JFK’s Death Marked the End of the American Republic

Posted by admin on Aug 26, 2013 in Uncategorized | 0 comments

On occasion of the publication of his latest book, German author Mathias Broeckers talks about the assassination of John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963, which he sees as a coup d’etat that was never rolled back.

 

By Lars Schall

Mathias Broeckers, born 1954, is a German investigative journalist and the author of more than ten books, most of them related to the topics of drugs, terrorism and deep politics. He works for the daily German newspaper TAZ and the webzine Telepolis. His latest book, “JFK: Staatsstreich in Amerika” (“JFK: Coup d’Etat in America“), was published this August at Westend Verlag in Frankfurt, Germany.

Lars Schall: Mr. Broeckers, a writer who authors a book about the assassination of John F. Kennedy that does not follow the verdict of official history faces the problem of being condemned on an instant basis as a “conspiracy theorist” who engages in “conspiracy theories.” May I ask you at the beginning of this interview to explain to our readers that those critics – consciously or unconsciously – are acting exactly according to the “playbook” of the CIA?

Mathias Broeckers: In January 1967, shortly after Jim Garrison in New Orleans had started his prosecution of the CIA backgrounds of the murder, the CIA published a memo to all its stations, suggesting the use of the term “conspiracy theorists” for everyone criticizing the Warren Report findings. Until then the press and the public mostly used the term “assassination theories” when it came to alternative views of the “lone nut” Lee Harvey Oswald. But with this memo this changed and very soon “conspiracy theories” became what it is until today: a term to smear, denounce and defame anyone who dares to speak about any crime committed by the state, military or intelligence services. Before Edward Snowden anyone claiming a kind of total surveillance of internet and phone traffic would have been named a conspiracy nut; today everyone knows better.

LS: What do you see as the prime motive(s) to get Kennedy killed?

MB: To make a long story, which I elaborate in the book, short: JFK had made definitive steps to end the cold war. He had denied the involvement of the army in the Bay of Pigs invasion, which he had inherited from his predecessor, he had solved the missile crisis in Cuba through direct and secret contact with the Soviet-leader Khrushchev, he had ensured a nuclear test-stop with the Soviets, and he had ordered the withdrawal from Vietnam. All this against the will of the military, the CIA, and even against many members of his own administration.

LS: If one looks at the crime from the perspective of “motive, means, opportunity,” which groups are the most likely culprits? Some of the usual suspects may have had a motive, but neither the means nor the opportunity, right?

MB: Yes. This is a crucial point with many JFK theories. A lot of people had motives, be it the hardcore commies in Russia, China, Cuba, be it the Israelis because of JFKs dismissal of nukes in Israel, be it the Federal Reserve because of his idea for a new US dollar backed by silver, the mob because of his dismissal to invade Cuba to get their casinos and brothels back, the racist Southerners because of his engagement for civil rights… but no one of them had the means and opportunity for the murder and above all the means to cover it up over the years.

LS: Which party had the necessary components of “means and opportunity” available?

MB: Only the CIA and the military – and the FBI and the Johnson administration for the cover-up. A moment after the shootings, a policeman ran up to the grassy knoll, his gun pulled out, and stopped a man there, asking for his ID. The man showed a Secret Service card and the cop let him go. Several other men on Dealey Plaza also showed genuine looking Secret Service IDs when asked by cops – but there were no real Secret Service men placed on the knoll and the plaza this day.

These IDs were fakes but the FBI and the Warren Commission didn’t investigate this at all. Only in the 80s it came out who was responsible for the printing of Secret Service IDs and passes at that time: it was the CIAs Technical Division, headed by Sydney Gottlieb of “MK Ultra” fame. This fact alone rules out that the mob or the Russians, Cubans, Chinese or some other autonomous killers did this on their own bill. And even if these groups would have been able to fake genuine looking Secret Service IDs – the fact that this deception was not investigated, immediately brings Hoover’s FBI into a top-position of suspects.

LS: One crucial point regarding the cover up of the crime is the false autopsy report – also in connection to “means and opportunity”. Please elaborate.

MB: The ARRB (Assassination Records Review Board) established beyond any doubt that the autopsy and x-rays, which are in the National Archives, were doctored. No mobster, bankster or Cuban would have been able to do this. These fakes were done at the Bethseda military hospital, where JFKs autopsy was supervised by Curtis LeMay, the Joint Air Force Chíef and one of JFKs keenest enemies. He was at a fishing vacation when the Dallas shooting happened and flew to Washington immediately – not for any military emergency but to sit in the autopsy room – and smoking a cigar! The faked pictures and x-rays, which were presented to every investigator since then, are a main reason why the crazy magic bullet theory could hold for so long. Only the military, where these pics and x-rays were taken, was able to arrange these fakes and place them in the archives.

LS: Another important point is the tempering with the so called “Zapruder film”. Why so?

MB: Also thanks to the ARRB there is a lot of evidence that the film was tempered with on the day after the assassination. However, even the existing “original” seems to show clearly a shot from the front, the grassy knoll – so the fake wasn’t perfect. That the Warren Commission was shown only a bad black/white copy indicates that the perpetrators were aware of that. That the Zapruder film was bought by the Time/Life publishers – and kept secret to the public for years; as the Nix-film bought by UPI and disappeared – indicates the guiltiness of the media in the cover-up.

LS: Coming back to the CIA, do you think that the CIA had separated itself from governmental oversight during the 1950s and 1960s, or would it be more correct to suggest that the Agency actually was a ploy of financial interests from the outset? Or more bluntly spoken: was democratic oversight ever intended?

