Ron Paul, gearing up for 2012?

The man's got a following, that's for sure.

Tuesday it was announced that Texas Republican Ron Paul, who wowed the Libertarian crowd during the 2008 election with his call for limited government, is set to deliver an address at the University of South Carolina on Nov. 9 about the “future of individual liberty and the importance of the U.S. Constitution.”

As if that were not enough, the following week he's scheduled to speak in Iowa, that pivotal early caucus state, with stops in Ames and Des Moines.

By this morning speculation was rife that South Carolina, which holds one of the early primaries in the presidential calendar, could be the launching pad for a new Ron Paul bid. As CNN's Political Ticker put it, "Will Ron Paul give it another go in 2012?"

If so, the 74-year-old congressman and doctor isn't saying. Lately he's been busy waging war against the federal government's response to the H1N1 virus, decrying the vaccination program as an attempt by the federal government to corral more power. He even tweaked President Obama for not having his daughters inoculated.

“It’s interesting to note that the president’s children have not gotten their shots and the explanation for this is it hasn’t been available to them – now that’s a little bit hard to buy when you think that probably anything the president wants can be available for their children,” said Paul, adding, “So in a way he’s made his decision not to give his children these inoculations – so if he has freedom of choice on this, I would like to make sure that all the American people have the same amount of freedom of choice.”

Yesterday, Malia and Sasha got their shots.

-- Johanna Neuman

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Photo Credit: Associated Press

Swine flu hits first member of Congress, a Republican

First anthrax, now this.

Swine flu has spread to Congress. Specifically, to Oregon Republican Greg Walden, a sixth-term congressman who tweeted Monday, "Just diagnosed with likely H1N1. Ugh. Off  to seclusion for awhile."

Walden is seen above during a congressional hearing in February into a deadly salmonella outbreak linked to a peanut factory. Walden wanted to know if the company's president, who repeatedly invoked his Fifth Amendment right not to testify, wanted to sample any of the tainted products removed from the nation's grocery shelves.

Ironically, Walden is co-chair of the congressional Rural Health Care Coalition, a bipartisan group of 182 members who lobby for healthcare in rural districts. Maybe the vaccine didn't get to rural areas yet?

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo Credit: J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press

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Al Gore likens global warming to Nazi threat

Al Gore is now comparing the battle against global warming to the fight against Adolf Hitler in World War II.

In a speech to students at Oxford on Tuesday, the former vice president and Nobel Peace Prize laureate  conceded that there is still work to do to convince political leaders that the threat of climate change is as urgent as that from the Nazis. The Senate is beginning debate on a cap-and-trade bill to curb emissions, predicted to be an even tougher fight than in the House, where Speaker Nancy Pelosi had to twist arms and trade votes to win a narrow victory. Gore seemed to acknowledge the difficulty of converting grassroots passion into political will.

"The level of awareness and concern among populations has not crossed the threshold where political leaders feel that they must change," he said at the Smith School World Forum on Enterprise and the Environment. "The only way politicians will act is if awareness raises to a level to make them feel that it's a necessity."

Mindful of his British audience, Gore said the fight to cut carbon dioxide emissions will require a leader with the fortitude of Winston Churchill, who steered Britain through four years of hardship, bombings and economic deprivations to victory against the Nazis.

"Winston Churchill aroused this nation in heroic fashion to save civilization in World War II," he said.
"We have everything we need except political will, but political will is a renewable resource."

Not everyone was impressed.  At Fox News, as you can see from the clip above, they're still worried about global cooling.

-- Johanna Neuman

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Obama, recovering smoker, praises regulation of tobacco

Reformed smokers like to say that the hardest thing they ever did was to break their nicotine habit. That may not apply to President Obama, a one-time puffer who today said he would sign legislation to regulate tobacco.

“This bill has obviously been a long time coming,” the president said in the Rose Garden.

“We've known for years, even decades, about the harmful, addictive, and often deadly effects of tobacco products.  Each year Americans pay nearly $100 billion in added healthcare costs due to smoking.

Each day about a thousand young people under the age of 18 become regular smokers.”

During the campaign, Obama had the usual love-hate relationship with Sot-Weed (the American Colonial term for the killer leaf). He was seen chomping on Nicorette gum to ease the withdrawal cravings and often said he would stop smoking to set a better example.  

When Obama appeared on NBC’s "Meet the Press" program in December, interviewer Tom Brokaw noted that the White House was a no-smoking zone.

"Have you stopped smoking," Brokaw asked.

"I have," Obama said. "What I said was that there are times where I have fallen off the wagon."

"Wait a minute," Brokaw interjected, "that means you haven’t stopped."

"Fair enough," Obama said. "What I would say is that I have done a terrific job under the circumstances of making myself much healthier. You will not see any violations of these rules in the White House."

