GOP Backs Non-Destructive Cell Research

Embryonic stem cell research that doesn't destroy budding human life? Right now, it's possible only in theory, or on animals. But those alternatives to the most promising stem cell science are enough to win the attention of anti-abortion Republicans and
President Bush.

What do you think?

McCain weighs in on Guantanamo debate

Arguing that "even Adolf Eichmann got a trial,'' Republican Sen. John McCain said Sunday that the Bush administration must establish a system to try and perhaps free suspected terrorists from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba - even if they turn around and attack the United States.

"Some of these guys are terrible, terrible killers and the worst kind of scum of humanity,'' the Arizona senator said on NBC News' "Meet the Press" of the 520 men from dozens of nations who have been swept up around the globe in the war on terror.

But, "they deserve to have some adjudication of their cases,'' he said, despite a "fear that, if you release them, they'll go back and fight against us. Balance that against what it's doing to our reputation throughout the world and whether it's enhancing recruiting for people to join al-Qaida and do bad things to the United States of America.''

Do you agree with Senator McCain?

Social Security Reformers Grab A Political Porcupine

It shouldn't be this painful to debate Social Security reform.
Members of Congress have discovered that whoever is willing to talk about the retirement program's shortcomings gets jabbed with unfair accusations - plotting its demise, scheming to cheat seniors, or conspiring to raise taxes.
The only safe position seems to be hands off, which is unfortunate because changes really must be made.
Consider Republican Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite. Her district - Hernando, Citrus and Sumter and parts of Polk, Pasco, Marion, Levy and Lake counties - has more Social Security recipients than any other congressional district in the country. She understands how vital Social Security is to the people who elected her, but she wants to find ways to strengthen the program for the next generation.

Her willingness to consider a few limited options has drawn vicious attacks. Her district was hit with six rounds of ``scare calls'' telling voters that ``Brown- Waite is going to take away your Social Security.''
Meanwhile President Bush continues his effort to convince the nation that retirement reform is essential and nothing to be afraid of.
``My strategy is pretty simple,'' he recently told the Association of Builders and Contractors. ``Explain the problem to the American people, and keep explaining it and explaining it.''
But the more he explains, the more polls show Americans don't like what they're hearing.
What is hard for members of Congress to talk about is the responsibility that comes with the right to a secure retirement. Someone has to pay for it. Under the present system, in about 12 years payroll taxes will be insufficient to pay seniors what they expect. There is a trust fund, but it has been spent and represents a debt the country owes itself.
While Bush's proposal, which includes new private investment accounts for younger workers, isn't going anywhere, his willingness to take the lead has led to progress elsewhere. The chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Bill Thomas, is working on a retirement reform bill that includes Social Security as well as pensions, many of which also are underfunded.
The California Republican says, ``If you're going to do it, my goal is to do it right.''
He's not ready to say exactly what is the right way to grab this prickly creature. Whatever is included in his bill, you can be bet it will come with a warning: Handle with care. But voters should understand, it must be handled.

from Tampa Tribune

Court's ruling on marijuana reeks of 'reefer madness'

Diane Monson has suffered for years from degenerative spine disease and painful muscle spasms. Three years ago, federal agents barged into her house, seized and destroyed the six marijuana plants Monson was growing at her doctor's suggestion. Monson, an accountant who lives in Oroville, Calif., had been getting relief from the active ingredient in marijuana that no ordinary drug had been able to provide.

It was all legal under the laws of California, one of 10 states that since 1996 have authorized patients to grow or obtain marijuana for medical needs with a doctor's recommendation. But the high court ruled that Congress' blanket ban on marijuana trumps the states' compassionate desire to create a limited exception for medicinal reasons.

