by Krystle Weeks
January 30, 2009
Here’s two blog posts from the blogosphere today.
by David Prentice
January 30, 2009
POSITION: SCIENCE ADVISOR
AND Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy
AND Co-Chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST)
NOMINEE: John Holdren
BIRTH DATE: March 1, 1944 Sewickley, PA, grew up in San Mateo, CA
EDUCATION:
Ph.D. in aeronautics/astronautics and theoretical plasma physics 1970, Stanford University
M.S. in aeronautics & astronautics 1966, MIT
B.S. in aeronautics & astronautics 1965, MIT
FAMILY: Wife Dr. Cheryl E. Holdren, a biologist; two children and four grandchildren
FRC SCORECARD: NA
EXPERIENCE:
June 2005-present Director, Woods Hole Research Center, Falmouth, MA
1996-present Harvard University
1973-present University of California-Berkeley
1972-1973 California Institute of Technology
1970-1973, 1973-present as consultant, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
1969-1970 Stanford University
1966-1967 Lockheed Missiles and Space Company, Sunnyvale, California
Brief Professional CV at Harvard
And Woods Hole Research Center
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
1994-2001 Member of Clinton’s President’s Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST)
Member National Academy of Sciences
Member National Academy of Engineering
ON EMBRYONIC STEM CELL EXPERIMENTATION and CLONING
“AAAS worked to increase support for the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act, too, by issuing a statement decrying the President’s second veto of the initiative, which had twice passed in the House and Senate, with votes from Republicans and Democrats alike. Association staff later teamed up with stem cell pioneer James Thomson to publish an op-ed that appeared in the Washington Post and at least nine other newspapers.”
Welcome Letter from John Holdren, AAAS Chair & Alan Leshner, AAAS CEO; AAAS 2007 annual report
[Source]
Holdren’s views on another controversy, embryonic stem cell research, also are likely to run contrary to those of Bush, who has restricted U.S. funding to minimize the number of embryos destroyed to create new colonies of cells.
Holdren has already said he thinks the research should advance without the funding restrictions, said David Baltimore, the 1975 Nobel Prize winner who is now a biology professor at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
[Source]
“The President has again vetoed the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act, which would expand federal support for embryonic stem cell research. AAAS, the world’s largest general scientific society, stands with a broad coalition of Americans spanning all parties and faiths that supports this bill.
The scientific consensus is that embryonic stem cell research is an extremely promising approach to developing more effective treatments for devastating conditions like diabetes, spinal cord injuries, and Parkinson’s disease. The bill would mandate that such research be allowed to compete for federal funding while following strict ethical guidelines.
The Executive Order is not a substitute for the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act. The new approaches addressed by the order are still in the early stages of development and appear to already be eligible for NIH funding. AAAS strongly believes that it is only through federal support of diverse avenues of stem cell research, including especially embryonic stem cell research, that we may better understand the potential value and limitations of each approach.
During his tenure the President has acknowledged that it is a critical time for the American scientific enterprise, therefore it is disappointing that he has chosen to maintain restrictions on such a promising area of research. AAAS will continue to support the interests of scientists and patients in fostering medical progress.”
AAAS statement, 20 June 2007
AAAS supports human experimental cloning
“We believe that cloning for research purposes, where stem cells are extracted for further study, holds great promise for contributing to human health and dignity by developing effective treatments or cures for people whose daily lives are challenged by serious diseases and injuries that cause great suffering and premature death. On the other hand, AAAS has endorsed a legal ban on efforts to clone human embryos for reproduction.”
AAAS statement on March 7, 2005:
Other AAAS Policy Statements
ON GLOBAL WARMING/CLIMATE CHANGE
“The extent of unfounded skepticism about the disruption of global climate by human-produced greenhouse gases is not just regrettable, it is dangerous.”
