The "Theory of Change" Primary

Perhaps we are being too literal in believing that "hope" and bipartisanship are things that Obama naively believes are present and possible, when in fact they are a tactic, a method of subverting and breaking the unified conservative power structure.

Mark Schmitt | December 21, 2007

The phrase "theory of change" is a bit of jargon that I first encountered in the philanthropic and non-profit world, where it refers to a fairly new way of evaluating the effectiveness of projects by drawing out the underlying assumptions about how they lead to social change. It's a useful innovation, because often differences that seem to be about ideology or effectiveness are really just different ideas about the process that will lead to change, though unspoken and unquestioned. (For example, a foundation dedicated to ending hunger might choose between giving $100,000 to a food bank that feeds 100 people a day, or to a legal group that sues the state over Food Stamp eligibility rules, or to a national group that organizes poor people to push Congress for a total Food Stamp overhaul. At the end of a year, only the food bank would have results to show, but that doesn't mean it's the only effective approach -- the potential results from the other two approaches to change are much greater, if the legal and political strategies are sound.)

Digby: Jon Benet Whiz Wit

Atrios points me to this WaPo dispatch from Iowa revealing that Dukakis lost the 88 election because he didn't serve beers to real men the proper way and that our next president must be somebody we can eat a pizza with. As Atrios points out, these people actually think they are speaking for someone other that their own little cadre of journalistic misfits when they set forth these vapid observations as if they're some sort of window into the the deepest desires of the voters.

I don't know what goes on in the campaign buses and planes personally, but I've read a lot of accounts. And from what I can tell, the only thing anybody cares about is fun and food --- what they eat, what the candidates ea, the symbolic value of their food choices and how they reflect on the candidate's character and ability to govern.

Glenn Greenwald: Reid and company target the true enemy: "Dodd and his allies"

During yesterday's chat with Washington Post Congressional reporter Paul Kane, this extremely revealing exchange occurred, regarding the view of Harry Reid and other anonymous Democrats of Chris Dodd's actions this week, whereby Dodd disrupted their collective desire for quick, smooth, trouble-free passage of Bush's surveillance and immunity bill:

New Hampshire: Hi Paul and thanks for taking my question. I read your article from the 18th about Harry Reid pulling the FISA bill and still am left wondering why "Reid spokesman Jim Manley said the decision had nothing to do with the efforts of Dodd and his allies."

I watched the entire proceedings and remain incredibly moved and thankful for the efforts of Sen. Dodd and his "allies" to protect and defend our Constitution by objecting to retroactive immunity for the telecoms. Can you fathom why this dismissive and seemingly disingenuous statement was made? Was there more to your interview with Manley that you will share?

Who Stopped Bush's War on Iran?

by Steven D
Sat Dec 22nd, 2007 at 02:45:45 PM EST

Well, according to Glen Ford of the Black Agenda Report it sure wasn't the Democrats in Congress:

When the CIA and elements of the Pentagon do more - much more - than the Democrats to restrain the Bush gang from plunging the planet into an even wider spasm of war, it is time to recognize the absolute irrelevance of the Democratic Party - certainly, under present leadership.

Jaws dropped in capitals all around the globe when the combined intelligence agencies of the United States yanked the rationale for war with Iran, like a rug, from under George Bush's feet. It was a mutiny, centered in the CIA and in the Pentagon's nine separate intelligence agencies, designed to prevent Bush and Dick Cheney from expanding, against all military and political logic, their failed jihad in the Persian Gulf. Visibly startled, Bush behaved like he'd been knee-capped by his own men - which he had. The Pentagon-CIA revolt - witnessed by the entire planet - is unprecedented in modern times. Anyone who tells you differently is too blinded by imagined spy-novel schemes to recognize a mutiny when he sees it. [...]

Evangelical video shows cadets pressured to be missionaries

A video made by Campus Crusade for Christ, a Christian ministry group, shows Air Force Academy cadets being pressured to participate in religious activities and become "government paid missionaries when they leave."

Mikey Weinstein, president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), which released the video this week, says the video is "absolutely out of control."

