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Sunday, January 31, 2016

NUCLEAR POWER WHISTLEBLOWERS: WHAT WE NOW KNOW. .

IMAGINE YOU HAVE A JOB THAT PAYS SIX FIGURES A YEAR AND YOU'RE HEADING TOWARD RETIREMENT WITH A NICE EXIT PACKAGE AS A REWARD FOR ALL YOUR YEARS OF SERVICE. 
WOULD YOU RISK ALL THAT TO SAVE THE LIVES OF PEOPLE YOU NEVER MET AND NEVER WOULD MEET?

SOME HAVE.
SOME LOST EVERYTHING DOING SO.

BELOW YOU WILL FIND NUMEROUS MANHATTAN PROJECT SCIENTISTS WHO LATER BECAME ADAMANT ANTI-NUCLEAR ACTIVISTS, WHISTLEBLOWERS, INFORMANTS TRYING TO EDUCATE THE PUBLIC ON THE TRUTH OF RADIATION.

THEY WERE WELL-RESPECTED EXPERTS, SOME WERE NOBEL PRIZE NOMINEES, ONE WAS A NOBEL LAUREATE.


WHY DID THE VERY MEN WHO WORKED TO DEVELOP "THE BOMB" TURN AGAINST NUCLEAR POWER?
MAYBE YOU WILL UNDERSTAND WHY BY SIMPLY READING AND PONDERING WHAT THEY HAD TO SAY. 

FOR ANY WHO DON'T WISH TO WADE THROUGH THIS LENGTHY POST, WHO ONLY WANT TO READ ABOUT THE MANHATTAN PROJECT WHISTLEBLOWERS, SKIP DOWN TO THE TRIPLE ASTERISKS ***.
YOU MAY WISH YOU'D READ IT ALL AS EACH WHISTLEBLOWER COULD SAVE ANY OF OUR LIVES.

THE TEA ROOM WANTED TO SALUTE THESE MEN AND MORE RECENT NUCLEAR ENERGY WHISTLEBLOWERS, BECAUSE I MAY WELL BE ONE OF THE LIVES THEY SAVED BY PUTTING EVERYTHING ON THE LINE AND INFORMING THE PUBLIC OF SOME NASTY TRUTHS. 


THE TEA ROOM ASKS THAT, IF YOU KNOW ANYONE LIVING NEAR THE FACILITIES MENTIONED IN THE FOLLOWING REPORTS THAT YOU INFORM THEM OF THE NOW-KNOWN HAZARDS SO THEY MAY DEVISE SOME METHOD TO HELP PROTECT THEMSELVES, SINCE OUR FEDERAL "PROTECTION" AGENCIES HAVE NO INTENTION OF DOING SO.

DECEMBER, 2012 THROUGH MARCH, 2013


Richard H. Perkins and Larry Criscione are precise and formal men with more than 20 years of combined government and military service. 

Perkins held posts at the Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) before joining the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) Division of Risk Analysis in 2008. 

Criscione landed at the agency a year later, after five years aboard the USS Georgia as a submarine warfare officer.

Now both men are also reluctant whistleblowers, stepping out publicly to accuse the NRC of being both disconcertingly sluggish and inappropriately secretive about severe -- and in one case, potentially catastrophic -- flood risks at nuclear plants that sit downstream from large dams.

A number of nuclear safety advocates who have looked into the matter in recent weeks have echoed their complaints, and a collection of documents obtained by The Huffington Post -- including a 4-year old internal communication plan for NRC officials seeking to head-off criticism of its handling of the dam threat, as well as detailed correspondence between Criscione and NRC leadership on the issue -- appears to lend credence to the engineers' concerns.   

Taken together, the documents and charges shed new light on an agency that has been repeatedly criticized for allowing plant owners to delay crucial safety improvements for years, and for diligently withholding information not as a way of protecting the public interest, but as a way of protecting itself.

"When you're working with sensitive information, you just don't talk about it, so what I'm doing I find to be both perverse and uncomfortable," Perkins said. "But I had to do it."

"It is hypocritical for the NRC -- or any government agency -- under the guise of security, to withhold information from the American public concerning a potentially significant public safety vulnerability, yet take no real action to study and correct the supposed security vulnerability," Criscione said.
 "If we believe there is a security vulnerability, we need to take measures to address it and not merely withhold it from public discussion."

Perkins was tasked in 2010 with spearheading what he says was always supposed to become a publicly available review of the dam-flood threat at U.S. nuclear power plants. Instead, he says, NRC management pushed back almost immediately to exclude certain information from the analysis.

When the report was completed and shared internally at the NRC in July 2011, Perkins said he felt he had ultimately prevailed in keeping most of the information he considered pertinent in the report. But he was chagrined when a public version was released last March with substantial portions of the document blacked out.

An unredacted version of Perkins's report, obtained by The Huffington Post in October, revealed that much of the blacked-out information was publicly available in other documents and websites already published online, including simple maps of where nuclear plants stood in relation to upstream dams or the height of flood walls designed to protect safety equipment. 

Threats of varying significance were identified in Perkins's analysis at the Ft. Calhoun station in Nebraska, the Prairie Island facility in Minnesota and the Watts Bar plant in Tennessee, among more than two-dozen others.

The document also cited analyses by Duke Energy, owner of the Oconee Nuclear Station in South Carolina, that were performed as far back as the early 1990s, suggesting that the NRC had known for some time about the flood threats. 

Those analyses showed that the 5-foot flood wall protecting crucial safety equipment at Oconee would prove inadequate in the event of a catastrophic failure of the Jocassee Dam, located 11 miles upstream on Lake Keowee. If that dam failed completely, the report suggested, floodwaters as high as 16.8 feet would inundate the Oconee facility, and a meltdown would be a virtual certainty.

A timeline released by the NRC on Thursday in response to a Freedom of Information Act request suggests that the agency was aware of the dam flood threat at Oconee as far back as 1994... 
OVER 20 YEARS AND NO CHANGES TO INSURE PUBLIC SAFETY, TO PREVENT A POSSIBLE 'FUKUSHIMA EVENT' ON AMERICAN SOIL.
At NO time did the NRC threaten to shut the facility down, or otherwise force the company to fully assess and correct what appeared to be a risk of unusually high magnitude. 

By 2008, NRC had even prepared an internal communications plan to deal with potential questions relating to the vulnerability, which was still unaddressed.
THEY WOULD HELP THEM HIDE THE THREAT FROM THE PUBLIC!

By NRC's own calculus -- which was blacked out in the public release of Perkins's report -- the odds of failure in any given year of a large rock-fill dam like the one at Jocassee were about 1 in 3,600

For the Oconee plant, that amounted to a 1 in 163 chance of a catastrophic flood in any one of the 22 years remaining on its operating license -- a risk the agency itself described as being "an order of magnitude larger" than Duke's estimate. 

David Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer and safety advocate with the Union of Concerned Scientists, a Cambridge, Mass.-based advocacy group, calculated that the 34 reactors highlighted in Perkins's analysis are downstream from a total of more than 50 dams -- half of them roughly the size of the Jocassee Dam. "Assuming the NRC’s failure rate applies to all of those dams," Lochbaum noted in an analysis posted to the group's web site, "the probability that one will fail in the next 40 years is roughly 25 percent -- a 1 in 4 chance."

HOW MANY PEOPLE DOES THAT ENDANGER?
HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS, MILLIONS?


