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The News That Matters about the Nuclear Industry Fukushima Chernobyl Mayak Three Mile Island Atomic Testing Radiation Isotope

It was set to be Nebraska’s largest wind project. Then the military stepped in.

Flatwater Free Press. By Natalia Alamdari, 16 Sept 22,

“…………………….. With about 150,000 acres leased by energy companies, this county of just 625 people stood poised to become home to as many as 300 wind turbines. 

It would have been the largest wind project in the state, bringing in loads of money for the landowners, the developers, the county and local schools.

But then, an unexpected roadblock: The U.S. Air Force.

Under the dusty fields of Banner County are dozens of nuclear missiles. Housed in military silos dug more than 100 feet into the ground, the Cold War relics lie in wait across rural America, part of the country’s nuclear defenses.

For decades, tall structures like wind turbines needed to be at least a quarter mile away from the missile silos.

But earlier this year, the military changed its policy. 

Now, they said, turbines now can’t be within two nautical miles of the silos. The switch ruled out acres of land that energy companies had leased from locals — and wrested a potential windfall from dozens of farmers who’d waited 16 years for the turbines to become reality.

The stalled Banner County project is unique, but it’s one more way that Nebraska struggles to harness its main renewable energy resource.

Oft-windy Nebraska ranks eighth in the country in potential wind energy, according to the federal government. The state’s wind energy output has improved markedly in recent years. But Nebraska continues to lag far behind neighbors Colorado, Kansas and Iowa, all of whom have become national leaders in wind.

The Banner County projects would have grown Nebraska’s wind capacity by 25%. It’s now unclear how many turbines will be possible because of the Air Force’s rule change.

“This would have been a big deal for a lot of farmers. And it would have been an even bigger deal for every property owner in Banner County,” Young said. “It’s just a killer. Don’t know how else to say it.”

LIVING WITH NUKES………………………..

Today, there are decommissioned silos scattered throughout Nebraska. But 82 silos in the Panhandle are still active and controlled 24/7 by Air Force crews.

Four hundred intercontinental ballistic missiles — ICBMs — are burrowed in the ground across northern Colorado, western Nebraska, Wyoming, North Dakota and Montana. The 80,000-pound missiles can fly 6,000 miles in less than a half-hour and inflict damage 20 times greater than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima in World War II.

“If we ever get bombed, they say this is the first place they’re going to bomb, because of the silos that we’ve got here,” said farmer Tom May.

Every acre of May’s property sits within the two miles of a missile silo. Under the new Air Force rule, he can’t put a single wind turbine on his ground……….

Banner County had what developers called “world-class wind.” Many landowners were eager – signing away their acres came with the promise of roughly $15,000 per turbine per year. The turbines were also going to pump money into the county and school system, said county officials and company executives.


“In Banner County, it would have reduced property taxes to damn near nothing,” Young said they were told.

Eventually, two companies – Invenergy and Orion Renewable Energy Group – finalized plans to put up wind turbines in Banner County. 

Environmental impact studies were completed. Permits, leases and contracts were signed. 

Orion had 75 to 100 turbines planned, and hoped to have a project operating by this year. 

Invenergy was going to build as many as 200 turbines. The company had qualified for federal tax credits to start the project and had even poured the concrete pads that the turbines would sit upon, covering them back up with earth so farmers could use the land until construction began. 

But discussions with the military starting in 2019 brought the projects to a screeching halt. Wind turbines pose a “significant flight safety hazard,” an Air Force spokesman said in an email. Those turbines didn’t exist when the silos were built. Now that they dot the rural landscape, the Air Force said it needed to reevaluate its setback rules. The final number it settled on was two nautical miles —  2.3 miles on land …….

…………………………………… For most landowners, the news came as a gutpunch. They said they support national security and keeping service members safe. But they wonder: Is eight times as much distance necessary?

“They don’t own that land. But all of a sudden, they have the power to strike the whole thing down, telling us what we can and can’t do,” Jones said. “All we’d like to do is negotiate. 4.6 miles [diameter] is way too far, as far as I’m concerned.”

………………………………………. By 2010, Nebraska was 25th in the country at producing wind-generated power — the bottom of the pack among windy Great Plains states.

The reasons fueling the lag were uniquely Nebraskan. Nebraska is the only state served entirely by publicly owned utilities, mandated to deliver the cheapest electricity possible.

Federal tax credits for wind farms only applied to the private sector. With a smaller population, already cheap electricity and limited access to transmission lines, Nebraska lacked the market to make wind energy worthwhile.

A decade of legislation helped change that calculus. Public utilities were allowed to buy power from private wind developers. A state law diverted taxes collected from wind developers back to the county and school district — the reason the Banner wind farms may have shrunk taxes for county residents………………………………..

John Hansen, president of the Nebraska Farmers Union, said pushback over wind farms has ramped up in recent years. But it’s a loud minority, he said. Eighty percent of rural Nebraskans thought more should be done to develop wind and solar energy, according to a 2015 University of Nebraska-Lincoln poll……………

“This resource is just there, ready to be used,” Brady Jones, John Jones’ son, said. “How do we walk away from that? At a time when we’re passing legislation that would vastly increase investment in wind energy in this country? That energy’s got to come from somewhere.” https://flatwaterfreepress.org/it-was-set-to-be-nebraskas-largest-wind-project-then-the-military-stepped-in/

September 22, 2022 Posted by | renewable, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

How we got to an $850 billion Pentagon budget – “independent” think tanks are funded by weapons corporations.

Speaking Security Newsletter | Note n°173 | 16 September 2022, Stephen Semler

Situation

The Senate might vote on the fiscal year 2023 military budget this month. Or it might not; nobody’s sure. What’s for certain is that the bill the Senate considers will have at least as much as $850 billion for the Pentagon. In other words, we’re staring down a $72 billion year-to-year increase in military spending with this legislation: The FY2022 version of the same bill (National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA) licensed $778 billion for the Pentagon.