The White House had no immediate comment today on Obama’s smoking. For those keeping track, the no-smoking rule was imposed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton back when she was first lady. 

In his televised comments, Obama stressed the bipartisan support for the anti-tobacco bill, which allows the Food and Drug Administration to regulate the making and marketing of tobacco products.

For the president, the political cooperation was important, especially as Congress heads into the healthcare reform debate, which is expected to be far more contentious than approving a bill dealing with tobacco – which was declared a health hazard four decades ago.

“Leaders of both parties have fought to prevent tobacco companies from marketing their products to children, and provide the public with the information they need to understand what a dangerous habit this is,” Obama said.  “And after a decade of opposition, all of us are finally about to achieve the victory with this bill, a bill that truly defines change in Washington.” 

-- Michael Muskal

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Cigarette packs are on display for sale in a shop April 1, 2009 in New York City. Today the federal tax on packs of cigarettes climbed from 39 cents to $1.01, the largest tobacco tax increase ever and affecting all tobacco products. (Photo by Mario Tama / Getty Images)

Nancy Reagan returns to a royal Washington welcome

Former First Lady Nancy Reagan got the royal treatment today in Washington. Though her husband was a Republican who often tussled with Democrats on Capitol Hill, and though she was often reviled for her expensive clothes and socialite friends, today there was no sign of partisanship or any long knives.

At the Capitol Rotunda, leaders of Congress honored President Ronald Wilson Reagan with a statue celebrating what Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called "that storied life." Calling Reagan "one of the giants of the 20th century," McConnell said that the former Hollywood actor and governor of California "stood taller than any statue." The source of his height, said McConnell, "is here with us." Praising Mrs. Reagan for helping to lift the nation "when we needed it most," he added, "America is still grateful."

(As each state gets two statues in the Capitol, the state Legislature earlier cleared the way by knocking from his pedestal Thomas Starr King, a 19th century San Francisco Unitarian Universalist preacher whose image has graced the Capitol for 78 years.)

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the Reagan marriage "one of great love stories of all time" and said that the American people benefited from the first family's partnership.

Thanking Mrs. Reagan for her activism, Pelosi said, "Your support for stem-cell research made a significant difference in lives of many Americans." Noting Reagan's fierce belief in....

Stephen Colbert is now a beetle too

Political satirist Stephen Colbert has fame and (presumably) fortune. Now he has his own beetle.

Two enterprising scientists have named a new species of beetle after the host of “The Colbert Report.” The insect, a “diving beetle” from Venezuela, is officially Agaporomorphus colberti.

The scientists, Quentin Wheeler and Kelly Miller, announced the naming in time for Colbert's 45th birthday May 13. A thoughtful gift, indeed. And though an effort to name a NASA space station after Colbert failed, a six-legged arthropod has its own charms.

“Last year, Stephen shamelessly asked the science community to name something cooler than a spider to honor him. His top choices were a giant ant or a laser lion. While those would be cool species to discover, our research involves beetles, and they are ‘way cooler’ than a spider any day,” said Wheeler in a statement released by Arizona State University.

Wheeler, among his many roles, is director of ASU’s International Institute for Species Exploration. Miller is an assistant professor of biology at the University of New Mexico and curator of arthropods (we love that word) at UNM’s Museum of Southwestern Biology.

This isn’t the first time Wheeler and Miller have named a species after a notable person. They named beetles after President George W. Bush (Agathidium bushi) and Dick Cheney (A. cheneyi). They even named a beetle after Roy Orbison (Orectochilus orbisonorum) and the fictional Darth Vader (A. vaderi). We’re guessing that A. cheneyi and A. vaderi share similar characteristics.

And speaking of politicians and the natural world, even our newly minted president has a species named after him. As The Ticket previously reported, a UC Riverside scientist decided to honor Barack Obamawith Caloplaca obamae. It’s not an insect—not even an animal. It’s a lichen.

-- Steve Padilla

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Colbert photo: Getty Images for "Meet the Press"; Beetle photo: Kelly Miller and Quentin Wheeler

Barack Obama's in Mexico, but the real news is in Riverside

On a day when the American president was piddling around Mexico talking of trivialities like drugs, guns and neighborly inter-American alliances, the U.S. media once again showed its bias against him.

Word leaked locally today that a University of California-Riverside scientist named Kerry Knudsen has named a newly discovered species of lichen after Barack Obama.

No, really. Lichen.

 And, excuse us, but where was the fawning blanket news coverage?

Nowhere but, predictably, on the ubiquitous LA Now blog, where our colleague Jia-Rui Chong has a very interesting item on the find, the distinction and the intriguing history of naming new natural stuff for real people. (Hint: It's not always an appreciated honor.)

