Beware: we ignore Robert F Kennedy Jr’s candidacy at our peril

When he talks about the machinery of endless war that shapes US foreign policy, and suggests that the goal in Ukraine should be to end the carnage, he is articulating ideas that have become unspeakable in too many liberal circles. There is great power there.

As Kennedy’s fortunes soar, the Democratic consultant class continues to sneer – seemingly learning no lessons from Trump’s rise, or the current unpopularity of their leader, or the desperate desire of so many members of their party for something that feels close enough to courage, truth, and justice that they are willing to fall for a counterfeit copy of a copy of a copy..

Naomi Klein, Guardian, 14 June 23

Given the strengths that Kennedy possesses as a candidate, we should expect him to continue to build momentum. Ignoring him is not an option

When Robert F Kennedy Jr announced his plan to run for president in the Democratic party primaries this April, the dominant liberal strategy towards the once tough environmental lawyer – now spreader of all manner of dangerous, unsupported theories – seemed to be: ignore him and wait for him to go away. Don’t cover, don’t engage and don’t debate. Jim Kessler, a leader of the pro-Biden think tank Third Way, called him a “gadfly and a laughingstock”; Democratic consultant Sawyer Hackett brushed him off as “a gnat.”

Well, if recent developments in the Kennedy campaign have demonstrated anything, it’s that denial is not a viable political strategy. Kennedy honed his social media skills over years to spread his anti-vaccine message, so he has simply done an end-run around traditional media and party structures: a “Twitter Spaces” tete-a-tete with Elon Musk and a string of video streams, several with hundreds of thousands of views and listens, on every channel from Breaking Points on the left to Jordan Peterson’s podcast on the right (that one quickly broke a million views on YouTube).

He has landed an apparent endorsement from Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and this week is being feted at a Bay Area fundraiser filled with heavy hitters. According to a CNN poll released in late May, support for Kennedy was at 20% among respondents who identify as Democrats or Democratic-leaning.

It’s time to abandon wishful thinking and figure out what is going on. What are the reasons his campaign is resonating with a consequential slice of US voters? (And voters beyond the US, where he has a large following?) What pain, silence and rage is he tapping into? What important truths and realities is he concealing and eliding? And, given the near impossible odds of him winning the race which he is currently running in, what is his real end-game?

Let’s start with the reservoirs of Kennedy’s appeal.

The Power of Story…………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Tapping Into the Rage

It’s not only the combined power of a dynastic family, violent crime and choose-your-own-adventure conspiracy culture that RFK Jr is riding. He is also tapping into a wellspring of real pain and outrage. These points may be obvious but they bear repeating: a great many voters are hurting and rightfully angry: about powerful corporations controlling their democracy and profiting off disease and poverty. About endless wars draining national coffers and maiming their kids. About stagnating wages and soaring costs. This is the world – inflamed on every level – that the two-party duopoly has knowingly created.

RFK Jr’s campaign speaks directly to this outrage, with its central message about “the corrupt merger between state and corporate power.” When he talks about drug companies controlling the national health agencies and polluters controlling environmental regulators, he is persuasive, which is why he was a good lawyer. When he rails against the corporations who made a killing during Covid, profiteering off the pandemic and using it to crush their rivals, he is speaking my language and it’s hard not to nod along.

When he talks about the machinery of endless war that shapes US foreign policy, and suggests that the goal in Ukraine should be to end the carnage, he is articulating ideas that have become unspeakable in too many liberal circles. There is great power there.

………………………………………………………………………… Giving Voice to Ecological Grief

As a lifelong outdoorsman and longtime environmental lawyer, RFK Jr also does something very few politicians in modern life seem capable of doing: put into words our moment of shattering ecological loss and grief. “Environmental protection binds us to our own humanity and to all of creation,” he said on Earth Day. “When we destroy a species, when we destroy a special place, we’re diminishing our capacity to sense the divine, understand who God is, and what our own potential is as human beings.”

