Doomsday Rhetoric Surrounding ‘Government Shut Down’ Mirrors Bailout Fearmongering

Alarmist hyperbole also used to ram through 2008 financial heist

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
September 30, 2013

Image: Sen. Tom Harkin & Barack Obama.

Some of the doomsday rhetoric surrounding the consequences of a government shut down sounds an awful lot like the fearmongering that was used to scare lawmakers into passing the 2008 bailout bill, which quickly turned out to be a cynical bait and switch.

Democratic Senator Tom Harkin has warned that if Republicans refuse to cave in, the situation will be “as dangerous as the breakup of the Union before the Civil War.”

Lindsay Siler, the issues campaign director for Barack Obama’s Organizing for Action, warns that, “a government shutdown will shutter crucial services the American people depend on and wreak havoc with our economy.”

Such dire rhetoric is patently part of a ploy to try and force Republicans to back down on their demand that Obamacare be delayed for a year before a bill securing government funding is passed.

As we documented earlier today, the ominous “government shut down” is nothing of the sort. It would be the 18th time it has happened since 1977. In no previous case did such circumstances lead to anything even approaching the apocalyptic hype being bandied about by Harkin and his ilk, nor did it significantly impact the economy in any way.

The vast majority of government activities and services will remain fully operational whether a “shut down” occurs or not. Crucial services will not disappear and America will not collapse into a state of anarchy.

The reality of what a government shut down entails clearly does not warrant such alarmist hyperbole, but it’s not the first time we’ve witnessed these blackmail tactics.

In the days before the October 2008 bailout, lawmakers were bombarded with threats of a new great depression and martial law by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson in an effort to railroad them into passing the bailout bill.

On October 2, Democratic Congressman Brad Sherman gave a stunning speech on the House floor during which he decried the fact that, “Many of us were told in private conversations that if we voted against this bill on Monday that the sky would fall, the market would drop two or three thousand points the first day, another couple of thousand the second day, and a few members were even told that there would be martial law in America if we voted no.”

It later emerged that Paulson was behind the threats, brow-beating Congress into authorizing the bill in the name of the desperate need to buy out toxic debt, a proposal “which he abandoned the day after he got the money,” said Senator James Inhofe.

Once he got approval for the bill by threatening that its rejection would see a total collapse of the financial system, former Goldman Sachs CEO Paulson pulled a bait and switch and injected the money directly into banks.

There is now talk of an 11th hour deal that could offer a temporary solution to stave off a government shut down for a few days, but Republicans shouldn’t be cowed by the bellicose tone of Democrats who spout doomsday prophecies about such an eventuality given how such rhetoric has been used in the past to frighten lawmakers into blind acquiescence.

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Truckers roar to D.C. with impeachment movement

Michael Carl
WND
Sept. 30, 2013

In less than two weeks, thousands of truckers will descend on Washington, D.C., driving their big-rigs and calling for the restoration of a constitutional republic – but now their plan has taken a new twist: Their friends and families will simultaneously join other Americans rallying on overpasses across the nation for Obama’s impeachment.

The Truckers’ Ride for the Constitution movement has a new ally in their protest against what organizers say is corruption in government and a trashing of the Constitution. The group is teaming up with Overpasses for Obama’s Impeachment to line the routes into Washington with flags during the Oct. 11-13 event.

Both Houses of Congress are tentatively scheduled to be in session Oct. 11.

Truckers Ride for the Constitution leader and organizer Zeeda Andrews, a country singer and former truck driver, said Overpasses Founder James Neighbors reached out to her, suggesting the two groups form an alliance. Neighbors said the partnership is a “natural” merger for a common cause.

Read more

RED ALERT! WAR Here at Home SOON!

Twitter: The new face of crime

Marisol Bello and Natalie DiBlasio
USA Today
Sept. 29, 2013

Crime has a new face: Twitter.

Political extremists, criminals and gang members are advertising their wares, flaunting their exploits and recruiting new members in 140 characters or less, according to law enforcement authorities, criminologists and security experts.

The most shocking example occurred a week ago when the extremist group al-Shabab live-tweeted about the mall siege in Kenya, defending the mass killing, threatening more violence and taunting the military.

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Rand Paul: It’s Obama Who’s Shutting Down Government

CBS News
September 29, 2013



Sen. Rand Paul on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

If Republicans Want To Shut Down Washington, They’ll Have To Ask China’s Permission First

Eamonn Fingleton
Forbes
Sept. 29, 2013

In their never-say-die efforts to defeat Obamacare, Tea Party Republicans brought the federal government a giant step closer to shutdown last night. What they seem not to have considered is how America’s foreign creditors will react.

Although China, Japan, and other major creditor nations have no dog in the Obamacare fight, they have a strong interest in preserving America’s basic financial, economic, and social stability. From their point of view, the Tea Party contingent is not following the script and a corrective may prove necessary.

If the creditor nations were to sell just a small proportion of their American assets, they could send Wall Street into a tailspin, with unpleasant implications for many Republicans.

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Sen. Tim Kaine: Senate Dems likely to approve House bill to keep funding military

David Eldridge
Washington Times
Sept. 29, 2013

They may not agree on anything else, but Republican and Democratic lawmakers are on the same page when it comes to military pay: Neither side wants to be blamed for soldiers not getting paid in the case of a government shutdown.

Sen. Tim Kaine, appearing on “Fox News Sunday,” said the Democrat-controlled Senate likely will approve a bill that passed the Republican-controlled House just hours earlier that calls for no interruption of military paychecks, even in the case of a shutdown.

“In all likelihood we will. We think it’s insufficient — it doesn’t cover [Veterans Affairs] and other important workers — but it is necessary, and I don’t suspect that will be too controversial,” Mr. Kaine, Virginia Democrat, said.

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Senate defeats Cruz filibuster, passes bill that funds Obamacare

Stephen Dinan
Washington Times
Sept. 27, 2013

Senators from both parties linked arms to defy Sen. Ted Cruz, overcoming his attempt to filibuster the stopgap spending bill, which allowed Democrats to add back in full funding for Obamacare and power the bill through the chamber.

The 79-19 vote saw 25 Republicans join with all Democrats to advance the bill, easily overcoming Mr. Cruz and his allies who had argued this was the key point that would determine whether major parts of President Obama’s health care law take effect next week.

Once that hurdle was cleared, the rest of the votes were preordained. The Senate waived budget rules, voted to strip out the Obamacare defunding on a 54-44 party line vote, and passed the bill.

Read more

Millions in advanced U.S. weaponry “stolen” by Libyan jihadis

Brendan Bordelon
Daily Caller
Sept. 27, 2013

Libyan militants allied with terrorist groups stole millions of dollars in high-grade American military equipment, including armored Humvees and advanced night-vision goggles, during raids on a U.S. special forces base outside of Tripoli last summer.

Fox News reports that anonymous sources in the State Department and military confirmed the theft, which is far worse than the few guns first assumed stolen earlier this month. In addition to hundreds of M4 automatic rifles and Glock pistols, nearly every set of available night-vision goggles and laser-targeting devices were snatched during two night-time raids on the compound in July and August.

Even more ominously, 23 Ground Mobility Vehicles, heavily armored Humvees with GPS navigation systems and weapons mounts for grenade launchers, are also missing.

Read more

Visa Goes Anti-Gun: Restricts America’s Largest Gun Store From Processing Transactions

Mac Slavo
SHTFplan.com
September 28, 2013

The assault on the U.S. Constitution and the Second Amendment continues.

