I’ve always loved the expression “damned with faint praise,” a concept that has its roots in antiquity. Way back in the early 2nd century, Favorinus, a Roman writer, opined that “It is more shameful to be praised faintly and coldly than to be censured violently.” Geraldo Rivera might have done well to think about that before he came up with the ultimate faint praise for Joe Biden, something that establishes irrefutably that Biden has nothing to offer America but the fetid breaths he manages to wheeze out of his fragile, ailing body.
As we’ve covered here, Joe Biden’s State of the Union address did not inspire confidence. He didn’t deliver a statesmanlike speech to the American people, one in which he talked about where we were last year, where we are now, and where he hopes to lead us in the future.
Instead, Biden offered a manic rant about, among other things, our obligations to Ukraine, America’s allegedly nationalist fifth column, his Hitler-esque opponent, the imaginary wonders of the Biden economy, the need for unlimited abortion, and the underhanded gift he’s giving Hamas thanks to its massacre of the Jewish people. Along the way, Biden threatened the Supreme Court and lied a great deal, all while the trained Democrat seals in attendance hollered “four more years,” thereby probably violating the Hatch Act and House ethics rules.
Biden delivered all these weird pronouncements, attacks, and lies at top volume and warp speed, hollering like a hopped-up junkie on the street corner of a Democrat-run city, complete with intermittent mumbled incoherencies. Watching the man with the nuclear codes behave this way was uncomfortable and not a little frightening.
But it was this energy that—as was intended—caught his supporters’ attention. “See,” they all crowed. “Biden isn’t too old. He’s energetic!”
But honestly…how much traction can you get from a bumper sticker that says, “Vote for Biden. He’s energetic”? It took the inimitable Geraldo “Al Capone’s Vault” Rivera to find the right phrase to sum up what Joe Biden brings to his candidacy:
That’s it! “Joe Biden: He ain’t dead…yet!” That’ll get voters to the polls. I can see the campaign posters already:
If this is the best that Democrats can say of their walking-dead candidate, a man who always seems as if he is always in imminent danger of keeling over, that certainly helps Trump. However, as Glenn Reynolds is fond of saying, “don’t get cocky.” Even Biden’s decrepitude and his own party’s inability to sing his praises in ringing tones doesn’t mean he’s without advantages heading into November.
The RNC has done almost nothing to control elect fraud, the media still exert control over American minds, Biden has shown a fascistic willingness to use the police and lawfare to destroy his opponent, and conservatives (as always) are fractious, with too many unwilling to recognize that the presidential election is binary. No matter what they think of Trump, if they don’t vote for him, Biden wins and, after all, he ain’t dead…yet.
Medtronic plc. (NYSE: MDT), a global leader in healthcare technology, today shared a robust set of new clinical and real-world evidence on the MiniMed™ 780G system from around the world including the largest set of data from early users in the United States. The data was presented at the 17th International Conference on Advanced Technologies and Treatments for Diabetes (ATTD) in Florence, Italy. These results build on the 3-year data published in Diabetes Technology & Therapeutics showing over 100,000 real-world users achieving a Time in Range (TIR) of 78% with the use of recommended optimal settings, outperforming international targets of 70% TIR.
A federal judge on Friday blocked the Biden administration from unlawfully redirecting taxpayer funds away from the construction of a wall along the southern border.
Southern District of Texas District Court Judge Drew B. Tipton granted a preliminary injunction after Texas and Missouri sued to stop the scheme, which included diverting the money to other projects like environmental remediation.
“Whether the Executive Branch must adhere to federal laws is not, as a general matter, an area traditionally left to its discretion,” Judge Tipton wrote in his order. The executive branch includes the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Judge Tipton, an appointee of President Donald Trump, ruled in favor of the Republican-led states, saying in his ruling that Congress should decide how money is spent, per the U.S. Constitution, and that the Biden administration is not immune from following the law.
President Trump declared a national emergency in February 2019 and used funds from the Departments of Defense and Treasury to construct barriers at the southern border. Congress allocated $1.4 billion explicitly for border wall construction during the 2020 fiscal year to stem the flow of illegal immigration.
