AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas and a subsidiary of health care giant Johnson & Johnson reached a $158 million settlement in a Medicaid fraud lawsuit Thursday, allowing the drugmaker to pay a fraction of the potential $1 billion in penalties and fines that state officials had initially sought. (more)
Reporting live from Egypt has been hard on CNN’s Anderson Cooper, who was attacked in Cairo twice this week. (more)
1.) Joe Biden refuses to criticize totalitarian Egyptian president, admits liking The Onion — Muhammad Hosni Sayyid Mubarak has not truly “won” an election in the 30 years that he has been president of Egypt. Instead, he’s used secret police and state-controlled media to intimidate and incarcerate his critics and political opponents, including the runner-up in the first presidential election where someone other than Mubarak was allowed on the ballot. On January 25, Egyptians rose up against Mubarak, and the Egyptian president responded by shutting down the country’s Internet and sending armed thugs into the streets to do violence against his own people. By definition, Mubarak is a dictator. Unless, of course, your dictionary was penned by Vice Pres. Joe Biden, in which case geopolitical interests supersede honesty and/or human rights. “Mubarak has been an ally of ours in a number of things,” Biden told PBS’ Jim Lehrer last night. “I would not refer to him as a dictator.” In other Biden news, the vice president likes the Onion’s made-up coverage of him. “I think it’s hilarious, the stuff they do on me,” Biden told Yahoo! News Thursday. “I saw the one of me washing a Trans-Am automobile in the driveway shirtless with tattoos all over myself and out there,” he added. “By the way, I have a Corvette– a ’67 Corvette– not a Trans-Am.” (more)
Contrary to Tuesday’s heavily discussed rumor, actor Alec Baldwin won’t be replacing former “Countdown” host Keith Olbermann, the New York Daily News reported Wednesday. (more)
1.) America bids adieu to ‘Meltdown’ with Keith Olbermann — On Friday, January 21, Anno Domini 2011, Keith Olbermann left MSNBC. Since then, the same people who accused Sarah Palin of controlling Jared Loughner’s mind have circulated the theory that the merger of NBC and Comcast led to Keith’s departure. The New York Times, a right-wing agitprop machine, has reported otherwise: “Underlying the decision, which one executive involved said was not a termination but a ‘negotiated separation,’ were years of behind-the-scenes tension, conflicts and near terminations.” For instance, in addition to working pro bono for the Democratic Party, donating money to candidates on the same day he had them on his show, engaging in–and giving voice to–blatant misogyny, treating his staffers with the disdain and disrespect due none but the most hardened of convicted sex offenders…Keith often just didn’t bother doing anything. “Some days,” reports the NYT, “Mr. Olbermann threatened not to come to work at all and a substitute anchor had to be notified to be on standby.” Incidentally, even liberals are happy with his ouster. Read what conservatives have to say here. (more)
In the aftermath of Keith Olbermann’s abrupt departure from MSNBC, some are speculating on whether he’ll end up at another network or return to sports broadcasting. (more)
1.) Obama’s jobs team gets green-washed — “President Barack Obama will name Jeffrey Immelt, General Electric Co.’s chief executive officer, to head his outside panel of economic advisers, replacing former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker,” reports Bloomberg News. “Immelt has sounded many of the administration’s themes: boosting jobs through U.S. exports, ensuring companies can compete with powers like China and India, and jumpstarting a clean-energy economy. Immelt wrote today that he and Obama ‘are committed’ to making the U.S. ‘the most competitive and innovating economy in the world.’” According to Bloomberg, “Immelt is among a group of executives — Boeing Co. CEO Jim McNerney; Motorola Solutions Inc. CEO Greg Brown, and Honeywell International Inc. Chairman David Cote — who have voiced support for Obama policies. The four serve on several of the president’s outside advisory boards”–and all four have made a killing on green jobs subsidies (more)
1.) White House reporters ask first truly tough questions in two years — Pres. Obama was inaugurated two years ago today, which means it only took the White House Press Corp members one year, 11 months, and 29 days to find their spines. “Could you explain to the American people how the United States could be so allied with a country that is known for treating its people so poorly, using censorship and force to oppress its people?” asked AP reporter Ben Feller. He then turned to China’s Hu Jintao and asked, “How do you justify China’s record and do you think that’s any of the business of the American people?” When a mixup with the translator prevented Hu from hearing Feller’s question, Bloomberg’s Hans Nichols used his turn to ask Feller’s question again. But no amount of tough questioning could force either Obama or Hu to answer honestly. And in front of God and everyone, the 2009 Nobel Prize winner claimed that the country which is keeping the 2010 Nobel Prize winner under house arrest has made “enormous progress” on human rights which has been “widely recognized in the world.” The ensuing cognitive dissonance threw the Washington Post for a spin. Both headlines appeared in this morning’s paper: “President Obama makes Hu Jintao look good on rights”; “Obama presses Chinese leader on rights.” (more)
