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Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on December 17, 2015 32 Comments
Back in September, the New York Times reported that Turing Pharmaceuticals had increased the price of its HIV drug, Daraprim, from $13.70 per tablet to $750 per tablet.

Specialists in infectious disease are protesting a gigantic overnight increase in the price of a 62-year-old drug that is the standard of care for treating a life-threatening parasitic infection.

The drug, called Daraprim, was acquired in August by Turing Pharmaceuticals, a start-up run by a former hedge fund manager. Turing immediately raised the price to $750 a tablet from $13.50, bringing the annual cost of treatment for some patients to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Watch Turing CEO Martin Shkreli explain his decision on Fox Business:

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Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 17, 2015 74 Comments
Does this go too far? Of course it does. Comments by Donald Trump about a temporary ban on Muslim immigration, which almost certainly never will happen even if there were to be a President Trump, hardly compare to round-up for extermination. There is no equivalent -- fortunately -- of Kristallnacht against Muslims in the U.S. The few instances of violence are being prosecuted, and one is still far more likely to be the victim of religious hate crimes for being Jewish. The Times of San Diego reports, USD Professor Leads Silent Protest Against Anti-Muslim Rhetoric:
A religious studies professor at the University of San Diego who is concerned about growing anti-Muslim rhetoric has started a silent protest, with students and faculty wearing yellow stars marked “Muslim.” Bahar Davary, associate professor of theology and religious studies, came up with the idea during her class “Islamic Faith and Practice,” an introduction to Islam, and her students suggested several designs.

Posted by Jonathan Levin on December 17, 2015 4 Comments
Russia's policy of bloody deterrence and intimidation is reaping battlefield victories, and exposing US fecklessness in Syria.  President Obama has decided the risk of alienating the Syrian population and providing propaganda fodder for ISIS and other anti-Western organizations outweighs the benefits of a substantive military intervention, but Russian President Vladimir Putin's s opposite strategy moots the theory.  Syrians afflicted by foreign military intervention and Islamists capitalizing on it are unlikely to parse their anger according to which foreign power actually caused their losses. Particularly since ISIS bombed a MetroJet airliner on October 31, 2015, killing 224 people, including 219 Russians, the Russian and American campaigns in Syria could not be more different.  Russia now operates four forward operating bases in Syria and claims to have flown more than 4,000 sorties and hit 8,000 targets since September 30, 2015 and to have conducted fifty-nine sorties on December 15 alone, hitting 212 targets, killing 321 ISIS fighters and destroying 100 oil facilities. After the MetroJet bombing, Russia also deployed ground forces to Syria for the first time.  According to Lt. Colonel James G. Zumwalt, USMC (Ret.):
Comparable to our own elite fighters of Delta Force, Russian special forces have an operational edge ours do not. While battlefield actions by U.S. forces will, appropriately, always be defined by the laws of land warfare, Russian special forces historically have tossed their moral compass aside. By doing so, they convey a clear message—in blood—to adversaries.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on December 17, 2015 79 Comments
While I didn't think Donald Trump did a particularly great job in Tuesday's CNN debate, his poll numbers and recent comment about a temporary halt to Muslims coming into the country have stirred interest in his candidacy abroad.  The latest foreign leader to weigh in on Trump is Russian president Vladimir Putin who thinks Trump is "brilliant," "talented," and "very colorful." The Hill reports:
Russian President Vladimir Putin had kind words for his “stablemate” Donald Trump during an annual end-of-the-year Q-and-A session in Moscow. "He’s a really brilliant and talented person, without any doubt,” Putin told reporters, according to a translation by Interfax. "It’s not our job to judge his qualities, that’s a job for American voters, but he’s the absolute leader in the presidential race.”
Putin claims that Trump was the "absolute leader" in the GOP presidential debates.

