Along With Q2 Results, Merck Has Announced Cost-Cutting Measures — Including 6,000 Layoffs, Globally…

This “news” is a few days’ stale now, but I’m still digging out from being away for three solid weeks. Yikes.

We know some of these roles are open positions (thus will simply eliminate empty seats, anyway), but as a veteran of no less than ten rounds of life-science public company layoffs — and staying employed through all but the last one… we feel for the families just trying to keep a roof over their heads, and food on their table:

…Merck will reduce its workforce by approximately 6,000 employees in “some areas of our global workforce,” the New Jersey drugmaker told Fierce Pharma. The cuts will affect 8% of the company’s workforce.

Word of the dismissals comes two days after Merck revealed a sweeping cost-cutting effort designed to save $3 billion annually by the end of 2027….

We were always very fortunate to have law firm partnerships to return to.

But this cha-cha… certainly is an essential evil of a capitalist health care delivery model. To be fair, it is also the reason so many have remained employed in high paying, high skill jobs for decades on end. Doing well — by “doing good“… is also a thing.

Yet these (mass layoff announcements) are the sharpest ends of those sticks, to be certain.

Onward, resolutely.

नमस्ते

Yeah, Donnie — The Jobs Report Was “Rigged” — Rigged By Your Chaotic Tariff Flip-Flops!

So, the Cheetolini is firing a… bearer of factual, but bad… news. Yawn.

He claims the jobs report data was “manipulated”.

It was. Except that the “manipulation” came from Trump and Bessent themselves:

[W]hen faced with facts and foes that wouldn’t bend to his will, [Tangerine] responded with impatience and disproportionate intensity….

Sensible employers in the United States are not hiring (much) primarily because they cannot be sure that any worker they give a job to will be able to deliver anything economically viable with Trump endlessly moving the goalposts — threatening new inbound tariffs of between 20% and 70% on goods from more than half of the world. That’s lunacy.

No one is going to hire into this intentionally created chaos — chaos that Trump / Bessent each call “strategic uncertainty”. Businesses hate uncertainty, and they will not hire for “uncertain, ever morphing prospects”.

This feckless moron is too dense to even understand that he is the one ruining the economic numbers. What a putz.

नमस्ते

Justice Kavanaugh: The Voting Rights Act Means What It Says. No Racist Dilution Efforts.

The Supremes have (whilst I was off-grid) agreed to hear a case enforcing Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Justice Kavanaugh was the gate-keeper that let it trough. That decision is correct. [To understand what is at stake, read the NAACP filing below.]

Here is that amicus filing, from the NAACP Legal Defense Fund:

To evaluate the existence of an implied private right of action, the Court looks to the plain text to see if Congress intended an implied right of action. See Alexander v. Sandoval, 532 U.S. 275, 286 (2001) (“The judicial task is to interpret the statute Congress has passed to determine whether it displays an intent to create… a private remedy.”). The VRA’s plain text leaves absolutely no doubt there is an implied right of action both because of the clear rights-protecting language of § 2 as well as because of all the other parts of the VRA show that Congress intended private enforcement. Significantly, Morse unequivocally found that the VRA’s structure displays an intent to create private remedies for violations of § 2. While the Court disagreed about the private enforceability of § 10, all nine Justices in Morse agreed that § 3 “explicitly recognizes that private individuals can sue under the Act.” 517 U.S. at 289 (Thomas, J., dissenting, with Rehnquist, Scalia, Kennedy, JJ.) (emphasis added) (cleaned up); see id. at 234 (plurality op., Stevens, J., with one other justices) (same); id. at 240 (Breyer, J., concurring with two other justices) (same). This is because Congress amended § 3 to make clear that any “aggrieved person” can enforce the VRA. 52 U.S.C. § 10302(a)–(c). The amendments “provide the same remedies to private parties as had formerly been available to the Attorney General alone.” Morse, 517 U.S. at 233 (plurality op.). Section 3 makes “what was once implied now explicit: private parties can sue to enforce the VRA.” Ala. NAACP, 949 F.3d at 651.