1.) Obama writes editorial against regulatory excess, can name only one excessive regulation — Overly schoolmarmish regulations have to go, Pres. Obama writes in an op-ed in the morning’s Wall Street Journal. In it, Obama pays lip service to America’s semi-free market system as the source of “dazzling ideas and path-breaking products” and “the greatest force for prosperity the world has ever known.” The op-ed is a curtain-raiser for this afternoon, when Obama will sign an executive order that “requires that federal agencies ensure that regulations protect our safety, health and environment while promoting economic growth,” as well as “a government-wide review of the rules already on the books to remove outdated regulations that stifle job creation and make our economy less competitive.” But do not get your hopes too high: Apparently, the only regulatory excessiveness that Obama could think of was artificial sweetener: “The FDA has long considered saccharin, the artificial sweetener, safe for people to consume. Yet for years, the EPA made companies treat saccharin like other dangerous chemicals. Well, if it goes in your coffee, it is not hazardous waste. The EPA wisely eliminated this rule last month.” Meanwhile, a spox for Rep. Eric Cantor wishes Obama had released this executive order in 2009, when House Republicans proposed it first. (more)
UPDATE (5:30pm): The Center for Public Integrity responds to inquires made by TheDC. (more)
The debut of the iPad a year ago was speculated to be the death knell for e-readers like the Kindle. But a new study by JP Morgan reports that the iPad is not actually a Kindle killer. (more)
It was with great fanfare and a measure of controversy that ABC News named Christiane Amanpour to anchor its Sunday morning show “This Week” after George Stephanopoulos moved on to host “Good Morning America.” (more)
1.) Incoming congress knows that water wears down the rock not by force, but with constant falling — “To prevent deficit reduction from being used as an excuse for tax hikes, Republicans are getting rid of the ‘Pay-As-You-Go’ rule and replacing it with a ‘Cut-As-You-Go’ rule,” reports The Daily Caller’s Jon Ward. “The rule will require that any legislation that seeks to increase mandatory spending (which is spending that once added to the federal budget recurs year after year and is thus permanent) cuts spending by a similar amount.” If successful, this would change the entire economy of the House. “As [Blunt] put it, ‘Let’s turn the activists for big government on each other, instead of letting them gang up on the taxpayer,’” said Majority Leader John Boehner. “Through this public discussion, we might end up finding out that neither program has a whole lot of merit in the first place.” Instead of trading horses, people will start shooting them. This means fewer horses to feed. (more)
As highlight clips go, Michael Vick’s performance for Woodbury Nissan can’t match his spree Sunday at the Meadowlands. (more)
1.) Establishment Republicans conflicted over whose back to pat for busted omnibus bill — Majority Leader Harry Reid folded during last night’s high-stakes po(r)ker game. Now Beltway types are racing to cement a narrative for exactly what made the GOP so bold. “The defeat of a pork-laden $1.1 trillion ‘omnibus’ spending bill in the Senate Thursday night was the first serious indication after the Nov. 2 election that the Tea Party movement has staying power and will be a force into 2011,” writes The Daily Caller’s Jon Ward. “Some Republicans on Capitol Hill said Thursday night that GOP leadership played a pivotal role as well. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was said to have pressured key GOP lawmakers to stand firm against the legislation, though some in leadership said the conference was fairly united against it from the beginning.” Less, uh, established folks, like Sen. Tom Coburn’s beard, were more willing to give all credit to the Tea Party: “It was 100 percent grassroots…The American people took it down,” said Coburn spokesman John Hart. Also, bitter Democrats, one of whom dejectedly chalked up the broke-down omnibus to Congressional Republicans being “a wholly owned subsidiary of the Tea Party.” (more)
Editors Note: Have a question for Matt Labash? Submit it here (more)
TYLER, TX (KLTV) - KLTV has confirmed that a woman climbed the fence of the back parking lot of the Tyler Police Department and set a police cruiser on fire. (more)
’Tis the season for John Lennon. The former Beatle had the misfortune of being murdered on Dec. 8, 1980, mere weeks after his 40th birthday, and so for the past few months we’ve had to endure a wearying deluge of documentaries, reissues, biopics, and exhibitions of the sort that only the twinned, round-number, life-bracketing anniversaries of an assassinated pop legend could possibly occasion. At first, it seemed as if the releases might reveal something new about Lennon’s music. But now that the date of his death is approaching and the tributes haven’t stopped, it’s clear that the most revealing thing about this year’s anniversary extravaganza isn’t some remastered version of “Imagine.” It’s that Lennon’s celebrity—the very thing that killed him—is still large and lucrative enough to inspire such a frenzy of “commemorabilia.” (more)
With moviegoers still hung over from the glut of Thanksgiving movies, only one new picture will try to whet appetites this weekend. (more)
