nuclear-news

Seven Democrats Side With Republicans to Keep Weapons Flowing to Israel as War Expands

April 16, 2026, Joshua Scheer

In a vote that cuts straight through the carefully managed language of Washington diplomacy, seven Senate Democrats broke with much of their party and joined Republicans to block an effort that would have halted U.S. arms sales to Israel. The resolution—introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders—failed 40–59, ensuring the continued transfer of military equipment as the region slides deeper into war.

Seven Democrats, led by Chuck Schumer, voted for the resolution. Which included Senators Richard Blumenthal, Chris Coons, Catherine Cortez Masto, John Fetterman, Kirsten Gillibrand, Jacky Rosen, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer—voted to keep the pipeline open. Their decision ensured the failure of a measure that, while unlikely to pass, represented one of the clearest attempts yet to challenge U.S. complicity in Israel’s ongoing military campaigns.

At stake was not just a shipment of military bulldozers or thousands of 1,000-pound bombs. It was a question that has been building for months: whether the United States will continue to bankroll and materially support an expanding conflict that now stretches from Gaza to Lebanon to Iran.

The answer, at least for now, is yes.

The backlash was immediate—and public.

With Bernie Sanders making the statement: “When we started this effort there were just 11 votes. Now, there are 40,” Bernie Sanders said in a statement.

“That shift reflects where the American people are. Americans, whether they are Democrats, Republicans or independents, want to see our tax money invested in improving lives here at home — not used to kill innocent women and children in the Middle East and put American troops in harm’s way as part of Netanyahu’s illegal wars of expansion.”…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

more https://scheerpost.com/2026/04/16/seven-democrats-side-with-republicans-to-keep-weapons-flowing-to-israel-as-war-expands/

April 22, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Regulating the regulators: How the nuclear power industry steers the Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Regulators are regulated by the industry — not the other way around.

by Arnie Gundersen | Apr 17, 2026, https://www.climateandcapitalmedia.com/regulating-the-regulators-the-extraordinary-influence-of-the-nuclear-power-industry-on-the-nuclear-regulatory-commission/

The Nuclear Energy Institute approves NRC commissioners, oversees its workers and, staff say, undermines its independence and public safety mandate

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) mission statement provides a dual — and, critics say, contradictory — mandate that it “protects public health and safety” but also that it “advances the nation’s common defense and security by enabling the safe and secure use and deployment of civilian nuclear energy technologies…”

Given the history of nuclear accidents and lack of fully safe and permanent ways to address nuclear accidents and waste, critics see the mandate to protect public safety but also “advance” nuclear power as a conflict of interest. And given the nuclear industry’s heavy influence — some say control — over the nation’s regulatory agency, many both inside and outside the agency believe the industry has successfully turned the NRC into its advocate rather than its regulator.

Concerns about NRC objectivity 

Concerns about the NRC’s objectivity and balance of support for public health versus industry support have taken on added urgency since President Trump last year signed an executive order calling ​for 10 new large nuclear reactors to be under ⁠construction by 2030 and for the Nuclear Regulatory ​Commission to speed reactor approvals. The first five or 10 ​new planned US nuclear reactors will “almost certainly” receive ‌loans from the US Energy Department’s lending office, Energy Secretary Chris Wright told lawmakers Thursday.

The NRC employs several thousand technical staff. But it’s led by a commission of five people appointed by the US President and confirmed by the Senate. But the President and Senate see potential nominees only if they’ve already been approved by a well-funded industry group. That means the regulators are regulated by the industry — not the other way around.

Regulators are regulated by the industry — not the other way around.

The real control over nuclear power in Washington, D.C. lies in the nonprofit Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI).  Every member of the NRC for the last decade has been screened by the NEI, which is the lobbying, campaign financing, and public relations organization for the nuclear industry. 

The industry chooses its regulators

One does not become a Commissioner unless NEI finds that you are acceptable. Never has a member of a non-governmental organization or a safety critic been appointed to the Commission. Even nuclear proponents who’ve raised any questions about the nuclear industry, or worked for people who did, have been blocked.

While the NRC puts “public health and safety” first in its mission statement, the NEI’s charter says: 

NEI is the unified voice of the commercial nuclear energy industry, influencing policies that affect its members, their customers, and the industry’s future. NEI represents the industry’s interests before Congress, the executive branch, state and local legislatures, federal regulators, international organizations, courts, and influential platforms where policy matters affecting the industry are discussed.

The NEI’s 2024 budget for direct lobbying was $1,570,000 while its total yearly operating budget was $57,500,000. According to IRS filings, its President & CEO earned a total compensation of  $3,594,043,000 while its other 12 top executives together earned $7,222,173 with other staff salaries adding an additional $17,188,000, Propublica reported.  That’s a lot of money to “represent the industry’s interest before Congress… and… federal regulators...”  

“Regulatory Capture” 

More significant to the public interest, however: Industry access to and even control of the NRC through informal channels euphemistically called “drop-in meetings” by NEI, nuclear reactor vendors, and plant owners has long been a concern of the NRC’s staff engineers.

In its 2022 audit prepared for the five Commissioners by the NRC’s Inspector General acknowledged that those concerns pose risks to the public:

Perceived Asymmetry of Access to NRC Management and Risk of Regulatory Capture Undermine NRC Transparency Goals

During our audit, the OIG identified chronic concerns, expressed by NRC staff and external stakeholders alike, about drop-in meetings and similar non-public informal interactions. One of these concerns was regulatory capture, which in relation to drop-in meetings is the concern that the NRC is serving to advance the interests of the very industry it regulates. Regulatory capture is often intangible and not measurable.

At a September 5, 2024 all-staff “Briefing on Human Capital” video call, with NRC leadership, eight top staff and two union leaders present, an intrepid staffer noted that the nuclear industry was unduly influencing regulatory policy:

Question: With NRC staff trust in the objectivity and integrity of NRC Commissioners and NRC executive leadership at an all-time low, with an annual exodus for sweetheart positions in the industry, what can be done to restore credibility and confidence that executive-level decision-making is not industry biased and actually serves the public interest?

