THE OTHER SHOE DROPS: Updates To Previous Posts
† Chicago On The Potomac: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (NV) and Democratic Whip Richard Durbin (IL) released a joint statement accepting Roland Burris into their ranks:
“The Secretary of the Senate has determined that the new credentials presented today on behalf of Mr. Burris now satisfy Senate rules and validate his appointment to the vacant Illinois Senate seat. We have spoken to Mr. Burris to let him know that he is now the Senator-designate from Illinois and as such, will be accorded all the rights and privileges of a Senator-elect. We are working with him and the office of the Vice President to determine the date and time of the swearing-in.”
The Associated Press’s reaction? “Blagojevich pulls a fast one on the US Senate”:
Blagojevich outfoxed everyone who had warned him not to try to fill the Senate seat he is charged with trying to sell.
Despite the scandal around him, the governor got his way by staring down his opponents with the perfect pick: Roland Burris, a black politician who had an unblemished reputation and big ambitions, guaranteeing he would fight tirelessly for the seat.
Blagojevich also had Illinois law on his side. Moreover, his choice put Democrats in the sticky position of trying to deny entry to the man who would become the chamber's only black member - in the seat that last belonged to Barack Obama, no less.
"It did take a kind of perfect storm, of a governor who is incapable of having scruples and a nominee incapable of shame, to go ahead with it," said Mike Munger, chairman of political science at Duke University. "This was the last card Blagojevich had to play. At least he gets to do something and thumb his nose."
In its article AP cited this Miami Herald cartoon of Blago playing with the Capitol and Senate Dems like a yo-yo:
† The Media Love Obama, But He Doesn’t Love Them Back: Chicago Sun-Times columnist Carol Marin marvels that journalists at Barack Obama news conferences have allowed him to take questions only from a few favored journalists:
As ferociously as we march like villagers with torches against Blagojevich, we have been, in the true spirit of the Bizarro universe, the polar opposite with the president-elect. Deferential, eager to please, prepared to keep a careful distance.
The Obama news conferences tell that story, making one yearn for the return of the always-irritating Sam Donaldson to awaken the slumbering press to the notion that decorum isn't all it's cracked up to be.
The press corps, most of us, don't even bother raising our hands any more to ask questions because Obama always has before him a list of correspondents who've been advised they will be called upon that day. [Emphasis, The Stiletto.]
Writing for NewsBusters, Warner Todd Huston asks:
Would the [press] have allowed George W. Bush to pre-pick journalists like that? Would they meekly sit by and allow themselves to be systematically ignored, their freedom to ask questions silenced by any Republican?
The Stiletto will go out on a limb and answer “no” and “no.”
† Your Butt Will Look Good In These Jeans: Good news for soon-to-be First Lady Michelle Obama: A mouse study published in the peer-reviewed journal Cell Metabolism suggests that buttock and hip fat may protect against type 2 (adult onset) diabetes, reports Fox News:
When buttocks and hip fat from mice was injected into other mice, their bodies easily used the blood sugar-regulating hormone insulin and lost weight.
They were also able to make better use of insulin, the main hormone linked to diabetes.
People with the apple shape, where fat is stored around the tummy, can be more prone to type 2 diabetes and heart disease. Those with pear-shaped bodies, where fat is collected in the buttocks, are less likely to have these disorders.
[Hat Tip: OpinionJournal.com, January 12, 2009]
† Updates To Previous Posts (Dems Still Beset By Indecision, Infighting And Intrigue): The Star Tribune (Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN) reports that Norm Coleman's legal team has asked county election officials for documents on hundreds of thousands of ballots that were not previously disputed. Coleman is also asking that discrepancies in signatures are re-evaluated, all reports of ballots gone missing are investigated and duplicate ballots are removed from the final count. Coleman also wants the as-yet unnamed three judge-panel hearing his case to include 654 absentee ballots that he contends were improperly rejected.
Meanwhile, Al Franken asked Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) and Secretary of State Mark Ritchie (D) to issue an election certificate so he could be seated in the Senate, and both refused citing Coleman’s lawsuit, reports The Associated Press:
In letters the campaign sent to Republican Gov. and Democratic, Franken's lawyers argued that a seven-day waiting period for issuing the certificate after an election has passed and he should get the signed certificate. But the state officials said their hands were tied by state law and they could not act. …
Minnesota law prevents officials from issuing an election certificate until legal matters are resolved. But Franken's legal team argues that federal election law entitles Franken to receive the certificate before the lawsuit is settled.
State law notwithstanding, Franken’s attorneys filed a petition with the Minnesota Supreme Court to get the Dem seated in the Senate, reports The Hill: “Franken’s lawyers are citing federal law and the Constitution, which state that the governor and secretary of state must sign off on the winner of an election, and that a state should have two senators, respectively.”
† Updates To Previous Posts (fourth item, Why Middle Class Americans Can’t Afford Health Insurance: Part II): After a year-long investigation into how health insurers calculate “usual, customary and reasonable” fees when a patient uses an out-of-network doctor, NY attorney general Andrew M. Cuomo concluded actual market rates were systematically underestimated as much as 28 percent, and said that the industry had engaged in “a scheme to defraud consumers.” As part of a settlement with United Health, Cuomo ordered a $50 million overhaul of a database used by health insurers to determine the going rate for doctors’ fees, reports The New York Times:
The settlement will have a nationwide impact because UnitedHealth, the biggest health insurer in New York, operates the databases used by the entire industry, through its Ingenix business unit. The deal calls for creation of a new independent database, to be run by a university that is still to be selected.
Because insurers typically reimburse patients for only 70 to 80 percent of the “reasonable and customary” cost of medical services when they visit doctors outside the insurer’s designated network of physicians, the patient can get shortchanged if the insurer understates the prevailing local fees.
The patient might receive a doctor’s bill for $100, for example, and expect the insurer to pay at least $70. But if the insurance database says that doctor bill should have been only $72, based on local rates, the patient might get back less than $55. …
Mr. Cuomo said: “This is like pulling back the curtain on the wizard of Oz. We have now shown that for years consumers were consistently low-balled to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.”
† Updates To Previous Posts (fifth item, Say It Aint So Roger, Andy, Jason …): Federal prosecutors have convened a grand jury in Washington, kicking their perjury investigation of Roger Clemens up a notch, reports The New York Times:
Kirk Radomski, the convicted steroid dealer who supplied Clemens’ s personal trainer, and Brian McNamee, with performance-enhancing drugs, are among those who have been subpoenaed. …
Clemens and McNamee testified before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in February after Clemens vehemently denied McNamee’s assertions in the Mitchell report that he had injected Clemens with steroids and human growth hormone on numerous occasions from 1998 to 2001. Two weeks after the two men testified at a contentious hearing, the committee singled out Clemens and asked the Department of Justice to open an investigation into whether he had committed perjury. …
"Two possible things could be going on here," said Daniel C. Richman, a professor at Columbia Law School and former federal prosecutor. "They are either just trying to show Congress that indeed they are doing something or the other possibility is that this is the beginning of something interesting."
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