Not because these two are isolationists, as to Israel. Not for peace. And certainly not in service of any genuine conservative US goal, as properly that term is understood (by people who still value the meanings of words, at least).
No, they don’t want him in Israel — because unlike every GOP speaker on the topic… he is now telling the truth.
This day has arrived… due to thousands of atrocities on both sides, in the last at oh… least 3,000 years — but especially the last 20. [There is no tidy, neat, good guy — bad guy… narrative. Both are very bad guys.]
There is blame all around to be shared.
And that sort of complexity doesn’t serve these boys… agendas — and lies.
This is mostly a shortish squib to note that Jordan has very little chance now — having failed on THREEtwo votes in a row — of finding a way to appease those whose hands, feet and a$$es he’s intentionally bitten, in his own party no less… over the years.
So he is what we thought he was: a sad, mean, malign clown.
Nothing more.
See ya’, Gym.
It’s a darn shame that the GOP cannot govern itself internally, let alone the US House, let alone the nation, let alone the Western World.
Sad, especially this afternoon, for the suffering people of Israel — and Gaza.
Cytomegalovirus may often be the scourge of immuno-compromised patients. [2016 era backgrounder of mine, here — during Cubbie fever. Smile.]
And that is doubly true for patients who are recovering from a transplant, as most of them will have been given a regimen to suppress their immune responses — to decrease the odds of an organ rejection. [Here is a February 2023 backgrounder of mine, as well.] So it is, that now the EU authorities have green-lit use of a Merck therapy — for a 200 day duration. The prior approval only was for 100 days. Yes, this is good news:
…[Merck] said on Tuesday the European Union medicines regulator recommended a marketing authorisation for the company’s drug Prevymis to treat a type of infection in adult kidney transplant recipients at high risk.
The drugmaker says Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) also recommended the approval for extending dosing of the drug to 200 days from 100 days, following a type of transplant in adult patients….
Prevymis is an antiviral agent that was initially approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2017 and by the EMA in 2018 for prevention of a type of viral infection called Cytomegalovirus (CMV) in some patients who have received a type of stem-cell transplantation….
So, the freight train keeps on rolling out of Rahway. And with all this high margin drug revenue… one may fairly ask: why is it, exactly, that Mr. Rob Davis won’t willingly sit down and negotiate with his largest customer, on some drugs now over 20 years on market — that do save lives, but upon which Merck has already banked profits deep into the billions of dollars? Why… indeed?
My review, then: the Lehman Trilogy is very inventive theater, well told — and a fascinating capitalists’ history of pre-Civil War Alabama, and King-Cotton — it treated fairly both slavery and post that, the crash of 1929.
But these clever, funny lil’ men lost their way in telling the tale — after about 1960.
It seemed to me (having lived experience with the firm, and having done deals of scale — during the early 2000s) that the Lehman heirs may have likely paid for a puff piece of mythology (in the form of a Broadway show), certainly by the time 2007-08 rolls around. The first century is a tenderly told story of penniless Jewish immigrants, making good in the New World — but just as plainly, it all but ignores how a final century of just forever focusing on “higher interest rate” returns, to the exclusion of all else… was the rot — that crept into the core of Lehman Shearson American Express — and finally… just Lehman Bros.
As is often true, history is determined by the one holding the pen — at the end.
And to my eye, this looks like an attempt to re-write history — in the form of theater.
It is truly a heady time to be alive, insofar as space science goes.
We now see, from our latest NASA space telescope’s golden mirrors, that a hot Jupiter, about a sun nearly 1,300 light years away, out into the cold night skies… possesses the same “halo” of tiny iridescent quartz crystals know exist, here on Earth — a precursor, and emblem, of future rocky planet formation.
[Though it seems most of these are only about 10 nanometers across — one-millionth of one centimeter (much younger, and thus much smaller than such typical dust here on Earth).] Here’s the stuff:
…Researchers using NASA’s [latest] space telescope have detected evidence for quartz nanocrystals in the high-altitude clouds of WASP-17 b, a hot Jupiter exoplanet 1,300 light-years from Earth. The detection, which was uniquely possible with MIRI (the Mid-Infrared Instrument), marks the first time that silica (SiO2) particles have been spotted in an exoplanet atmosphere….