Visa – limiting your rights

This time big business is getting into the mix and they’re aiming for gun stores right at the source of their revenues – their transaction processing facilities.
According to Larry Hyatt, owner of the largest gun brokerage firm in the United States, Authorize.net, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Visa USA and one of the world’s largest credit card processing gateways, has terminated their relationship with the firm.

After four years in business with the Visa owned Authorize.net, Larry Hyatt, owner of Hyatt Gun Shop, received an email indicating that the company would no longer provide its services due to “the sale of firearms or any similar product.”
The email reads:

Dear Hyatt Gun Shop Inc,
Authorize.Net LLC (“Authorize.Net”) has determined that the nature of your business constitutes a violation of Section 2.xiv of the Authorize.Net Acceptable Use Guidelines and Sections 3.3 and 11.3 of the Authorize.Net Service Agreement (the “Agreement”).
These sections include, but are not limited to, the sale of firearms or any similar product.
Accordingly, pursuant to Section 4 of the Acceptable Use Guidelines, your ability to access and use the Authorize.NetServices will be terminated on September 30, 2013.

Hyatt’s massive online store will be unable to process credit card transactions, giving the store only a few days to find a new processing company before Authorize.net terminates their business relationship.
“We’ve never seen anything like this,” Hyatt Marketing Director Justin Anderson told the Washington Examiner.

All of a sudden, after four years of doing business together, Authorize.net declares that Hyatt Gun Shop is in violation of their terms of agreement.
An odd coincidence to be sure, but not if you consider that many top executives at Visa have donated to President Obama’s election campaigns. With President Obamarenewing his push for gun control in the wake of the Navy Yard shooting last week, and Americans ardently opposing any legislative action that would further restrict the ownership of firearms, it looks as if anti-gun politicians are now calling in favors with their connections in big business.
If you can’t outlaw the guns, then strike directly at the companies who manufacture them and sell them by cutting off their cash flow.
This is exactly what Authorize.net, which processes credit card transactions for millions of merchants around the world, has done to Hyatt.
Earlier this year, after a similar anti-gun push following the Sandy Hook elementary school tragedy, Bank of America took it upon themselves to forcibly seize funds from licensed firearms dealer and manufacturer American Spirit Arms.
The incidents with Hyatt Gun Shop and American Spirit Arms are certainly not isolated and will likely continue as government and business merge their agendas, especially as it pertains to our government sponsored banking system, which has a stranglehold over American businesses.
The Constitution remains a prominent roadblock for the anti-gun establishment, and despite efforts to ban semi-automatic rifles, tax ammunition, and restrict importation of magazines and gun parts, they are being countered at every turn by the tens of millions of Americans who believe in their personal right to bear arms.
Thus, government is now relying on their incestuous relationships with the many bailed out banks and businesses who are essentially under their control.
If you think this was an accident, you’re kidding yourself.
A coordinated effort is underway to make it difficult, if not impossible, to acquire self defense armaments that include guns, ammo, and accessories.
Get ‘em while you can. We saw what happened with the ammunition. Now it seems they are trying to lock-down our ability to do business with legitimate gun dealers.

Immigration backers plan U.S. marches

Daniel González
AZ Central
Sept. 28, 2013

Supporters of immigration reform want to recapture some of the energy from the massive marches that took place in 2006 when they take to the streets again next Saturday in Phoenix and cities across the country.

Next Saturday’s marches are not expected to be nearly as large as those in 2006. But reform advocates still believe they will be big enough to grab the attention of lawmakers in Congress and spur them to pass a bill that includes a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

Supporters say they hope to tap into the mounting frustration over the slow pace of action in the U.S. House of Representatives, where immigration reform has stalled since the Senate passed its own bill in June that calls for billions in additional border-security spending along with a pathway to citizenship.

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Seymour Hersh: Bin Laden Raid “One Big Lie”

Pulitzer-prize wining journalist slams “pathetic” US media for failing to challenge White House

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
September 27, 2013

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh says that the raid which killed Osama Bin Laden in 2011 is “one big lie” and that “not one word” of the Obama administration’s narrative on what happened is true.

Image: President Obama.

In a wide-ranging interview published today by the Guardian, Hersh savages the US media for failing to challenge the White House on a whole host of issues, from NSA spying, to drone attacks, to aggression against Syria.

On the subject of the Navy Seal raid that supposedly resulted in the death of the Al-Qaeda terror leader, Hersh remarked, “Nothing’s been done about that story, it’s one big lie, not one word of it is true.”

Hersh added that the Obama administration habitually lies but they continue to do so because the press allows them to get away with it.

“It’s pathetic, they are more than obsequious, they are afraid to pick on this guy [Obama],” Hersh told the Guardian.

The raid that supposedly led to Bin Laden’s death has been shrouded in mystery for over two years. Speculation that the Obama administration may have embellished or outright lied about the true account of what happened has persisted, mainly because the White House has refused to publicly release images of Bin Laden’s body.

Although the White House said the corpse was immediately “buried at sea” in line with Islamic tradition, it quickly emerged that this was not standard practice.

Numerous analysts have claimed that Bin Laden had in fact been dead for years and that the raid on his alleged compound in Pakistan was little more than a stunt.

Other questions also persist, such as why the narrative and timeline of the raid has changed multiple times, why the White House initially claimed that “situation room” photos showed Obama watching the raid live when in fact there was a blackout on the live feed, and why neighbors in the immediate area surrounding the compound said with absolute certainty that they had never seen Bin Laden and that they knew of no evidence whatsoever to suggest he lived there.

During the rest of the Guardian interview, which is well worth reading in its entirety, Hersh lambastes the corporate press and particularly the New York Times, which he says spends “so much more time carrying water for Obama than I ever thought they would.”

Hersh’s solution is to shut down news networks like NBC and ABC and fire 90% of mainstream editors, replacing them with real journalists who are outsiders and not afraid to speak truth to power.

“The republic’s in trouble, we lie about everything, lying has become the staple,” concluded Hersh.

Proof Something is Going Down

WARNING: Civil Unrest In America 2013-2014

Teens Promised Illuminati Membership In Return for Sex

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
September 26, 2013



Yet another bizarre example of the Illuminati fad linked with criminal behavior.

TSA To Roll Out “Covert Surveillance” Vans

Details of snooping technology kept secret

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
September 26, 2013

In another indication of how the TSA is expanding its turf way beyond airport security, the federal agency is about to roll out high-tech vehicles that will utilize secret technology to conduct “covert surveillance operations” in cities around the country.

Image: DHS Surveillance Van.

According to a synopsis posted on the Federal Business Opportunities website (PDF), the TSA is set to purchase technology to retrofit three vans in Arlington, VA, Chicago, IL, and San Francisco, CA in order to convert them into surveillance vehicles that will “conduct covert surveillance operations in the course of investigations.”

Precisely where such covert surveillance will take place is not mentioned, although in 2010 it was revealed that US government agencies were already using roving street surveillance vans that deployed backscatter x-ray vision technology to inspect other vehicles.

In 2011, the Electronic Privacy Information Center also revealed plans for the Department of Homeland Security and the TSA to roll out mobile surveillance vans that had long-distance X-ray capability and eye movement tracking.

TSA Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response (VIPR) teams are responsible for around 10,000 checkpoints every year in the US, and have expanded from airports to bus & train terminals and even highways despite the fact that there is “no proof that the roving viper teams have foiled any terrorist plots or thwarted any major threat to public safety,” according to the L.A. Times.

The total cost of outfitting just three vans with the covert surveillance technology will be a jaw-dropping $160,000 dollars.