Chairman Hanson: …everybody in this room, everybody up on this dais, are dedicated public servants, and I don’t question that at all…

Later in the same meeting, from an engineer:

Question: Okay. This question has a little bit of a background in it. The way outside stakeholders treat NRC staff is a factor in staff morale and workload, but it is often ignored. This has turned out to be a major issue with respect to advanced reactors where some company representatives and lobbying organizations have been downright abusive to agency workers. What’s worse, senior management is perceived as taking the side of the outside stakeholders and leaving the NRC project teams to take the brunt of the criticism. This is both demoralizing and time consuming for project staff. What can be done to limit repeated and unproductive industry interactions with project staff so that they can focus on doing the projects, rather than on handling difficult people of all the things that could help NRC meet tighter schedules?

Chairman Hanson: So thank you for the question. I wasn’t aware that this was an issue, so I appreciate the question just in kind of raising the awareness to me. 

Think about that response. The Chairman of the US federal government’s Nuclear Regulatory Commission claimed that he “wasn’t aware” that stakeholders’ heavy-handed interaction with staff — and NRC leaderships’ support of those stakeholders over its own staff — was an issue, even though it had already been reported in an Inspector General’s audit that any self-respecting chairman of a public regulatory agency with fiduciary duty to taxpayers would have been obligated to read — and to respond to. 

Chairman Hanson’s 2024 claim — either reckless and irresponsible, or simply not credible — also flies in the face of comments by one of his predecessors, former NRC Chairman Greg Jaczko. Five years earlier, in 2019, Jaczko publicly stated, 

“I saw things up close that I was not meant to see: an agency overwhelmed by the industry it was supposed to regulate and a political system determined to keep it that way… honesty and integrity mean nothing if you are perceived to be critical of nuclear power…”

Clearly, the NRC and its five Commissioners have failed to live up to the agency’s core mission to put the public first.

The NEI presents itself as an impartial source of nuclear science and wisdom. Yet it also funds “astroturf” advocacy groups, including Nuclear Matters and Third Way. Schedule I of NEI’s 2024 990 tax filing shows that NEI paid $2.3 million to Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Nuclear Matters, which on its website claims:

Nuclear Matters is a national coalition of grassroots advocates, working to inform the public and policymakers about the clear benefits of nuclear energy. 

The 2024 IRS 990 tax filing for Nuclear Matters states that its operating income was $2,309,945, showing that 99.5% of its income came from the NEI. Its form 990 identified three executives whose combined total compensation was $2,206,460. That means 95% of the Nuclear Energy Institute’s donation to the nonprofit Nuclear Matters was compensation to just three people. That’s highly irregular in the world of nonprofits.

Moreover, you might think that an organization claiming to represent a “nationwide coalition of grassroots advocates” should be funded by actual coalitions of grassroots advocates. But with 95% of its funding from NEI, Nuclear Matters is not.

Grassroots or astroturf?

You might also expect that an organization claiming to represent a “nationwide coalition of grassroots advocates” would work with, find substantial support from, and list a significant nationwide coalition. However, Nuclear Matters’ “Advocacy Council” includes 21 people, virtually all of whom are current or former nuclear industry representatives, policymakers or regulators. And its 16 listed “partners” are pro-nuclear organizations, many of which have received industry funding. 

Does that fit your definition of “grass roots”?

The NEI’s reach extends beyond the NRC and into the Department of Energy, which controls funding of future nuclear reactor designs through DOE’s Office of Energy Dominance Financing. Membership in NEI is not limited to the owners of existing nuclear power plants, but also is open to newer companies seeking government funds to design the next generation of atomic power plants.  

April 21, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Congress A-OK with Trump murdering thousands in Iran and crashing the world economy

Walt Zlotow   West Suburban Peace Coalition Glen Ellyn IL . 17 April 2026

On Thursday the US House completed Congress’ capitulation to Trump’s deranged, failed war to destroy Iran on behalf of Israel.

The House voted 214 -213 to defeat a War Powers Resolution directing Trump to end his failed Iran war. All Democrats but 1 (Rep. Jared Golden) voted to end the war. All Republicans but 1 (Rep. Tom Massie) voted to keep up the murder and mayhem destroying Iran, Israel, Gulf States, and possibly sending the world economy into recession.

A day earlier the Senate put their ignominious approval on Trump’s madness, defeating their War Powers Resolution by a wider margin of 47-52. Again just 1 Republican (Sen. Rand Paul) voted to end the war and 1 Democrat (Sen. John Fetterman) voted to keep it killing and blowing up the world economy.

Republicans both support whatever Trump promotes and relish endless wars in furtherance of US world dominance no matter how murderous and criminal they are. One Republican representative and senator opposing Trump’s criminal wars out of 274 GOP congresspersons disgraces the Grand Old (War) Party.

Democrats are minimally better. Their War Powers vote was more connected to their opposing anything trump supports. They largely enable US military adventurism worldwide, unlimited military spending in support thereof, and acquiescing in Israeli genocide in Gaza and relentless bombing of civilians in Lebanon. They, like nearly the entire GOP, are bought and paid for by US weapons makers and the US Israel Lobby.

As criminally murderous are Trump and his war party of Hegseth, Vance and Rubio, they could not proceed without the support of Congress. By funding Trump’s endless wars, refusing to condemn them thru War Powers Resolutions and gobbling up pro war campaign cash, they ignore the majority of voters who want this madness ended.

At the rate Trump and his enabling Congress are breaking things, this may be the worst in America’s 250 years.

April 18, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Trump/Newsom Attack Renewables and Push Nuclear

the Trump family’s media company announced a merger with TAE Technologies, a California-based nuclear fusion company, in a deal worth over $6 billion. So, Trump now has a vested financial interest in nuclear power.

