Biden Introduces Drug Czar Nominee
(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Biden, who was central to the creation of the Office Of National Drug Control Policy, said the economy suffers $350 billion a year in costs resulting from drug and alcohol abuse – and said there is an "even bigger cost in human suffering."
Kerlikowske, meanwhile, said that reducing illegal drugs is "largely dependent on our ability to reduce demand for them – and that starts with our youth."
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Holder Recuses Himself From Clemens Investigation
(CBS)
Before his appointment, Holder was a partner at Covington and Burling, the Washington law firm that also employs Lanny Breuer, who was one of Clemens' attorneys when the pitcher testified before Congress last year.
Breuer himself has been nominated to serve as assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice's criminal division, a post that would put him in charge of any federal prosecution of Clemens for perjury, the News reports.
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Obama's Remarks On Education
(CBS)
In a wide-ranging speech, he called for more time in the classroom, "whether during the summer or through expanded-day programs for children who need it."
"…we will end what has become a race to the bottom in our schools and instead, spur a race to the top by encouraging better standards and assessments," he said. "This is an area where we are being outpaced by other nations. It's not that their kids are any smarter than ours – it's that they are being smarter about how to educate their kids."
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Polling Shows Support For Stem Cell Research
(AP Photo/Richard Lewis)
In 2007, the last time CBS News asked the question, 65 percent said they approved of "medical research using embryonic stem cells" compared to 25 percent who disapproved. At the time, 74 percent of Democrats approved as did 54 percent of Republicans.
When CBS News first asked about medical research using embryonic stem cells in 2004, 50 percent approved of the idea. Support for it has been on the rise since then with 56 percent approving in 2005 and 59 percent in 2006.
However, it should be noted that a recent Gallup poll comes at the question a different way -- specifically asking about the issue of government-funded research. In a poll last month, 52 percent said they support fewer or no restrictions on federally-funded research and 41 percent they support keeping the same restrictions or not funding the research at all. Those figures were a dip from a 2007 Gallup poll in which 60 percent of Americans said they supported fewer or no restrictions on federally-funded research.
Jennifer De Pinto, manager of election and survey information for CBS News, contributed to this post.
Debrief: The Embryonic Stem Cell Debate
(CBS)
First off, let's talk about what embryonic stem cell research entails. An embryo is "a clump of cells that would fit barely on the head of a pin," as Susan L. Solomon, CEO of the New York Stem Cell Foundation, says. The embryos are created in a lab through artificial insemination of an egg, usually for the purposes of in vitro fertilization. If this pre-implantation embryo is not used for fertilization, it can be used to create a stem cell "line." This takes place within six days of insemination.
What researches then have is a clump of perhaps 200 cells that have split multiple times since day one, says Dr. Lorenz Studer, a stem-cell biologist with Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Perhaps ten of those cells are used to create a stem cell line, which then – and this is crucial – can exist, in theory, forever, since the cells continue to split in perpetuity. You might remember back in 2001, President Bush banned federal funding for research into stem cell lines, but he allowed research to continue on the 21 lines that had been created before his decision. Since the lines could continue to create stem cells forever, the argument went, there was not a need for new lines to be created from embryos.
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Republicans Rally Against Obama On Stem Cells
(AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)
However, not included in that "consensus," are conservatives and Republican lawmakers and organizations that have started an opposition rally cry.
Critics of the research argue embryonic cells are destroyed while scientists search for cures for Parkinson's disease, spinal injuries and other afflictions.
House Republican Leader John Boehner said the president's repeal of the ban, "runs counter to President Obama's promise to be a president for all Americans. For a third time in his young presidency, the president has rolled back important protections for innocent life, further dividing our nation at a time when we need greater unity to tackle the challenges before us."
Boehner said he fully supports stem cell research, yet he feels research funding should not come tax payers pockets.
"Politicians in Washington would be well-served to recognize this fact before they ask taxpayers to subsidize the destruction of innocent human life simply to advance a particular agenda," the minority leader's statement continued.
The top Republican in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, called the president's reversal of former president George W. Bush's 2001 ban a "troubling shift."
"With this announcement, the government is, for the first time, incentivizing the creation and destruction of human embryos at the expense of the U.S. taxpayer," McConnell said.
House Minority Whip Eric Cantor released a statement which said, "unfortunately, today the Administration wasted an opportunity to unite our country around these ethically and scientifically sound innovations by allowing the use of taxpayer money for embryo-destructive stem cell research, which millions of Americans find morally reprehensible. This divisive action will divert scarce federal resources away from innovative and proven adult stem cell research."
Sen. David Vitter , R-La., also cried foul, issuing a statement which said embryonic stem cell research, "is an issue that many Americans have deep concerns about. The restrictions put in place by the Bush administration reflected those concerns and recognized the value and sanctity of all human life. I'm saddened that President Obama has chosen to set aside the views of so many Americans and reversed these restrictions that were put in place to protect these valuable human embryos."
Conservative organizations have also joined the opposition campaign. The Catholic League sent an email to supporters Monday titled, "Obama to okay killing embryos."
The email argued that, "Obama has stepped on a slope so slippery that many of his supporters may eventually regret he did so."
The National Right to Life Committee titled their response statement, "Obama Order Opens Door to Widespread Killing of Embryonic Humans in Government-Funded Research." "It is a sad day when the federal government will fund research that exploits living members of the human species as raw material for research," spokesman Douglas Johnson said.
