Vogtle Nuclear Reactors: '....down the radioactive sink hole...'

Great points raised by Harvey Wasserman about the total rip-off of the Vogtle Nuclear Reactors being built in Georgia.....all taxpayer funded!

Nuclear Energy makes absolutely no sense!

Obama Shills for Nuclear Industry and Cost Overruns at Taxpayer Expense

President Barack Obama during his remarks on the George Zimmerman case. (photo: Carolyn Kaster/AP)

Obama's Nuke-Powered Drone Strike on America's Fiscal Sanity

By Harvey Wasserman, Common Dreams

20 February 14

o the "all the above" energy strategy now deems we dump another $6.5 billion in bogus loan guarantees down the atomic drain. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz has announced finalization of hotly contested taxpayer handouts for the two Vogtle reactors being built in Georgia. Another $1.8 billion waits to be pulled out of your pocket and poured down the radioactive sink hole.

 

A nuke-powered drone strike on fiscal sanity.

 

While Fukushima burns and solar soars, our taxpayer money is being pitched at a failed 20th century technology currently distinguished by its non-stop outflow of lethal radiation into the Pacific Ocean.

 

The money is to pump up a pair of radioactive white elephants that Wall Street won't touch. Georgia state "regulators" are strong-arming ratepayers into the footing the bill before the reactors ever move a single electron—which they likely never will.

 

Sibling reactors being built in Finland and France are already billions over budget and years behind schedule. New ones proposed in Great Britain flirt with price guarantees far above currently available renewables.

 

The Vogtle project makes no fiscal sense … except for the scam artists that will feed off them for years to come.

 

Substandard concrete, unspecified rebar steel, major labor scandals, non-existent quality control … all the stuff that's defined this industry since the Shippingport reactor started construction outside Pittsburgh some six decades ago is with us yet again.

 

It would be nice to say this is merely $6.5 billion wasted. But that's the tip of the iceberg. Long Island's Shoreham and New Hampshire's Seabrook came in at 5-10 times their original cost estimates.

 

Shoreham never made it to commercial operation. Neither did Seabrook Unit Two.

 

Should Vogtle, for which these loans are designated, beat the odds and actually go on line in the years to come, it will multiply its sunk cost by irradiating the countryside and creating radioactive waste nobody can handle.

 

Nor can it get private insurance to shield future victims and the taxpaying public from the inevitable disaster. The next commercial reactor to explode (joining the five that already have) will do damage in the trillions.

 

Its owners will not be liable, and the people making this decision will never go to prison.

 

But many along the way will pocket major fortunes from substandard construction, corner-cutting "safety" scams, black market parts purchasing, mafia-run hiring operations and the usual greasing of radioactive palms that defines all reactor construction projects.

 

Take that $6.5 or $8.3 billion and invest it right now in wind, solar, sustainable bio-fuels, geothermal, ocean thermal, wave energy, LED light bulbs, building insulation and Solartopian south-facing windows.

 

THEN we can dent in our climate crisis.

 

THAT's where the jobs are.

 

THERE would be an all-the-above energy strategy that actually makes sense.

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Harvey Wasserman | Obama's Nuke-Powered Drone Strike on America's Fiscal Sanity

Harvey Wasserman, Common Dreams
Wasserman writes: "While Fukushima burns and solar soars, our taxpayer money is being pitched at a failed 20th century technology currently distinguished by its non-stop outflow of lethal radiation into the Pacific Ocean."
READ MORE

Charles Pierce | The Voting Wars Go On
Charles Pierce, Esquire
Pierce writes: "This is not about laziness or ignorance. This is about institutional barriers placed deliberately in the way of the former group of voters by politicians working on behalf of the latter."
READ MORE

Rand Paul | The NSA Is Still Violating Our Rights
Rand Paul, Guardian UK
Paul writes: "James Clapper now says the National Security Agency (NSA) should have been more open about the fact that they were spying on all Americans. I'm glad he said this. But there is no excuse for lying in the first place."
READ MORE

PLO Official: US Ideas for Peace Deal Fall Short
Karin Laub, Associated Press
Laub reports: "Ideas floated by Washington so far for an Israeli-Palestinian peace framework don't provide a basis for serious talks, a Palestinian official said Wednesday, signaling continued deadlock as an April deadline approaches."
READ MORE