How we got to an $850 billion Pentagon budget

In March, Joe Biden proposed increasing annual military spending by $35 billion—to $813 billion—as part of his FY2023 budget request. In June, the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) added another $37 billion on top of that before advancing the $850 billion bill to the House floor for approval.

This decision was reportedly a matter of course for the committee. According to one HASC member, there was “almost no debate” on dumping another $37 billion on top of Biden’s own proposed increase. An overlooked reason why the committee’s move was so automatic was the ‘expertise’ that made a $72 billion year-to-year increase seem appropriate or even natural.

Think tanks are said to be free from the ugly forces that bias in-house policy planning—namely, all the lobbying and campaign cash that encourage members of Congress to make decisions based on parochial interests and not the public’s. The problem is that establishment think tanks are corrupted by the same monied interests members of Congress are. In this case, we’re talking about the arms industry.

Every think tank represented in a House Armed Services Committee hearing to provide expert testimony from January 1, 2020 through September 16, 2022 that disclosed its donors received funding from military contractors (the one that didn’t disclose its donors was the hawkish American Enterprise Institute).

The result? Military contractors were able to launder their profit-driven interests through ostensibly non-political institutions, while powerful lawmakers on the HASC got their parochially-driven policy positions validated by ostensibly unbiased ‘expertise’.

September 21, 2022 Posted by | business and costs, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Nevada files motion regarding Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Project, launches dedicated website with educational resources.

Nevada’s staunch bi-partisan opposition to the project

Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak, CARSON CITY, NV – September 20, 2022

Today, Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak and the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects announced the filing of a new legal motion to bring an end to failed federal plans to construct a repository for the nation’s highly radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain, 65 miles northwest of Clark County’s populated areas.

The motion is being filed before the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission. It asks the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to resume the adjudicatory portion of the licensing procedures so that Nevada may take specific additional steps aimed at stopping the project.

As a companion to the legal motion, today, the State launched a new webpage with resources recapping the failed policies that led to the designation of the Yucca Mountain Project and the geographic flaws in the site.

“It is time to take the lessons learned from the Yucca Mountain experiment and chalk them up to experience,” Governor Sisolak said. “This is a fight that Nevada has battled since 1987. The past three Presidential Administrations have agreed that Yucca Mountain is unworkable. It is time for this Administration and the Department of Energy to follow through and support the case made by Nevada’s leaders, legislators, experts and legal team.”

“I’ve opposed every attempt to revive the failed Yucca Mountain project, and it’s time we take this unsuitable site off the table once and for all,” said Senator Catherine Cortez Masto. “I support Nevada’s efforts to end the licensing process for Yucca Mountain, and I will continue to work with all stakeholders at the federal, state, local, and Tribal levels to find a safe, workable, and consent-based alternative.”

“For years, I have been fighting alongside our delegation to prevent Nevada from ever becoming the nation’s dumping ground for nuclear waste because it threatens our state’s security, economy, and public health,” said Senator Jacky Rosen. “That’s why I’m strongly supporting Nevada’s actions to finally put an end to Yucca Mountain, taking steps that would block future misguided efforts to try to revive this ill-conceived project against our state’s consent.”……………………………………………………………..

“Year after year, we’ve had to fight to ensure that Nevada does not become our nation’s dumping ground for nuclear waste,” said Rep. Susie Lee (NV-03). “I’m proud to sit on the Appropriations Committee’s Subcommittee on Energy and Water, where I’ve successfully blocked any funding going toward reviving Yucca Mountain, and I have worked with the Department of Energy to secure a commitment to finding consent-based alternatives to the proposed nuclear repository at Yucca Mountain. Now, it’s time to put an end to this failed project once and for all. That’s why I support the state of Nevada’s efforts to end the licensing for Yucca Mountain and to open the door to a productive consent-based solutions for nuclear waste storage.”

Videos and podcasts on the new webpage feature Nevada technical experts and document the project’s flaws, ill-conceived efforts to address site weaknesses with engineered barriers, and the need for nuclear waste and spent fuel solutions that are grounded in a robust consent-based siting process.

Nevada’s staunch bi-partisan opposition to the project and the history behind it is also featured on the webpage in an interview with former Nevada Rep. Jim Bilbray before his death last year about the so-called “Screw Nevada Bill,” that singled out Yucca Mountain as the nation’s sole repository site.

After more than three decades, continuing to pursue a license for the Yucca Mountain Project would expend additional time, millions more taxpayer dollars on a project that Nevada has demonstrated time and again will fail to securely and safely house the nation’s nuclear waste. The motion filed by the State today is the first step towards putting an end to thirty years of failed policy and acting on the need for a more fair, consent-based process to address the nuclear waste disposal needs of the United States.  https://gov.nv.gov/News/Press/2022/2022-09-20_Yucca_Mountain_Nuclear_Waste/

September 21, 2022 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Pentagon opens sweeping review of clandestine psychological operations


Ellen Nakashima, The Washington Post, Mon, 19 Sep 2022 

The Pentagon has ordered a sweeping audit of how it conducts clandestine information warfare after major social media companies identified and took offline fake accounts suspected of being run by the U.S. military in violation of the platforms’ rules.

Colin Kahl, the undersecretary of defense for policy, last week instructed the military commands that engage in psychological operations online to provide a full accounting of their activities by next month after the White House and some federal agencies expressed mounting concerns over the Defense Department’s attempted manipulation of audiences overseas, according to several defense and administration officials familiar with the matter.

The takedowns in recent years by Twitter and Facebook of more than 150 bogus personas and media sites created in the United States was disclosed last month by internet researchers Graphika and the Stanford Internet Observatory. While the researchers did not attribute the sham accounts to the U.S. military, two officials familiar with the matter said that U.S. Central Command is among those whose activities are facing scrutiny. Like others interviewed for this report, they spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military operations.

The researchers did not specify when the takedowns occurred, but those familiar with the matter said they were within the past two or three years. Some were recent, they said, and involved posts from the summer that advanced anti-Russia narratives citing the Kremlin’s “imperialist” war in Ukraine and warning of the conflict’s direct impact on Central Asian countries. Significantly, they found that the pretend personas — employing tactics used by countries such as Russia and China — did not gain much traction, and that overt accounts actually attracted more followers.