[Source]
“Global warming is a misnomer. It implies something gradual, something uniform, something quite possibly benign, and what we’re experiencing is none of those,” Holdren said a year ago in a speech at Harvard. “There is already widespread harm … occurring from climate change. This is not just a problem for our children and our grandchildren.”
[Source]
Advised Al Gore on the documentary “An Inconvenient Truth.”
[Source]
Dr. Holdren’s resistance to dissenting views was also on display earlier this year in an article asserting that climate skeptics are “dangerous.”
[Source]
MISCELLANEOUS
“In 1980 Dr. Holdren helped select five metals – chrome, copper, nickel, tin and tungsten – and joined Dr. Ehrlich and Dr. Harte in betting $1,000 that those metals would be more expensive ten years later. They turned out to be wrong on all five metals, and had to pay up when the bet came due in 1990.”
[Source]
A John Holdren Reader (selected slides, videos, & writings by Holdren)
[Source]
In 1995 he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, for which he served as chair of the executive committee from 1987 to 1997.
Some consider Holdren to be intolerant of dissenting viewpoints.
[Source]
by Tony Perkins
January 30, 2009
by Krystle Weeks
January 30, 2009
Here’s what we are reading today.
by Tom McClusky
January 30, 2009
While the homosexual lobby suffered some losses last year they are not resting on their laurels and neither should we.
In Texas last week, a homosexual Dallas man filed for divorce from his partner in Dallas County’s 302nd District Court. The couple “married” in 2006 when they lived in Massachusetts. Up in Maine, on the heels of the homosexual lobby group GLAD’s vow to redefine marriage throughout New England, forces are gathering to defeat a legislative measure that would legalize homosexual marriage in the Pine Tree State. In the state of Hawaii, where in 1998 nearly 70 percent of Hawaii voters supported traditional marriage when they passed a constitutional amendment that gave the state legislature the authority to reserve marriage to one man and one woman, is now seeking to redefine marriage by passing “marriage lite,” or civil unions.
Two states that saw marriage victories in 2008 are still fighting back forces that seek to undermine families. In California a federal judge has denied a request to keep names of donors to the state’s marriage protection amendment secret. An updated list of late donors is to be released Monday. This is of great concern for we witnessed both during and after the marriage amendment debate in California donors in support of marriage faced vandalism, losing their jobs and other forms of thuggery. Meanwhile in Arizona, a new initiative drive seeks to give homosexual Arizonans civil partnerships or counterfeit marriage.
Pro-family advocates are not just sitting around waiting for the other side to attack. Just an example of the many pro-marriage initiatives include the state of Wyoming seeking to pass a marriage amendment in their state and the city council of Sioux City, Iowa looking to pass a resolution defining marriage for their city.
For more information on what is going on in your state and what you can do about it please contact your state family policy council listed here.
by Tony Perkins
January 29, 2009
As the ice melted off my computer yesterday morning in D.C., I was able to find an email from Chicken Little–disguised as Al Gore. He’s the Chairman of the Alliance for Climate Protection. Mr. Gore was reaching out to the UFO crowd and others about how the “entrenched interests in Washington will be working hard to weaken” President Obama’s stimulus bill.
The closer one looks at the so-called stimulus bill, the more you see that is a pork-laden political payoff which includes billions of dollars to those “entrenched interests in Washington” which Mr. Gore speaks of, most of whom have been at the public trough for years. They include groups like Planned Parenthood and the controversial and corrupt ACORN. Because this measure–which is now estimated to cost taxpayers $1.1 trillion–is so big, there are billions to be passed out to all kinds of left wing groups. Near the top of this list is the green lobby that Al Gore and his global warming alarmists are a part of.