Major study concludes that global warming is killing off coral

By Susan Lang

If world leaders do not immediately engage in a race against time to save the Earth's coral reefs, these vital ecosystems will not survive the global warming and acidification predicted for later this century. That is the conclusion of a group of marine scientists from around the world in a major new study published in the journal Science on Dec. 13

Digby: A Movement Built To Last

By Digby on December 21, 2007 - 1:13pm.

The release his past week of CAF's report on the Obstructionist Republicans seems to have gotten quite a bit of attention, even as the media continues to behave as if there's nothing unusual about it or, as Glenn Greenwald documents here, believe that Democrats are somehow equally responsible for the fact that Republicans are breaking records for filibusters. The question I find myself asking about this, however, is, why now?

What's different than any other time in history when there was a similar Senate minority with a member of its own party in the white house?

Hoover Planned Mass Jailing in 1950

By TIM WEINER

A newly declassified document shows that J. Edgar Hoover, the longtime director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, had a plan to suspend habeas corpus and imprison some 12,000 Americans he suspected of disloyalty.

Hoover sent his plan to the White House on July 7, 1950, 12 days after the Korean War began. It envisioned putting suspect Americans in military prisons.

Hoover wanted President Harry S. Truman to proclaim the mass arrests necessary to “protect the country against treason, espionage and sabotage.” The F.B.I would “apprehend all individuals potentially dangerous” to national security, Hoover’s proposal said. The arrests would be carried out under “a master warrant attached to a list of names” provided by the bureau.

Is Hillary or Obama More Vulnerable to Right-Wing Attacks?

By Robert Parry, Consortium News
Posted on December 22, 2007, Printed on December 22, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/71266/

Even as Hillary Clinton's operatives were dropping hints that Republicans would exploit Barack Obama's youthful drug use, some Clinton insiders privately worried about her own vulnerability because the Bush administration possesses detailed knowledge of her movements -- and her husband's -- over the past seven years.

Because of Sen. Clinton's unique status as the first former First Lady to run for President - and because her husband was succeeded by a Republican -- she is the first candidate to have both her and her spouse be subject to regular, long-term surveillance by an Executive Branch agency controlled by the opposing political party.

Election '08

[from the January 7, 2008 issue]

It has been more than a year since the first group of Democratic hopefuls announced their candidacy for President of the United States. Seventeen debates or forums have been staged, and more than $150 million has been spent on advertising, polling and other campaign expenses. Pundits have pronounced their conventional wisdom, so easily reversed, on who is most "electable," "presidential" or "inevitable." Celebrities and surrogates have rung their appeals, and the deforming machinery of electoral money and math has whirled into place. And yet despite all this, something remarkable, almost magical in its resilience, will take place on January 3. Thousands of neighbors will gather in schools, churches and public libraries across Iowa to caucus. It's an imperfect, curious system--one that privileges the indirect democracy of delegates and the momentary passions of a state that is, demographically speaking, unrepresentative of America. Nonetheless, during the evening hours, when candidates and campaign staff are relegated to the sidelines, the circus of democracy will be suspended and something approaching actual democratic deliberation will unfold. But who should the voters of Iowa--and then New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina and the states that follow in this crowded primary season--select as the Democratic Party's standard-bearer?

Pimco boss says US in recession

By Matthew Garrahan in Los Angeles

Published: December 20 2007 21:07 | Last updated: December 20 2007 21:07

Bill Gross, founder of Pimco, one of the world’s largest fixed-income managers, has sounded a downbeat note on the US economy by saying it has gone into recession.

“If I had to be bold I’d say we began a recession in December,” he said in a Financial Times interview, in which he called on the Federal Reserve to bring interest rates down to 3 per cent. The recession would last “four to five months”, he thought, but he added it would be prolonged if the administration and Congress failed to “take some rather unperceived and unforecasted measures in terms of fiscal stimulation”.

Remember Iraq?

Why the Democrats aren't ending the war.

By Fred Kaplan

Posted Thursday, Dec. 20, 2007, at 6:16 PM ET

On Tuesday, the Senate voted down two motions that would have put some conditions on the $70 billion in emergency funds that President Bush requested for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. One motion would have required that most U.S. troops be redeployed within nine months. The other would have required that most combat troops "transition" to more limited missions—support, logistics, training, and counterterrorism—by the end of next year. Both motions lost.