…………………………. The U.S. government’s use of ersatz social media accounts, though authorized by law and policy, has stirred controversy inside the Biden administration, with the White House pressing the Pentagon to clarify and justify its policies. The White House, agencies such as the State Department and even some officials within the Defense Department have been concerned that the policies are too broad, allowing leeway for tactics that even if used to spread truthful information, risk eroding U.S. credibility, several U.S. officials said.

…………. ..A spokeswoman for the National Security Council, which is part of the White House, declined to comment.

Kahl disclosed his review at a virtual meeting convened by the National Security Council on Tuesday, saying he wants to know what types of operations have been carried out, who they’re targeting, what tools are being used and why military commanders have chosen those tactics, and how effective they have been, several officials said.

…………………… Congress in late 2019 passed a law affirming that the military could conduct operations in the “information environment” 

……The measure, known as Section 1631, allows the military to carry out clandestine psychological operations without crossing what the CIA has claimed as its covert authority, alleviating some of the friction that had hindered such operations previously.

The first defense official recalled:

“Combatant commanders got really excited. They were very eager to utilize these new authorities. The defense contractors were equally eager to land lucrative classified contracts to enable clandestine influence operations.”

…………………………………  https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/09/19/pentagon-psychological-operations-facebook-twitter/

September 21, 2022 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Nukes Are Our Corporate Death Wish…the Sun is the People’s Cure

replacing nuke power and fossil fuels with solar, wind, batteries and LED/efficiency means a parallel apocalypse in the world of corporate power—-an end to the centralized multi-national control our global energy supply.

The Diablo deal clearly puts the global fossil-nuclear utility industry on the path to extinction. If these two immense reactors can be smoothly overtaken by cheaper, cleaner, safer renewable energy…what about the rest of the dying fossil/nuke fleet? What does that say about the future of centralized corporate power?

Christina Macpherson <christinamacpherson@gmail.com>7:56 AM (0 minutes ago)
to me

 https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/09/21/nukes-are-our-corporate-death-wishthe-sun-is-the-peoples-cure/ BY HARVEY WASSERMAN, 21 Sept22,

Humankind’s ultimate extinction is now flowing through an atomic death spiral.

A single errant shell at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia…a single seismic shock at California’s Diablo Canyon…can bury us all in apocalyptic radiation.

The eruptions already stretch from Kyshtym, Iron Mike, Castle Bravo, Windscale, SL-1, Chalk River, Santa Susanna, Fermi I, Perry, Davis-Besse, North Anna, Tokaimura, Three Mile Island, Church Rock, Surry, Chernobyl, Vandellòs, Sosnovy Bor, WIPP, Fukushima, Fort Calhoun to South Texas and too many more.

It’s been clear since 1945 that A-Bombs can extinct the human race. Commercial reactors supply them with fissionable material and a work force.

Burning alongside thousands of nuclear warheads there are 400+ commercial reactors worldwide…decrepit, decayed, expensive, under-maintained, unstable and uninsured (except by token taxpayer funds). Six in Ukraine currently tremble in a war zone.

The average age of the 92 nukes in the US is nearly 40. The 1000+-square-mile dead zone around Chernobyl could be easily duplicated by any nuke. Just superimpose a similar lethal wound anywhere on a US map and calculate the damage.

But it’s a double-sided apocalypse.

Bombs & reactors can obliterate the human species with both explosive bangs and the agonized whimpers of radioactive murder.

But replacing nuke power and fossil fuels with solar, wind, batteries and LED/efficiency means a parallel apocalypse in the world of corporate power—-an end to the centralized multi-national control our global energy supply.

Cheaper, cleaner, safer, more reliable, more job-producing democratized green energy stands to obliterate the monetary and political death grip King CONG (Coal, Oil, Nukes, Gas) has on our species’ throat.

The decentralized, community-controlled green vision is as terrifying to global energy barons as is biological extinction to the rest of us. And thus the atomic hucksters somehow try to convince us their apocalyptic reactors are “clean, green, carbon-free,” you name it.

The scam’s cutting edge is now in California, where would-be president Gavin Newson is pushing nuclear power while conspiring to kill renewables.

At the End Time vortex is Diablo Canyon.

For more than a half-century, plus grassroots citizens have fought two atomic power reactors on the central California coast, eight miles west of San Luis Obispo.

Unit One’s first components arrived on site in pre-digital 1967. By 1984-5, when the hardware was already obsolete, more than 10,000 citizens (including me) were arrested there.

As Jerry Brown’s greening Golden State has welcomed more than 17,000 wind turbines, 1.4+ million rooftop solar installations and massive advances in battery and LED/efficiency technologies now dwarf the output from the state’s one remaining nuke plant.

Some 1500 Californians now work at Diablo; over 70,000 work in renewables, batteries and efficiency. Shutting Diablo and replacing it with real green power would add thousands of jobs to the state’s energy mix.

Early on Pacific Gas & Electric vehemently denied that there were any active earthquake faults threatening Diablo. They refused to allow experts who said otherwise to testify in official hearings. They also refused to build in the safeguards required to withstand certain levels of seismic shaking.

But then in 1973 the company admitted that they knew about an active earthquake fault—-the Hosgri—-sitting just three miles from the reactor cores. Just 45 miles from the San Andreas, a dozen more fault lines intertwine near the core. Dr. Michael Peck, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s site inspector for five years, warned in 2014 a likely quake could shake Diablo to rubble.

But the NRC has refused to force PG&E to physically upgrade the facility. Instead a series of “waivers” let Diablo run where any number of fault lines could rattle it—-and millions of us downwind—-to outright oblivion.

The NRC has long since admitted that Unit One is seriously embrittled. It’s well-known throughout the industry that the steel cylinder containing its super-hot core reaction will shatter in a melt-down. Explosive radioactive death clouds will then pour into Los Angeles, the Central Valley and/or Bay Area….and into the jet-stream and around the globe, doing terminal damage to the human species.

