Attorney General John Ashcroft is home from the hospital. But, what would have happened if he didn't have health insurance? It's long, but witty and well worth the read.

by TChris

"I'm not a reporter, but I play one on TV." That disclosure is missing from videos prepared by the Bush administration that tout the new Medicare law -- videos that are designed to look like, and to substitute for, objective journalism.

The administration provides the videos to local news stations, and helpfully provides a script for the local anchor to read as a lead-in to the video. One script reminds viewers that "President Bush signed into law the first-ever prescription drug benefit for people with Medicare." The script goes on to say "there have been a lot of questions about how the law will help older Americans and people with disabilities. Reporter Karen Ryan helps sort through the details." The video ends with a voice-over that says "In Washington, I'm Karen Ryan reporting."

Except that Karen Ryan isn't a reporter. She's an actor hired by the company that produced the videos for the administration.

Why would the Bush administration want to disguise its "educational" materials about the new Medicare law as the product of objective journalism? Could it be that the videos are transparent efforts to assist the President's reelection campaign?

Several of the videos include pictures of President Bush receiving a standing ovation from a crowd cheering as he signed the Medicare drug-benefit law on Dec. 8.

It's bad enough that the government's number one financial analyst for Medicare was ordered to withhold information about the true cost of the Medicare package to assure its passage by Congress. Now the administration wants seniors to think that unbiased reporters agree that the new law works to their advantage.

But when seniors get their information from sources other than the Bush administration, they come to a different conclusion.

A recent Kaiser Family Foundation survey indicated that only a fraction of the U.S. seniors understood the law, and the more they learned about it, the less they liked it.

Hence the need to mislead seniors into believing that their local news stations have investigated the Medicare changes and have concluded that the President gave seniors a great benefit by pushing for the new law.

Via Oliver Willis, we found the Libertarian Purity Test. We scored a 19. Oliver scored a 17. Both of us are judged to be "soft-core libertarians."

"You are a soft-core libertarian. With effort, you may harden and become pure."

But for the social issues, we probably would have flunked the test.

Here's the list of who slept over at the White House and Camp David as guests of the President. Here's the AP's analysis.

Presidential brother Neil Bush got remarried Saturday night. There were some notable absentees: The President, Florida Governor and other brother Jeb Bush; and Neil Bush's eldest daughter, Lauren Bush.

by TChris

Did John Ashcoft tell a fib to the Federal Election Commission?

By renting out a political mailing list, Ashcroft's Spirit of America PAC made $165,000 in 1999 and 2000. It transferred $112,000 of those funds to Ashcroft's 2000 Senate reelection campaign committee. But the PAC had already donated the maximum permitted by law, so the FEC wondered whether the transfer was illegal. Ashcroft's campaign committee insisted that Ashcroft owned the mailing list that generated the funds, exempting the fund transfers from contribution limits. After a two year investigation, the FEC disageed.

[T]he FEC last year rejected that assertion because Ashcroft did not disclose his ownership or the rental income in his 1998 and 1999 Senate financial disclosures. He has also not listed the mailing list as an asset in his required filings as attorney general.

Oops.

Ashcroft's spokesman at the Justice Department is calling all of this old news. Last year, the PAC and the campaign committee raised $100,000 to pay fines and costs resulting from the campaign finance violations. Case closed, says Ashcroft's man. But some of that money again came from renting out the mailing list.

The way the fines were paid disturbs John Bonifaz, general counsel of the Massachusetts-based National Voting Rights Institute (NVRI), which filed the original FEC complaint against Ashcroft and his committees.

"It is unseemly for the nation's chief law enforcement officer, whose committees are under investigation, to use those very committees to raise funds from campaign contributors as a means for defending against possible criminal charges and paying civil fines," Bonifaz said. "Ashcroft is very powerful, and people who get called are going to feel pressure to make such contributions."

The NVRI is one of several organizations asserting that Ashcroft violated the law, either by failing to disclose the mailing list as an asset in his financial disclosure statements as attorney general, or by conspiring to defraud the FEC by claiming ownership of a list he did not own. Last week, the NVRI asked Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine to investigate "potential civil and criminal violations of federal law" by the two committees and Ashcroft while he has been attorney general.

by TChris

Our one and only Attorney General, John Ashcroft, was admitted to intensive care last night for a severe case of gallstone pancreatitis. The condition is extremely painful, but probably not life threatening.

Let's hope the man doesn't become addicted to pain medication as a result of this unfortunate event.

For those who choose to comment, please don't go over the top.

by TChris

A report released yesterday sheds additional light on the theft by Republican staff members of documents prepared for the use of Democratic Senators.

The two former Republican aides were identified as Manuel Miranda, who already had been named as a central figure in the investigation, and Jason Lundell, whose name had not been known previously. Investigators said an inexperienced computer coordinator did not make files adequately inaccessible, and that Lundell observed the coordinator opening files with a few key strokes and then copied what he had done. For the next 18 months, the report said, Lundell supplied documents to Miranda after getting access to the files of staff aides for Democratic Sens. Joseph Biden of Delaware, Russell Feingold of Wisconsin, Richard Durbin of Illinois, Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, Feinstein and Kennedy. The largest share was from Durbin's office.

Reporters were told that names would be redacted from the report, but the copies distributed yesterday mistakenly included the names.

Miranda denies that the reports were confidential "because they were easily accessed." Sorta like arguing that it isn't wrong to steal pencils from the blind because it's so easy to do.

by TChris

George W. Bush fans, especially those lacking a sense of humor, may not want to click the accompanying link. For the rest of you, this is hilarious.

by TChris

A report that should provide additional insight into how Republican Senate staffers gained unauthorized access to confidential memoranda prepared for the use of Democratic Senators has not yet been made public, but Senators met privately to discuss it.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, who viewed the report on Wednesday with ranking Democrat Patrick Leahy of Vermont, would not reveal what Sergeant-at-Arms William Pickle said in the report before closing the committee meeting to the public and the media. Only senators and their top Judiciary Committee lawyer were allowed inside.

But "whether any criminal laws were broken, the improper access was wrong and unjustifiable," said Hatch, who blamed "two misguided former Senate staffers" for the computer intrusion.

Leahy wants the Committee to release those parts of the report that would not compromise a potential criminal investigation. Information released to date indicates "that the computer intrusion went on for at least two years starting in 2001, and that thousands of documents were downloaded."

by TChris

The citizens of Killington, Vermont are mad as hell and they aren't going to take it any more. Killington intends to secede.

Will it become the Sovereign Nation of Killington? Sorry, no. Will it become the State of Killington? No, this isn't a revolutionary or civil war. The good people of Killington just want to redraw the boundaries to slide Killington into its close neighbor, New Hampshire. New Hampshire, Killingtonians believe, is a more tax friendly place.

It is unclear whether anyone has suggested to the residents of Killington that they could simply move to New Hampshire. It would seem a lot easier than redrawing all the maps and republishing all the zip code directories.

by TChris

By a vote of 11-5, the common council of Madison, Wisconsin declared the week of March 14-21 "Madison Medical Marijuana Awareness Week." The five dissenters apparently think that awareness is a bad thing. A Madison resident speaking in support of the resolution explained its importance.

"In the face of uncontrollable suffering, marijuana has literally been a godsend," said Gary Storck, a glaucoma patient and medical marijuana advocate. "This resolution will send a message that this community thinks it's wrong that under federal and state law, the sick and dying should have to fear the police."

The council also weighed in on same-sex marriage. By a vote of 12-4, the council passed a resolution urging the Governor to seek the repeal of "discriminatory marriage laws" and opposing any constitutional amendments that would ban gay marriage.