"Obama's order also places our society on a very steep, very slippery slope. Many researchers will not be satisfied to use only so-called surplus embryos."
Update From CBS News' Jill Jackson: Co-chair of the House Pro-Life Caucus, Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., told reporters, "Mr. Obama is way behind the times," at a press conference Monday afternoon.
"Making Americans pay for embryo-destroying stem cell research is not change we can believe in....it is politics," he added.
Obama Announces Stem Cell Decision
(CBS)
"As a person of faith, I believe we are called to care for each other and work to ease human suffering," he said. "I believe we have been given the capacity and will to pursue this research – and the humanity and conscience to do so responsibly."
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Salazar Approves Removing Gray Wolves From Endangered Species List
(SCIENCE)
"The recovery of the gray wolf throughout significant portions of its historic range is one of the great success stories of the Endangered Species Act," Salazar said in a statement. "When it was listed as endangered in 1974, the wolf had almost disappeared from the continental United States. Today, we have more than 5,500 wolves, including more than 1,600 in the Rockies."
Much of that success is attributable to the reintroduction of wolf populations into Yellowstone National Park in the 1990s. Wolves were transplanted to the Rocky Mountain region from Canada as a check on burgeoning populations of elk and bison. As a result, wolf populations in the park have ballooned from 30-40 wolves to the 1,600 that Salazar cited in his announcement.
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Democrats Want To Bring Scientists Back Into Environmental Policy Debate
(AP/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service )
The previous administration scrambled to re-write the rules shortly after last year's presidential election. Prior to those last-minute changes, government scientists, including wildlife biologists, had oversight on major infrastructure projects such as dams or highways and used that authority to put the brakes on proposals that they said would be dangerous for the environment.
But under the current rules, the Bush White House allowed the federal agencies building those projects to decide whether they were harmful, without the input of people qualified to make those judgments.
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Executive Privilege Compromise: Win-Win-Win
4336078Believe it or not, this is precisely the way the Founding Fathers envisioned how the Constitution could work. Pressure from the judicial branch (a pending deadline to file a substantive brief) and the legislative branch (Congressional subpoenas to Bush officials) forced the White House into compromising over the scope of executive privilege in the U.S. Attorney matter. It's a win-win-win, Steve Carell would say.
Or, you can look at it another way. The deal that finally delivers Karl Rove and Harriet Miers into Rep. John Conyers Congressional den of inquiry came about because neither the Obama Administration, nor the Congress, wanted to risk creating "bad" legal precedent about the scope of the privilege—federal law that might be political convenient now, but which could hinder future administrations (or even this one, a few years down the road).
Uncertainly about the results of litigation is what makes all sorts of parties settle all sorts of disputes all over the country—it worked this time, too.
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Or, you can look at it another way. The deal that finally delivers Karl Rove and Harriet Miers into Rep. John Conyers Congressional den of inquiry came about because neither the Obama Administration, nor the Congress, wanted to risk creating "bad" legal precedent about the scope of the privilege—federal law that might be political convenient now, but which could hinder future administrations (or even this one, a few years down the road).
Uncertainly about the results of litigation is what makes all sorts of parties settle all sorts of disputes all over the country—it worked this time, too.
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Rove, Miers Will Testify Over U.S. Attorney Firings
(AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
The two will testify before the House Judiciary Committee in transcribed depositions. They may or may not be called for public testimony.
The White House Counsel's office played an active role in bringing the parties together towards an accommodation, an official told CBS News White House Correspondent Mark Knoller.
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White House: We're In "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" Consultations
(AP)
Tauscher introduced the legislation today. (Some media outlets are erroneously reporting that she did so Monday.)
The White House has released a statement giving some sense of where it stands on the legislation. As we noted yesterday, the president may not want a fight over the issue at a time when he has a number of other major battles going on.
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Obama Restores Endangered Species Rule
(AP)
The memorandum, which the White House sent out this afternoon, reverses a move made by the Bush administration in December.
Just before the end of President Bush's term, an Endangered Species Act requirement that federal agencies consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and/or the National Marine Fisheries Service before taking actions that could harm threatened and endangered species was removed.
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A Repeal Of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell?"
(AP)
"This law has failed our country and our military for 15 years," Tauscher said at a news conference. "It harms military readiness and discriminates against patriotic young men and women who want to serve their country. It's time for Congress to right this wrong."
Tauscher planned to introduce the legislation today but did not because the weather kept the House out of session, according to communications director Jonathan Kaplan. The bill has 112 co-sponsors, he told Hotsheet, though no Republicans are among them.
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Snowy Backdrop For Global Warming Protest
Several inches of snow will be the backdrop in Washington, D.C. today for what could be the largest ever U.S. protest of global warming.
The nation's capital, along with other eastern U.S. cities, closed schools and businesses Monday after being hit by a major winter storm Sunday night. First Lady Michelle Obama cancelled her "Read Across America" event "due to inclement weather," the White House said.
Nonetheless, PowerShift '09 organizers expect thousands to protest global warming outside a southeast Washington, DC coal burning power plant starting at 11:30am E.T. Capital Power Plant provides heating and cooling to Congressional buildings, the Library of Congress and the Supreme Court.
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(iStockphoto)
Nonetheless, PowerShift '09 organizers expect thousands to protest global warming outside a southeast Washington, DC coal burning power plant starting at 11:30am E.T. Capital Power Plant provides heating and cooling to Congressional buildings, the Library of Congress and the Supreme Court.
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