Trump-style, Democrat Newsom has also backstabbed a 2018 comprehensive plan he had signed to phase in a 100% renewable energy-based state grid while phasing out the embrittled, hyper-expensive Diablo reactors, which are surrounded by earthquake faults.

Karl Grossman – Harvey Wasserman

Amidst Donald Trump’s wild Middle East War declarations, the tech billionaire push to nuclear reactor suicide has escalated with the shock relicensing of California’s two nuclear power plants at Diablo Canyon, now being pushed by the state’s liberal Governor Gavin Newsom, who has also joined Trump in their all-out attack against renewable energy.

Together, Trump and Newsom are pushing decrepit, virtually uninsured, militarily indefensible nuclear power plants whose drastic deregulation may now rival the dangers posed by any bombs Iran could produce

They also make no economic or ecological sense.

Despite the latest tsunami of “Nuclear Renaissance” hype, nuclear power plants are losing bigly to the worldwide surge in renewable energy. Solar panels, wind turbines, geothermal, and epic advances in battery storage continue to make the green alternative to fossil fuels and nuclear reactors—big and small—a far cheaper, safer, cleaner, more reliable, more job-producing alternative.

Despite the all-out Trump/Newsom all-out anti-green attack, as the “independent global energy think tank” Ember reported last month, “the world installed a record 814 GW of new solar and wind capacity in 2025, 17% more than in 2024 (696 GW).”

“The latest additions bring the combined global installed capacity of wind and solar to 4,174 GW (over 4 TW),” it said.

One GW (gigawatt) equals a billion watts, roughly the capacity of a big nuclear power plant; a TW is a trillion watts.

London-based Ember adds that “solar accounted for the majority of new capacity additions, with almost 4 GW of new solar added globally for every 1 GW of wind.”

Reuters reported last month: “Renewable power made up almost 50% of the world’s electricity capacity last year after a record ‌increase in solar installations.”

Despite the nuclear power push, some 90% of Earth’s annual newly installed annual generating capacity for the past few years has been solar, wind or geothermal, with battery backup.

Nonetheless, Republican Trump says, “nuclear’s a great energy.” His flood of executive orders on nuclear power have weakened or eliminated nuclear safety regulations—making nuclear power plants more dangerous than ever—and has expedited their being built. Last year his administration finalized an $80 billion deal with Westinghouse for new nuclear power plants.

Also, last year, the Trump family’s media company announced a merger with TAE Technologies, a California-based nuclear fusion company, in a deal worth over $6 billion. So, Trump now has a vested financial interest in nuclear power.

Trump is also attacking wind turbines everywhere. He even wants a $928 million chunk of taxpayer cash spent to kill a French-proposed offshore wind project and to instead fund Texas gas/oil projects, some of which will go for export.

Trump is joined in his all-out war on renewables by Newsom’s pro-utility rate hikes, virtually killing California’s once-booming rooftop photovoltaics industry, costing thousands of jobs and billions in extra rate payments. Even a proposed “balcony solar” bill would strictly limit a technology now cheap, reliable, and enough to power the whole state, as it does on a regular basis, without the need for Diablo’s hyper-expensive billionaire-benefitted power.

Trump is also attacking wind turbines everywhere. He even wants a $928 million chunk of taxpayer cash spent to kill a French-proposed offshore wind project and to instead fund Texas gas/oil projects, some of which will go for export.

Trump is joined in his all-out war on renewables by Newsom’s pro-utility rate hikes, virtually killing California’s once-booming rooftop photovoltaics industry, costing thousands of jobs and billions in extra rate payments. Even a proposed “balcony solar” bill would strictly limit a technology now cheap, reliable, and enough to power the whole state, as it does on a regular basis, without the need for Diablo’s hyper-expensive billionaire-benefitted power.

Trump-style, Democrat Newsom has also backstabbed a 2018 comprehensive plan he had signed to phase in a 100% renewable energy-based state grid while phasing out the embrittled, hyper-expensive Diablo reactors, which are surrounded by earthquake faults.

Trump has promised many millions to cover a loan to keep Diablo operating. But state legislators fear he may leave them holding much of the bag. They could vote to turn down the NRC’s 20-year license extension, and close Diablo instead in 2030.

But Newsom, who’s term-limited this year, will be pushing hard, even as his Diablo betrayal underscores global economic failure of nuclear power.

The two nuclear power projects in the U.S. since 2000 have been fiscal fiascoes. Construction of two plants in South Carolina was halted, the would-be plants abandoned, wasting $9 billion while producing zero electricity. Two plants at Vogtle, Georgia, opened seven years late, costing nearly $40 billion, more than double their original price. Projected cost estimates for the ceaselessly hyped “Small Modular Reactors” vastly exceed current prices for proven battery-backed solar, wind and geothermal.

And from the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plants in California to the Palisades plant in Michigan to the Indian Point plants in New York and onto Ukraine and Iran, the perils of nuclear power are clear.

Coupled with nuclear war, nuclear power—hyped as “Atoms for Peace” in the last century—and the more than 400 nuclear power plants worldwide that are now in operation, 94 of them in the United States, constitute lethal threats. The ability of the human species to survive on this planet is being put in nuclear danger, and not just at Diablo Canyon.

Kevin Kamps, executive director of Don’t Waste Michigan, the statewide anti-nuclear coalition founded in the mid-1980s, commented in an interview: “The nuclear industry’s massive campaign contributions to help get its preferred politicians elected in the first place, and it’s even more massive lobbying expenditures to influence office holders and government bureaucrats, explains its stranglehold on law and regulation—it’s the best pro-nuclear democracy money can buy, to paraphrase Greg Palast,” said Kamps. (Palast is the author of the book The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.)

“The industry barbarians are so running rampant through the ‘Halls of Power,’ we might as well just hand over the keys to the U.S. Treasury to the nuclear lobbyists and their bosses,” says Kamps.

