“Usually, December is a very slow month on all fronts, but this year it has been incredibly busy,” said Steve Elmendorf, a lobbyist and one-time senior adviser to former House Democratic leader Richard Gephardt (Mo.).
“Anytime government gets more active and more involved in your business, you’ll look for more help in Washington,” he said. “When Democrats control both chambers of Congress and the White House, there’s no question that government will be more active.”
Washington lobbying booms as economy tanks
Scientists create world's thinnest material
Researchers have created the world’s thinnest sheet - a single atom thick - and used it to create the world’s smallest transistor, marking a breakthrough that could spark the development of super-fast computer chips.
This innovation will allow ultra small electronics to take over when the current silicon-based technology runs out of steam, according to Prof Andre Geim and Dr Kostya Novoselov from the University of Manchester.
They reveal details of transistors that are only one atom thick and fewer than 50 atoms wide in the journal, Nature Materials.
Guantanamo lawyer says Gates may have committed perjury
A declaration the defense secretary made in a Washington, D.C. District Court filing Dec. 12 during the habeas review of Guantánamo prisoner Binyam Mohamed might make some rethink the trustworthy label. Mohamed’s lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, says that unless Gates retracts his statement, he could find himself accused of perjury.
Cheney’s admissions to the CIA leak prosecutor and FBI
Vice President Dick Cheney, according to a still-highly confidential FBI report, admitted to federal investigators that he rewrote talking points for the press in July 2003 that made it much more likely that the role of then-covert CIA-officer Valerie Plame in sending her husband on a CIA-sponsored mission to Africa would come to light.
Cheney conceded during his interview with federal investigators that in drawing attention to Plame’s role in arranging her husband’s Africa trip reporters might also unmask her role as CIA officer.
Iraqis hope to sue U.S. troops under new accord
The families of three men who were killed last week during a search of a grain warehouse want to press charges against American soldiers under the terms of a new security agreement between the U.S. and Iraq.
Their charges are a preview of some of the nettlesome questions that are likely to arise as the U.S. yields more authority to Iraq under the terms of the pact, which takes effect Jan. 1.
The Federal Reserve Bank is the Reason for America's Downfall
The American Dream, An Obituary - The American Revolution was an extraordinary event. The idea that freedom was an inherent right, that tyranny could be successfully opposed, that government could serve the people, not the few, was truly revolutionary in 1776—as it is today.
The American Revolution, however, has run its course; and unless resuscitated and given new life, the American dream and the dreams of America 's founding fathers will soon be only a memory. Dreams rarely come to pass and those that do rarely last. The American dream is no exception.
What happened in 1776 has been subverted by the passage of time and the inconstancy of later generations. Those who rule America today have subverted the principles enumerated in the US Constitution; principles the Founding Father hoped would guide those who followed them through the crises yet to come.
Israeli Human Rights organization declares settlement illegal
All the settlements in the West Bank are illegal under international humanitarian law, whether or not they are officially recognized by the Israeli government. The various governments of Israel ignored this prohibition and established more than 130 recognized settlements throughout the West Bank and on the territory it annexed to Jerusalem.
More than 100 million Americans breathe sooty air
More than 100 million people living in 46 metro areas are breathing air that has gotten too full of soot on some days, and now those cities have to clean up their air, the Environmental Protection Agency said Monday.
The EPA added 15 cities to the sooty air list, mostly in states not usually thought of as pollution-prone, such as Alaska, Utah, Idaho and Wisconsin. That's probably because of the prevalence of wood stoves in western and northern regions, a top EPA official said. But environmentalists said the EPA was only doing half its job on soot-laden areas, letting some southern cities with long-term soot problems _ such as Houston _ off the hook.
FDA Tells Consumers Not to Use More Than 25 Weight Loss Products Due to Undeclared, Illegal Ingredients
The FDA today warned consumers not to buy or use more than 25 products marketed for weight loss because they contain undeclared, active pharmaceutical ingredients that may be risky. Those products may be sold online or in stores as "dietary supplements."
But FDA tests found that the some of the products contained undeclared ingredients including sibutramine (a controlled substance), rimonabant (a drug not approved in the U.S), phenytoin (an antiseizure drug), and phenolphthalein (a solution used in chemical experiments and a suspected cancer-causing agent).
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