The Democrats recaptured the House and Senate in the 2006 election in large part because of the growing opposition to the war in Iraq. Yet here they are, continuing to write Bush huge checks to conduct the war as he pleases, absolutely no strings attached. Have the Democrats betrayed their electoral mandate? It's not so simple. Two big factors are at play here.

Surgery without stitches

A thin polymer bio-film that seals surgical wounds could make sutures a relic of medical history.

Measuring just 50 microns thick, the film is placed on a surgical wound and exposed to an infrared laser, which heats the film just enough to meld it and the tissue, thus perfectly sealing the wound.

Known as Surgilux, the device’s raw material is extracted from crab shells and has Food and Drug Administration approval in the US.

Paul Krugman: Blindly Into the Bubble

When announcing Japan’s surrender in 1945, Emperor Hirohito famously explained his decision as follows: “The war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan’s advantage.”

There was a definite Hirohito feel to the explanation Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, gave this week for the Fed’s locking-the-barn-door-after-the-horse-is-gone decision to modestly strengthen regulation of the mortgage industry: “Market discipline has in some cases broken down, and the incentives to follow prudent lending procedures have, at times, eroded.”

Saudis biggest group of al Qaeda Iraq fighters-study

19 Dec 2007 23:08:30 GMT

Source: Reuters

By Kristin Roberts WASHINGTON, Dec 19 (Reuters) - Most al Qaeda fighters in Iraq are from Saudi Arabia and Libya and many are university-aged students, said a study released on Wednesday by researchers at the U.S. Army's West Point military academy.

The study was based on 606 personnel records collected by al Qaeda in Iraq and captured by coalition troops in October. It includes data on fighters who entered Iraq, largely through Syria, between August 2006 and August 2007.

Dumping the Democrats: The Ineluctable Appeal of Some Third-Party Rudeness

Sometimes, political spin is emotionally comforting. Sometimes, spin is even convincing. But sometimes, spin nakedly leaps at you like the laughable swill it is.

This week, Nancy Pelosi lurched at us with some of the laughable stuff. After conceding that the Democratic Congress indeed met a few bumps in the road in its miserable year of 2007, she nevertheless proceeded -- sometimes, as well, pols just can't help themselves -- to counter criticism of her hapless institution by declaring: "Almost everything we've done has been historic."

Through the Looking Glass

Tuesday, December 18, 2007
-- by Sara

Oprah Winfrey once said that the best advice she ever got in her life was from Maya Angelou, who said: "When people tell you who they are -- believe them."

I've gotten good mileage from this advice over the years. Being raised fundie, you spend a lot of your life being told to believe someone else's preposterous interpretation of events over your own lying eyes. Growing up this way really twists your reality lenses; and those of us who come out of it as adults spend a lot of time and energy learning to see and interpret the world clearly again. Angelou's quote is one of the mantras that gave me permission to trust my own observations of what people were saying and doing, knock off the false hopes and wishful thinking, accept this information as literal truth, and rely on it as an accurate indicator about how they were likely to behave in the future. It's knowledge that was acquired late, but has since kept me out of an amazing amount of trouble.

Marine algae get the green light from Shell

Shell is to become the first major oil company to produce diesel fuel from marine algae.

Algae are a climate-friendly way to make fuel from carbon dioxide. They produce an oil that can readily be converted to diesel, and can be fed CO₂ directly from smokestacks. Unlike biofuels such as corn, they don't use up soil or water that could otherwise be used to grow food, which can pump up food prices.

Official: Justice Dept. slowed probe into phone jamming

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department delayed prosecuting a key Republican official for jamming the phones of New Hampshire Democrats until after the 2004 election, protecting top GOP officials from the scandal until the voting was over.

An official with detailed knowledge of the investigation into the 2002 Election-Day scheme said the inquiry sputtered for months after a prosecutor sought approval to indict James Tobin, the northeast regional coordinator for the Republican National Committee.

Fed Shrugged as Subprime Crisis Spread

By EDMUND L. ANDREWS

WASHINGTON — Until the boom in subprime mortgages turned into a national nightmare this summer, the few people who tried to warn federal banking officials might as well have been talking to themselves.

Edward M. Gramlich, a Federal Reserve governor who died in September, warned nearly seven years ago that a fast-growing new breed of lenders was luring many people into risky mortgages they could not afford.