By the way, in a recent Pew Research Center Poll of what Americans said were their public policy priorities – Al Gore was left out in the cold – global warming ranked dead last.
by Krystle Weeks
January 29, 2009
Here’s some of the buzz coming from the blogosphere today.
by Chris Gacek
January 29, 2009
There has been much press coverage of the fact that all House GOP members voted against the Pelosi stimulus bill yesterday. Well, something like eleven Democrats voted against the measure… but not so much coverage of that. Of considerable interest is the fact that Paul Kanjorski (Dem-PA) was amongst the dissenters. Kanjorski appears on CNBC regularly and has a friendly, bi-partisan persona. He is also the “senior member,” under Chairman Barnie Frank, on the Financial Services Committee. In fact, he chairs the sub-committee on “Capital Markets, Insurance, and Government Sponsored Enterprises.” That sounds like a pretty important job in a financial/banking crisis. Given all that, Kanjorski’s vote against the stimulus bill seems very important. Hopefully, we’ll get the scoop from CNBC host Larry Kudlow, the most important economic journalist in the Obama era, who has interviewed Kanjorski on numerous occasions. Perhaps, Democrat support for the spending plan is less solid than we are being led to believe.
by Tom McClusky
January 29, 2009
When you have a huge bill like Hr. 1, the so-called stimulus bill, sometimes it takes a while for things to come out. I’ve found some updates on political pork being directed towards the
author of the bill’s, Rep. David Obey (D-Wisc.), son. Also the unions are given a sweet deal and, in what could possibly be called a bailout for the porn industry, the National Science Foundation gets $1.2 billion.
Read the updated list here.
by Krystle Weeks
January 29, 2009
Here’s what we are reading today.
by Tom McClusky
January 28, 2009
We have a new contender for my favorite Congressman of the 111th Congress, not sure if this is in time for Wesley Snipes though (my new nominee for Treasury Secretary):
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 27, 2009
New Bill Would Eliminate All IRS Penalties and Interest for U.S. Citizens
Congressman John Carter to introduce “Rangel Rule” Legislation Wednesday
(Washington, DC) – U.S. Rep. John Carter (R-TX) will introduce new legislation tomorrow to eliminate all penalty and interest charges by the Internal Revenue Service against U.S. citizens. The bill is designed to provide the same treatment for all U.S. taxpayers owing back taxes as that enjoyed by House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel (D-NY).
by Chris Gacek
January 28, 2009
What’s up in Alaska? Senator Lisa Murkowski today voted with President Obama to overturn the Mexico City Policy which, according to World Magazine, “prohibits grantees in receipt of U.S. funding from performing abortions, lobbying to legalize abortion, or promoting abortion as a family-planning method.” (See also, our Tom McClusky’s description of the policy below – in the blog on 1/23/09.) That places her in the company of liberal Republicans Arlen Specter, Susan Collins, and Olympia Snowe as the only Republicans to vote with the Democrats. Alaska’s new senator, Mark Begich, voted to fund overseas abortion providers as well.
I wonder whether Sarah Palin would have made it a trio ?? The GOP Platform on which Palin ran for President with John McCain stated:
“We strongly support the long-held policy of the Republican Party known as the ‘Mexico City policy,’ which prohibits federal monies from being given to non-governmental organizations that provide abortions or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning in other countries. We reject any treaty or agreement that would violate those values.”
Perhaps, I am wrong, but I never heard Palin stating an objection to the platform on this point.
by Tom McClusky
January 28, 2009
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recently found that the cost of the Pelosi-Reid stimulus package now exceeds $1.1 trillion. CBO also estimated that only 7 percent of infrastructure money would make its way into the economy by the end of the year and only 38 percent would be spent by the end of the 2010 fiscal year. Senator Jeff Session’s (R-Ala.) office estimates the actual number going to tangible road and bridge construction is just a little more than 3 percent.
Where is this money going to? A not exhaustive look at the 1,588 page legislation, H.R. 1, “The American Recovery & Reinvestment Act of 2009″ shows the bill is more payoffs and pork then stimulus.
Many thanks to the website readthestimulus.org and its participating organizations.
