Posted by David Warner on Jul. 3, 2009, at 6:19 pm
Was this a wack-job move or the first salvo in her campaign for the presidency in 2012? Depending on your perspective, you can read Sarah Palin’s press conference today either way.
The breathless recitation of right-wing talking points and multiple excuses for skipping out on her job, recited as if her inner tape-recorder were stuck on high speed, could be viewed as a slightly unhinged monologue in the Mark Sanford vein.
Then again, a breathless recitation of right-wing talking points could be just the thing her base wants to hear, and you can already imagine the scenario that’s being shaped for future campaigns: “She couldn’t stand to take part anymore in big-government Obamanomics because she’s a maverick! She’s declaring her independence!”
Never mind that Alaska has been lapping up government welfare for years; suddenly when her erstwhile Democratic opponent was doing the doling out, the money was tainted. And no matter that she’s declaring her independence from a job the voters expected her to complete; she doesn’t play by those conventional rules, people!
See video of the conference after the break. Be sure to hang on for the basketball metaphors. Read the rest of this entry »
The Obama Justice Department has reached out to major gay rights organizations and scheduled a private meeting for next week with the groups, in an apparent effort to smooth over tensions in the wake of the controversy over the administration’s defense in court of the Defense of Marriage Act.
Tracy Russo, a spokesperson for Justice, confirmed the meeting to me, after I posted … that top gay rights lawyers were miffed that administration lawyers had rebuffed their requests to meet and discuss ongoing litigation involving DOMA.
At the meeting — which hasn’t been announced and is expected to include leading gay rights groups like GLAD and Lambda Legal — both sides are expected to hash out how to proceed with pending DOMA cases.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Jun. 8, 2009, at 2:18 pm
Major has-been Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin gets another round with a national audience tonight, appearing on Sean Hannity’s unquestioning show to say “I told you so” about Barack Obama. She’s flogging the right-wing bullshit about how we are creeping toward socialism. (See the Political Whore post debunking that.)
From the interview, leaked (conveniently) to Drudge Report:
In a presidential proclamation issued on Monday, President Barack Obama officially recognized the month of June as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Month.
LGBT Americans have made, and continue to make, great and lasting contributions that continue to strengthen the fabric of American society. During LGBT Pride Month, I call upon the LGBT community, the Congress, and the American people to work together to promote equal rights for all, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.
The president’s call for equality and his acknowledgment of the many contributions LGBT people have made to America’s culture, society and politics despite being culturally, socially and politically marginalized are truly moving. However, I can’t help feeling slightly ambivalent about the whole thing. Here’s why:
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Jun. 1, 2009, at 1:28 pm
Sonia Sotomayor with her kids nephews at a ballgame. She certainly will have to be alert for foul balls in the confirmation process. (photo courtesy of whitehouse.gov)
This week’s podcast breaks down the Sonia Sotomayor Supreme Court nomination with Tampa media lawyer David Snyder. We talk about her race-based rulings, her temperament, Rush Limbaugh and Tom Tancredo’s charges of reverse racism and whether judges really do/should make policy or not.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on May. 26, 2009, at 10:19 am
Here’s a quick look at how the media — professional and otherwise — are treating this morning’s announcement of District Court of Appeal Judge Sonia Sotomayor as the first Latina to be nominated to the highest court in the land.
[UPDATE: after the jump, I've added the Libertarian Party's blistering assessment of Sotomayor as an activist judge.]
UPDATE 8:46 a.m.: Barack Obama will announce later this morning his selection of Judge Sonia Sotomayor of the Federal Appeals Court as his nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, The New York Times reports. If confirmed by the Senate she will be the third woman on the court and the first Hispanic justice.
The MSM will undoubtedly cast Obama’s first Supreme Court choice in terms of liberal vs. conservative. While the consequences of Barack Obama’s decision will have political overtones, the real debate centers around how the document in question (the U.S. Constitution) should be interpreted.
In the one camp, there’s Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, and Clarence Thomas.
In the other, Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and John Paul Stevens are firmly situated.
And Obama could announce the next member of the high court as early as today.
Ed.’s note: Peter Schweitzer is marketing and public relations professional who has worked in politics and the law. This is his first guest blog for The Political Whore.