“Nearly $400 billion in nuclear power bailouts, at federal taxpayer expense, was authorized in just three bills—the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021, and the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 as well as the absurdly named, downright dangerous ADVANCE Act of 2024 (“Accelerating Deployment of Versatile, Advanced Nuclear for Clean Energy”). The three bills, signed into law by President Biden, teed up the current even more outrageous giveaways under Trump, not to mention the regulatory free fall, without a parachute, regarding safety, security, health, and the environment.”

“Such collusion,” said Kamps, “between safety regulators, industry, and government officials, was the root cause of the still unfolding Fukushima Daiichi nuclear catastrophe that began in 2011, the Japanese Parliament officially concluded after its year-long independent investigation, the first in its history.”

“After successfully lobbying Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer to champion the unprecedented zombie reactor restart of the infamous, closed Palisades reactor, and to grant Holtec $300 million of state taxpayer funding for its trouble, the head of the University of Michigan nuclear engineering department was downright giddy.” Todd Allen, as reported in Stateline, said: “You’re starting to see a lot of states transition to a position where they’re supportive of nuclear. And compared to 30 years ago, the amount of federal support for nuclear is unbelievable.”

Said Kamps: “It is unbelievable, in a shocking, horrifying, insanely exorbitant, and extremely risky sense.”

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, emasculated by Trump, has just extended the operating licenses of the two Diablo Canyon nuclear power plants by 20 years.

They are now more than 40 years old—with 40 years the length of time nuclear regulators originally set as the limit for a nuclear power plant running before its innards became embrittled by radioactivity leaving them prone for accidents. And. indeed, both Diablo Canyon plants are now deeply embrittled.

Further, the earthquake faults that surround the Diablo Canyon nuclear plants could easily trigger a catastrophic accident. Indeed, the other major industry in the area of the Diablo Canyon plants are hot spas.

The plants were to be shut down, Unit 1 in 2024 and Unit 2 in 2025, but California Governor Newsom, a Democrat, led in undoing that arrangement.

In the middle of the U.S., the Palisades nuclear plant was closed in 2022, after five decades of operation, and Holtec International got a contract to decommission it. But then Holtec turned around and said it would instead restart the plant. It would be first restart of a closed nuclear power plant in U.S. history.

Last week, Don’t Waste Michigan warned of “dire consequences” in a little more than a year following a restart. It issued a report by Arnie Gundersen, a nuclear engineer with 55 years experience, that cited a document of Holtec contractor, Framatone, that said “if Palisades is allowed to restart, the steam generators will degrade quickly.”

Gundersen said Framatone “determined that Palisades cannot operate safely even after just the first 14.5 months. Holtec’s contractor admits the likelihood of damage will increase ‘exponentially’ after that point if Palisades is restarted.”

The proposed restart has been made possible by $3.12 billion in federal grants and loans and funds from the state of Michigan with Michigan Governor Whitmer, a Democrat, a major advocate of a Palisades restart.

As Roger Rapoport, an author and journalist who has long reported on nuclear power and also Palisades, wrote last month in the Detroit Free Press, how Holtec International’s purported “unprecedented milestone in U.S. nuclear energy” may be turning into a millstone. Holtec is attempting the first-ever reopening of a nuclear plant permanently closed for decommissioning—the Palisades reactor….Twenty-one months into the project, Holtec has announced delay after delay while continuing to draw vast public subsidies…”

Currently, “Holtec seeks exceptions from Nuclear Regulatory Commission for work on a reactor so noncompliant that no government agency would even consider approving its construction today….After multiple delays…Holtec, a New Jersey company with zero nuclear reactor operating experience, is back in line at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission seeking forgiveness for unpermitted welding on the 55-year-old Palisades reactor pressure vessel containment head.”

This “follows a controversial NRC exemption related to re-sleeving approximately 1,400 cracked tubes at the plant’s ancient steam generators…”

Meanwhile, in New York at the site of the Indian Point nuclear power plants—25 miles from New York City—U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Chris Wright, formerly CEO and founder of a fracking company, joined last month with Republican Congressman Mike Lawler of New York calling for the reopening of the two plants.

One plant was shut down in 2020 and a second in 2021 because of safety concerns related to the plants being located in the most densely populated area of the U.S. Some 22 million people live within 50 miles of the nuclear plants. The two plants began operating in 1974 and 1976.

Holtec also got the contract to decommission these plants. Holtec International President Kelly Trice declared interest in his company restarting them instead, at a cost of $10 billion. “I’m getting so many people asking me from New York if this is possible,” he said. “The answer is yes.”

Even on Long Island, east of New York City, where the Long Island Lighting Company proposed nearly 60 years ago to build seven to eleven nuclear power plants, suddenly a pro-nuclear voice has emerged. There was strong opposition from the grassroots and from the government of Suffolk County, where the plants were to be located, and the scheme was blocked, along with the opening of the one plant built, at Shoreham.

Among issues raised in the decades-long battle against nuclear power on Long Island was how the eight million people on Long Island could evacuate in the event of a major nuclear plant accident—considering that the only ways off Long Island are several bridges and tunnels into New York City.

But, last week, John Duffy, treasurer and business manager of Local 138 of the International Union of Operating Engineers, wrote in Long Island Business News a piece which included the heading that “let’s repower Shoreham.”

Even on Long Island, east of New York City, where the Long Island Lighting Company proposed nearly 60 years ago to build seven to eleven nuclear power plants, suddenly a pro-nuclear voice has emerged. There was strong opposition from the grassroots and from the government of Suffolk County, where the plants were to be located, and the scheme was blocked, along with the opening of the one plant built, at Shoreham.

Among issues raised in the decades-long battle against nuclear power on Long Island was how the eight million people on Long Island could evacuate in the event of a major nuclear plant accident—considering that the only ways off Long Island are several bridges and tunnels into New York City.

