New York, California and 13 other states filed suit against Amgen Inc. today, alleging that the Thousand Oaks biotech company offered kickbacks to medical providers to boost sales of its anemia drug, Aranesp.

The suit, filed in federal court in Massachusetts, also alleges that Amgen and two other defendants — a group drug-purchasing network and the drug wholesaler ASD Healthcare — "would encourage medical providers to bill third party payers such as Medicaid for free Aranesp that were provided at no cost," according to a statement issued by New York Atty. Gen. Andrew Cuomo.

In a statement, Amgen said, "We believe that the allegations are without merit, and we look forward to the opportunity to examine these matters with the states before the court."

The company said it would not comment further because the case is in litigation.

Democrats want you to know that your McDonald's Angus Burger meal has about 1,500 calories — before you buy and burp.

Buried deep in the House health care bill is a provision, likely to raise nanny-state hackles, requiring fast-food chains and vending machine owners to notify customers of calorie counts — by conspicuously posting nutritional information on menus or machines.

The provision — Section 2572 — requires retail food establishments "part of a chain with 20 or more locations" to list calorie counts "on the menu board including a drive-through board," as is currently required in New York City and other localities.

A "vending machine operator shall provide a sign in close proximity to each article of food or the selection button" that includes similar data.

One name is notably absent from the list of prominent conservatives who have lined up against the GOP nominee in the Nov. 3 New York special election: former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

Even as other past and prospective Republican presidential candidates have offered their endorsements, Huckabee has conspicuously declined to officially support Conservative Party nominee Doug Hoffman, a decision that has left bewildered many of the social conservatives whom he assiduously courted in his 2008 bid.

“It’s very disappointing,” said Tom McClusky, vice president for government affairs at the Family Research Council. “You have names out there like Sarah Palin, Fred Thompson and Tim Pawlenty who are willing to take a stand. You’d think that would have pushed him to make a decision.”
++++++
Same with Mitt Romney.

The investigations by two separate ethics offices include an examination of the chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee on defense, John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), as well as others who helped steer federal funds to clients of the PMA Group. The lawmakers received campaign contributions from the firm and its clients. A document obtained by The Washington Post shows that the subcommittee members under scrutiny also include Peter J. Visclosky (D-Ind.), James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.), Norm Dicks (D-Wash.), Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) , C.W. Bill Young (R-Fla.) and Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.).

Republican Chris Christie continues to hold a three-point advantage over incumbent Democrat Jon Corzine in New Jersey's down-to-the-wire race for governor.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in the state, conducted Thursday night, shows Christie with 46% of the vote and Corzine with 43%. Those numbers are unchanged from earlier in the week and little changed from polling conducted the week before.

Iran told the United Nations nuclear watchdog on Thursday that it would not accept a plan its negotiators agreed to last week to send its stockpile of uranium out of the country, according to diplomats in Europe and American officials briefed on Iran’s response.

The apparent rejection of the deal could unwind President Obama’s effort to buy time to resolve the nuclear standoff.

In public, neither the Iranians nor the watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, revealed the details of Iran’s objections, which came only hours after Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, insisted that “we are ready to cooperate” with the West.

Senate Environment and Public Works committee chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Ca.) said that she plans to mark-up her climate bill on Tuesday, moving forward despite Republican concerns about the pace of the legislation.

"There objections don't pass the smell test," she said. "It seems to me they just want to delay this and delay it, so we don't make progress on this crucial issue."

All the Republicans on the committee are expected to vote against the legislation.

Nevertheless, Republicans have said that they would like more time to review the chairman's mark up, and to see a Congressional Budget Office score for the bill and a more throughout analysis by the Environmental Protection Agency before a vote by the committee.

“Why are we trying to jam down this legislation now?” asked Ohio Republican Sen. George Voinovich. “Wouldn’t it be smarter to take our time and do it right like we didn’t last year.”

