Author Archives: Bok
Drug Prices
Hillary is making the drug business a campaign issue. A recent NYT story detailed how Turing Pharmaceuticals bought the rights to a 62 year old drug called Daraprim. Turing jacked up the price from $13.50 a pill to $700 a pill.
My question was how can that happen? Why wouldn’t another company sell a generic version at a lower price? According to the WSJ the FDA sets high barriers to entry to the market. Turing already owns rights to market the drug but another firm would have to pay up to $20 million just to get approval to make a generic version.
Gun Control
President Obama is big on collectives. He thinks that, since we didn’t pass his gun control legislation, we are “collectively responsible” for those shot and killed at a community college in Oregon. He’s getting pretty darned tired of having to point this out every time there’s a mass shooting. Jacob Sullum at Reason is getting pretty darned tired of explaining why this makes no sense.
Last weekend in Obama’s adopted hometown Chicago 14 people were shot, 6 were killed. Chicago has the gun control laws the president says we need.
Doctored Intelligence
Two weeks ago the NYT reported that intelligence analysts claim their superiors at Centcom doctored their reports to make ISIS appear more jv than varsity.
Daily Beast says more than “50 spies claim intelligence was cooked”.
Former CIA analyst, Fred Fleitz in National Review, wants to know where the rest of the intelligence community is. He thinks this is only a tip of the iceberg.
Planned Parenthood Hearing
It hasn’t gone well for congressional Republicans since they drove out John Boehner last week.
Cecile Richards ran circles around grandstanding congressmen at a Planned Parenthood hearing this week.
And Boehner’s presumed heir to the House, Kevin McCarthy, wrote the Benghazi hearings into Hillary’s ongoing script of The Great Right Wing Conspiracy. Kathleen Parker explains here and Peggy Noonan here.
Russian Red Line
Having drawn a red line in Syria, President Obama was unwilling to take action after Bashar Assad gassed his own people. Putin stepped in to save Barack’s bacon by setting up an inspections regime to remove poison gas from Syria.
Russian Red Line
On Monday at the UN President Putin said Russia would step up its support for Syria. Secretary of State Kerry welcomed the idea hoping Putin would do some of the dirty work needed to beat ISIS. On Wednesday the Russians told the Americans to get out of the way and bombed near Homs. The US says ISIS isn’t in Homs but “moderate” Syrian rebels are.
Now, according to the Telegraph, our new best friends, Iran and Hezbollah, are joining the fight.
Speaking of that red line – in 2013 Obama denied ever setting it. On Tuesday Josh Ernest insisted the president does’t regret setting it.