ONE OF MY CHILDREN AND HIS SPOUSE WERE DOWNSTREAM FROM OCONEE, AND WE DID NOT KNOW, THEY WERE NEVER PROMPTED AS TO WHAT TO DO OR TOLD WHAT COULD HAPPEN SHOULD THAT DAM BREAK.

THERE WERE NO SAFETY DRILLS, NO MESSAGES, NOTHING IN ALL THE YEARS THEY LIVED THERE.

I TOOK THIS VERY PERSONALLY, NEEDLESS TO SAY.


DUKE ENERGY SAYS THEY CAN HANDLE IT, BUT STILL NO SAFETY DRILLS FOR THE PUBLIC, STILL NO PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS TO ALERT  PEOPLE TO THE DANGER.

Nuclear safety advocates have questioned [DUKE'S] assertions -- particularly given that the NRC CONTINUES to redact and withhold key information related to the threat. 


"You can't have it both ways," said Lochbaum, who reviewed the un-censored version of Perkins report and concluded that the redactions were spurious. 

"If it was a true security threat, the NRC and the operator would be obliged to quickly remove the threat. If they had done that at any point over the last 15 years, there would be no need for redactions.
"Google searches will turn up plenty of pictures of Jocassee from the air and ground," Lochbaum added. "I did a YouTube search and even came across a 10-minute documentary about building the dam."

Jim Riccio, a nuclear analyst with the environmental group Greenpeace, which first obtained the unredacted version of Perkins' report, said the emerging paper trail has eroded the NRC's credibility on the issue. "The Commission has failed its most basic mission to adequately protect public health and safety," Riccio said, "and it cannot be trusted to speak honestly about the risks that nuclear power poses."

When asked whether any part of him believes there could be a legitimate reason for NRC to keep parts of his report from the public, Perkins became animated. "I could so easily answer this question -- I'm dying to answer that question," he said. "But I cannot answer that question without going into the area that I am not allowed to talk about.

I will say that, when you're a regulator, and you're dealing with these safety issues, the public not only should be able to watch what you're doing, they actually must, in accordance with the law, be able to see what you're doing," Perkins added. "We don't work for nuclear operators, after all. We work for the American people."


WELL, THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO WORK FOR OUR SAFETY, BUT NEVER HAVE, NEVER CAN BE EXPECTED TO.

WE MOVE TO THE MISSOURI OZARKS, THE TAUM SAUK HYDROELECTRIC RESERVOIR AND THE FAILURE OF THAT DAM THAT ALMOST KILLED AN ENTIRE FAMILY.

The incident there stuck with Larry Criscione, a mathematical man who says he recognized a could-have-been-me moment in the disaster.
 It was eventually attributed to improperly placed and malfunctioning sensors that allowed the reservoir to fill beyond safe levels. 

When he learned of the dam issue facing the nation's nuclear power plants, Criscione says he felt compelled to make certain the threat was clearly understood by the American people, even if it meant risking his job. 

"One of the most unfortunate aspects about safety is that when an engineer does stand his ground and sacrifices his career over a safety concern -- and by doing so, prevents a disaster -- no one ever knows," Criscione said. 
"We cannot know of something that did NOT occur. 
We cannot know of something that was PREVENTED. 
Had a technician or engineer gone to the press in November 2005 and got the sensors at Taum Sauk fixed, he would have never known the ordeal from which he spared the superintendent and his family..."
After learning of the heavy redactions in Perkins' report, Criscione's own twinge of conscience, he says, prompted him to independently investigate the dam flood risk issue.
 

Four days after Perkins filed his complaint with the Inspector General's office, Criscione dispatched a lengthy letter to the NRC's chairwoman, Allison MacFarlane. 

The letter included dozens of attachments of unearthed internal correspondence between the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Duke Energy regarding the flood threat at Oconee.

Both the letter and the documents were obtained independently by The Huffington Post, and while Criscione and NRC officials said they could not comment on their contents, they independently confirmed that the materials were genuine and were being addressed internally. 

The Huffington Post has made Criscione's letter and the attached documents available here.

Criscione prefaced his letter by quoting a former Navy admiral, who shepherded the development of the nation's nuclear submarine force:   

"'A major flaw in our system of government, and even in industry, is the latitude to do less than is necessary. Too often officials are willing to accept and adapt to situations they know to be wrong. The tendency is to downplay problems instead of actively trying to correct them.'"

[THE NRC] did not take a hard stance and force Duke to rectify the situation immediately -- a timidity that, according to Criscione's letter, sparked internal objections beyond his own and those of Perkins. 


In one instance in 2009, a protestation was filed by a deputy director within the Division of Risk Assessment, who was quoted as saying, "I remain concerned that this approach is not in the best interest of public health and safety and security, regulatory stability, and our role as a strong regulator."


WHAT THE NRC "REGULATES" IS KEEPING OPERATING COSTS DOWN FOR ITS "BABIES", THE NUCLEAR INDUSTRY'S AGING LEAKERS ALL ACROSS AMERICA.


IN DOING SO, IT RISKS ALL OUR LIVES AND HEALTH.


I TAKE GREAT OFFENSE TO THAT.
DUKE ADMITS IT HAS DONE NOTHING TO CORRECT THE THREAT!

Duke has acknowledged that, given a Jocassee Dam failure with subsequent site inundation, all three Oconee units will go to core damage; that is given a dam failure, the conditional core damage probability is 1.0. ... 


For a Jocassee Dam failure, using potentially optimistic assumptions, Duke estimates that containment will fail approximately 59 to 68 hours after dam failure without mitigating actions. 

Under the dam break conditions, resultant flood waters and infrastructure damage would affect public evacuation and potentially affect emergency operations facility response capability. 


Duke has not demonstrated that its radiological emergency plan actions can be adequately implemented under these conditions.
"Like all probabilities, CCDP must be a number between 0 and 1," Criscione wrote.

"A value of 0 means that given only that specific event, there is NO chance that core damage will occur.

A value of 1 means that given that specific event (e.g. a failure of the Jocassee Dam) then core damage WILL CERTAINLY OCCUR.
For most initiating events (e.g. tornadoes, loss of offsite power, fires) the CCDP is typically a very small fraction on the order of one ten-thousandth to one-tenth.

"1.0 might not sound big," he wrote. "But it's enormous."

AND TODAY, 3 YEARS LATER, HAS ANYTHING CHANGED?
NO.


THE NRC AND DUKE ENERGY SOOTHED MOST OF CONGRESS' NERVES ABOUT THE WHOLE THING AND EVERYONE IN THE NUCLEAR INDUSTRY CELEBRATED ANOTHER WIN FOR NUKES, ANOTHER FAILURE TO MAKE, TO FORCE 'BIG NUKE' TO DO ANYTHING TO REMOTELY HELP AMERICANS BE SAFE.


LIKE I SAID, PLEASE, PLEASE PASS THIS ON TO ANYONE YOU KNOW IN THE AREAS MENTIONED.
YOU JUST MAY SAVE LIVES BY DOING SO. 

THE NEXT WHISTLEBLOWER, WHO IS STILL BLOWING WHISTLES, IS PERHAPS A FAMILIAR NAME TO MANY OF YOU.
ARNOLD GUNDERSEN...
FEW REALIZE HIS CREDENTIALS.

Gundersen 
is a former nuclear industry executive, and engineer with more than 44 years of nuclear industry experience.
His curriculum vitae shows Gundersen is a licensed Critical Facility Reactor Operator.