MB: In general, democracy and intelligence services are antagonists; democracy depends on transparency and intelligence services on the opposite. So the democratic / congressional / governmental oversight is always a quite rotten compromise. The CIA’s camouflage from the beginning was that it is a service to gather intelligence – and centralize the intelligence gathering of the different other services – to keep the president informed. The main job of the CIA were and are covert operations, and because such operations depend on “plausible deniability,” it was usual from the beginning to inform the president – if at all – only minimally. Since the CIA’s “father” Allen Dulles was a Wall Street lawyer and his brother John Foster ran the foreign policy, covert operations were a family business done by the Dulles-Brothers and their clients on Wall Street. This is what JFK tried to finish and what marked him to death.

LS: You´re citing investigative journalist Joseph Trento, saying about former CIA director Allen Dulles: “Dulles had decided not to leave the future of the Agency to Congress or the President.” What made Dulles powerful enough to risk such a decision?

MB: Dulles’ clients were bankers and big corporations, who were in big business with Nazi-Germany in the 30s and even during the war. Some of them, like Prescott Bush – George W.’s grandfather – were indicted for “dealing with the enemy”, and Allen Dulles, head of the OSS in Switzerland during the war, arranged a lot of these dealings. He arranged the secret integration of Nazi spy chief Reinhard Gehlen and some hundreds of his SS officers into the US army and the building-up of the CIA apparatus. Between 1945 when the OSS was dismantled and 1947 when the CIA was founded he did this privately – without any official position – from his office at the “Council on Foreign Relations.”

LS: Would it have been more appropriate if Dulles would have been interrogated with regard to Kennedy’s death, instead of having been the mastermind behind the Warren Commission?

MB: It’s a perfect irony, or better: huge cynism, by the puppet of Texas-oilmen, Lyndon B. Johnson, to have Dulles masterminding the Commission. But since it worked out so well they tried it again, this time unsuccessful, to have “Bloody Henry” Kissinger masterminding the 9/11 Commission. In my opinion Dulles is one of the main suspects in the Kennedy murder and should have been persecuted immediately.

LS: How did both the CIA and the FBI mislead the Warren Commission in various ways?

MB: The result of the Commission was clear from the beginning, the Commission didn’t do any investigations at all, and it depended on the data given by the FBI. Hoover knew about the many fingerprints of the CIA in the case, he knew that they had brought up fake evidence of Oswald’s visits in Mexico to blame him as a communist – and concluded only two days after the shooting that there was only the lone shooter LHO.

Hoover hated the Kennedys, especially his boss Robert F Kennedy, and was the main evildoer in the framing of Oswald and the cover-up of the case. The CIA arranged the false evidence for what Peter Dale Scott (“Deep Politics and the Death of JFK”) called Phase 1 of the cover-up – the “communist”-connection, which enabled Johnson – screaming of the dangers of a nuclear war – to press the commission members to take part, and to make sure Phase 2 of the cover-up and the result of their pseudo-investigation: the deranged lone nut Oswald.

LS: One usual suspect in the “JFK conspiracy literature” is the mob. In your book you’re writing that it doesn’t always make sense to distinguish between organized crime and the CIA. How did you come to this conclusion?

MB: From the “Luciano Project” in 1943 – the help of the imprisoned mob-boss Lucky Luciano with the invasion of Sicily – the mob became the tool of choice for covert CIA-operations and generating black money from the drug business. Where ever the US-military set their boots in or the CIA is doing “regime changes,” drug money is essential for financing these operations, from South East Asia in the 60s till today in Afghanistan. And since Langley can’t sell the stuff directly over their counter, they need the mobsters to do this – and get its share to finance warlords / freedom fighters / terrorists…

LS: May I ask you to talk a bit in that regard about Permindex (Permanent Industrial Exposition), please?

MB: Permindex was a front-company for CIA, MI-6 and Mossad and a straw for their money-laundering and weapons-business. They worked together with Meyer Lansky’s bank in Switzerland, which was run by Tibor Rosenbaum, who did most of the weapons-business of the Mossad.

LS: Was Jim Garrison in general heading into the right direction?

MB: He was, because Clay Shaw, the owner of the New Orleans International Trade Mart and one of the directors of Permindex, was clearly working with the CIA. That’s why Garrison’s case was sabotaged by the Washington Establishment right from the beginning.

LS: Why is it remarkable that CIA had a 201 file on Lee Harvey Oswald?

MB: John Newman (“Oswald and the CIA”) has done remarkable research on how the CIA manipulated its files on Oswald and faked a 201 personal file to present it to the Warren Commission, showing that they had virtually nothing on him before 1962. This is clearly impossible after Oswald’s defection to the USSR in 1959. The most likely cause for this manipulation is that Oswald was part of the false defector program headed by JJ Angelton, the counterintelligence chief.

LS: You are arguing if Lee Harvey Oswald would have been indeed solely responsible for Kennedy’s death that the case would have been solved beyond a reasonable doubt. Why so?

MB: From all crimes, murder is the one with the most cases solved by courts. There would have been no need for all the cover-ups since 50 years, if LHO indeed was a lone nut.

LS: Moreover, you’re arguing that Oswald would have been acquitted of the charge of having killed Kennedy, if he would have survived. Why so?

MB: Even Gerald Posener, the author of “Case Closed” – the apology of the Warren Commission’s findings -, meanwhile is saying that. There is no hard evidence that Oswald was on the 5th floor when the shooting took place; there is no evidence that the “Mannlicher”-gun, that he had mail-ordered, was fired this day; there is no hard evidence that he killed Officer Tippit, because witnesses saw two men shooting at him… and so on. Oswald would have left the court room as a free man.

LS: Why was it necessary that Jack Ruby killed Oswald? And furthermore, did they know each other?

MB: They knew each other well, and since Oswald was an asset of FBI and CIA, he had to be silenced before he could talk.

LS: There was not just one plot to kill Kennedy in Dallas, but there was at least one more planned for a visit of Kennedy to Chicago, right?

