Obama guarantees health care overhaul will pass

President Barack Obama guaranteed Thursday that his health care overhaul will win approval and said any bill he signs will have to reduce rapidly rising costs, protect consumers from insurance abuses and provide affordable choices to the uninsured — while not adding to the federal deficit.

Obama listed those four "bullet points" as his basic requirements in response to a question from a caller to a Philadelphia-based talk radio show. Host Michael Smerconish interviewed Obama at the White House during the show and Obama took questions from several listeners.

Another caller said he sensed the administration's "knees are bucklin' a little bit" under criticism of the proposals. Obama said he was as determined as ever and "I guarantee you, Joe, we are going to get health care reform done."

Obama is struggling to regain the momentum on his top domestic priority — a comprehensive bill that would extend health coverage to nearly 50 million Americans who lack it and restrain skyrocketing costs. Opponents of the overhaul have drowned out supporters at lawmakers' town halls around the country this month, and backing for Obama's effort has slipped in opinion polls. Congressional Democratic leaders are preparing to go it alone on legislation although bipartisan negotiations continue in the Senate.

The president insisted Thursday that there has been no change in the administration's position that a government option for health insurance coverage should be considered as part of legislation to overhaul the system.

Responding to a question from Smerconish, Obama said, "The press got excited and some folks on the left got a little excited" when the administration last weekend made statements indicating that a federally run health insurance option was just one of several alternatives.

"Our position hasn't changed," he said.

Later Thursday, he visited the Democratic National Committee headquarters for a rally designed to re-energize activists who were instrumental is his drive to the presidency.

"Winning the election is just the start," he told an audience at the DNC and thousands watching online and listening by telephone. "Victory in an election wasn't the change that we sought."

Obama said lies had spread about Democrats' plans, including claims Washington would create "death panels" or pay for health insurance for illegal immigrants.

"C'mon," a mocking Obama told the cheering crowd. "We can have a real debate because health care is hard and there are some legitimate issues that have to be sorted through and worked on."

While Obama says he's still looking for Republican support for a comprehensive health care bill, Democrats privately are preparing a one-party push, which they feel is all but inevitable.

On Wednesday, Obama urged religious leaders to back his proposals, arguing that health coverage for Americans is a "core ethical and moral obligation." Polls continued to show slippage in support for the president's approach, although respondents expressed even less confidence in Republicans' handling of health care.

Vice President Joe Biden met with health care professionals in Chicago on Thursday and planned to announce nearly $1.2 billion in grants to help hospitals transition to electronic medical records. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was joining him.

Former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said Thursday that Obama is struggling to get a health care bill because he has been too deferential to liberals. Romney, who may challenge Obama in 2012, said on CBS' "The Early Show" that "if the president wants to get something done, he needs to put aside the extreme liberal wing of his party."

Some Democrats say a strong-arm tactic on Senate health care legislation that would negate the need for any GOP votes might be more effective than previously thought.

The legislative tactic, called "reconciliation," would allow senators to get around a bill-killing filibuster without mustering the 60 votes usually needed. Democrats control 60 of the Senate's 100 seats, but some moderate Senate Democrats have expressed reservations about Obama's plan.

Two Democrats — Robert Byrd of West Virginia and Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts — are seriously ill and often absent. Kennedy sent a letter Tuesday to Massachusetts leaders asking that they change state law to allow someone to be quickly appointed to his seat in Congress "should a vacancy occur."

While always contentious, reconciliation lets the Senate pass some measures with a simple majority vote. Non-budget-related items can be challenged, however, and some lawmakers say reconciliation would knock so many provisions from Obama's health care plan that the result would be "Swiss cheese."

Still, Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., warned Republicans Wednesday that reconciliation is a real option. The White House and Senate Democratic leaders still prefer a bipartisan bill, he said, but "patience is not unlimited and we are determined to get something done this year by any legislative means necessary."