Gundersen is a graduate of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (1971), with a B.S. cum laude and a GPA of 3.74 in nuclear engineering, holds a master's degree in nuclear engineering, and gained an Atomic Energy Commission Fellowship (1972).

He was an invited chapter author for the Department of Energy's Decommissioning Handbook, First Edition, 1981-1982.

Gundersen holds a nuclear safety patent, Energy Absorbing Turbine Missile ShieldU.S. Patent # 4,397,608 ,  8/9/1983,  and managed and coordinated projects at 70 nuclear power plants in the US. 
Gundersen is chief engineer of Fairewinds Associates, and on the board of directors for Fairewinds Energy Education a 501c3 non-profit organization.

POINT BEING, THE MAN IS A RECOGNIZED EXPERT IN THE FIELD OF NUCLEAR ENERGY....NOT A "KOOK", JUST A HATED WHISTLEBLOWER WHO WON'T SHUT UP ABOUT THE FAILURES AND SCHEMES HE'S SEEN AND SEES TODAY.

"In 1989, Arnold Gundersen of Goshen, Connecticut, was a senior vice president with Danbury-based Nuclear Energy Services (NES), a card-carrying member of the nuclear industry. 
Since then, he has become a dedicated whistleblower, taking on the industry that once supplied him in his family with a comfortable lifestyle and a bright future.

Mr. Gundersen made the transition between these two worlds after he uncovered what he felt were safety violations at NES and reported the problem to management.
Soon after making this report he was dismissed from his job and began a five-year effort to prove his case.
WHAT CAUSED HIM TO LOSE HIS JOB?  
He discovered radioactive material in an accounting safe at Nuclear Energy Services in Danbury, the consulting firm where he held a $120,000-a-year job as senior vice president.

Three weeks after he notified the company president of what he believed to be radiation safety violations, he was fired.

A report prepared by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission eventually concluded that there HAD been irregularities at NES, and a second document, prepared by the Office of the Inspector General, noted that the NRC had violated its own regulations by improperly steering business to NES. 

But that vindication was small solace to the Gundersen family, who had by then lost their home."Without the intervention of Sen. Joseph Lieberman and Sen. John Glenn, we would have been dog meat", Mr. Gundersen said.
 "We would have been selling apples on the street. 
My bitterness is not toward my former employer, but toward the government agencies that did nothing to rectify it. 

I had believed in the government, but now I know that it is an organism and when you attack it, it reacts like an organism. But as a result of my case, Connecticut has toughest whistleblower protection bill in the country." 

Hired by the
Vermont Legislature, Gundersen said in 2010 that the nuclear power plant Vermont Yankee should shut down voluntarily to stop its radiation leaks.

He said the leak of radioactive tritium at Vermont Yankee may soon be followed by releases of other, more dangerous materials if the plant keeps operating. 


State Health Commissioner Wendy Davis says it's likely that tritium has already reached the Connecticut River.

THEN THERE WAS THIS:
"Radioactive Tritium Found In New Well At Vermont Yankee". Vermont Public Radio. January 21, 2011.

AFTER EVERYTHING WAS REVEALED, WHAT DID THE NRC DO?

In March 2011, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) extended its license for another 20 years.

YES, EXTENDED ITS LICENSE, LEAKS AND ALL, CONTAMINATION OFF THE ENVIRONMENT AND ALL, THE NRC HANDED YANKEE THE RIGHT TO CONTINUE LEAKING FOR ANOTHER 20 YEARS!

YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT HAPPENED NEXT!
The Vermont legislature had already voted in February 2010 against renewed permission to operate.
The NRC thumbed its nose at that vote.
It re-licensed Yankee.


In January 2012, Yankee's owner Entergy won a court case, invalidating the state's veto power on continued operations.


On August 28, 2013, Entergy announced that, due to economic factors, Vermont Yankee would cease operations in the fourth quarter of 2014.

The plant was shut down at 12:12 pm EST on December 29, 2014.

IT SHUT DOWN, BUT IT WILL STAND THERE AND CONTINUE LEAKING UNTIL ... FOREVER.

 26 JAN. 2016, FIVE DAYS AGO, THIS: 60 YEARS OR MORE TO FINAL STAGE DECOMMISSIONING...   

"Entergy spent $58 million from the Vermont Yankee decommissioning trust fund in the first year after the Vernon nuclear plant’s shutdown, the company disclosed this week.

Overall, with investment income and trust administrative expenses figured in, the fund decreased by about $69 million in 2015 – from $664.56 million to $595.4 million at year’s end.
Administrators said the new figures show that Entergy is in compliance with the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission and is on track financially in the EARLY stages of Vermont Yankee’s decommissioning.

[NO, IT DOES NOT SHOW THAT. IT SIMPLY SHOWS THEY ARE SPENDING A LOT OF MONEY AND MAKING LITTLE, IF ANY REAL PROGRESS.]

Decommissioning can take up to 60 years under the program, though the actual schedule depends in part on the growth of the plant’s trust fund.

Entergy has estimated that decommissioning Vermont Yankee will cost $1.24 billion. 


The trust fund contained a little over half that sum when the plant shut down, and Entergy in early 2015 began spending fund money on a variety of operational expenses including salaries and utilities. 
The trust fund has been the subject of much debate. Vermont officials have challenged several of Entergy’s proposed fund uses, and they are particularly upset that the NRC decided to allow the company to withdraw money for long-term management of Yankee’s spent nuclear fuel.

The state has filed a lawsuit and a hotly contested petition seeking to block that use."

BOTTOM LINE, THE NRC HAS BASICALLY TOLD THE STATE OF VERMONT TO GO SCREW ITSELF, THAT THE WILL OF THE STATE MEANS NOTHING. 

ENTERGY HAS BASICALLY SAID THEY WON'T HAVE THE FUNDS TO CLEAN UP AND STOP THE DAMAGE BEING DONE BY YANKEE.

IT WILL REMAIN A LEAKER FOR AT LEAST 60 MORE YEARS.


IF YOU KNOW SOMEONE WHO IS WITHIN THE RADIUS OF VERMONT YANKEE'S FALLOUT PLUME AND WATER CONTAMINATION, PLEASE TELL THEM ABOUT THIS.


NO REAL PROTECTION FOR WHISTLEBLOWERS  
A total of 609 complaints of retaliation against whistle-blowers filed with the nuclear commission (NRC)and the United States Department of Labor resulted in only 44 investigations and just 7 enforcement actions during four and a half years.
(1990 TO 1995)
A team established in 1993 to review the nuclear commission's whistle-blower protection program made 47 recommendations to improve the environment for workers who raise safety concerns. 

Some of those proposals have been carried out, while others have yet to be completed, Beth Hayden, deputy director of the commission's Office of Public Affairs, said. "

[Read the stories of some of the first nuclear whistleblowers in a New York Times artcle  <HERE>.]


READ ABOUT SEVERAL MORE RECENT ONES <HERE>
FOLLOW THE LINKS PROVIDED AT THAT SITE.
"THE SAN JOSE GE THREE", middle-management engineers in General Electric's nuclear energy division, Gregory Minor, 38, Richard Hubbard, 38, and Dale Bridenbaugh, 44, Feb. 16, 1976.
THESE THREE MEN'S FINDINGS AND 'PREDICTIONS' DEEPLY AFFECT ALL OF US TODAY.

Following the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami that devastated northern Japan, a series of explosions and a containment failure at the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant resulted in media coverage of the "GE Three".