Read the whole thing over here.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: J.C. Lendemer

Hollywood sees Obama stem cell move as bipartisan blockbuster

President Obama's decision to expand the federal government's role in stem cell research business may be controversial in some quarters, but don't expect anything but a standing ovation from the friendly folks in Hollywood.

“For those of us who've worked in this area, this is an extraordinarily happy day,” former Paramount head Sherry Lansing said of Obama’s decision to lift the ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. “I've gotten tons of calls. This will lead to huge advances in fighting diseases like cancer and diabetes."

“Obama," Lansing added, "has done everything he said he would do. It’s thrilling.”

Hospitals and medical research are the industry's equivalent of bipartisanship, and stem cell research has become, in many ways, the cause of the hour. In part, that's because it seems to offer hope as a way to produce new treatments that touch prominent film and television families personally:

Spinal injuries (Christopher Reeve); Parkinson's (Michael J. Fox) and juvenile diabetes (Jerry and Janet Zucker and Douglas Wick and Lucy Fisher).

Hollywood agents, producers and studio executives may gleefully undercut each other Monday through Friday. But on Saturday night, they'll all turn up and give generously to a program to combat disease or to a cutting-edge hospital, so to speak.

The industry's tradition of supporting medical causes dates back to the days when purely political giving was poison for stars locked into the studio system and moguls protective of their studio brands. Nobody, however, could criticize anybody for giving to relieve suffering.

The Zuckers and friends Fisher and Wick began organizing the entertainment industry five years ago, when both families discovered their children had diabetes. Since then, Hollywood’s stem cell research advocates have only become more powerful. (Just ask any federal candidate who comes to town looking for a political kind of fundraising.)

Obama promised the group he would take action, if elected, to lift the ban. In preparation for his announcement Monday, his staff invited Lansing, the Zuckers, Fisher and Wick to attend the news conference.

Jerry Zucker said he and his wife declined the invitation because of their production schedule on "Fair Game," the movie about Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame. (Remember, she's the undercover CIA agent that no one could identify. So keep it just between us.)

The movie features Sean Penn and Naomi Watts, but that's not a secret; you can talk about it.

The Zuckers did watch the announcement on TV. “Government -- and, particularly, science -- needs to be conducted with reason, not ideology,” said Jerry Zucker. “This was a return to reason.”

-- Tina Daunt

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Photo: SherryLansingFoundation.org

Full Text of President George W. Bush's Farewell Address

(UPDATE: The President made very few minor changes to the prepared text in his actual delivery. We've made the changes in boldface below. President-elect Obama did not watch the speech live at Blair House, the presidential guest residence across Pennsylvania Avenue where he and his family are residing until they move to the big house Tuesday; Obama went out to dinner just as Bush's remarks were beginning in the East Room.)

Here's the prepared text of the Farewell Address to the nation by the 43rd president to be given in a few minutes from the White House. His audience in the East Room includes family, friends, Cabinet and some selected Americans the President has met in his eight years in office (We'll have a list of them here later. And BTW, we had a fun look at past presidential farewells here earlier today.):

Fellow citizens:  For eight years, it has been my honor to serve as your president. The first decade of this new century has been a period of consequence – a time set apart. Tonight, with a thankful heart, I have asked for a final opportunity to share some thoughts on the journey that we have traveled together and the future of our Nation.

Five days from now, the world will witness the vitality of American democracy.  In a tradition dating back to our founding, the presidency will pass to a successor chosen by you, the American people.  Standing on the steps of the Capitol will be a man whose story reflects the enduring promise of our land.  This is a moment of hope and pride for our whole Nation.  And I join all Americans in offering best wishes to President-elect Obama, his wife Michelle, and their two beautiful girls. 

Tonight I am filled with gratitude – to Vice President Cheney and members of the Administration; to Laura, who brought joy to this house and love to my life; to our wonderful daughters, Barbara and Jenna; to my parents, whose examples have provided strength for a lifetime.  And above all, I thank the American people for the trust you have given me.  I thank you for ....

Gov. Arnold passes on Poland but sends a green video

Let's see, California or Poland in December? Which would it be?

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger made his choice. And it wasn't Poznan.

Even for a U.N. Climate Change Conference, which seems to happen somewhere just about every week. What's the carbon footprint of 10,000 delegates all flying to one place to talk about fewer people flying?

Anyway, our gov's not going. But according to our immaculately-informed colleague Margot Roosevelt, Schwarzenegger did send a delegation and a video message.

"We have no intention of backing away from our historic commitment to the fight against global warming because the economy has slowed down," the governor promised the crowd.

Margot, who has one of the most environmentally-friendly desks in a newsroom that has been unofficially declared a Superfund site, has more on the governor's message and the conference, including a link to a participants' blog that anyone can peek in on.

Margot's item is over on our Greenspace blog. But don't drive there; just click here.

--Andrew Malcolm

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Photo credit: Office of the Governor