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Will Netanyahu demolish second consecutive US administration in ’28?

22 April 2026 AIMN Editorial, Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition Glen Ellyn IL, https://theaimn.net/will-netanyahu-demolish-second-consecutive-us-administration-in-28/

In the ’24 election Kamala Harris got a lot of votes, 75,017,613. But astonishingly, she got 6,268,841 less votes than when she ran with victorious Joe Biden in 2020, a massive 7.7% drop. Some of those missing voters selected third party. Some voted for Donald Trump. Many simply stayed home.

While there were several reasons, the one most cited was Biden and Harris’ complete support and enabling of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had near total control over the Biden administration, causing revulsion in peace advocates and many sensible 2020 Biden voters horrified their presidential choice would engage in such an abomination.

Harris made a mistake not breaking with Biden on genocide. By a more than three-to-one margin, Biden 2020 voters who did not vote for Harris, say they would more likely have voted for Harris if she pledged to break from President Biden’s policy toward Gaza by promising to withhold additional weapons to Israel.

There was precedent for Harris doing so. In 1968 Democratic nominee Vice President Hubert Humphrey was losing badly to Richard Nixon due to massive defections from anti-Vietnam War Democrats. Humphrey, like Harris was a good soldier VP supporting his boss’s self-destructive war policies. A month before the election, Humphrey pivoted to peace in a prime time address. It closed the double digit gap but was too little too late. Had he broken from LBJ from the get go…likely no Nixon and no 5 year prolonged bloodbath under Nixon.

A little over a year into Trump’s second term, Netanyahu is at it again, sabotaging a US administration from winning in ’28. At his February 11 meeting with Trump, Netanyahu implored Trump to launch his now failed war on Iran by guaranteeing him victory in a couple of days after Israel assassinated Iranian leader Ali Khamenei.

Not only has the war failed to achieve every stated goal, it has thrown the world into economic chaos. Now every one of Trump’s 77,302,580 voters are paying over $4 a gallon to fill their gas guzzlers and soon will be paying higher prices for just about everything.

And Just like Vice President Harris who self-destructed in ’24 by staying loyal to her genocide enabling president, JD Vance is self-destructing staying loyal to his senseless, war mongering president, all due to the interference in American foreign policy of Benjamin Netanyahu.

As loyal as he is, Vance knew the war was a terrible idea. He told Trump so but once Trump decided to follow Netanyahu down the rabbit hole of lost war, Vance followed right behind. Apparently, Vance has learned nothing from Harris’ fealty to Benjamin Netanyahu in ’24.

Much can happen before the next election. But history tells that as Vice President of a lame duck President, Vance in a near certainty to be anointed Trump’s successor at the GOP Convention in 2 years.

Another near certainty? Unless Vance breaks with Trump and comes out strongly against the lost war in Iran upending the world economy, Benjamin Netanyahu will sabotage his second consecutive US administration in the ’28 election.

April 25, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA | Leave a comment

The Consequences of Incompetence

While Iran has approached the current negotiations from a practical, reality-based posture predicated on resolving the actual major points of difference between the US and Iran, the US is being held hostage by the politicized whim of an American President who needs to shape domestic public opinion in a way which transforms the reality of a humiliating defeat into the perception of a bold victory.

The US lost the first round of the war with Iran decisively. If Trump decides to go a second round, the results will be disastrous for American and its allies.

Scott Ritter, Apr 19, 2026, https://scottritter.substack.com/p/the-consequences-of-incompetence

For nearly 40 days, Israel and the United States carried out an extensive aerial campaign against Iran designed to topple the government and suppress Iran’s ability to defend itself. This campaign failed to achieve any of its stated objectives. Instead, it devolved into a numbers game where inflated outcomes were sold to an unquestioning public by military professionals and politicians alike. The Iranian government not only withstood the efforts at decapitation-induced regime change, but actually strengthened its hold on power when the people of Iran, instead of turning on the Islamic Republic, rallied to its cause. Moreover, rather than suppressing Iran’s ability to launch ballistic missiles and drones against US military bases, critical infrastructure in the Gulf Arab States, and Israel, Iran not only sustained its ability to strike, but deployed new generations of weapons that readily defeated all missile defense systems while, using intelligence information that permitted accurate targeting, destroyed critical military infrastructure worth tens of billions of dollars.

Regional experts had long warned about the consequences of entering an existential conflict with Iran, noting that Iran would not simply allow itself to be erased as a viable nation state without ensuring that the other nations of the region were subjected to similar existential threats to their survival, and that global energy security would be disrupted in such a manner as to trigger a world economic crisis. These assessments were backed up by a belied that Iran would not only be able to shut down shipping transiting the Strait of Hormuz, but also effectively target and destroy the major energy production potential of the Gulf Arab States.