Kennedy is fluent in the language of heartbreak about dead rivers and devastated fisheries; of asthmatic lungs and increasingly silent springs. As smoke blots the sun across entire continents, this is not a skill to dismiss lightly. Who else has it? Not Joe Biden. Not Kamala Harris. Not even Barack Obama. Bernie Sanders was great on the facts of the climate crisis when he ran, and full of righteous fury at fossil fuel companies – but I don’t think I ever heard him speak with unabashed emotion about extinction. This is another vacuum that RFK Jr is skillfully filling.

Given the undeniable strengths that Kennedy possesses as a candidate, we should expect him to continue to build momentum, and continue to find new audiences. Ignoring him is not an option. What is needed instead is a serious engagement with the myths that underlie the Kennedy performance and that are key to his progressive appeal.

Myth #1: He would be a climate champion.

Because RFK Jr is so eloquent about pollution, many assume he would support policies that would tame the raging climate crisis. While that may have been true in the past, the facts have radically changed. In recent interviews, he claims climate science is too complex and abstract to explain and that, “I can’t independently verify that.” He also says that the climate crisis is being used to push through “totalitarian controls on society” orchestrated “by the World Economic Forum, Bill Gates, and all of these megabillionaires” – a green-tinged reboot of the same, all-too familiar conspiracy theories he rode to pandemic stardom, when he opposed virtually every Covid public health measure, from masks to vaccines to closures. Now he is marshaling the same arguments against climate action.

…………………………………………. But we should also be clear: actively spreading terror on the scale that RFK Jr has done for two decades is itself a public health crisis. The vaccine-autism myth stigmatizes people who are neuro-atypical, presenting them as tragic, and distracts from the urgent need to fight for greater accessibility and lifelong supports. It also discourages vaccination, which is already leading to a resurgence of diseases we thought we had defeated, from measles to diphtheria.

Kennedy complains that he used to be so marginalized for his conspiratorial views that speaking felt “like talking into a fucking tin can.” Well, thanks to his primary run, his tin can has been replaced with a global megaphone and millions more people are hearing his bogus theories. We will feel the ramifications of that for decades to come.

Myth #3: He is anti-war and pro-human rights.

Kennedy is most persuasive when opposing US military intervention abroad, or when he is discussing the humanitarian cost of the war in Ukraine, and calling for a peaceful settlement. But how seriously should we take his pacifism and human rights concerns? One hint rests in the blanket support he offers the Israeli government, one of the top recipients of aid from the US military industrial complex he decries, and a nation consistently unwilling to entertain peace with justice, while escalating tensions with Iran.

…………………………………………………………. As Kennedy’s fortunes soar, the Democratic consultant class continues to sneer – seemingly learning no lessons from Trump’s rise, or the current unpopularity of their leader, or the desperate desire of so many members of their party for something that feels close enough to courage, truth, and justice that they are willing to fall for a counterfeit copy of a copy of a copy.n  https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jun/14/ignoring-robert-f-kennedy-jr-not-an-option?CMP=share_btn_tw

June 15, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA | Leave a comment

USA’s Inflation reduction act expands tax-payer funding for nuclear power plants

Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner

The Inflation Reduction Act (“IRA”) created new incentives for the generation of electricity from nuclear power plants, supplementing incentive provisions that are currently in place.  The primary changes are (i) the adoption of a new 8-year production tax credit (“PTC”) for certain existing nuclear power plants, and (ii) enabling nuclear facilities to qualify under the new technology-neutral zero-emission PTC and investment tax credit (“ITC”) regime that will apply beginning in 2025.  Some of the other incentives adopted by the IRA may also support the nuclear industry.

Existing Incentives Prior to IRA

The advanced nuclear production tax credit (“Advanced Nuclear PTC”) under Code Section 45J of the Internal Revenue Code (the “Code”)………………………………..

Inflation Reduction Act Incentives…………….  enabling new nuclear power plants placed in service after December 31, 2024 to participate in the PTC and ITC incentives available for the production of electricity from renewable and other low-carbon sources. 