Administration officials and congressional Democrats were deeply discouraged this week when key Republican lawmakers seemed more critical than ever about various Democratic-drafted health care bills pending in the House and Senate. They said they still hope Senate Finance Committee efforts to craft a bipartisan compromise can succeed, although private remarks were more pessimistic.

Like Shootin’ Moose In A Barrel, Sarah Palin Slaps Barack Obama Down Again Over Death Panels

Can you imagine being Barack Obama these days?

I mean here you are only seven and a half months into your one and only term as president and your whole world is crashing down around you. Your signature issue, turning America into some sort of communist utopia, by usurping the constitution through your “health care” plan, is circling the drain.

You have angry Americans who have never been politically active in their lives fired up against you and the rest of your party. You will basically go down in history as the person who destroyed the democrat party. An epic failure.

And then there is this woman who your minions have been trying to destroy for almost a year who has your number, big time!

First she let you and the party have just enough rope and then calmly wrote two words on her Facebook page, “death panels.”

Then she just kicked backed and watched you, the democrats, the RINOs, the media, and well, everybody, go nuts trying to get out of this mess.

Now normal people understand that there won’t literally be death panels.

They also understand, however, that between the various medical boards who will decide what sort of standards and practices will be used, and what procedures will be appropriate for each group, combined with the bean counters, there will be defacto “death panels.”

Every nation that has socialized medicine rations health care. That’s indisputable fact.

But you, Barack Obama, along with your party had to take the bait didn’t you!

Instead of regrouping, you’ve sent Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and the rest of the bunch out to call American citizens a “mob” and “Nazis,” which is hilarious, because Nazis were socialists, kinda like modern day democrats!

You even sent out the union thugs from SEIU to attack unarmed dissenters!

But while you were doing all of this, those two little words from Sarah Palin, were turning the debate on it’s ear! Regular folks were hearing “death panels” and going to see what that was all about. They actually started reading the House bill H.R. 3200, all 1017 pages of it, for themselves.

That really got ‘em fired up!

But Mr Obama, you couldn’t let well enough alone. Since you obviously are allergic to the air in Washington, or think you are still campaigning for office, you went running off to Portsmouth, NH for a totally spontaneous and completely unrehearsed “townhall meeting.”

Group photo of participants at Portsmouth, NH townhall event:

Sarah, is in your head for sure and it shows!

Since TOTUS tried to commit suicide on you a few weeks back, you have not been at your best. No one to keep you from saying really stupid stuff like when you told the totally neutral and unbiased Portsmouth crowd that AARP was on board with your devious plans.

AARP was pretty quick to come out and say “not really pal!”

But this was classic! Here you are trying to sell the country on your communist boondoggle:

“UPS and FedEx are doing just fine. It’s the Post Office that’s always having problems”

___Barack Obama

I’m sure plenty of beverages were spewed all over America when they heard that one!

The very best though was when you took a swing and a miss at the ball Palin pitched to you. You actually had to bring up the death panels again! You ever think at some point people might just forget the bad stuff if you quit bringing it up?

You really are making this too easy!

At this point Sarah is just playing with you. I mean it’s like having a cat and a string.

Barack Obama and democrat party “leaders” pictured below:

So from her lakeside home in beautiful Wasilla, Alaska, Sarah has sent you a message via her Facebook page:

Concerning the “Death Panels”

Yesterday President Obama responded to my statement that Democratic health care proposals would lead to rationed care; that the sick, the elderly, and the disabled would suffer the most under such rationing; and that under such a system these “unproductive” members of society could face the prospect of government bureaucrats determining whether they deserve health care.

The President made light of these concerns. He said:

“Let me just be specific about some things that I’ve been hearing lately that we just need to dispose of here. The rumor that’s been circulating a lot lately is this idea that somehow the House of Representatives voted for death panels that will basically pull the plug on grandma because we’ve decided that we don’t, it’s too expensive to let her live anymore….It turns out that I guess this arose out of a provision in one of the House bills that allowed Medicare to reimburse people for consultations about end-of-life care, setting up living wills, the availability of hospice, etc. So the intention of the members of Congress was to give people more information so that they could handle issues of end-of-life care when they’re ready on their own terms. It wasn’t forcing anybody to do anything.”