A spokesman for Attorney General Jerry Brown acknowledged Thursday that he taped a phone conversation with a reporter for The Chronicle this week without disclosing the fact or asking permission – and admitted he has taped conversations with other news reporters.
Scott Gerber, spokesman for Brown's office, made the admission after the publication of a story in the newspaper that detailed consumer activist Harvey Rosenfield's criticisms of revisions the attorney general made to the summary of a ballot measure that deals with car insurance rates.

California Penal Code Section 632 prohibits the recording of private telephone conversations without consent, and the state is one of 12 states that require notification of all parties prior to taping.

Iran's response Thursday to a proposed deal to transform its controversial nuclear material into fuel for a medical reactor is "inadequate," a senior Western diplomat said, adding that it failed to address key United States and European concerns about Iran's nuclear intentions.

Iran answered the proposal to temporarily move most of its enriched uranium to Russia and France to be further refined and shaped for use in a medical reactor after a delay of nearly a week and a flurry of contradictory signals.

The proposal would have depleted Iran's stockpile of nuclear fuel below the threshold necessary for making a single nuclear bomb, possibly creating diplomatic breathing room for a broader agreement between Tehran and those worried about its atomic research program.

Hours after POLITICO posted results of a poll showing a possible backlash by Indiana Dems, Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) backed off of previous statement saying he was considering siding with the GOP on a public option filibuster.

A spokesman emailed me the following statement just now:

"Senator Bayh will support moving forward to a health care debate on the Senate floor, where he will work hard to address his concerns and craft affordable legislation that reduces the deficit and lowers health care costs for Indiana families and small businesses."

That comment apparently covers Bayh's support of the first procedural hurdle — a 60-vote motion to proceed — but it's unclear if the fiscally conservative Bayh is ruling out a filibuster of the final bill. I'm asking his office now.

UPDATE: Bayhs office said his commitment refers only to the motion to proceed.

Sarah Palin continues to post gruesome poll numbers for a supposedly serious presidential contender. The latest CNN poll found that only 29 percent of Americans believe she is qualified to be president. That number represents a significant decline from perceptions of her qualifications during the campaign, which were already terrible.

Indeed, perceptions of Palin's qualifications are unprecedented among presidential/vice presidential nominees and major presidential contenders in recent years. From Joe Biden to George W. Bush, no one has been perceived as less qualified since Dan Quayle and Ross Perot. The Palin-Quayle parallel, which Jon Chait nailed soon after her nomination, is particularly striking. Each was a surprise VP pick who sparked initial enthusiasm but later became widely perceived as incompetent.

American taxpayers paid a lot of cash for those clunkers: $24,000 for each new car sold, according to a study released Wednesday.

That’s a lot of money, especially when the so-called “cash for clunker” stimulus program offered only a maximum $4,500 in cash for each person who traded in an old gas-guzzler and bought a new car.

The government could have done almost as well by just giving away cars for free, instead of creating an elaborate incentive program, according to an analysis by the automotive information firm Edmunds.com in Santa Monica, Calif.

Employer Mandate Excise Tax (Page 275): If an employer does not pay 72.5 percent of a single
employee’s health premium (65 percent of a family employee), the employer must pay an excise tax equal
to 8 percent of average wages. Small employers (measured by payroll size) have smaller payroll tax rates
of 0 percent (<$500,000), 2 percent ($500,000-$585,000), 4 percent ($585,000-$670,000), and 6 percent
($670,000-$750,000).
Individual Mandate Surtax (Page 296): If an individual fails to obtain qualifying coverage, he must pay
an income surtax equal to the lesser of 2.5 percent of modified adjusted gross income (MAGI) or the
average premium. MAGI adds back in the foreign earned income exclusion and municipal bond interest.

A conservative Iowa group’s effort to lure Sarah Palin to its banquet next month has had an unintended effect: Rather than exciting conservatives about the prospect of a visit from the former Alaska governor, the group’s plan to raise a six-figure sum to bring her to the state has GOP activists recoiling at the thought of paying to land a politician's speaking appearance.

