This Week In The News

• This week, the President spoke at a President's Day celebration at Mount Vernon. The President told his audience that George Washington would have approved of our invasion of Iraq because it was similar to the Revolutionary War he fought. The President continued, " No seriously. Also, it is important to mention that, and few people know that, one way that George Washington -- who also had a name with a "W" -- convinced the colonists to support his cause by telling them that the British were inventing a Super Cannon of Mass Destruction that could launch enough shot and debris to wipe out and entire village. Also, the British were in cahoots with the Indians -- I guess you call them Native Americans -- to support their plan to slaughter the colonists."
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  This week, presidential hopeful Sen. John McCain (R AZ) declared that he favored overturning the 1973 Roe v Wade decision which legalized abortion. This is at odds with McCain's previous positions on the subject, including a 2000 statement that, should his own daughter become pregnant, the decision to carry the fetus to term was her own. Pundits have, accurately, placed this statement in the context of McCain's increasingly obvious attempts to curry favor with the religious right, a group whose influence he has previously criticized. In yet another position shift, McCain confounded many by endorsing stem cell research. According to an aide, this position is highly self interested: "Should he win the 2008 GOP nomination, Sen McCain realizes he will have to re- grow his spine in short order."
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  This week, pharmaceutical company Novartis filed a patent lawsuit in India alleging that Indian pharmaceutical companies had infringed on its patent of a leukemia drug. (India has recently changed its patent laws at the request of the World Trade Organization (WTO) to offer protections similar to those in the US and Europe). While still in its early stages, the lawsuit has drawn the ire of the Indian press who are concerned that if its patent is upheld, Novartis will dramatically raise the price of its medicine. Officials at Novartis downplayed these concerns stating, " Don't be silly. The market will set a fair price for the drug. There will undoubtedly be some squawking when we jack the price. But look at it this way, it is not that we are overpricing our drug, its just that the Indians are undervaluing not dying a slow and painful death."
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  This week, Sens. Patrick Leahy (D Vt) and Christopher Bond (R Mo) introduced a bill to protect Americans from martial law. More precisely the Leahy/Bond Bill amends a military appropriations bill that was passed last year. That bill included provisions that amended the Insurrection Act of 1807 and expanded the President's power to declare martial law. Never heard of this? You are not alone. The martial law language was added after debate was closed on the appropriations bill at the request of the White House and was thus never discussed in Congress or made part of the bill's legislative history. Pressed for comment, White Spinmaster Tony Snow waxed comedic, "Listen you guys know that this administration cannot get enough of all things martial, military, unilateral and dramatic. You also know that we interpret the Constitution in a way that gives the Execeutive the powers of an 18th century king. So... you know... ooops, hand in the cookie jar. "