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Sunday, May 19, 2024

Abortion won’t be Biden’s saving grace against Trump in Florida and Arizona: poll

Abortion is expected to be on the ballot in Arizona and Florida in November, but the issue is not shaping up to be the boost President Biden needs to win the two states, according to a new poll.

Voters in both states overwhelmingly support abortion access but are still favoring former President Donald Trump over Biden 52% to 47% in Arizona and 54% to 45% in Florida, per a CBS/YouGov survey.

Democrats have typically been able to pummel Republicans over the hot-button issue.

In Florida in April, the state’s supreme court upheld a six-week abortion ban that went into effect earlier this month and green-lit a referendum to enshrine abortion access into the state’s constitution.

Unlike other states that necessitated a majority threshold on their abortion referendums, Florida requires 60% of voters to approve it.

Despite once being the quintessential battleground state, Florida has lurched considerably red over recent years, and Republicans now tout a majority of registered voters there.

Still, the Biden-Harris campaign has opened up an office there, and both Biden as well as Vice President Kamala Harris have ventured down to Florida in a bid to keep it in the realm of possibility.

In the Sunshine State, 65% wanted abortion legal in all or most cases, compared to 35% who wanted it illegal in all or most cases, the poll shows.

But for Florida, abortion (53%) lagged behind other issues such as the economy (89%), inflation (84%), the state of democracy (74%), crime (69%), gun policy (60%) and the US-Mexico border (64%) as a “major factor” for the state’s voters in 2024.

A similar trend was true in Arizona.

Earlier this month, Arizona Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs signed a bill repealing a 160-year-old law restricting most abortions performed in the state.

Activists in the state claim to have already amassed the signatures needed for a ballot initiative in November to codify a woman’s right to abortion access in Arizona’s constitution.

About 66% of Arizonans want abortion legal in all or most cases, compared to 34% who want it illegal in all or most cases, the poll says.

As with Florida, abortion (51%) trailed other issues such as the economy (82%), inflation (78%), the state of democracy (70%), crime (59%), and the US-Mexico border (61%) as a “major factor” for Arizona voters in 2024.

Notably, in Arizona, Republican Senate hopeful Kari Lake is running behind Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) 36% to 49% in the race for the coveted seat, according to the poll.

Trump narrowly lost Arizona to Biden, 49.06% to 49.36%, in 2020 but beat him in Florida 51.22% to 47.86% that year.

The 77-year-old former president has moderated himself on the albatross issue ahead of his rematch against his 81-year-old successor and announced that he would defer to the states on abortion.

The CBS/YouGov poll was conducted between March 10–16 and sampled 1,510 adults in Arizona with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.3 percentage points and 1,576 adults in Florida with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

https://nypost.com/2024/05/19/us-news/abortion-wont-be-bidens-saving-grace-against-trump-in-florida-and-arizona-poll/

Biden is bombing with Catholic and even mainline Protestant church-going voters -report

Joe Biden can't stop jingling his rosary beads at his infrequent political rallies.

He's a Catholic, a "devout Catholic," Mister Catholic Extraordinaire, a Catholic president, a guy who supposedly takes Communion with the pope's approval, and he wants everyone to know it. Hain't he got the wokester pope in his tree to prove it?

It's his schtick now that election time has come around.

But somehow, that's not resonating with Catholic voters, nor Protestant ones from mainline churches, such as the Episcopalians and Presbyterians, many of whom are not particularly conservative. Not even they are buying into Biden's Catholic schtick.

That's what Salena Zito and Brad Todd found from a stunning Marquette Law School national survey of where Joe Biden's biggest problem is with voters.

On today's RealClearPolitics, they write:

To locate Joe Biden’s electoral problem, you need only to look on Sunday morning. Polling shows the mass-attending Catholic president trails Donald Trump by 10 points among those who attend religious services a few times a year or more. The score is reversed with voters who report they seldom or never attend church, with Biden leading by 10.

It’s the starkest divide in the electorate – and one that political journalists rarely mention, perhaps because, as a profession, journalists are more removed from religion than the average American.