However, President Joe Biden, a Democrat, issued an executive order immediately upon taking office in January 2021, terminating the emergency and halting construction. He later directed the DHS to divert the funds to ancillary projects along the border, but not the wall.
This led to both Texas and Missouri filing separate lawsuits against the DHS, which were ultimately combined.
The Biden administration argued that, despite certain language in the law, the DHS should be allowed to spend the money at its discretion.
However, the judge disagreed with this argument, effectively finding that President Biden was wrong to spend funds specifically meant for wall construction on “remediation projects.”
The judge ruled that just because the DHS claimed to have the authority to make certain spending decisions, it doesn’t mean it is free to do whatever it wants.
“Agencies, when afforded congressionally appropriated funds, may expend them only for the proper purpose and amount, and within the authorized period of time,” Judge Tipton wrote.
Therefore, without that discretion, the DHS’s spending decisions “run afoul” of the law, specifically violating the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).
Judge Tipton wrote in his order that the way Congress wrote the law was quite specific in saying the money should go to barriers along the border.
“The central question in this case, then, is this: Has the Government obligated FY 2020 and FY 2021 funds for the ‘construction of [a] barrier system’? The answer is largely no,” the judge wrote.
The Biden administration’s new border plan, unveiled by the Department of Defense and the DHS in June 2021 and updated about a year later, contemplated spending the funds on flood control, cleanup, and environmental remediation projects. This would include adding lighting, cameras, and detection technology at locations where a physical barrier had already been constructed.
Under the plan, most border wall projects were canceled, and all the existing barrier infrastructure previously funded by the DOD was transferred to the DHS’s control.
The attorneys general of Texas and Missouri, who challenged these spending decisions, hailed the ruling on Friday.
“Today, I secured a preliminary injunction against an attempt by the Biden Administration to illegally redirect statutorily obligated funds away from the construction of a border wall,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement.
“Biden acted completely improperly by refusing to spend the money that Congress appropriated for border wall construction, and even attempting to redirect those funds,” he continued. “His actions demonstrate his desperation for open borders at any cost, but Texas has prevailed.”
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey called the ruling a “huge step” in fighting to secure the southern border.
“The Biden Administration has failed to abide by the law to finish the construction of a wall along the southwest border,” Mr. Bailey said in a statement. “Joe Biden refuses to carry out his constitutionally mandated responsibilities, so we took him to court to force him to do his job. This is a huge step forward in the fight to secure our border at a key moment in our nation’s history.”
“Shark Tank” investor Kevin O’Leary suggested that he will buy social media platform TikTok if a proposed ban goes ahead Friday.
“Not going to get banned, ‘cause I’m gonna buy it,” O’Leary said on Fox News’ “The Story” in an interview with anchor Gillian Turner. “Somebody’s going to buy it, it won’t be Meta and it won’t be Google, ‘cause…regulator [will] stop that.”
On Tuesday, a bipartisan House bill that would ban the popular app if its China-based parent company ByteDance doesn’t divest from it was unveiled. It was introduced by Reps. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) and Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), who are both the top lawmakers on the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party.
“This is worth billions, it’s one of the most successful advertising platforms in social media today,” O’Leary continued. “All my companies use it, I’ll buy it.”
If the bill becomes law, ByteDance would have more than five months to divest from TikTok. If it does not do that, the platform will become illegal to distribute on an app store or web housing platform in the U.S.
“This bill is an outright ban of TikTok, no matter how much the authors try to disguise it. This legislation will trample the First Amendment rights of 170 million Americans and deprive 5 million small businesses of a platform they rely on to grow and create jobs,” TikTok spokesperson Alex Haurek told The Hill.
Last year, a Republican-supported bill that tried to ban TikTok tried to ban the app completely faced criticism from Democrats over how it could possibly encroach on free speech.
President Biden said he will sign the bill if it makes it through Congress Friday.
President Biden’s campaign released an ad Saturday that will air in major battleground states connecting the president’s age with his ability to get things done during his first term, seeking to draw a contrast with former President Trump’s record.