Bridenbaugh described design flaws of General Electric's Mark 1 reactors, which account for five of the six reactors at the Fukushima 1 power plant.
Bridenbaugh claimed that the design "did not take into account the dynamic loads that could be experienced with a loss of coolant" and that, despite efforts to retrofit the reactors, "the Mark 1 is still a little more susceptible to an accident that would result in a loss of containment."
AND HE WAS CORRECT.
HAD GE CORRECTED THIS OR PULLED ALL THOSE REACTORS, WE WOULD NOT BE HAVING THE CURRENT "EXTINCTION LEVEL EVENT" GOING ON IN OUR WORLD TODAY, IN JAPAN. 

The six reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant are all GE-designed boiling-water reactors,Five have containment systems of GE's Mark I design, and the sixth is a Mark II design. They were placed in operation between 1971 and 1979.


The warnings were stark and issued repeatedly as far back as 1972: 

 If the cooling systems ever failed at a “Mark 1” nuclear reactor, the primary containment vessel surrounding the reactor would probably burst as the fuel rods inside overheated. Dangerous radiation would spew into the environment.
Now, with one Mark 1 containment vessel damaged at the embattled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant and other vessels there under severe strain, the weaknesses of the design — developed in the 1960s by General Electric — could be contributing to the unfolding catastrophe.

WE WOULDN'T BE SITTING HERE, WAITING FOR IT TO HAPPEN AGAIN.

THERE ARE 23 OF THESE FLAWED REACTORS IN CURRENT OPERATION IN 13 STATES IN AMERICA. 

IF YOU OR ANYONE YOU CARE FOR LIVE WITHIN RANGE OF THE FOLLOWING NUKE FACILITIES, PLEASE DEVELOP AN ESCAPE PLAN, A PAN A, B AND C, AND PASS THIS ON TO OTHERS.

The following 23 U.S. plants have GE boiling-water reactors (GE models 2, 3 or 4) with the same Mark I containment design used at Fukushima, according to the NRC online database:


  • Browns Ferry 1, Athens, Ala., operating license since 1973, reactor type GE 4
  • Browns Ferry 2, Athens, Ala., 1974, GE 4
  • Browns Ferry 3, Athens, Ala., 1976, GE 4
  • Brunswick 1, Southport, N.C, 1976, GE 4.
  • Brunswick 2, Southport, N.C., 1974, GE 4.
  • Cooper, Brownville, Neb., 1974, GE 4.
  • Dresden 2, Morris, Ill., 1970, GE 3.
  • Dresden 3, Morris, Ill., 1971, GE 3.
  • Duane Arnold, Palo, Iowa, 1974, GE 4.
  • Fermi 2, Monroe, Mich., 1985, GE 4.
  • FitzPatrick, Scriba, N.Y., 1974, GE 4.
  • Hatch 1, Baxley, Ga., 1974, GE 4.
  • Hatch 2, Baxley, Ga., 1978, GE 4.
  • Hope Creek, Hancock's Bridge, N.J. 1986, GE 4.
  • Monticello, Monticello, Minn., 1970, GE 3.
  • Nine Mile Point 1, Scriba, N.Y., 1969, GE 2.
  • Oyster Creek, Forked River, N.J., 1969, GE 2.
  • Peach Bottom 2, Delta, Pa., 1973, GE 4.
  • Peach Bottom 3, Delta, Pa., 1974, GE 4.
  • Pilgrim, Plymouth, Mass., 1972, GE 3.
  • Quad Cities 1, Cordova, Ill., 1972, GE 3.
  • Quad Cities 2, Moline, Ill., 1972, GE 3.
  • Vermont Yankee, Vernon, Vt., 1972, GE 4.
.These 12 newer GE boiling-water reactors have a Mark II or Mark III design:
  • Clinton, Clinton, Ill., 1987, GE 6, Mark III.
  • Columbia Generating Station, Richland, Wash., 1984, GE 5, Mark II.
  • Grand Gulf, Port Gibson, Miss., 1984, GE 6, Mark III.
  • LaSalle 1, Marseilles, Ill., 1982, GE 5, Mark II.
  • LaSalle 2, Marseilles, Ill., 1983, GE 5, Mark II.
  • Limerick 1, Limerick, Pa., 1985, GE 4, Mark II.
  • Limerick 2, Limerick, Pa., 1989, GE 4, Mark II.
  • Nine Mile Point 2, Scriba, N.Y., 1987, GE 5, Mark II.
  • Perry, Perry, Ohio, 1986, GE 6, Mark III.
  • River Bend, St. Francisville, La., 1985, GE 6, Mark III.
  • Susquehanna 1, Salem Township, Pa., 1982, GE 4, Mark II.
  • Susquehanna 2, Salem Township, Pa., 1984, GE 4, Mark II.

In 1972, Stephen H. Hanauer, then a safety official with the Atomic Energy Commission, recommended that the Mark 1 system be discontinued because it presented unacceptable safety risks.

Questions about the design escalated in the mid-1980s, when Harold Denton, an official with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, asserted that Mark 1 reactors had a 90 percent probability of bursting should the fuel rods overheat and melt in an accident.


Although G.E.’s liability would seem limited in Japan — largely because the regulatory system in that country places most liability on the plant operator — the company’s stock fell 31 cents to $19.61 in trading Tuesday.
[THIS WAS IN 2011.]


HAD THEY LISTENED, HAD THEY SIMPLY PULLED ALL THOSE FAULTY REACTORS 40 YEARS AGO, HOW MANY LIVES WOULD BE SAVED TODAY? 

SHOULD G.E. BE HELD LIABLE?

YES!

WILL THEY BE?
NO. 

WILL THEY BE WHEN WE HAVE OUR AMERICAN VERSION OF FUKUSHIMA?
NO.

BECAUSE THE NRC AND THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IN GENERAL, CONGRESS IN PARTICULAR, PROTECTS KNOWN KILLERS, PROTECTS WHAT HARMS US.

WE CAN ACCEPT THAT AND DO NOTHING, OR WE CAN DAILY DO ALL WE CAN TO MAKE THE PROTECTION AGENCIES AND THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT ANSWER TO US, PROTECT US...OR ELSE...OR ELSE JUST MAYBE WE'LL FIND OTHERS WHO WILL....DISSOLVE THE AGENCIES THAT SHIELD THE KILLERS, REPLACE THEM.

WE ARE THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
WE ARE AMERICA.
WE HAVE THE POWER.

AND WE DON'T NEED NUCLEAR POWER!

TO HELL WITH NUCLEAR POWER...THAT'S WHERE IT BELONGS ANYWAY.


***  MANHATTAN PROJECT SCIENTISTS TURNED ANTI-NUCLEAR/ANTI-NUCLEAR WAR

MAYBE THE MOST SURPRISING SWITCH TO ANTI-NUCLEAR AMONG ALMOST 100 FROM THE MANHATTAN PROJECT WAS OPPENHEIMER.


J. Robert Oppenheimer was a fascinating, complex, and extremely seductive figure.

As director of the Los Alamos laboratory, Oppenheimer, or “Oppie,” as his friends called him, bore major responsibility for building the atomic bomb and some responsibility for obstructing scientists desperately seeking to prevent its use.


