Silent Steven Marshall – cowardly silence from South Australia’s Premier on nuclear waste dump plan
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SILENT STEVEN
Last week I posted about Minister Dan van Holst Pellekaan threatening me with legal costs in response to a Freedom of information (FOI) request for all correspondence between the Federal and SA State Government on the National Radioactive Waste Management Facility since Steven Marshall had become Premier of SA.
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In 2016, when in opposition, Marshall stated he would not support the facility. After the SA ‘Citizens Jury’ handed down their verdict on a waste facility to Premier Weatherill, Marshall proclaimed, “Jay Weatherill’s dream of turning South Australia into a nuclear waste dump is now dead”.
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What I got back under FOI was heavily redacted but shows Marshall, like a good lapdog to the Prime Minister, has remained silent on the issue.
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It’s the same with keeping Submarine Full Cycle Docking work in SA, as the PM considers sending that work to WA – silence. Its the same with the Federal Government’s appointment of a irrigation supporting former NSW National to the position of Inspector-General of (Murray-Darling) Water Compliance – silence.
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The Premier is free to determine his political position on these issues which affect South Australia’s interests. But he is obliged as Premier to share his position with South Australians and he should be prepared to defend whatever his view is. That’s what leaders do. Instead, on so many important issues, he’s just Silent Steven.
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A scary reality, Trump still has the nuclear codes
Former Reagan aide: Trump still has the nuclear codes. And that’s genuinely 
scary. https://www.nj.com/opinion/2020/12/former-reagan-aide-trump-still-has-the-nuclear-codes-and-thats-genuinely-scary-opinion.html By Star-Ledger Guest Columnist By Mark Weinberg, 24 Dec 20
Almost anything Donald Trump does in his last weeks as president can be undone by Joe Biden. Executive Orders can be reversed, regulations can be changed, unnecessary commissions can be disbanded, and (some) political appointees can be removed from their positions. Unfortunately, a few will remain after Trump leaves because of how terms are structured, but their ability and probably their willingness to cause mischief will be severely limited when their man is out of the White House. At least one hopes so.
That’s the good news.
The bad news is that until noon on January 20th Trump will have access to the codes necessary to authorize a nuclear war. That is genuinely scary.
The size, scale and influence of the United States’ economy notwithstanding, what makes the president of the United States the most powerful person in the world is control of our nuclear weapons.
Our two most threatening adversaries, Russia and China, both have significant nuclear arsenals. Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping are aware that Trump is a wounded and weakened president and will be so until he leaves office next month. Whether they sense that translates into an opening for them to outright attack us — or at least threaten to — is an open question. No doubt they are watching closely for opportunities to enhance their world domination campaigns at our expense, which means we must be super-vigilant. Nuclear war is no joke. It is as serious as it gets. What animated Ronald Reagan most in his efforts to engage the Soviet Union to reduce both country’s nuclear stockpiles was that each nation had the ability to destroy each other. Reagan called this the “MAD” – Mutually Assured Destruction – policy, which he rightly thought was unacceptably dangerous and worked hard to eliminate. He famously said: “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.” Contrary to opponents’ depictions, Reagan was not a trigger-happy warmonger. Indeed, he was the opposite. A World War II veteran, he knew well of, and worried about, the indescribably deadly potential of nuclear weapons and took very seriously his duties as president in either responding to — or initiating — a nuclear strike.
As with all modern-day presidents, elaborate steps were taken to make certain Reagan always had access to the nuclear codes wherever he was. There was never a time during Reagan’s presidency when his stability or suitability to have the nuclear codes was in question.
So what to do until he is replaced by a more stable, sensible, and sane president?
Tempting and legitimate as it may be, invoking the 25th Amendment to declare Trump “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office” is not a realistic possibility at this point. For reasons they will have to explain later, most members of Trump’s Cabinet, including Vice President Michael Pence, are either unable or unwilling to recognize Trump’s instability and unsuitability for office and fear that doing anything to upset him could be professional suicide.
Perhaps a solution can be found in the presidency of Trump’s hero, Richard Nixon. It has been widely reported that in the last few days Nixon was in office, then-Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger, concerned that a distraught Nixon might do something rash, issued a directive to the military that if Nixon ordered a nuclear strike, they were to check with him or Secretary of State Henry Kissinger before executing.
Hopefully, acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller has the wisdom to issue such an order. He needs to. Whether Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has the courage and patriotism to act as a backstop against any reckless Trump order is a question which, with any luck, will never require an answer.