Second, the Eighth Circuit erred in only cursorily considering the fact that § 2 was enacted pursuant to Congress’s power to enforce the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. Milligan, 599 U.S. at 41….

There you have it. The good guys will win another one. Out.

नमस्ते

Immigration Judge In Khalil’s Case: “I Vacate” — Due To Superseding USDC NJ Order. “The Full US District Court May Order Me As It Sees Fit.”

This is just some more clarifying clean up, of the prior lawless order an administrative law judge entered in Jena, Louisiana, as to Mr. Khalil. [It is on record, lest Kristi Noem think her britches are bigger than they are.] He is a fully free man now — with the LAWFUL right to remain as a grad student in the United States.

Justice — slow in arriving, but arriving, nonetheless.

Here is the full text of that vacating order, and a bit:

Pursuant to the order of the District Court for New Jersey (District Court), Khalil v. Trump, No. 25-CV-01963 (MEF)(MAH), 2025 WL 1983755 (D.N.J. July 17, 2025), the Court, hereby vacates, its decision of April 11, 2025′, finding the Respondent removable as charged pursuant to INA § 237(a)(4)(C)(i)….

Now you know — a minor detail, but worth noting: Kristi Noem is a… lawless freak. That is what this all… means.

Onward, resolutely.

Power Alley | As US Pharma Companies See Uncertainty, Trump Continues His Decade-Long BS / Agitprop — Demanding Drug Price Cuts — By September 1, 2025: Impotent.

We’ve seen this damn dumb show before: in 2017, he said that all pharma companies would bow to him, and cut retail drug prices — system wide — for US consumers… by over 20%. In the space of three months (at August 2017). Then he imploded his own hand-picked industry-advisory council (as we copiously covered, in real time).

Obviously that “price cut” never happened. It took a Biden-led effort, through legislation and negotiations, to reach a government payor “right to negotiate” drug pricing. And that has, in the main, worked on the ten most widely prescribed US drugs. But now, again — Tangerine says he will scrap that carefully crafted to be lawful measure… and simply “demand” (via a letter, of all things!) that all drugs in the US see a 30% price reduction — by 09.01.2025. What a feckless idiot he is:

…Pharmaceutical stocks slumped, continuing a selloff that started with US-listed peers after President Donald Trump escalated his campaign to pressure drugmakers to lower prices in the US.

It is not at all clear that he has any authority to back his demands….

And as it did with Mr. Biden, PhRMA is likely to… litigate the matter, in the federal courts — which means he will be out of office, long before the suits are resolved, one way or the other at the Supremes.

Onward, grinning — out, into a warm, lazy Friday afternoon at Pritzker Pavilion. Smile.

नमस्ते

In Nashville [Quite Correctly!],The Able USDC Judge Crenshaw Orders Kristi Noem To Stop Lying In Public — About Abrego Garcia’s Case.

Damn — are these Trumpians / Noemites. . . endlessly awful. The government should never try its criminal cases in the press.

That’s been black letter federal crim. pro. law… for centuries. Kristi Noem and her minions are too banal to accept that the law applies to them. So, a USDC Judge had to “so order” it, overnight — geez:

…[F]or those before this Court, compliance with Local Criminal Rules 2.01(a)(1) and (a)(4) is not discretionary for all attorneys and their firms or agencies. To ensure that Abrego receives a fair trial, all counsel are subject to Local Criminal Rules 2.01(a)(1) and (a)(4) and Tennessee Rule of Professional Conduct 3.8(f).

All counsel and those working with counsel shall ensure that any proper public communications include that the Indictment only contains allegations. Our Constitution requires that Abrego is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt by a jury….

IT IS SO ORDERED….

Now you know. Onward, resolutely.

नमस्ते

[UPDATE: Launch Scrubbed For Weather] Crewed Mission 11 — To ISS? Nope.

So it goes. Rainclouds scrub today’s Cape launch. End updated portion.

Here’s to wishing only the very best to this crew — riding Elon Musk’s equipment.

