Last year Rep. Jim Matheson (D-UT) and Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM), co-sponsored legislation that would enable Guard and Reserve troops who have accrued 24 months of active service within the last five years to be eligible for 100% of GI bill education benefits. It will cost us $4.5 billion for the first ten years and we consider that not only fair but a great investment. The bill now has 140 co-sponsors who would help retain soldiers we are now losing. We can’t let our veterans down. Make sure you inform Congress that this will be money well spent.
Transnational conglomerates, GE and Westinghouse, are excited about South Korea building four more nuclear reactors and they plan four more by 2017. Forty percent of South Korea’s power is now coming from nuclear reactors.
Eighteen reactors, about 70% of the world’s total under construction, are going up in Asia and another 77 are planned or proposed. Japan gets one-third of its power from nuclear reactors and plans to double production by 2050. India will go from three gigawatts to 20 by 2020 and China from 6.6 gigawatts to 40 by 2020, adding 41 more plants. Unfortunately, no country in Asia has a permanent site for the estimated 40,000 tons of toxic fuel produced so far. We understand Russia has a proposal to serve as a toxic dump for the world.
Every 1,000-megawatt reactor saves 7.9 m/b/o or 3.4 m/tons of coal a year and eliminates 34,000 tons of polluting sulphur dioxide and 11,000 tons of nitrogen oxide.
Our incumbent politicians just cannot help themselves. In the past two years, campaign and political action committees controlled by Rep. John T. Doolittle (R-CA), paid ever-large commissions to his wife’s one-person company and spent tens of thousands of dollars on gifts at stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Tiffany & Co., and a Ritz Carlton day spa. We hope Doolittle campaign contributors are happy the way their hard earned money is being spent.
Doolittle’s wife, a professional fundraiser, has collected 15% of all contributions to Doolittle’s leadership PAC and additional commissions on contributions to his campaign committee – a total of $140,000 since 2003. The House ethics committee is investigating, but we believe little will come of it because so many politicians in Washington are dirty.
The money was spent on friends and supporters, recording at least $40,000 in gifts, flowers, club memberships and stays at romantic inns. The list goes on and on. It just isn’t Doolittle and his wife doing this. It’s almost everyone in Congress. Get rid of the incumbents.
Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-MI), Republican Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee said the White House briefed his committee on another “significant” intelligence program only after it was brought to his attention by a government whistleblower. This is another secret government spying program. Hoekstra said government (that is George and the neocons) is still falling short of its legal obligations to brief key congressional members on significant intelligence operations.
The government has an illegal space-based satellite system to spy on US citizens that in all likelihood is what has been exposed.
We quote Paul Krugman of the NY Times: “The Bush administration and the movement it leads have been engaged in an authoritarian project, an effort to remove all the checks and balances that have heretofore constrained the executive branch.” Those who disagree with government’s use of secret intelligence programs are often portrayed as “traitors” by supporters of the administration for voicing dissent or exposing possibly illegal programs.” What Krugman fails to say is we have a corporatist fascist government, which will soon evolve into a dictatorship. These are the same connections that financed Adolph Hitler.
The Army is discontinuing a controversial multibillion-dollar deal with Halliburton to provide logistical support to US troops around the world. The Pentagon will split the work among three companies. Halliburton has defrauded our government of over $1 billion. As you can see there have been no criminal charges brought against these elitists.
The EC fined Microsoft 280.5 million euros, $357 million, and upped the amount it can be fined per day to three million euros, for not complying with a previous antitrust ruling. The EC said Microsoft is not above the law.