MB: Yes, there was a plot planned in Chicago with clear parallels to what happened in Dallas – with an ex-Marine as the prepared patsy, who got a job on a high rise building on the route that the motorcade was planned to take some weeks before, and who had trained with exile-Cubans like Oswald. By chance the sharp-shooters were detected by an hotelier and the Chicago visit was cancelled.

LS: Why did JFK die on November 22, 1963?

MB: JFK had made a radical change while president, from a classic cold warrior to a policy of reconciliation and peace. He had made angry enemies in the military and the CIA and when he announced to end the cold war in his speech on June 10th 1963 he finally was marked to death.

LS: Can you tell us something about the role of the Secret Service and the U.S. military in the assassination?

MB: The Secret Service men were mostly Southerners, who deeply dismissed JFKs civil rights politics. They did a very lax security in Dallas and there is a probability that some of these men were sweetened to do so. The memories of Abraham Bolden, the first Afro-American brought to the Secret Service by JFK in 1961, tells that when he tried to contact the Warren Commission to talk about the supremacist, racist attitude of his colleagues, he was indicted by corrupted false witnesses and brought to prison.

The military played a crucial role in the false autopsy & x-ray-pictures made at the Bethseda hospital in Washington DC and the testimony of the doctors. General Curtis LeMay, Joint Chief of the Air Force and one of the harshest opponents of JFKs peace politics, was present in the autopsy room in Bethseda, smoking a cigar! I think his presence was not by chance.

The military intelligence also played a crucial role in Dallas – the first interviews of Marina Oswald was not by Dallas Police but by officers of the military intelligence, which also arranged a dubious translator for her testimonies, which helped to frame Oswald in the first place.

LS: Where did the funding for the coup come from?

MB: The Texas oilmen and billionaires H.L. Hunt and Clint Murchison are the most probable financiers, even if there is no hard evidence for it. They paid for the ad in the Dallas paper the day before the visit, naming Kennedy a communist and a traitor. They hated JFK to the bones and they had LBJ in their pocket, their insurance that everything would be covered up properly.

LS: How many people lost their lives over the years related to the Kennedy assassination?

MB: A well-researched new book by Richard Belzer (“Hit List”) lists 1.400 persons with a connection to the murder and in the first three years after the assassination 33 of them came to death on unnatural causes. The probability that this happened by chance is 1: 137 billion.

LS: Was it basically the right-wing / fascist and racist mindset in the U.S. that won the coup d’etat on November 22, 1963?

MB: Yes. And in Dallas, Texas these right-wing fascists, who called themselves “patriots,” had a home game.

LS: What would the history of the “Cold War” have been if the nuclear arms race had ended in Kennedy’s second term? Would the Berlin Wall have come down sooner?

MB: After the nuclear test stop, JFK announced to his confidants that he would go to Moscow after the re-election to negotiate a peace treaty. In public he had already announced to stop the arms race in order to end the cold war. In a National Action Security Memorandum he had called for a co-operation with the Russians in space. After the exchange of secret letters with Khrushchev, which ended the missile crisis, he was on good terms with the Soviet leader, who in the Kremlin also had called for disarmament. The death of JFK encouraged the Soviet hardliners to get rid of him. With Kennedy alive, Khrushchev would have stood in power and the cold war could have been ended in the 60s.

LS: Why does the death of JFK still matter?

MB: It’s the most important crime in the second half of the 20th century, it is still unsolved and it marked in a way the end of the American Republic. Since then the financial-military-industrial complex rules and no president after JFK had the balls to challenge that. There is, in the words of Gore Vidal, “a one-party-system with two right-wings”; there are corporate media brainwashing the population 24/7 and propagating wars for global imperial dominance; there are covert operations all over the world to ensure this dominance – and this will go on and on as long the truth about the covert operation, the coup d’ état, against JFKs presidency is kept hidden.

LS: Thank you very much for taking your time, Mr. Broeckers!

Source: larsschall.com

Know when to fold ’em: Groklaw and the Total Security State

Posted by admin on Aug 26, 2013 in Uncategorized | 0 comments

I’m sure many of you have heard about Lavabit shutting down rather than cooperating with a plan to expose their customers’ communications to the government. It was quite a laudable response and, indeed, there was much celebratory banter. Then everybody went home and moved on with their lives.

Then, in response to what had occurred to Lavabit, Groklaw (and separately, SilentCircle), announced it was shutting down, based on what had happened to Lavabit. Response ranged from mystified wonderment, to insinuations that it was a publicity stunt. How that publicity would benefit a company that had just shut down, I don’t know. Such is the internet. I suspect that the underwhelming support and negativity arose from the fact that most folks had never heard of Groklaw before the announcement.

So What Was Groklaw?

Groklaw was started in 2003 as a blog that reported and discussed legal issues as they related to software. This was mainly centered on free and open-source software, and also included topics related to software patents, DMCA, RIAA and, as a natural consequence, did some reporting on commercial software and their parent companies.

So, how did Groklaw and Lavabit come to be mentioned in the same sentence?

It’s pretty simple. Think of people’s communications as candy, and software as the candy machine. The government has a key to pretty much every candy machine on the planet for the moment, and can gorge endlessly on their ill-gotten gains. In the real world, that would be every 8 year old’s dream. But, much like that 8 year old’s reality, the candy machines are continually being upgraded and being made more secure. So the government, unlike the 8 year old, undertook to perpetually have the key to every new candy machine that came on the market.

That meant that either they sabotage new software, or coerce companies to build a private back door into any new software, and make sure that their own software dominates the market.

So you can be sure that Groklaw was being watched like a hawk, thereby allowing the government inside information on any upcoming software, and any workarounds being planned to counter already compromised software. They did this in the usual fashion, by intercepting communications between Groklaw and its information sources.

So Why Did Groklaw Fold?

If you’re any further than arm’s length away from the founder of Groklaw, you’ll probably never know what, if any, pressure was put on her, since to divulge that would make her a target. If there was in fact no pressure, then she made her move at the right time. She protected her sources, and potentially herself and her staff, by folding before the government came knocking and demanding things.