But, last week, John Duffy, treasurer and business manager of Local 138 of the International Union of Operating Engineers, wrote in Long Island Business News a piece which included the heading that “let’s repower Shoreham.”

She also, in her state of the state address this year, called for the construction of five gigawatts of new nuclear power in the state—the equivalent of five large nuclear power plants. And her Public Service Commission last year approved $33.3 billion to be paid by every electric ratepayer in New York State as a subsidy for four nuclear power plants in upstate New York, including Nine Mile Point 1, the oldest nuclear power plant now running in the United States.

Meanwhile, overseas, in the wars in Ukraine and Iran, nuclear power plants have become examples of what Dr. Bennett Ramberg, an internationally known expert on nuclear proliferation, wrote about in his book “Nuclear Power Plants as Weapons for the Enemy: An Unrecognized Military Peril,” first published in 1980. In it he wrote that “despite multiplication of nuclear power plants, little public consideration has been given to their vulnerability in time of war.”

When Putin sent troops pouring through Belarus into northern Ukraine in 2022, they quickly assaulted the remains of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, which exploded in 1986. The core of Unit 4 has been covered with a $2 billion sarcophagus funded by European nations.

Since then, Russia has used drones at the Chernobyl site which have punctured the sarcophagus. And has also attacked the six-reactor Zaporyzhia nuclear plant site in Ukraine.

In Iran, there have been attacks at the Bushehr nuclear power plant. Just last month, the International Atomic Energy Agency reported that “following information from Iran of a projectile incident on Tuesday evening, the IAEA can confirm that a structure 350 metres from the Bushehr NPP reactor was hit and destroyed.” IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said: “Although there was no damage to the reactor itself nor injuries to staff, any attack at or near nuclear power plants violates the seven indispensable pillars related to ensuring nuclear safety and security during an armed conflict and should never take place.”

But they are taking place—and can be expected to continue because, indeed, nuclear power plants can be “weapons for the enemy” and, indeed, this largely remains an “unrecognized military peril.”

A measure of the impacts of a nuclear plant disaster are detailed in the book “Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment.”

Published by the New York Academy of Sciences in 2009, it was authored by three noted scientists: Russian biologist Dr. Alexey Yablokov, former environmental advisor to the Russian presidents Gorbachev and Yeltsin; Dr. Alexey Nesterenko, a biologist and ecologist in Belarus; and Dr. Vassili Nesterenko, a physicist and at the time of the accident director of the Institute of Nuclear Energy of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus. Its editor was Dr. Janette Sherman, a physician and toxicologist long involved in studying the health impacts of radioactivity.

The book is based on health data, radiological surveys and scientific reports—5,000 documents. It concluded that based on the records that were scrutinized, some 985,000 people died largely of cancer caused by the Chernobyl accident in nations that underwent radioactive fallout from the disaster. That was between when the accident occurred in 1986 and 2004. More deaths, it projected, would follow. And they have.

Contrary to the industry hype, all atomic reactors emit planet-killing radioactive Carbon 14.  They directly heat the planet, destroy our lakes, rivers and oceans with chemicals and radiation, kill millions of fish per year.  They create radioactive waste for which there is no safe place on this planet.  Their “normal” radiation releases ceaselessly harm and kill untold thousands of downwind neighbors.

And with the planet-killing new “Nuclear Renaissance” now in play, there will be more and more deaths from nuclear power—unless there is a stop put to this failed, deadly, hyper-expensive technology, with our species finally taking the true Solartopian road with energy we can live with.

Harvey Wasserman wrote the books Solartopia! Our Green-Powered Earth and The Peoples Spiral of US History. He helped coin the phrase “No Nukes.” He co-convenes the Grassroots Emergency Election Protection Coalition at www.electionprotection2024.org  Karl Grossman is the author of Cover Up: What You Are Not Supposed to Know About Nuclear Power and Power Crazy. He the host of the nationally-aired TV program Enviro Close-Up with Karl Grossman (www.envirovideo.com)

April 18, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA | Leave a comment

“‘This war is the result of a coup.’”

The Israeli regime’s deep penetration into the U.S. government is not a new story, if this is not to state the obvious. Via the Zionist lobbies in Washington, Israel more or less owns both houses of Congress. The same is emphatically true of the Trump administration itself: Israel and its Zionist supporters in the United States have groomed Trump since he began his rise in national politics 11 years ago. Wealthy American Jews acting in Israel’s behalf donated $90 million to Donald Trump’s first campaign for the presidency, in 2016, and at least $100 million to his second. Israel owns Donald Trump.

The long, steady Zionist takeover in Washington is now complete. There is no longer any flinching from this.

Apr 16, 2026, https://thefloutist.substack.com/p/this-war-is-the-result-of-a-coup?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=112164&post_id=194300375&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&r=23qgh&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

15 APRIL—We were as stunned as many others to read the closely reported account of how, minute-by-minute, Bibi Netanyahu led the Trump regime into war with Iran when it appeared in The New York Times a little more than a week ago. The two correspondents who produced this work chose the most powerful device available to journalists: The reporting evokes compelling visual images. Images are immediate and force recognitions. They do not bear interpretation as language does. There is no turning away from them.

And there is no turning away from what the Times piece shows us: That the leader of a racist, collectively crazed terror state, a man who is self-evidently psychotic in our view, has taken control of the Executive Branch of the U.S. government.

What follows is a piece that appeared Tuesday in Global Bridge, the independent Swiss journal. There have since been further revelations that, to us, could not be more sobering for the gravity of their implications. During his failed negotiations with the Iranians in Pakistan last weekend, J.D. Vance consulted not only with President Trump—11 telephone calls in the 21 hours of talks—but reportedly also with Netanyahu in Jerusalem. In a videoed appearance subsequently broadcast on Israeli television, the Israeli leader boasted—this in Hebrew—that Vance called him while en route back to Washington to give a full account of what transpired in Islamabad and noted that he, Vance, and other members of the Trump regime, “report to me daily.”