PAYOFFS
To the “Green” Lobby
$600 Million To Buy New Cars For Government Workers (Page 89)
These cars would be “green” friendly cars – however very few gas pumps have the right gas to run these cars. The Federal government already spends $3.5 billion a year.
$10M for bike and walking trails (Page 65)
$200M for plug-in car stations (Page 31)
$400 million for NASA scientists to conduct climate change research (Page 22)
$800 million to clean up Superfund sites (Page 122)
$600 million for grants for diesel emission reduction (Page 119)
$650 million for “alternative energy technologies, energy efficiency enhancements and deferred maintenance at Federal facilities” (Page 119)
$1.5 billion for construction of “Green Schools” (Page 176)
To the Unions
$1 billion to the controversial COMMUNITY ORIENTED POLICING SERVICES COPS Hiring Program
“$150 billion in new federal spending, a vast two-year investment that would more than double the Department of Education’s current budget. The proposed emergency expenditures on nearly every realm of education, including school renovation, special education, Head Start and grants to needy college students” Sam Dillon, “Stimulus Plan Would Provide Flood of Aid to Education,” New York Times. January 27, 2009. NOTE: Private and religious schools are excluded.
Look for the Union Label. “The stimulus bill passed by the House last night contains a controversial provision that would mostly bar foreign steel and iron from the infrastructure projects laid out by the $819 billion economic package. A Senate version, yet to be acted upon, goes further, requiring, with few exceptions, that all stimulus-funded projects use only American-made equipment and goods.” Anthony Faiola, “‘Buy American’ Rider sparks trade Debate,” Washington Post, January 29, 2009.
To the Abortion Industry
Representative Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) inserted in the original bill billions of dollars for family planning groups, including the abortion giant, Planned Parenthood. Pressure and public exposure from Congressional Republicans forced the Democrats to remove such funding from this bill. However the bill still provides billions in reforming the health care system and working towards nationalized health care – with little to no debate.
$2.7B in NIH grants which would be targeted to among other things embryonic stem cell experimentation. (Page 56)
Other Special Interests
$3 Billion for Prevention & Wellness Programs, Including $335 million for STD Education and Prevention — Recent government expenditures in this area include a transgender beauty pageant in San Francisco that advertised available HIV testing and an event called “Got Love? – Flirt/Date/Score” that taught participants how “to flirt with greater finesse.”
$83 billion for the earned income credit for people who don’t pay income tax. SOURCE Wall Street Journal
$246 million for Hollywood SOURCE National Journal
$50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts (Page 122)
$75 million for smoking cessation (Page 148). This contradicts the latest version of SCHIP that is funded largely by new taxes on cigarettes.
$4.19 billion open to ACORN. The Pelosi-Reid bill makes groups like ACORN eligible for a $4.19 billion pot of money for “neighborhood stabilization activities.”
MISCELLANEOUS PORK
Some of the biggest winners in the package are federal agencies and Congressional relatives:
$2 Billion for national parks. “A top House Republican is demanding an investigation into whether the more than $2 billion for national parks in the House stimulus package is proper in light of the fact that the chief lobbyist for the National Parks Conservation Association is the son of House Appropriations Committee Chairman David R. Obey (chief author of the bill.)” Stephen Dinan and S.A. Miller, “Stimulus has plum for Lawmakers Son,” Washington Times, January 29, 2009.
$54 billion will go to federal programs that the Office of Management and Budget or the Government Accountability Office have already criticized as “ineffective” or unable to pass basic financial audits. SOURCE Wall Street Journal
$462 Million for Equipment, Construction, and Renovation of Facilities at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) (Page 137)
$1.2 billion to the National Science Foundation (Page 46) “Chuck Grassley knows it when he sees it. The “it,” of course, is pornography. And Grassley has seen it deep in a demurely titled section of a report from the National Science Foundation — a report that says NSF employees have been spending significant amounts of company time on smut sites and in other explicit pursuits . . . In one particularly egregious case, the report says one NSF “senior official” was discovered to have spent as much as 20 percent of his working hours over a two-year interval ‘viewing sexually explicit images and engaging in sexually explicit online ‘chats’ with various women.’ Investigators calculated the value of the time lost at more than $58,000 — for that employee alone.” Andie Coller, “Grassley Lainches Porn Inquiry,” Politico, January 29, 2009.
