Posted on 10/17/2014 11:00:05 AM PDT by tired&retired
Forget medical experience, what the USA needs to combat the worst Ebola pandemic ever is "an American lawyer and political operative best known for serving as Chief of Staff to two Vice Presidents - Al Gore (1995–1999) and Joseph Biden (2009–2011)."
Ronald A. "Ron" Klain is an American lawyer and political operative best known for serving as Chief of Staff to two Vice Presidents - Al Gore (1995–1999) and Joseph Biden (2009–2011). He is an influential Democratic Party insider. Earlier in his career, he was a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Byron White during the Court's 1987 and 1988 Terms and worked on Capitol Hill, where he was Chief Counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee during the Clarence Thomas Supreme Court nomination. He was portrayed by Kevin Spacey in the HBO film Recount depicting the tumult of the 2000 presidential election.
Lobbying Klain helped Fannie Mae overcome "regulatory issues".
Klain apparently signed off on President Obama's support of a $535 million loan guarantee for now-defunct solar-panel company Solyndra.
Clinton administration Klain joined the Clinton-Gore campaign in 1992. He ultimately was involved in both of Bill Clinton's campaigns, oversaw Clinton's judicial nominations, and was General Counsel to Al Gore's recount committee in the 2000 election aftermath. Some published reports have given him credit for Clinton's "100,000 cops" proposal during the 1992 campaign; at a minimum, he worked closely with Clinton aide Bruce Reed in formulating it. In the White House, he was Associate Counsel to the President, directing judicial selection efforts, and led the team that won confirmation of Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
(Excerpt) Read more at zerohedge.com ...
Gore campaign During Klain's tenure as Gore's Chief of Staff, Gore consolidated his position as the likely Democratic nominee in 2000. Still, Klain was seen as too loyal to Clinton by some longtime Gore advisors. Feuding broke out between Clinton and Gore loyalists in the White House in 1999, and Klain was ousted by Gore campaign chairman Tony Coelho in August of that year. In October 1999, he joined the Washington, D.C. office of the law firm of O'Melveny & Myers. A year later, Klain returned to the Gore campaign, once Coelho was replaced by William M. Daley. Daley hired Klain for a senior position in the Gore campaign and then named him General Counsel of Gore's Recount Committee.
So ebola will be all about spinning to the administration? That’s all this clown does is spin.
Just so I'm clear, why do we need this guy when we have the head of the CDC (for what he's worth)?
No medical experience whatsoever. Just another corrupt political hack.
I wonder how much the taxpayers will be paying this bum to do nothing.
A political operative.
Obama is trying to manage the ebola outbreak as a political problem, not a medical one.
And it will kill people.
I am stunned. I am truly stunned, that a presidential appointee asked to deal with a public health threat, is not a medical doctor, and has no medical or healthcare background.
You mean the Fannie Mae that helped bring about the 2008 economic debacle aka the Great Recession? Well, hopefully Klain’s latest endeavor won't end nearly as poorly.
That may be the point.
In the Soviet Union, the best scientists and engineers were placed in power to run the daily nuts and bolts of a planned economy.
America hires lawyers.
Wow! A lawyer! He can get an injunction ordering the Ebola virus to cease and desist infecting people. Putting a lawyer in charge of FEMA worked so well for Bush/Katrina.
Biden Aide Bolsters Kagan’s Liberal Credentials
At a White House background briefing this morning on the nomination of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court, Vice President Biden’s chief of staff Ron Klain said the nominee is “clearly a legal progressive” whose “pragmatic perspective” will be an important addition to the Court. Asked to elaborate, Klain cited aspects of her resume, not any expressed views. She clerked for appeals judge Abner Mikva and Justice Thurgod Marshall and for Presidents Clinton and Obama, Klain noted, so “I don’t think there’s any mystery” to the fact that she is a progressive.
(snip)
For his own part, Klain said he has known Kagan since they were both at Harvard Law School. Klain clerked for Justice Byron White the same year Kagan clerked for Justice Thurgood Marshall. When White retired in 1993, it was Klain, then working in the Clinton White House, who received the news from White. Klain was a top aide to the Al Gore campaign in 2000, then became a partner at O’Melveny & Myers in D.C.
Doesn’t surprise me. To be fair, the last several presidents, Republican and Democrat, have filled important positions based on campaign contributions, friendship and family ties, not whether the person has the education and experience to do the job. It’s always been an abominable practice, but now lives are at stake. And I don’t see Congress or anyone else doing anything about it.
Sounds like his assignment is to make sure that Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia get Ebola.
Move along ,nothing to see there ,just another Friday Dump
What a disgrace !
If you contract this disease call 1-800-MYEBOLA.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1108/15632.html
Klain arrives with K Street roots
11/14/08
After leaving the Clinton administration in its waning months, newly tapped Vice Presidential chief of staff Ron Klain lobbied for an asbestos industry bailout package, an airline merger, mortgage regulations to help Fannie Mae and a drug-maker under congressional scrutiny for withholding life-saving drugs from dying patients, among other clients.
Klain’s career as a lobbyist, during which clients paid nearly $700,000 for lobbying in which he participated, ended when he left his partnership at the law firm O’Melveny & Myers in 2005.
(snip)
As a lobbyist, Klain worked first for the Coalition for Asbestos Resolution.
The coalition was identified by the nonpartisan government watchdog group Public Citizen as a front group for GAF Materials Corporation, a roofing company facing huge liabilities related to asbestos-exposure lawsuits.
In the first six months of 2000, the coalition paid $80,000 to have Klain and two of his colleagues lobby Congress, as well as his former employers in the White House and the Justice Department on H.R. 1283, which would have protected asbestos companies from lawsuits filed by workers harmed by the product.
(snip)
U.S. Airways in 2000 and 2001 paid as much as $140,000 to have Klain and eight of his colleagues lobby Congress and the Justice and Transportation departments on the air carrier’s proposed merger with United Airlines. The merger fell apart after the Justice Department opposed it as bad for consumers and some unions fought it as bad for workers.
Klain and his colleagues had more success with another massive merger proposal. Airborne Express in 2003 paid O’Melveny $120,000 to have Klain and three of his colleagues lobby Congress and the Transportation Department in support of the sale of its ground assets to DHL Worldwide Express, a $1.05 billion transaction finalized one month after the firm was retained. O’Melveny ended its relationship with Airborne less than five months later.
Klain’s team brought in even-quicker cash representing the drug-maker ImClone, which had been the subject of a 2001 CBS News report revealing the life-and-death consequences of the company’s selective granting of so-called “compassionate use” of yet-to-be-approved experimental drugs.
(snip)
From 2002 through 2005, the now-failed mortgage lender Fannie Mae paid as much as $120,000 for an O’Melveny team, including Klain, to lobby Congress and the Housing and Urban Development Department on “regulatory issues.”
A telescope maker in 2002 paid O’Melveny $40,000 for Klain and his crew to push for legislation “that would provide a duty suspension on imports of certain toy telescopes.”
And from 2001 to 2005, AOL Time Warner paid O’Melveny as much as $130,000 for a Klain-led team to lobby Congress and the Justice Department on issues related to “competition in Internet and related computer sciences.”
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.