Pneumonia appears slightly better today. Maybe. Hard to tell for sure.
My oncologist finally showed up this afternoon and finally agreed my immune system was shot. A multiple myeloma specialist tells me this is a common side effect of bispecific therapies like Talvey. Oh. So we've agreed on a treatment that spurs regrowth of immunoglobulins. It will take a week or three to have an effect. It's too bad we didn't start this three weeks ago when we first knew.
I generally feel slightly better today than yesterday. Maybe tomorrow will be even better.
Oh, and it turns I have a colon infection. That's at least four so far.
As of the middle of this week, more than 810,000 wallets had lost money on [$Trump].... The total losses are almost certainly much larger: The data does not include transactions that took place on a series of popular crypto marketplaces that started offering the coin only after its price had already surged.
....Whether people made or lost money, it was stellar business for the Trumps. Nearly $100 million in trading fees have flowed to the family and its partners, although most of that has not yet been cashed out, the Chainalysis data shows.
Here's the price of $Trump over the past three weeks:
The coin opened at 9:01 pm on January 17th and skyrocketed from 18 cents to $32 before Trump even announced it. After Trump did announce it, it surged further to $75, making a ton of money for a few early flippers who mysteriously knew about it so early.¹
But not for anyone else. Within four hours of opening, $Trump was already above $18, and anyone who bought it after that is now underwater.
Except, as the Times notes, for Trump and his buddies. They don't really need to care all that much about the price of the coin. Sure, a long-term bonanza would be nice, but they'll presumably continue making $100 million in fees every month as long as there's plenty of churn among the chumps. Or maybe less. But who cares? It's a lot and it's risk free. Just sit back and let the Oval Office make you rich.
¹Who? No one knows because the blockchain is private and encrypted. Which just confirms the old saw that the only actual use case for crypto is criminal transactions.
I forgot to mention this, but as threatened, I'm back in the hospital. So far we've duplicated every single test from seven days ago and gotten the same results as before. The only thing new is that my pneumonia is either a little better or a little worse depending on whether you believe the X-ray or the CAT scan; and I apparently have a brand new enterovirus (like a cold virus). That's damn mysterious since I haven't left the house for the past week except to come to the hospital.
It's also disturbing since the most likely explanation is that my immune system has been so weakened by the Tecvayli that I need to start living in a bubble. And that actually seems like it might be the case. Here are my immunoglobulin levels:
The problem with multiple myeloma chemotherapies is that they don't distinguish between immunoglobulins. In my case, only my IGG immunoglobulins are cancerous, but the others all get taken along for the ride. In this case they've really gone along for the ride. My A and M immunoglobulins have been wiped out to undetectable levels, and the G immunoglobulins are so low that it's probably only cancerous cells that are left.
I haven't talked to my oncologist about this because I keep ending up in the hospital instead of keeping my appointments with him. I suppose it's a good sign that he hasn't called me in a panic about this, but that assumes he's seen the test results—which he might not have, since he doesn't seem to bother looking at test results until I'm actually in the office with him.
In any case, no one really seems to know what ails me. They say my pneumonia is moderate; my lungs are otherwise clear; and my heart is fine. That really shouldn't be causing the extreme symptoms I'm having: I can barely breathe, and even the slightest exertion gives me chills and gasping.
Bottom line, this all sucks, and I don't seem to be getting any better. Blecch.
When history is written, the first few months of Trump 2.0 will go down as the most craven and prostrate in the history of the Republican Party. We are living in a country ruled by fantastic conspiracy theories and personal revenge, and not a single Republican is willing to stand against it. Not one.
Draft Exec Order wld halve FDA staffing, slash NIH, eliminate CDC. WH being warned of impact on public health, biopharma industry, science. OPM back to work starts at FDA March 17. https://t.co/FvA1ul50W5
This may or may not happen, or the draft EO might get watered down. But the possibility that anybody is even thinking this is alarming as hell.
And why? What grudge does Trump hold against the entire medical research community? Is this just part of the whole "Fauci is a murderer" thing? Or the more general "tyrants forced us to wear masks" thing? Or the FDA approving the deadliest vaccine ever created?
Or is this a personal Trump vendetta that I'm not up to speed on?
Either way, if there's any truth to this it would be unbelievably destructive. The MAGA crew is getting more harebrained every day.
Judge Engelmayer ordered any such official who had been granted access to the systems since Jan. 20 to “destroy any and all copies of material downloaded from the Treasury Department’s records and systems.” He also restricted the Trump administration from granting access to those categories of officials.
In his ruling, federal Judge John D. Bates found that the five federal employee unions that alleged Elon Musk's cost-cutting team sought to illegally access highly sensitive data, including medical records, failed to establish standing.
In an order late Friday, U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols -- a Trump appointee -- issued a temporary restraining that prevents Trump and the Department of Government Efficiency from placing the employees on administrative leave as had been planned. The judge also ordered the reinstatement of some 500 USAID workers who had already been put on administrative leave and ordered that no USAID employees should be evacuated from their host countries before Feb. 14 at 11:59 p.m.
At some point these cases are all going to turn on fundamental questions of legality. USAID, for example, was established and funded by Congress. It's just flatly illegal for Trump to unilaterally shut it down. The same is true for the CFPB. And letting a bunch of guys root around in private government data for no reason they're willing to explain—that's almost certainly illegal too.
In the end, almost all this stuff will end up being halted. The only question remaining is whether Musk and Trump will obey court orders. If they don't, the Supreme Court is going to slap them down hard. Regardless of how they feel on the merits, they won't stand for defying the judiciary.
Trump suggested that he has given the tech billionaire free rein and appeared blase about the details. Asked why Doge needs access to treasury payment systems including Americans’ social security numbers, home addresses and bank accounts, he replied: “Well, it doesn’t, but they get it very easily. We don’t have very good security in our country.”
Treasury's security is fine. But if the president orders them to give DOGE unlimited access, then of course that's what they get.
Musk won't tell anyone what he's up to, and it's obvious that Trump doesn't know either. If DOGE is dicking around with stuff they don't need, and Trump doesn't care, then who does?
I can barely walk to the kitchen without prompting a lengthy attack of uncontrollable shakes and gasping for breath. This is worse than it was a week ago, and if it doesn't resolve soon I'm heading back to the hospital.
For now, though, it means I can't wander around to take pictures of the cats. I can only sit in my chair and wait for them to come to me. Which they do. This is Charlie popping his head up and trying to decide if he wants to jump in my lap. He didn't, which I suppose is all just as well.