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on December 17, 2015 6 Comments
More than 15 months have passed since the end of the conflict in Gaza between Israel and the terrorist outfit Hamas, but the campaign of slander against Israel and witch-hunt against the members of its armed forces still continues. Last week British authorities briefly detained a retired IDF reserves officer, apparently based on a list compiled by a "pro-Palestinian group" of soldiers involved in alleged 'war crimes' during last year's Operation Protective Edge. The officer was held for questioning for hours and was only released after Israeli Foreign Ministry intervened. British authorities have since apologized for the incident, but this once highlights how anti-Israel groups are subverting the laws in the West in an attempt to strip Israel of its right to defend itself in the face of terror. The incident took place just days after a fact-finding group comprising of military experts from around the world published their report on the 50-day clash between Israel Defense Force (IDF) and militant islamist outfit Hamas in Gaza. Around 14 high-ranking military officers came together to form the High Level Military Group (HLMG) earlier this year. Former head of India's Defence Intelligence (DG DIA) Lt. General Kamal Davar was accompanied by former Commander of British Forces in Afghanistan Colonel Richard Kemp, along with other top military commanders from U.S., Germany, Italy, Spain and France.

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Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 17, 2015 43 Comments
The trillion dollar plus Omnibus bill being eased through Congress is stuffed with all sorts of provisions which, if debated individually, would cause an uproar. Senator Jeff Sessions focused in on immigration provisions and funding for the Obama agenda: Power Line has analysis:
With Republicans in control of both House and Senate, the backroom omnibus spending bill that was unveiled yesterday should have been an opportunity to advance the conservative agenda across a very broad front. No doubt there are a few good aspects to the bill. But, as Paul noted earlier, it strikes a blow against education and against the Constitution by expanding funding for the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights.

Posted by Mike LaChance on December 17, 2015 38 Comments
While everyone in the media was talking about the Republican debate yesterday, Obama quietly met with former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg to discuss gun control. Jordan Fabian reported at The Hill:
Obama meets with Bloomberg to talk guns President Obama on Wednesday met with former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, an ally of the White House on gun control. The meeting, which was not on the president's public schedule, comes as he is weighing new executive action on guns in response to a series of mass shootings that have marred his presidency. Obama huddled with Bloomberg "as part of the administration's continuing push to address gun violence in America," the White House said in a statement.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on December 16, 2015 18 Comments
Legislation designed to strengthen the existing Visa Waiver Program was lumped into the massive omnibus bill. The Visa Waiver Program currently allows foreign nationals holding citizenship from any of the 38 participating countries (there are a few other qualifying factors) to bypass consular processing in order to request entry to the U.S.. Though the House bill was introduced in January, the terrorist attacks in Paris last month prompted Congress to consider legislation designed to strengthen the existing Visa Waiver Program of which France is a particpant and, “help prevent terrorists from entering the United States,” said Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ). USA Today reported Wednesday:
The visa-waiver provisions were included in a 2009-page spending bill to fund the federal government until next October. The House and Senate are expected to vote on the bill without changes by Dec. 22.
I read both the House and Senate version of the bill last week and outlined them in painful detail here. In sum, the bill could be a little stronger, but it makes solid, substantive reforms to the existing visa waiver program.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on December 16, 2015 58 Comments
For all the good the joy, one-click shopping, and cat videos the Internet provides, its underbelly is racked with loons of all shapes and sizes. Among them are the 9/11 truthers. Fed up by the "jet fuel can't melt steel" mantra, metalworker Trenton Tye of Purgatory Ironworks finally had enough. So he took to YouTube. "For the undying 9/11 MORONIC JET FUEL ARGUMENT" is a beautiful thing to behold.