Maybe that's because it's pretty obvious that he doesn't live his supposed faith, which if they are like me, they doubt he even has.

As Biden jingles his rosary beads, most Catholics will also notice that he's also suing the Little Sisters of the Poor for not providing worker insurance that includes abortion "services." He's thrown Catholic and other Christian pro-life activists who attempted to stop abortions into prison for draconian multi-year terms which is a lot more than violent criminals get. He's even sent out the SWAT teams against a pro-lifer who merely defended his son against a menacing aggessor and whose case had been thrown out by state authorities earlier. His adminstration has vowed to "punish" hospitals that don't provide "gender-affirming care" which is obviously targeted at Catholic and other religious hospitals. He made a mocking sign of the cross to insult a pro-life governor and by extension all voters opposed to abortion during a campaign plug touting abortion by a political ally. Heh, heh, isn't that funny?

But don't you dare question his Catholicism, which is about as watery and contrary to the spirit of Christianity as it's possible to be.

Zito and Todd point out that the chasm is greater with these voters than with any other groups, which is saying something.

Obviously, they don't like a phony and Biden's phoniness is absolutely naked based on the difference between what he says and what he does.

Can anyone even imagine Joe Biden doing something Christians who attend services might do, such as examine his conscience? He's never given any evidence he has, and if he did, it did no good, but there's plenty of evidence he hasn't -- just from the moral example of his family, and the character and beliefs of his political allies, and his general associates. He's not like Christians, he's indistinguishable from an enemy of Christianity, and he repeatedly shows it without intending to.

That's brought him a mountain of rejection from Christians who attend church who can see that he wears his Christianity like a skinsuit.

President Trump, by contrast, is not precisely the same as the churchgoing public, but he does fight for them and their interests, and many can see that he does. Zito calls these churchgoers "King Cyrus Christians" who can recognize a leader, same as the ancient Hebrews did with King Cyrus of Persia, who is on their side at their darkest hour and acts to deliver them from evil.

So not only is Biden a repellent phony who just can't admit that he's not a Christian in his quest to rope in gullible voters, there's also an attractive alternative.

For Christians, Trump is a King Cyrus to them, aiding them as Christianity undergoes unprecedented cultural and even physical attack, and they've got the Biblical example as almost a guide to them. Biden is more like one of the lesser King Herods, drinking and wenching while claiming to being a good Jew and actually trying to slay or slaying their prophets. We all know that the bad King Herod who killed the babies got eaten by bugs in the end. Somehow, that works as a thought for Joe Biden, too.

So despite all the observations about Joe Biden losing traditional Democrat constituencies (which is substantial), Joe Biden is failing hardest of all with Christians of all stripes who got to church. That's because Christianity is his least-authentic, least-persuasive, act.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/05/biden_is_bombing_with_catholic_and_even_mainline_protestant_church_going_voters_report.html

Buried news: Biden admin refuses to release data on how many 'asylum' cases waved through

By Monica Showalter

Now that election time is on, Joe Biden is all in on speedy asylum claims adjudication which he touts to the public as speedier deportations.

Joe Biden marketed this to the public as his plan to clear court backlogs by outsourcing asylum claims to so-called "asylum officers" instead of courts.

But it's not really that.

The Associated Press has a report about it -- and a buried lede. It begins this way:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration is preparing more changes to the nation’s asylum system meant to speed up processing and potential removal of migrants who continue to arrive at the southern border, an interim step as President Joe Biden continues to mull a broader executive order to crack down on border crossings that may come later this year.
The change under consideration would allow certain migrants who are arriving at the border now to be processed first through the asylum system rather than going to the back of the line, according to four people familiar with the proposal. The people were granted anonymity to speak about an administration policy before it is made final.

Sounds fine and dandy, except that by sending illegal border crossers to asylum officers instead of judges, and by placing political pressure on these civil servants who often come from open-borders activist backgrounds anyway, the odds are good they're just waving them through, basically just handing them their citizenship at the gate.

