Plutonium Sampling at Los Alamos National Laboratory
Cost of RECA Chart
In 1985, US President Ronald Reagan and Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev declared that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.”
High Detections of Plutonium in Los Alamos’ Acid Canyon
Full Video Recording: NukeWatch and Dr. Michael Ketterer Present Results from Recent Sampling for Plutonium Contamination Around the Los Alamos National Lab |
Dr. Michael Ketterer's Presentation of Results Showing High Detections of Plutonium in Los Alamos Neighborhood |
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The Pentagon has more money than it can spend. Both Democrats and the GOP are to blame.
“To save taxpayer money and increase U.S. national security, the first step must be to reconceptualize U.S. strategy. That means abandoning the military-first approach that has governed U.S. security policy during this century.”
ARTICLE BY BEN FREEMAN & WILLIAM D. HARTUNG | newsweek.com
The bid from the Republican controlled Senate is $750 billion. The just passed bid from the Democratic controlled House is $733 billion. Both have radically overbid on the price of the Pentagon.
The real cost of the prize that is America’s security is significantly lower than what either party is currently bidding. As the Sustainable Defense Task Force—a group of ex-military officers, former White House and Congressional budget experts, and non-governmental analysts convened by the Center for International Policy which we co-chair—has found, America can be made more secure through less, not more, Pentagon spending. This is possible by rethinking U.S. defense strategy, taking a sober and fact-based assessment of the enormous amount of money already flowing to the Pentagon, and rigorously cutting waste and inefficiencies from the Pentagon bureaucracy.
Listen and subscribe to Press the Button, a weekly podcast from Ploughshares Fund dedicated to nuclear policy and national security.
July 15 — In this episode, Michelle Dover, Abigail Stowe-Thurston and Tom Collina deliver a wonderful, incisive news segment summarizing the major gains and debates in the NDAA (and how the Kardashians are getting involved in nuclear issues!).
Suzanne DiMaggio is featured delving deep into the dynamics of the crises with Iran and North Korea. Suzanne also presents her powerful rationale for the new Quincy Institute, where she is chair of the board.
“Looking at the catastrophic failures in foreign policy over the past decades, it is clearly time for something new,” Suzanne says, “The times demand it…We have to change the narrative in this town.”
Listen, Subscribe and Share on iTunes · Spotify · SoundCloud · Google Play
Also available on ploughshares.org/pressthebutton
Zakaria: The cancerous consensus in today’s politicized Washington
The United States’ defense budget is out of control, lacking strategic coherence, utterly mismanaged, ruinously wasteful and yet eternally expanding… “We never expected to pass [a financial audit],” admitted then-Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan.
BY FAREED ZAKARAIA | trib.com
You often hear that in these polarized times, Republicans and Democrats are deadlocked on almost everything. But the real scandal is what both sides agree on. The best example of this might be the defense budget. Last week, the Democratic House, which Republicans say is filled with radicals, voted to appropriate $733 billion for 2020 defense spending. The Republicans are outraged because they — along with President Trump — want that number to be $750 billion. In other words, on the largest item of discretionary spending in the federal budget, accounting for more than half of the total, Democrats and Republicans are divided by 2.3 percent. That is the cancerous consensus in Washington today.
America’s defense budget is out of control, lacking strategic coherence, utterly mismanaged, ruinously wasteful and yet eternally expanding.
Lindsey Graham joins legal fight to restart SC nuclear fuel plant (MOX)
U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham is urging the nation’s highest court to take up what appears to be South Carolina’s final push to resuscitate a shuttered nuclear facility at the Savannah River Site and bolster federal rules tied to plutonium processing and long-term storage.
BY COLIN DEMAREST | postandcourier.com
Graham, a South Carolina Republican who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, argues that the federal government walked away from its obligation to address the plutonium stored in the Palmetto State. He addressed these concerns in a brief filed July 11 with the U.S. Supreme Court.
“The federal government previously made legally binding commitments to the state of South Carolina in recognition of its sovereign status and its proprietary interests,” Graham argued in the brief. “It has now breached those commitments, causing injury to the state that a court may redress.”
The brief describes Graham as “personally familiar” with the matters at hand and profoundly interested in the federal government’s promises to the state, which he was involved in negotiating.
Class Action Suit Draws Big Crowd – Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant
“DOE is simply not to be trusted. Period.”
— Carlos Williams speaking about local cancer concerns.
He has lived for thirty years five miles from the Portsmouth, Ohio uranium enrichment plant.
BY TOM CORRIGAN | PORTSMOUTH DAILY TIMES © 2019 Portsmouth Daily Times, all rights reserved.
Their stories were extremely varied. But many had one unfortunate commonality: cancer.
Larry and Janie Williams describe themselves as being fence line neighbors of the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant since 1972. When she began to fall ill somewhat over four years ago, Larry said his wife’s doctor asked how she had come to be exposed to radiation. Janie never worked at the Portsmouth plant but spoke of daily hearing the ongoing construction of the decommissioned plant’s controversial on-site waste disposal facility. Janie said she developed a type of cancer that attacked her blood. Treatment included extremely expensive stem cell transplants. The transplants did buy her some time, though she added doctors gave her three to five years of life.
“I’m in year four,” said Janie, who clearly is accepting of her situation and spoke of her story unabashedly. She is 63.
Why SC is likely stuck with a stockpile of the nation’s most dangerous nuclear materials
POST & COURIER SPECIAL REPORT: LETHAL LEGACY
BY THAD MOORE & COLIN DEMAREST | postandcourier.com
South Carolina could be stuck with a massive stockpile of the nation’s most dangerous nuclear material for decades, despite a federal mandate and years of promises that the state wouldn’t become America’s plutonium dumping ground.
A restricted internal report obtained by the Aiken Standard and The Post and Courier suggests that the state is likely to become a long-term repository for enough plutonium to build the bomb dropped on Nagasaki nearly 2,000 times over.
South Carolina faces this prospect despite a federal law that gives the U.S. Department of Energy just 2½ more years to remove its plutonium from the Savannah River Site, a huge swath of federal land along the Georgia border.
Hundreds gather in Piketon for town hall on alleged radioactive contamination
“[I] wanted to see what information is available,” Brandon Moore said. “What are we doing to help all these folks that are impacted or that may be impacted in the future?”
BY BRYANT SOMERVILLE. | 10tv.com
PIKETON, Ohio – People stood in line for hours, Tuesday, wanting to make sure they and their families were safe.
“I just want to make sure what’s going on if there was any contamination there or where we’re at,” Steve Copper said. “I want to make sure we got everything taken care of.”
“These materials are ounce-for-ounce the most dangerous materials known to man,” Stuart Smith said.
Smith is with Cooper Law Firm out of New Orleans. It was his firm that filed the lawsuit in May alleging Ohio residents near a former uranium enrichment plant in Piketon were exposed to radioactive contaminants that spread to other properties but were never informed.
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