“Look, I’m not a young guy. That’s no secret,” Biden says in the new ad, titled “For You.” “But here’s the deal, I understand how to get things done for the American people.”
Biden narrates the 60-second spot, highlighting his navigation of the COVID-19 pandemic upon taking office, the strength of the U.S. economy, legislation to lower prescription drug prices, the passage of a bipartisan infrastructure law and his commitment to protect reproductive health care after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade — which ended the federal right to abortion access.
“Donald Trump believes the job of a president is to take care of Donald Trump,” Biden says in the ad. “I believe the job of a president is to fight for you, the American people, and that’s what I’m doing.”
In an outtake at the end of the ad, Biden says, “Look, I’m very young, energetic and handsome, what the hell am I doing this for?”
The ad is part of a six-week, $30 million ad campaign targeting voters in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina, all of which are expected to be battleground states in November.
The spot will air on national cable and local broadcast and cable, and will appear on ESPN, TNT, FX and Comedy Central, as well as during the upcoming NCAA Tournament, the campaign said.
The ad tackles the question of the incumbent’s age, which polling has consistently shown is a concern for many voters as Biden, who is 81, seeks a second term. He is on track to face Trump, who is 77, in a rematch of the 2020 election.
A New York Times/Siena College poll released last weekend found 73 percent of registered voters said they either strongly or somewhat agree that Biden is too old to be an effective president.
Biden has repeatedly joked about his age, but he and his aides have argued voters should judge him on his record of accomplishments.
“Now, Joe Biden is 81 and he’s going to beat Donald Trump again because he wakes up every single day fighting for the American people while Trump wages a campaign of revenge and retribution focused on himself,” Biden campaign communications director Michael Tyler said in a statement.
During a sunny morning on Florida’s Gulf Coast last month, an 11-year-old golden retriever named Hunter bounded through a pine grove. Snatching his favorite toy, a well-chewed tennis ball attached to a short rope, he rolled through the tall grass, with an energy that seemed inexhaustible. A passerby might not have even noticed that this playful golden has only three legs.
For Deana Hudgins, the dog’s owner, it seems almost unthinkable that two years ago Hunter was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a form of bone cancer that kills upwards of 65% of the dogs it afflicts within 12 months, in his left front leg.
For many years Hunter worked alongside his owner as a search-and-rescue dog, helping find victims of building collapses and other disasters. He no longer performs those duties, but does still help Hudgins train other dogs. The energetic golden can also run, fetch, and catch as well as ever.
And two years since his initial diagnosis, Hunter has no signs of cancer. The dog’s life-saving treatment incorporated typical approaches, including amputation of the left leg and chemotherapy. But Hunter also received a novel therapy — a cancer vaccine developed by Yale’s Mark Mamula.
The treatment, a form of immunotherapy that is currently under review by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which regulates animal treatments, has been subject to multiple clinical trials over the past eight years. And the results are promising; for hundreds of dogs, including Hunter, the vaccine has proved effective.
Mamula, a professor of medicine (rheumatology) at Yale School of Medicine, believes the vaccine offers a badly needed weapon in the fight against canine cancer.
“Dogs, just like humans, get cancer spontaneously; they grow and metastasize and mutate, just like human cancers do,” said Mamula. “My own dog died of an inoperable cancer about 11 years ago. Dogs just like humans suffer greatly from their cancers.
“If we can provide some benefit, some relief — a pain-free life — that is the best outcome that we could ever have.”
Even as recently as a decade ago, Mamula didn’t anticipate that he would one day develop a cancer vaccine for dogs. A rheumatology researcher, he studies autoimmune diseases like lupus and Type 1 diabetes and how the body gives rise to them.
But that work eventually led him to cancer research as well.
Autoimmune diseases, Mamula says, are characterized by the immune system attacking the body’s own tissues; in the case of Type 1 diabetes, the immune system targets cells in the pancreas.
Then several years ago, using what they knew about autoimmunity, Mamula and his research team developed a potential cancer treatment that they say initiates a targeted immune response against tumors.