Let it run… perfectly. 5×5. Here’s the feed, if you wish to follow along today as you get lunch in the park, out by the delicious taco-trucks:

…Crew-11 is the 11th crew rotation mission of SpaceX’s human space transportation system and its 12th flight with astronauts, including the Demo-2 test flight, to the space station through NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. . . .

LAUNCH | 12:09 p.m. EDT, Thursday, July 31….

Now you know. Onward — No new date set, yet. But maybe tomorrow(?!)….

नमस्ते

In The Land Of The Blind (DoJ), The One-Eyed Pam Bondi Is… Now QUEEN!

And Mirengoff is… bugged by that.

Precious.

See Paul, when you (and the rest of you GOP idiots) decided that Tangerine could use the DoJ for retribution tours — not plain old crime stopping — you bought this pile of pig slop we now see.

Only political witch hunts remain at the top of DoJ. That was by Trump’s design. Now it turns out that he is very credibly featured in a pedophilia ring run by one Jefferey Epstein.

And it turns out that the synchophant (Pam Bondi) he thought he installed at DoJ… is actually looking into TRUMP’s criminal behaviours with Jeffrey Epstein — though they pre-date his first tour at 1600 Penn.

And Paul has his knickers in a twist — because his tax breaks are at risk, now.

C H A R M I N G.

Here’s Paul’s bloviating:

It was Bondi who informed the world that she had a list of Epstein’s partners in crime. Having announced that the list exists, the Justice Department’s later statement that there is no such list was bound to create the impression of a coverup.

The conspiracy minded and the “influencers” invested in the existence of a conspiracy would be screaming that the administration is hiding the list even if Bondi hadn’t said she has one. But absent that statement, they would have little if anything on which to hang their conspiracy theory….

If Trump’s paramount concern is having the Epstein story fade away, he probably has little choice but to keep his dysfunctional DOJ-FBI team (Bondi has been feuding with top FBI officials in the finger pointing over the Epstein files) in place for a while.

If Trump’s paramount concern is having a well-functioning Justice Department [Ed. Note: plainly he wants the OPPOSITE!], he probably has little choice but to fire Bondi….

I am so here… for this entire train-wreck! YES!!!

Sit down and take your medicine, Paulie — and Trumpie’s, too.

Damn are you dipshits. . . hilarious.

Crewed Mission 11 — To ISS — At Lunch-Time, Today! Godspeed, All!

Here’s to wishing only the very best to this crew — riding Elon Musk’s equipment.

Let it run… perfectly. 5×5. Here’s the feed, if you wish to follow along today as you get lunch in the park, out by the delicious taco-trucks:

…Crew-11 is the 11th crew rotation mission of SpaceX’s human space transportation system and its 12th flight with astronauts, including the Demo-2 test flight, to the space station through NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. . . .

LAUNCH | 12:09 p.m. EDT, Thursday, July 31….

The SpaceX closeout team has left the crew access arm, which will soon swing back from the Dragon spacecraft. Launch, set for 12:09 p.m. EDT, is now a little less than an hour away. Stay with us here on the blog, where we’ll keep you updated on the key mission milestones as launch countdown continues….

Now you know. Onward — to get a haircut and beard trim. I’m… overdue! Hah!

नमस्ते

Catching Up On Missed Headlines: Ghana Sees Its Mpox Cases Spike, And A First Fatality…

This happened last weekend, whilst I was off grid at an Iron Man 70.3.

But here it is — just the same. Back in the saddle now — and into the power alley:

…Ghana has recorded its first death from Mpox, health authorities confirmed Sunday, amid a sharp rise in new infections in the West African country. . . .

Twenty-three new cases have been confirmed in the past week, bringing the total number of infections to 257 since the virus was first detected in Ghana in June 2022.

The latest figure marks the highest weekly increase since the outbreak began and the first fatality recorded in the country….

Now you know — and we will be largely off grid for the whole month of September, 2026 — enjoying the World Championships in Nice, France. And then… more time, back in Monaco. Woot!

नमस्ते