Trump administration moves to boost homeland missile defense system despite multiple flaws

As reported by David Willman in the L.A. Times.

The article reports that, despite $40 billion already spent on the dubious system, and another $10.2 billion flowing through the pipeline:

...government reports and interviews with technical experts suggest the planned upgrades, including a redesigned kill vehicle, are unlikely to protect the United States from a limited-scale ballistic missile attack, the system’s stated mission.

As Noam Chomsky stated at a peace and justice conference at Bowling Green State University in Ohio in the 1980s, it doesn't matter if the technology works -- that's beside the point -- all that matters is that the military-industrial complex gets paid.

Chomsky was referring to the Reagan administration's coveted Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), or so-called "Star Wars," at the time.

Ironically enough, it was SDI that sank prospects for nuclear weapons abolition between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. Both President Reagan and Premier Gorbachev were sincerely interested in, and on the brink of, nuclear weapons abolition, at their summit in Iceland in the mid-1980s. But Reagan's stubborn insistence on retaining the right to develop SDI, blocked the fleeting opportunity.

And now, three decades later, the U.S. and world are embroiled in fears of nuclear war, not seen since the end of the Cold War.

Atomic Tests During the 1950s Probably Killed Half a Million Americans

• Mother Jones - Atomic Tests During the 1950s Probably Killed Half a Million Americans - Kevin Drumdec
• Newser - Researcher: Radioactive Milk Killed Hordes of Americans - Kate Seamons
• Quartz - US nuclear tests killed far more civilians than we knew - Tim Fernholz

As posted at the State of Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects "What's News" page.

Daniel Ellsberg on Jeremy Scahill's "The Intercepted," discussing "The Doomsday Machine"

Host of "The Intercepted" podcast, Jeremy Scahill, had "Pentagon Papers" whistleblower Dan Ellsberg on to discuss his new book, "The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner." The interview takes place from the 44:00 minute mark to the 1:06:00 minute mark on the podcast entitled "Full Metal Jackass."

Watch the powerfully moving Nobel Peace Prize 2017 ceremony honoring ICAN

The 2017 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to ICAN (International Campaign for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons) in Oslo, Norway on Dec. 10th, Human Rights Day.

You can watch the entire ceremony here.

Beatrice Fihn, executive director of ICAN, and Setsuko Thurlow, a survivor of the Hiroshima atomic bombing (Hibakusha), delivered powerfully moving acceptance speeches. They challenged the nuclear weapons states, and states living under the so-called "nuclear umbrella," to abolish nuclear weapons, before they abolish us.

The transcripts of both speeches are viewable here:

Setsuko Thurlow: https://www.wagingpeace.org/setsuko-thurlow-nobel-peace-prize-acceptance-speech/

Beatrice Fihn: https://www.wagingpeace.org/beatrice-fihn-nobel-peace-prize-acceptance-speech/

Beyond Nuclear organized a live watch party in Roswell, New Mexico (where we were fighting highly radioactive irradiated nuclear fuel de facto permanent parking lot dumping) at 5am local time.

Beyond Nuclear has also been honored to speak (about Fukushima) alongside Thurlow at a Washington, D.C. Hiroshima-Nagasaki Peace Committee August 6 & 9 commemoration, held at the Japanese Internment Camp memorial on Capitol Hill, several years ago.

Beyond Nuclear also co-hosted, along with Nuclear Energy Information Service (NEIS) of Chicago, as well as Friends of the Earth (FOE), a Dec. 2, 2012 event in Chicago ("A Mountain of Radioactive Waste 70 Years High"), marking 70 years since Enrico Fermi's reactor experiment at the University of Chicago, during the Manhattan Project race to the atomic bomb, and atomic bombings of Japan. See Thurlow's presentation in Chicago five years ago. And check out the full website devoted to memorializing and documenting the powerful 2012 event, here.

Susi Snyder, a leader of ICAN, attended the Nobel Prize ceremony in Oslo, and sat in the front row. Not so many years ago, Susi fought the Yucca Mountain high-level radioactive waste dump, as well as nuclear weapons testing, in Nevada: she served at Western Shoshone spiritual leader Corbin Harney's Shundahai Network, in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Beatrice Fihn and ICAN were honored at the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability's (ANA) annual D.C. Days on Capitol Hill in May 2017. At that same awards ceremony, Beyond Nuclear -- an ANA member group -- awarded Dave Kraft of NEIS of Chicago the Judy Johnsrud Unsung Hero Award, for his four decades of anti-nuclear power grassroots leadership. Dave anchored the 2012 "Mountain of Waste" event in Chicago mentioned above. Another awardee at that very same ceremony was Tina Cordova, of the Tularosa Downwinders, survivors -- and voices for those who did not survive -- of the Trinity blast's radioactive fallout on July 16, 1945 (which tested the functionality of the plutonium bomb design dropped on Nagasaki just a few weeks later). Yet another award recipient that evening was California Democrat, Ted Lieu, co-sponsor of legislation that would require Congress to authorize the president before he/she could launch a nuclear weapons first strike.

Nuclear Hotseat SPECIAL: U-Chicago Atomic Propaganda Orgy Decoded by Fairewinds’ Arnie Gundersen & NEIS – Errors, Omissions & Lies, Oh My!

[Listen to the full recording of the podcast, here.]

The University of Chicago produced a month-long orgy of pro-nuclear self-congratulations to celebrate the first atomic pile, the chain reaction which started our collective nuclear nightmare.  The events culminated in a Symposium, “Nuclear Reaction,”  held on December 1, 2017, featuring relentless pro-nuclear propaganda.

Nuclear Hotseat was there to cover the events through the eyes of those who know enough to oppose nuclear, along with NEIS-sponsored events presented as a counterbalance.

Hear feedback and perspective on the human toll of the Atomic Age from:

• Arnie Gundersen, Chief Engineer, Fairewinds Energy Education
• Dave Kraft, Executive Director, Nuclear Energy Information Service (NEIS)
• Norma Field, PhD, the Robert S. Ingersoll  Distinguished Service Professor Emerita of Japanese Studies at the University of Chicago
• NEIS Board Members and Activists, including Gail Snyder, Jan Boudart, Steven Sondheim (NEIS member, Sierra Club Nuclear Free Campaign).

Who Was There for the Pro-Nuclear Self-Congratulations?

• Former Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz
• President and CEO of Exelon, Chris Crane
• Representatives of Department of Energy, Stanford University, and of course, University of Chicago

Numnutz of the Week (For Nuclear Boneheadedness):

Fireworks?!?  Shaped like a mushroom cloud?!?  Exploded over the site of the first atomic pile, which led to all the rest of the nuclear madness?!?  Someone needs to explain “mixed metaphor” to those numnutz at the U of C!

[Listen to the full recording of the podcast, here.]