The Iran war faces Americans with many new realities. The limits of U.S. power is one of them, and we will address this in weeks to come. The more immediate truth is the abject surrender of American sovereignty by the hand of a president more beholden to the Zionist state than any other in history. As Americans are able fully to see this for the first time, they are also confronted now with realities from which, with media’s complicity, they have for decades averted their eyes, or shrugged off, or pretended were not of consequence, or to which they have otherwise acquiesced. It is in this that what The Times just forced Americans to look at is of a magnitude it is hard to overstate.

AIPAC’s systematic corruption of Congress and many elections to it: This is a very old story. So is the Zionists’ insidious corruption of mainstream media and, by equally subtle means, public discourse altogether. Lately we witness Zionist takeovers of many American media, attacks on free speech and association in the name of combatting a phantom wave of anti–Semitism, the criminalization of criticism of Israel by way of a preposterous definition of “anti–Semitism.” And on and on.

With the Zionists’ assertion of control over the White House, Americans must now recognize—must if they are to save their crumbling republic, we mean to say—that all of this amounts to a long, systematic attack on their sovereignty. It is obvious now, if it has not been to date, that Zionist ideology is inimical to America’s democratic ideals—representative government, civil liberties, the separation of powers and of church and state. Ridding the government of Zionist control and influence—top-to-bottom, at federal, state and municipal levels—must be the beginning of any restoration project worthy of the term.

Two cases in point to bring these thoughts home. One, all those acting in the Zionist state’s behalf—the Israel lobbies, the Adelsons and others with dual citizenship—should be registered as foreign agents and monitored accordingly. Two, media ownership should be similarly regulated.

The creep of Zionist influence into so many aspects of American life has been a calculated operation conducted over many years. This is the bitter truth that now confronts us. The same is true of Trump we now know (if we didn’t already): The Israelis, by much evidence, determined as soon as he entered national politics that he was sufficiently pliable, sufficiently susceptible to flattery and persuasion, altogether sufficiently stupid to serve their interests—the ultimate among the “useful idiots.” This is the purpose he has just served in following Israel into “Bibi’s war.”

Why has he, Trump, acted so diametrically against his own interests as well as America’s and, indeed, the world’s? This is not clear and may never be. But the thought that the Mossad has a file on Trump that locates him well inside the Epstein mess grows more plausible the deeper Trump digs himself and his country into his hole. Study the photograph atop this piece: To us it is highly suggestive that a cynical exercise in blackmail may be at work between these two men—one victimizer turning another into a victim.

We have chosen to publish the piece that follows as it appeared yesterday but for minor editing adjustments.

—The Editors.

Patrick Lawrence.

13 April—The Israeli regime’s deep penetration into the U.S. government is not a new story, if this is not to state the obvious. Via the Zionist lobbies in Washington, Israel more or less owns both houses of Congress. The same is emphatically true of the Trump administration itself: Israel and its Zionist supporters in the United States have groomed Trump since he began his rise in national politics 11 years ago. Wealthy American Jews acting in Israel’s behalf donated $90 million to Donald Trump’s first campaign for the presidency, in 2016, and at least $100 million to his second. Israel owns Donald Trump.

These are known facts. But one must look very hard to find reference to them in mainstream media or in America’s public discourse altogether. No, Israel’s corruption of American politics and power is part of what I call the Great American Unsayable—a collection of truths too bitter to be acknowledged publicly other than rarely.

April 18, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Israel is losing its grip on U.S. politics

By Dave Reed , Mondoweiss,  April 12, 2026  

We’ve been covering the shift in American politics on Israel for years. Donald Trump’s disastrously failed war on Iran has accelerated it.

For years, conventional wisdom held that support for Israel was a third rail in U.S. politics. Phil Weiss has written a library of analysis and coverage on that here at Mondoweiss over the past 20 years. Uncritical support for Israel was toxic for politicians to touch, impossible to oppose, and self-reinforcing across both parties through the combined pressure of donor money, media consensus, and institutional loyalty. That consensus is broken forever. It didn’t break because of a sudden moral awakening in Washington. That will never happen, on virtually any issue. If you need any more proof of that, just look at the way the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein are being treated, or refer to the fact that even massacres of schoolchildren haven’t moved Congress to do something about guns in the country. The consensus across the political elite on Israel broke because Israel’s conduct in Gaza, Lebanon, and now in its open effort to torpedo an end to the war with Iran, has become a liability that American politicians can no longer ignore.

Michael Arria, our U.S. correspondent, documented this week how military aid to Israel has finally become a true litmus test in Democratic Party primaries. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez announced she will vote against all military aid to Israel, including weapons classified as “defensive,” a position she had previously hedged. Even J Street, the organization meant to offer a counter to AIPAC’s extremism but locked in perpetual confusion about its identity, is even now opposing U.S. support for the Iron Dome missile defense system. AIPAC, once considered the most powerful of all the many lobby groups, is now a liability in Democratic races, losing key primaries and watching candidates run against it by name. A recent NBC News poll shows just 13 percent of Democrats view Israel positively. These numbers are not marginal; they represent a fundamental and permanent realignment of the Democratic base. Politicians, candidates, and political institutions are paying attention.

This fracturing is thankfully not limited to the left. The Iran war has cracked open the MAGA coalition in ways that the genocide in Gaza could not. Powerful conservative commentators commanding huge audiences and figures closely aligned with the MAGA movement have been openly and harshly critical of Trump over the war. The widespread, and correct, view is that Netanyahu manipulated Trump into a conflict that serves Israeli interests, not American ones. The critique of the tail wagging the dog is now being advanced loudly by people who would never have entertained it two years ago. The political ground is moving, dramatically, in the months before an all-important mid-term election. Republican figures with aspirations for more power, such as J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio, are beginning to distance themselves from the Iran debacle………………………………………………………………………………………………………. https://mondoweiss.net/2026/04/weekly-briefing-israel-is-losing-its-grip-on-u-s-politics/

April 16, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA | Leave a comment

They Reject American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)—But Not the War Machine

what does it mean for a state to claim a right to exist if that existence is sustained through the death, displacement, and destruction of others?