Foreign nationals who are granted asylum have an easy path once asylum is taken care of, as they are free to work, glom a huge range of taxpayer-paid benefits, get green cards, get U.S. citizenship, and then begin the process of bringing in all their extended relatives in massive chain migration. If an asylum officer waves you through so that Joe Biden can say he's clearing backlogs, you've got it made.

A look at the so-called asylum officers suggests they're a soft lot to begin with already, basically, illegal alien advocates.

A migrant advocacy group called National Migration Forum explains just how pro-migrant these asylum officers are:

An asylum officer is a USCIS employee “trained in refugee and asylum law in the United States and abroad, both in sensitively dealing with sensitive and traumatic experiences that often constitute the basis of asylum claims and in detecting fraudulent claims.” Asylum officers are often seen as well suited to handle humanitarian claims because, per USCIS, they are trained to efficiently “conduct interviews with asylum applicants in a non-adversarial and sensitive manner” in ways that elicit and clarify information, “review evidence, research conditions in foreign countries, perform legal analysis, and exercise significant judgment in applying complex immigration laws to a wide variety of factual situations,” and, at the end of the process, “make sensitive legal decisions on whether applicants qualify for asylum.”

In contrast, immigration judges are housed in the Department of Justice (DOJ) and may not be specialized in humanitarian claims. Immigration judges have jurisdiction over many areas of immigration law, not just humanitarian protection. Further, asylum backlogs in both the affirmative and defensive asylum systems in immigration court (more on these below) have prospective asylees waiting up to six years to have their claims decided. This has created a state of legal limbo for many asylum seekers, where many put down roots before their asylum claims are fully adjudicated without knowing whether they will be allowed to stay in the U.S. Some advocates and proponents of USCICS asylum officer adjudications hope the policy could help cut into these backlogs.

So if you're wondering how the killer of the nursing student in Georgia got the heck into this country through all those legal channels, asylum officers are certainly one way to do it. There is nothing in the extended description about the rights of the society to be free of criminals and unvetted migrants, nor anything about whether the public can holding these "asylum officers" accountable, responsible, or legally sue-able by surviving family members of all the rapists and killers who can get through based on all this "sensitivity."

Approve them all and the Biden backlog disappears quickly.

That's the incentive they have, assuming they'd like to get a promotion or ensure that Democrats get elected, so take your pick.

Here's AP's buried lede:

Last year, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement began an effort in 45 cities to speed up initial asylum screenings for families and deport those who fail within a month. ICE has not released data on how many families have gone through the expedited screenings and how many have been deported.

Now if there's one set of laws for all migrants, it would seem logical that the same percentage of migrants would be accepted or deported regardless of whether a judge hears their case or an asylum officer does. Right now roughly 20% get accepted for asylum based on judicial cases and 80% of the cases are thrown out as meritless and that's quite liberal already, given that acceptance rates used to be quite a bit lower.

As for the 80% whose cases are declared without merit, they are permitted endless appeals, which can extend for decades which is why the court systems are backlogged. American Thinker contributor Matt O'Brien wrote a superb piece last month describing how this works and where the backlogs are coming from. The extended appeals are what needs to be reformed in the currrent immigration system so that 'no' means 'no.'

So, funny how the Biden administration doesn't want anyone to know what the percentage of asylum-officer cases are accepted, versus the number of court cases which accept asylum claims from illegal immigrants, which is what the law requires, and which is open and transparent.

We already know that ICE has accepted close to 100% of the applicants it got on its CBPOne app, meaning, virtually none were screened. Would it be surprising if ICE's asylum officer program came up with a similar rate of acceptances given its politicization as an agency? Maybe Congress should demand the release of those asylum-officer acceptance numbers sometime before election day.

Because we already know what the Biden administration does, and what it wants -- a full importation of unassimilated voters from socialist and statist countries who will vote exactly the way they vote back home, which means voting for Democrats. The old "replacement theory" keeps getting close and closer with every bit of data they try to hide.

Why again, are they hiding these asylum officer acceptance rate numbers?

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/05/buried_news_biden_administration_refuses_to_release_data_about_how_many_asylum_cases_are_waved_through_by_his_asylum_officers.html

Stocks To Watch From RBC Global Healthcare Conference

At the RBC Global Healthcare Conference, held on 14-15 May, RBC’s Healthcare Desk Sector Strategist gauged biotech investor sentiment in an interview with Biotech TV.