Where Ohio Got Its Execution Drugs
Andrew Welsh-Huggins, Associated Press
Welsh-Huggins reports: "Ohio's most recent batches of lethal injection drugs were produced by a company that wants states to stop using them for capital punishment."
READ MORE

Yet Another Toxic Spill in North Carolina
Lindsay Abrams, Salon
Abrams reports: "Officials announced that the coal ash dump that leaked into North Carolina's Dan River earlier this month, contaminating the water with arsenic and other toxic chemicals, has sprung a new leak that's contaminating the water with arsenic and other toxic chemicals."
READ MORE

Meet the Family the Tar Sands Industry Wants to Keep Quiet
Emily Atkin, ThinkProgress
Atkin reports: "Though Alain once thought having the tanks on his property would be a blessing, he now describes them as a curse."
READ MORE

This, That......

 

 

 

Stunning.

Thanks to Real Truth Now for the image.

 

I Acknowledge Class Warfare Exists

Meme GOP added a new photo.

Being Liberal

(M) Well said.

Thanks to Living Blue in a Red State for sharing this.

Stop the World, the Teabaggers Want Off

#AmericanTaliban

www.TheEverlastingGOPStoppers.com

TheBlueSquirrel.org: My Left Nut shared Tracy Knauss's photo.

Roberts is and always has been a conservative...and those hat bought into his statements during his confirmation hearing didn't pay attention to those conservatives confirmed before him. Justice Ginsburg wants to stick around to do the left thing...Blue is looking for good 'long life' karma thoughts for this sassy, intelligent, astute and kind woman.

 

ROBERTS'S ACTIVIST COURT — When Chief Justice John Roberts was interrogated in his Senate confirmation hearings, he pledged to abide by the concept of stare dec...isis (settled law). If a law has withstood the test of time, he would honor that. Now that he has led the Big Bench long enough to have a record, he should be sued for perjury because his court has reversed more settled law than any SCOTUS in modern history. His recent gutting of the Voting Rights Act is a prime example. In fact, Roberts should have recused himself from this case, let alone penned its Majority Opinion. As a member of the Reagan Administration, John Roberts authored several legal briefs for Reagan about changes to the Voting Rights Act. This should have been more than enough to have caused him to sever his ties to the recent decision, the reality of which has encouraged Red Plague states to enact new laws preventing minorities from voting. Thanks John. Your legacy will be in the john for your poor judgment. And now, Supreme Court justice, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, has confirmed the Roberts Court, led by racist Antonin Scalia, as stunningly activist, which supposedly is something Scalia and his Gang of Five disdain. It's a sad state of affairs when our great nation's highest court is being led by radical frightwing zealots, determined to destroy the middle class and any remaining hopes of "promoting the General Welfare" as the Constitution dictates. (See my comment for a link to the story.)

Regulators, mount up. This ride has only just begun. (c)

And Republican say Obama is bad for businesses.

Thanks to Liberals Are Cool for sharing this.

 

Underground Health

 

 

Women's Equality Day

52 Clinics Closed

By Josh Dorner on August 26, 2013 at 5:00 pm

Going Backwards on Women’s Equality Day

Today is Women’s Equality Day, which marks the anniversary of the certification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, which granted women the right to vote. It’s now been 93 years and while much progress has been made, everyone’s right to vote is under attack and women are still far from equal.

Unfortunately, we also got fresh evidence today that the GOP’s war on women is taking a discernible toll on women’s reproductive rights. An analysis by the Huffington Post found that 52 clinics have closed since the recent record-breaking assault on abortion rights accelerated in 2010.

Check out their graphic to get a sense of the coast-to-coast assault on access to abortion: HERE

Evening Brief: Important Stories That You Might’ve Missed

The latest on the GOP’s latest manufactured crisis.

Millionaire congressmen are giving up government-sponsored health coverage (and forcing their low-level staffers to do the same).

BP thinks it’s done enough following the worst offshore oil disaster in history and it’s not shy about saying so.

Video suggests hurricanes be named after politicians who deny climate change.




The Republican Party’s obsession with killing Obamacare is killing the Republican Party.

Latest news on insurance rates from the states shows that Obamacare is working.

The Tea Party is now covering news at the Washington Post.

GOP senator says food stamps are like slavery.

Justice Ginsburg calls the Roberts Corporate Court “one of the most activist in history.”




http://thinkprogress.org/progress-report/52-clinics-closed/

 

Benghazi Debunked - Just Another Phony Republican Scandal, et al

Benghazi, another phony scandal.....

