TOM BARRACK ARRESTED: Trump confidante's Saudi nuke connection

Two years ago, the late U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings, chair of Oversight and Government Reform, published a report showing that Donald Trump's close friend, billionaire Tom Barrack, was involved in the campaign to sell Saudi Arabia nuclear power technology, despite the proliferation risks. Michael Flynn, Trump's disgraced, convicted, short-lived National Security Advisor, was also involved. Now, like Flynn (who served Turkey), Barrack -- who chaired Trump's scandalous inauguration committee, co-led his transition, and continued his lobbying -- stands accused of working as a spy-like foreign agent for United Arab Emirates. Barrack has been arrested, charged with seven felonies, and awaits a preliminary hearing in a jail cell. And other Trumpians pushed additional shady nuke deals.

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Winona LaDuke Among 7 Women Arrested Today at the Shell River; ENBRIDGE TO DRILL LINE 3 UNDER THE SHELL RIVER IN ANISHINAABE TREATY LANDS

Winona "No Nukes" LaDukeAs reported by Honor the Earth.

For a very long time now, Winona "No Nukes" LaDuke (pictured) has worked with Beyond Nuclear, NIRS, and others to block high-level radioactive waste dumps targeted at Native American reservations and treaty lands, such as Skull Valley Goshutes in Utah, Mescalero Apache in New Mexico, and Yucca Mountain on Western Shoshone land in Nevada. See the NIRS/Public Citizen backgrounder about the targeting of Native American communities and lands for high-level radioactive waste dumps.

This threat may well be rearing its ugly head again, as President Biden's Energy Secretary, Jennifer Granholm, has recently spoken repeated about "financial incentives packages" to entire "Native American tribal governments" to consider "consent-based siting" for high-level radioactive waste consolidated "interim storage" facilities on their lands. As Keith Lewis, environmental director for the Serpent River First Nation, said in the mid 1990s, "There is nothing moral about bribing a starving man with money." Serpent River was ravaged by the radioactive and toxic contamination resulting from a half-century of uranium mining and milling near Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada.

Decades ago, LaDuke did groundbreaking work in opposition to uranium mining and milling on Indigenous lands, and has exposed the nuclear power industry's targeting of Native sacred sites for facility construction and operation.

Last January, Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps traveled out to northern Minnesota, after Winona LaDuke put out the call for folks to stand in solidarity with the Water Protectors.

NIRS, FOE and Cooper report exposes next nuclear scam

 US Capitol Police.govHow do you define zero?  Merriam-Webster defines “zero” as “the arithmetical symbol denoting the absence of all magnitude; the absence of a measurable quantity; not any.” Like “zero calories” meaning “calorie free.” Right?

That should be the first warning in Senate Bill 2291's title “Zero-Emission Nuclear Power Production Credit Act of 2021” for “carbon-free” electricity from atomic power stations. Nuclear power isn't carbon-free nor should its significant radioactive emissions from uranium mining, fuel fabrication, reactor operation, nuclear waste stream and recurring radiological accidents be discounted.

But that’s just the beginning for economist and consumer advocate Mark Cooper who exposes the gross deliberate misrepresentations of the five Senate authors in their plan to dole out $50 billion in federal taxpayer money to aging, uneconomical nuclear power stations over the next decade. The new report explains how nuclear subsidies actually undermine President Biden’s infrastructure and climate goals by diverting resources from wind and solar climate solutions. 

Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS) and Friends of the Earth (FOE) released the Mark Cooper report "Building a Least-Cost, Low-Carbon Electricity System with Efficiency, Wind, Solar, & Intelligent Grid Management: Why Nuclear Subsidies are an Unnecessary Threat to the Transformation" by Mark Cooper, Senior Fellow for Economic Analysis, Institute for Energy and the Environment, Vermont Law School on July 15, 2021.

Also see the Nuclear Information and Resource Service and Friends of the Earth joint press statement, July 15, 2021

A streaming video replay of the news event will be available at https://foe.org/news as of 5 p.m. EDT on July 15, 2021.      

Help get justice for July 16 downwinders

The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, which compensates uranium workers and some downwinders, has never included those exposed in New Mexico by the Trinity test, nor other downwinders in Idaho and Guam. Now there are two bills working their way through Congress that could change all that. 

A coalition of frontline community members has been fighting for this acknowledgement and restitution and have presented a united front to Congress as it relates to the bill language. The members come from Idaho, Utah, Guam, New Mexico and Uranium Miners/Workers from the Navajo Nation, Laguna Pueblo and Acoma Pueblo.  The group has found strength in their shared struggle and support each other and their individual needs. 

The Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium is providing updates on their website about progress on the bills and whether they have yet been introduced. RECA will sunset exactly one year from now.  If it is not amended this year, it is unlikely that the forgotten Downwinders and Uranium Miners will ever be taken care of. 

All of us across the country can lobby on behalf of the bills. Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle need to understand this is a social justice issue that has to be corrected. The bills will have bipartisan support and this is an issue that affects the constituents of both Democrats and Republicans. 

Please check the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium website to learn what you can do. Time is short. Please act now!

New Mexico Downwinders Events

Message from Tina Cordova, TBDC (Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium):

It [is] encouraging to see so many people planning to reflect on the Anniversaries of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  I would never want to take away from admitting and recognizing the suffering of the Japanese people.  I ask though, that as you go about those remembrances  you also remember that before the US government used the bombs against the Japanese people they tested them on American citizens who lived in close proximity to the Trinity test site.  Our lives were changed forevermore and we’ve sacrificed and suffered ever since.  I might also remind you that we had casualties from Trinity and they were our babies (see attached paper).  We cannot forget that the US government has controlled the messaging around what they did here in the US to innocent men, women and children in their rush to Japan.  I would be remiss in not reminding everyone about this truth. 

I’ve attached [linked here] the flyer for our upcoming events along with a recently produced 150 mile Trinity radius map for your review and use.  This map is the result of a brilliant young man who attends the University of New Mexico.  He completed this as a class project.  It is one of a kind and completely obliterates the government's perpetual lie that “no one lived here and no one was harmed”.  Indeed we did live here and indeed we were greatly harmed.   

If anyone has any questions please let me know.  Otherwise, I offer each of you peace as we traverse the hard days of remembrance that lay ahead of us. 

Take care,    

Tina Cordova

TBDC

7518 2nd St. NW

Albuquerque, New Mexico 87107

Phone 505-897-6787

Fax 505-890-0157