Former Attorney General John Ashcroft's consulting firm is set to make $52 million in fees as a result of being picked by New Jersey U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie to monitor a civil settlement regarding alleged wrongdoing with hip and knee replacement firms. They were investigated for allegedly paying surgeons to use their products.

Former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft was one of five private attorneys whom Christie hand-picked to monitor the implant makers. Now Ashcroft's D.C.-based firm is poised to collect more than $52 million in 18 months, among the biggest payouts reported for a federal monitor.

Disclosed in SEC filings, the arrangement calls for Zimmer Holdings of Indiana to pay Ashcroft Group Consulting Services an average monthly fee between $1.5 million and $2.9 million. The figure includes a flat payment of $750,000 to the firm's "senior leadership group," individual legal and consulting services billed at up to $895 an hour, and as much as $250,000 a month for expenses including private airfare, lodging and meals.

Mark Corallo, still doing press relations for Ashcroft defends the fee.

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Free trade is good. Does anyone disagree? Even "fair traders" agree today. We do not hear about nakedly protectionist domestic content legislation anymore. The "fair traders" argue instead for the need for a "fair playing field" on issues like environmental and labor standards.

But is this new emphasis on equal labor and environmental standards really about anything but protectionism? Is there really an expectation of that countries like Peru, Mexico and the Central American countries (not to mention China and India) will meet US labor and environmental standards? the irony is of course that this would be a form of erstwhile globalization - an attempt to impost US standards on the Thrid World - if it were sincere. It is not. It is just a new way of defending an old idea - protectionism.

I think the evidence of this is obvious - in no other context do we see a drive for higher labor and environmental standards in the Third World. Consider the issue of climate change:

The much touted WaPo Iowa poll gives us a clue:

Which of these is more important to you in a candidate for president: (strength and experience) or (a new direction and new ideas)?

Strength New direction

33 55

These words mean next to nothing in real life but they have become the narrative for the coverage of Iowa and I think most Iowa caucus voters will think of it that way.

These buzz words are emblematic of two candidates now - Hillary Clinton means strength and experience. Barack Obama means new direct and new ideas. Forget the fact that the phrases mean nothing. They are standins for a Hillary Clinton referendum.

For reasons unfathomable, John Edwards seems to believe that attacks on Hillary Clinton's trustworthiness and candor will make him the alternative to Hillary. He has left Barack Obama unscathed. In the face of these results, it is hard to imagine what Edwards is thinking:

Who is the most honest and trustworthy 11/18/07 7/31/07
Barack Obama 31 30
John Edwards 20 24
Hillary Clinton 15 14

Edwards is losing ground here? Not really. HE is losing SUPPORT. The attacks he is engaging in give him no benefits whatsoever.

And the end game seems set to me - Two choices - "strength and experience" (Clinton) vs. Change (Obama). Where is the Edwards choice? He ceded it to Obama. In my view, he is finished.

Via LGM, Mark Halperin seems intent on making sure that the 3 people who do not already consider him an idiot do. Consider this:

For instance, being all things to all people worked wonderfully well for Bill Clinton the candidate, but when his presidency ran into trouble, this trait was disastrous, particularly in the bumpy early years of his presidency and in the events leading up to his impeachment. The fun-loving campaigner with big appetites and an undisciplined manner squandered a good deal of the majesty and power of the presidency, and undermined his effectiveness as a leader. What much of the country found endearing in a candidate was troubling in a president. When George W. Bush ran in 2000, many voters liked his straightforward, uncomplicated mean-what-I-say-and-say-what-I-mean certainty. He came across as a man of principle who did not lust for the White House; he was surrounded by disciplined loyalists who created a cheerful cult of personality about their candidate. As with Mr. Clinton, though, the very campaign strengths that got Mr. Bush elected led to his worst moments in office. Assuredness became stubbornness. His lack of lifelong ambition for the presidency translated into a failure to apply himself to the parts of the job that held less interest for him, often to disastrous effects. The once-appealing life outside of government and public affairs became a far-less appealing lack of experience. And Mr. Bush’s close-knit team has served as a barrier to fresh advice.

That the Media is incompetent seems to be Halperin's well hidden point. He makes it by comparing the worst President in history to Bill Clinton? He makes it by comparing the Media and the GOP's obsession with the President's sex life and the Iraq Debacle?

Please, no more Mr. Halperin. You have effectively made your case. You are an idiot. We get it. We know that you do not understand "what it takes" to do legitimate and relevant journalism.

Update [2007-11-25 9:40:1 by Big Tent Democrat]: Paul Krugman adds an important point:

The New York Times has a feature article on the struggles of exonerated to rebuild their lives after years in prison for crimes they did not commit. Here's the story of Jeffrey Deskovic.