Despite their tax dollars paying for such equipment, American citizens are not privy to any detailed information on what this surveillance system will actually entail.

Image: “Access Denied” on details of snoop tech.

The TSA vehicles will be fitted with Crime Point IP Network Surveillance technology. When attempting to access details of the technology via the Crime Point website, the user is met with the message, “Due to its sensitive nature, the product content on this website is restricted to law enforcement professionals and government agencies only,” and a password is required to go any further.

Although the general public is barred from scrutinizing specific details, the company says that it provides “covert outdoor video systems” that “incorporate the latest emerging technologies.”

Crime Point provides surveillance vans of its own but, like details of the surveillance systems, that information is also restricted.

The legality of the TSA conducting “covert surveillance” of Americans, whether it be at transport hubs or on highways, conflicts with the Fourth Amendment, which protects the “right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.”

Telemarketing Calls and Spam Mail to Skyrocket Under Obamacare

Taxpayer-funded workers are paid based on the number of Americans they enroll in gov’t health program

Kit Daniels
Infowars.com
September 26, 2013

Under Obamacare, unsolicited sales calls and spam mail will increase exponentially as taxpayer-funded workers are paid based on the number of Americans they can enroll into the government health program.

Junk mail delivered to your door.
Credit: Ant Jackson via Flickr

The government is granting non-profit organizations millions of dollars to hire Obamacare “Navigators” and “Assisters” who will guide Americans in the federally-sponsored insurance exchanges.

In a letter to HHS, the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce mentioned that one Navigator grant recipient promised to make 240,000 ‘robocalls’ to encourage people to enroll in Obamacare.

Typically used in telemarketing, robocalls deliver a recorded message to random phone numbers in a process well-described as “robotic spam.”

Telemarketing by Navigators and Assisters has been labeled “inappropriate” by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) yet the agency has not informed Congress or the American people about “any measures it has taken to prevent inappropriate marketing practices,” according to the latest staff report by the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

This report also acknowledged that in some states, Navigators and Assisters are paid based on the amount of Americans they enroll into Obamacare, effectively turning them into taxpayer-funded salespeople who work on commission.

There is no doubt that this Obamacare “sales team” will want to reach as many Americans as possible and telemarketing will skyrocket as a result.

Obamacare sales calls are already taking place.

A member of the AR-15 message board, LurchAddams, said that earlier this month, a telemarketer called him trying to reach his pet dog to “inform” him about his new health care options under Obamacare.

“Every time I place an order online, subscribe to a magazine, or anything that I fear is going to put me on a junk mailing or calling list, I give them my dog’s first name,” he said. “My dog gets all kinds of junk mail and telemarketing calls.”

When LurchAddams told the telemarketer that “Fido” had no health insurance, the Obamacare “sales representative” responded by saying that under Obamacare, there would be plenty of opportunities for Fido to receive the health insurance he needs.

Unfortunately it appears that LurchAddams is one of the first of millions who will receive unsolicited phone calls and spam mail encouraging them to “sign up now to receive the best deals” of Obamacare.

Senate Website Gets Second Amendment Wrong

Awr Hawkins
Breitbart
Sept. 26, 2013

A Senate.gov web page covering the Constitution gets the scope of the Second Amendment wrong, telling readers that it is not clear whether the amendment protects an individual right or a collective right.

Here is what the Senate’s web page on the Constitution says about the Second Amendment: “Whether this provision protects the individual’s right to own firearms or whether it deals only with the collective right of the people to arm and maintain a militia has long been debated.”

This is simply not true on at least two levels.

Read More

Another CA County Votes for Secession

Clay Duda
redding.com
September 25, 2013

The Modoc County Board of Supervisors today voted to join neighboring Siskiyou County in its bid to secede from the State of California.

Image: Don’t Tread on Me.

Board Chairman Geri Byrne said a measure to join the push to form a State of Jefferson was approved by a vote of 4-0, with one supervisor absent.

“I put the measure on the agenda because I heard from a number of people in my district that wanted to do such,” Byrne said. “We’re not saying we’re seceding today, we’re saying let’s look into it.”

Roughly 40 people turned out for the board meeting, Byrne said a standing-room only crowd in the Modoc County chambers. About a dozen spoke in favor of the measure with only two raising objections.

Full article here

Kerry signs UN arms treaty, senators threaten to block it

Fox News
September 25, 2013

Secretary of State John Kerry on Wednesday signed a controversial U.N. treaty on arms regulation, riling U.S. lawmakers who vow the Senate will not ratify the agreement.

As he signed the document, Kerry called the treaty a “significant step” in addressing illegal gun sales, while claiming it would also protect gun rights.

“This is about keeping weapons out of the hands of terrorists and rogue actors. This is about reducing the risk of international transfers of conventional arms that will be used to carry out the world’s worst crimes. This is about keeping Americans safe and keeping America strong,” he said. “This treaty will not diminish anyone’s freedom. In fact, the treaty recognizes the freedom of both individuals and states to obtain, possess, and use arms for legitimate purposes.”

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Bloomberg Poll Shows Americans Waking Up to Government Fraud

68 percent of Americans believe the nation is “on the wrong track,” however it’s far higher than that

Julie Wilson
Infowars.com
September 25, 2013

A new Bloomberg National Poll reveals Obama’s approval rating has hit an all time low since the president went into office in 2009, as reported by the Washington Examiner. However, Obama’s approval rating is much, much lower than this as Bloomberg Polls have been notoriously known to be unreliable.

Just last week Gallup.com released a poll showing fewer Americans than ever trust the government to handle international problems, “with 49% saying they have a great deal or a fair amount of confidence.”

In early Aug., a Gallup Poll revealed that Obama’s economic approval slipped to 35 percent, down 7 percentage points from 42 percent in June.



According to Bloomberg, nearly half of the nation (49 percent), officially view Obama in a negative light, and his push for Obamacare isn’t helping. The Bloomberg poll shows a 53 percent disapproval rating on the economy, compared to 38 percent approval.

Of the respondents polled, 47 percent expect no improvements on the economy over the next year, while 27 percent say it will be better and 28 percent expect it to be worse. The poll showed 68 percent of Americans think Washington is doing a poor job, while 25 percent believe the government is on the right track.

Americans are seemingly waking up to the fact that both political parties are bought and paid for by the very same interests. Republicans are unfavored by 56 percent, while Democrats raked in a 47 percent unfavorable rating.

A second poll conducted by Fox News last week, shows 68 percent of Americans are frightened and very concerned about the new healthcare they will be forced to acquire, beginning next month.

The Fox News poll, which was conducted Sept. 6-8, via land-line and cellphone interviews, surveyed 900 “randomly chosen voters nationwide.” The majority of those polled want the healthcare system to return to what it was in 2009, before Obama became president.

Even members of Congress are freaking out about the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.

According to the Washington Times, this week the Senate sent out an email warning lawmakers not to sign up for Obamacare’s new health exchanges because the administration hadn’t “finalized the rules for how to keep paying for their premiums.”

“Members and staff are advised that they should delay enrolling in health insurance plans until we are able to offer further guidance as to how they should enroll in these insurance plans for 2014,” read the Senate email.

Sen. Ted Cruz, who spent 21 hours filibustering the healthcare law, said on Tuesday, “If Obamacare is going to force Americans all over this country to lose their employer-provided health insurance, be forced onto the exchange with no subsidies, then the men and women who serve in this body should feel that pain exactly the same.”

The Sen., who is growing in popularity, earned a place for himself in the record books for achieving the fourth-longest filibuster in Senate history. Meanwhile, Obama told the public at an informal discussion at a Clinton Global Initiative Forum in NYC, that Rep. are “trying to scare and discourage people from getting a good deal.”

