Well Regulated May 23, 2011March 24, 2017 This is America: Republicans believe we should make it as difficult as possible to vote. Here in Ohio (a 39-second Rachel Maddow clip), here in Wisconsin (debunking the voter-fraud myth) – here in Florida (where “Gov. Rick Scott quietly signed a sweeping rewrite of Florida election law Thursday that will cut the number of early-voting days nearly in half”) . . . and pretty much anywhere else Republicans have won control. It’s just politics, which is to say it’s just about power, which is to say it’s mainly about money. Who gets what piece of the pie. Rich Republicans like the Kochs want Republicans elected. Republicans will appoint Justices like the ones who stopped the vote count in Florida and installed George W. Bush, who cut the tax rate on their dividends from 39.6% to 15%. Republican-appointed Justices who will decide the Citizens United case in favor of more power for the rich to influence future elections to elect more people to try to cut the minimum wage for low-income people while cutting taxes for high-income people. It’s not that Republicans like the Koch brothers have anything against the poor or struggling middle class. They just think the rich and powerful don’t have enough wealth and power. Fair enough. They’re entitled to that view. Why more than a small handful of folks agree with it, I fail to grasp. GUNS – IV Russell Bell: “The First Amendment doesn’t grant freedom of religion to well-regulated churches or freedom of speech to well-regulated debating societies but to everyone. The Second Amendment refers specifically to well-regulated militias. States ought to be required to organize militias to which any mentally-capable, non-felonious citizen can belong as long as s/he participates in well-regulation – and strictly regulate gun ownership by those who refuse to join the militia.” ☞ Yes! Yes! UPDATES Guru reports: “The cancer abstracts were out last week. AMRN’s details look really good and one analyst continues to peg fair value at $25. YMI’s abstract showed no difference from what was reported in April. More details will be available at the meeting in June, but their agent continues to look as good as INCY’s with a better adverse event profile – and it corrects anemia, something INCY causes. This anemia effect is the big differentiator and it is holding up. Stay the course. We got the data we were looking for on SUPG. They can make a case to have Dacogen become the first approved drug to treat elderly patients with AML (acute myelogenous leukemia). Dacogen is already approved to treat MDS (myelodysplastic syndrome) and it was approved on response rate. However, there is risk to getting the survival claim because the benefit was seen in the second, not the first, analysis, although the median survival difference is the same in both cases. We’ll see. There will be a panel meeting sometime later this year I’m sure. Europeans are likely to be more favorable towards this type of analysis than the US.