AP: Key Health Care Senators Have Industry Ties

I meant to post the story on Friday but I wasn’t able to get to it so figured I’d lead off with today… The Associated Press reported last week on the ties between several key Senators and the health care industry. Among them Connecticut’s own Chris Dodd.

Sen. Dodd’s wife Jackie Clegg Dodd sits on the boards of four pharmaceutical companies, Javelin Pharmaceuticals Inc., Cardiome Pharma Corp., Brookdale Senior Living and Pear Tree Pharmaceuticals.

Mrs. Dodd last year was one of the most highly compensated non-employee members of the Javelin Pharmaceuticals Inc. board, on which she has served since 2004. She earned $32,000 in fees and $109,587 in stock option awards last year, according to the company’s SEC filings.

Mrs. Dodd earned $79,063 in fees from Cardiome in its last fiscal year, while Brookdale Senior Living gave her $122,231 in stock awards in 2008, their SEC filings show. She earned no income from her post as a director for Pear Tree Pharmaceuticals but holds up to $15,000 in stock in Pear Tree, which describes itself as a development-stage pharmaceutical company focused on the needs of aging women.

The annual financial disclosure reports for members of Congress are less precise. They only require that assets and liabilities be listed in ranges of values.

Dodd sought a 90-day extension to file his report covering last year, giving him until mid-August to submit his report, but released his report Friday to The Associated Press.

Bryan DeAngelis, Dodd’s spokesman, said, “Jackie Clegg Dodd’s career is her own; absolutely independent of Senator Dodd, as it was when they married 10 years ago. The senator has worked to reform our health care system for decades, and nothing about his wife’s career is relevant at all to his leadership of that effort.”

DeAngelis said that Mrs. Dodd has hired a personal ethics lawyer to avoid any conflicts of interest and is not a lobbyist.

In addition to Sen Dodd. Democrats Jay Rockefeller and Tom Harkin and Republicans Tom Coburn, Judd Gregg, John Kyl and Orrin Hatchn are mentioned in the AP story.

I’m not going not to draw any conclusions, my advice is to read the entire article and draw your own conclusions… I have fundamental problem with Sen Dodd, or any Senator for that matter,  authoring legislation that may directly effect companies on whose boards their spouse sits.

The the bigger story within the story may be the APs passing mention of Sen. Dodd’s magically appreciating Irish Cottage… Michelle Malkin has the deatails on that here.

Feinstein: Closing the Gun Show “Loophole” Will Reduce Gun Violence

CNSNews.com is reporting that Reps. Michael Castle (R-Del.) and Carolyn McCarthy, (D-N.Y.) have introduced a bill aimed at closing the so called “gun show loophole”:

Democratic lawmakers and one Republican told CNSNews.com on Wednesday that the so-called “gun show loophole” – sales between private individuals, which never require a background check — ought to be closed.

Republicans, meanwhile, told CNSNews.com that creating more rules on how a gun can be legally purchased will not prevent criminals – who do not follow the rules anyway — from obtaining weapons in illegal ways.

Federal law requires a background check when a weapon is purchased from a federally licensed firearms dealer, including those who set up tables at gun shows.

Sales between private parties are not subject to background checks at gun shows or anywhere else the sale happens to take place. (Dealers selling weapons from their private collections are not required to do background checks on those particular sales.)

Reps. Michael Castle (R-Del.) and Carolyn McCarthy, (D-N.Y.) held a press conference at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday with survivors and families of those killed at Virginia Tech to announce the introduction of a bill that would require a criminal background check in every weapons purchase.

Ok, fine… I’m not particularly troubled by requiring background checks on private sales or transfers of hand guns… They’re already required here in Connecticut. What I find laughable is Sen. Feinstein’s notion that closing this so called loophole will reduce gun violence. All one needs to do to understand the sheer stupidity of that notion is look at Washington D.C.

Our nation’s capitol has had some of, if not the most restrictive gun laws in the nation since the 1970’s and they have done absolutely nothing to curb gun violence in the district.

Senate Reviewing How College Football Picks No. 1

Apparently Sen. Orrin Hatch doesn’t have enough real work to do so he’s convinced the Senate Judiciary’s subcommittee on antitrust, competition policy and consumer rights to hold hearings on how college football selects the number1 team:

WASHINGTON (AP) — Everyone from President Barack Obama on down to fans has criticized how college football determines its top team. Now senators are getting off the sidelines to examine antitrust issues involving the Bowl Champion Series.

The current system “leaves nearly half of all the teams in college football at a competitive disadvantage when it comes to qualifying for the millions of dollars paid out every year,” the Senate Judiciary’s subcommittee on antitrust, competition policy and consumer rights said in a statement Wednesday announcing the hearings.

Under the BCS, some conferences get automatic bids to participate in series, while others do not.

Obama and some members of Congress favor a playoff-type system to determine the national champion. The BCS features a championship game between the two top teams in the BCS standings, based on two polls and six computer ratings.

Behind the push for the hearings is the subcommittee’s top Republican, Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah. People there were furious that Utah was bypassed for the national championship despite going undefeated in the regular season.

I can understand how his constituants migh be furious that Utah was snubbed and want answers… But this type political theater is not an appropriate use of taxpayers money.