Diablo has not recently—-if ever—-been independently inspected. It has no private insurance. There are no public evacuation plans for California’s major population centers.

In 2016-8, then-Governor Brown and now-Governor Newsom helped plan Diablo’s closure. Local citizens, elected officials, unions, regulators, environmental groups and more mapped out an orderly shut-down.

As a result, workers are being compensated, with some retiring, some staying for decommissioning, the younger ones being retrained to work in the booming renewable industry.

As a reward for not meeting legal safety and ecological requirements, PG&E has ducked a wide range of upgrades and maintenance The plant has been set to operate through the expiration of Unit One’s NRC license in 2024, then Unit Two’s in 2025. Its owner has been allowed to ignore routine upkeep, becoming more dangerous by the day.

Hot radioactive water still pours into ocean, killing billions of marine creatures. There remains just barely enough on-site space to accommodate the ensuing spent fuel through 2024-5. Managing more is an epic unknown, requiring at very least exceedingly dangerous manipulations of what’s already in the fuel pools, along with untenable expansions of the dry casks and concrete pads on the site.

The venerable Mothers for Peace—and thousands more—-want Diablo to immediately shut.

The nukes’ 2400 megawatts are already fading below a well-planned, cleanly executed symphony of solar panels, wind farms, batteries and LED/efficiency. Massive off-shore wind turbines will soon send mega-juice pouring into Diablo’s switching stations.

By public consensus the 2016 phase-out plan embodies as rational and well-calculated a transition as the human species could concoct…a model for winding down the other 90+ American reactors, and maybe even the 400+ worldwide. It offers a sustainable green escape from the obscene financial and ecological failures of atomic power to the proven reliability of a Solartopian future.

Which has pitched King CONG (Coal, Oil, Nukes, Gas) into a Luddite state of terminal atomic panic.

The Diablo deal clearly puts the global fossil-nuclear utility industry on the path to extinction. If these two immense reactors can be smoothly overtaken by cheaper, cleaner, safer renewable energy…what about the rest of the dying fossil/nuke fleet? What does that say about the future of centralized corporate power?

With this giant hole poked into the obsolete energy Luddites’ Maginot line, what will happen to the trillions of dollars still sunk in the old ways of scorching the Earth? What will trillions of kilowatts of Solartopian electricity pouring into the grid do to the future of fossil/nuclear fuels?

The industry does not want to know—-and it does not want YOU to know.

Wind, solar, batteries and efficiency already sustain much of California’s and the nation’s grid, now commonly providing the flexible, reliable, low-cost, zero-aaron essential power needed to avoid blackouts, unsustainable rate hikes and lethal climate chaos.

First and foremost, King CONG’s anti-green blitzkrieg disrupts supply chains and assaults rooftop solar with taxes and regulations designed to kill it. Endless genuflections to the dead bird each big turbine kills per year accompany the assault. So do rightful worries over mining of lithium and cobalt, major polluters in regions with bad labor practices.

But these are solvable, non-plutonium-based problems in comparison with mining, milling and enriching uranium while failing to manage its wastes.

No windmill ever killed a fish, but nukes kill billions of marine creatures every day.

Every reactor burns at roughly 570 degrees Fahrenheit, spewing radiation, carbon 14 and lethal pollutants into the eco-sphere. Massive quantities of carbon pour from mining, milling, enrichment and disposal. All reactors and fuel pools can explode at any time.

The Trumpian Big Lie is that these ancient, uninsured instruments of mass extinction are somehow “emission and carbon free.”

So Newsom has strong-armed California’s legislature to trash Diablo’s shut-down deal and hand PG&E $1.4 billion to operate til the next quake blows the place apart.

With utility and fossil/nuke money in his presidential war chest, Newsom is poised to pursue the White House against a hard-right Ron DeSantis who actually vetoed solar taxes like the ones Newsom is pushing.

Polls in both Florida and California show 80% support for renewables. Fierce campaigns now rage against Diablo’s extension and Newsom’s attempt to kill rooftop solar.

The Governor now has the radioactive winds to his back.

But as fossil/nukes scorch the planet, and as their apocalyptic clouds pour over our biggest cities, and as their over-the-top inefficiencies bankrupt our economy, what will be left for his corrupt, cynical ilk to govern?

Harvey Wasserman wrote SOLARTOPIA! Our Green-Powered Earth. His Green Power & Wellness Show is at www.prn.fm. 

September 21, 2022 Posted by | politics, safety, USA | Leave a comment

The Weapons Industry as a Taxpayer Scam

In all, the top five weapons contractors—Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, General Dynamics, and Northrop Grumman—split more than $200 billion in “defense” revenue in the last fiscal year, mostly from the Pentagon but also from lucrative foreign arms sales. The new budget proposals will only boost those already astounding figures.

Military contractors and arms manufacturers cash in as Congress adds billions to the Pentagon budget each year.

The jobs card is the strongest tool of influence available to the arms industry in its efforts to keep Congress eternally boosting Pentagon spending, but far from the only one

So far, in the 2022 election cycle, weapons firms have already donated $3.4 million to members of the House Armed Services Committee

There are scant, if any, restrictions against members of Congress owning or trading defense company stocks, even those who sit on influential national-security-related committees. In other words, it’s completely legal for them to marry their personal financial interests to those of defense contractors.

 https://www.commondreams.org/views/2022/09/12/weapons-industry-taxpayer-scam JULIA GLEDHILL,  WILLIAM HARTUNG, September 12, 2022 Congress has spoken when it comes to next year’s Pentagon budget and the results, if they weren’t so in line with past practices, should astonish us all. The House of Representatives voted to add $37 billion and the Senate $45 billion to the administration’s already humongous request for “national defense,” a staggering figure that includes both the Pentagon budget and work on nuclear weapons at the Department of Energy. If enacted, the Senate’s sum would push spending on the military to at least $850 billion annually, far more—adjusted for inflation—than at the height of the Korean or Vietnam wars or the peak years of the Cold War.

