Friday, February 17, 2006

Quote of the Day   "He's doing a heck of a job, he really is. . ." --George W. Bush on HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt, who should now be intently watching his back   4:25:58 PM     comment []

Exclusive: Alexander Hamilton commits suicide Administration denies "scurrilous allegations" that Vice President Burr killed Hamilton in duel. FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE JULY 13, 1804 PRESS BRIEFING BY ELBRIDGE RODNEY SUMMER WHITE HOUSE MONTICELLO, VIRGINIA MR. RODNEY: Good afternoon, I have a few announcements. President Jefferson has sent a letter to the Bey of Tunis stressing that there must be no interference with shipping in the Mediterranean Sea. To quote the letter: "If this piracy continues, I can assure you that all options, including the use of force, will remain on the table." President Jefferson has also dispatched a condolence note to the family of Alexander Hamilton. The former secretary of the Treasury died suddenly yesterday, apparently from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Now I will take your questions. Q: Elbridge, what do you say to reports that Vice President Aaron Burr killed Mr. Hamilton in a duel? MR. RODNEY: After a tragic occasion like this, I will not respond to scurrilous rumors. Please have some consideration for the feelings of the Hamilton family. Q: Where is Vice President Burr at this moment? MR. RODNEY: At an undisclosed, secure location. Q: Will you make Aaron Burr available for questions? MR. RODNEY: That is something best raised with the vice president's staff. Q: Elbridge, do you know if Aaron Burr owns dueling pistols? MR. RODNEY: Like all supporters of the Second Amendment and the right to bear arms, the vice president appreciates a well-made firearm. It is my understanding that Vice President Burr uses his pistols primarily for quail hunting. Q: What do you mean by "primarily for quail hunting"? MR. RODNEY: Here we go again -- parsing every word. I said "primarily" only because I was not present every time these pistols were fired. Q: When was the last time the vice president's pistols were fired? MR. RODNEY: Haven't we exhausted this topic? A great man lies dead. The Hamilton family is devastated. The nation grieves. So let's turn to other issues. Sanjay? Q: The Jaipur Times has reported British troop movements in the area of Kashmir. Does President Jefferson have a position on this affront to Kashmiri sovereignty? MR. RODNEY: The United States firmly supports a demilitarized Kashmir. Secretary of State Madison recently called upon the international community to protest British treaty violations on the Indian subcontinent. If there is interest on this important topic, I can arrange a briefing by Secretary Madison tomorrow. Q: We want Burr. MR. RODNEY: I am sure if you send an invitation to the vice president's office, Miss Matalin, his senior clerk, will pass it on to Mr. Burr. But it is out of my hands. Q: Burr has blood on his hands. MR. RODNEY: David, that is the most irresponsible comment that I have ever heard. No one is drawing your portrait, so why are you behaving so theatrically? Q: I am trying to get to the bottom of this and you have been stonewalling all my questions. MR. RODNEY: I have not heard a question for quite some time. But I see that Lester has his hand up. Q: What is President Jefferson's position on miscegenation? Isn't it true that he has shamefully lived as man and wife with Sally Hemings? MR. RODNEY: Sanjay, do you have a follow-up query on the Kashmiri issue? Q: Here's a question for you, Elbridge. When did you learn that Hamilton had been shot? MR. RODNEY: A courier arrived from New York late last night saying that a tragic accident had befallen someone in Mr. Hamilton's party. Since I assumed that the courier was merely referring to the Federalist Party, I saw no need to wake President Jefferson, who had spent an arduous day inventing the dumbwaiter. Q: How dumb is the waiter? MR. RODNEY: There will be a portrait op tomorrow with the president and his new invention for moving food from one floor to another. The president will pose for illustrators for 10 minutes, but will not take any questions. Q: Why are you claiming that Mr. Hamilton died of "self-inflicted" wounds? MR. RODNEY: I said that was "apparently" what happened. Now I am not a trained detective like you reporters, but what other conclusion can be drawn when the former Treasury secretary was found with a gunshot wound in an isolated spot along the Hudson River? Q: That your vice president killed him in a duel. MR. RODNEY: David, you're out of line. The only other thing I have for you on this sad topic is that President Jefferson has ordered flags flown at half-mast in Mr. Hamilton's honor. Q: Is any other official memorial planned? MR. RODNEY: President Jefferson is considering issuing a commemorative $10 gold piece in Mr. Hamilton's honor, but that is a decision that ultimately will be made by Treasury Secretary Gallatin. Q: Bet you a $10 gold piece that Burr did it. MR. RODNEY: David, this is your last press conference. And everyone else, it is 1:00 p.m. tomorrow for the dumbwaiter portrait op. -- By Walter Shapiro Salon Media Group, Inc 10:49:49 AM     comment []