It’s obvious the promises Obama made with the Affordable Care Act, are promises that were impossible to keep from the beginning, with many companies cutting employees from their payroll to avoid providing coverage that could inevitably leave them bankrupt.

OBAMA!!!!!!

Will Monsanto Destroy Another Crop?

Rich Duprey
Motley Fool
Sept. 22, 2013

The U.S. wheat industry was nearly brought to its knees after the discovery of a genetically modified strain Monsanto had tested years ago was inexplicably found growing in an Oregon farmer’s field. Because most of the rest of the world rejects GM wheat and the wheat from the Pacific Northwest is mostly targeted for export, the ramifications of the discovery were massive.

Now it’s deja vu all over again. A Washington State farmer had his alfalfa crop rejected by a broker after it tested positive for the presence of genetic modification. The implications for this recurrence are just as profound as they were for wheat.

Several countries immediately imposed bans on the import of U.S. wheat and an investigation that’s still ongoing was launched to figure out how a strain of genetically modified wheat that Monsanto said it completely destroyed except for the small amount the U.S. government supposedly has under lock and key in its vaults made it into the wild.

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California’s great gun grab: State’s sweeping gun control bills target firearms, ammo — and hunting

Valerie Richardson
Washington Times
Sept. 21, 2013

Breaking new ground in the state-level battle over firearms, the Democratic-dominated California state legislature has taken gun control into uncharted territory with a flurry of new bills that target not just firearms and ammunition, but also recreational hunting.

Among the dozen gun-control bills sitting on California Gov. Jerry Brown’s desk are measures that would outlaw lead ammunition for hunting as well as common types of hunting rifles under the umbrella of an assault-weapons ban. Taken together, the measures go far beyond the efforts that have inspired a sharp backlash and political battles in states such as Connecticut and Colorado.

To put the lead bill in context, about 95 percent of all ammunition sold in California contains lead. The alternative is metal bullets, some of which can pierce police armor and are banned by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Critics say the bill would effectively end hunting as a sport in California.

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MUST SEE! FREEDOM RELOADED

Why suicide rate among veterans may be more than 22 a day

CNN
Sept. 21, 2013

Every day, 22 veterans take their own lives. That’s a suicide every 65 minutes. As shocking as the number is, it may actually be higher.

The figure, released by the Department of Veterans Affairs in February, is based on the agency’s own data and numbers reported by 21 states from 1999 through 2011. Those states represent about 40% of the U.S. population. The other states, including the two largest (California and Texas) and the fifth-largest (Illinois), did not make data available.

Who wasn’t counted?

People like Levi Derby, who hanged himself in his grandfather’s garage in Illinois on April 5, 2007. He was haunted, says his mother, Judy Caspar, by an Afghan child’s death. He had handed the girl a bottle of water, and when she came forward to take it, she stepped on a land mine.

Read more

Yale Professor On Fukushima: Fuel Rods Could Put ‘All of Humanity in Peril for Thousands of Years’

Charles Perrow
Huffington Post
Sept. 21, 2013

Recent disclosures of tons of radioactive water from the damaged Fukushima reactors spilling into the ocean are just the latest evidence of the continuing incompetence of the Japanese utility, TEPCO. The announcement that the Japanese government will step in is also not reassuring since it was the Japanese government that failed to regulate the utility for decades. But, bad as it is, the current contamination of the ocean should be the least of our worries. The radioactive poisons are expected to form a plume that will be carried by currents to coast of North America. But the effects will be small, adding an unfortunate bit to our background radiation. Fish swimming through the plume will be affected, but we can avoid eating them.

Much more serious is the danger that the spent fuel rod pool at the top of the nuclear plant number four will collapse in a storm or an earthquake, or in a failed attempt to carefully remove each of the 1,535 rods and safely transport them to the common storage pool 50 meters away. Conditions in the unit 4 pool, 100 feet from the ground, are perilous, and if any two of the rods touch it could cause a nuclear reaction that would be uncontrollable. The radiation emitted from all these rods, if they are not continually cool and kept separate, would require the evacuation of surrounding areas including Tokyo. Because of the radiation at the site the 6,375 rods in the common storage pool could not be continuously cooled; they would fission and all of humanity will be threatened, for thousands of years.

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US Prepared to Strike Syria if UN Deal Falls Short – Official

RIA Novosti
Sept. 21, 2013



The United States has not ruled out military strikes against Syria if Damascus does not abide by a US-Russian plan to hand over its chemical weapons arsenal, a White House official said Friday ahead of UN Security Council talks on enforcing the disarmament program.

“We are not forsaking the option of the United States and our allies taking military action,” White House deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes told reporters during a conference call.

Washington and Moscow are expected to clash in negotiations at next week’s UN General Assembly over the terms of a Security Council resolution that would enforce Syria’s compliance with a US-Russian plan hammered out in Geneva last week.

Read more

7 in 10 Americans Think Government Is For The Banks And Big Corps (Not The People)

zerohedge.com
September 20, 2013

72% of the poor and 71% of the middle-class believe government policies (fiscal and monetary) have done little or nothing to help them. Of course, this will be eschewed by the academics (as Santelli recently exclaimed regarding the arrogance of the intellectuals) because “the people” just don’t get it. But when 69% of all Americans, according a new Pew study, say large banks and financial institutions have benefited the most from post-recession government policies; communications policies are going badly awry. Despite a surging stock market, exploding home prices, and low rates spurring all kinds of subprime auto loan exuberance, there has been little change in these perceptions since July 2010.

Via Pew Research,

The public sees clear winners and losers as a result of the government’s economic policies following the recession that began in 2008.
…
In the public’s view, the beneficiaries of these policies are large banks and financial institutions, large corporations and wealthy people…
…
Sizable majorities say government policies have helped all three at least a fair amount – 69% say that about large banks and financial institutions, 67% large corporations and 59% wealthy people.
…
Roughly seven-in-ten say government policies have done little or nothing to help the poor (72%), the middle class (71%) and small businesses (67%).
…
The public had a dim view of assistance that the government gave to banks and financial institutions during the recession, after the 2008 fiscal meltdown threatened many of them. A Feb. 2012 survey found that 52% of Americans thought bailing out the banks through the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) was the wrong thing to do, while 39% supported the action. That was a big turnaround from 2008 when the crisis hit in 2008 and 57% had said TARP was the right thing to do.

Overall, 40% say that the job situation is the national economic issue that worries them most, while somewhat fewer cite the budget deficit (24%) or rising prices (22%); just 10% say the condition of the financial and housing markets is their top economic worry.



The belief that the U.S. economic system is no more secure today than it was before the financial crisis is widely shared across demographic groups. There are partisan differences, however, with Democrats more likely than Republicans or independents to say that the system is more secure.



Large majorities of Republicans (80%) and independents (68%) say the economic system is not more secure than prior to the financial crisis. Democrats are divided: 51% say the system is more secure today while 45% say it is not.

Congressman Jones: Obama must be Impeached for Breaching Executive Powers

Says Obama would face impeachment articles if Syrian strikes occur without congressional approval

Infowars.com
Sept. 19, 2013

Yesterday, North Carolina Republican Walter Jones joined Alex to discuss the mass awakening taking place in the halls of Congress, where each day more lawmakers are realizing they may have to file articles of impeachment against Obama.



Jones said he is still willing to file for Obama’s impeachment “for bypassing the Constitution and bypassing Congress to bomb another country,” but that in the short term Russia has helped stall the president from waging another unnecessary, unaffordable war.