The strategist, Chris McCarthy, says he is trying to figure out investment sentiment and positioning.

When asked about what he heard in the conference hallways, Chris said biotech investors are focused on the upcoming binary catalysts.

Chris McCarthy highlighted some companies that have upcoming data readouts.

He adds that with data readouts, the investors see outsized stock moves, and they should start focusing on these companies as the readouts approach, including:

Agios Pharmaceuticals Inc AGIO
-1.89%+

Two key milestones for 2024, including topline data from the Phase 3 ENERGIZE-T study of mitapivat in transfusion-dependent thalassemia in Q2 and filing for FDA approval of mitapivat in thalassemia by year-end.Earlier this year, Agios Pharmaceuticals said the Phase 3 ENERGIZE study of mitapivat in adults with non-transfusion-dependent (NTD) alpha- or beta-thalassemia achieved its primary endpoint of hemoglobin response.

Caribou Biosciences Inc

CRBU-1.39%At the 2024 ASCO Annual Meeting (May 31-June 4), Caribou plans to present a poster with data from the ongoing ANTLER Phase 1 trial data for CB-010.

Caribou plans to initiate the GALLOP Phase 1 trial in adult patients with lupus nephritis and extrarenal lupus by the end of 2024.Caribou plans to present initial dose escalation data from the ongoing CaMMouflage Phase 1 clinical trial by year-end 2024.
Truist Securities writes that Caribou shares were oversold after the recent updates in March, and the data coming up at ASCO is an opportunity for the company to reinvigorate investor interest

Corbus Pharmaceuticals Holdings Inc

CRBP-2.00%Corbus plans clinical data update at ASCO 2024 for the China dose escalation study.

McCarthy notes that different investors have different strategies. He says fundamental work ahead of time is important, including mechanisms and market opportunity, and scenario analysis is another critical step as the event approaches to thinking about what stock reactions would be.

Then, investors should think about the next steps and what could be the next catalysts.

While answering what are the big picture themes investors are thinking about.

He said it would be more market-related and less biotech. He noted hallway conversations and said the talks are about the “short books in healthcare investing.”

McCarthy says there is a lot of market-neutral money in healthcare, and a lot is going underneath the hood of the stock.

He adds that stocks on the long side are going down, and stocks that are heavily shorted are going up, and this was continuing before the ‘meme craziness.’ So, from the portfolio management perspective, this has been the main topic of discussion.

https://www.benzinga.com/general/biotech/24/05/38881080/attention-biotech-investors-stocks-to-watch

Slovak PM Fico's attacker may not have acted alone, says minister

The suspect in an assassination attempt on Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico may not have been just a "lone wolf" as previously believed, the interior minister said on Sunday, as security services try to shed light on an attack that sent shockwaves through Europe.

Fico is no longer in immediate danger but is still in a serious condition after being hit by four bullets on Wednesday, in what was the first major assassination attempt on a European political leader for more than 20 years.

The incident has highlighted the deep polarisation of politics in the central European country of 5.4 million people.

Interior Minister Matus Sutaj Estok said an investigation team had been set up, which would also look into whether the suspect acted as part of a group of people that had been encouraging each other to carry out an assassination.

One factor suggesting the involvement of other persons was that the suspect's internet communications were deleted two hours after the assassination attempt, but not by the suspect and most likely not by his wife, Estok said.

This indicated "the crime may have been committed by a certain group of people," Estok told a news conference.

Deputy Prime Minister Robert Kalinak said earlier on Sunday that Fico's life was no longer in immediate danger, although his condition was still too serious for him to be moved to a hospital in the capital Bratislava.

"The worst that we feared has (not happened), at least for the time being," Kalinak told a news conference outside the hospital where Fico is being treated in the central Slovak city of Banska Bystrica.

"We are all a little calmer. When we were saying that we want to get closer to a positive prognosis, then I believe that we are a step closer to that," he added.