Silicates (minerals rich in silicon and oxygen) make up the bulk of Earth and the Moon as well as other rocky objects in our solar system, and are extremely common across the galaxy. But the silicate grains previously detected in the atmospheres of exoplanets and brown dwarfs appear to be made of magnesium-rich silicates like olivine and pyroxene, not quartz alone – which is pure SiO2….
With a volume more than seven times that of Jupiter and a mass less than one-half Jupiter, WASP-17 b is one of the largest and puffiest known exoplanets. This, along with its short orbital period of just 3.7 Earth-days, makes the planet ideal for transmission spectroscopy : a technique that involves measuring the filtering and scattering effects of a planet’s atmosphere on starlight.
[We] observed the WASP-17 system for nearly 10 hours… [and] what emerged was an unexpected “bump” at 8.6 microns, a feature that would not be expected if the clouds were made of magnesium silicates or other possible high temperature aerosols like aluminum oxide, but which makes perfect sense if they are made of quartz….
Now you know. Onward — grinning… to learn of the origins of the stock and merch exchanges — and of the original, honorable name… Lehman / Loeb, tonight, via our theaters.
What is so sadly telling about John — is that he hasn’t even read, let alone comprehended the relevant in-force US treaties on the topic. A protocol dating to the early 1970s sets out the clear rights of any human who claims asylum, regardless of country of origin, or how or where they enter onto US soil (wading the Rio Grande, crossing a mountain range or coming into a harbor by boat — even as a stowaway — or riding in a panel van, and delivered into San Diego or Brownsville)… they are here LAWFULLY, until a credible fear hearing is held and the INS decides otherwise.
So each one of them — by simply standing on US soil and uttering the magic words/phrase… “I claim asylum…” becomes, at least for a time… a legal temporary resident of the United States. 8 USC § 1158(a)(1).
L A W F U L — under US law.
[John then proceeded to complain about the ways that all the federal laws protect them from discrimination — in lending and banking, and Drivers License issuances and so on.]
But they are… lawful temporary residents in every states’ eyes save Texas and Mississippi and Alabama and Florida. These local red governments openly disobey federal law on a host of immigration related topics, as we well know — and have documented here, for over a decade.
So — geez John — your cute question… simply offers us unending evidence of your… ignorance of the applicable law.
Shortly, on December 4, 2023, the Sacklers’ lawyers will be arguing before the Supremes that a Chapter 11 which purports to allow the family to cut off all liability, in suits against it — for the opioid crisis it made (over a decade) about $15 billion bilking… all while keeping over $6 billion of its family’s personal gains from the debacle (via a series of dividends, prior to Chapter 11) is somehow perfectly… cricket.
It is not. In fact, despite the very broad powers granted to bankruptcy courts in the US, a mere argument that the Sacklers will never likely willingly settle (in tens of thousands of individual suits), and thus it would be better for all victims to get something soon, rather than nothing… decades from now… is not remotely part of the tool bag, where the family did not also file bankruptcy, and consent to starting over with just $6,000 each — as all other humans would be required to do.
As one might surmise, this malign hubris vexes me. And it is fair to say that the greed of selling billions of dollars of both generic and branded opioid drugs to addicted US citizens, while turning a blind eye to the fact that many thousands had no business holding a prescription, at the drugstore counters… led to this moment.
In fact, Mallinckrodt has now twice gone into the tank over its opioid liabilities, and has not yet re-emerged. This morning, we learn that in New Jersey, after the DoJ averred that RiteAid willfully turned a blind eye to prescription abuse in its 2,000 some retail outlets. . . it too is entering Chapter 11. The company mostly suggests the New Jersey filing reflects low margins on all products sold in RiteAid outlets — but it is plain that the company has more than $9 billion in liabilities (even before perhaps $3 to $5 billion in opioid contingent liabilities) — and only around $6.8 billion in assets. So, yes, this too is an… opioid hangover story.
…US pharmacy chain Rite Aid Corp. filed for bankruptcy as it looks to restructure debts, and said it will shutter more stores.