“In many ways tumors are like the targets of autoimmune diseases,” he said. “Cancer cells are your own tissue and are attacked by the immune system. The difference is we want the immune system to attack a tumor.”
It was a chance meeting with a veterinary oncologist soon thereafter that made Mamula think that this novel treatment might work well in dogs.
Targeting tumors
About 10,000 dogs are diagnosed each year with osteosarcoma, a type of bone cancer. With typical treatment, only 30% of dogs with this type of cancer live longer than 12 months. (Courtesy of Deana Hudgins)
There are about 90 million dogs, living in 65 million households, in the United States alone. Around one in four dogs will get cancer. Among dogs 10 years or older, that ratio jumps to around one in two.
Yet the therapies used to treat these cancers remain fairly antiquated, Mamula says.
“There have been very few new canine cancer treatments developed in decades — it’s a field that is begging for improvement,” he said.
In 2015, Mamula met a veterinary oncologist named Gerry Post. During his 35-year career Post has treated cancer in snakes, turtles, and zoo animals. But most of his patients are dogs and cats.
Through conversations with Post, Mamula realized that it wouldn’t be difficult to make the leap from human to dog cancers. Together they would launch an early-phase study into Mamula’s dog cancer vaccine.
“Dog and human cancers are quite similar in a number of ways,” said Post, chief medical officer of One Health Company, a canine cancer treatment group, and an adjunct professor of comparative medicine at Yale School of Medicine. “Whether it’s how the cancers appear under the microscope, how the cancers behave, respond to chemotherapy, develop resistance, and metastasize.”
Even the types of cancers that afflict dogs and humans are similar. Like humans, dogs can get melanoma, breast cancer, colon cancer, and osteosarcoma, among others.
When it comes to curing these diseases, these similarities bring an important benefit: understanding cancer in one species will help scientists understand cancer in the other. And treatments that work well for one may actually work well for both.
Several types of cancers in both humans and dogs have been found to overexpress proteins known as epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2). These include colorectal cancer, breast cancer, and osteosarcoma. One type of treatment currently given to human patients with these cancers involves monoclonal antibodies, proteins that can bind to and affect the function of EGFR and/or HER2. However, patients can develop a resistance to them and their effects wane over time.
For their treatment, Mamula and his team wanted to take a different approach.
Monoclonal antibody treatments are produced from one immune cell and bind to one part of the EGFR/HER2 molecules, but Mamula and his team wanted to induce a polyclonal response.
Doing so, he says, would create antibodies from multiple immune cells, rather than just one, which could bind to multiple parts of the EGFR/HER2 molecules instead of a single area. This would, in theory, reduce the likelihood of developing resistance.
The research team, led by Hester Doyle and Renelle Gee, who are both members of Mamula’s Yale lab, with assistance from the New Haven-based biotechnology company L2 Diagnostics, LLC, tested many different candidates in order to find just the right compound. They eventually found one.
After first testing it in mice, and finding promising results, they initiated their first clinical trial in dogs in 2016.
In Mamula’s lab, from left, Hester Doyle, Mark Mamula, and Renelle Gee. (Photo by Allie Barton)
‘I was willing to try whatever I could’
Deana Hudgins knew there was something special about Hunter before she brought him home as an 8-week-old puppy, back in 2012, and began training him to be her next search-and-rescue partner.
The smallest of 18 puppies from two litters, Hunter wasn’t the obvious choice when she began looking for a partner.
“He was the runt,” said Hudgins, who has been training search-and-rescue dogs since 2001 and now runs her own company, the Center for Forensic Training and Education, which provides canine training in Ohio and Florida. “But in his case, it made him a little scrappy. He was small but very confident and very brave.
“When all of the other puppies were sleeping at the end of the day, he was still running around, climbing all of the toys, retrieving things. We need confident puppies, and that’s what he possessed.”