By all accounts, President Obama’s recent controversial Notre Dame commencement address was a hit. He was cool, eloquent, and not the least bit intimidated by the U.S. bishops who had all but called for his head on a platter the weeks prior to the address. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Wayne Garcia on May. 22, 2009, at 9:49 am
With a h/t to Tampa Bay political consultant Gregory Wilson, here’s a contrarian view on scoring yesterday’s pseudo-debate on terror, Gitmo and national security. I agree with Congressional Quarterly’s assessment of Barack Obama on conventional political terms. It is a truism: When you’re ’splaining, you’re losing. And I believe Obama made no headway with the crazy left who wants to shutter Guantanamo immediately and just cut loose the terrorists or bring them on down to circuit court for good ol’ U.S. justice system trials.
But Obama won the day, make no mistake about it. He was historic, clear in his ethics, determined in his purpose that we can win against terror without becoming terrorists ourselves. He may have lost in terms of short-term public opinion but he wins the longer war. And that is what CQ, in its traditional wisdom, fails to grasp.
Having said that, reading the full CQ article makes ya think…
Posted by Wayne Garcia on May. 21, 2009, at 6:08 am
Anybody needing a distillation of the differences between the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama on the “War on Terror” need look no further than today’s competing speeches by Dick Cheney and Obama on the subject.
President Barack Obama will attempt to regain control of a boiling debate over anti-terrorism policy with a major speech on Thursday — an address that comes on the same day that former Vice President Dick Cheney will be weighing in with his own speech on the same theme.
The dueling speeches amount to the most direct engagement so far between Obama and his conservative critics in the volatile argument over what tactics are justified in detaining and interrogating suspected enemy combatants.
The national security debate — egged on by frequent charges from Cheney that Obama is leaving the country more vulnerable to attack — is the only subject on which many Republicans believe they have been able to gain traction against a popular president and the Democratic majority that now dominate Washington.
It ought to be hilariou-scary to see Cheney defend torture and keeping Gitmo open. The key to today’s semi-debate is not whether Cheney, wildly unpopular even in his own party, wins the hearts and minds of the U.S. citizenry but whether the president can score points on the left and in the middle with his “walk a thin line” approach.
President Obama spoke at Notre Dame’s commencent address on Sunday. There has been some controversy as to whether Notre Dame would honor him with an honorary law degree or not. Some from Notre Dame are opposed to Obama receiving a honorary degree because of his policy preferences, such as abortion, have not reflected the Catholic morality.
The controversy over honoring Obama with a degree may not be the most impacting news story in the world, but it does speak volumes on the issue of morality and religion and how they intersect with politics.
See video of Obama getting his honorary degree at Notre Dame after the jump.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on May. 15, 2009, at 2:34 pm
It’s not unexpected news that General Motors today started notifying some 1,100 dealers that they no longer want to do business with them, as we’re learning today, so why does President Barack Obama’s minions feel the need to euphemize the job losses?
Here is the top of the news release from Treasury:
Treasury Department Statement
on GM Dealer Consolidation Announcement
WASHINGTON – Today, General Motors initiated the dealer consolidation plan it laid out in its interim plan on April 27, 2009.
Under that terminology, we’ve got one helluva jobs consolidation situation going on right now.
General Motors notified 1,100 of its 6,000 dealerships Friday that it is terminating their contracts with the struggling automaker, the first step in cutting up to 40% of its retail network.
GM spokeswoman Susan Garontakos said that the dealers receiving notice Friday are being told that their contracts will not be renewed in October 2010. Many of them are expected to close shop this year.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on May. 13, 2009, at 12:29 pm
President Barack Obama has reveresed himself on how open his Administration will be on the torture approved by the previous George W. Bush Administration of Horrors, refusing to release Abu Ghraib torture photos. Daily Dish reports:
In what can only be seen as a stunning reversal, the president is now refusing to release photographs that would help prove that the abuse and torture techniques revealed at Abu Ghraib were endemic in the Bush military. I can’t help but wonder if this is related to his decision to appoint Stanley McChrystal as the commander of his Afghanistan war and occupation. There is solid evidence that McChrystal played an active part in enabling torture in Iraq, and his activities in charge of many secret special operations almost certainly involved condoning acts that might be illustrated by these photos. The MSM has, of course, failed to mention this in their fawning profiles of McChrystal.
