Michelle Obama 2-Day Hotel Stay in China Costs $222K

    Michelle Obama wrapped up her March visit to China with a stop in Chengdu, arriving on Tuesday, March 25 and departing for the United States on the following day.  But that one leg of the trip alone required about 900 room nights, ranging from 21 rooms beginning on March 13 for the advance team to a peak of 144 rooms when the first lady herself was at the hotel.

    The documents prepared in support of the stay estimated the cost at around 1,393,500 yuan (RMB), or $222,000 at current exchange rates:

    According to the documents, one of the factors in choosing the Shangri-La Hotel was a security consideration that "will allow party to occupy the entire top two floors for the visit."

    The documents also state that the local Ritz-Carlton had expressed interest in hosting the first lady, but...

in preliminary price comparisons, the cost was sufficiently more than the Shangri-La. We requested a price reduction but a great cost difference remained for the both the Executive Junior Suites, that will serve as control rooms, and the Presidential Suite.

    The cost of the first lady's hotel room for the Beijing portion of her trip, reportedly $8,400/night, raised some eyebrows at the time.  As THE WEEKLY STANDARD reported, the prices of the Westin Chaoyang Hotel where Mrs. Obama and her group stayed had been deemed "prohibitive" for Vice President Biden's trip to China in December 2013.
    So far, the documents for the Chengdu portion of Mrs. Obama's trip are the only ones that have been posted online by the State Department.  Mrs. Obama was in China March 19-26.


Note: A version of this post first appeared at The Weekly Standard.

President Obama's Japan Trip Hotel Bill: $635K

    President Obama spent only one night in Japan last week on his current swing through the Far East, but the State Department estimated total "lodging nights" required by the president and his entourage could run around 2,172, and the use of "functional rooms" (presumably conference rooms and the like) could last up to 29 days.  The total cost was estimated at a maximum of $635,261.92:

    The cost of lodging is not what makes this contract posting notable or unique, however (the cost of a recent presidential trip to Brussels came to about $1.5 million for just one of the hotels used for the visit); rather, the speed with which this contract was posted online makes it stand out.  The time from the president's departure from Japan to the posting of the contract was barely three days. Such contracts can sometimes take months to appear on fbo.gov, the federal government's contracting website.
    The visit was so recent, in fact, that as of Monday morning, the hotel where the president and his team stayed (Hotel Okura Tokyo) still had a message posted on its website thanking other guests for their patience with the inconveniences caused by the "foreign delegations's stay."

    Although the Justification and Approval document pictured above refers to a "Vice President visit," the State Department confirmed via email that the document pictured above was indeed for the president's recent visit.  The State Department said the reference to the Vice President was a typo left over from a prior document, but was corrected in the final contract.  The last time Vice President Biden visited Japan was in December 2013.  The estimated cost of lodging for that visit was $420,000.


Note: A version of this post first appeared at The Weekly Standard.

Biden In Ukraine: "Thank You For Making Me Feel Relevant Again"

    Vice President Biden addressed Ukrainian legislators Tuesday in a committee room of the Rada, the Ukrainian parliament, where he began his remarks by thanking the legislators for "making me feel relevant again." Biden is in Ukraine to show support for the Ukrainian government as that country faces continued pressure and threats from Russia.  Biden's "relevant" comments were a reference to his time as a legislator in the United States:

I want to thank my colleagues for bringing me back home. For 36 years I sat in our legislature, and I used to actually have this seat in our -- I was the chairman of our committee. Thank you for making me feel relevant again, back in a legislative body.

He went on to encourage the Ukrainians to continue to strive for energy independence with the goal of being able to tell Russia to "keep your gas":

And as you attempt to pursue energy security, there’s no reason why you cannot be energy secure. I mean there isn’t. It will take time. It takes some difficult decisions, but it’s collectively within your power and the power of Europe and the United States. And we stand ready to assist you in reaching that. Imagine where you’d be today if you were able to tell Russia: Keep your gas. It would be a very different world you’d be facing today. It’s within our power to alter that.

Biden is well known for his colorful comments throughout his career in public service, and his remarks to the Ukrainians are no exception.  Some additional excerpts:

I signed the book in the hotel as I was leaving today. The management asked me to sign their book, and I signed, “Ukraine united, Joe Biden.” 

I’ve been around, literally met every major leader in the world in the last 40 years... 

[A]n expert is anyone from out of town with a briefcase. Well, I don't have a briefcase, and I’m not an expert. 

I have an expression I use as I’ve gone around the world through my career is you never tell another man or woman what’s in their interest. 

Also to be very blunt about it, and this is a delicate thing to say to a group of leaders in their house of parliament, but you have to fight the cancer of corruption that is endemic in your system right now. It’s not just the United States. You need a court system that not only you and your people, but the rest of the world assumes can actually adjudicate fairly disputes among people. But you have a chance. You have a chance. 

And you may have different traditions. It’s not quite the same, but we understand different traditions in our country -- not as deeply as you do, but we are the most heterogeneous democracy in the world. We’re soon going to get the point where over 50 percent of the United States of America is made up of people of non-European stock; the majority of the American people are not of European origin in 2020. We understand. We have millions of Muslims. We have hundreds -- but it’s not quite the same. We’re not up against a border. We’re not sitting against a border of another powerful nation.