Zero-Emission Nuclear Power Production Tax Credit

The IRA creates a new zero-emission nuclear power production tax credit (“Zero Emission PTC”)  for certain existing nuclear power plants under Section 45U of the Code. ………………………

Clean Electricity Production Tax Credit

For facilities placed in service after December 31, 2024, the IRA replaces the existing PTC under Section 45 of the Code with a technology-neutral “zero emissions” clean electricity production tax credit (“Clean Electricity PTC”) under Section 45Y of the Code……………………………

Clean Electricity Investment Tax Credit

For facilities placed in service after December 31, 2024, the IRA also replaces the existing ITC under Section 48 of the Code with a technology-neutral “zero emissions” clean electricity investment tax credit (“Clean Electricity ITC”) under Section 48E of the Code. The credit is available for any “qualified facility” and certain energy storage technology…………………………….

Other Tax Credit Incentives

The IRA provides some additional tax credit incentives that could benefit the development of future nuclear power plants…………………………………

High-Assay Low-Enriched Uranium Funding

The IRA also earmarks $700 million for the development of a domestic market and production of high-assay low-enriched uranium (“HALEU”)………………………….  https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/inflation-reduction-act-expands-support-4367428/—

June 14, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA | 1 Comment

Connecticut Governor Lamont should veto SB 7 that would advance dangerous nuclear power

Gov. Lamont, veto bill to ‘advance’ dangerous nuclear power. CT Mirror, by Stanley Heller, June 12, 2023

What folly!  Just as a dam necessary for cooling nuclear waste at Europe’s biggest nuclear power complex is blown up, members of the Connecticut legislature pass a bill that includes promotion of dangerous outmoded nuclear power.

Senate Bill 7 creates a “Council for Advancing Nuclear Energy Development” specifically packed with six positions for people who work in the nuclear energy industry.  Their mission will be to discuss “advancements that are occurring in nuclear energy development.”  They’ll study “small modular reactors, advanced nuclear reactors, [and] fusion energy facilities.”

Rather than seek “advancement,” we should be figuring out how to phase out this technology.  We see by the Ukraine example that parties at war do not respect what one would think would be totally obvious, the need to do nothing to harm the safety of nuclear power plants.  Not that we expect warfare to break out in the U.S., but this country should lead in best practices so that countries where war is a lot more likely won’t go down the nuclear path and risk huge releases of nuclear contamination that spread world-wide. 

Realize that the Chernobyl disaster of 1986 led to thousands of fatalities.  In Ukraine alone 35,000 women have received compensation for spouses who died because of the disaster.   And that’s only the numbers from Ukraine. High levels of radiation covered southern Belarus too, but the government there has never released its statistics.

Another section of the Connecticut bill would classify nuclear power as a “Class 1 renewable energy source.”  That would allow the owner of a new nuclear facility to sell renewable “energy credits,” another dubious idea.  Rather than limit the use of polluting fuels, the idea is for “the market” to take care of things.  Grand, let’s rely on the same market whose mindless profit seeking got us hooked on fossil fuels in the first place.

The new council will study ways to “promote nuclear energy development, expansion and research” in Connecticut.  What won’t be studied is the problem of importation of Russian uranium that is used to generate nuclear power. Every year hundreds of millions of dollars are spent by U.S. companies to buy raw and enriched uranium from Russia.   Presumably Connecticut nuclear power companies are no different. Reuters reports that the U.S. power industry relies on Russia and its allies Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan for roughly half of the uranium powering its nuclear power plants.  Why not respond to a petition about this and study how to stop relying on a fuel that enriches the Russian dictator?

……………………………………….. Governor Lamont should veto SB 7.  Then call a special session to pass a revised SB 7 clean of plans for more nuclear power.  After doing that stay in session and spend time passing blockbuster legislation that will provide leadership for a country teetering on a climate precipice.

June 14, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA | Leave a comment