The request was made by Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ). A copy of his letter to White House Press Secretary Scott McLellan can be found by clicking here: clicking here:
Lautenberg aide Yuna Jacobson told JABBS yesterday that there have been "no new developments on the acquisition of related documents from the White House Press Office."
To use the popular parlance, I believe we have a filibuster.
Without the documents or other help from the White House Press Office, Lautenberg and other Senate Democrats can't undertake a thorough investigation into how Guckert received press credentials, which allowed him to ask questions of McClellan and in one case, President Bush.
A similar request for information, made April 25 by Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-MI) and Louise M. Slaughter (D-NY), has also been ignored. Read on...
Researchers in South Korea, reporting in Science Magazine, have just turned the debate over stem cell research on its head. They cloned stem cells from injured and sick patients, cells with the exact genetic makeup of the patients. See the word “cloned.” Or, in other words, they produced embryos that are exact genetic clones of the patients from which they extracted the cells. Cell lines usually have been taken from the detritus of fertilization clinics and from aborted fetuses, and we all know how controversial that is. This is a whole different thing. Last year, the group at the Seoul National University derived embryonic stem cells but the technique was very inefficient and generally useless, one cell line in 200 tries. Not all scientists believed them, truth be told. They now report a method that is ten times better, a cell line in fewer than 20 times, and in nine cases with women patients, got one every time they tried. That could mean patients needing stem cell transplants for things like Parkinson’s disease could use clones of themselves, greatly reducing the complexities of rejection and a rebellious immune system. No one has yet expressed any doubts to the veracity of their paper. Read on...