He also said that a strike on Syria without Congressional approval would cause both parties to file articles of impeachment against Obama.

“There are many in both parties… that are very concerned that as this moves forward that we might wake up one day and we’ve been dropping missiles in Syria,” the Rep. stated, adding that because of the Syrian opposition’s known-affiliations with Al-Qaeda linked terror groups, that we may be aiding the wrong people.

If the U.S. were to move forward with a strike on Syria without Congress’s approval, as Secretary of State John Kerry said would happen, Jones says Obama would face multiple articles of impeachment from both sides.

Jones was proud to reveal that, of the over 500 phone calls and over 1,000 emails he received from constituents, 95 percent said no to military action in Syria.

According to Jones, many members of Congress are also “sick and tired of America thinking we can borrow money from foreign governments.”

“There’s got to be some sanity to these foreign policies of any administration and particularly this one now,” Jones stated, explaining that the United States, in its current fiscal insolvency, cannot afford to be the police of the world. “We can’t pay our own bills, we can’t police our own borders,” he said.

“I mean, look at [Afghan President Hamid] Karzai. His family is in the drug business and we’re sending him roughly six to seven billion dollars a month to prop him up? And here we’re going to have a vote tomorrow to cut food stamps for the American people, particularly those who need it? I know there’s abuse in a lot of federal programs but there’s no abuse in funding Karzai, and he’s a crook.”

“We are a debtor nation. We cannot even pay our bills without raising the debt ceiling of America so we can borrow money to pay last year’s bills. This whole place up here is out of control and when you come to foreign policy, as Ron Paul would say, let’s wake up, let’s rebuild America and the hell with the rest of the world.”

Jones also slammed Obamacare, saying it is one of the worst pieces of legislation he’s seen since the Bush administration’s No Child Left Behind. “I can tell you Obamacare, in my opinion, would just bankrupt America.”

Of the Navy Yard shooting and the subsequent attacks on the Second Amendment Jones held the level-headed approach that “If a person is going to commit mayhem, they will get whatever they need. I hate to say that but it is true. You cannot punish the law-abiding citizen who is following his constitutional rights, because it is not going to stop those who want to commit crime.”

Navy Yard Shooting: SWAT Team Ordered to ‘Stand Down’

Elite tactical team responsible for defending DC Capitol complex were reportedly ordered to leave the scene

Julie Wilson
Infowars.com
September 18, 2013

According to a BBC report, one of the most heavily armed police teams, assigned with the task of protecting the Capitol complex and responsible for responding to threats of terrorism, was ordered to stand down in response to Monday’s shooting at the Naval Sea Systems Command Headquarters building in D.C.

Photo: Via Flickr
Transit Conference SWAT exercise

The Containment and Emergency Response Team (CERT), is highly trained and equipped with the best gear on the market. The team consists of four men and is responsible for safeguarding the Capitol complex.

The specialty unit is the department’s elite tactical team assigned with the task of “dealing with the rise in terrorist actives being directed at the US and its citizens,” according to the SpecWarNet.net.

“Since there won’t be time to call for assistance in the event a terrorist is ever able to execute an attack against the Capitol, their [CERT] primary mission consists of rescuing Congressional members, their staff, and visitors who have been taken hostage by terrorists.”

“Secondary missions include, countering threats made against dignitaries, responding to critical incidents and providing security for major events, such as the Presidential Inauguration,” says the website.

Reports confirm that although the team arrived on the scene shortly after news spread of an active shooter situation at the Navy Yard, several Capitol Police team members say they were told by a watch commander to leave the scene.

The sources spoke anonymously to BBC in fear of repercussions.

The leader of the officers’ union, Jim Konczos, said the whole purpose of the CERT team is to respond to and handle active shooter situations. The officers, who are specifically trained to be expert marksmen, arrived fully dressed in their tactical gear and armed with HK-416 assault weapons around 9:00 a.m. Monday morning.

BBC’s report reveals that an officer with the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) told the CERT team they were the “only police on the site equipped with long guns and requested their help stopping the gunman.”

However, shortly after the CERT team arrived, they were reportedly told to leave.

“I don’t think it’s a far stretch to say that some lives may have been saved if we were allowed to intervene,” said one Capitol Police source.

“Odds are it might have had a different outcome,” said Konczos. “It probably could have been neutralized.”

One Capitol Police officer who supposedly overheard the request for CERT to stand down felt frustrated by the command.

Spokeswoman for the MPD responded to the allegations saying they were “not true.” The Capitol Police announced Wednesday they are investigating the allegations and plan to pull radio logs from Monday’s incident.

Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Terry Gainer, overseer of the US Capitol Police Department, had the following response: “It’s a very serious allegation and inference to indicate that we were on scene and could have helped and were told to leave. It crushes me if that’s the case.”

The shooting left 13 people dead, including the suspect, Aaron Alexis.

Alexis, 34, was employed by a defense contractor for the Navy and had been issued a “secret” clearance and a common access card (CAC) that enabled him to get into the building.

Officials say they are reexamining the measures used to decide who can be granted such clearances. According to the Washington Post, 4.9 million federal government workers and contractors held such clearances last year.

US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel has ordered the Pentagon to “…conduct a wide-ranging review of the physical security at all US defense installations across the world and of the security clearance process,” reported the BBC.

Media Buries Psychiatric Drug Connection to Navy Shooter

Networks don’t want to risk losing $2.4 billion in ad revenue from pharmaceutical giants

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
September 18, 2013

Despite every indication that Navy Yard shooter Aaron Alexis was on SSRI drugs that have been linked to dozens of previous mass shootings, the mainstream media has once again avoided all discussion of the issue, preferring instead to blame the tragedy on a non-existent AR-15 that the gunman didn’t even use.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

We now know that Alexis “had been treated since August by the Veterans Administration for his mental problems.”

As Mike Adams points out, “This is proof that Aaron Alexis was on psychiatric drugs, because that’s the only treatment currently being offered by the Veterans Administration for mental problems. Alexis’ family members also confirmed to the press that he was being “treated” for his mental health problems. Across the medical industry, “treatment” is the code word for psychiatric drugging.”

Alexis also suffered from PTSD, blackouts and anger issues – all of which are treated with SSRI drugs. The most common form of treatment for PTSD is Paroxetine, which is listed as the number 3 top violence-causing drug by the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP).

The Navy Yard shooter was clearly on some form of psychiatric drug, but the media has shown no interest in discovering its identity.

Despite it being reported that prescription drugs were found in the apartment of ‘Batman’ shooter James Holmes days after the Aurora massacre, it took nine months to find out exactly what those drugs were. Like Columbine killer Eric Harris, Holmes had been taking Zoloft, another SSRI drug linked with violent outbursts.

The length of time it took to find out that Holmes was on Zoloft was partly because the media habitually shows zero interest in pursuing the link between anti-depressants and violence.

As the website SSRI Stories profusely documents, there are literally hundreds of examples of mass shootings, murders and other violent episodes that have been committed by individuals on psychiatric drugs over the past three decades. The number of cases is staggering.

Why is the corporate media so disinterested in pursuing this clear connection?

Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that the pharmaceutical giants who produce drugs like Zoloft, Prozac and Paxil spend around $2.4 billion dollars a year on direct-to-consumer television advertising every year. By running negative stories about prescription drugs, networks risk losing tens of millions of dollars in ad revenue.

While failing to ask questions about what SSRI drugs Aaron Alexis was taking prior to his rampage, the media instead blamed the shooting on assault rifles, even after it had been confirmed that no AR-15 was used by Alexis during the massacre.