Hunter searches debris after Hurricane Michael made landfall in Florida in 2018. (Courtesy of Deana Hudgins)
By the time he was a year old, Hunter began aiding searches at sites across the United States, working with local law enforcement and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), following natural disasters. His first search, in 2014, was at the site of a mudslide in Oso, Washington that killed 43 people. In his final FEMA search, he helped search for victims of the devastating condominium collapse in the Miami suburb of Surfside, Florida, in June 2021. Hunter was involved in hundreds of searches in the years between.
In 2022, Hunter was still very active — and had just earned another service certification — when Hudgins noticed that he seemed uncharacteristically sore following a five-day training class.
“I’ve always been very proactive with my dogs because I spend every day with them, and so I notice very little things,” she said. “And he’s not a dog to limp.”
A veterinarian assumed that Hunter had strained something, suggesting anti-inflammatories, but Hudgins insisted on an x-ray. The test revealed the osteosarcoma in Hunter’s leg.
After doing a lot of research, and consulting with different veterinary groups about what steps to take, Hudgins decided that amputation offered the best chance for Hunter’s survival, along with chemotherapy.
Hudgins with Hunter, her dog (and former search-and-rescue partner). (Courtesy of Deana Hudgins)
But during that research, Hudgins had also come across Mamula’s vaccine trial. So she reached out to a colleague, James Hatch, a former Navy SEAL who trained dogs in the military and whose nonprofit supports service dogs. Hudgins knew that Hatch also happened to be at Yale, where he is a student in the Eli Whitney Students Program.
“I was willing to try whatever I could to keep [Hunter] around as long as possible,” said Hudgins. “We ask a lot of our working dogs. They work in environments that are very dangerous and often deadly. And my promise to all of them is I will do whatever I have to do to give them the best, healthiest, longest life possible. Dogs don’t survive this disease so there was no downside to me for trying the vaccine.”
Hatch connected her with Mamula, and soon Hunter was part of the clinical trial. He received his first vaccine dose ahead of his amputation surgery, his second before initiating chemotherapy, and a booster last summer.
Twenty-two months since his cancer diagnosis, Hunter is now considered a long-term osteosarcoma survivor and Hudgins says he’s thriving.
“He adjusted very well to his front limb amputation,” she said. “He continues to run around the yard. He swims in the pool. He comes with me to training and chases the other dogs around the yard.”
After consulting with doctors at The Ohio State University Veterinary Medical Center, Hudgins decided to have Hunter’s front left leg amputated. Hudgins credits that surgery, along with the Yale-developed vaccine, for the osteosarcoma remission. (Courtesy of Deana Hudgins)
During a recent morning in Florida, Hunter drifted toward a nearby pond while playing outside. Hudgins, knowing the potential risks of straying too close to a pond in Florida (“There are alligators everywhere.”), quickly called him back. Hunter immediately returned to her.
“From a very young age, Hunter wanted to learn the rules of the game,” she said. “He was eager to go to work every day. I am very, very lucky to have been able to be his partner for 10 years. Hunter is one of those once-in-a-lifetime dogs.”
‘A whole new toolbox’
Hunter’s positive response to the treatment is one many other dogs have experienced as well.
To date, more than 300 dogs have been treated with the vaccine during a series of clinical trials, which are still ongoing at 10 sites in the U.S. and Canada. The findings, which have been published in a peer-reviewed study, have shown that the treatment creates antibodies that are able to home in on and bind to tumors, and then interfere with the signaling pathways responsible for tumor growth.
According to the research team, the vaccine increases the 12-month survival rates of dogs with certain cancers from about 35% to 60%. For many of the dogs, the treatment also shrinks tumors.
While future studies will determine if the vaccine can reduce the incidence of cancer in healthy dogs, the treatment for now remains a therapeutic treatment option after a cancer diagnosis has been made.
But even this represents something more than just “a new tool” in the fight against canine cancer, Post says. It’s a whole new toolbox.
“And in veterinary oncology, our toolbox is much smaller than that of human oncology,” he said. “This vaccine is truly revolutionary. I couldn’t be more excited to be a veterinary oncologist.”