April 7, 2026 Joshua Scheer, https://scheerpost.com/2026/04/07/they-reject-aipac-but-not-the-war-machine/

In Washington, a quiet rebrand is underway.

One by one, prominent Democrats positioning themselves for 2028 are announcing that they will no longer accept money from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). On its face, this seems like a meaningful break from decades of bipartisan deference. For years, AIPAC has functioned as a gatekeeper of acceptable discourse on U.S. policy toward Israel—rewarding loyalty, punishing dissent.

But look closer, and the shift begins to feel less like a rupture—and more like a recalibration.

Because while the money may be refused, the machinery of war remains firmly intact.

A Political Adjustment, Not a Moral One

Recent polling shows a dramatic shift among Democratic voters, with overwhelming sympathy now leaning toward Palestinians rather than Israelis. Currently, 65 percent of Democrats say their sympathies lie more with the Palestinians, while 17 percent say they sympathise more with the Israelis. That reality has forced politicians to adapt. For the first time in a generation, the moral ground beneath U.S. support for Israel is cracking—driven not by politicians, but by a public no longer willing to ignore the scale of destruction in Gaza.

So candidates pivot.

They distance themselves from AIPAC. They speak in softer tones. Some even flirt with language once considered taboo—words like “apartheid,” quickly walked back when backlash arrives.

Yet beneath this rhetorical repositioning lies a stubborn continuity: unwavering support for military aid, strategic alliance, and the broader architecture of U.S. dominance in the Middle East.

This is not transformation. It is triangulation.

To demonstrate that most clearly, here is the front-runner for 2028 discussing his reversal of calling Israel an apartheid state and his reverence for the country. Newsom’s reversal—pairing regret over the word “apartheid” with an insistence that he “revere[s] the state of Israel”—captures where Democrats are now: distancing from Netanyahu without challenging the system itself.

However, Cory Booker defended the group—from which he has received significant funding—arguing that the intense focus on AIPAC is misplaced. He noted that many ethnic and interest groups raise and bundle political donations, often for causes he personally disagrees with, yet AIPAC has become a singular target of criticism. As he put it, “There are Iranian Americans that bundle money. There are Turkish Americans that bundle money. There are a lot of ethnic groups that bundle money… but somehow AIPAC seems to be drawing a lot of attention, and that’s problematic to me.” At the same time, Booker has said he would no longer accept PAC money in general. Still, at least he stands by his position.

The Illusion of Courage

Rejecting AIPAC donations is being framed as a bold stand. In reality, it is the lowest bar imaginable.

What would actual political courage look like?

It would mean voting to halt weapons transfers used in devastating campaigns across Gaza, Lebanon, and beyond. It would mean openly confronting the human cost of U.S. foreign policy—not just its public relations problem. It would require breaking not just with a lobbying group, but with a system that treats military force as the default instrument of policy.

Few are willing to go that far.

Instead, we see a familiar pattern: symbolic gestures paired with substantive silence.

Blaming Individuals, Protecting Systems

Another tactic has emerged in this moment of discomfort—one as old as politics itself.

Blame the leader, not the structure.

Criticism is carefully directed at Benjamin Netanyahu, portrayed as an outlier or aberration. The implication is that without him, the underlying policies would somehow be more humane, more restrained, more just.

But this framing obscures more than it reveals.

Netanyahu did not create the system—he operates within it. A system sustained by decades of U.S. military funding, diplomatic shielding, and bipartisan consensus. To isolate him as the problem is to avoid confronting the deeper reality: that the policies themselves, not just their most visible architect, are responsible for the devastation.

Here is that dynamic in clear focus with former Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel. A longtime supporter of Israel—whose father was Israeli. At the same time, he has also vowed not to take AIPAC’s money.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear underscored again what we have been saying: that the party cannot change its ways despite cutting off one group that has become politically problematic, further showing the disconnect between the people they represent and Israel.

Here, Beshear sticks to familiar pro-Israel talking points in a recent interview and resists labeling the devastation in Gaza as “genocide,” dismissing such language as an unwelcome party “litmus test.” Rep. Ro Khanna pushed back, arguing that defending human rights should be the most basic standard—and that the party must find a new moral direction.

The Money Isn’t the Whole Story

Even as AIPAC becomes politically radioactive in some circles, its influence persists—often through parallel organizations, aligned donors, and entrenched institutional relationships.

More importantly, AIPAC has never been the sole driver of U.S. policy. It is a symptom of a broader alignment between American power and Israeli military strategy—an alignment rooted in geopolitics, not just lobbying.

Which means that removing AIPAC from the equation, while leaving everything else intact, changes very little.

The pipeline of weapons continues.
The bombs keep falling.
The rhetoric adjusts.

And while AIPAC often dominates the conversation, it is far from the only force shaping pro-Israel advocacy in U.S. politics. A wide network of organizations operates across the political spectrum, each reinforcing the U.S.-Israel relationship in different ways. Christians United for Israel (CUFI), the largest pro-Israel group in the country with over seven million members, mobilizes grassroots evangelical support rooted in Christian Zionist beliefs. J Street, founded in 2008, presents itself as a more progressive alternative, advocating for a two-state solution and diplomacy over military approaches, even as it maintains a pro-Israel stance. Within party politics, the Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI) works to ensure the Democratic Party remains firmly aligned with Israel, while the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) advances similar priorities within Republican circles. Other groups, such as Pro-Israel America PAC and the Israeli-American Coalition for Action, focus on supporting candidates and advancing legislation that strengthens bilateral ties, including efforts like anti-BDS laws at the state level. Additional organizations—including NORPAC, the Joint Action Committee for Political Affairs (JAC), and Americans for Good Government (AGG)—further reinforce this ecosystem by backing candidates who support a strong U.S.-Israel relationship. While these groups differ in strategy—ranging from grassroots mobilization to direct political funding and lobbying—they collectively demonstrate that AIPAC is not an isolated actor but part of a broader, deeply embedded network.