FBI assistant director Victoria Parlave stated at a press conference on Tuesday that authorities, “do not have any information at this time that [Alexis] had an AR-15 in his possession.”

Despite there being no evidence that an AR-15 was used, the New York Daily News ran a front page headline yesterday morning entitled, “Same Gun Different Slay,” next to a picture of an assault rifle.

Hours after the FBI stated that no AR-15 had been used, MSNBC’s Alex Wagner, who previously blamed the Boston bombings on Alex Jones, continued to use an animated graphic depicting Alexis carrying an assault rifle during the massacre.

Anti-second amendment crusader Piers Morgan also erroneously blamed the shooting on “a man with a legally purchased AR-15, who just committed the same kind of atrocity as we saw at Sandy Hook, and Aurora,” during his CNN show on Monday.

CNN’s live news coverage also reported that Alexis had “recently purchased (an) AR-15 shotgun,” when in fact that purchase had been denied.

Both the New York Times and the Washington Post also falsely reported that an AR-15 had been found on Alexis after the massacre.

D.C. gun grabbers Dianne Feinstein and Dick Durbin also regurgitated the false claim that Alexis used an AR-15 during the rampage.

The U.S. press has once again behaved like state media in the aftermath of the Navy Yard shooting by pursuing the assault rifle angle – despite the fact that it was patently false – in order to bolster the White House’s gun control agenda.

In doing so, they have concurrently buried an integral aspect of mass shootings that needs to be highlighted as part of a national conversation – the clear connection between violent outbursts and SSRI drugs

CIA Employee Who Refused to Sign Non-Disclosure on Benghazi Suspended

Adam Kredo
The Washington Free Beacon
September 17, 2013

A CIA employee who refused to sign a non-disclosure agreement barring him from discussing the Sept. 11, 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, has been suspended as a result and forced to hire legal counsel, according to a top House lawmaker.

Rep. Frank Wolf (R., Va.) revealed at an event on Monday that his office was anonymously informed about the CIA employee, who is purportedly facing an internal backlash after refusing to sign a legal document barring him from publicly or privately discussing events surrounding the Benghazi attack.

The revelation comes about a month after several media outlets reported that CIA employees with knowledge of the terror attack had been forced to sign non-disclosure agreements (NDA) and submit to regular polygraph tests.

Read More

11 Million Users Abandon Facebook

Users vacate Facebook over serious privacy concerns

Julie Wilson
Infowars.com
September 17, 2013

A new report by the Daily Mail reveals Facebook users are abandoning the social media giant at an unprecedented rate over privacy concerns.

New research shows Facebook has lost a total of eleven million users, nine million in the US and two million in Britain. Researchers at the University of Vienna analyzed 600 users and found they quit for the following reasons:

Privacy concerns – 48.3 percent
General dissatisfaction – 13.5 percent
Shallow conversations – 12.6 percent
Fear of becoming addicted – 6 percent

Studies show the majority of users that quit the site were older males.

Facebook, among other tech giants, have been repeatedly under scrutiny for their lack of user privacy, including turning over thousands of user’s info to the government. In August, Infowars revealed Facebook submitted information on approximately 38,000 users in 74 countries during the first half of 2013.

Over half of the requests originated from inside of the United States. Tech giants are unable to reveal absolute numbers on how many requests they’ve submitted to because the government prohibits them from doing so. However, companies like Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Yahoo have formed a unique alliance and are fighting back.

The tech alliance is putting pressure on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (FISA) court by filing motions asking to publicly disclose more details about secret national intelligence requests, instead of just releasing approximations.

“We believe there is more information that the public deserves to know, and that would help foster an informed debate about whether government security programs adequately balance privacy interests when attempting to keep the public safe,” said Facebook’s general counsel Colin Stretch.

“Editor of the journal Cyberpsychology, Behaviour and Social Networking which published the findings, said: ‘Given high profile stories such as WikiLeaks and the recent NSA surveillance reports, individual citizens are becoming increasingly more wary of cyber-related privacy concerns,’” reported Mail Online.

Facebook has also been under close examination for their recently updated “Statement of Rights and Responsibilities” policy which states users’ profile data including their profile picture, name and personal information “could show up as part of a Facebook ad their friends may see on the site,” according to a report by Mashable.

Even more controversy surrounded the social media giant when they announced the update of the “Tag Suggest” feature, which would allow facial recognition technology “to speed up the process of ‘tagging’ friends and acquaintances who appear in photos posed on the network,” reported Reuters.

As you can see, users’ concerns over privacy, or lack thereof, are certainly substantiated. However, if your information isn’t being collected through Facebook, NSA’s spy program, PRISM, is sure to scoop up your info in some other way, most likely through email or cellular data.

The U.S. Constitution Needs You

On Constitution Day, a reminder that the supreme law of the land requires citizens’ participation in order to remain strong

Andrew Guthrie Ferguson
The Atlantic
Sept. 17, 2013

Simply put, every day is supposed to be Constitution Day.

According to federal law, September 17th is Constitution Day – a day that all federally financed educational and governmental institutions must teach about the Constitution.

When is the last time “We the People” read the Constitution—all 4400 words? How much do we “citizens” know about its original history, the need for a Bill of Rights, or the impact of the Fourteenth Amendment? And, perhaps most importantly, what is the document’s influence on our daily lives? If you are like most people, the answers are likely disheartening, as is evidenced by embarrassing test results about civic knowledge and a general ignorance that borders on constitutional illiteracy.

This constitutional illiteracy, and the apathy it seems to indicate, is odd, because the United States Constitution defines our national identity. In fact, this document’s pride of place in our cultural heritage is part of what makes the country unique: Constitutional values, and not race, ethnicity, or religion bind us together as a nation. We are “Americans” because of a shared belief system, and that belief system begins with those first, inspiring words etched in the Constitution.

Read more

Shock Video: Texas State Troopers Openly Defy Law To Kill Second Amendment

Infowars.com
September 15, 2013



On a visit to the Texas state capital to show his appreciation for the Second Amendment rights that we allenjoy, Texas Open Carry board member Terry Holcomb was arrested by Texas state troopers who appeared ignorant of Texas firearm laws.



Friday the 13th must be defy the law day for the Texas Department of Public Safety. A legal lawful open carry rally at the capital became the site of a tyrannical abuse of power at the hands of our ignorant public servants.

The People Say No to War with Syria

Sheldon Richman
reason.com
September 14, 2013

The Constitution did not keep President Obama from attacking Syria. The people did. Think about that.

Obama, his top advisers, and many of his partisans and opponents in Congress insist that the president of the United States has the constitutional authority to attack another country without a declaration of war or so-called “authorization for the use of military force” even if that country poses no threat whatever to the United States, the American people, or what are vaguely called “our interests.” This seems wrong, especially in light of the 1973 War Powers Act. But Obama already asserted this alleged authority in Libya. Bill Clinton did it in Kosovo and Bosnia through NATO and the UN. George H.W. Bush did it in Panama. Ronald Reagan did it in Lebanon and Grenada. And so on back to Harry Truman in Korea. (I’m ignoring the many covert wars.)

Constitution, Shmonstitution. War Powers, Shmar Powers

Read more

A Font to Discourage NSA Snooping

Katherine Mangu-Ward
reason.com
September 15, 2013

The ZXX font is designed to be difficult for machines to read. Former National Security Agency contractor Sang Mun created the font as a response to increasing government incursions on privacy. “I have become dedicated to researching ways to ‘articulate our unfreedom’ and to continue the evolution of my own thinking about censorship, surveillance, and a free society,” he explained after releasing the font online in June.