In USA’s economic and health crisis – nuclear weapons spending is booming
Roughly 50,000 Americans are now involved in making nuclear warheads at eight principal sites stretching from California to South Carolina. And the three principal U.S. nuclear weapons laboratories — located in Los Alamos and Albuquerque, N.M., and Livermore, Calif. — have said they are adding thousands of new workers at a time when the overall federal workforce is shrinking.
“the insane idea that after a pandemic and dealing with climate change and in an economic crisis in which people are struggling with massive inequality that we are going to spend this much money modernizing every last piece of our nuclear infrastructure — that would be a failure, a failure of policy and a failure of imagination.”
But major defense contractors and their employees — including many of those making nuclear weapons or running the national laboratories where they are designed — have long influenced budget choices by helping to finance elections of the members of Congress who approve spending for that work. The industry’s donations in the current election cycle to members of the House and Senate Armed Services committees alone had reached $9.4 million as of mid-October; of that amount, the two chairmen took in a total of at least $802,000, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan research group. These tallies don’t include separate donations by lawyers or lobbyists.
 Under Trump, America’s nuclear weapons industry has boomed, https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-12-23/under-trump-americas-nuclear-weapons-industry-has-boomed By R. JEFFREY SMITH, DEC. 23, 2020
While the country has been preoccupied with the COVID-19 pandemic, economic decline and the election, President Trump’s administration quietly
 and steadily steered America’s nuclear weapons industry to its largest expansion since the end of the Cold War, increasing spending on such arms by billions of dollars with bipartisan congressional support.Overall, the budget for making and maintaining nuclear warheads has risen more than 50% since Trump was elected in 2016, substantially outpacing the rates of increase for the defense budget and overall federal spending during his presidency before the pandemic. On Monday, Congress approved Trump’s proposal to increase spending next year for the production of such weaponry by nearly $3 billion. President-elect Joe Biden may embrace other priorities as he confronts the pandemic, tries to steer the country out of a recession, and is pressured to address social programs neglected under the Trump administration, as well as a ballooning deficit created by the 2017 Trump tax cuts and COVID-19 stimulus spending. But the creation of a larger and more modern nuclear warhead complex of factories, laboratories and related businesses is already playing out around the country, despite slowdowns in other federal projects due to the pandemic Four factories in Texas, South Carolina, Tennessee and New Mexico dedicated to producing warheads are being modernized. Four existing warheads are being substantially rebuilt with modern parts, on top of another such upgrade — costing $3.5 billion — that was completed last year. This pace compares with an average modernization of one type of warhead at a time during the Obama administration. “Over the next five years, the [nuclear weapons-related] costs start going up dramatically,” Continue reading |
Extinction Rebellion has much to learn from Angus Taylor, Australia’s “worst” minister — RenewEconomy
Gap between Coalition ideology on climate and energy and the rest of the world is so great that even AFR readers voted Angus Taylor worst minister. The post Extinction Rebellion has much to learn from Angus Taylor, Australia’s “worst” minister appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Extinction Rebellion has much to learn from Angus Taylor, Australia’s “worst” minister — RenewEconomy
What you read in 2020, and why we’re taking a break — RenewEconomy
The RenewEconomy stable topped 20 million page views in 2020 and this is what you read. We’ll be back in 2021. The post What you read in 2020, and why we’re taking a break appeared first on RenewEconomy.
What you read in 2020, and why we’re taking a break — RenewEconomy
December 23 Energy News — geoharvey
Opinion: ¶ “Electrify Everything: The Cost Of Solar Cells Has Nowhere To Go But Down, Down, Down” • Silicon solar cells deserve a pat on the back for ushering in the renewable energy revolution, but now it’s time for more efficient, less expensive technology to take the wheel. If you guessed that means perovskites, run […]
December 23 Energy News — geoharvey
Complete list of electric cars under $75,000 in Australia in 2021 — RenewEconomy
The options for electric vehicle buyers in Australia are growing: Here is the complete list of new models available in 2021 under $75,000. The post Complete list of electric cars under $75,000 in Australia in 2021 appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Complete list of electric cars under $75,000 in Australia in 2021 — RenewEconomy
Planning for chaos: We can’t use the past to predict the future — RenewEconomy
Australia’s regulatory framework needs to catch up with the fact that climate change means that we can’t use the past to predict the future. The post Planning for chaos: We can’t use the past to predict the future appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Planning for chaos: We can’t use the past to predict the future — RenewEconomy
The top 4 climate and energy points of 2020 — RenewEconomy
From bushfires to the Paris agreement, 2020 was the year the federal government started learning the dangers of treading water while others swim hard. The post The top 4 climate and energy points of 2020 appeared first on RenewEconomy.
The top 4 climate and energy points of 2020 — RenewEconomy
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 