As part of a court-supervised process, Rite Aid received a commitment for $3.45 billion in new financing from certain lenders, it said in a statement, without elaborating. It also said it clinched a restructuring deal with holders of its senior secured notes and also appointed Jeffrey S. Stein as chief executive officer, citing his expertise in turning around companies….
We are hopeful that the Supremes will at least end the abuse by the Sacklers of the bankruptcy laws. We are hopeful that the case is sent back to the bankruptcy courts with an instruction that if the plan is to be approved, another ~$6 billion must be taken from the Sacklers’ ledger — and the family members must each start over, with only $6,000. That is how well each of us ordinary Americans — would fare, in such a case.
Onward — with three weeks in a row of theater on tap, as Tuesday night brings a ticket to “The Lehman Trilogy“, here — that ticket, bought months ago, now seems prescient… as well. Grin.
Seems likely right — at least if we credit them with understanding the rational outcomes — from their ongoing… meltdown. [To be fair, Hinderaker and his boys helped to hobble the whole of the GOP for over seven long years now, with nonsense far-right “wedge issue” posturing.]
But I write only to note that it is a near certainty the GOP will not have a candidate capable of winning in the 2024 White House race — in the general election.
We last mentioned this consolidation of research inside London — by MSD, as US Merck is known across the pond — in February. The £1 billion outlay is a heady number, to be sure — but it largely represents moving all existing English efforts around the collar of London in to one central campus in King’s Cross, London proper — right on the Tube lines.
And so, Dean Li took the opportunity to directly lobby the UK government and NHS to be mindful that lower tax rates and more welcoming pricing already exist… just across the way, in now post-BREXIT / “Remain” Ireland — and Brussels in particular. That said, he’s not wrong to try — but it all likely falls on deaf ears, because £1 is the size of the check — and the PM likely figures that won’t end soon. [Do see my 2017 era backgrounder, here.]
In any event, here’s the story from Financial Times — noting in particular that AstraZeneca just selected an EU site (in Ireland) for ts $360 million new facility — citing a “more hospitable” regulatory and tax environment:
…Merck’s research chief [Dean Li] has called on the UK government to make the country more welcoming to pharma companies, ahead of the US-based drugmaker breaking ground on a £1bn research centre in London next week.
Dean Li, president of Merck’s research laboratories, praised the UK’s scientific talent and expertise, hoping that the investment in King’s Cross will help researchers at MSD, known as Merck in the US, work closely with academics to do the early science necessary for creating new treatments for huge unmet needs in areas such as neurology….
He said chancellor Jeremy Hunt and the health department should address conflicts with the pharmaceutical industry over drug prices and hurdles to running clinical trials in the NHS. He warned that the UK has to compete with other countries such as Belgium that are also trying to attract life sciences investment from groups such as MSD….
Onward, smiling — on a perfectly sunny Fall Sunday afternoon… as the oak and cottonwood leaves turn from gold to flaming red….
To be clear, this seemingly relatively small distinction… matters immensely — in building real world, “on the ground” — contact of contacts tracing protocols.
As regular readers of my stuff know, the Ebola vaccine is administered in a “ring” fashion — injecting all people who’ve had direct contact with someone known to have Ebola, and those with contact with these contacts, within a specified period of time. And then… to contacts, of those contacts, within the time window — and so on.
But if the health authorities and WHO workers are only looking backward, or forward two days… the effort will miss a much wider swath of potentially sick people, and potential transmission sources.
So, this fine empirical work firmly establishing four days as the minimum incubation period is an important epidemiological life science advance. While no one may ever truly know — in any outbreak, with certainty — where the index case is (or who was/is patient zero), using a four day contacts list will get much closer to a more rapid arrest of the virus, in a any given community — assuming the people reporting will report the full truth of all their contacts.
In this regard, extramarital affair partners (and/or paying for sex workers) presents a vexing problem to health workers. They, or their partners, may well not easily admit to having been with someone in an intimate contact, at even two days, let alone four — out.
So the psychological suasion work is and remains every bit as important, as the actual decision-making around who, and how many — receive the vaccine jabs. Now you know. Onward — into a quiet weekend, with baby girl departing for the Grand Canyon — and then LA, and then. . . a month in the Australian outback. Woosh!
Both of them suggest that Mr. Biden should not have gone to Israel.