__Barack Obama

The provision that President Obama refers to is Section 1233 of HR 3200, entitled “Advance Care Planning Consultation.” With all due respect, it’s misleading for the President to describe this section as an entirely voluntary provision that simply increases the information offered to Medicare recipients. The issue is the context in which that information is provided and the coercive effect these consultations will have in that context.

Section 1233 authorizes advanced care planning consultations for senior citizens on Medicare every five years, and more often “if there is a significant change in the health condition of the individual … or upon admission to a skilled nursing facility, a long-term care facility… or a hospice program.” During those consultations, practitioners must explain “the continuum of end-of-life services and supports available, including palliative care and hospice,” and the government benefits available to pay for such services.

Now put this in context. These consultations are authorized whenever a Medicare recipient’s health changes significantly or when they enter a nursing home, and they are part of a bill whose stated purpose is “to reduce the growth in health care spending.” Is it any wonder that senior citizens might view such consultations as attempts to convince them to help reduce health care costs by accepting minimal end-of-life care? As Charles Lane notes in the Washington Post, Section 1233 “addresses compassionate goals in disconcerting proximity to fiscal ones…. If it’s all about alleviating suffering, emotional or physical, what’s it doing in a measure to “bend the curve” on health-care costs?”

As Lane also points out:

Though not mandatory, as some on the right have claimed, the consultations envisioned in Section 1233 aren’t quite “purely voluntary,” as Rep. Sander M. Levin (D-Mich.) asserts. To me, “purely voluntary” means “not unless the patient requests one.” Section 1233, however, lets doctors initiate the chat and gives them an incentive — money — to do so. Indeed, that’s an incentive to insist.

Patients may refuse without penalty, but many will bow to white-coated authority. Once they’re in the meeting, the bill does permit “formulation” of a plug-pulling order right then and there. So when Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) denies that Section 1233 would “place senior citizens in situations where they feel pressured to sign end-of-life directives that they would not otherwise sign,” I don’t think he’s being realistic.

Even columnist Eugene Robinson, a self-described “true believer” who “will almost certainly support” “whatever reform package finally emerges”, agrees that “If the government says it has to control health-care costs and then offers to pay doctors to give advice about hospice care, citizens are not delusional to conclude that the goal is to reduce end-of-life spending.”

So are these usually friendly pundits wrong? Is this all just a “rumor” to be “disposed of”, as President Obama says? Not according to Democratic New York State Senator Ruben Diaz, Chairman of the New York State Senate Aging Committee, who writes:

Section 1233 of House Resolution 3200 puts our senior citizens on a slippery slope and may diminish respect for the inherent dignity of each of their lives…. It is egregious to consider that any senior citizen … should be placed in a situation where he or she would feel pressured to save the government money by dying a little sooner than he or she otherwise would, be required to be counseled about the supposed benefits of killing oneself, or be encouraged to sign any end of life directives that they would not otherwise sign.

Of course, it’s not just this one provision that presents a problem. My original comments concerned statements made by Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, a health policy advisor to President Obama and the brother of the President’s chief of staff. Dr. Emanuel has written that some medical services should not be guaranteed to those “who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens….An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia.” Dr. Emanuel has also advocated basing medical decisions on a system which “produces a priority curve on which individuals aged between roughly 15 and 40 years get the most chance, whereas the youngest and oldest people get chances that are attenuated.”

President Obama can try to gloss over the effects of government authorized end-of-life consultations, but the views of one of his top health care advisors are clear enough. It’s all just more evidence that the Democratic legislative proposals will lead to health care rationing, and more evidence that the top-down plans of government bureaucrats will never result in real health care reform.”