$150 Million for Repairs to Smithsonian Institution Facilities (Page 128)
$44 million to the Agricultural Research Service (Page 135)
$227 million for oversight of the pork barrel spending in the stimulus (Page 11)
$1 Billion for the Follow-Up to the 2010 Census (Page 49)
Discretion is given to governors and Mayors for how to spend a large chunk of the money. The U.S. Conference of Mayors recently sent Congress a $96.6 billion wish list of “shovel-ready” projects which now could be funded by the stimulus. These projects include: “$1 million for annual sewer rehabilitation in Casper, WY; $6.1 million for corporate hangars, parking lots, and a business apron at the Fayetteville, AR airport; 28 projects with the term “stadium” in them; and 117 projects mentioning landscaping and/or beautification efforts. The taxpayers should be most teed off at the 20 golf courses included in the list.” SOURCE National Taxpayers Union
by Krystle Weeks
January 28, 2009
Today’s Blogosphere Buzz is focused on the stimulus legislation that Congress is going to be voting on this evening.
by Krystle Weeks
January 28, 2009
Here’s what we are reading today.
by Tom McClusky
January 27, 2009
POSITION: DEPUTY SECRETARY OF STATE
NOMINEE: James Steinberg
Born: May 7, 1953.
Family: Wife, Sherburne B. Abbott, and two children.
Work history: A clerk to a federal judge; an aide to Senator Edward M. Kennedy on the Senate Armed Services Committee; and an analyst at the RAND Corporation in California. He held several top national security positions in the Clinton administration, including State Department chief of staff and director of the department’s policy planning staff. Until 2005, he was vice president and director of foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution in Washington. He is now dean of the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas but has remained at the center of the Democratic Party’s shadow foreign policy establishment. NY Times bio
Education: J.D., Yale Law School, 1978; B.A., Harvard University (Phi Beta Kappa and John Harvard Scholar), 1973
Clinton White House: From December 1996 to August 2000, he served as deputy national security advisor to President Bill Clinton. During that period he also served as the president’s personal representative (“Sherpa”) to the 1998 and 1999 G-8 summits. Prior to becoming deputy national security advisor, he served as chief of staff of the U.S. State Department and director of the State Department’s policy planning staff (1994-1996), and as deputy assistant secretary for analysis in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (1993-1994).
Abortion
“James B. Steinberg, President Obama’s nominee to be the next Deputy Secretary of State, claimed in written testimony to the Foreign Relations Committee that Congress cannot constitutionally restrict taxpayer funding to perform or promote abortions. Mr. Steinberg stated that the Mexico City policy, which bars taxpayer funding of abortions overseas, ‘is an unnecessary restriction that, if applied to organizations based in this country, would be an unconstitutional limitation on free speech.’
Steinberg’s opinion is in direct contradiction to the U.S. Supreme Court, which has already definitively decided the matter in Rust v. Sullivan in 1991. The court’s majority opinion concluded: ‘The Government has no constitutional duty to subsidize an activity merely because it is constitutionally protected, and may validly choose to allocate public funds for medical services relating to childbirth but not to abortion.’
Steinberg’s statement was made in response to a question about President Obama’s efforts to repeal the ‘Mexico City policy,’ which bars organizations that receive funding from the State Department to agree to ‘neither perform nor actively promote abortion as a method of family planning in other nations.’” Senator Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) blog, referring to written questions he submitted to the nominee.