Federal investigators are sifting through the records of money that helped John Edwards’ presidential campaign to determine if any was used to keep quiet his affair with Rielle Hunter.
Edwards, a Democrat and former U.S. senator, acknowledged the investigation to The News & Observer.
“I am confident that no funds from my campaign were used improperly,” Edwards said in a statement.
Hunter is the filmmaker employed by a PAC aligned with Edwards to make campaign films - while the two were “doing it.” While Edwards wife was being diagnosed with terminal cancer. While Edwards held himself out to voters as a paragon of caring for the little guy (’memba his work in Louisiana’s Katrina wreckage photo ops?).
Posted by Wayne Garcia on May. 1, 2009, at 10:08 am
President Barack Obama addresses the American Tea Party rallies (and Fox News) by saying he welcomes a serious discussion of the issues and, specifically, how to pay for health care in this CNN clip.
Posted by David Warner on May. 1, 2009, at 1:25 am
National Public Radio’s intrepid Supreme Court reporter Nina Totenberg got there first on Thursday with the news that Justice David Souter, a mere youngster at 69 compared to some of the senior citizens on the highest bench, is nevertheless sick and tired of Washington D.C. and is headed back to New Hampshire at the end of the court’s current term. He’s confident, opines Totenberg, that the new prez will select a replacement in tune with Souter’s own moderate-to-liberal bent. She predicts Obama will pick a woman as Souter’s replacement, but says the choice won’t do much to change the court’s conservative bent.
The first 100 days of the president’s administration is usually used as a report card to judge its success or gauge where it might be for the rest of its term. However, the closing of President Obama’s honeymoon may not even be the news headline as reports of Arlen Specter switching parties overshadows the president. This completely arbitrary 100th-day-mark might underscore more the status of the Republican Party than anything else.
President Obama announced on Earth Day new initiatives to harness alternative energy including wind, solar, and ocean currents. During his speech, Obama made it clear that his new initiative was not only intended to address threats of climate change but could also create new jobs.
Now, the choice we face is not between saving our environment and saving our economy. The choice we face is between prosperity and decline…. The nation that leads the world in creating new energy sources will be the nation that leads the 21st-century global economy.
It is refreshing to finally have a president who recognizes that “environmentally friendly” doesn’t mean “bad for the economy.” A video (after the jump) demonstrates how a green economy can actually create jobs. The new initiative will lease federal waters to harness wind and ocean currents as a renewable source of energy. These facilities must be designed, materials need to be bought, their construction needs to be contracted, staff needs to maintain it - all are positions waiting to be filled.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Apr. 21, 2009, at 11:43 am
It’s a tangled web, so maybe that is why it is not exactly evening news material. But the revelations this weekend that former AG Alberto “I know nooooo-thing” Gonzalez blocked a criminal investigation into a member of Congress as a political favor is explosive stuff. Here’s a recap from Mother Jones:
Everyone is entitled to a presumption of innocence–at least in a courtroom–but it is certainly suspicious that former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has not denied the most recent allegations against him. My CQ colleague Jeff Stein reported late Sunday night that Gonzales had blocked a preliminary FBI investigation into Democratic Representative Jane Harman, who had been captured by NSA eavesdroppers telling a suspected Israeli agent that she would try to use her clout to lessen espionage-related charges filed against two AIPAC officials. In return for her assistance, the suspected Israeli agent reportedly offered to help Harman become chair of the House intelligence committee. On Tuesday, The New York Times confirmed much of the story–including the piece about Gonzales: that the then-AG killed the inquiry because Harman, then the ranking Democrat on the intelligence committee, could help the Bush administration defend its use of warrantless wiretaps.
So there are two lines of inquiry that official investigators ought to follow. First, whether Harman broke the law by offering to lean on the criminal investigation of AIPAC for help in advancing her career. (The Times reports that the suspected Israeli agent promised that media mogul Haim Saban would threaten to hold back donations to Rep. Nancy Pelosi if she did not award Harman the top slot on the intelligence committee; Saban’s spokesperson did not respond to the Times’ request for comment.) Second, whether Gonzales stopped a criminal investigation because the target (Harman) could help the Bush administration. Harman has put out a very carefully-worded denial that’s full of holes. Gonzales, though, hasn’t said anything. That’s not very reassuring. Shouldn’t a former attorney general be able to declare that he never halted an investigation as a favor to a lawmaker who was doing the administration a favor? If not, there’s a problem–and a problem (no matter Barack Obama’s penchant for leaving the past behind) deserving a thorough examination by someone with subpoena power.