Audio Emerges Proving Secret Conservative Organization Behind Benghazi “Scandal”

posted by Justin AcuffAugust 3, 2013

 

 

Groundswell, the conservative behind-the-scenes organization that forms a coalition between prominent Republicans, right wing media, and conservative activists to wage a “30-front war against Obama and progressives” has been revealed to have played a role in the hype and false scandalization of the Benghazi “controversy.” A secret tape released by Crooks And Liars (audio below) has detailed the cooperation between House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), Ginni Thomas (the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas), former Rep. Allen West, as well as high-ranking members of Judicial Watch and Breitbart. The meeting was presided over by Catherine Engelbrecht, one of the founders of the voter suppression group, True The Vote.

In the tape, Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy and Jerry Boykin of the Family Research Council are revealed to have met with Boehner and Issa to discuss Benghazi:

A secret audio tape of one of Groundswell’s weekly meetings shows that prominent members of the group pressed House Speaker John Boehner and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the chair of the House oversight committee, to expand the Benghazi investigation and make this supposed scandal a top-priority for congressional Republicans. This recording indicates Groundswell’s mission extends beyond message coordination to scandal-stoking. (Mother Jones)

Also in the tape, which covers the first 20 minutes of a Groundswell meeting, they also reveal that GOP congresspeople are willing, albeit reluctantly, to raise the debt ceiling, which may be excellent news for future Washington negotiations. Unfortunately, however, they also discussed their war on voting rights — insanely accusing the left of being the political force attempting to disenfranchise voters.

Crooks And Liars reports:

During the meeting, True the Vote made a presentation (document below) about their plan to attack groups who are actively working to protect voting rights around the country, particularly after the Supreme Court gutted most of the protections. Code-named “Hydra”, True the Vote argues that the left is undermining voting rights, and must be stopped, by hook or by crook.

Here’s an excerpt from their laughable (but dangerous) Hydra propaganda:



Yes, they’re seriously saying that the left’s mission to extend early voting time and promote youth registration is undermining democracy — and is a war on voting rights. Meanwhile, they’re enacting laws that make it extremely difficult for minorities and other marginalized groups to vote, purposefully and admittedly preventing Democratic constituents from reaching the polls. Not only that, but the war they’re fighting against voter fraud is imaginary — there are hardly any documented cases of voter fraud, and none that are widespread. There is no cause and no enemy — sort of like another war perpetrated by the right.

True The Vote and Groundswell also played an interesting role in the false IRS scandal, when conservatives exploded in rage after the IRS investigated the tax-free status of obviously conservatively partisan nonprofits, despite later finding out that progressive groups were targeted as well.

Crooks And Liars establishes a timeline of events, showing the role of political operatives in engineering the false scandal:

On May 8, 2013, True the Vote is a facilitator and presenter at a meeting where Ginni Thomas and others are key players. TTV presents their plan to attack “the left” for daring to register voters. They’re committed to stopping them from challenging any and all efforts to disenfranchise voters. Or as they describe it, securing the vote. Others might call it democracy corrupted.

On May 9, 2013 the IRS “scandal” breaks after Lois Lerner plants a question in a conference Q&A about IRS “targeting.”

On May 21, 2013, True the Vote, represented by ActRight Legal Foundation, sues the IRS for not granting their tax-exempt status and targeting them for their beliefs. ActRight Legal Foundation uses Cleta Mitchell as one of their consulting attorneys. Mitchell is a well-known and very high profile litigator on behalf of conservative causes. There are very few conservative nonprofits that don’t have Mitchell’s fingerprints all over them.

Another interesting note — besides the obvious partisanship of True The Vote, as seen in their Hydra document below – is that True The Vote was also under investigation by Congress for voter suppression when the IRS investigation and subsequent “scandal” came about.
Here’s the audio from the Groundswell meeting:
Also of interest, the Hydra document by True The Vote:

Hydra Plan – Plan to Attack Voting Rights

About Author

Justin Acuff

Justin Acuff is a political activist, writer and admitted news junkie. He has written hundreds of articles that have been read millions of times. Justin is a Senior Editor for Addicting Info, the owner and managing editor of Young Progressive Voices, and contributes to other publications as well. The best part? He isn't even 20 yet. Follow his Facebook fan page to get access to his latest articles, find his website here, or follow him on Twitter.

http://occupydemocrats.com/groundswell-tape-reveals-influence-over-republican-congressmen-secret-behind-benghazi-hype/

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