Understanding clearly what he had wrought and terrified by the future this augured, he later struggled for international control of nuclear weapons and fought to prevent development of the hydrogen bomb. Spurred by troubling questions from Danish Nobel laureate Niels Bohr and Manhattan Project physicist Leo Szilard about slaughtering civilians and precipitating a potentially catastrophic arms race between the United States and Soviet Union, many scientists pondered the ethical implications of what they were doing far more deeply than Oppenheimer.

He was perhaps the most knowledgeable and articulate critic of America’s nuclear policies.

 
PERHAPS THE GREATEST WHISTLEBLOWER OF ALL TIME,

Dr. John Gofman was instrumental in inducing the health physics scientific community both to acknowledge the cancer risks of ionizing radiation and to adopt the Linear No-Threshold (LNT) model as a means of estimating actual cancer risks from low-level radiation and as the foundation of the international guidelines for radiation protection.
Gofman's earliest research was in nuclear physics and chemistry, in close connection to the Manhattan Project.

He co-discovered several radioisotopes, notably uranium-233 and its fissionability ; he was the third person ever to work with plutonium, and, having devised an early process for separating plutonium from fission products at J. Robert Oppenheimer’s request, he was the first chemist ever to try and isolate milligram quantities of plutonium.


In 1963, Gofman established the Biomedical Research Division for the Livermore National Laboratory, where he was on the cutting edge of research into the connection between chromosomal abnormalities and cancer.
Later in life, Gofman took on a role as an advocate warning of dangers involved with nuclear power.
From 1971 onward, he was the Chairman of the Committee for Nuclear Responsibility.

He was awarded the Right Livelihood Award for his work on the effects of the Chernobyl disaster's low-level radiation exposure on the population
Dr. John Gofman testified in the Kerr-McGee/Karen Silkwood legal case.

Gofman was giving testimony about the dangers of 1 nanocurie of plutonium in the body: 


“Two thousand times a minute these bullets, alpha particles are coming out . . . . delivering 5 million of those volts of energy, each one. 
So, it’s a fantastic projectile. 
The alpha particles in the lungs, it is hitting right through the cells of the lung with 2.5 million times more energy that you would get from a carbon burning. 
So you see, expecting that your cells are not going to be damaged by that would be about the same expectation when somebody might talk to you and say ‘Well, a small amount of this won’t hurt you.’ That is such an absurd nonsense notion that one wonders how anybody could think of it.”


ANOTHER MANHATTAN PROJECT GENIUS TURNED WHISTLEBLOWER, DR. KARL Z. MORGAN, FOUNDING FATHER OF HEALTH PHYSICS, STRUGGLED RIGHT UP TO HIS DEATH AT AGE 92 TO INFORM THE WORLD OF THE DEADLINESS OF IONIZING RADIATION IN MINUSCULE AMOUNTS.

WHAT TURNED THE MEN WHO HELPED BRING ABOUT THE ATOMIC BOMB TO CHANGE INTO ANTI-NUCLEAR INFORMANTS, MADE THEM TRY TO WARN US ALL ABOUT THE ETERNAL DANGER OF NUCLEAR ENERGY AND WEAPONS?

THE TRUTH!
IT WAS THE TRUTH AND THEY SAW IT.
THEY KNEW.
THEY SAW IT FOR THEMSELVES.


WE OWE THEM OUR DEPEST GRATITUDE, NOT SCORN, NOT INCESSANTLY CRUCIFYING HEM FOR TELLING US THE TRUTH.

THERE IS NOT ONE SINGLE RADIOACTIVE ATOM THAT IS A "SAFE LEVEL" INSIDE A HUMAN BODY.


A THIRD MANHATTAN PROJECT SCIENTIST,
A scientist who directed a team working on the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos, N.M., Dr. Henry Linschitz helped design and build the atomic bombs the United States dropped on Japan at the end of World War II, and then he dedicated himself to persuading people that nuclear war should never be repeated.

 
Dr. Linschitz, also helped found United Campuses to Prevent Nuclear War.


In a 1995 interview with Chemical & Engineering News, published 50 years after the first atomic bomb was detonated in a test, he recalled what it was like to witness the dawn of the nuclear age at the Alamogordo, N.M., test site. Before the detonation, Dr. Linschitz wired the firing cables to the bomb as it sat atop a steel tower.
“It is really difficult to describe adequately the overwhelming impact of the shot,” said Dr. Linschitz, who observed the blast from 15 miles away. “Someone later wrote that the sun rose twice that morning, but the dazzling white light all around on the desert and mountains seemed far brighter than any sun, and the ensuing blast, even at that distance, was a sustained echoing roar.”

 A 4TH MANHATTAN PROJECT SCIENTIST,Sir Joseph (Józef) Rotblat was a Polish physicist.
 Rotblat was the only physicist to leave the Manhattan Project (1942–46) on the grounds of conscience. 

Rotblat's work on nuclear fallout was a major contribution toward the ratification of the 1963 Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. 

A signatory of the Russell–Einstein Manifesto (1955), he was secretary-general of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs from their founding until 1973. 

He shared, with the Pugwash Conferences, the 1995 Nobel Peace Prize for efforts toward nuclear disarmament.

Rotblat campaigned ceaselessly against nuclear weapons.
He concluded his acceptance lecture for the Nobel prize in 1995:
"Above all, remember your humanity."

NEXT...
Dr. Leo Szilard was a Hungarian-American physicist and inventor. He conceived the nuclear chain reaction in 1933, patented the idea of a nuclear reactor with Enrico Fermi, and in late 1939 wrote the letter for Albert Einstein's signature that resulted in the Manhattan Project that built the atomic bomb.

He invented the chemostat, discovered feedback inhibition, and was involved in the first cloning of a human cell.


He publicly sounded the alarm against the development of salted bombs, explaining in radio talk on February 26, 1950, that a cobalt bomb, a new kind of nuclear weapon using cobalt as a tamper, might destroy all life on the planet. While Time magazine compared him to Chicken Little, and the Atomic Energy Commission dismissed the idea, scientists debated whether it was feasible or not. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists commissioned a study by James R. Arnold that concluded that it was.
YES, IT WAS.



AND, SINCE THE FORMAT ISSUE IS OBVIOUSLY BACK, I WILL END THE LIST, THE LONG LIST, OF THOSE EARLY GREAT MINDS WHO DEVELOPED THE MONSTER THAT CHANGED ALL OUR LIVES INTO A NEVER-ENDING QUESTION MARK.


WILL WE SURVIVE GLOBAL RADIATION?

?
?
?
?
















Saturday, January 30, 2016

FEDERAL SCHOOL LUNCH PROGRAM, SCHOOLS DO NOT HAVE TO PARTICIPATE

THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT'S USDA-APPROVED SCHOOL LUNCH PROGRAM IS NOT, REPEAT, NOT MANDATORY FOR AMERICAN SCHOOLS.

STATES CHOOSE TO PARTICIPATE.
FOR ANY READER NEEDING THE DEFINITION OF "CHOOSE", ;LEAVE A COMMENT AND THE TEA ROOM WILL SUPPLY ONE.

IT IS A CHOICE SCHOOLS MAKE SO THAT THEY CAN GET FEDERAL MONEY TO FEED THEIR SCHOOL KIDS.

WHEN THEY CHOOSE, AS IN MAKE A FREE WILL CHOICE, AS IN DECIDE FOR THEMSELVES, TO SIGN ON TO THE FEDERAL PROGRAM, THEY RAKE IN CONSIDERABLE CAPITAL TO HELP THEM MEET USDA STANDARDS, USDA, STANDARDS, I SAY AGAIN, USDA STANDARDS, NOT MICHELE OBAMA STANDARDS AS SHE DECIDES NOTHING SINCE CONGRESS REIGNS OVER THE FEDERAL PROGRAM, AND SO THEY ARE LOCKED-IN ON WHAT THEY MUST SERVE TO SUIT THE USDA...AS IN, THE USDA, aka "THE FEDS". .