SUSPECT CHARGED WITH ATTEMPTED MURDER

The Slovak Specialised Criminal Court ruled on Saturday that the suspect, identified by prosecutors as Juraj C., would remain in custody after being charged with attempted murder.

Local news media say the suspect is a 71-year-old former security guard at a shopping mall and the author of three collections of poetry.

There has been no official statement made public from the suspect, or any lawyer representing him.

Estok said on Thursday that the suspect was angered by the government's Ukraine policy. Fico's government has ended official military support for Ukraine and taken a more pro-Russian line on the conflict than most European Union partners.

The government has said he became radicalised after Fico ally Peter Pellegrini won a presidential election last month, and that he had told police about his dissatisfaction with the government's reforms of the prosecution service and public media - criticised by the opposition a well as the European Commission.

DIVISIONS

The assassination attempt has led to calls from across Slovakia's political spectrum for a calming of tensions and a toning down of the often fierce rhetoric that has marked public debate in recent years.

On Thursday, president-elect Pellegrini and outgoing President Zuzana Caputova, a critic of Fico who is due to hand over the top job in June, called for unity and invited the leaders of the nation's political parties to attend round-table talks.

However, in a video posted on his Facebook page on Sunday, Pellegrini said that he now believed the time was probably not right for such talks, after Fico's ruling party also raised doubts about holding them now.

"Recent days and press conferences have shown us that some politicians are simply incapable of basic self-reflection even after such a tragedy," Pellegrini said.

The government and opposition have traded accusations of stirring up divisions within society. The leader of the opposition Progressive Slovakia party, Michal Simecka, said in a statement that he was sorry some parties had rejected round-table talks and that he still believed they could succeed.

Slovak police said on Sunday they had arrested three people over social media posts which expressed approval of the assassination attempt.

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/worst-fears-slovak-pms-health-092331788.html

Biopharma M&A activity jumped 71% in Q1 2024

Biopharma mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity is ratcheting back up following a downturn in 2022 and 2023.

Biopharma M&A have increased by 71% year-over-year during the first quarter of 2024, according to a report out of GlobalData this week.

The report found M&A deals reached a total deal value of $43.5 billion in Q1 2024. Respondents said they expect mega M&A deals to be a positive growth factor for the pharma industry in throughout this year.

“The recent upturn in biopharmaceutical M&A signals a return in dealmaking confidence, as Big Pharma companies also look to mitigate the challenges such as the Inflation Reduction Act and upcoming patent expirations,” said Alison Labya, a business fundamentals analyst at GlobalData, in a statement.

Thus far, the biggest deal to date this year was Novo Holdings’ $16.5 billion acquisition of Catalent. The move by the parent company of Novo Nordisk is all part of an effort to boost the manufacturing of obesity drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy, which remain in high demand amid ongoing drug shortages.

One month later, Gilead Sciences picked up CymaBay Therapeutics for $4.3 billion, representing another multibillion acquisition at the start of the year.

Antibody-drug conjugates (ADC) continue to attract high levels of M&A investment, according to Labya, as large pharmaceutical companies seek to replenish portfolios with these sought-after drug classes.

Some of the smaller acquisitions completed this year include Johnson & Johnson’s purchase of ADC company Ambrx Biopharma for $2 billion, as well as AstraZeneca’s acquisition of radiopharmaceutical company Fusion Pharmaceuticals for $2 billion.

However, oncology remains the main therapeutic area for M&A deals, accounting for a total deal value of $29 billion.

In particular, immunology-focused deals saw the biggest growth in deal activity compared to the same time period a year prior, with a 314% rise in deal value.

The report concluded that 2024 will likely hold more M&A activity for the pharma industry.

“Q1 2024 saw an increase in billion-dollar M&A transactions involving large biopharmaceutical companies, such as Gilead and Novartis,” Labya noted. “Given that the biopharma industry can overcome regulatory challenges set by the Federal Trade Commission, the remainder of 2024 is poised for continued M&A investment from large biopharmaceutical companies, which could accelerate R&D and the launch of innovative drugs.”

https://www.mmm-online.com/home/channel/biopharma-mampa-activity-jumped-in-q1-2024/

Col. University's COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate Violates US Constitution: Fed Court

by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A Colorado university’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate violates the U.S. Constitution, a federal court has ruled.