But when Mr. Gramlich privately urged Fed examiners to investigate mortgage lenders affiliated with national banks, he was rebuffed by Alan Greenspan, the Fed chairman.

DHS finalizing plans for domestic spy satellite program

Congress has not been updated since civil liberties concerns delayed satellite spying

A plan to dramatically widen US law enforcement agencies' access to data from powerful spy satellites is moving toward implementation, as Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff expects to finalize a charter for the program this week, according to a new report.

The Ethanol Fallacy

The idea is so appealing: We can reduce our dependence on oil—stop sending U.S. dollars to corrupt petro-dictators, stop spewing megatons of carbon into the atmos¬phere—by replacing it with clean, home-grown, all-American corn. It sounds too good to be true.

Sadly, it is.

Pension Fund Shortages Create Hard Choices

By MARY WILLIAMS WALSH

Almost half of the states have been underfunding their retirement plans for public workers and may have to choose in the years ahead between their pension obligations and other public programs, according to a comprehensive study to be released to the public on Wednesday.

All together, the 50 states have promised to pay some $2.7 trillion in pension and retiree health benefits over the next 30 years, according to the Pew Center on the States, which spent more than a year studying the issue.

A Son’s Past Deeds Come Back To Bite Huckabee

As Mike Huckabee gains in the polls, the former Arkansas governor is finding that his record in office is getting more scrutiny. One issue likely to get attention is his handling of a sensitive family matter: allegations that one of his sons was involved in the hanging of a stray dog at a Boy Scout camp in 1998. The incident led to the dismissal of David Huckabee, then 17, from his job as a counselor at Camp Pioneer in Hatfield, Ark. It also prompted the local prosecuting attorney— bombarded with complaints generated by a national animal-rights group—to write a letter to the Arkansas state police seeking help investigating whether David and another teenager had violated state animal-cruelty laws.

An Idea Whose Time Should Be Past

The mandatory sentencing craze that began in the 1970s was a public-policy disaster. It drove up inmate populations and corrections costs and forced the states to choose between building prisons and building schools or funding medical care for the indigent. It filled the prisons to bursting with nonviolent drug offenders who would have been more cheaply and more appropriately dealt with through treatment. It tied the hands of judges and ruined countless young lives by mandating lengthy prison terms in cases where leniency was warranted. It undermined confidence in the fairness of the justice system by singling out poor and minority offenders while largely exempting the white and wealthy.

John Edwards' Fighting Words

Washington Dispatch: The candidate is running an impassioned, anti-corporate campaign, but will Edwards' pugilistic populism turn off Iowa voters?

By Jonathan Stein

December 18, 2007

CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA —Campaigning in Iowa, John Edwards spends a great deal of time talking about the extremely poor. He talks about veterans who live under bridges and parents who choose between food for their kids and heat in their homes. Eradicating poverty, he says, "is the cause of my life." But, a voter can ask, has it always been so? Or has he only become an anti-poverty crusader as a presidential candidate? Sincere or not—and he sure seems sincere—is his help-the-poor message the best way to connect with Iowa Democrats? In fact, Edwards' campaign events in Iowa, heavy with union workers and members of the middle class, contain few people without a roof over their heads or food on the table.

Digby: Nobody Wants To See That

Rush sez:

Now, this theory of mine based on this Drudge picture of Mrs. Clinton, with the headline: "The Toll of a Campaign." Now, it could well be that that's a sympathy photo, too, to make people feel sorry for how tough the campaign trail is. Now, I want to preface this by saying I know it's going to get out there. Media Matters is going to get hold of this and they're going to take it all out of context. We can expect that. It's a badge of honor when this happens, but for the rest of you, I want you to understand that I am talking about the evolution of American culture here, and not so much Mrs. Clinton...

Digby: Pox This

One of the kings of the FoxDemocrats, lubriciously polishing Roger Ailes's shiny apple, says:

Fox political analyst Bob Beckel mourned last night that Sen. Joe Lieberman’s endorsement of John McCain is “the price…us Democrats pay for MoveOn.org and others who drove Joe Lieberman out of the party,” said Beckel. “They campaigned against him actively and raised money against him and he was beaten in the Democratic primary. … Now we’re paying the price and all I can say is ‘a pox on their house.’”

Yeah, it's a real loss.

