Opinion: In today’s pages: Stem cells, earmarks and ‘fear-mongering’
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Today’s editorial page leads off with kudos to President Obama for reversing the Bush administration’s ban on federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research, but chides him for not calling on Congress to reverse its own restrictions. While we’re at it, we helpfully point out that California would be a terrific place to invest some of that federal money, given all the facilities and scientists here thanks to 2004’s Proposition 71.
We also call for more transparency on earmarks, as the Senate prepares to approve an omnibus spending bill that contains more than 8,500 of them accounting for $7.7 billion. And we urge Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder to reverse the Bush administration’s position on medical marijuana research and change the culture at the Drug Enforcement Agency, whose rigid ideological position on cannabis is thwarting the advancement of science.
On the Op-Ed page, Santa Monica City Councilman Bobby Shriver and environmental lawyer Joel Reynolds plea for the state Legislature to fix what ails the Orange County Transportation Corridor Agencies, an organization whose devotion to toll roads is threatening mobility, the environment and recreation.
David Schenker, Arab politics expert at a Washington think tank, worries that the Obama administration’s efforts to reach out toward Syria’s authoritarian government will come at the cost of U.S. attempts to advance human rights. And writer Charles Fleming, in an installment of the ‘Postcards from the Recession’ series about the real-world impacts of the troubled economy, describes the wrenching effects of hard times on Southern California’s self-employed creative community.
Finally, columnist Jonah Goldberg wonders why liberals think it’s OK for the Obama administration to use the economic crisis as an opportunity to impose a far-reaching liberal agenda, when they excoriated President Bush for using 9/11 as an opportunity to encourage right-wing policies. ‘It’s not leadership. It’s fear-mongering,’ Goldberg says of Obama’s style.
All that, and Letters too!
* Photo of a public hearing for the Foothill South toll road by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times