Now Mr Obama, Barack, I know being a community organizer must give you a lot of insight or something cool like that, but while you were running around the country campaigning for president on the taxpayers dime, after abandoning your Senate seat, Sarah Palin was actually dealing with a health care crisis in Alaska! Thanks to the federal government, it’s rules, and regulations the poor and elderly had long waits and poor health care.

You see, elderly Medicaid patients were facing those “mythical” death panels daily. Thanks to Palin’s efforts she was able to reduce the Medicaid backlog by 83 % in just two years. An incredible feat.

So Barack Obama, democrats, media, whoever, please keep on quoting Sarah Palin. Keep talking about her. Heck, even make fun of her!

All of you are just pawns on her chess board!

Sarah Palin has your number and it’s going to be a really long 3 years!

Gay marriage fight, `kiss-ins' smack Mormon image

SALT LAKE CITY – The Mormon church's vigorous, well-heeled support for Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage in California last year, has turned the Utah-based faith into a lightning rod for gay rights activism, including a nationwide "kiss-in" Saturday.

The event comes after gay couples here and in San Antonio and El Paso, Texas, were arrested, cited for trespassing or harassed by police for publicly kissing. In Utah, the July 9 trespassing incident occurred after a couple were observed by security guards on a downtown park-like plaza owned by the 13 million-member Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The court case was dismissed, but the kiss sparked a community backlash and criticism of the church.

"I don't think that kiss would have turned out to be the kiss heard round the world if it were not for Proposition 8," said Ash Johnsdottir, organizer of the Salt Lake City Kiss-In.

Atali Staffler, a Brigham Young University graduate student from Geneva, Switzerland, said she joined the 200 or so people who filled a downtown amphitheater for the event because she has watched her gay father and many gay friends struggle to find their place.

The 31-year-old, who was raised Mormon but is not active in the church, said the church shouldn't be involved in Prop. 8.

"I encourage them to promote the values they believe in and to defend their religious principles in advertisements, but civil rights have nothing to do with religious principles," she said.

Twenty-two people, many of them strangers to one another, gathered under the scorching sun on Washington's National Mall to participate in the national smooch. They were gay and straight, couples and singles of all ages, with placards that read "Equal Opportunity Kisser" and "A Kiss is a Not a Crime."

"This is America. A kiss on the cheek is OK," said Ian Thomas, 26, of Leesburg, Va., who organized the Washington Kiss-In. "It's got to be OK. If not, we're in serious trouble."

About 50 people, mostly gay and lesbian couples, gathered at Piedmont Park in downtown Atlanta and kissed for about five minutes.

"You think that America is evolving into a gay-friendly nation," said Randal Smith, 42, "but what happened in Texas and Utah show us it's still a long way off."

National organizers say Saturday's broadly held gay rights demonstrations were not aimed specifically at the Mormon church. But observers say the church's heavy-handed intervention into California politics will linger and has left the faith's image tarnished.

"What I hear from my community and from straight progressive individuals is that they now see the church as a force for evil and as an enemy of fairness and equality," said Kate Kendell, executive director of the San Francisco-based National Center for Lesbian Rights. Kendell grew up Mormon in Utah. "To have the church's very deep and noble history telescoped down into this very nasty little image is as painful for me as for any faithful Mormon."

Troy Williams, who is gay and grew up Mormon, said ending the tension between gays and the church requires mutual acceptance and understanding.

"For both sides to peaceably coexist, we're all going to have to engage in some very deep soul searching," said Williams, a Salt Lake City-area activist and host of a liberal radio talk show.

Church insiders say Prop. 8 has bred dissent among members and left families divided. Some members have quit or stopped attending services, while others have appealed to leadership to stay out of the same-sex marriage fight.

But church spokeswoman Kim Farah said Friday that Mormon support for traditional marriage has nothing to do with public relations.

"It's too easy for those whose agenda is to change societal standards to claim there are great difficulties inside the Church because of its decision to support traditional marriage," Kim Farah said. "In reality the Church has received enormous support for its defense of marriage."