Digby: Lynchin' Meat

Well, it looks like it's going to be a disgusting race to the bottom on immigration. According to this Democracy Corps poll (pdf), a majority of Americans, not just Republicans, quite intensely loathe all immigrants now and want to deport all the illegals because they are stealing all of our hard earned health care and other services. Greenberg and friends have determined that Democrats must be encouraged to run as hard as they feel they need to against the illegal hordes, pushing "enforcement only" rhetoric and generally pimping racist, xenophobic attitudes with everything we've got or they will lose the election. They call this letting the people know they "get it."

Digby: The United Christian States Of America

Steve Benen does a nice analysis of the controversial new Huckabee ad, here. It seems this really is the first time any candidate has actually mentioned "Christ" in a political ad, so I guess it's something of a milestone. But if I had to guess, it's not going to be the last. Why would it?

In 2000, George W. Bush pretty much clinched the nomination when we saw the dim little light in his head slowly start to flicker as he figured out that "Christ" was the right answer to the question of who was his favorite political philosopher.

Digby: Dazed and Confused

Eric Boehlert writes a typically insightful column today about the increasingly egregious campaign coverage. He notes something that I think is particularly odd about this year's press:

[N]ot only has the press shifted into hyper-horserace mode where tactics reign, but lots of media players can't even do the horserace stuff right. Bloomberg's Al Hunt displayed that nicely with a recent tactics-only campaign column where he mangled a key fact in order to prop up his favorite narrative.

Traffic jam mystery solved by mathematicians

Mathematicians from the University of Exeter have solved the mystery of traffic jams by developing a model to show how major delays occur on our roads, with no apparent cause. Many traffic jams leave drivers baffled as they finally reach the end of a tail-back to find no visible cause for their delay. Now, a team of mathematicians from the Universities of Exeter, Bristol and Budapest, have found the answer and published their findings in leading academic journal Proceedings of the Royal Society.

From "Front Edge of a Recession" To "Storm Clouds"

Submitted by Bill Scher on December 17, 2007 - 9:00pm.

The Bush Administration came into office seven years ago talking down the economy -- saying we're on the "front edge of a recession" in hopes of setting a low bar of expectations for themselves to clear.

But the bar just kept dropping.

The Mortgage Crisis: Yet Another Conservative Failure

Submitted by Bill Scher on December 18, 2007 - 6:09pm.

On Sunday, ABC's This Week failed to hold Alan Greenspan accountable for his role in the mortgage crisis. But today, the New York Times did, picking up where Salon.com left off.

And as the NYT report shows -- like every other failure of the Bush Era -- Greenspan's failure was not one of incompetence, but the conservative ideology of reckless government.

US foreclosure filings up 68 pct in Nov.

By ALEX VEIGA, AP Business Writer
Wed Dec 19, 6:55 AM ET

U.S. homeowners increasingly failed to keep up with their home loan payments in November, as the number of foreclosure filings surged 68 percent nationwide compared with the same month a year ago, according to a mortgage research company.

In all, 201,950 foreclosure filings were reported last month, compared with 120,334 in November 2006, Irvine-based RealtyTrac Inc. said Wednesday.

Bush Lawyers Discussed Fate of C.I.A.Tapes

By MARK MAZZETTI and SCOTT SHANE

WASHINGTON — At least four top White House lawyers took part in discussions with the Central Intelligence Agency between 2003 and 2005 about whether to destroy videotapes showing the secret interrogations of two operatives from Al Qaeda, according to current and former administration and intelligence officials.

The accounts indicate that the involvement of White House officials in the discussions before the destruction of the tapes in November 2005 was more extensive than Bush administration officials have acknowledged.

Fed Takes Aim at Deceptive Home Lending Practices

By David Cho
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 19, 2007; A01

The Federal Reserve proposed new regulations yesterday to clean up a broad array of deceptive mortgage lending practices, a move that represents the central bank's most significant response to the nation's housing tumult.

The proposed rules signify a shift by the Fed toward an active regulatory role over the mortgage business and would affect a wide range of borrowers, lenders, banks and brokers. Home buyers would have to provide proof of income to ensure that they are not taking on more debt than they can handle. Mortgage ads could not promote only low "teaser" rates. Victims of predatory lending would be empowered to sue their mortgage providers.