It wasn’t that the politicians and military planners in the US and Israel doubted Iran’s ability to impact global energy markets or strike targets in Israel and the Gulf region.

They knew Iran had the potential.

They just believed that they would be able to achieve regime change in Tehran in relatively short order, thereby mooting any threat Iran might pose to energy supplies and infrastructure.

They were wrong, which is why the US was looking for an offramp from the war soon after it started.

The end result was this current ceasefire, which was ostensibly entered into to buy time for US and Iranian negotiators to hammer out a lasting peace plan.

There is a fundamental problem, however.

While Iran has approached the current negotiations from a practical, reality-based posture predicated on resolving the actual major points of difference between the US and Iran, the US is being held hostage by the politicized whim of an American President who needs to shape domestic public opinion in a way which transforms the reality of a humiliating defeat into the perception of a bold victory.

President Trump ran for office on a platform premised on the notion that he would keep America out of the kind of costly, open-ended military misadventures that had defined the US since the start of the 21st Century.

The war with Iran proved this promise to be a lie.

This lie, combined with numerous other political missteps that have transpired during the first year and a half of his second term in office, have put President Trump and his political legacy at risk, with critical midterm elections looming on the horizon that threaten to shift the balance of power in the US Congress away from the Republican Party, and to the Democratic Party. If the Republicans lose the House of Representatives, the impeachment of Donald Trump is all but a certainty. This alone would spell the end of Trump’s legislative agenda. But if the Democrats take the Senate as well, and with a wide enough margin, the Trump will not only find himself impeached, but possibly convicted.

And this would not only mean the end of the Trump Presidency, but also the end of the Trump brand, something Trump has been burnishing his entire adult life and which he has transformed into a political cult of personality that has redefined American politics.

Iran has entered the current round of negotiations focused on the practicalities and realities of geopolitics and national security.

Trump is about shaping perceptions to his political benefit.

These are not compatible goals and objectives, especially when Iran has emerged victorious from a war it did not want, and Trump is trying to invent a narrative that has him prevailing in a conflict his team not only should never have engaged in, but which they lost, and now Trump has to spin this dismal reality in a manner which benefits him politically.

Take the current impasse over the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran has asserted control over all shipping transiting this strategic waterway, and by being selective about which ships can transit, has created a global energy crisis which has detrimentally impacted US allies in Europe and Asia.

It was the reality that the US had no military solution to the problem of Iran’s compelled closure of the Strait that led the US to seek a diplomatic solution to the problems it alone had created.

There are other outstanding issues as well, such as Iran’s stockpile of 60% enriched uranium (which the US apparently tried to seize in a failed special operations raid), as well as the issue of Iran’s nuclear program in general, which the US insists can continue only if Iran forgoes enrichment altogether, something Iran has said it will never do.

The US also wishes to curtail Iran’s ballistic missile programs, despite the fact it is these very missiles which provided Iran with the ability to prevail militarily over the US, Israel and the Gulf Arab States.

The US also insists that Iran cease its relationship with regional allies such as Hezbollah in Lebanon (which is engaged in an open-ended conflict with Israel due to Israel’s ongoing occupation of southern Lebanon) and the Ansarullah movement in Yemen, which has been opposing a Saudi-led aggression since 2014.

There’s literally a snowball’s chance in hell Iran would concede any of these issues, especially after winning a war where all of the non-nuclear matters helped contribute to the Iranian victory.

And therein lies the rub.

Trump has largely bought into an Israeli-influenced narrative which defines victory as being predicated on Iran yielding on all of the issues listed above.

Something Iran will never do.

Trump has shown zero political acumen when it comes to trying to shape US public opinion in his favor.

Instead of taking credit for getting Iran to agree to open the Strait of Hormuz, Trump insists on posturing as a tough guy by insisting on continuing a naval blockade which exists in name only, prompting Iran to reverse course and close down the Strait.

And close down negotiations.

Leaving Trump further boxed into a corner of his own making.

With the only option available being the resumption of the very military operations that had proven unable to defeat Iran and, if initiated, will trigger consequences which will have a devastating impact on global energy markets—the very thing Trump was trying to avoid when seeking out the ceasefire to begin with.

But there may very well be other consequences.

Iran is at the point in this conflict where trying to play a game of escalation management is counterproductive.

If the US opts to resume its attacks on Iran, with or without Israel, Iran will have no choice but to go for the jugular from the start.

To strike not only the energy production capabilities of the regional actors, like the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Bahrain, that continue to provide assistance to the US when it comes to the conflict with Iran, but also their water desalinization plants and power production plants.

