Obama Announces Food Safety Appointments
In his weekly video address, President Obama announced the appointment of Dr. Margaret Hamburg as the new Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, and Dr. Joshua Sharfstein as Principal Deputy Commissioner:
Obama also a announced a new Food Safety Working Group to deal with recent regulatory failures that have resulted in food recalls: “In the end, food safety is something I take seriously, not just as your President, but as a parent.”
GOP YouTube: “The Government Doesn’t Create Wealth. It Expends Wealth”
In the weekly Republican YouTube, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) goes after the Obama Administration for taxing and spending:
“It’s very simple. The government doesn’t create wealth. It expends wealth,” said Grassley. “No wonder then the public is skeptical about Washington trying to fix the economy with one massive spending bill after another. It’s hard to convince taxpayers that more deficit spending is the answer.”
Obama Meets With Brazil’s Lula da Silva
President Obama met at 11 a.m. this morning with Brazilian President Lula da Silva. The topics of their discussion included the upcoming G-20 meeting and the Summits of the Americas, the financial crisis, energy policy and the environment.
Biden Campaigning For Dem Senator Blanche Lincoln
Vice President Biden is traveling today to Little Rock Arkansas, where he will attend the kickoff for Senator Blanche Lincoln’s (D) 2010 re-election campaign. Biden will be speaking at the event.
WaPo: Obama Blaming Bush
The Washington Post points out that President Obama has taken to frequently saying that he has inherited particular problems that he’s dealing with, which has Republicans complaining of partisanship. Former Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer claimed to the Post that Obama is doing this because his approval numbers are going down: “His response to that trend is to turn up the blame on George Bush and everything that came before him. And he was the one who talked about getting past partisanship.”
NYT: Republicans Split On Whether To Offer Budget Alternative
The New York Times reports that Congressional Republicans have split on whether they should offer up an alternative budget plan, as opposed to simply criticizing President Obama’s $3.6 trillion plan. House Republicans are offering a plan, while the Senate Republicans are not. “The responsibility of the majority is to produce the budget,” said Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH), the ranking Republican on the Budget Committee, “and we think it is more constructive to point out how we would improve their budget.”
Pelosi: I Am Not Partisan — And GOP Can’t Win On Policy Or Process
In an interview with Charlie Rose, Nancy Pelosi denied Republican accusations that she has been an overly partisan leader, explaining that Republicans were invited to contribute ideas for the stimulus bill — they just didn’t win the arguments. “If you can’t win on policy, then you go to process,” said Pelosi. “If you can’t win on process, then you go to personality. And that’s how they have decided they would make up stories about me and the rest.”
NYT: Bush Policy Institute To Be A Political, Not Academic Institution
The New York Times examines the upcoming Bush policy institute at Southern Methodist University, and the battles that the Bush Foundation has had with academics there: “It will proselytize rather than explore: a letter sent to universities bidding for the Bush center stipulated that the institute would, among other things, ‘further the domestic and international goals of the Bush administration.’ And it will hold itself apart from S.M.U.’s own world of academic inquiry, reporting to the Bush Foundation itself rather than to the university president or provost, as academic institutes — even presidential ones — normally do.”