Several different techniques are used to baffle digital scanners, including camouflage patterns drawn from nature, crowding the letters with digital noise, and simply crossing out each letter. The font is named after the Library of Congress code ZXX, which labels a document as containing “no linguistic content.” The goal is to make the contents of a document unreadable by text scanning software while still being intelligible to a human reader.

Part awareness-raising art project, part useful tool, the font only works to protect the contents of attachments or other items that can be transmitted as images. Though it’s unclear how important optical text recognition is in government snooping, every bit of extra privacy counts.

Read more

Why did the CIA let a crazed al-Qaeda mob kill America’s ambassador?

Tony Rennell
dailymail.co.uk
September 15, 2013

Fumbling in the dark, the American ambassador hurriedly pulled on bullet-proof body armour over his blue trousers and T-shirt. A shrill warning siren was sounding and the crash of gunshots could be heard, getting closer by the second.

‘Follow me, sir,’ urged a diplomatic bodyguard, gripping his M4 assault rifle, shouldering an additional pump-action shotgun and looking anxiously around him as they set out along blacked-out corridors. ‘We are under attack.’

It was 9.40pm in the United States diplomatic mission in Benghazi, the second city of strife-torn Libya, a country trying to re-build itself in the aftermath of civil war and the ousting and killing of its mad dictator, Colonel Gaddafi.

Read more

The REAL Fukushima Danger

Washington’s Blog
September 15, 2013



The fact that the Fukushima reactors have been leaking huge amounts of radioactive water ever since the 2011 earthquake is certainly newsworthy. As are the facts that:

• Tepco doesn’t know how to stop the leaks

• Scientists have no idea where the cores of the nuclear reactors are

• Radiation could hit Korea, China and the West Coast of North America fairly hard

But the real problem is that the idiots who caused this mess are probably about to cause a much bigger problem.

Specifically, the greatest short-term threat to humanity is from the fuel pools at Fukushima.

If one of the pools collapsed or caught fire, it could have severe adverse impacts not only on Japan … but the rest of the world, including the United States. Indeed, a Senator called it a national security concern for the U.S.:

The radiation caused by the failure of the spent fuel pools in the event of another earthquake could reach the West Coast within days. That absolutely makes the safe containment and protection of this spent fuel a security issue for the United States.

Nuclear expert Arnie Gundersen and physician Helen Caldicott have both said that people should evacuate the Northern Hemisphere if one of the Fukushima fuel pools collapses. Gundersen said:

Move south of the equator if that ever happened, I think that’s probably the lesson there.

Former U.N. adviser Akio Matsumura calls removing the radioactive materials from the Fukushima fuel pools “an issue of human survival”.

So the stakes in decommissioning the fuel pools are high, indeed.

But in 2 months, Tepco – the knuckleheads who caused the accident – are going to start doing this very difficult operation on their own.

The New York Times reports:

Thousands of workers and a small fleet of cranes are preparing for one of the latest efforts to avoid a deepening environmental disaster that has China and other neighbors increasingly worried: removing spent fuel rods from the damaged No. 4 reactor building and storing them in a safer place.

The Telegraph notes:

Tom Snitch, a senior professor at the University of Maryland and with more than 30 years’ experience in nuclear issues, said “[Japan officials] need to address the real problems, the spent fuel rods in Unit 4 and the leaking pressure vessels,” he said. “There has been too much work done wiping down walls and duct work in the reactors for any other reason then to do something…. This is a critical global issue and Japan must step up.”

The Japan Times writes:

In November, Tepco plans to begin the delicate operation of removing spent fuel from Reactor No. 4 [with] radiation equivalent to 14,000 times the amount released by the Hiroshima atomic bomb. …. It remains vulnerable to any further shocks, and is also at risk from ground liquefaction. Removing its spent fuel, which contains deadly plutonium, is an urgent task…. The consequences could be far more severe than any nuclear accident the world has ever seen. If a fuel rod is dropped, breaks or becomes entangled while being removed, possible worst case scenarios include a big explosion, a meltdown in the pool, or a large fire. Any of these situations could lead to massive releases of deadly radionuclides into the atmosphere, putting much of Japan — including Tokyo and Yokohama — and even neighboring countries at serious risk.

CNBC points out:

The radioactive leak at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant is far from under control and could get a lot worse, a nuclear energy expert, who compiles the annual “World Nuclear Industry Status Report” warned.
***
The big danger – and it was identified by Japan’s atomic energy commission – is if you lose water in one of the spent fuel pools and you get a spent fuel fire.

CNN reports:

[Mycle Schneider, nuclear consultant:] The situation could still get a lot worse. A massive spent fuel fire would likely dwarf the current dimensions of the catastrophe and could exceed the radioactivity releases of Chernobyl dozens of times. First, the pool walls could leak beyond the capacity to deliver cooling water or a reactor building could collapse following one of the hundred of aftershocks. Then, the fuel cladding could ignite spontaneously releasing its entire radioactive inventory.

Reuters notes:

The operator of Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant is preparing to remove 400 tons of highly irradiated spent fuel from a damaged reactor building, a dangerous operation that has never been attempted before on this scale.
Containing radiation equivalent to 14,000 times the amount released in the atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima 68 years ago, more than 1,300 used fuel rod assemblies packed tightly together need to be removed from a building that is vulnerable to collapse, should another large earthquake hit the area.
Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco) is already in a losing battle to stop radioactive water overflowing from another part of the facility, and experts question whether it will be able to pull off the removal of all the assemblies successfully.
“They are going to have difficulty in removing a significant number of the rods,” said Arnie Gundersen, a veteran U.S. nuclear engineer and director of Fairewinds Energy Education, who used to build fuel assemblies.
The operation, beginning this November at the plant’s Reactor No. 4, is fraught with danger, including the possibility of a large release of radiation if a fuel assembly breaks, gets stuck or gets too close to an adjacent bundle, said Gundersen and other nuclear experts.
That could lead to a worse disaster than the March 2011 nuclear crisis at the Fukushima plant, the world’s most serious since Chernobyl in 1986.
No one knows how bad it can get, but independent consultants Mycle Schneider and Antony Froggatt said recently in their World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2013: “Full release from the Unit-4 spent fuel pool, without any containment or control, could cause by far the most serious radiological disaster to date.”
***
The utility says it recognizes the operation will be difficult but believes it can carry it out safely.
Nonetheless, Tepco inspires little confidence. Sharply criticized for failing to protect the Fukushima plant against natural disasters, its handling of the crisis since then has also been lambasted.
***
The process will begin in November and Tepco expects to take about a year removing the assemblies, spokesman Yoshikazu Nagai told Reuters by e-mail. It’s just one installment in the decommissioning process for the plant forecast to take about 40 years and cost $11 billion.
Each fuel rod assembly weighs about 300 kilograms (660 pounds) and is 4.5 meters (15 feet) long. There are 1,331 of the spent fuel assemblies and a further 202 unused assemblies are also stored in the pool, Nagai said.
***
Spent fuel rods also contain plutonium, one of the most toxic substances in the universe, that gets formed during the later stages of a reactor core’s operation.
***
“There is a risk of an inadvertent criticality if the bundles are distorted and get too close to each other,” Gundersen said.
He was referring to an atomic chain reaction that left unchecked could result in a large release of radiation and heat that the fuel pool cooling system isn’t designed to absorb.
“The problem with a fuel pool criticality is that you can’t stop it. There are no control rods to control it,” Gundersen said. “The spent fuel pool cooling system is designed only to remove decay heat, not heat from an ongoing nuclear reaction.”
The rods are also vulnerable to fire should they be exposed to air, Gundersen said. [The pools have already boiled due to exposure to air.]
***
Tepco has shored up the building, which may have tilted and was bulging after the explosion, a source of global concern that has been raised in the U.S. Congress.
***
The fuel assemblies have to be first pulled from the racks they are stored in, then inserted into a heavy steel chamber. This operation takes place under water before the chamber, which shields the radiation pulsating from the rods, can be removed from the pool and lowered to ground level.
The chamber is then transported to the plant’s common storage pool in an undamaged building where the assemblies will be stored.
[Here is a visual tour of Fukushima's fuel pools, along with graphics of how the rods will be removed.]
Tepco confirmed the Reactor No. 4 fuel pool contains debris during an investigation into the chamber earlier this month.
Removing the rods from the pool is a delicate task normally assisted by computers, according to Toshio Kimura, a former Tepco technician, who worked at Fukushima Daiichi for 11 years.
“Previously it was a computer-controlled process that memorized the exact locations of the rods down to the millimeter and now they don’t have that. It has to be done manually so there is a high risk that they will drop and break one of the fuel rods,” Kimura said.
***
Corrosion from the salt water will have also weakened the building and equipment, he said.
And if an another strong earthquake strikes before the fuel is fully removed that topples the building or punctures the pool and allow the water to drain, a spent fuel fire releasing more radiation than during the initial disaster is possible, threatening about Tokyo 200 kilometers (125 miles) away.