U.S. military spending is, of course, astronomically high—more than that of the next nine countries combined. Here’s the kicker, though: the Pentagon (an institution that has never passed a comprehensive financial audit) doesn’t even ask for all those yearly spending increases in its budget requests to Congress. Instead, the House and Senate continue to give it extra tens of billions of dollars annually. No matter that Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has publicly stated the Pentagon has all it needs to “get the capabilities… to support our operational concepts” without such sums.

It would be one thing if such added funding were at least crafted in line with a carefully considered defense strategy.  More often than not, though, much of it goes to multibillion dollar weapons projects being built in the districts or states of key lawmakers or for items on Pentagon wish lists (formally known as “unfunded priorities lists”). It’s unclear how such items can be “priorities” when they haven’t even made it into the Pentagon’s already enormous official budget request.

In addition, throwing yet more money at a department incapable of managing its current budget only further strains its ability to meet program goals and delivery dates. In other words, it actually impairs military readiness. Whatever limited fiscal discipline the Pentagon has dissipates further when lawmakers arbitrarily increase its budget, despite rampant mismanagement leading to persistent cost overruns and delivery delays on the military’s most expensive (and sometimes least well-conceived) weapons programs.

Inn short, parochial concerns and special-interest politics regularly trump anything that might pass as in the national interest, while doing no favors to the safety and security of the United States. In the end, most of those extra funds simply pad the bottom lines of major weapons contractors like Lockheed Martin and Raytheon Technologies. They certainly don’t help our servicemembers, as congressional supporters of higher Pentagon budgets routinely claim.

A Captured Congress

The leading advocates of more Pentagon spending, Democrats and Republicans alike, generally act to support major contractors in their jurisdictions. Representative Jared Golden (D-ME), a co-sponsor of the House Armed Services Committee proposal to add $37 billion to the Pentagon budget, typically made sure it included funds for a $2 billion guided-missile destroyer to be built at General Dynamics’ shipyard in Bath, Maine. 

Similarly, his co-sponsor, Representative Elaine Luria (D-VA), whose district abuts Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Newport News Shipyard, successfully advocated for the inclusion of ample funding to produce aircraft carriers and attack submarines at that complex. Or consider Representative Mike Rogers (R-AL), the ranking Republican on the House Armed Services Committee and a dogged advocate of annually increasing the Pentagon budget by at least 3% to 5% above inflation. He serves a district south of Huntsville, Alabama, dubbed “rocket city” because it’s the home to so many firms that work on missile defense and related projects.

There are even special congressional caucuses devoted solely to increasing Pentagon spending while fending off challenges to specific weapons systems. These range from the House shipbuilding and F-35 caucuses to the Senate ICBM Coalition. That coalition has been especially effective at keeping spending on a future land-based intercontinental ballistic missile dubbed the Sentinel on track, while defeating efforts to significantly reduce the number of ICBMs in the U.S. arsenal. Such “success” has come thanks to the stalwart support of senators from Montana, North Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming, all states with ICBM bases or involved in major ICBM development and maintenance.

The jobs card is the strongest tool of influence available to the arms industry in its efforts to keep Congress eternally boosting Pentagon spending, but far from the only one. After all, the industrial part of the military-industrial-congressional complex gave more than $35 million in campaign contributions to members of Congress in 2020, the bulk of it going to those on the armed services and defense appropriations committees who have the most sway over the Pentagon budget and what it will be spent on.

So far, in the 2022 election cycle, weapons firms have already donated $3.4 million to members of the House Armed Services Committee, according to an analysis by Open Secrets.org, an organization that tracks campaign spending and political influence. Weapons-making corporations also currently employ nearly 700 lobbyists, more than one for every member of Congress, while spending additional millions to support industry-friendly think tanks that regularly push higher Pentagon spending and a more hawkish foreign policy.

The arms industry has another lever to pull as well when it comes to the personal finances of lawmakers. There are scant, if any, restrictions against members of Congress owning or trading defense company stocks, even those who sit on influential national-security-related committees. In other words, it’s completely legal for them to marry their personal financial interests to those of defense contractors.

The Cost of Coddling Contractors

Continue reading →

September 21, 2022 Posted by | politics, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Veteran Intelligence Professionals: Ukraine Decision Time for Biden

We hope you have been adequately briefed on the likely outcome of the recent Ukrainian “offensive”

by Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity 

MEMORANDUM FOR: The President
FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
SUBJECT: Ukraine Decision Time
REF: Nukes Cannot be Un-Invented, VIPS

Mr. President:

Before Defense Secretary Austin flies off to Ramstein for the meeting Thursday of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group we owe you a few words of caution occasioned by our many decades of experience with what happens to intelligence in wartime. If he tells you Kyiv is beating back the Russians, kick the tires – and consider widening your circle of advisers

Truth is the coin of the realm in intelligence analysis. It is equally axiomatic that truth is the first casualty of war, and that applies to the war in Ukraine as well as earlier wars we have been involved in. When at war, Defense Secretaries, Secretaries of State, and generals simply cannot be relied upon to tell the truth – to the media, or even to the President. We learned that early – the hard and bitter way. A lot of our comrades in arms did not come back from Vietnam.

Vietnam: President Lyndon Johnson preferred to believe Gen. William Westmoreland who told him and Defense Secretary McNamara in 1967 that South Vietnam could win – if only LBJ would supply an additional 206,000 troops. CIA analysts knew that to be untrue and that – worse still — Westmoreland was deliberately falsifying the number of forces he faced,……………………….

All being fair in love and war, the generals in Saigon were determined to offer a rosy picture……………………

The Demise of Imagery Analysis: Until 1996, CIA had an independent capability to do unencumbered military analysis enabling it to speak the truth – even during war. ……………the National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC,) a solid reputation for professionalism and objectivity.

………………………. In 1996, when NPIC and its 800 highly professional imagery analysts were given, kit and kaboodle, to the Pentagon, it was goodbye to impartial intelligence.

Iraq: Retired Air Force General James Clapper was eventually put in charge of NPIC’s successor, the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) and thus was well positioned to grease the skids for the “war of choice” on Iraq.

