Another spectacular $50 billion no nukes victory for the forces of Solartopia
For the third straight year, against all odds, a national grassroots No Nukes campaign has stripped out of the federal budget a proposed $50 billion boondoggle for new atomic reactors.
The victory gives a giant boost to solar, wind, efficiency, mass transit and other Solartopian technologies that can solve global warming, sustain real economic growth and bring us a truly green-powered Earth.
This latest victory came Wednesday, February 11, as a top-level Congressional conference committee ironed out the last details of the Obama stimulus package. The loan guarantee scam was slipped into the Senate version by Republican Bob Bennett (R-UT) in cooperation with Democrat Tom Carper (D-DE). The loan guarantees would have backed a Department of Energy program supporting new reactor construction, despite a report from the Government Accountability Office warning that such projects would bankrupt more than half the utilities that might undertake them.
The victory gives a giant boost to solar, wind, efficiency, mass transit and other Solartopian technologies that can solve global warming, sustain real economic growth and bring us a truly green-powered Earth.
This latest victory came Wednesday, February 11, as a top-level Congressional conference committee ironed out the last details of the Obama stimulus package. The loan guarantee scam was slipped into the Senate version by Republican Bob Bennett (R-UT) in cooperation with Democrat Tom Carper (D-DE). The loan guarantees would have backed a Department of Energy program supporting new reactor construction, despite a report from the Government Accountability Office warning that such projects would bankrupt more than half the utilities that might undertake them.
Sit down! Sit down!
This is not a happy time for American autoworkers. Their employers are
cutting thousands of jobs, closing plants, and demanding – and getting –
major pay and benefit concessions from their union.
Normally, February would be a time of celebration for the union, the United Auto Workers – a time to mark the anniversary of a UAW victory in a sit-down strike in 1937 that led to making its members the world’s most secure and most highly compensated production workers.
But though they are losing that hard-won standing, autoworkers can draw important inspiration from that victory in Flint, Michigan, as they struggle against the severe employer pressures they’re facing today.
The victory ended one of the most dramatic and important economic battles in U.S. history. It pitted the UAW, then struggling for mere survival, against General Motors, then the world’s largest and most profitable manufacturer of any kind.
Normally, February would be a time of celebration for the union, the United Auto Workers – a time to mark the anniversary of a UAW victory in a sit-down strike in 1937 that led to making its members the world’s most secure and most highly compensated production workers.
But though they are losing that hard-won standing, autoworkers can draw important inspiration from that victory in Flint, Michigan, as they struggle against the severe employer pressures they’re facing today.
The victory ended one of the most dramatic and important economic battles in U.S. history. It pitted the UAW, then struggling for mere survival, against General Motors, then the world’s largest and most profitable manufacturer of any kind.
Why is that $50 billion radioactive antique toilet still in the stimulus bill?
The infamous $50 billion nuke power loan guarantee package meant to use your money to build new nuke reactors has gone missing from saturation media coverage of Obama’s Stimulus Package. But it’s still in the Senate version of the bill, it could be voted on this week, and it could kill us all.
Like that $30,000 antique toilet that disappeared into the banking bailout, the corporate media carries not a word about this gargantuan handout to the dying reactor industry. All the hype about a “nuclear renaissance” will come to naught without this massive taxpayer handout. But if it goes through, the landscape could be pock marked with lethal new nukes.
We have days---maybe hours---to stop it. While aid programs to the states, for education and the truly needy are slashed, this gargantuan boondoggle is poised to sail through with virtually no public knowledge.
The loan guarantee package was slipped into the Senate version of the Stimulus Bill by Senator Robert Bennet (R-UT) who proceeded to vote against the overall package. It is not currently in the House version.
Like that $30,000 antique toilet that disappeared into the banking bailout, the corporate media carries not a word about this gargantuan handout to the dying reactor industry. All the hype about a “nuclear renaissance” will come to naught without this massive taxpayer handout. But if it goes through, the landscape could be pock marked with lethal new nukes.
We have days---maybe hours---to stop it. While aid programs to the states, for education and the truly needy are slashed, this gargantuan boondoggle is poised to sail through with virtually no public knowledge.
The loan guarantee package was slipped into the Senate version of the Stimulus Bill by Senator Robert Bennet (R-UT) who proceeded to vote against the overall package. It is not currently in the House version.
... No intelligent life down here
Set phasors to Stimulus!
Liberal bloggers seem to be lining up in favor of the $1 trillion-plus stimulus bill to rescue Starship Free Enterpise by boldly going where no economy has gone before.
One guy at Huffpost, Jason Rosenbaum, in a column whose gist is chastising progressives for not supporting the stimulus package enough, believes the economy will never recover if the bill doesn't pass. Then he reminds that there goes health care and all our other cute pet causes with the bath
The President, meanwhile, assures us if the bill does not pass there will be catastrophe, no doubt about it. Both sides of the debate (Cut Taxes! Deficit Spend! Cut Taxes! Deficit Spend!) seem to concur that disaster is immiment if nothing is done.
Maybe not.
Liberal bloggers seem to be lining up in favor of the $1 trillion-plus stimulus bill to rescue Starship Free Enterpise by boldly going where no economy has gone before.
One guy at Huffpost, Jason Rosenbaum, in a column whose gist is chastising progressives for not supporting the stimulus package enough, believes the economy will never recover if the bill doesn't pass. Then he reminds that there goes health care and all our other cute pet causes with the bath
The President, meanwhile, assures us if the bill does not pass there will be catastrophe, no doubt about it. Both sides of the debate (Cut Taxes! Deficit Spend! Cut Taxes! Deficit Spend!) seem to concur that disaster is immiment if nothing is done.