There’s a good chance that the government would never have contacted Groklaw, because there was simply no need. As long as spying could be carried out successfully, there was no need to fix something that wasn’t broken.

If you’re not aware, Lavabit’s founder folded after the government came for a visit, and did so publicly. Now that the prize has eluded the government, and in an embarrassing way, Lavabit’s founder may never know peace again.

Why Don’t They Fight, Instead Of Folding?

Because the frontline agency in this war by spying is the National Security Agency. The NSA pretty much can’t be sued, because the ploy of first resort would be that in defending the suit, matters of national security would necessarily be divulged. This puts the entire proceeding on its deathbed, because precious few judges have the security clearance to even ask for the facts of that statement.

So, don’t count on stopping the spying, and certainly don’t count on recovering damages for harm caused. But, the NSA is really only what gets the ball rolling. The information they collect can be disseminated in myriad ways, and while you’ll know you were spied on, you’ll have little to no proof of who spied on you. Even worse, you’ll have no control over who uses that information, and how they’ll use that information.

If you have something the government wants, or if you’re an ‘undesirable’, these are the weapons that will be used against you:

1. National Security Letter – This is essentially a subpoena, search warrant and gag order, all rolled up into one. Bush Jr and Attorney General Ashcroft made heavy use of these, there was a huge public outcry, they fell from sight, and now they’re back (if in fact they ever went away). They originated in 1978 when compliance was voluntary. In 1982, compliance became mandatory. The original intent was to circumvent financial privacy laws.

If you are served one of these, you are required to turn over any requested material, including personal notes, intellectual knowledge, and spill any details related to any questions asked. You are also told that you cannot divulge receipt of this NSL to anyone for any reason, which naturally would include your attorney. NSLs are whipped up out of thin air by pretty much any alphabet agency that so desires, and are delivered by the FBI. They are not issued or overseen by judges.

There is conflicting information concerning the current status of NSLs. In September 2007, Judge Marrero of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, struck down NSLs in their entirety. In August, 2008, that decision was upheld by the 2nd Court of Appeals. They should, therefore, be illegal.

The government continues to issue NSLs, under provisions of the PATRIOT Sunsets Extension Act of 2011. It requires the FBI to have reasonable grounds for an accompanying gag order, allows for disclosure of an NSL to one’s attorney under a gag order, and allows for judicial review (after it has been served). Essentially, it’s a defiance of the previous court order, waiting for a new challenge to be filed.

(A Wikipedia search of “NSL” is recommended.)

2. NDAA, National Defense Authorization Act – This is essentially an annual budget approval act for authorizing defense spending. But as with any Congressional action, it leaves us with far more baggage than it was designed to carry. The 2012 version authorized indefinite detention of US citizens by the military. This allowed for secret arrest, secret imprisonment, and didn’t require getting your day in court. Obama promised he would not abuse this, but keep in mind he’s made many other promises.

The 2013 version did nothing to overturn this provision. Additionally, it overturned a 68-year-old ban on the domestic use of government propaganda in the United States.

The Patriot Act, and AUMF – Authorization to Use Military Force, figure into this also. If you’re designated a terrorist, you can ‘legally’ be disappeared.

3. FISA, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act – Essentially allows any form of spying the government so desires. Oversight is by a secret court. It’s ironic that it’s called ‘Foreign’, when it’s only authorization is for use on US soil. In a nutshell, it means that there is no form of communication that is off-limits to the government. No client/attorney privilege, no doctor/patient confidentiality, no open-air private conversation in the middle of nowhere… And I hope by now that everyone has caught on that any and all electronic communication is included in that.

Only your thoughts are private, and I’m sure that’s only for the moment.

4. Judicial Abandonment – Courts are increasingly siding with government and large corporate interests, even when it’s an obvious miscarriage of justice. Plaintiffs seeking recourse against CorpGov better have deep, deep pockets, or stay out of the fray. ‘Justice’ is a major purchase, and beyond the reach of most in the US.

There are two classes of wrongdoing in historical law: Malum in se, (An evil obvious to all; think murder), and malum prohibitum, (a wrong designated by order of an edict or legislation; think drug laws). Courts have historically held malum in se to be a grave matter, and malum prohibitum to be open to interpretation. It seems now that in the United States malum prohibitum is the gravest of crimes, and above reproach; while malum in se is prosecutable only for those below a certain socio-economic threshold.

Why the government pretends there still exists anything resembling the ‘Rule of Law’, (Obama’s favorite catch phrase), is beyond me. They can commit murder in broad daylight on Main Street, USA, and carry on unchallenged.

5. Blackmailing – Use of NSA-obtained personal details to ‘mold’ corporate & political leaders, and others.

6. ‘Accidents’ – Too many folks are having too many fatal accidents, at critical junctures of investigations, leaks, and scandals. Don’t rule out death as a consequence of tangling with the government.

7. RICO Act / Prosecuting assets – You can have everything you own seized under the RICO act, which will get you a hearing but, unfortunately, your assets will have already been seized, so you’ll have no attorney. This would be separate from any hearing for the underlying criminal allegations, and exoneration of the criminal allegations does not mean exoneration in the RICO proceedings. This presents somewhat of a ‘speed bump’ for the government, in that it does require court proceedings, and has the potential of failure for the government.

But as we all know, the freeway doesn’t have speed bumps. That freeway would be ‘drug proceeds’ prosecutions. Anything and everything you own can be seized and characterized as ‘drug proceeds’, whereupon your seized assets will be prosecuted for wrongdoing, since they obviously came into being by a criminal act. Since you are not the defendant, you are not a party to the proceedings, and there’s a 99% chance you will not be allowed any input into the proceedings. No criminal charge ever needs to be levied against you, and if there is, exoneration of that charge will have no bearing on the seizure of your assets. This is pretty much a slam dunk for the government, with little chance for failure.