THEY HAVE TO FEED KIDS WHAT THE USDA SAYS THE KIDS NEED....NOT WHAT MICHELE OBAMA THINKS THEY NEED.  

Congress passed the school lunch act and congress votes on its funding.


SURPRISE!!!

IT'S ALL PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE, FREE INFORMATION, BEEN AVAILABLE FOR YEARS ONLINE, AND CAN BE READ, IN TOTO, RIGHT HERE ON THE FEDERAL WEBSITE.

http://www.fns.usda.gov/sites/default/files/NSLPFactSheet.pdf

IT IS A "FACT SHEET", EASY TO READ, BUT THE TEA ROOM REALIZES HOW MANY READERS JUST HATE FACTS AND DON'T WANT TO SEE ANY, BUT FOR THE REST WHO ARE AFTER FACTS, DO GO HAVE A LOOK. 

BARRING ACTUALLY GOING AND READING, JUST CALL UP YOUR KIDS' SCHOOLS AND ASK...ASK IF THEY CHOSE TO PARTICIPATE.

IF THEY WANTED FEDERAL FUNDS, THEY CHOSE TO SIGN UP, BET THE FARM ON THAT!
"The Food and Nutrition Service administers the program at the Federal level. At the State level, the National School Lunch Program is usually administered by State education agencies, which operate the program through agreements with school food authorities."

OHHH, NOOOO!
NOT BY AGREEMENTS!

YES, BY AGREEMENTS. 
"Generally, public or nonprofit private schools of high school grade or under and public or nonprofit private residential child care institutions MAY participate in the school lunch program. 
School districts and independent schools that CHOOSE to take part in the lunch program get cash subsidies and USDA foods from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for each meal they serve.

WHAT? 
KIDS AREN'T FORCED TO EAT OBAMA'S LEFTOVERS?
SORRY, 'PUBLICAN READERS, NO...

THE SCHOOLS DON'T HAVE TO SERVE "HEALTHY FOOD"?
NOPE, THEY CHOOSE TO, JUST LIKE I SAID.  


Federal meal requirements, decisions about what specific foods to serve and how they are prepared are made by local school food authorities

REALLY?
YUP!
SURPRISE!!!


HEY, IT'S FEDERAL MONEY AND STATES AND SCHOOLS AND EVERYBODY LOVES THAT, NO?

ACTUALLY, A FEW STATES ARE DECIDING NOT TO PARTICIPATE, BECAUSE THEY HAVE THAT CHOICE.

1% TO 3% ARE DROPPING OUT.
MAINLY BECAUSE KIDS AND PARENTS ARE WHINING ABOUT THE FOOD AND STOPPED BUYING THOSE "CHEAP" LUNCHES.

"Freedom to Choose": Some Schools Drop Federal Lunch ...

Prior Lake ditches federal lunch program, losing $170K

 [Yeah, and no more free lunch for the 'underprivileged' kids. Yaaay, right?]
HOW MUCH DO SCHOOLS RAKE IN FOR CHOOSING THE FEDERAL PROGRAM?   

For the latest reimbursement rates visit FNS website at http://www.fns.usda.gov/school-meals/rates-reimbursement.

IT RUNS ROUGHLY BETWEEN $2.50 TO A BIT OVER $3.00 PER LUNCH PLUS SNACK PER KID, PER DAY.  

BUT WAIT!
THE SCHOOLS GET EVEN MORE FOR CHOOSING THE USDA PLAN!  


In addition to cash reimbursements, schools are entitled by law to receive USDA foods, called "entitlement" foods, at a value of 23 TO 25 CENTS FOR EACH MEAL SERVED, as of fiscal year 2012-2013.

Schools can also get "bonus" USDA foods as they are available from surplus agricultural stocks. 

Moreover, here's a little-known fact about the NSLP: The reimbursement money given to schools must also cover everything from janitorial services to heating the cafeteria.
They also provide training to cafeteria staff.



WOW!
SCHOOLS MAKE A NICE HAUL FOR SIGNING UP, DON'T THEY?
NO WONDER SO MANY STATES CHOOSE TO SIGN UP FOR FED $$$$$$$$$$$!


CAN A PARENT FEED A KID A DECENT LUNCH FOR UNDER $3?
 HECK YEAH!
WILL THEY, DO THEY? 

CERTAINLY NOT THE ONES WHINING ABOUT LITTLE JOHNNY'S LOUSY LUNCH LIKE WE SAW CRUZ WHINE ABOUT HIS DAUGHTER GETTING BREAKFAST FOR LUNCH.

ANY PARENT, WAIT, ANY FINANCIALLY STABLE PARENT, ANY PARENT NOT WORKING TWO OR THREE JOBS TO MAKE ENDS MEET, CAN SURELY SLING A LUNCH TOGETHER FOR "JUNIOR" THAT THE LAD WILL EAT, RIGHT?

AND THEN, SAID PARENT CAN GO DOWN AND CURSE THE SCHOOL BOARD FOR SIGNING UP, FOR AGREEING TO, FOR DECIDING TO RAKE IN FED $$$$ AND SERVE USDA-APPROVED MEALS... OR JUST SHUT UP ABOUT IT IF THEY DON'T HAVE THE GUTS TO COMPLAIN, OR THE DESIRE TO FIX THEIR ANGELS' MEALS THEMSELVES!     

"STATES select entitlement foods for their schools from a list of various foods purchased by USDA and offered through the school lunch program. Bonus foods are offered only as they become available through agricultural surplus.

The variety of both entitlement and bonus USDA foods schools can get from USDA depends on quantities available and market prices.  

A very successful project between USDA and the Department of Defense (DoD) has helped provide schools with fresh produce purchased through DoD. USDA has also worked with schools to help promote connections with local small farmers who may be able to provide fresh produce."

OHHHH, NOOOO!
LITTLE JOHNNY HATES VEGGIES!
LITTLE JOHNNY WANTS JUNK FOOD, PIZZA, EMPTY CALORIE FOODS, STUFF MOM AND DAD LET HIM HAVE ALL THE TIME, NOT FRESH PRODUCE!

IT'S HORRRRRIBLE! 
VEGGIES! 
BLAAAAH!     



"A listing of all our State agencies may be found on our web site at
http://www.fns.usda.gov/office-type/child-nutrition-programs, THEN select your State from the drop-down box and select “apply.”  


NO, YOU DON'T APPLY FOR THE PROGRAM, YOU APPLY YOUR STATE'S NAME TO BRING UP STATE DATA....

THERE YOU HAVE IT, BLAME DISGRUNTLED, UNREAD, UNAWARE AMERICANS FOR SPREADING STUPID RUMORS ABOUT MANDATORY FEDERAL LUNCH PROGRAMS.

WE KNOW NOT BECAUSE WE JUST DON'T GO LOOK FOR OURSELVES. 

MOST DON'T QUESTION WHAT THE TOP DOGS IN OUR CURSED TWO-PARTY SYSTEM TELL THEM

AMERICANS MAY BLINDLY AND MERRILY ACCEPT RUMORS AND LIES BECAUSE THEY WANT TO.