Rx for GOP doom The Medicare drug program disaster could cost Republicans control of Congress. By Joe Conason Feb. 17, 2006 | If any single issue crystallizes the defects of Republican rule in the age of George W. Bush that issue is the Medicare Prescription Drug Improvement and Modernization Act. (It's also the single issue most likely to lead to the end of Washington's one-party regime.) Spawned by a White House under the influence of the pharmaceutical and insurance industries, rubber-stamped in a Congress bought by lobbyists for those interests, and imposed on the nation with prevarication, duplicity and outright bribery, the drug bill represents everything Americans hate about the federal government today. Within its 400-plus pages, the act contains something to offend everyone, including a potential majority of voters in November. Congressional leaders still proclaim that problems with the new program will be worked out and smoothed over well before Election Day, but they know that their political survival is threatened. On Tuesday, a delegation of some 30 Republican senators attended a closed meeting with Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt and Medicare administrator Mark McClellan (the older brother of the White House press secretary) to discuss how to prepare a political defense against anticipated Democratic attacks against the program. Meanwhile, newly elected House Majority Leader John Boehner has admitted that the program's inauguration was "a disaster." As elderly citizens across the country continued to struggle with the program's complexities and inequities last week, the Bush White House quietly admitted that its own cost estimate over the coming decade has risen from $400 billion to $1.2 trillion. That rather substantial budgetary revision brings back bad memories of the bill's passage in 2003, when the administration concealed its true expense -- and, as the press revealed in 2004, threatened to fire Medicare's chief actuary, Richard S. Foster, if he spoke honestly about that subject. (Foster's secret $600 billion estimate has now turned out to be too modest by half.) The Government Accountability Office later determined that the silencing of Foster was not only unethical but probably illegal as well. Unlawful suppression of central facts is merely one aspect of the bill's disgraceful history, however. The entire tale deserves to be told again, now that people are suffering the consequences and may, perhaps, pay closer attention this time. For years before Bush ascended to the Oval Office, politicians had debated how to deal with the rapidly growing expense of prescription drugs, which play a more critical role in medicine today than when Medicare began in 1966. The essential question was whether to use the Medicare program's market power to negotiate lower prices with the pharmaceutical industry, as other nations do, so that senior citizens could afford their medication -- or to let the industry write the legislation to protect its enormous profits, as Congress ultimately did. That is an antiseptic description of what turned out to be an extraordinarily dirty deal. Many months before Bush introduced his bill in 2002, Big Pharma and its squadrons of lawyers and publicists mobilized to control the legislative process. Spending on lobbying rose sharply to more than $78 million, with a total force of 623 lobbyists that outnumbered all the members of the House and Senate. (Most of those lobbyists were former members of Congress, former staffers of congressional committees or former federal officials who had passed through the "revolving door.") PhRMA, the industry's dominant trade association, increased its own spending that year by 50 percent, from $7.5 million to $11.3 million. Among the key lobbyists for the industry was the Alexander Strategy Group, the small but powerful firm linked to both Tom DeLay and Jack Abramoff. Alexander Strategy shut down last month after Tony Rudy, who formerly worked for both the super-lobbyist and the former Republican leader, and who had registered as a drug lobbyist, was named as "Staffer A" in the Abramoff indictment. In the meantime, of course, the pharmaceutical industry continued to provide millions of dollars in contributions directly to members of Congress as well as the president and the Republican National Committee. But the influence campaign became still more insidious as the industry reached inside the Bush administration. While Medicare administrator Thomas Scully oversaw passage of the bill for the White House, he was simultaneously discussing possible job offers from pharmaceutical and insurance companies. Scully, the bureaucrat who had threatened Foster to keep him silent about the program's likely costs, accepted a well-paid position as a lobbyist at Alston & Bird, a Washington firm that represents several drug companies. (The Bush administration gave him a "waiver" from the usual ethics rules that forbid such crooked conflicts of interest.) After the compromised Scully had performed his part, the Republican congressional leadership took over. When the bill reached the House floor, Democrats were not permitted to offer a single substantive amendment. Roll-call voting on the final bill was held open for three hours instead of the normal 15 minutes so that DeLay and his deputies would have extra time to break arms and stuff pockets. At least one reluctant Republican, Nick Smith of Michigan, who finally voted "yea," later said that DeLay -- whose wife was paid by Alexander Strategy Group -- had both threatened him and offered a $100,000 bribe in the form of promised campaign contributions to his son, who planned to run for the father's House seat. And again, the industry reached inside to fix the process. Billy Tauzin, the Louisiana Republican who chaired the House Energy and Commerce Committee and served as the bill's lead sponsor, soon retired from politics to accept one of the most lucrative jobs in Washington. The smooth-talking Tauzin became the new president of ... PhRMA! To Washington insiders, this tawdry chronology is not news. To voters who rarely see how the legislative sausage is made in the capital, however, the manufacturing of the hated Medicare drug bill could prove decisive. They're already angry, and they don't even know what happened to them yet. -- By Joe Conason 10:43:08 AM     comment []

© Copyright 2006 Michael D. Zungolo. Last update: 3/1/2006; 10:13:22 AM.