Mormonism teaches that homosexual sex is considered a sin, but gays are welcome in church and can maintain church callings and membership if they remain celibate.

The church has actively fought marriage equality legislation across the U.S. since the early 1990s and joined other faiths in asking Congress for a marriage amendment to the Constitution in 2006.

Last year at the urging of church leaders, Mormons donated tens of millions of dollars to the "Yes on 8" campaign and were among the most vigorous volunteers. The institutional church gave nearly $190,000 to the campaign — contributions now being investigated by California's Fair Political Practices Commission.

After the vote, many gay rights advocates turned their anger toward the church in protests and marches outside temples that singled out Mormons as the key culprits in restricting the rights of gay couples.

That constituted a setback for the faith, argued Jan Shipps, a professor of religious history and a Mormon expert from Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.

Mormonism, Shipps said, has struggled with its image since its western New York founding in 1830 for a host of reasons, including polygamy.

Leading up to Salt Lake City's 2002 Olympic Winter Games, the faith worked hard to craft a modern, mainstream image, touting its unique American history, culture and worldwide humanitarian work to thousands of reporters.

"This really undercut the Mormon image that had been so carefully nurtured during the Olympics," Shipps said.

Church representatives don't discuss public relations strategies or challenges publicly, but at a semiannual conference in April, church President Thomas S. Monson seemed to be clearly feeling a post-Prop. 8 sting.

In an era of "shifting moral footings," Monson said, "those who attempt to safeguard those footings are often ridiculed, picketed and persecuted."

That argument doesn't wash for Linda Stay, whose ancestors were early Mormon converts. Stay said she was doubly transformed by Prop. 8. She and her husband, Steve, finally quit the church — along with 18 other family members and a few close friends — and became gay right activists.

The St. George woman's family, which includes two gay children, will play a central role in a documentary film, "8: The Mormon Proposition" currently in production. Stay's son, Tyler Barrick, married his boyfriend in San Francisco on June 17, 2008, the first day gay marriage was legal in California.

Miami-area filmmaker Reed Cowan said the Stays' story is a painful representative of many Latter-day Saint families, including his own, that needed to be told.

"It used to be that I could defend my church and my heritage, but what they did here, they crossed the line and they made it very hard to defend their actions," said Cowan, whose family has cut him off since he began work on the film.

With the gay rights fight far from over, some believe Prop. 8 could continue to frustrate the church's image for years to come, much like polygamy — the church's own one-time alternative form of marriage — and a policy on keeping black men out of the priesthood, issues that have lingered years after the practices were abandoned.

"The church is certainly going to survive and thrive, there's no question about that," said the National Center for Lesbian Rights' Kendell, who is raising three kids in California with her partner of 16 years. "The issue is, what will be its image in the average American mindset."

To see the church characterized, because of its own actions, as one in a group of anti-gay religions and as a religion that forces members to choose faith over family is "a tragedy of generational proportion," she said. "And it seems to me, that it was entirely unnecessary."

___

How to make Harry Potter tougher...

I've always considered Harry Potter as a bit of a wuss. With the glasses and always being bailed out by someone else or accidentally worming his way out a situation.

But what if we beefed Harry Potter up a little bit, perhaps got someone a bit tougher to play the role. Bruce Willis. It'd be worth it just for what would ultimately become the new Harry Potter catchphrase:

Yep, that's more like it. Watch out, Voldemort. This Potter isn't gonna take any more shit.

Anyone care to suggest a title for the movie? "Harry Potter and the..."

Vick sparks Philly's famed brotherly love, fan animus

The City of Brotherly Love isn't exactly embracing the news that one-time quarterback phenom and convicted dogfighter Michael Vick is joining their Philadelphia Eagles.

Vick's agent announced Thursday that the former Atlanta Falcon signed a two-year deal with the Eagles, which reportedly could be worth more than $6 million. He won't be able to play a regular season game until week six in October, and then, only if the National Football League fully reinstates him.