There are 400 exonerees and the number keeps growing. When you're making your holiday donations this year, I hope you consider Life After Exoneraton and The Innocence Project.

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Out-of-Touch Rudy Giuliani today called for fewer regulations and increased tax cuts for corporations as a means of responding to outsourcing jobs.

Businesses have a right to make a profit, he said. The solution, he said, is lifting some regulations on businesses and lowering the corporate tax rate.

Just what we need, more corporate welfare.

The media is loving talking up Barack Obama's chances in Iowa. But nationally, Hillary is easily maintaining her big lead over him among Democratic supporters -- those most likely to vote in a primary or caucus. In fact, she's up 7 points from September. From the latest Harris poll:

More than half of Democratic Party supporters in the United States think Hillary Rodham Clinton should become their presidential nominee next year, according to a poll by Harris Interactive. 52 per cent of respondents would back the New York senator in a 2008 presidential primary, up seven points since October. Illinois senator Barack Obama is second with 29 per cent, followed by former North Carolina senator John Edwards with 11 per cent.

She has a three point lead over Rudy Giuliani.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard is out, suffering a humiliating re-election defeat after four terms in office.

I only wish his refusal to support Schapelle Corby as she rots in an Indonesian prison for 20 years following her conviction for importing 4 kilos of pot in a boogie board played a part.

During the trial, Corby wrote to Prime Minister of Australia John Howard, saying in part:

“ As a father and as a leader, I plead for your help. I did not do this. I beg for justice. I don't know how much longer I can do this. Please bring me home. ”

Howard was quoted as saying in response:

“ I feel for her. I understand why there's a lot of public sympathy for her; I would simply say that I hope justice is done and it's a fair and true verdict...I would ask the rhetorical question: My fellow Australians, if a foreigner were to come to Australia and a foreign government were to start telling us how we should handle (it), we would react very angrily to that."

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The hot affair between LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and television news reporter Mirthala Salinas is kaput. I'm sure they thought it was true love at the time, but what a price they paid.

Villaraigosa's political standing was affected, and his wife has filed for divorce. Salinas was suspended, then left her job at Telemundo.

Can Villaraigosa recover politically? Or will he always be the Mayor who left his wife for a tv reporter who covered city affairs?

Via Crooks and Liars: USA Today reports:

At least 20,000 U.S. troops who were not classified as wounded during combat in Iraq and Afghanistan have been found with signs of brain injuries, according to military and veterans records compiled by USA TODAY.

....Soldiers and Marines whose wounds were discovered after they left Iraq are not added to the official casualty list, says Army Col. Robert Labutta, a neurologist and brain injury consultant for the Pentagon. More than 150,000 troops may have suffered head injuries in combat, says Rep. Bill Pascrell, D-N.J., founder of the Congressional Brain Injury Task Force.

As Logan at C&L notes:

Hiding the true human cost of their wars has proven difficult for the Bush administration. They don’t want the world to know about the real numbers of injured — or the staggering number of homeless vets or those who have killed themselves during or after their service in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Republican candidate and former Mass. Governor Mitt Romney is under attack because a former prosecutor he appointed to the bench set bail for an inmate who had just finished serving a manslaughter sentence. Prosecutors, in an effort to keep the inmate in jail after finishing his sentence, charged him with crimes arising from two incidents occurring more than a year earlier. One incident involved him spitting on a guard and in the other, he hit a guard with a cast that was on his arm.

The inmate, Daniel Tavares, Jr., moved to Washington State after his release where he resided with his wife whom he met through a prison pen pal program. The wife brought a gun into the home, even though as a felon, Tavares isn't allowed to possess a gun. Tavares is now charged with and has confessed to shooting and killing a newleywed couple in WA over a $50 debt.

A "Willie Horton" campaign moment (1988 ad here)is brewing against Romney. In response, he has called for the Judge to resign and pushes the death penalty button.

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Matt Yglesias deliver some great snark with a point, taking on the voice of an Iranian Richard Perle:

[I]t's not clear that a policy of appeasement would be wise. True, we've seen rational leadership even from vicious dictators like Josef Stalin and Mao Zedong, but the contemporary United States is led by religious fanatics, which introduces a new element into the equation. What's more, the USA is the only country on earth to have ever actually deployed nuclear weapons. Indeed, current political elites are so war-crazed and bloodthirsty that they not only engineered the 2003 attack on Iraq -- a country that tried to appease the Americans by eliminating its nuclear program and allowing IAEA inspectors to certify that it had done so -- but they continue to deny regretting it to this day. And that includes not only radicals like George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, but so-called "moderates" like Hillary Clinton as well.

Well played by Matt.