LIKE MY UNCLE JOEL ALWAYS SAID,
"YOU MUST LIKE IT OR ELSE YOU'D CHANGE IT!"


AMEN!

NOW WHEN/IF TRUMP OR CRUZ, OR WHICHEVER GOP (OR  JACKASS PARTY) LIAR GETS THE OVAL OFFICE, CONTINUES THIS PROGRAM, LIKE BUSH DID AND LIKE ALL HAVE SINCE IT BEGAN, WHEN NOTHING CHANGES, THEN WHAT?

OR...WHEN SCHOOL LUNCH PROGRAMS ARE ENDED AND YOU HAVE TO PROVIDE LUNCH TO YOUR DARLINGS, THEN WHAT?

OR, WHEN IT'S $10 A DAY FOR A LUNCH, NOT $2.50, WILL YOU PACK A LUNCH FOR THE LITTLE DARLINGS THEN? 


OH, BTW,

DAMN POOR KIDS...JUST WANTED TO GET OUT OF FIGHTING, RIGHT? 

DAMN THE POOR....

NO...DAMN THE AMERICAN IDEOLOGY THAT DAMNS THE POOR.

AND TO ALL WHO DO NOT MAKE CERTAIN TO BE PROPERLY INFORMED.... TSK, TSK, TSK. 

SAY "BAAAAAAHHHH" FOR ME?
BLEAT LIKE A SHEEP, PRETTY PLEASE?

THINK.... INDEPENDENTLY, THINK!
QUESTION EVERYTHING.
STOP BELIEVING WHAT THE PARTY LEADERS TELL YOU TO BELIEVE.

BE "WE, THE PEOPLE", THE "BOSS", THE ONE WHO PAYS THE SALARIES OF THOSE WHO ARE SCREWING UP AMERICA, AND US WITH IT.
STEP RIGHT UP, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.
RESTORE THE CONCEPT OF A GOVERNMENT OF, FOR AND BY THE PEOPLE.

READ THE CONGRESSIONAL RECORD, READ THE BILLS, SEE HOW THEY ALL VOTE UP ON THE HILL.

LOOK AT WHICH BIG WALL STREET NAMES FUND THEM.

SEE THE FACTS, EVEN IF THEY HURT.
DEMAND THE TRUTH, ESPECIALLY FROM YOURSELF.
MEMORIZE THE CONSTITUTION, THE BILL OF RIGHTS, TEACH YOUR KIDS TO DO THE SAME.

EDUCATE YOURSELVES ON HOW THE CROOKS GET AWAY WITH WHAT THEY'RE DOING, THEN STOP THEM FROM DOING SO.

WATCH THEM, WATCH DILIGENTLY.
A NATION LEFT UNGUARDED BY ITS POPULACE FALLS.

MOST OF ALL, REMEMBER THAT EVERY AMERICAN IS JUST AS AMERICAN AS THE NEXT.

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A LESSER AMERICAN.
WE'RE ALL GREAT, BECAUSE WE ARE AMERICANS, TO THE BONE.

WHAT HAPPENS TO THE SMALLEST, YOUNGEST, OLDEST CITIZEN HAPPENS TO US ALL.











DIRTY TRICKS IN IOWA BY CRUZ CAMPAIGN... AND LET THE POOR DIE

  FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES, JAN. 30, 2016: 
[SCROLL DOWN TO 2nd ARTICLE AT THAT SITE, AFTER READING #1]

"Iowa’s secretary of state chastised the presidential campaign of Senator Ted Cruz on Saturday for sending a mailer that he said violated “the spirit of the Iowa caucuses” and misrepresented state election law.

The mailer, flagged by a handful of Twitter users and confirmed as authentic by the Cruz campaign, included a warning of a “voting violation” in capital letters at the top of the page.
It informed voters they were receiving a notice “because of low expected voter turnout in your area.”

“Your individual voting history as well as your neighbors’ are public record,” the flier read. 

“Their scores are published below, and many of them will see your score as well. CAUCUS ON MONDAY TO IMPROVE YOUR SCORE and please encourage your neighbors to caucus as well.  

A follow-up notice may be issued following Monday’s caucuses.”
Below the text was a list of names, letter grades and percentage scores.

IT'S A BLATANT LIE, BUT THE SEC. OF STATE WAS KINDER...
The secretary of state, Paul D. Pate, called the effort “misleading.”
“Accusing citizens of Iowa of a ‘voting violation’ based on Iowa caucus participation, or lack thereof, is false representation of an official act,” Mr. Pate said.

 “There is no such thing as an election violation related to frequency of voting. Any insinuation or statement to the contrary is wrong and I believe it is not in keeping in the spirit of the Iowa caucuses.”

Mr. Pate added that his office never “grades” voters, nor does it maintain records of caucus participation. 

He said that the office also did not “distribute” voter records, but they were available “for purchase for political purposes only, under Iowa Code.”

CRUZ CAMPAIGN ADMITS SENDING THE FLIERS.


The Cruz campaign confirmed the mailers had originated from the campaign and said there was nothing inappropriate about the materials.
“These mailers are common practice to increase voter turnout,” said Matt Schultz, the campaign’s Iowa state chairman and a former Iowa secretary of state.

 “Our mailer was modeled after the very successful 2014 mailers that the Republican Party of Iowa distributed to motivate Republican voters to vote, and which helped elect numerous Republican candidates during that cycle.”

BINGO! 
"VERY SUCCESSFUL SCARE TACTIC BEFORE"...RIGHT?

DIRTY TRICKS...A CAMPAIGN TOOL.


THE FOLLOWING STRUCK CLOSE TO HOME AS IT IS THE IDENTICAL SCENARIO A BROTHER OF ONE OF MY SONS-IN-LAW EXPERIENCED....UNABLE TO AFFORD HEALTH CARE UNTIL "OBAMACARE" AND BY THEN IT WAS TOO LATE.

Uncomfortable Question for Ted Cruz on Obamacare Silences the Room


HUBBARD, Iowa — " Senator Ted Cruz is often asked about doing away with President Obama’s health care law. He is less rarely pressed by voters on what will replace it.
But at a middle school cafeteria here, a man, Mike Valde, presented him with a tragic tale.

 His brother-in-law Mark was a barber — “a small-business man,” he said. He had never had a paid vacation day. He received health insurance at last because of the Affordable Care Act. He began to feel sick and went to a doctor.
“He had never been to a doctor for years,” Mr. Valde, 63, of Coralville, Iowa, said. “Multiple tumors behind his heart, his liver, his pancreas. And they said, ‘We’re sorry, sir, there’s nothing we can do for you.’ ”

The room was silent.

“Mark never had health care until Obama care,” Mr. Valde continued. “What are you going to replace it with?”

Mr. Cruz expressed condolences and pivoted quickly to a well-worn answer assailing the health care law.
Mr. Cruz said “millions of Americans” had lost their jobs and their doctors as a result of the law, and that many had “seen their premiums skyrocket.”

THAT WAS NOT THE QUESTION, YOU IGNORANT, HEARTLESS PUTZ!


Mr. Valde — who said in an interview later that he did in fact intend to caucus for Mrs. Clinton — pressed on.

“My question is, what are you going to replace it with?” he said.

Mr. Cruz said he was getting there, but had to lay out the problems with the law first. 

[BS, BS, BS! HE WAS STALLING BECAUSE THE LYING CANADIAN DIDN'T HAVE AN ANSWER!]
 “There are millions of stories on the other side,” he said, describing voters who had liked their insurance plans and lost them because the plans did not provide the level of coverage the new law required.