Monson and Angel Raich are the latest collateral damage in Washington's indiscriminate war on drugs. Raich, an Oakland mother of two, is subject to severe, debilitating pain from an inoperable brain tumor and more than a dozen other ailments. Her desperate measures, seeking relief in using marijuana grown for her at no cost by her two caregivers, caused her to join Monson's court case three years ago - and now could make her also liable to federal prosecution.
The Court's 6-3 decision was a stretched interpretation of the clause in the Constitution that gives Congress the power to regulate interstate commerce.
Under Monday's ruling, growing marijuana at home for medicinal purposes, with no money changing hands, is somehow now a form of interstate commerce. It makes you wonder what the majority was smoking.

As Justice Clarence Thomas' name said in his dissenting opinion, "If Congress can regulate this ... under the commerce clause, then it can regulate virtually anything."
That warning ought to be a rallying cry for conservative members of Congress elected under the banner of small government and respect for states rights.

Justice John Paul Stevens', writing for the court's majority, told Monson, Raich and anyone in a similar fix that their recourse is to get Congress to change the 1970 federal law that bans possession or distribution of marijuana.

Given the "reefer madness" in Washington that has led to an overemphasis on marijuana prosecutions in the war on drugs, the prospects for early congressional action seem remote. In the meantime, surely federal prosecutors and drug-control agents have better things to do than to swoop down on critically ill people who are abiding by state law and haul them off to court.

USA Today

The Mysteries of Watergate

The remarkable thing about the revelation of the identity of the Watergate-era tipster known as "Deep Throat" is that nothing about the news seems particularly remarkable.
In hindsight, we should have known that Washington Post writer Bob Woodward's source for the investigative reports he and Carl Bernstein wrote about Nixon-era corruption would not be an idealist who sought to expose a corrupt presidency. Rather, like so many of Woodward's sources over the years, W. Mark Felt was a consummate Washingtion insider. Far from being someone who feared for the Republic, Felt was a protege of longtime Federal Bureau of Investigation director J. Edgar Hoover.
Felt certainly couldn't have been all that worried about Nixonian skullduggery, as the tipster himself would eventually be convicted of authorizing federal agents to illegally break into the homes of suspected anti-Vietnam War radicals.
Indeed, it appears that "Deep Throat" was less concerned about defending democracy than about getting back at then-President Richard Nixon for refusing him the directorship after Hoover's death in May 1972.
So Watergate ends up as another story of powerful men undercutting one another in a squabble over turf and bruised egos.
But, of course, it was more important than that. Despite the fact that Felt comes off as something less than a hero, he remains a necessary player in a national drama that had a happy ending: a dishonest and dishonorable president was exposed and forced from office.
Perhaps that is why there is so much fascination with Watergate. It reminds us that the American experiment really can yield positive results, especially when the Fourth Estate prods Congress to police an out-of-control Executive Branch.
Considering the current circumstances of the nation, when Woodward and so many other members of the Washington press corps act as little more than stenographers to power, this week's renewed attention to the Watergate story ought to inspire an aching nostalgia in Americans who still take their citizenship seriously. It is inspiring to think that the system did once work; but it is painful to recognize the reality that Richard Nixon would never have been forced from office by today's major media organizations or today's Congress. And it is agonizing to think of how the far more serious crimes of presidents who succeeded Nixon -- especially, though certainly not exclusively, those of the current occupant of the White House -- go essentially unchallenged, even as more credible and patriotic Deep Throats than Mr. Felt have emerged.

Ultimately, now that Deep Throat has been revealed as just another cynical Washington insider playing the system for all it was worth, one Watergate mystery remains. And it turns out to be a far more perplexing and troublesome one than that of some back-alley tipster's identity.
What remains is the mystery of how America, a country that proved her ability to depose a petty crook from power in the 1970s, has drifted so far from her ethical moorings. At the most fundamental level, it is not so difficult to unravel this mystery. A simple calculation of the roles of big media and big money campaign contributions provides most if not all of the explanation that is needed. But that calculus points to the lingering quandry of our time: Will we ever muster enough outrage at a stenographic media and a compliant Congress to steer America back to that place where lawless presidents are held accountable for their lies and the deadly consequences of their misdeeds?

John Nichols