Indeed, Clapper is one of the few senior functionaries to admit that, under pressure from Vice President Cheney, he was “leaning forward” to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq; could find none; but went along anyway…………………………

Afghanistan: You will recall the extreme pressure on President Obama coming from Defense Secretary Gates, Secretary of State Clinton, and generals like Petraeus and McCrystal to double down in sending more troops to Afghanistan. They were able to push aside Intelligence Community analysts,……………………..

The President, as you well know, deferred to Gates and the generals. And, last summer, it was left to you to pick up the pieces, so to speak……………………..

Syria – Austin’s Reputation Not Without Blemish: Closer to home, Secretary Austin is no stranger to accusations of politicizing intelligence…………………………..  The analysts claimed their reports were being changed by higher-ups to dovetail with the administration’s public line that the US was winning the battle against ISIS and the al-Nusra Front, al Qaeda’s branch in Syria……………………….

In Summary: We hope you take the time to review this history – and to take it into account before sending Secretary Austin off to Ramstein. …………………. (We hope you have been adequately briefed on the likely outcome of the recent Ukrainian “offensive”.)

You may also wish to seek counsel from CIA Director William Burns and others with experience in the history of Europe – and particularly of Germany. Media reports suggested earlier that in Ramstein Secretary Austin will commit to providing Ukraine with still more weaponry and will encourage his colleagues to do the same. If he follows that script, he may find few takers – particularly among those most vulnerable to winter cold.

FOR THE STEERING GROUP: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

signed by 19 highly qualified members of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPs) is made up of former intelligence officers, diplomats, military officers and congressional staffers.  https://original.antiwar.com/veteran-intelligence-professionals-for-sanity2/2022/09/05/veteran-intelligence-professionals-ukraine-decision-time-for-biden/

September 20, 2022 Posted by | politics, spinbuster, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Space race – the old macho aim – USA and China to beat each other

A new space race? China adds urgency to US return to moon

By ELLEN KNICKMEYER September 15, 2022 WASHINGTON (AP) — It’s not just rocket fuel propelling America’s first moonshot after a half-century lull. Strategic rivalry with China’s ambitious space program is helping drive NASA’s effort to get back into space in a bigger way, as both nations push to put people back on the moon and establish the first lunar bases.

American intelligence, military and political leaders make clear they see a host of strategic challenges to the U.S. in China’s space program, in an echo of the U.S.-Soviet rivalry that prompted the 1960s’ race to the moon. That’s as China is quickly matching U.S. civil and military space accomplishments and notching new ones of its own.

On the military side, the U.S. and China trade accusations of weaponizing space. Senior U.S. defense officials warn that China and Russia are building capabilities to take out the satellite systems that underpin U.S. intelligence, military communications and early warning networks………………………..

NASA, the U.S. civilian space agency, is awaiting a new launch date this month or in October for its Artemis 1 uncrewed test moonshot. Technical problems scrubbed the first two launch attempts in recent weeks.

China likewise aims to send astronauts to the moon this decade, as well as establish a robotic research station there. Both the U.S. and China intend to establish bases for intermittent crews on the moon’s south pole after that…………………………………….

And for space more broadly, Americans alone have tens of thousands of satellites overhead ………………………

The moon programs signal that “space is going to be an arena of competition on the prestige front, demonstrating advanced technical expertise and know-how, and then also on the military front as well,” said Aaron Bateman, a professor of history and international affairs at George Washington University and a member of the Space Policy Institute……………………………….

A 1967 U.N. space treaty meant to start shaping the guardrails for space exploration bans anyone from claiming sovereignty over a celestial body, putting a military base on it, or putting weapons of mass destruction into space.

“I don’t think it’s at all by coincidence or happenstance that it is now in this period of what people are claiming is renewed great-power competition that the United States is actually investing the resources to go back,” said Bateman, the scholar on space and national security. “Time will tell if this turns into a sustained program.”………………………………… https://apnews.com/article/astronomy-russia-ukraine-space-exploration-science-technology-f98448825e588e8902bb74519b55ba9f

September 20, 2022 Posted by | politics international, space travel, USA | Leave a comment

Weapons-grade plutonium secretly sent from South Carolina to Nevada removed early

The Nevada site was used to conduct nuclear weapons testing from 1945 to 1992.

 https://www.wltx.com/article/news/regional/weapons-grade-plutonium-from-south-carolina-nevada-removed/101-dba724ee-6fbb-46b0-8d06-3cb9c00— Associated Press, September 17, 2022, CARSON CITY, Nev — Weapons-grade plutonium that secretly was sent to Nevada over objections from the state has been removed ahead of schedule, federal officials said.

U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto said in a statement that she was notified by the National Nuclear Security Administration late Friday that the plutonium had been removed. The work that started last year had been expected to wrap up by the end of 2026.

The U.S. Energy Department under former President Donald Trump had planned to ship a full metric ton (2,204 pounds) of plutonium to Nevada from South Carolina, where a federal judge ordered the material be removed from a Savannah River site.

Nevada had argued in a lawsuit that the clandestine shipment of half a metric ton (1,100 pounds) of plutonium to the vast Nevada National Security Site — an area larger than the state of Rhode Island — in 2018 amounted to a “secret plutonium smuggling operation.” The U.S. government argued it kept the shipment secret because of national security concerns.

The Nevada site was used to conduct nuclear weapons testing from 1945 to 1992.

The legal battle ended in mid-2020 after the federal government agreed to remove the highly radioactive material already trucked to Nevada and abandon any future plans to send more.

The material now is held at a site in New Mexico, a congressional aide told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

September 20, 2022 Posted by | - plutonium, USA | Leave a comment

Watchdog sues nuclear agency over Los Alamos National Laboratory evaluations

 https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/watchdog-sues-nuclear-agency-over-los-alamos-national-laboratory-evaluations/article_718dfd52-3550-11ed-b9d9-9329cbe2ad1f.html By Scott Wyland swyland@sfnewmexican.com Sep 17, 2022 

A New Mexico watchdog group is suing the federal agency that oversees the nation’s nuclear weapons programs for issuing only summaries of its yearly report cards on national laboratories and withholding what the group contends is vital information on deficiencies.