Both of these proceedings arise out of a purported criminal act, yet they are prosecuted as civil actions?

Why?

Because in civil proceedings, constitutional protections that would be afforded you in a criminal proceeding are non-existent. Most notably, the right to legal representation. If your assets have been seized, will you have access to an attorney? Would you have any clue how to represent yourself?

This is set up specifically so that the targeted individual or company has lost the fight from the first point of contact. I don’t think our forefathers were anywhere near Machiavellian enough to foresee this abuse of the legal system.

8. Captive Media – Eons ago, wrongs could be aired in the court of public opinion, via the media. Not so now. If you think the media will report wrongs on either a societal or individual level, you haven’t been paying attention. An undesirable person or event will be either ignored or crucified by the media, but never helped. ‘Conspiracy’ news sites and word of mouth are the de facto information sources for truth in this country.

9. TSA, Transportation Security Administration – Were you planning on going somewhere? Not if you’re on ‘The List’. Don’t be thinking you’ll escape the cage after the government’s taken notice of you.

Do You Get It Now?

As the weapons used in the War on Terror™ are increasingly turned inward, giving up pre-emptively seems reasonable when the carefully crafted ‘no way out’ provisions of these weapons are considered.

Those who have been paying attention know that if CorpGov casts a glance your way, it’s time to run for the hinterlands. You’re about to be crushed underfoot. No court, news reporter, cop, or fellow citizen will be coming to your aid.

That’s why folks are just shutting down, rather than fighting. When you watch your neighbor being taken down, you realize that it’s better to be already gone when they come for you.

Source:  sott.net

Fukushima apocalypse: Years of ‘duct tape fixes’ could result in ‘millions of deaths’

Posted by admin on Aug 21, 2013 in Uncategorized | 0 comments

Even the tiniest mistake during an operation to extract over 1,300 fuel rods at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan could lead to a series of cascading failures with an apocalyptic outcome, fallout researcher Christina Consolo told RT.

Fukushima operator TEPCO wants to extract 400 tons worth of spent fuel rods stored in a pool at the plant’s damaged Reactor No. 4. The removal would have to be done manually from the top store of the damaged building in the radiation-contaminated environment.

In the worst-case scenario, a mishandled rod may go critical, resulting in an above-ground meltdown releasing radioactive fallout with no way to stop it, said Consolo, who is the founder and host of Nuked Radio. But leaving the things as they are is not an option, because statistical risk of a similarly bad outcome increases every day, she said.

RT: How serious is the fuel rod situation compared to the danger of contaminated water build-up which we already know about?

Christina Consolo: Although fuel rod removal happens on a daily basis at the 430+ nuclear sites around the world, it is a very delicate procedure even under the best of circumstances. What makes fuel removal at Fukushima so dangerous and complex is that it will be attempted on a fuel pool whose integrity has been severely compromised. However, it must be attempted as Reactor 4 has the most significant problems structurally, and this pool is on the top floor of the building.

There are numerous other reasons that this will be a dangerous undertaking.

– The racks inside the pool that contain this fuel were damaged by the explosion in the early days of the accident.

– Zirconium cladding which encased the rods burned when water levels dropped, but to what extent the rods have been damaged is not known, and probably won’t be until removal is attempted.

– Saltwater cooling has caused corrosion of the pool walls, and probably the fuel rods and racks.

– The building is sinking.

– The cranes that normally lift the fuel were destroyed.

– Computer-guided removal will not be possible; everything will have to be done manually.

– TEPCO cannot attempt this process without humans, which will manage this enormous task while being bombarded with radiation during the extraction and casking.

– The process of removing each rod will have to be repeated over 1,300 times without incident.

– Moving damaged nuclear fuel under such complex conditions could result in a criticality if the rods come into close proximity to one another, which would then set off a chain reaction that cannot be stopped.

What could potentially happen is the contents of the pool could burn and/or explode, and the entire structure sustain further damage or collapse. This chain reaction process could be self-sustaining and go on for a long time. This is the apocalyptic scenario in a nutshell.

The water build-up is an extraordinarily difficult problem in and of itself, and as anyone with a leaky basement knows, water always ‘finds a way.’

‘Trivial in light of other problems at Fukushima, water situation could culminate in the chain reaction scenario’

At Fukushima, they are dealing with massive amounts of groundwater that flow through the property, and the endless pouring that must be kept up 24/7/365 to keep things from getting worse. Recently there appears to be subsidence issues and liquefaction under the plant.

TEPCO has decided to pump the water out of these buildings. However, pumping water out of the buildings is only going to increase the flow rate and create more of these ground issues around the reactors. An enormous undertaking – but one that needs to be considered for long-term preservation of the integrity of the site – is channelling the water away, like a drain tile installed around the perimeter of a house with a leaky basement, but on an epic scale.

Without this effort, the soils will further deteriorate, structural shift will occur, and subsequently the contents of the pools will shift too.

 Any water that flows into those buildings also becomes highly radioactive, as it is likely coming into contact with melted fuel.

Without knowing the extent of the current liquefaction and its location, the location of the melted fuel, how long TEPCO has been pumping out water, or when the next earthquake will hit, it is impossible to predict how soon this could occur from the water problem/subsidence issue alone. But undoubtedly, pumping water out of the buildings is just encouraging the flow, and this water problem needs to be remedied and redirected as soon as possible.

RT: Given all the complications that could arise with extracting the fuel rods, which are the most serious, in your opinion?

CC: The most serious complication would be anything that leads to a nuclear chain reaction. And as outlined above, there are many different ways this could occur. In a fuel pool containing damaged rods and racks, it could potentially start up on its own at anytime. TEPCO has been incredibly lucky that this hasn’t happened so far.

