MRK Crowned Boss Of Immuno-Oncology... 45, OTOH? Nope. "No Crown" Edition.

Part of the reason I will likely post here less frequently is that Merck's pembrolizumab is doing so well in a wide array of tumors and cancers (the current ASCO posters in Chicago confirm this conclusion) which means Merck may easily chart its own course (or write its own ticket, with these vast cash flows) for the next three to five years, minimum. Equally important, Kenilworth is in the hands of a world class leader -- one Kenneth Frazier. It will thrive.

Now, switching gears to where my attention has been drawn: with the NYT release of the Trump legal team's purple comic sans typeset 20 page position statement, I must make one observation about this claim (forgetting for a moment that we fought a bloody war against British rule over just these issues):

Ahem. (Yes -- that is the typeface Mr. Dowd uses, at left. Priceless.) The founders of our nation (regardless of their other frailties and all-too-human faults) took great pains to write an impassioned declaration of independence, and then a full constitution. They did so, almost singularly, to evince the shared sense that we (as in "we the people") would never again be ruled by a. . . KING.

Here Mr. Trump's plainly be-clowned lawyers argue in essence that the founders and the declaration, and the constitution. . . were. . . simply suggestions (or worse, misguided jokes). Put to one side that these lawyers cite the wrong statute; that they ignore facts pointing to Mr. Trump's culpability and that they are being paid to lie.

Any sentient American will -- without needing to parse any byzantine language -- come to the conclusion that only KINGS may pardon themselves for crimes; that only KINGS may claim a power of consent over which criminal investigations into their own conduct may be broached (or prematurely terminated). . . and we, the people summarily and forever banished kingships here, circa 1776.

To call 45's lawyers' claims specious is to under-define them. They are breath-taking in the scope of the lies they embed, about our nation -- our republic -- and our shared sense of ordered liberty. We are a nation of laws, not men.

And here endeth any legitimate claim Mr. Trump had to being a steward of this great nation's history -- direct from the clown-type-font of his own lawyers (i.e., by his own admissions).

Time to swim and bike!

नमस्ते