The lawsuit seeks to compel the National Nuclear Security Administration to post in its public reading room the complete report cards for the eight national laboratories involved in nuclear weapons — ones it has withheld in the past and all future assessments.

Allowing the public to see, in particular, the full report on Los Alamos National Laboratory’s shortcomings is increasingly important as the lab gears up to make 30 plutonium bomb cores a year with an escalating federal budget, Jay Coghlan, executive director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, said in a statement.

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s yearly report cards assess the performances of contracted lab operators and award bonuses to the organizations based on their grades in a process that is not classified, Coghlan argued.

“Nevertheless, NNSA seeks to hide how taxpayers’ money is spent from the public, issuing only terse three-page summaries instead of the full and complete reports,” he said in the statement.

The agency has a policy of not commenting on active litigation.

Coghlan said an example of why the full assessment is necessary is a note on last year’s report for the Los Alamos lab saying it had struggled with some production activities and experienced several challenges carrying out the plutonium mission, and “mission execution was impacted by lapses in safety performance.”

No further explanation was provided in the summary report, he said.

Despite this criticism, the lab’s primary contractor, Triad National Security LLC, received 87.3 percent of the highest possible score, earning it a $22.78 million bonus.

This isn’t the first lawsuit the group has filed over the issue.

Nuclear Watch sued in 2012 to obtain the full reports, prompting the agency to release them every year, Coghlan said.

But in 2019, the agency went back to issuing only summaries and didn’t respond to a request through the Freedom of Information Act for complete reports, he said.

Coghlan contends the agency has become more opaque as it pursues pit production.

“It’s crucial that citizens have full and complete information on how their taxpayer dollars are being spent as the world enters a new and more dangerous nuclear arms race,” he said.

September 20, 2022 Posted by | Legal, USA | Leave a comment

Plutonium secretly shipped to Nevada removed sooner than expected

By Gary Martin Las Vegas Review-Journal, September 16, 2022 –

WASHINGTON – A half-metric ton of weapons-grade plutonium secretly shipped into Nevada has been removed four years early under federal court order and an agreement reached by U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto and former Energy Secretary Rick Perry, officials said Friday.

Cortez Masto, D-Nev., first announced the removal of the plutonium, stored at the Nevada National Security Site north of Las Vegas.

She was notified by the National Nuclear Security Administration late Friday………………….

The NNSA shipped the plutonium from the Savannah River Site in South Carolina to Nevada in 2019 under federal court order.

Nevada officials, while notified it would happen, were incensed when efforts to stop the transfer through federal courts became moot after the Department of Energy disclosed the plutonium had already been shipped into the state.

Four years ahead of schedule

“When I heard that the Trump administration secretly shipped weapons-grade plutonium to our state, I acted immediately to ensure it was removed,” Cortez Masto said in a statement.

Cortez Masto also secured in writing a pledge by Perry not to send any more plutonium from South Carolina to Nevada.

“I’m proud to announce the removal has been completed four years ahead of schedule,” Cortez Masto said.

A federal judge ordered the Department of Energy to remove weapons grade plutonium from the Savannah River Site in South Carolina after a facility to turn the radioactive material into fuel for nuclear power plants was terminated.

Some of the material was sent to the Nevada facility, and some to the Pantex Plant in Texas until pits to accommodate the material at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico were completed, according to NNSA.

The material from Nevada now has been shipped to Los Alamos, a congressional aide confirmed.

Secret shipment from South Carolina draws ire

Former Gov. Brian Sandoval, a Republican, was furious that the Energy Department shipped the plutonium to Nevada when the state in May 2019 had notified the federal government of its intent to seek an injunction to prevent the transfer.

Sandoval directed then-state Attorney General Adam Laxalt to file a lawsuit in federal court in Reno to block the shipment.

But the lawsuit was dismissed after Energy Department lawyers in 2020 disclosed in court papers that the shipment had already occurred, making the state’s lawsuit moot.

Gov. Steve Sisolak and state Attorney General Aaron Ford, both Democrats, filed another lawsuit and won a ruling that would force the federal government to eventually remove the plutonium.

………. the danger of exposure to the materials prompted the federal judge to order the plutonium moved from South Carolina.

‘Beyond outrage’

The secret shipping of the plutonium, because of federal national security concerns, drew the ire of Nevada officials of both major political parties who accused Perry and the Energy Department of lying to the state about its intent…………………………….

The shipment heightened tensions between Nevada and the Trump administration, which also sought to open Yucca Mountain as a permanent nuclear waste repository, just 60 miles north of Las Vegas.  https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/politics-and-government/plutonium-secretly-shipped-to-nevada-removed-sooner-than-expected-2641314/

September 19, 2022 Posted by | - plutonium, USA | Leave a comment

General: Supply chain problems are hurting nuclear modernization

Defense News, By Joe Gould, 16 Sept 22,

WASHINGTON ― The nominee to lead the U.S. nuclear arsenal said Thursday that supply chain snags that are pummeling the defense industrial base are also hurting Washington’s plans to modernize its aging nuclear arsenal.

“I would venture to say that it’s probably being seen across the Department of Defense, but in particular for the nuclear portfolio,” Air Force Gen. Anthony Cotton, nominated to lead U.S. Strategic Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee, at his confirmation hearing.

…………  It’s taking some nuclear programs up to 90 days to source certain U.S.-made components that would have typically taken 10 days, he said.

Operating and modernizing the nuclear force will cost $634 billion in the 2021-2030 period, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said last year. Along with the expense of the Energy Department managing nuclear stockpiles, the Defense Department is modernizing the sea, air and land-based legs of the nuclear triad.