‘One of the worst, but most important jobs anyone has ever had to do’

My second biggest concern would be the physical and mental fitness of the workers that will be in such close proximity to exposed fuel during this extraction process. They will be the ones guiding this operation, and will need to be in the highest state of alertness to have any chance at all of executing this plan manually and successfully. Many of their senses, most importantly eyesight, will be hindered by the apparatus that will need to be worn during their exposure, to prevent immediate death from lifting compromised fuel rods out of the pool and placing them in casks, or in the common spent fuel pool located a short distance away.

Think for a moment what that might be like through the eyes of one of these workers; it will be hot, uncomfortable, your senses shielded, and you would be filled with anxiety. You are standing on a building that is close to collapse. Even with the strongest protection possible, workers will have to be removed and replaced often. So you don’t have the benefit of doing such a critical task and knowing and trusting your comrades, as they will frequently have to be replaced when their radiation dose limits are reached. If they exhibit physical or mental signs of radiation exposure, they will have be replaced more often.

 It will be one of the worst, but most important jobs anyone has ever had to do. And even if executed flawlessly, there are still many things that could go wrong.

RT: How do the potential consequences of failure to ensure safe extraction compare to other disasters of the sort – like Chernobyl, or the 2011 Fukushima meltdown?

CC: There really is no comparison. This will be an incredibly risky operation, in the presence of an enormous amount of nuclear material in close proximity. And as we have seen in the past, one seemingly innocuous failure at the site often translates into a series of cascading failures.

‘The site has been propped up with duct tape and a kick-stand for over two years’

Many of their ‘fixes’ are only temporary, as there are so many issues to address, and cost always seems to be an enormous factor in what gets implemented and what doesn’t.

As a comparison: Chernobyl was one reactor, in a rural area, a quarter of the size of one of the reactors at Fukushima. There was no ‘spent fuel pool’ to worry about. Chernobyl was treated in-situ…meaning everything was pretty much left where it was while the effort to contain it was made (and very expeditiously I might add) not only above ground, but below ground.

At Fukushima, we have six top-floor pools all loaded with fuel that eventually will have to be removed, the most important being Reactor 4, although Reactor 3 is in pretty bad shape too. Spent fuel pools were never intended for long-term storage, they were only to assist short-term movement of fuel. Using them as a long-term storage pool is a huge mistake that has become an ‘acceptable’ practice and repeated at every reactor site worldwide.

 We have three 100-ton melted fuel blobs underground, but where exactly they are located, no one knows. Whatever ‘barriers’ TEPCO has put in place so far have failed. Efforts to decontaminate radioactive water have failed. Robots have failed. Camera equipment and temperature gauges…failed. Decontamination of surrounding cities has failed.

‘If and when the corium reaches the Tokyo aquifer, serious and expedient discussions will have to take place about evacuating 40 million people’

We have endless releases into the Pacific Ocean that will be ongoing for not only our lifetimes, but our children’s’ lifetimes. We have 40 million people living in the Tokyo area nearby. We have continued releases from the underground corium that reminds us it is there occasionally with steam events and huge increases in radiation levels. Across the Pacific, we have at least two peer-reviewed scientific studies so far that have already provided evidence of increased mortality in North America, and thyroid problems in infants on the west coast states from our initial exposures.

We have increasing contamination of the food chain, through bioaccumulation and biomagnification. And a newly stated concern is the proximity of melted fuel in relation to the Tokyo aquifer that extends under the plant. If and when the corium reaches the Tokyo aquifer, serious and expedient discussions will have to take place about evacuating 40 million people from the greater metropolitan area. As impossible as this sounds, you cannot live in an area which does not have access to safe water.

The operation to begin removing fuel from such a severely damaged pool has never been attempted before. The rods are unwieldy and very heavy, each one weighing two-thirds of a ton. But it has to be done, unless there is some way to encase the entire building in concrete with the pool as it is. I don’t know of anyone discussing that option, but it would seem much ‘safer’ than what they are about to attempt…but not without its own set of risks.

And all this collateral damage will continue for decades, if not centuries, even if things stay exactly the way they are now. But that is unlikely, as bad things happen like natural disasters and deterioration with time…earthquakes, subsidence, and corrosion, to name a few. Every day that goes by, the statistical risk increases for this apocalyptic scenario. No one can say or know how this will play out, except that millions of people will probably die even if things stay exactly as they are, and billions could die if things get any worse.

RT: Are the fuel rods in danger of falling victim to other factors, while the extraction process is ongoing? After all, it’s expected to take years before all 1,300+ rods are pulled out.

CC: Unfortunately yes, the fuel rods are in danger every day they remain in the pool. The more variables you add to this equation, and the more time that passes, the more risk you are exposed to. Each reactor and spent fuel pool has its own set of problems, and critical failure with any of them could ultimately have the end result of an above-ground, self-sustaining nuclear reaction. It will not be known if extraction of all the fuel will even be possible, as some of it may be severely damaged, until the attempt is made to remove it.

RT: Finally, what is the worst case scenario? What level of contamination are we looking at and how dire would the consequences be for the long-term health of the region?

CC: Extremely dire. This is a terrible answer to have to give, but the worst case scenario could play out in death to billions of people. A true apocalypse. Since we have been discussing Reactor 4, I’ll stick to that problem in particular, but also understand that a weather event, power outage, earthquake, tsunami, cooling system failure, or explosion and fire in any way, shape, or form, at any location on the Fukushima site, could cascade into an event of that magnitude as well.

‘Once the integrity of the pool is compromised that will lead to more criticalities’

At any time, following any of these possible events, or even all by itself, nuclear fuel in reactor 4’s pool could become critical, mostly because it will heat up the pool to a point where water will burn off and the zirconium cladding will catch fire when it is exposed to air. This already happened at least once in this pool that we are aware of. It almost happened again recently after a rodent took out an electrical line and cooling was stopped for days.