Congress eases access to gov't records

By LAURIE KELLMAN, Associated Press Writer
Tue Dec 18, 8:52 PM ET

Congress on Tuesday struck back at the Bush administration's trend toward secrecy since the 2001 terrorist attacks, passing legislation to toughen the Freedom of Information Act and increasing penalties on agencies that don't comply.

The White House would not say whether President Bush will sign the legislation, which unanimously passed the House by voice vote Tuesday a few days after it sailed through the Senate. Without Bush's signature, the bill would become law during the congressional recess that begins next week.

Giuliani's Kerik Woes Resurface Through Informant

Candidate Distancing Himself From Former Confidant

By John Solomon and Matthew Mosk, Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, December 19, 2007; Page A01

In the heady days of the 1990s when Rudolph W. Giuliani was mayor of New York and Bernard B. Kerik was one of his most trusted lieutenants, Lawrence Ray enjoyed his own wild ride.

Ray was one of Kerik's closest friends and the best man at his 1998 wedding. As Kerik was rising to become New York's police commissioner, Ray was in touch with him regularly -- lending him money, discussing possible business opportunities, and using Ray's contacts in Russia to arrange a meeting for Giuliani with former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

Ohio Will Likely Face Big Vote-Counting Problems in 2008

By Steven Rosenfeld, AlterNet
Posted on December 19, 2007, Printed on December 19, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/71041/

It is a very odd spectacle. Ohio's Democratic secretary of state, Jennifer Brunner, who was elected on a pledge to clean up voting problems in her presidential battleground state, is now under attack by would-be progressive allies for her solutions.

And her critics, who on Tuesday said her remedies could disenfranchise tens of thousands of likely Democratic voters in Ohio's primary in March and in next fall's presidential election, are not even aware of the biggest irony of all: Brunner could have solved the same problems months ago if she would have settled a federal voting rights suit from the 2004 election. Instead of working through the federal courts, she is now fighting in Ohio's notoriously partisan political arena.

Fed Unveils Home Mortgage Rules

New Rules Include Protections to Regulate Risky Loans

By Howard Schneider

Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 18, 2007; 5:17 PM

The Federal Reserve today unveiled home mortgage rules meant to curtail the subprime lending practices that have roiled the global financial system as European banks moved again to smooth credit markets and calm investors.

The measures announced by the Fed include a host of consumer protections meant to further regulate the type of risky loans that in recent years allowed less creditworthy borrowers to take out home mortgages. When those mortgages became bundled into larger, more complex investments -- and began falling into default -- it left some of the world's biggest banks and investment houses unsure about the value of their assets and contributed to an evolving crisis in global debt and credit markets.

Sanders Opposes FCC Media-Ownership Rule Change

WASHINGTON, DC - December 18 -- Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) issued the following statement on today’s vote by the Federal Communications Commission to overturn a 32-year-old ban on media cross ownership and allow broadcasters in the nation's 20 largest media markets to also own a newspaper:

“The FCC has made a bad situation worse. Unless Congress undoes this ruling, as I hope it will, fewer and fewer big media conglomerates will control what Americans see and hear and read. We are not going to have the kind of vibrant democracy that we need unless we discuss serious issues facing the middle class and working families in this country, and I’m not sure the corporate media wants us to do that.

World food stocks dwindling rapidly, UN warns

By Elisabeth Rosenthal

Monday, December 17, 2007

ROME: In an "unforeseen and unprecedented" shift, the world food supply is dwindling rapidly and food prices are soaring to historic levels, the top food and agriculture official of the United Nations warned Monday.

The changes created "a very serious risk that fewer people will be able to get food," particularly in the developing world, said Jacques Diouf, head of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.

The agency's food price index rose by more than 40 percent this year, compared with 9 percent the year before - a rate that was already unacceptable, he said. New figures show that the total cost of foodstuffs imported by the neediest countries rose 25 percent, to $107 million, in the last year.

Nuke Industry Is on the Verge of Getting $25 Billion Handout

By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!
Posted on December 18, 2007, Printed on December 18, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/70924/

The House is set to vote on Tuesday on the $500 billion 2008 Omnibus Appropriations Bill. Unveiled on Sunday, the measure covers budgets for all cabinet departments except the Pentagon. It's expected to pass both houses of Cong