Hello everybody! Welcome to “Whose the Dictator?” the popular ethics game show! Welcome panel! And here’s today’s challenge…
Now let’s consider President Biden. The same day that the mainstream media was roiling with pundits and reporter warnings (and accusations from well-respected, objective conservatives like Liz Cheney), that Trump’s comments to Hannity prove that he is an American Hitler, Politico reported in “Targeting costly meds, Biden admin asserts authority to seize certain drug patents”:
The Biden administration has determined that it has the authority to seize the patents of certain high-priced medicines, a move that could open the door to a more aggressive federal campaign to slash drug prices.
The determination, which was described by three people familiar with the matter, represents the culmination of a nearly nine-month review of the government’s so-called march-in rights. Progressives have long insisted that those rights empower the administration to break the patents of pricey drugs that were developed with public funds, in an effort to create more competition and lower prices.
The administration will not endorse the widespread use of march-in rights, and is not expected to take action against any individual medicines, said the people familiar with the matter, who were granted anonymity to discuss internal decision making. Instead, the Commerce Department on Thursday plans to issue a new framework spelling out factors that federal agencies should weigh in determining whether to take march-in action against expensive drugs or other individual products that were created with federal help.
The price and availability of that product to the public are among the factors the department will recommend that agencies consider.
Politico did not mention that the authority of the federal government to seize privately owned drug patents under this theory is specifically left out of the bipartisan Bayh-Dole Act of 1980, passed to spur innovation and create a framework in which pharmaceutical research receiving federal funds could result in corporate patents that could be licensed private entities to benefit the public. Prior to 1980, any invention created with any level of government support could be seized by the government, which had the effect of stifling the development of new drugs. Moreover, the government taking over private patents—as in “property” was recognized at the time as an abuse of power and am unjustified “taking” under our Constitution. Nor did Politico point out that former Senators Bayh and Dole themselves said, “The law makes no reference to a reasonable price that should be dictated by the government. This omission was intentional; the primary purpose of the act was to entice the private sector to seek public-private research collaboration rather than focusing on its own proprietary research.” Nor does Politico explain the slippery slope that such patent seizures would create, giving the government broad new authority to set prices on products like medicines and so-called “green technologies” had some degree of federal funding. Why would it? Surely the public understands, as do you, panel, that the government never uses precedents to expand its power!
After all, there’s nothing sinister or totalitarian about something called “march-in rights,” is there?
All right panel, that’s all the clues you get! Now think hard…you have 30 seconds to decide…
Who’s the Dictator?
Time’s up!
Ethics Alarms 
“Whose”?
Never mind; you got it. Delete
Oops, it’s still in the text.
Spuds (Jack’s loyal companion who sits next to and watches the news with Jack), points and barks “it’s Biden.”
Who’s the dictator? Well, Biden’s party just attempted (but failed) to push forward another assault, supported by SloJo, on the Constitution:
https://thereload.com/senate-assault-weapons-ban-fails-without-vote/
It would seem likely to have eventually be struck down in court, but the attempt shows just who is promoting a totalitarian state.
The arm brace ruling was worse. Because it is an ATF ‘letter’, it can be changed retroactively. Basically, the ATF is repudiating the manufacturer letters and opinions that the arm braces were legal. The new interpretation retcons history so that the braces were never legal, so people that bought and used them ‘legally’ now owned them ‘illegally’. The penalty for possessing an NFA item is face 10 years in federal prisona and hundreds of thousands in fines.
This is why the ATF and other agencies don’t have written policies. They write case-by-case opinions, so that there is no policy. Two companies with virtually identical products will get different opinions with no explanation as to why. You can’t know what is illegal and what is not illegal because even if you have a letter saying it is legal, it can be retroactively changed later, making you a felon. Federal agencies exist so the law can be arbitrary and capricious.
Of course, if you work for the government and you steal NFA items from the evidence locker and sell them illegally to others, the most you face is 1 year and 1 day.
https://www.kentucky.com/news/local/crime/article282408098.html
You also can smuggle firearms into Mexico using diplomatic vehicles (to avoid searches) and only get fired when you are caught…if you work for the ATF.
https://www.reuters.com/world/former-us-firearms-investigator-illegally-trafficked-guns-mexico-govt-doc-2023-10-20/
It does seem that if you want to ferret out criminals these days, you might start with the ATF and FBI employees, in addition to the Biden family.
Thankfully, the ATF has been increasingly hammered by courts invoking Bruen.
As it stands now, members of FPC, and some others, have already been exempted from the brace restriction by court rulings.
Maybe they’ll eventually catch on.
The pistol brace thing is especially stupid, as the agency had already had to admit that if they were buttstocks (their argument for reversing opinions and banning them), then if they were not attached to a pistol they were logically just…buttstocks, and not illegal to possess. That then killed their “public safety” argument for banning them (not that that was supported, anyway), since someone with criminal intent could just attach one and become “illegal” in the seconds before their planned crime.
Based on the overheard exasperated lament of a fellow citizen over the cost of a tank of gas, I’m sure the public will gladly take a day of “drilling, drilling, drilling”.
Now if only the media could be trusted to print the whole quote…
This is the first time I’ve heard of ‘march-in’ rights. We excoriate foreign governments for ignoring US patents to produce their own, low cost, version of drugs, and now these people are asking are own government to do the same thing?
What could possibly go wrong?
Perhaps someone should point out to progressives that finding miracle drugs in bread mold is not really a thing any more. Why don’t we play twenty questions?
What is one indispensable thing companies need to develop new miracle drugs? A) Money!
What do these companies do to raise this money? A) Sell the drugs they develop for a lot of money.
What happens if the government seizes the patents for these new miracle drugs? A) The companies that developed them don’t make much money on them.
What happens if the companies don’t get a bunch of money from selling new miracle drugs? A) The companies don’t have money to develop new drugs.
What happens if these companies don’t develop new drugs? A) Well, the quality of people’s lives will stop increasing as fast and may start declining.
Where would we be if penicillin had been the only antibiotic ever developed? A) Infectious diseases will once again/still be a major cause of deaths in the United States and our life spans would be shorter.
======================
So, Alex, can I have ‘Stupid ideas’ for $2000?