Mr. Cruz turned back to Mr. Valde. “Your father-in-law, he couldn’t afford it,” he said.

“Brother-in-law,” Mr. Valde said.

“Your brother-in-law couldn’t afford it,” Mr. Cruz said.

“Right,” Mr. Valde said. “But he could afford it — he finally got it under Obama.”

“He would have gotten it earlier, if he could have afforded it earlier,” Mr. Cruz said. “But because of government regulations he couldn’t.”

NO, YOU SCHMUCK!
HE DIDN'T HAVE THE FREAKING MONEY!

 
Moments later, Mr. Cruz wrapped up and Mr. Valde sat down."

CRUZ DODGED THE QUESTION...BECAUSE THERE IS NO PLAN FOR AFFORDABLE HEALTH CARE IN THE GOP'S CART.

THE GOP DOESN'T GIVE ONE WEE DAMN IF THE POOR HAVE HEALTH INSURANCE, CAN SEE A DOCTOR, HAVE FOOD TO EAT, OR IF THEIR CHILDREN DO.

WHY NOT JUST ADMIT IT?

THE ELITISTS IN BOTH PARTIES DON'T GIVE TWO CENTS ABOUT THE MIDDLE OR "LOWER" CLASSES IN AMERICA.

CAN'T SEE A DOCTOR BECAUSE YOU DON'T HAVE A COUPLE HUNDRED BUCKS LAYING AROUND?
TOUGH! 

CAN'T AFFORD $300 PRESCRIPTIONS?
WHO CARES...EXCEPT THE DYING, THE SICK, THE ONES IN PAIN?

CAN'T SHELL OUT $5000 FOR A CT SCAN TO DIAGNOSE WHAT'S KILLING YOU?
TOO BAD!
YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN BORN IN THE UPPER CLASS!


DISGUSTING...UTTERLY AND SADLY AND ALWAYS DISGUSTING WHEN AN AMERICAN CITIZEN ASKS A SIMPLE QUESTION AND A LYING, UNFEELING, SELF-CENTERED POLITICIAN WON'T ANSWER, AND DOESN'T GIVE A DAMN.

EVEN WORSE THAT OVER HALF OF AMERICA'S PEOPLE ARE CONDEMNED TO GO BACK TO NO HEALTH INSURANCE AT ALL WHILE THE GOP AND A FEW DEMOCRATS PULL THE PLUG ON ANY HOPE THEY HAD TO AFFORD HEALTH CARE.

LIKE ALAN GRAYSON SAID SO WELL, "THE GOP PLAN FOR THOSE WHO CAN'T AFFORD HEALTH CARE?
DON'T GET SICK!"


BUT IF YOU DO, PLAN TO STAY SICK, UNTIL, LIKE SO MANY, YOU SIMPLY DIE.

I WATCHED IT HAPPEN ALL MY LIFE. 
THE POOR HAD NO HOPE TO GET MEDICAL HELP WHEN THEY NEEDED IT AND I PERSONALLY SAW DOZENS DIE BECAUSE OF THAT...LACK OF MONEY.  


WATCHED IT AT A SOUTHERN HOSPITAL FOR 8 YEARS...
SHOWING UP BY AMBULANCE AT AN EMERGENCY ROOM AFTER THEY COLLAPSED, IT WAS DISCOVERED THAT MEDICAL CONDITIONS THAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN TREATED, AND DEATH AVOIDED JUST MONTHS PRIOR TO THEIR COLLAPSE, HAD ESCALATED, AND WHEN WE SAW THEM, IT WAS JUST TOO LATE.

"DON'T YOU THINK I'D HAVE GOTTEN HELP SOONER IF I COULD HAVE AFFORDED IT?" ONE YOUNG MAN RAGED.
"I'M GOING TO DIE BECAUSE OF MONEY! I DIDN'T HAVE ANY! I WORKED SINCE I WAS 13 AND NEVER HAD MONEY LEFT. IT'S ALL ABOUT MONEY!"


OBAMACARE IS NOT THE BEST ANSWER, BUT THERE IS AN ANSWER. 
ALL AMERICANS NEED TO BE ABLE TO AFFORD TO SEE A DOCTOR, GET MEDICINES, LIVE!

ELITISTS MAY NOT THINK SO, BUT ANYONE WITH A HEART, ANYONE WITH COMPASSION, ANY ETHICAL HUMAN WOULD THINK SO.

COUNT CRUZ OUT ON ALL THOSE.

HE HAS THE BEST HEALTH CARE WE AMERICAN TAXPAYERS CAN PROVIDE FOR HIM AND THE REST OF CONGRESS.


ALL ELITIST BASTARDS BE DAMNED!

I AM SICK OF THEIR "WAR ON POVERTY"...THE WAR AGAINST THE POOR AND THE MIDDLE CLASS!



_________________________

POSTSCRIPT:
Cruz was asked at a presidential campaign stop Saturday in Ida Grove, Iowa, if he could improve school lunches there.
 
Cruz said he couldn’t, but then drew cheers for saying he wants to abolish the U.S. Department of Education and leave decisions like what to serve for lunch to states and local school districts.

LIAR!
IT'S ALREADY UP TO THE STATES, BUT THEY LIKE THAT FEDERAL MONEY SO THEY SIGN UP FOR FEDERAL LUNCH PROGRAMS!
EACH STATE GETS THAT CHOICE!


Cruz says he recently had lunch his second-grade daughter’s school and was served eggs and waffles. Cruz says he found that “bizarre.”

Cruz says when his wife is first lady “it means French fries are coming back to school.”


THERE WILL BE NO OR FEWER SCHOOL LUNCHES IF THE GOP HAS ITS WAY! 

DID HE ASK A KID WHOSE ONLY MEAL IS SCHOOL LUNCH IF EGGS AND WAFFLES WAS "BIZARRE" TO THEM?
DOES ANY POLITICIAN GIVE A DAMN IF EGGS MEAN THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HUNGRY ALL DAY AND NOT BEING HUNGRY?

THE GOP AND SOME DEMOCRATS HAVE LONG FOUGHT TO STOP PROVIDING SCHOOL LUNCHES, ESPECIALLY FREE LUNCHES TO KIDS WHOSE PARENTS CAN'T AFFORD TO PAY.


GO LOOK AT HOW MANY IN CONGRESS VOTED TO END FOOD "SUBSIDIES" TO THE ELDERLY, THE DISABLED, TO AMERICAN VETERANS, TO ALL CHILDREN!

IT'S A NATIONAL DISGRACE, THE WAY THE "UPPER CLASS" IS TRYING TO WIPE OUT EVERYONE "BENEATH THEM", THE ELDERLY, THE VETS, AND KIDS.


NO MORE "MEALS ON WHEELS" HERE, AND ONE LOCAL ORGANIZATION BLAMED DEFUNDING OF THAT FOR THE DEATH BY STARVATION OF AN ELDERLY BLACK GENTLEMAN.

THAT ONE MEAL WAS ALL HE HAD....HE WAS ALONE IN THE WORLD...HE COULDN'T EVEN AFFORD A PHONE, ELECTRICITY, SO HE DIED. 


ONLY AFTER HE DIED, AFTER HE STARVED TO DEATH, DID ANYONE REALIZE ANY OF THE ABOVE....
WHY?


IT'S JUST HOW IT IS IN AMERIKA, INC.