[Source]
On the Bush Doctrine of Preventive Force
“Preventive military force has a role in managing today’s security challenges. Understanding that role is step one; establishing agreed standards for its use is step two; and implanting these standards in an effective institution is the third step. The Bush administration got the first step right, and the logic of its arguments builds toward the second. But it has gotten step three wrong. Unilateralism is not the only alternative to the Security Council. Regional organizations and a new coalition of democratic states offer ways to legitimize the use of force when the council fails to meet its responsibilities.” James Steinberg and Ivo Daalder, “Preventive War, A Useful Tool.” Los Angeles Times, December 4, 2005.
Helped Craft Obama Doctrine On Negotiating with Hostile Countries
“Advisers to Sen. Obama play down charges from conservatives that there is a downside risk if U.S. efforts to engage Iran fail to halt Tehran’s nuclear program immediately. They stress that any overtures would be made only after extensive deliberations inside Washington, as well as with U.S. allies. But they said such an initiative would unify the international community on Iran, while shifting the blame for any failure to resolve the nuclear issue squarely onto Tehran. ‘There are no guarantees diplomacy will succeed, but you also know that if it doesn’t you’ve strengthened your hands with other people,’ said Mr. Steinberg, who served as deputy national-security adviser from 1996 to 2000.” Jay Solomon, “Obama’s Mideast experts Emphasize talks,” Wall Street Journal, June 16, 2008.
On Nuclear Weapons, Guantanamo and the International Criminal Court
“On the military side, Washington must begin devaluing nuclear weapons. The United States can’t uninvent them, and will need some nuclear capability for the foreseeable future. But if we want Iran and North Korea to give them up and for China and Russia to limit their arsenals and prevent proliferation, we must take steps of our own: canceling new weapons programs – like the nuclear bunker buster, ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and mounting a massive global campaign to secure loose nukes and nuclear materials. Finally, don’t hesitate to stand up for our values: democracy, the rule of law and human rights. But remember that the best way to get others to share them is by example, not coercion. Close Guantanamo. Join the International Criminal Court.” James Steinberg, “Enough: Americans Should Lead by Example, and start by closing Guantanamo Bay,” Newsweek. January 1, 2008.
Miscellaneous
A voracious reader, fly fisherman, runner and workaholic who often rises before dawn to run several miles before getting to the office. He has several marathons under his belt. Was struck by a car while running in Los Angeles but has recovered from his injuries. NY Times bio
by Michael Leaser
January 27, 2009
In the latest Mapping America, the National Survey of Children’s Health shows that biological parents and adoptive parents who live together and whose children attend religious services at least monthly report less parenting stress than those who do not live together and whose children attend religious services less frequently.
by Krystle Weeks
January 27, 2009
Welcome to a new segment on the FRC Blog featuring posts from the web. Here’s the two featured posts.
by Krystle Weeks
January 27, 2009
Here’s what we are reading this morning.
by Bill Saunders
January 26, 2009
The results keep coming in, and the results are great. Research using adult stem cells continues to yield success in treating living human beings. While the media is all agog over a new (the first) FDA approved trial for embryonic stem cells, the real story is the continuing success with adult stem cells, which can be isolated and used in treatments without any ethical problems. In our semi-annual update, David Prentice and I collect and discuss only such successes from the last 6 months, and they are impressive.
In our 12 page report, you’ll meet people who have been helped with adult stem cells, such as 9-month old Chole Levine, who made a 50 % recovery from cerebral palsy, Susan Fister who overcame leukemia, 12 year-old Michael Wenman whose digestive tract had been destroyed by a malfunctioning immune system prior to his ASC treatment, among many others. Their stories show that we can provide highly successful treatments to suffering human beings without engaging in unethical embryonic stem cell research. In embryonic stem cell research, human beings in the embryonic state must be destroyed; with adult stem cell research, on the other hand, we can use stem cells in a person’s own body, or from cord blood “banked” at birth, to treat them. This is ethical science and medical at their best.
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