Maybe not.
Keeping the Bush era viable
Rest assured, there are powerful interests that will not put up with an Obama presidency if it’s about even half the changes it threatens — I mean, promises — to make.
Watch them circle, yipping at his integrity. “Obama’s moralizing tone may not wear well,” a Wall Street Journal headline archly surmised a few days ago. “How often do Americans want to hear how misguided they were before his arrival?”
Huh? The new president didn’t simply, inscrutably “arrive” at the White House, as though appointed by, oh, Rod Blagojevich. He was elected by a serious, screaming-for-change majority of Americans to do precisely what he is doing, and so much more — that is to say, to upset to the point of apoplexy the status quo of war and greed as represented so faithfully by, among many other media hypocrites, the Wall Street Journal editorial board.
Watch them circle, yipping at his integrity. “Obama’s moralizing tone may not wear well,” a Wall Street Journal headline archly surmised a few days ago. “How often do Americans want to hear how misguided they were before his arrival?”
Huh? The new president didn’t simply, inscrutably “arrive” at the White House, as though appointed by, oh, Rod Blagojevich. He was elected by a serious, screaming-for-change majority of Americans to do precisely what he is doing, and so much more — that is to say, to upset to the point of apoplexy the status quo of war and greed as represented so faithfully by, among many other media hypocrites, the Wall Street Journal editorial board.
A $50 billion nuke debate at Democracy NOW!
AMY GOODMAN: A coalition of environmental groups are calling on senators to remove a controversial provision from the $900 billion stimulus bill that could lead to the construction of a new generation of nuclear power plants. We host a debate between independent journalist and longtime anti-nuclear activist Harvey Wasserman and Patrick Moore, a Greenpeace co-founder and member of the pro-nuclear Clean and Safe Energy Coalition.
Guests:
Harvey Wasserman, Independent journalist and longtime anti-nuclear activist. In the early 1970s he helped found the grassroots movement against nuclear power in the United States.
Patrick Moore, co-chair of the pro-nuclear Clean and Safe Energy Coalition. He is founder of the organization Green Spirit. In the 1970s he was one of the founding members of Greenpeace.
Rush Transcript
AMY GOODMAN: As the Senate continues debate on President Obama’s $900 billion economic stimulus plan, a coalition of environmental groups are calling on senators to remove a controversial provision that could lead to the construction of a new generation of nuclear power plants.
Guests:
Harvey Wasserman, Independent journalist and longtime anti-nuclear activist. In the early 1970s he helped found the grassroots movement against nuclear power in the United States.
Patrick Moore, co-chair of the pro-nuclear Clean and Safe Energy Coalition. He is founder of the organization Green Spirit. In the 1970s he was one of the founding members of Greenpeace.
Rush Transcript
AMY GOODMAN: As the Senate continues debate on President Obama’s $900 billion economic stimulus plan, a coalition of environmental groups are calling on senators to remove a controversial provision that could lead to the construction of a new generation of nuclear power plants.
New letter from Leonard Peltier: A hero’s welcome
I want to thank each and everyone of you for your efforts in my urgent time of need, you cannot imagine how much my spirit has been lifted from the cards and letters, the phone calls and how everyone kept up the pressure. My gratitude is really more than I can express.
My return to Lewisburg was met like a hero’s welcome, and many people came to assure me of my safety there. It is so ironic that the prisoners in a federal maximum-security prison can guarantee my safety, but the Bureau of Prisons will not. I did not say, “cannot”, but “will not” do so. You have to remember the BOP is a little brother to the FBI and they came from an illegitimate mother called the JUST-US (Justice) Department.
My return to Lewisburg was met like a hero’s welcome, and many people came to assure me of my safety there. It is so ironic that the prisoners in a federal maximum-security prison can guarantee my safety, but the Bureau of Prisons will not. I did not say, “cannot”, but “will not” do so. You have to remember the BOP is a little brother to the FBI and they came from an illegitimate mother called the JUST-US (Justice) Department.
Bolsheviks in Seattle?
It’s the 90th anniversary this month of the general strike that brought the
city of Seattle to a virtual standstill -- one of the very few general
strikes in U.S.history and certainly one of the most dramatic and
disruptive.
Seattle Mayor Ole Hanson described it this way: “Street car gongs ceased their clamor. Newsboys cast their unsold papers into the streets. From the doors of mill and factory, store and workshop, streamed 65,000 working men. School children with fear in their hearts hurried homeward. The lifestream of a great city stopped.”
It was one of no less than 3,600 strikes that broke out nationwide in that post- World War I year of 1919. Steelworkers, coal miners, workers of all kinds – even policemen -- walked off the job.
They acted in response to drastic reductions in the wages that the heavy demand for labor during the war had brought them, the onerous working conditions that were now imposed on them and the widespread attempts by government and employers to destroy their unions.
Seattle Mayor Ole Hanson described it this way: “Street car gongs ceased their clamor. Newsboys cast their unsold papers into the streets. From the doors of mill and factory, store and workshop, streamed 65,000 working men. School children with fear in their hearts hurried homeward. The lifestream of a great city stopped.”
It was one of no less than 3,600 strikes that broke out nationwide in that post- World War I year of 1919. Steelworkers, coal miners, workers of all kinds – even policemen -- walked off the job.
They acted in response to drastic reductions in the wages that the heavy demand for labor during the war had brought them, the onerous working conditions that were now imposed on them and the widespread attempts by government and employers to destroy their unions.