"Too bad they don't have him for the whole year," Eagles fan Charles James told CNN affiliate philly.com.

The NFL indefinitely suspended Vick in August 2007 after he pleaded guilty to a federal charge of bankrolling a dogfighting operation in Virginia. Vick, 29, left a Kansas prison in May to serve the last two months of his 23-month sentence in home confinement.

Some Eagles fans don't think Vick's punishment was sufficient and were trying to unload their game and season tickets on craigslist.com, making it clear they were less than eager to see Vick in Philly green. iReport.com: What do you think of Vick's return?

A post from one irked fan looking to peddle two lower-level season tickets said: "The last thing my son and I want to see is Michael Vick in an Eagles jersey. We made up our mind to sell the tickets ... $3000 cash gets the tickets. Any info feel free to ask, serious buyers only, I want the deal done fast."

Lower-level season tickets were selling on an unrelated auction site for as much as $10,000 a pair.

Bob Jenkins of northeast Philadelphia predicted most Eagles fans -- known to be some of the nation's most demanding -- won't be badmouthing the decision.

"The only people who won't be quiet are the people who don't like the Eagles," Jenkins told philly.com. "Of course, they're going to be talking because he's going to be throwing some touchdowns."

Despite Jenkins' assumption, it's unclear what role Vick will play on the team. A gifted athlete known more for his dazzling runs than his pinpoint throws, Vick's last season in 2006 was a bit of a disappointment to Atlanta fans.

The Falcons finished 7-9, and Vick had a completion percentage of 52.6. He also threw for 2,474 yards, more than 1,000 fewer yards than the Patriots' Tom Brady, who completed 62 percent of his passes, and almost 2,000 yards behind the Colts' Peyton Manning, who completed 65 percent of his tosses.

However, Vick also ran for 1,039 yards, the most ever by a quarterback.

Mike Giunta of Tabernacle, New Jersey, told CNN affiliate WPVI-TV in Philadelphia that signing Vick would spawn "dissension" among the Eagles, who made it to their conference championship last season, losing to the Arizona Cardinals.

Giunta predicted the move would create consternation between Vick and five-time Pro Bowl quarterback Donovan McNabb.

"McNabb's going to be looking over his shoulder constantly now," Giunta said.

McNabb said in a Thursday news conference that he welcomed the addition of Vick and he "pretty much lobbied to get him here because everybody deserves a second chance."

Several Eagles fans concur. One of them, Leroy Emerson of north Philadelphia, told philly.com, "That was the best move the Eagles ever made, one of the best."

Some fans, however, were licking their wounds and pointing to the most severe dogfighting allegations leveled against Vick: that he hanged dogs from trees, electrocuted and drowned them.

The Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals have both skewered Vick. The latter alluded to Vick being a "psychopath" earlier this year and released a statement Friday saying, "Millions of decent football fans around the world are disappointed" in the Eagles.

"PETA certainly hopes that Vick has learned his lesson and feels truly remorseful for his crimes -- but since he's given no public indication that that's the case, only time will tell," the statement said.

Upon being conditionally reinstated to the NFL last month, Vick acknowledged making "terrible mistakes" and said he had used the past two years to re-evaluate his life.

The Humane Society of the United States has said Vick also offered to work with the organization on its anti-dogfighting campaign.

To some Eagles fans, though, the nature of Vick's crimes is too much to forgive.

"I'm just a little upset with it because I'm such an animal lover," Susan Wilson of Pitman, New Jersey, told WPVI.

Kelley Williams of Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, told the station that she, too, had trouble accepting Vick's signing.

"I think he should be out of the NFL altogether," she said.

Sports talk shows already are predicting that Vick can redeem himself only by making big plays, and at least some of the Philadelphia faithful concur he can shut up his critics on the field.

Florida Man Wins Almost $2 Million In Case Vs Philip Morris USA

A Florida man who said his wife died of lung cancer at 73 years old won just under $2 million in liability case against Philip Morris USA, a unit of Altria Group Inc. (MO).