The Iowa Family Policy Center’s effort to cobble together $100,000 for Palin would represent a striking departure from customary practice in the first-in-the-nation state, these Republicans say, noting that a generation of White House hopefuls has paid their own way to boost their party and presidential ambitions.

Some physicians may be hesitant to participate in social media outlets, like Facebook and Twitter.

Well, get over it.

Great post by pediatrician Bryan Vartabedian who addresses this topic. Indeed, physicians have lost control of the online message, especially with, according to recent data, 60+ percent of patients visiting the web first when looking for health information.

Instead, anti-vaccine proponents and homeopaths have embraced the Internet, and now exert tremendous influence on patients. We doctors have no one to blame but ourselves for being so slow to get online.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's Pakistan charm offensive rolled into a wall of suspicion at one of the country's top universities on Thursday as students drilled her on whether America was truly ready to be a steadfast partner in a time of crisis.

Clinton, on the second day of a three-day visit aimed at turning around a U.S.-Pakistan relationship under serious strain, was presented with stark evidence of the "trust deficit" that yawns between the two countries, now bound together in the struggle against religious extremism.

"What guarantee can the Americans give Pakistanis that we can now trust you … and that you guys are not going to be betraying us like you did in the past," one student asked at a "townhall-style" meeting Clinton held at the Government College University in Lahore.

Los Angeles County's homeless population has dropped 38% since 2007, according to a survey conducted this year by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority.

The count, which was conducted over three days in January, pegs the region's homeless population at 42,694, down from 68,808 in 2007.

Obama campaign manager David Plouffe writes in his forthcoming book about the 2008 race that the future president was “clearly thinking more seriously” about picking Hillary Clinton as his running mate than Plouffe or advisor David Axelrod realized.

Plouffe’s book suggests, however, that former President Bill Clinton sunk Hillary’s chances.

“I still think Hillary has a lot of what I am looking for in a VP,” Obama is quoted as telling Plouffe and Axelrod during a meeting on the VP selection process. “Smarts, discipline, steadfastness.”

Obama then adds, however: “I think Bill may be too big a complication. If I picked her, my concern is that there would be more than two of us in the relationship.”

Thanks to The Bill Factor, Hillary, who was on the final list of six possible running mates, did not make the final list of three.

Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom provided a few more details regarding Romney’s thinking: “Mitt Romney is a Republican and he tends to support the Republican candidate in races and when he can't because there are too many differences on the issues, he stays out of the race altogether and that's the course he's following in the New York special election. He doesn't plan to make any endorsement at all.”

Countdown with Keith Olberman’s ratings are in the famine range as well, with October year over year ratings down 53% in the cable news target adults 25-54 demo, and down 53% in average viewership. Although I don’t have a trend chart, October is also Olbermann’s lowest rated month so far in 2009 in both 25-54 and average viewers.

• CA-Sen: Everyone has been treating Carly Fiorina as already running for Senate, but she's never officially announced anything. It looks like Nov. 6 is her launch date, though; she has a "very important announcement" scheduled at a Pleasanton event.
*CA-Gov: Meg Whitman's sputtering campaign got a boost when she nailed down the endorsement of popular GOP moderate Richard Riordan, the former Los Angeles mayor — which might keep her from losing votes to ex-Rep. Tom Campbell on her left. Her other opponent, state Treasurer Steve Poizner, also announced his own endorsement, from American Conservative Union head David Keene. Not that any Californian would have any idea who Keene is, but this seems like a more fruitful endorsement vein to mine, as all three candidates are on the party's moderate side — good for the general, but bad for making it out of the primary dominated by California's rabid base.

Political junkies across the nation are fixated on a once-obscure special election race for a House seat in New York, where Republican presidential hopefuls have interjected themselves into the campaign in a bid to purge a moderate from the GOP.

As Republicans struggle to remain politically relevant outside the South, the fight reflects a widening battle for the soul of the party between talk radio Tea Bag activists and GOP Beltway establishment types. That feud is mirrored in California, where Republican primary campaigns for governor and Senate shape up as contests to lay claim to the red meat voter bloc and its mantle of conservative populism.