    The Vice President's complete comments are available here.


Note: A version of this post first appeared at The Weekly Standard.

U.S. Cosponsors U.N. Resolution to Fight Texting and Driving

    While crises continue in Ukraine, Syria, Iran, and the Central African Republic, the United Nations turned its attention to a different kind of crisis on Thursday: the "global road safety crisis."  The U.N. General Assembly held a session on Improving Global Road Safety in which the United States cosponsored a resolution "which calls for laws to fight texting and driving."  Ambassador Samantha Power tweeted the following:

Proud to cosponsor UN Resolution on #RoadSafety, which calls for laws to fight texting and driving. My remarks: http://t.co/XKQTH3vjz2
— Samantha Power (@AmbassadorPower) April 10, 2014

    In her remarks at the session, Power noted that although "improvements in road design, traffic management, safety equipment, and emergency response" could help reduce the 1.2 million annual worldwide traffic fatalities, "[m]ost important, however, is driver behavior." She continued:

Excessive speed and a failure to obey traffic rules are both killers. The role of alcohol in traffic fatalities is also well documented and should never be understated. In recent years, however, we have faced a new and deadly threat in the form of driving while texting or talking on the phone. Research shows that cell phone users are over 5 times more likely to get in an accident than undistracted drivers. And that texting while driving can delay a driver’s reactions as much as a 0.08 blood-alcohol level, the same as a drunk driver. Already, in the United States, more teenagers are killed while texting than because they have been drinking. But the problem is neither confined to teenagers nor to highly-industrialized countries; it is spreading as fast as technology.

    It is unclear how the push for such bans will fare, particularly in less developed countries where drivers routinely take shortcuts on sidewalks, and red lights and stop signs often seem optional. However, Power cited a new law just passed in Maryland that was named for Jake Owen, a five-year-old who was killed when a distracted driver rammed the boy's family's car.  The law increases penalties for drivers found responsible for causing an accident while talking on a cell phone or texting.


Note: A version of this post first appeared at The Weekly Standard.

Under Obamacare, HHS Begins Fingerprinting "High Risk" Medicare Providers and Suppliers

    Four years after Obamacare became law, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is notifying Medicare providers and suppliers of new fingerprint-based background checks.  Eventually, all individuals who hold a five percent or greater stake in a Medicare supplier or provider that is categorized as "high risk" will be subject to the requirement.  The provision is part of the Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP Program Integrity Provisions (Title E) of the Affordable Care Act, and gives the HHS secretary broad discretion in applying the background check requirements depending on the potential for abuse, fraud and/or waste.

    The new requirements are spelled out in a document posted online on the website of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) last Friday.  The new rules will apply to both current and future enrollees who are classified as "high risk," the stated purpose being to weed out "bad actors" in the Medicare program and prevent any more from enrolling.

    This particular document is a "News Flash" from CMS's Medicare Learning Network and is addressed to suppliers and providers who submit claims for "Durable Medical Equipment Medicare Administrative Contractors (DME MACs) and Home Health and Hospice (HH&H) MACs for services provided to Medicare beneficiaries."  There is no effective date or implementation date listed on the document; rather, the document states that "fingerprint-based background check implementation will be phased in beginning in 2014," and that those affected will receive letters after which the individuals will have thirty days to comply with the finger-printing requirement.  The fingerprints will be submitted to the FBI for a background check and will be stored by the government in accordance with federal requirements and FBI guidelines.

    Although initially the new regulations will only be applied to providers and suppliers of "Durable Medicare Equipment, Prosthetics, Orthotics, and Supplies (DMEPOS) suppliers or Home Health Agencies (HHA)," the "high risk" category is defined at the discretion of the HHS secretary and may be expanded in the future.


Note: A version of this post first appeared at The Weekly Standard.

State Department Posts "Embargoed" Climate Change Press Release a Day Early

    Apparently someone at the State Department hit the "publish" button too soon.  This press release regarding the "Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Working Group 3 Report" appeared Saturday night on the State Department website, well ahead of its 5 AM Sunday scheduled release:

    No need to get up at 5 AM Sunday now. Whew!

White House Retweet: 'Kathleen Sebelius Is Resigning Because Obamacare Has Won'

    The first official word from the Obama administration on Kathleen Sebelius's resignation as secretary of health and human services is a retweet by the official White House Twitter account of a tweet by Vox.com's Ezra Klein:

    After news broke yesterday of Sebelius's imminent departure, Klein quickly posted an article entitled "Kathleen Sebelius is resigning because Obamacare has won."  The article was largely met with derision on the right, and even mainstream news reporting called into question the victorious characterization of Sebelius's exit.
    The president is set to speak at eleven o'clock Friday morning and is expected to announce that Sylvia Mathews Burwell, currently director of the Office of Management and Budget, will take Sebelius's place.


Note: A version of this post first appeared at The Weekly Standard.  Some nice coverage at Memeorandum, too.