Study: US NRC Relied On Faulty Analysis To Justify Refusal To Adopt Catastrophic Nuclear Waste Fire Safety Measures

Stephan:  The Republican disdain for facts is going to result in a major catastrophe. Consider this story on nuclear waste.

A new study from Princeton University and the Union of Concerned Scientists has revealed that the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) relies on faulty analysis to “justify its refusal to adopt a critical measure for protecting Americans from the occurrence of a catastrophic nuclear-waste fire at any one of dozens of reactor sites around the country.”

“This image captures the spread of radioactivity from a hypothetical fire in a high-density spent-fuel pool at the Peach Bottom Nuclear Power Plant in Pennsylvania. Based on the guidance from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the experience from the Chernobyl and Fukushima accidents, populations in the red and orange areas would have to be relocated for many years, and many in the yellow area would relocate voluntarily. In this scenario, which is based on real weather patterns that occurred in July 2015, four major cities would be contaminated (New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, D.C.), resulting in the displacement of millions of people.” (Photo courtesy of Michael Schoeppner, Princeton University, Program on Science and Global Security).

While the nuclear fallout from such an incident could […]

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He Thinks the Grand Canyon Proves Noah’s Flood Was Real

Stephan:  When facts are not dispositive you end up in another reality.

In order to prove the historical accuracy of the biblical Flood story, a geologist is currently suing the National Park Service for the right to remove 60 half-pound rocks from the Grand Canyon National Park.

His formal request was denied last July and, now, Dr. Andrew Snelling is being represented by the conservative Christian legal group Alliance Defending Freedom. Senior counsel Gary McCaleb told the New York Times that the proposal was denied not “on the quality of the proposal” but on “what [Snelling] might do with [the data].”

Snelling is what is known as a young-earth creationist, someone who, following the biblical book of Genesis and the biblical timeline of events, holds the position that the earth is only a few thousand years old. His motivation is to demonstrate the biblical Flood story happened, and happened just as the Bible says it did. His research, if it panned out, would have the additional bonus of grounding the scientific evidence for the flood in the United States. And for fundamentalist Americans the only thing better than a Bible story is an American Bible story.

But rocks won’t prove the Christian Flood story, because, as popular as the story is, we have […]

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The strange origins of the GOP ideology that rejects caring for the poor

Stephan:  In the United States Christianity has been captured by the Theocratic Right, which has in turn captured the Republican Party. As I listened to the Comey hearing and the questions from Republicans like Senators Cornyn and McCain I found myself thinking back to Watergate, and those hearings, some of which I witnessed in the room. I kept thinking what would Everett Dirksen, or even Barry Goldwater, both pillars of the Republican Party in their day, have made of what is going on? Nowhere is the present day Republican Christofacism more bizarre and outlandish then in matters involving healthcare and the social safety net. The views of this modern party have almost no tangency with the teachings of Jesus, although they constantly invoke his name and distort his message to advance their political and values agenda. This essay I think reflects the current state of affairs, which I think is very dangerous to American democracy.

The ongoing Capitol Hill brawl over health care and budget cuts is getting Biblical.

In recent months, GOP lawmakers have taken to spouting Christian scripture to defend conservative fiscal policy and their effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act. The first example came from Rep. Roger Marshall (R-KS), who argued in early March that Jesus would support his criticism of Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion, as aspect of health care reform that extended insurance coverage to additional low-income Americans.

“Just like Jesus said, ‘The poor will always be with us,’” Marshall told Stat News, quoting the Bible. “There is a group of people that just don’t want health care and aren’t going to take care of themselves.”

He added that “morally, spiritually, socially,” some poor and homeless people “just don’t want health care.”

Marshall’s comments triggered a flurry of criticism from several sources, including more

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After Comey bombshells, evangelicals rally firmly behind Trump

Stephan:  The utter hypocrisy of the Christofascists could hardly be made clearer than this report. They constantly with specious self-righteousness proclaim their moral values, but in Donald Trump support a thrice married man, who seems unable to tell the truth about anything, and who openly talks about grabbing women by their crotch, and for much of his life was a proud bragging philanderer.

Fired FBI Director James Comey
Credit: Powerline

WASHINGTON — Social conservatives and evangelical activists were unequivocally in President Donald Trump’s corner Friday at a major conservative gathering, offering a vibrant snapshot of the strong support the president still enjoys from the conservative grassroots a day after former FBI Director James Comey’s explosive testimony.

The unwavering support for Trump at a Faith and Freedom Coalition summit was a sharp contrast to the drama still unfolding in official Washington.

The political world continued to grapple with the fallout from Comey’s bombshell congressional appearance–and Trump’s charge that Comey lied under oath.

But at the Omni Shoreham Hotel a few miles from the White House, where evangelical and conservative activists gathered for the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s Road to Majority summit, there was no doubt about feelings toward Trump.

“We have never had a White House or an administration that has not only been more receptive to the issues we care about, but is willing to fight for them every single day, from the president on […]

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What’s hidden behind the walls of America’s prisons

Stephan:  The American Gulag is an international humanitarian disgrace. The lives of two million three hundred thousand men, women and, yes, children are controlled by the gulag, as I write this sentence. More than that approximately 1 of every three people living in America have criminal records. No other nation on the planet even comes close to those numbers or proportions. And the whole thing is blatantly racist. Here is the latest on this growing trend, which Attorney General Jeff Sessions and his master Donald Trump will make much worse if they have their way.

Credit: Reuters/Fred Thornhill

Few Americans fully appreciate just how many of their fellow citizens are ensnared in the criminal justice system.

Some may have heard that there are about 2.3 million people behind bars, but that figure tells only part of the story. Yes, in a stunning array of 1,719 state prisons, 102 federal prisons, 901 juvenile correctional facilities, 3,163 local jails and 76 Indian Country jails, as well as in military prisons, immigration detention facilities, civil commitment centers and prisons in the U.S. territories, we physically contain more human beings than any other country in the world. In addition to those actually locked up, there are another 840,000 Americans being supervised on parole and an additional 3.7 million people being monitored on probation.

Consider this: The world’s most populous city, Tokyo, and the U.S.‘s most populous state, California, have fewer residents combined than the up to 100 million U.S. citizens who now have a criminal record.

As important, these historically unprecedented rates of containment, and the deep stigma of a criminal record, aren’t […]

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