At the same time, opposition has begun to coalesce through the “Reject AIPAC” coalition, which includes groups like IfNotNow, Jewish Voice for Peace Action, and Justice Democrats, signaling a growing pushback against this entrenched influence.

The Bottom Line

The deeper problem is not rhetorical—it is structural. Israel is a settler-colonial state, and until that truth is spoken plainly—alongside the histories of the United States, South Africa, and others built on dispossession—we are not having an honest conversation. We are circling it, softening it, avoiding it. Because the real question cuts too deep: what does it mean for a state to claim a right to exist if that existence is sustained through the death, displacement, and destruction of others? That is the question buried beneath every speech, every careful statement, every political pivot.

Instead, we are handed villains. Netanyahu becomes the embodiment of the problem—like Trump, grotesque enough to absorb our outrage. But this is a sleight of hand. Systems do not begin or end with men like him; they outlive them, operate through them, and are protected by those who claim to oppose them. By narrowing the blame, we absolve the structure.

And so the language collapses. Even Gavin Newsom, for a fleeting moment, brushed against the truth—only to retreat, unable to hold the weight of the word “apartheid,” unable to let it stand. That retreat is not incidental; it is the boundary of acceptable politics. Because to name the system is to implicate ourselves—our history, our alliances, our silence.

Until that boundary is broken, until the words match the reality, there is no path forward—only repetition, only evasion, only the quiet normalization of what should be unthinkable.

April 12, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Former presidents must call for end to Trump’ criminal Iran war destabilizing the world…but won’t.

Walt Zlotow  West Suburban Peace Coalition  Glen Ellyn IL 7 April 26

Former presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, like all ex-presidents, tend to refrain from criticizing the current White House occupant. They view themselves as members of the most exclusive American club so are loathe to excoriate their next member joining them upon leaving office. Criticizing the current president is generally political in nature, best left to those still battling in the political arena.

But these are no ordinary times. Current President Trump has embarked on a catastrophic war on Iran that besides needlessly killing thousands, is destabilizing the world economy. Iran wins by not losing. The US loses by not winning.

All US bases in the region have suffered damage, forcing thousands of US military personnel to evacuate. Israel is being bombed relentlessly by Iran and its allies Hezbollah and the Houthis from Lebanon and Yemen respectively. Not only has Iran choked off a fifth of the world’s oil supply by closing the Strait of Hormuz, they are destroying Gulf States oil production facilities.

Iran, Israel, the Gulf States, even the US and the rest of the world may be facing an existential crisis brought on by morally and mentally degraded Trump.

Instead of acknowledging his monstrous crimes against Iran and cease hostilities, Trump is double, triple, quadrupling down, threatening Stone Age destruction of Iran with war crimes against civilian infrastructure. He’s clearly become unhinged facing likely the worst self-imposed military disaster in US history, one with calamitous worldwide aftereffects.

We need Clinton, Bush, Obama, Biden to jump into the national debate. They must call out Trump’s criminal war destabilizing the world economy in strongest words possible. They should request the International Criminal Court indict Trump for war crimes and issue a warrant for his arrest.

But instead of lending their status as former presidents to aid the desperate effort to end hostilities, the Former 4 are silent. And it’s not just their collegiality as former presidents preventing their speaking out. All four adhere to American Exceptualism which demands that US wars of choice are never wrong and never to be lost. All four promulgated US world dominance costing hundreds of thousands of lives having nothing whatsoever to do with US national security interests.

Clinton bombed Iraq after his cruel economic sanctions killed hundreds of thousands. When asked by CBS News if the half million Iraqi killed by Clinton’s sanctions were worth it, his Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said “I think that is a very hard choice, but the price we think is worth it.” Clinton bombed Serbia for 78 days, killing 2,000 to create a fractured Balkans still unsettled three decades later.

George W. Bush launched two criminal wars that killed over half a million Iraqis and Afghans along with 7,000 Americans. Both countries remain largely failed states a quarter century on. While the Afghan Taliban booted US troops out in 2021, we’re still defiling Iraq with US troops subject to attack by Iraqis trying to replicate the Taliban’s success.

Barack Obama may have succeeded Bush s president, but he couldn’t succeed in removing all US troops from those two sorrowful countries or stopping US servicepersons from being killed there. Inexplicably and senselessly, Obama jumped into the Libyan civil war to oust hated strongman Muammar Ghaddafi. Result? Over 30,000 Libyans dead and another failed state thanks to US meddling. His Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gloated regarding Ghaddafi “We came, was saw, he died.” Grotesque.

Joe Biden was the first US president to preside over genocide. He enabled Israel’s near complete destruction of Gaza with tens of billions in genocide weapons that killed over 70,000 while destroying nearly every school, hospital and home for the remaining 2,200,000 Palestinians now living in tents and still be slaughtered by Israeli invaders.

Biden also provoked the Russian invasion of Ukraine by supporting Ukraine’s war killing thousands of Russian leaning Ukrainians in Ukraine Donbas. He totally dismissed Russia’s security concerns regarding NATO membership for Ukraine that could place NATO nukes on Russia’s borders. Biden knew Russia would invade but lusted to see Russia destroy itself in the process. By following Biden’s astonishing stupidity it was Ukraine that is destroying itself with over a million casualties, a shattered economy and loss forever of a fifth of its most productive territory.

No wonder the Former 4 remain silent as Trump rains down death and destruction thruout the Middle East and possibly blows up the world economy. To Clinton, Bush, Obama and Biden, Trump is just following their blood soaked US presidential tradition.

April 12, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA | Leave a comment