ABC Radio Australia quotes an expert on the situation (at 1:30):

Richard Tanter, expert on nuclear power issues and professor of international relations at the University of Melbourne:
***
Reactor Unit 4, the one which has a very large amount of stored fuel in its fuel storage pool, that is sinking. According to former prime Minister Kan Naoto, that has sunk some 31 inches in places and it’s not uneven. This is really not surprising given what’s happened in terms of pumping of water, the aftermath of the earthquake and the tsunami, the continuing infusions of water into the groundwater area. This is an immediate problem, and if it is not resolved there is an extraordinary possibility we really could be back at March 2011 again because of the possibility of a fission accident in that spent fuel pond in Unit No. 4.

Xinua writes:

Mitsuhei Murata, a former Japanese ambassador to Switzerland has officially called for the withdrawalof Tokyo’s Olympic bid, due to the worsening crisis at Fukushima, which experts believe is not limited to storage tanks, but also potential cracks in the walls of the spent nuclear fuel pools.

Japan Focus points out:

The spent-fuel pool … was damaged by the earthquake and tsunami, and is in adeteriorating condition. It remains vulnerable to any further shocks, and is also at risk from ground liquefaction.
***
If a fuel rod is dropped, breaks or becomes entangled while being removed, possible worst case scenarios include a big explosion, a meltdown in the pool, or a large fire.
***
This is literally a matter of national security – another mistake by TEPCO could have incredibly costly, even fatal, consequences for Japan.

Like Pulling Cigarettes Out of a Crumpled Pack

Fuel rod expert Arnie Gundersen – a nuclear engineer and former senior manager of a nuclear power company which manufactured nuclear fuel rods – recently explained the biggest problem with the fuel rods (at 15:45):

I think they’re belittling the complexity of the task. If you think of a nuclear fuel rack as a pack of cigarettes, if you pull a cigarette straight up it will come out — but these racks have been distorted. Now when they go to pull the cigarette straight out, it’s going to likely break and release radioactive cesium and other gases, xenon and krypton, into the air. I suspect come November, December, January we’re going to hear that the building’s been evacuated, they’ve broke a fuel rod, the fuel rod is off-gassing.

***

I suspect we’ll have more airborne releases as they try to pull the fuel out. If they pull too hard, they’ll snap the fuel. I think the racks have been distorted, the fuel has overheated — the pool boiled – and the net effect is that it’s likely some of the fuel will be stuck in there for a long, long time.

In another interview, Gundersen provides additional details (at 31:00):

The racks are distorted from the earthquake — oh, by the way, the roof has fallen in, which further distorted the racks.
The net effect is they’ve got the bundles of fuel, the cigarettes in these racks, and as they pull them out, they’re likely to snap a few. When you snap a nuclear fuel rod, that releases radioactivity again, so my guess is, it’s things like krypton-85, which is a gas, cesium will also be released, strontium will be released. They’ll probably have to evacuate the building for a couple of days. They’ll take that radioactive gas and they’ll send it up the stack, up into the air, because xenon can’t be scrubbed, it can’t be cleaned, so they’ll send that radioactive xenon up into the air and purge the building of all the radioactive gases and then go back in and try again.
It’s likely that that problem will exist on more than one bundle. So over the next year or two, it wouldn’t surprise me that either they don’t remove all the fuel because they don’t want to pull too hard, or if they do pull to hard, they’re likely to damage the fuel and cause a radiation leak inside the building. So that’s problem #2 in this process, getting the fuel out of Unit 4 is a top priority I have, but it’s not going to be easy. Tokyo Electric is portraying this as easy. In a normal nuclear reactor, all of this is done with computers. Everything gets pulled perfectly vertically. Well nothing is vertical anymore, the fuel racks are distorted, it’s all going to have to be done manually. The net effect is it’s a really difficult job. It wouldn’t surprise me if they snapped some of the fuel and they can’t remove it.

And Chris Harris – a, former licensed Senior Reactor Operator and engineer – notes that it doesn’t help that a lot of the rods are in very fragile condition:

Although there are a lot of spent fuel assemblies in there which could achieve criticality — there are also 200 new fuel assemblies which have equivalent to a full tank of gas, let’s call it that. Those are the ones most likely to go critical first.
***
Some pictures that were released recently show that a lot of fuel is damaged, so when they go ahead and put the grapple on it, and they pull it up, it’s going to fall apart. The boreflex has been eaten away; it doesn’t take saltwater very good.

Like Letting a Murderer Perform Brain Surgery On a VIP

What’s the bottom line?

Tepco has an abysmal track record:

• Engineers warned Tepco and the Japanese government many years before the accident that the reactors were seismically unsafe … and that an earthquake could wipe them out

• The Fukushima reactors were fatally damaged before the tsunami hit … the earthquake took them out even before the tidal wave hit

• An official Japanese government investigation concluded that the Fukushima accident was a “man-made” disaster, caused by “collusion” between government and Tepco and bad reactor design

• Tepco knew right after the 2011 accident that 3 nuclear reactors had lost containment, that the nuclear fuel had “gone missing”, and that there was in fact no real containment at all. Tepco has desperately been trying to cover this up for 2 and a half years … instead pretending that the reactors were in “cold shutdown”

• Tepco just admitted that it’s known for 2 years that massive amounts of radioactive water are leaking into the groundwater and Pacific Ocean

• Tepco – with no financial incentive to actually fix things – has only been pretending to clean it up. Andsee this

• Tepco’s recent attempts to solidify the ground under the reactors using chemicals has backfired horribly. And NBC News notes: “[Tepco] is considering freezing the ground around the plant. Essentially building a mile-long ice wall underground, something that’s never been tried before to keep the water out. One scientist I spoke to dismissed this idea as grasping at straws, just more evidence that the power company failed to anticipate this problem … and now cannot solve it.”

Letting Tepco remove the fuel rods is like letting a convicted murderer perform delicate brain surgery on a VIP.

Top scientists and government officials say that Tepco should be removed from all efforts to stabilize Fukushima. An international team of the smartest engineers and scientists should handle this difficult “surgery”.

The stakes are high …