The CQ story: http://static.cqpolitics.com/harman-3098436-page1.html?docid=hsnews-000003098436
And the NYT folo: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/21/us/politics/21harman.html?_r=1&hp
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Apr. 20, 2009, at 12:13 pm
This week I was joined by ABC Action News anchor Brendan McLaughlin and Democratic consultant Ana Cruz. We discussed, according to my pre-production notes and links:
Is Obama a wimp? The NYT questions Obama’s determination for a good fight and details how he has compromised and capitulated. And is Obama too enamored with being on TV and being a star and not enough on producing the change he promised? What about this handshake with Hugo Chavez? http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/19/us/politics/19lobby.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
By Ben Luongo
PoHo contributor Ben Luongo is a USF political science graduate student. He will be graduating this spring.
I wanted to follow up on my last piece which was on the tea party protests, so I attended Tampa’s tea party at 5 p.m. on Wednesday. I previously wrote that the debate on Obama’s spending has suffered from the failure of both sides to provide reasons for their arguments. I therefore attended the event with the hopes of understanding some of the tea-partiers’ reasons for their concerns.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Apr. 14, 2009, at 11:28 am
President Barack Obama is giving a major economic speech at midday, reviewing what he has done about the economy in his first 12 weeks in office and why, a much more cogent argument for change and economic revolution than you will hear at any Tea Party tomorrow.
“It is simply not sustainable to have a 21st century financial system that is governed by 20th century rules and regulations that allowed the recklessness of a few to threaten the entire economy,” the president said. “It is not sustainable to have an economy where in one year, 40 percent of our corporate profits came from a financial sector that was based too much on inflated home prices, maxed out credit cards, overleveraged banks and overvalued assets; or an economy where the incomes of the top 1 percent have skyrocketed while the typical working household has seen their income decline by nearly $2,000.”
Obama then turned to the Bible for an analogy.
“There is a parable at the end of the Sermon on the Mount that tells the story of two men,” he said. “The first built his house on a pile of sand, and it was destroyed as soon as the storm hit. But the second is known as the wise man, for when “…the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house…it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.
“We cannot rebuild this economy on the same pile of sand. We must build our house upon a rock. We must lay a new foundation for growth and prosperity – a foundation that will move us from an era of borrow and spend to one where we save and invest; where we consume less at home and send more exports abroad.”
He called for more scientists and engineers and fewer financial pencil-pushers and manipulators, as well as a transition to a clean-energy carbon emissions cap. And Obama said people who focus on cutting “a few earmarks” or slashing the National Endowment for the Arts misses the bigger picture, that the deficit is driven by entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicaid/Medicare. Changing the health care system, then, is crucial to a long-term solution.
And he rightly puts some blame on the culture in Washington and the media’s shortening attention span. “For too long, too many in Washington put off hard decisions for some other time on some other day,” he said. “There’s been a tendency to score political points instead of rolling up sleeves to solve real problems. There is also an impatience that characterizes this town – an attention span that has only grown shorter with the twenty-four hour news cycle, and insists on instant gratification in the form of immediate results or higher poll numbers … instead of confronting the major challenges that will shape our future in a sustained and focused way.”
By Alexandra Koutsogiannopoulos
PoHo Contributor
Alex is the program director for the United Nations Association-USA’s Tampa Bay Chapter and is an occasional guest on the Political Whore podcast.
President Barack Obama recently outlined his plan for Afghanistan and Pakistan. The following is a brief report of his statements about what he wants to do:
In announcing a plan on Friday that could be his signature foreign policy effort, Mr. Obama said that he would send more troops — some 4,000 — but stipulated that they would not carry out combat missions, and would instead be used to train the Afghan Army and the national police.
… Mr. Obama framed the issue as one that relies on one central tenet: protecting Americans from attacks like the one that occurred on Sept. 11, 2001.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Mar. 24, 2009, at 8:56 pm
He started poorly but turned tradition on its head by bypassing the major daily newspapers and calling more niche publication writers. In his second prime time presser, President Barack Obama kept domestic issues front and center.