Posted by Andrew Branca on December 16, 2015 115 Comments
The trial of Baltimore Police Officer William Porter ended in a mistrial today, with Judge Williams accepting that the jury was hung on all four criminal charges brought against Porter in the aftermath of the in custody death of Freddie Gray. Update: For those curious about what the jury vote breakdown might have been, don't get your hopes up. The court definitely won't release an official breakdown (Judge Williams said so explicitly), and the jurors themselves might be inclined to leak the info but they're technically under a gag order issued by Williams.  So, even if one of the jurors does leak they won't want to be publicly associated with the leak for fear of being held in contempt, so the leaked information can't be validated. Officer Porter is, of course, subject to re-trial on all four charges: involuntary manslaughter, second degree assault, reckless endangerment, and misconduct in office. (Update: It's being reported that the parties will meet before an administrative judge tomorrow to set a date for the retrial of Officer Porter.) The mistrial must be seen as a stinging rebuke to State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby, who rushed to charge Porter and six other officers before the police investigation into the matter had even completed.  Many legal experts, including myself, have been of the opinion that not only were the prospects for a conviction slight, but that the charges should never have been brought in the first place. http://baltimore.cbslocal.com/2015/11/19/officer-william-porter-to-take-stand-in-freddie-gray-trial/ Page Crowder, a Baltimore State's Attorney for 21 years before retiring, has been perhaps the best-informed critic of Mosby's impetuous conduct in this case, noting at her blog during the trial:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 16, 2015 11 Comments
William F. Buckley Jr. had a great disdain for entrenched, self-perpetuating elites epitomized by thefaculty of Harvard:
I am obliged to confess I should sooner live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University.
In light of our prior reporting on the "Demands" and protests at Yale, and considering this new video, I'd like to expand on Buckley's theme:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 16, 2015 23 Comments
There hasn't been much talk of Hillary's multi-level email problem because of the media attention to all things Trump. But here's a reminder that Hillary's email scandal may be in a Trump-induced hibernation, but it has not gone away. The Hill reports:
A pair of emails on Hillary Clinton’s private server was indeed “top secret” when they passed through her machine, intelligence officials have concluded, according to a pair of reports. The tentative finding comes despite opposition from the State Department, which had disputed the initial classification level handed down by the Office of the Intelligence Community Inspector General. According to Fox News, one official called the decision to classify the messages at the highest level a “settled matter.”

Posted by New Neo on December 16, 2015 26 Comments
The number of Syrian Christian refugees the United States has taken in is extremely small. And yet this is a group that ought logically to be first in line because members face the most obvious danger and persecution---not only in Syria, but in several Arab or Muslim countries to which they might have fled. Syrian Christians would also have little chance of being terrorists. We already have seen how little Obama has said or done about the plight of Christians in the Middle East today, both rhetorically and in terms of action. So it's no stretch to imagine that the lack of Syrian Christian refugees may be the result of a deliberate policy of this administration. However, at least some of the lack of Christians among the Middle Eastern refugees to the US is a reflection of the way the system works vis-a-vis the UN, which usually does the initial vetting for us---a system that, by the way, desperately needs changing:

Posted by Andrew Branca on December 16, 2015 95 Comments
UPDATE: (12/16/15, 3:16PM):  MISTRIAL, JURY HUNG ON ALL FOUR CHARGES.
UPDATE: (12/16/15, 3:01PM):  Told that both Porter and Mosby are in the courtroom.
UPDATE: (12/16/15, 2:43PM):  State's Attorney Mosby is in the courtroom, first time since deliberations began.
UPDATE: (12/16/15, 2:34PM):  Another buzz from the jury.
UPDATE: (12/16/15, 12:38PM): Jury breaking for lunch.
UPDATE: (12/16/15, Noon): Jury requested a transcript of witness testimony. This request was denied. The identity of the particular witness was not released.
UPDATE: (12/16/15, 11:54AM): Prosecution arrives at courthouse to hear what jury note is all about.
UPDATE: (12/16/15, 11:38AM): There are reports of a "buzz" from the jury, and CNN is reporting that the jury has a message for Judge Williams.  WBAL TV reports the jurors have a question. Might be merely a lunch-related matter.
Today begins the third day of deliberations in the "Freddie Gray" trial of Baltimore Police Officer William Porter. Porter is on trial for involuntary manslaughter (10 year penalty), second-degree assault (10 year penalty), reckless endangerment (5 year penalty), and misconduct in office (undefined penalty). These charges stem from the in-custody spinal injury of Freddie Gray in a police van following his arrest on April 12. Gray would die some days later. We've covered the "Freddie Gray" matter extensively from its inception, here at Legal Insurrection. We'll keep you updated here as news emerges over the course of the day. In the meantime, you can follow along with the day's developments in the Twitter feed embedded below.
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