Schlesinger Law Firm, which represented Leon Barbanell, said its case drew on findings from the 1994 Engle class-action case, which the Florida Supreme Court decertified in 2006. However, the state's high court allowed class members to bring individual lawsuits relying on the findings.

Among the findings that supported Barbanell's case were that Philip Morris had been found negligent, its products were defective and unreasonably dangerous, nicotine is addictive, and the company conspired to conceal information regarding the health effects of smoking, attorney Jonathan Gdanski said.

The plaintiff law firm acknowledged the jury found Shirley Barbanell mostly responsible for her death but said the cigarette maker was more than a third responsible.

A Philip Morris representative confirmed by telephone that the exact percentage of liability was 37.5%, reducing the overall $5.3 million in damages to the final amount.

Altria Associate General Counsel Murray Garnick decried the ruling, saying in a prepared statement, "From beginning to end, this case was marked by legal rulings that should be reversed on appeal, including allowing this jury to rely almost exclusively on findings by a prior jury that have no direct connection with the plaintiff in this case."

The company also noted that the trial court previously ruled the plaintiff wasn't entitled to punitive damages because he couldn't prove his wife had relied on any alleged concealment.

Jackson's 'unusual problems' surprised doctor

Michael Jackson had "some very unusual problems" that Dr. Conrad Murray did not know about when he was hired as Jackson's personal physician as the singer prepared for comeback concerts, Murray's lawyer says.

In comments published in the Los Angeles Times and confirmed Thursday by his spokeswoman, attorney Ed Chernoff said his client did not know which drugs Jackson might have been taking or whether he was addicted.

"When he accepted the job, he was not aware of any specific requirements regarding medications that Michael Jackson was taking or any addictions that he was suffering from," Chernoff told the Times.

In a quote confirmed by his spokesman, Chernoff said that it was only after Murray moved to Los Angeles in May that "he realized that Michael Jackson had some very unusual problems."

Murray did not conduct drug tests on Jackson and had no way of knowing, other than from Jackson himself, whether he was taking other drugs, Chernoff's spokeswoman, Miranda Sevcik, told CNN.

Investigators, trying to determine whether anyone should be charged in Jackson's death, have searched Murray's home and two clinics for evidence of drugs he may have given the singer.

One search warrant implied that police suspect Jackson was a drug addict. It said there was "probable cause to believe" that the searches would uncover evidence of excessive prescribing, prescribing to an addict, prescribing to or treating an addict and manslaughter.

It also cited "probable cause to believe" that the premises contained "records, shipping orders, distribution lists, use records relating to the purchase, transfer ordering, delivery and storage of propofol (Diprivan)."

Chernoff told the newspaper that he thought investigators expected to find evidence that Murray prescribed drugs other than the anesthetic propofol to Jackson.

"I have no doubt they came up completely empty in that regard," he said.

A source with knowledge of the investigation told CNN that Murray gave propofol, commonly known by the brand name Diprivan, to Jackson in the 24 hours before he died.

Chernoff has refused to confirm or deny whether Murray administered propofol to Jackson, although he denied "unequivocally" that Murray gave Jackson painkillers.

The Los Angeles County coroner's office said Monday that it has completed a "thorough and comprehensive" report into what killed Jackson, but police have requested that the report not yet be released because of the ongoing investigation.

A former prosecutor who has also defended doctors in medical malpractice cases involving anesthesia said prosecutors would face "a very, very severe uphill battle" when charging a doctor with manslaughter.

"You have to prove gross recklessness in the prescription of drugs," Paul Callan told CNN Wednesday. "That's really hard with a doctor, because doctors are always prescribing drugs; patients occasionally die from them. That's not criminal conduct. But here, you have to show that this doctor should've known Jackson was an addict and that he could've died from these drugs."

In addition to the local inquiry , federal drug investigators have focused on Murray, according to a law enforcement official.

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