Once the integrity of the pool is compromised that will likely lead to more criticalities, which then can spread to other fuel. The heat from this reaction would weaken the structure further, which could then collapse and the contents of the pool end up in a pile of rubble on the ground. This would release an enormous amount of radioactivity, which Arnie Gundersen has referred to as a “Gamma Shine Event” without precedence, and Dr. Christopher Busby has deemed an “Open-air super reactor spectacular.”

This would preclude anyone from not only being at Reactor 4, but at Reactors 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, the associated pools for each, and the common spent fuel pool. Humans could no longer monitor and continue cooling operations at any of the reactors and pools, thus putting the entire site at risk for a massive radioactive release.

‘At least the northern half of Japan would be uninhabitable, and some researchers have argued that it already is’

Mathematically, it is almost impossible to quantify in terms of resulting contamination, and a separate math problem would need to be performed for every nuclear element contained within the fuel, and whether or not that fuel exploded, burned, fissioned, melted, or was doused with water to try to cool it off and poured into the ocean afterward.

 Some researchers have even ventured to say that other nuke plants on the east coast of Honshu may need to be evacuated if levels get too high, which will lead to subsequent failures/fires and explosions at these plants as well. Just how profound the effect will be on down-winders in North America, or the entire northern hemisphere for that matter, will literally depend on where the wind blows and where the rain falls, the duration and extent of a nuclear fire or chain-reaction event, and whether or not that reaction becomes self-sustaining. At least the northern half of Japan would be uninhabitable, and some researchers have argued that it already is.

This is already happening to the nuclear fuel in the ground under the plant, but now it would be happening above ground as well. There is no example historically to draw from on a scale of this magnitude. Everything is theory. But anyone who says this can’t happen is not being truthful, because nobody really knows how bad things could get.

The most disturbing part of all of this is that Fukushima has been this dangerous, and precarious, since the second week of March 2011. The ante will definitely be upped once the fuel removal starts.

‘The mainstream media, world governments, nuclear agencies, health organizations, weather reporters, and the health care industry has completely ignored three ongoing triple meltdowns that have never been contained’

An obvious attempt to downplay this disaster and its consequences have been repeated over and over again from ‘experts’ in the nuclear industry that also have a vested interest in their industry remaining intact. And, there has been a lot of misleading information released by TEPCO, which an hour or two of reading by a diligent reporter would have uncovered, in particular the definition of ‘cold shutdown.’

Over 300 mainstream news outlets worldwide ran the erroneous ‘cold shutdown’ story repeatedly, which couldn’t be further from the truth…[it was] yet another lie that was spun by TEPCO to placate the public, and perpetuated endlessly by the media and nuclear lobby.

Unfortunately, TEPCO waited until a severe emergency arose to finally report how bad things really are with this latest groundwater issue…if we are even being told the truth. Historically, everything TEPCO says always turns out to be much worse than they initially admit.

‘Unfortunately there is no one better qualified to deal with this than the Russians, despite their own shortcomings’

I think the best chance of success is…that experts around the world drop everything they are doing to work on this problem, and have Russia either lead the containment effort or consult with them closely. They have the most experience, they have decades of data. They took their accident seriously and made a Herculean effort to contain it.

Of course we also know the Chernobyl accident was wrought with deception and lies as well, and some of that continues to this day, especially in terms of the ongoing health effects of children in the region, and monstrous birth defects. Unfortunately there is no one better qualified to deal with this than the Russians, despite their own shortcomings. Gorbachev tried to make up for his part in the cover-up of Chernobyl by opening orphanages throughout the region to deal with the affected children.

But as far as Fukushima goes, the only thing that matters now is if world leaders and experts join forces to help fix this situation. Regardless of what agendas they are trying to protect or hide, how much it will cost, the effect on Japan or the world’s economy, or what political chains this will yank.

The nuclear industry needs to come clean. If this leads to every reactor in the world being shut down, so be it. If the world governments truly care about their people and this planet, this is what needs to be done.

Renowned theoretical physicist Michio Kaku stated in an interview a few weeks after the initial accident that “TEPCO is literally hanging on by their fingernails.” They still are, and always have been. The Japanese have proven time and time again they are not capable of handling this disaster. Now we are entrusting them to execute the most dangerous fuel removal in history.

We are extremely lucky that this apocalyptic scenario hasn’t happened yet, considering the state of Reactor 4. But for many, it is already too late. The initial explosions and spent fuel pool fires may have already sealed the fate of millions of people. Time will tell. Anyone who tells you otherwise is not being honest, because there is just no way to know.

Source: rt.com

Donald Trump Explains Obamacare on One Paragraph

Posted by admin on Aug 16, 2013 in Uncategorized | 0 comments

Let me get this straight . . .   We’re are being “gifted” with a health care plan we are forced to purchase and fined if we don’t, which purportedly covers at least ten million more people, without adding a single new doctor, but provides for 16,000 new IRS agents, who have recently demonstrated their objective and professional integrity.

Written by a committee whose chairman says he doesn’t understand it, passed by a Congress that didn’t read it but exempted themselves from it, and signed by a President who smokes, with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn’t pay his taxes, for which we’ll have been taxed for four years before any benefits take effect, by a government which has already bankrupted Social Security and Medicare, Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac, and the Post Office all to be overseen by a surgeon general who is obese, and financed by a country that’s broke!!!!!

‘What in the world could possibly go wrong?’

Source: beforeitsnews.com

Edward Snowden’s fathers open letter to Obama

Posted by admin on Aug 3, 2013 in Uncategorized | 0 comments

July 26, 2013

President Barack Obama

The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20500

Re: Civil Disobedience, Edward J. Snowden, and the Constitution

Dear Mr. President:

You are acutely aware that the history of liberty is a history of civil disobedience to unjust laws or practices. As Edmund Burke sermonized, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”

Civil disobedience is not the first, but the last option. Henry David Thoreau wrote with profound restraint in Civil Disobedience: “If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government, let it go, let it go: perchance it will wear smooth certainly the machine will wear out. If the injustice has a spring, or a pulley, or a rope, or a crank, exclusively for itself, then perhaps you may consider whether the remedy will not be worse than the evil; but if it is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine.”

