now.

In any event, here’s Rahway’s presser on it this morning, and a bit:

…Merck today announced that the Phase 3 KEYNOTE-412 trial evaluating KEYTRUDA® (pembrolizumab), Merck’s anti-PD-1 therapy, with concurrent chemoradiation therapy (CRT) followed by KEYTRUDA as maintenance therapy (the KEYTRUDA regimen), did not meet its primary endpoint of event-free survival (EFS) for the treatment of patients with unresected locally advanced head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC). At the final analysis of the study, there was an improvement in EFS for patients who received the KEYTRUDA regimen compared to placebo plus CRT; however, these results did not meet statistical significance per the pre-specified statistical plan….

Onward, grinning — while looking back over ten, nine, seven and five long years… with youngest son coming home next week, from the Pacific Northwest… so much to smile about!

नमस्ते

So… I Don’t Usually Call Out Random Gab Idiots. Tonight, I’ll Make An Exception.

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I will never get a gab account to joust with these idiots, but if I run across their Twitter account/alt… well, I will be ready.

This malignant moron — one “Joe Prich“, on gab [dot] com, thinks showing a picture from the dust bowl… invalidates 600 years of enslaving history. True enough, many whyte people were poor, too — but it cannot be denied that proportionately, since they owned their own futures, at law… they had an unimaginably vast leg up on anyone who… didn’t.

And all non-enslaved people, from 1619 on to today, reaped a societal benefit from that free labor.

To deny it… is to engage in outright sophistry. [As Hinderaker so often does.]

Sit down Joey. And while I’m at it, Hinderaker can sit down, again tonight. He too is a fecklessly idiot malign actor.

Hinderaker Doesn’t Understand… Anything, Really…

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John regularly gets his tight whyties in a bunch over the tiniest affronts to his whyte privilege, ever since 44 was President.

Tonight, he’s all frothy because a woman of color — who’s had to struggle her whole life to win lead operatic roles (one’s befitting her prodigious talent) even as plainly-less qualified but “safer” whyte divas were selected over her… decided to speak up when yet another whyte woman was cast in one of the very few operas with a definitively Ethiopian lead (Verdi’s “Aida”).

John gets bent whenever someone points out racism. He won’t listen. It’s always black peoples’ fault in his malign mind… that racism exists.

Damn son. Grow up. Out.

The Rumored ~$40 Billion Merck-Seagen Combination Will Have To Wait A Tick…

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Apparently… the proverbial people at the WSJ, “familiar with the matter“ say both sides have various things to announce at their respective next earnings calls — which will be on the same day for both Merck and Seagen, in early August. We await word on how those developments might affect timing, and perhaps even pricing.

Also complicating the matter is that while Seagen recently won an infringement jury trial in rural Texas, against Daiichi-Sankyo for one of its key patents (the so-called ’39 patent), Sankyo has been granted a review in DC, at the USPTO, of whether the ‘039 patent should ever have issued to Seagen in the first place. We expect this will all resolve itself in favor of Seagen, but when… is the $40 billion question. So, we will keep you posted here — in the power alley.

Onward, grinning… and (obviously) I’m catching up on last week’s Merck news, now.

नमस्ते

Power-Alley: Merck And AstraZeneca Quietly Halt LYNK-003 Combo Study…

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To be certain, there is to be no shame, here. Keytruda® (pembrolizumab) works wonders in many other solid organ / tumors / cancers. And Lynparza® (olaparib) works well in several specified ovarian oncology settings, to be sure. But it would seem that there is no incremental benefit over standard course therapies, in combining the two — for colorectal cancers.

Again, this is the way life-science (immuno-oncology) advances — we learn with tiny, halting steps… most of the time. Here’s that end of day confirmation, from Rahway:

…[Merck and AstraZeneca] will stop for futility the Phase 3 LYNK-003 trial investigating LYNPARZA with or without bevacizumab for the treatment of patients with unresectable or metastatic colorectal cancer who have not progressed following first-line induction. This action follows the recommendation of an independent Data Monitoring Committee (DMC), after the DMC reviewed the data from a planned interim analysis. LYNPARZA is a PARP inhibitor that is being co-developed and co-commercialized with AstraZeneca.