As weakly as Obama started the press conference, he finished it just as strongly — taking a question on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and turning it into a forceful argument for why patience is a virtue in politics and policy. He was reasonable, thoughtful and convincing. And, it’s always good to either open or close strong — although Obama’s advisers would have probably preferred a stronger opening given that the audience was likely the highest right around 8 p.m.
By Mitch Perry
PoHo contributor Mitch Perry is the anchor of the WMNF Evening News on 88.5 FM community radio.
Last Friday afternoon’s soaring (and dizzying) deficit numbers produced by the Congressional Budget Office were the last thing the Obama administration needed. Between that and what can only be labeled bailout fatigue that has exploded after the AIG debacle, there is a fear that one of the President’s most ambitious and far reaching goals of his presidency – reforming health care – could be on life support before the specifics of the plan are already announced.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Mar. 20, 2009, at 6:11 am
OK, so the Special Olympics joke bombed, prompting a White House clarification and apology. But the rest of President Barack Obama’s historic appearance on late night television Thursday was easy sledding.
“The president of the United States is here,” Tonight Show host Jay Leno said in prepping the audience, as if they didn’t already know. The rest of the interview was just like a soft-rock radio station: soft and easy. This from Joe Garofoli in the San Francisco Chronicle:
If this is what the interviews on Leno’s new 10 p.m. show is going to be like, politicians are going to be lining up for a turn wacking softballs out of the batting cage. This was the first time that a sitting president had showed up on a late night show, but Leno’s first few “questions” according to the transcript included the word “Wow” a lot.
Wow.
Not a lot of news to be made here. Obama appeared relaxed and confident, and got off the best lines. “In Washington it’s a little bit like ‘American Idol,’ except everybody is Simon Cowell.”
By Ben Luongo
PoHo contributor Ben Luongo is a USF political science graduate student. He will be graduating this spring.
I watched Dick Cheney’s first interview since he left the vice-presidency on John King’s State of the Union Sunday public affairs talker. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I shouldn’t have thought it would be different from any other Cheney interview. I knew that Cheney would continue to defend all of Bush’s Iraq war policies - he has always demonstrated unshakable confidence in previous interviews. However, his confidence in his decisions often makes him appear clueless to the consequences of those decisions.
Unfortunately, the interview was just another display of thoughtless and tiresome arguments, with the most aggravating statement said by Cheney being “with respect to Iraq, at the end of now six years, is that we have accomplished nearly everything that we had set out to do.”
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Mar. 16, 2009, at 1:22 pm
President Barack Obama didn’t get to the White House by being a dumbass, politically at least. He sees the growing populist rage at companies that are getting bailout dollars from hardworking taxpayers and squandering it on bullshit like AIG’s bonuses.
Today, with the story threatening to overwhelm his recovery agenda, Obama is trying to put the genie back in the bottle.
“In the last six months, A.I.G. has received substantial sums from the U.S. Treasury,” Mr. Obama said. He added that he had asked Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner “to use that leverage and pursue every single legal avenue to block these bonuses and make the American taxpayers whole.”
In strongly-worded remarks delivered in the White House East Room before small business owners, Mr. Obama called A.I.G. “a corporation that finds itself in financial distress due to recklessness and greed.”
“Under these circumstances, it’s hard to understand how derivative traders at A.I.G. warranted any bonuses at all, much less $165 million in extra pay,” Mr. Obama said. “How do they justify this outrage to the taxpayers who are keeping the company afloat?”
Mitch Perry is the anchor of the WMNF Evening News on 88.5 FM community radio.
As the Dow Jones Industrials and the S&P 500 continued their dismal descent last week, conservative commentators appeared proud that they alone have deciphered the reason why – it’s President Obama’s economic proposals, of course.
From the Wall Street Journal’s lead editorial on Friday:
What’s worrying about the plunge in equities since January 2, and especially in the last week since Mr. Obama released his radical budget, is that it has come amid the unveiling of the President’s policy agenda. Equity prices have reacted to those proposals by signaling that they expect a much deeper and longer recession.
