GOP Senator Takes Credit For Anti-Rape Law He Voted Against

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX)

Shortly after President Obama signed the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) reauthorization into law, Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn (R-TX) released a glowing press release claiming that a “Cornyn bill” to “eliminate nationwide rape kit backlog” was signed into law. The so-called “Cornyn bill” is the SAFER Act, which was incorporated into the VAWA renewal, and which “provide[s] funding for state and local governments to conduct audits of untested DNA evidence and create[s] a national reporting system to help track and prioritize untested rape kits,” according to Cornyn. By all appearances, it seems like a wonderful law. There’s only one problem.

Cornyn voted against it.

Cornyn was one of 22 Senate Republican men who voted against the VAWA renewal. He opposed the bill because he objected to a provision enabling tribal courts to prosecute non-Native Americans who commit rape or other violent crimes against women on Indian reservations. This provision is intended to combat the virtual lawlessness that faces Native American women on these reservations without the VAWA renewal. A 2010 report by the Government Accountability Office found that federal prosecutors “declined to prosecute 46 percent of assault matters and 67 percent of sexual abuse and related matters” on reservations.

(HT: Steve Benen)

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LaHood: FAA furloughs will be necessary if sequester takes effect

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood stressed Sunday that the Obama administration was not exaggerating the effects of looming sequestration.

LaHood, a former GOP congressman, had said at a White House briefing on Friday that the $85 billion in automatic cuts set to start going into effect on March 1 would require furloughs at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and throw air travel in the country into a tailspin.

On CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday, the show’s host, Candy Crowley, pressed LaHood over the need for furloughs, saying the FAA’s budget for operations and facilities would still be higher than 2008 levels. 

But LaHood said furloughs would still be necessary, even after the department ended contracts and found savings elsewhere. “This is not stuff we decided to make up,” he said.

"This sequester is very serious business,” LaHood added. “And it requires us to make the reductions that we’re making. It requires us, as painful as it is, to furlough the people that we’re going to have to furlough.”

LaHood also put most of the blame for the impasse over the sequester on his former Republican colleagues in Congress, though he did urge the two parties to work together on a deal. 

“I’m a Republican. My audience is trying to persuade my former colleagues that they need to come to the table with a proposal, which frankly they haven’t done,” LaHood said.

“I also at that news conference said: ‘Everybody around here ought to go take a look at the “Lincoln” movie, where they did very hard things by working together,” he added.

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Cancer drug developer ImmunoGen takes bigger loss

WALTHAM, Mass. -- Drug developer ImmunoGen Inc. said Friday its fiscal second quarter nearly doubled, as it continued developing treatments for cancer.

ImmunoGen does not have any approved drugs. Its most advanced experimental product is T-DM1, which includes the main ingredient in Roche's drug Herceptin, used mainly to treat breast cancer. The Food and Drug Administration is scheduled to make a decision on T-DM1 by Feb. 26.

ImmunoGen said it expects to report clinical trial results from its three most advanced wholly-owned drugs in 2013 and will start clinical testing of a fourth drug.

The company is developing T-DM1 through a partnership with Roche. The drug contains trastuzumab, the active ingredient in Herceptin, with a second drug and a chemical that keeps the drugs linked until they reach a cancer cell, where the cocktail can be released. ImmunoGen developed the technology that combined the drugs, and it will get royalty payments on sales if the product is approved.

The companies have asked the FDA and European regulators to approve T-DM1 as a treatment for breast cancer. Roche is running additional clinical trials of T-DM1, studying the drug in different settings as a treatment for breast cancer as well as gastric cancer. ImmunoGen is running its own trials of drugs designed to treat lung cancer and multiple myeloma, ovarian cancer, and blood cancers.

In the fiscal quarter ended Dec. 31, ImmunoGen said it lost $24.4 million, or 29 cents per share. A year ago it took a loss of $12.8 million, or 17 cents per share.

A 10-percent increase in the number of outstanding shares made the loss in the recent quarter seem smaller on a per-share basis.

Revenue fell to $2.6 million from $7.6 million, because the company received fewer payments from its drug development partners.

Analysts were expecting a loss of 25 cents per share and $5.2 million in revenue, according to FactSet.

Shares of ImmunoGen lost 48 cents, or 3.2 percent, to $14.87 in midday trading.

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Obama takes on the Supremes FIRST #

Tonight, President Obama's decision to take on the Supreme Court of the United States. We will address it and more on the Erick Erickson Show.

Listen live here and call at 1-800-WSB-TALK.

We are tonight live 6 to 9 pm ET.

Consider this an open thread.

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