The Sept. 1, 2021, mandate “clearly violates the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause as interpreted by our precedents,” a majority of a U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit said in the May 7 decision.

While the mandate was later updated, the newer version also violates the Constitution, the judges said.

The University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus in 2021 required COVID-19 vaccination of all students and employees. It initially offered religious exemptions to anyone who checked a box, but later said administrators would “only recognize religious exemptions based on religious beliefs whose teachings are opposed to all immunizations.”

Officials, for instance, said that Christian Scientists would qualify for an exemption but Buddhists would not.

They also said that exemptions would only be granted to people who never received any vaccinations.

Medical exemptions, on the other hand, were available if a doctor said the prospective recipient’s health or life would be endangered.

Seventeen students and employees, all of whose applications were denied, sued over the policy, alleging it was discriminatory.

U.S. District Judge Raymond Moore, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, in 2022 ruled that the plaintiffs did not show they would suffer irreparable harm absent a stay of the initial mandate, and that they had not met the burden of showing the updated mandate was not neutral.

The case against the Sept. 1 mandate also became moot because the requirements were updated, the judge said.

That ruling was wrong, according to the appeals court, in part because the initial mandate was used to fire two employee plaintiffs and Judge Moore placed the burden regarding mootness on the plaintiffs.

Under the Sept. 1 policy, Anschutz administrators “rejected applicants’ beliefs based not on their sincerity, but rather on their perceived validity,” according to the new ruling. Even after receiving numerous pages of explanations of religious beliefs, each application was denied. Administrators rejected one application because officials claimed that it was “morally acceptable” for Catholics to receive COVID-19 vaccines, judging any position otherwise as personal objections as opposed to religious ones.

The policy was “explicitly non-neutral” since, according to a ruling in a separate case, the First Amendment does not allow governments to “discriminate in favor of some religions and against others,” the majority said.

Policies that infringe on constitutional rights can survive under “strict scrutiny” if officials can prove they are justified by a “compelling state interest” and were “narrowly tailored in pursuit of that interest.” Anschutz said it was motivated by a desire to stem the spread of COVID-19, but “has not even attempted to explain why its interest is served by granting exemptions to practitioners of some religions, but not others,” according to the panel.

The Sept. 24, 2021, policy was a purported update that was said to assess whether religious exemption requests were “made based on a sincerely-held religious belief” but evaluations conducted under that policy reached the same results, indicating the updated version “was a mere pretext to continue the Administration’s September 1 Policy,” the majority said. It said the updated version also failed the strict scrutiny test because it has a lower bar for medical exemptions than religious exemptions.

U.S. Circuit Judge Allison Eid, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, authored the opinion. She was joined by Circuit Judge Jerome Holmes, who was appointed by former President George W. Bush.

Circuit Judge David Ebel, an appointee of former President Ronald Reagan, in a partial concurrence and dissent, said he agreed the Sept. 1 policy likely violated the First Amendment but that the Sept. 24 version fixed the constitutional issues.

“The September 24 mandate is neutral toward religion and generally applicable,” he said.

Defendants in the case included the University of Colorado’s Board of Regents and officials at the University of Colorado Anschutz School of Medicine.

The board and the school did not respond to requests for comment.

The appeal was brought by the Thomas More Society on behalf of the students and employees.

“The University of Colorado ran roughshod overstaff and students of faith during COVID, and the court of appeals has now declared plainly what we’ve fought to establish for almost three years: the university acted with ‘religious animus’ and flagrantly violated the fundamental religious liberties of these brave healthcare providers and students,” Peter Breen, executive president of the society, said in a statement.

“The court of appeals correctly ruled,” he added later, “that no government entity has the right to appoint itself as a doctrinal tribunal that defines which religious beliefs count as deeply and sincerely held and deem those religious beliefs valid or invalid.”

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/universitys-covid-19-vaccine-mandate-violates-us-constitution-court

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Sunday, May 19, 2024