Denying these nations access to the very water they need to survive.

And power they need to provide air conditioning to the skyscrapers that have defined their status as modern oasis’ of civilization.

The hot summer months approach.

And if Iran eliminates water and air conditioning, then these modern Gulf Arab States become uninhabitable.

Cities like Dubai and Abu Dhabi become uninhabitable. So, too, Kuwait City, Riyadh, and Manama.

Everything the rulers of these Gulf nations have aspired to accomplish over the course of the past several decades will lie in ruins, ghost cities in place of thriving metropolis’.

And Iran would likely do the same to Israel, destroying the critical infrastructure the tiny Zionist enclave needs to survive as a modern nation states.

Making the land of milk and honey uninhabitable for millions of Israelis who will have no choice but to go back to their homes of origin.

These are all known knowns—there is no mystery about what the consequences of resuming military operations against Iran will bring.

Albert Einstein is widely quoted as once noting that the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over again and expecting a different result.

The US and Israel launched a surprise attack against Iran using the full strength of their respective air forces.

And they failed.

Today, Iran stands ready to receive a combined US-Israeli strike which will match, but not exceed, the destructive power of those initial attacks.

And Iran will respond with missile and drone attacks which will exceed by an order of magnitude the targeted destruction of its previous retaliatory strikes.

Iran will change the cycle of escalation by going straight for the jugular.

And Trump won’t know what hit him.

The consequences of incompetence are real.

Something Trump and the American people are about to find out in real time should the US go forward with the threats to resume bombing Iran in the next few days.

April 24, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA | 1 Comment

New England governors pledge nuclear support

But fail to provide considerations of the expansion of  the production of high-level nuclear waste

April 9, 2026, https://beyondnuclear.org/new-england-governors-pledge-nuclear-support/

New England’s governors (two Republicans and four Democrats) have signed a joint statement recklessly condemning their region to the extended operation of dangerously aging nuclear reactors and the deployment of expensive and untested new ones.  

Moreover, Republican governors Kelly Ayotte (NH), Phil Scott (VT) and Democrats Maura Healey (MA), Janet Mills (ME), Ned Lamont (CT) and Dan McKee (RI) failed to account for the simultaneous expansion of the  long-term and mounting threat of unmanaged high-level radioactive waste.   Since the nuclear energy and weaponry technology’s inception, it has not yet conceived or demonstrated a scientifically valid or community accepted plan to isolate it from the biosphere for tens of thousands of years.

Indeed, the New England public demonstrated its opposition by making the distinct connection between the immorality of passing along nuclear power’s unresolved poisoned legacy to future generations and the environmental crime to continue generating highly radioactive nuclear waste.

April 24, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA | Leave a comment

In historic Senate vote, over 75% of Democrats vote to block arms sales to Israel

The vote was the latest sign of Democrats’ growing consensus against aid to Israel, as support for the country hits an all-time low.

By Michael Arria , Monodweiss,  April 16, 2026

On Wednesday night, the Senate rejected a pair of resolutions that would have blocked the sale of bombs and bulldozers to Israel.

Although the Joint Resolutions of Disapproval, which were introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) failed to pass, a record number of Senators backed the effort. 40 Senators backed a resolution would have blocked the sale of $295 million in D9R and D9T Caterpillar bulldozers to Israel and 36 members voted for a resolution that would have stopped a $151.8 million sale of 1,000-pound bombs to Israel.

“The fact that 40 of 47 Democratic Senators voted to withhold military hardware from Israel is a new high water mark in holding Israel accountable for violating US and international law,” tweeted Center for International Policy Vice President for Government Affairs Dylan Williams.

Sanders has attempted to pass similar resolutions on three other occasions. Last April, just 15 Senators voted for them, while 27 Senators supported them in July.

In a statement released after the vote, Sanders pointed out that 80% of the Democratic caucus backed the measures.

“When we started this effort there were just 11 votes,” said Sanders. “Now, there are 40.”……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Ahmad Abuznaid, Executive Director of the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR), told Mondoweiss that activists have to keep pushing for a full arms embargo.

“The writing is on the wall, and we see politicians reacting to the fact that aid to Israel and AIPAC are toxic,” said Abuznaid. “But we have to dig deeper because there is a distinction. We need to control the narrative. We need to end support for genocide and occupation. That’s the moral, ethical, and legal position.”

Last month, NBC News released a poll showing that just 13% of Democrats view Israel positively, while almost 60% view it negatively. https://mondoweiss.net/2026/04/israel-races-against-time-to-expand-west-bank-settlements-before-it-is-limited-by-new-regional-realities/

April 23, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA | Leave a comment

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