Thoreau’s moral philosophy found expression during the Nuremburg trials in which “following orders” was rejected as a defense. Indeed, military law requires disobedience to clearly illegal orders.

A dark chapter in America’s World War II history would not have been written if the then United States Attorney General had resigned rather than participate in racist concentration camps imprisoning 120,000 Japanese American citizens and resident aliens.

Civil disobedience to the Fugitive Slave Act and Jim Crow laws provoked the end of slavery and the modern civil rights revolution.

We submit that Edward J. Snowden’s disclosures of dragnet surveillance of Americans under § 215 of the Patriot Act, § 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Amendments, or otherwise were sanctioned by Thoreau’s time-honored moral philosophy and justifications for civil disobedience. Since 2005, Mr. Snowden had been employed by the intelligence community. He found himself complicit in secret, indiscriminate spying on millions of innocent citizens contrary to the spirit if not the letter of the First and Fourth Amendments and the transparency indispensable to self-government. Members of Congress entrusted with oversight remained silent or Delphic. Mr. Snowden confronted a choice between civic duty and passivity. He may have recalled the injunction of Martin Luther King, Jr.: “He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it.” Mr. Snowden chose duty. Your administration vindictively responded with a criminal complaint alleging violations of the Espionage Act.

From the commencement of your administration, your secrecy of the National Security Agency’s Orwellian surveillance programs had frustrated a national conversation over their legality, necessity, or morality. That secrecy (combined with congressional nonfeasance) provoked Edward’s disclosures, which sparked a national conversation which you have belatedly and cynically embraced. Legislation has been introduced in both the House of Representatives and Senate to curtail or terminate the NSA’s programs, and the American people are being educated to the public policy choices at hand. A commanding majority now voice concerns over the dragnet surveillance of Americans that Edward exposed and you concealed. It seems mystifying to us that you are prosecuting Edward for accomplishing what you have said urgently needed to be done!

The right to be left alone from government snooping–the most cherished right among civilized people—is the cornerstone of liberty. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson served as Chief Prosecutor at Nuremburg. He came to learn of the dynamics of the Third Reich that crushed a free society, and which have lessons for the United States today.

Writing in Brinegar v. United States, Justice Jackson elaborated:

The Fourth Amendment states: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

These, I protest, are not mere second-class rights but belong in the catalog of indispensable freedoms. Among deprivations of rights, none is so effective in cowing a population, crushing the spirit of the individual and putting terror in every heart. Uncontrolled search and seizure is one of the first and most effective weapons in the arsenal of every arbitrary government. And one need only briefly to have dwelt and worked among a people possessed of many admirable qualities but deprived of these rights to know that the human personality deteriorates and dignity and self-reliance disappear where homes, persons and possessions are subject at any hour to unheralded search and seizure by the police.

We thus find your administration’s zeal to punish Mr. Snowden’s discharge of civic duty to protect democratic processes and to safeguard liberty to be unconscionable and indefensible.

We are also appalled at your administration’s scorn for due process, the rule of law, fairness, and the presumption of innocence as regards Edward.

On June 27, 2013, Mr. Fein wrote a letter to the Attorney General stating that Edward’s father was substantially convinced that he would return to the United States to confront the charges that have been lodged against him if three cornerstones of due process were guaranteed. The letter was not an ultimatum, but an invitation to discuss fair trial imperatives. The Attorney General has sneered at the overture with studied silence.

We thus suspect your administration wishes to avoid a trial because of constitutional doubts about application of the Espionage Act in these circumstances, and obligations to disclose to the public potentially embarrassing classified information under the Classified Information Procedures Act.

Your decision to force down a civilian airliner carrying Bolivian President Eva Morales in hopes of kidnapping Edward also does not inspire confidence that you are committed to providing him a fair trial. Neither does your refusal to remind the American people and prominent Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate like House Speaker John Boehner, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann,and Senator Dianne Feinstein that Edward enjoys a presumption of innocence. He should not be convicted before trial. Yet Speaker Boehner has denounced Edward as a “traitor.”

Ms. Pelosi has pontificated that Edward “did violate the law in terms of releasing those documents.” Ms. Bachmann has pronounced that, “This was not the act of a patriot; this was an act of a traitor.” And Ms. Feinstein has decreed that Edward was guilty of “treason,” which is defined in Article III of the Constitution as “levying war” against the United States, “or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.”

You have let those quadruple affronts to due process pass unrebuked, while you have disparaged Edward as a “hacker” to cast aspersion on his motivations and talents. Have you forgotten the Supreme Court’s gospel in Berger v. United States that the interests of the government “in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done?”

We also find reprehensible your administration’s Espionage Act prosecution of Edward for disclosures indistinguishable from those which routinely find their way into the public domain via your high level appointees for partisan political advantage. Classified details of your predator drone protocols, for instance, were shared with the New York Times with impunity to bolster your national security credentials. Justice Jackson observed in Railway Express Agency, Inc. v. New York: “The framers of the Constitution knew, and we should not forget today, that there is no more effective practical guaranty against arbitrary and unreasonable government than to require that the principles of law which officials would impose upon a minority must be imposed generally.”

In light of the circumstances amplified above, we urge you to order the Attorney General to move to dismiss the outstanding criminal complaint against Edward, and to support legislation to remedy the NSA surveillance abuses he revealed. Such presidential directives would mark your finest constitutional and moral hour.

Sincerely,

Bruce Fein

Counsel for Lon Snowden

Lon Snowden