Mamula has created a company, called TheraJan, which aims to eventually produce the vaccine. Last year, the company (whose name is inspired, in part, by the late Yale immunologist Charles Janeway, who was Mamula’s mentor) won a Faculty Innovation Award from Yale Ventures, a university initiative that supports innovation and entrepreneurship on campus and beyond.
While launching clinical tests of the vaccine’s effectiveness in humans may be a logical future step, for now Mamula is focused on getting USDA approval of the vaccine for dogs and distributed for wider use.
No matter where it goes, it’s a project close to his heart.
Mamula on a beach in Madison, Connecticut, with his golden retrievers, Tripp, left, and Sherman. (Photo by Allie Barton)
“I get many emails from grateful dog owners who had been told that their pets had weeks or months to live but who are now two or three years past their cancer diagnosis,” he said. “It’s a program that’s not only valuable to me as a dog lover. Witnessing the happiness that successful therapies provide to families with dogs is incredibly rewarding.”
And once the vaccine becomes available for public use, he says, for working dogs like Hunter it will always be free of charge.
In January, UnitedHealth Group (UHG) released its 2023 financialsopens in a new tab or window. It paints a vivid picture -- not just of financial success and wealth transfers -- but of a healthcare Goliath seemingly towering over and controlling all the levers of the industry and perhaps even the government.
In 2023, UHG raked in a jaw-dropping $22.4 billion in profitsopens in a new tab or window, with $5.5 billion in the fourth quarter alone. Revenue? It was up by 14.6% to an incredible $371.6 billion. To put that in context, UHG's revenues are higher than the individual GDPsopens in a new tab or window of Finland, the Czech Republic, Hong Kong, Greece, and another 132 regions or countries worldwide.
Alongside its year-end financial report, UHG announced it expects between $400 billion and $403 billion in revenue in 2024.
Impressive? Absolutely. But is UHG's empire good for the healthcare system, clinicians, and patients? Here is where it gets interesting -- or concerning, depending on your view.
This financial windfall has come via rewriting healthcare industry practices through vertical integration. With its healthcare services provider Optum and other acquisitions, vertical integration has allowed UHG to essentially be a value-chain monopoly, controlling everything from health insurance to medical services to healthcare data to pharmaceuticals.
Where have the regulators been, like the Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Justice (DOJ), or the new HHS chief competition officer who is supposed to coordinate, identify, and elevate opportunities to promote competition in healthcare markets?
UHG is projected to have more than $400 billion in revenue for 2024, and if its profit margins continue to track with its revenues, its profits could top $26 billion. (To be clear, high revenues do not equal profits. There are many cases where high-revenue companies make very little. While a 6.5% profit margin sounds relatively low, it is the volume of money and the magnitude of money that makes the potential impact and control staggering.)
In a free-market economy, companies and their shareholders are obviously entitled to their profits. (Whether entities like UHG could do good with their profits is another story. Could they, for example, take some of the $5 billion they made in the fourth quarter of 2023 to help pay off student debt for their physicians? Could they improve innovation or reimbursement rates? Could they reduce premium costs for their customers or costs for employers?) But UHG did not become the giant it is today without distortions in the market, and this should concern liberals and conservatives alike.
UHG became the behemoth it is because it has been able to buy up companies like Optum, DaVita Medical Group, and even The Advisory Board without so much as a blink of an eye from regulators. Consider this fact: UHG lobbying expenses ballooned more than 10-foldopens in a new tab or window between 1998 and 2023. (It spent less than $1 million on lobbying in 1998.) In just one year, from 2022 to 2023, its government relations spending went from $6.4 million to almost $11 million.
It appears, however, that after years of apparent somnolence, the DOJ may have awakened, launching an antitrust investigationopens in a new tab or window focused on the relationships between United Healthcare's insurance unit and subsidiary Optum's healthcare services arm. Depending on the findings, the implications for industry consolidation and vertical integration could be significant.
Quite simply: for diehard capitalists, what we are seeing in the insurance ecosystem is not the free market. It's a guided or controlled market with growing market distortions where years of policy have granted winners and losers. Which is why, for the good of patients, providers, and the economy as a whole, Washington regulators need to wake up and enforce anti-competitive practices.