At the pre-specified interim analysis for progression-free survival, the efficacy of LYNPARZA as a monotherapy and in combination with bevacizumab relative to control met the criteria for futility by the DMC and accordingly, both experimental arms will be discontinued. No new safety signals were observed with LYNPARZA in this trial, and the safety profiles of both LYNPARZA monotherapy and LYNPARZA combined with bevacizumab in this trial were generally consistent with that observed in previously reported studies. Merck will inform study investigators of the recommendation from the DMC and will advise patients in the trial to speak to their physician regarding treatment options. Data from this study will be shared in a future scientific forum….

I mention it mostly to highlight that there are many very expensive, legitimately ground-breaking, and ultimately… dead end alleys, in advancing the frontier of clinical practice in a complicated set of high burden diseases, like cancers. And so, not all pharma runs a Shkreli shell-game, pretending to do clinical research. In point of fact, most large pharma concerns spend deep into the tens of billions of dollars each year, on just this sort of science advancing research.

It does seem that the overall spend peaked in 2021, however according to PhRMA (though that may yet turn out to be a by-product of COVID-19 slowdowns in recruitment for new studies). That is, this may reverse, as people now move about more freely, and will agree to be enrolled in new clinical trial protocols. We shall see.

Be excellent to one another — and enjoy the summer… smile.

नमस्ते

Global Climate Change… Is A Verified FACT. [Hinderaker Lies; U: Joined By Scott.]

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I have very little patience for the argument that these are simply natural cycles, independent of the vast greenhouse gas emissions we are spewing… daily, all of which is plainly unprecedented, in the long arc of human history.

Look below, or look at right [in contrast to Hinderaker’s seemingly endless agitprop].

Updated: Scott Johnson too wants, here on the morning of July 20, 2022 — to get his share of the lying in. This despite the highest temps ever recorded in southern England this week — and in Iraq, as well. End, updated portion.

And please explain why these deniers want to bequeath a baked, scorched and dying world to all their grand-children and great-grandchildren — and yours, and mine. Damn — per NASA-GOES 5 data, then:

…In June and July 2022, heatwaves struck Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, as temperatures climbed above 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) in places and broke many long-standing records.

The map above shows the surface air temperatures across most of the Eastern Hemisphere on July 13, 2022. It was produced by combining observations with a version of the Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS) global model, which uses mathematical equations to represent physical processes in the atmosphere.

“While there is a clear pattern of an ‘atmospheric wave’ with alternating warm (redder) and cool (bluer) values in different locations, this large area of extreme (and record breaking) heat is another clear indicator that emissions of greenhouse gases by human activity are causing weather extremes that impact our living conditions,” said Steven Pawson, chief of the Global Modeling and Assimilation Office at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center….

Enjoy swimming in the oceans, rivers and lakes this fine summer, with your loved ones… while you still… are able.

नमस्ते

Space Junk Is A Real, And Growing… Problem — ESA.int Edition…

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I’ve never been good at keeping secrets — or, at least “scientific” secrets. Here then, a full day early, is the answer to the above poser:

This is a European Space Agency mission to study Earth’s magnetic field changes (mystery solved!), using a trio of craft, to triangulate, and generate real-time 3D dynamic models of our magnetosphere. And it was put in a fair bit of danger, this past week — by space junk, of indeterminate origin.

Here’s the story — and a bit — from the 14th of July:

…A small piece of human-made rubbish circling our planet – known as space debris – was detected hurtling towards Alpha at 16:00 CEST, on 30 June. A potential collision was predicted just eight hours later, shortly after midnight. The risk of impact was high enough that Alpha needed to get out of the way — fast….

Carrying out evasive action — known as a ‘collision avoidance manoeuvre’ — requires a lot of planning. You have to check that you’re not moving the satellite into a new orbit that puts it at risk of other collisions and you have to calculate how to get back to your original orbit using as little fuel and losing as little science data as possible.

In this case, we only got eight hours’ notice.

And worse, the alert meant that the Swarm team was now suddenly racing against two clocks. Another manoeuvre was planned for just a few hours after the potential collision and had to be cancelled to give Alpha enough time to duck out of the way of the debris. That manoeuvre was also very time sensitive and had to be entirely replanned, recalculated and carried out within a day….

Alpha is now safe from a collision with that piece of debris and has completed its climb to safer skies alongside Charlie….

Now you know what was up, with the weekend mystery header at the main site (post speakeasy evening, and close up magic). Grin….

नमस्ते