………………………………………… Looming over the hearing was Strategic Command’s scramble to reimagine nuclear deterrence theory that simultaneously faces Russia and China……………………. more https://www.defensenews.com/pentagon/2022/09/15/general-supply-chain-problems-are-hurting-nuclear-modernization/

September 19, 2022 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Lawmakers demand reparations for New Mexicans imperiled by nuclear bomb testing

Adrian Hedden, Carlsbad Current-Argus, 10 Sept 22,

When the U.S.’ first nuclear bomb was detonated in south-central New Mexico, it was believed to set off a chain of cancers and health problems suffered by the surrounding communities for generations.

People who grew up near the Trinity Test Site, near the remote communities of Carrizozo or Tularosa, were denied federal relief dollars afforded to other “downwinders” impacted by nuclear testing around the country.

Both towns were within 50 miles of the blast site, and advocates say they were exposed to radiation from the bomb testing.

They advocated for years that New Mexico’s downwinders be included in cash payments made to those affected by nuclear activities under the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA).

Members of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium advocated for such support from state lawmakers during a Tuesday meeting of the interim Radioactive and Hazardous Waste Committee.

“It’s very emotional to reflect on all we’ve lost as a result of being exposed to radiation,” said consortium founder Tina Cordova, herself a survivor of thyroid cancer who said members of her family also suffered from myriad forms of the disease.’

The committee, made up of state senators and representatives voted to send a letter to Congress, calling on the federal leaders to expand reparations to include New Mexicans…………………………..

Cordova pointed to high infant mortality rates and diseases among the people living near the site, which she said were the result of testing at the site.

She also pointed to economic depression in the rural community as its residents struggled for years with high medical bills Cordova attributed to the testing.

“We don’t have a chance in New Mexico to develop generational wealth,” Cordova said. “This has contributed greatly to the poverty we see here.”

Congress voted earlier this year to extend the RECA by two more years, via legislation introduced by U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM) and supported by the state’s entire congressional delegation and via a letter sent by the Radioactive and Hazardous Waste Committee.

But that legislation did not expand the compensation to include New Mexican downwinders, although it does give funds to some uranium miners mostly in the northern part of the state.

So far, downwinders were only federally recognized in parts of Arizona, Utah and Nevada attributed to activities at another nuclear test site in Nevada.  ………………………. https://www.currentargus.com/story/news/2022/09/09/reparations-demanded-for-new-mexicans-imperiled-by-nuclear-bomb-testing/66874718007/
—

September 19, 2022 Posted by | health, politics, USA | Leave a comment

Mishandling of Classified Nuclear Documents Is Bad. Mishandling of the Sole Authority to Use Nuclear Weapons Would Be Much Worse.

Union of Concerned Scientists, Eryn MacDonald, 9 Sept 22, Headlines about the discovery of nuclear weapons-related materials in the trove of highly classified documents that former President Trump stashed at his private residence in Mar-a-Lago are not exactly confidence inspiring. The fact that a former president simply walked off with information at the highest levels of classification leaving it unguarded for more than a year should raise alarms for anyone who is concerned about national security.

But if you think it’s unbelievable that it was so easy to sidestep the safeguards and procedures in place to ensure that some of the most secret information known to our government was not packed up and stuck in a basement, I’ve got even worse news for you. Because the process to order the launch of US nuclear weapons has fewer safeguards and would require no sidestepping, leaving it even more vulnerable to the whims of an unstable leader. That decision is put in the hands of a single individual—the president—while the rest of us all just have to cross our fingers and hope that they take this responsibility more seriously than the former president took his responsibility to safeguard those classified documents.

The process that the United States has now for making decisions about the use of nuclear weapons is called “sole authority.” It is an outdated artifact of an earlier time that now carries more risks than benefits. ……………

 sole authority intentionally includes no checks and balances. No requirement to consult with advisers or Congress. There is also no one with the legal authority to countermand the order if the president does decide to launch……..  And once missiles are launched, there is no going back—they cannot be called back or ordered to self-destruct.

The good news: we can fix it

Times have changed since the decision was made to give the president sole authority over the decision to launch a nuclear attack. Communications systems have improved immensely. And despite the deterioration of US-Russian relations, a surprise Russian nuclear attack on the US homeland is still not a realistic concern these days. And, the US now has a fleet of nuclear ballistic missile submarines that are essentially invulnerable when they are hidden on patrol in the ocean, rendering the need for split-second nuclear launch decisions obsolete.

Unfortunately, the nuclear launch decision-making system has not kept pace with the times. The good news, however, is that it would be an easy fix, that we could implement very quickly. There have been many suggestions of how this could be done, including a proposal by some of my colleagues at UCS.

The UCS proposal would require that the president obtain the consent of two other high-level officials in the presidential line of succession—for example, the vice president and the speaker of the House—to carry out any order to launch a nuclear attack. …………….

The time to change the system is now..…………………………….

We do not have the luxury of waiting for “lessons learned.” We must take the only opportunity we have to change this outdated, undemocratic, and dangerous system—now. Making this change permanent would require action from Congress, but that is no reason to delay the immediate steps that we can take. UCS and many others, including members of Congress, have already asked President Biden to change the decision-making procedures for using nuclear weapons.

You can join us in asking him to take his opportunity to do so, before it is too late.
 https://allthingsnuclear.org/emacdonald/mishandling-of-classified-nuclear-documents/

September 19, 2022 Posted by | politics, safety, USA | Leave a comment

Navy Seeks Solution for Decommissioned Nuclear Carrier USS Enterprise

 SEP 9, 2022 BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE

The U.S Navy is grappling with a huge dilemma on what to do with the decommissioned USS Enterprise, the world’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and the pride of the Navy for 50 years from her commissioning in 1961 to her deactivation in 2012. Officially decommissioned in 2017, she sits in Virginia costing millions of dollars annually in maintenance costs but could require more than a billion dollars and up to 15 years to safely dismantle.

Having been the embodiment of the U.S military might not only because of its sheer size, which earned her the nickname “Big E” she became the centerpiece of the modern Navy. ………………………………………… more https://maritime-executive.com/article/navy-seeks-solution-for-decommissioned-nuclear-carrier-uss-enterprise

September 19, 2022 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

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