It’s hard not to see the continued sell-off on Wall Street and the growing fear on Main Street as a product, at least in part, of the realization that our new president’s policies are designed to radically re-engineer the market-based U.S. economy, not just mitigate the recession and financial crisis.
And so on. Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly led off virtually every one of his “Talking Points” segments by also blaming the president’s “Socialist spending sprees” as further evidence that Wall Street is not impressed.
But is this really correct? One political theorist laughed when I asked him this last week.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Mar. 9, 2009, at 12:03 pm
Jennifer Stone-Anderson called Friday in a near panic. For those who don’t recall, she is the Tampa Bay artist who covered her 2004 Saturn Ion with her own art depicting Barack Obama, his agenda and hope. She’s behind in her car payments and is trying to sell the Obama Car, which I wrote about back in October:
The south St. Petersburg resident showed off her rolling campaign ad in our parking lot today, pointing out the giant globe that’s really a lit-fuse bomb; Arlington National Cemetery (”where our soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan are buried”); a pink ribbon for breast cancer awareness; and the admonition to recycle (curbside or otherwise) in St. Pete but not to “recycle Bush-McCain.”
Stone-Anderson said she painted the white Ion with acrylics she had leftover at home, on and off, weather permitting, for two months.
But her attempts to sell the Obama Car aren’t meeting with much success. She put it up for auction on eBay and got only one bid. For 99 cents. It cost her $60 to list it, she says.
The problem? She isn’t really selling a car, in her way of seeing it. She’s selling her artistic creation on the car.
“People are looking at the car, and I’m looking at the art,” says Stone-Anderson.
She won’t name her price but asked interested buyers to contact her (ASAP!) at twentyfivecats@yahoo.com.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Mar. 9, 2009, at 11:35 am
The weather is warming, the oak pollen is covering the ground in dark mustard yellow, so it must be time for the annual attempt by state lawmakers to kill the Hillsborough County Environmental Protection Commission.
State Reps. Rich Glorioso, R-Plant City, and Faye Culp, R-Tampa, say the county panel duplicates work done by state and regional agencies and creates obstacles for developers. They cite complaints from builders who have to get permits to fill wetlands from the local panel, as well as from state and federal regulators.
“I say we’ve got three organizations looking and doing the same thing. Why?” Glorioso asked Friday.
Culp, at a Feb. 27 House committee meeting, said she would like to “wave a magic wand and delete” the EPC.
Civic watchdog and former Hillsborough County Commission candidate says longtime EPC foe Frank Matthews is behind this attempt and the past ones.
“Behind this initiative is Frank Matthews representing statewide development interests,” said Layne, who lobbies against such laws in Tallahassee for her Coalition 4 Responsible Growth. “This is the same attorney that came into Hillsborough County over a year ago and tried to abolish EPC through a number of the County Commissioners. As you know, the public’s interest prevailed so far, but this is a very dangerous session. The Legislators are looking at putting Florida Forever on permanent hold to abolishing the Department of Community Affairs (our state’s growth management watchdog) to waiving impact fees and concurrency for transportation and schools. All in the name of economic stimulus.”
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Mar. 9, 2009, at 6:05 am
More evidence that sanity has returned to the White House, as President Barack Obama is set today to once again allow federal research dollars to be used in stem-cell investigations.
Obama was to sign an executive order and memo Monday in an East Room ceremony, a long-promised move that would fill a campaign promise. Advisers said it was part of a broader declaration on science that would guide the administration’s policies on matters ranging from renewable energy to climate change.
“I would simply say this memorandum is not concerned solely - or even specifically - with stem cell research,” said Harold Varmus, chairman of the White House’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology. He said it would address how the government uses science and who is advising officials across federal agencies.
The proposed changes do not fund creation of new lines, nor specify which existing lines can be used. They mean that scientists, who until now have had to rely on private donations to work with these newer stem cell lines, can apply for government money for the research, just like they do for studies of gene therapy or other treatment approaches.
At the same event, the president planned to announce safeguards through the National Institutes of Health so science is protected from political interference.
Was this a wack-job move or the first salvo in her campaign for the presidency in 2012? Depending on your perspective, you can read Sarah Palin’s press conference today either way.
President Obama announced on Earth Day new initiatives to harness alternative energy including wind, solar, and ocean currents. During his 
