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Ralph is joined by Tim Judson from the Nuclear Information and Resource Service (N.I.R.S.) to discuss the growing support for nuclear power in Congress, and the persistent myths that fuel nuclear advocates' false hopes for a nuclear future. Then, Ralph pays tribute to Boeing whistleblower John Barnett, who died unexpectedly this week in the middle of giving his deposition for a whistleblower retaliation lawsuit against Boeing. Plus, Ralph answers some of your audience feedback from last week's interview with Barbara McQuade.\xa0

Tim Judson is Executive Director of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service (N.I.R.S.). Mr. Judson leads N.I.R.S.\u2019 work on nuclear reactor and climate change issues, and has written a series of reports on nuclear bailouts and sustainable energy. He is Chair of the Board of Citizens Awareness Network, one of the lead organizations in the successful campaign to close the Vermont Yankee reactor, and co-founder of Alliance for a Green Economy in New York.

Listeners should know that this very complex system called the nuclear fuel cycle\u2014that starts with uranium mines out west piling up radioactive tailings, which have exposed people downwind to radioactive hazards\u2026And then they have to enrich the uranium\u2014and that is often done by burning coal, which pollutes the air and contributes to climate disruption. And then they have to fabricate the fuel rods and build the nuclear plants. And then they have to make sure that these nuclear plants are secure against sabotage. And then you have the problem of transporting\u2014by trucks or rail\u2014radioactive waste to some depositories that don't exist. And they have to go through towns, cities, and villages. And what is all this for? It's to boil water.\xa0

Ralph Nader

In 2021 and 2022, when the big infrastructure bills\u2014 the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the Inflation Reduction Act\u2014were being passed by Congress, the utility industry spent $192 million on federal lobbying in those two years. That's more than the oil industry spent in those two years on lobbying. These are the utility companies that are present in every community around the country. And their business is actually less in selling electricity and natural gas, and more in lobbying state and federal governments to get their rates approved\u2026The utility industry (and the nuclear industry as a subset of that) have been lobbying Congress relentlessly for years to protect what they've got.

Tim Judson

Fusion is one of these technologies that's always been 30 years away. Whenever there's an announcement about an advancement in fusion research, it's still \u201cgoing to be 30 years before we get a reactor going.\u201d Now there's a lot more hype, and these tech investors are putting money into fusion with the promise that they're going to have a reactor online in a few years. But there's no track record to suggest that that's going to happen. It keeps the dream of nuclear alive\u2014 \u201cWe could have infinite amounts of clean energy for the future.\u201d It sounds too good to be true. It's always proven to be too good to be true.

Tim Judson

One of the lines that they're using to promote theAtomic Energy Advancement Act and all of these investments in nuclear\u2026 is that we can't let Russia and China be the ones that are expanding nuclear energy worldwide. It's got to be the US that does it.

Tim Judson

In Case You Haven\u2019t Heard with Francesco DeSantis

News 3/12/24

1. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA, has released a report claiming that \u201cemployees released into Gaza from Israeli detention [were] pressured by Israeli authorities into falsely stating that the agency has Hamas links and that staff took part in the October 7 attacks,\u201d per the Times of Israel. These supposed admissions of guilt led to the United States and many European countries cutting off or delaying aid to the agency. The unpublished report alleges that UNRWA staffers were \u201cdetained by the Israeli army, and\u2026experienced\u2026severe physical beatings, waterboarding, and threats of harm to family members.\u201d The report goes on to say \u201cIn addition to the alleged abuse endured by UNRWA staff members, Palestinian detainees more broadly described allegations of abuse, including beatings, humiliation, threats, dog attacks, sexual violence, and deaths of detainees denied medical treatment.\u201d

2. Continuing the genocidal assault on Gaza, Israel has been bombing the densely populated city of Rafah in the South. Domestically, this seems to be too far for even Biden\u2019s closest allies, with the AP reporting just before the assault that \u201c[Senator Chris] Coons\u2026of Delaware, called for the U.S. to cut military aid to Israel if Netanyahu goes ahead with a threatened offensive on the southern city of Rafah without significant provisions to protect the more than 1 million civilians sheltering there. [And Senator] Jack Reed, head of the Senate Armed Services Committee, appealed to Biden to deploy the U.S. Navy to get humanitarian aid to Gaza. Biden ally Sen. Tim Kaine challenged the U.S. strikes on the Houthis as unlikely to stop the Red Sea attacks. And the most senior Democrat in the Senate [Patty Murray of Washington] called for Israel to \u2018change course.\u2019\u201d Hewing to these voices within his party, President Biden declared that an invasion of Rafah would be a \u201cred line.\u201d Yet POLTICO reports that Israeli PM Netanyahu \u201csays he intends to press ahead with an invasion.\u201d POLTICO now reports that Biden is threatening to condition military aid to Israel in response to Netanyahu\u2019s defiance, but it remains to be seen whether the president will follow through on this threat.

3. POLITICO also reports that CIA Director Bill Burns is calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, saying \u201cThe reality is that there are children who are starving\u2026They\u2019re malnourished as a result of the fact that humanitarian assistance can\u2019t get to them. It\u2019s very difficult to distribute humanitarian assistance effectively unless you have a ceasefire.\u201d This is obviously correct, and illustrates how out of touch the Democratic Party is that they are getting outflanked on peace issues by the literal director of the CIA.

4. Whether unwilling \u2013 or unable \u2013 to change course on Gaza, President Biden is paying the electoral price. In last week\u2019s Super Tuesday primaries, the Nation reports \u201cUncommitted\u201d won 19 percent of the vote and 11 delegates in Minnesota, 29 percent and seven delegates in Hawaii, and 12.7 percent in North Carolina. This week, the New York Times reports Uncommitted took 7.5% \u2013 nearly 50,000 votes \u2013 in Washington State. Biden also lost the caucus in American Samoa, making him the first incumbent president since Carter to lose a nominating contest, per Newsweek.

5. In yet another manifestation of opposition to the genocide in Gaza, Jewish director Jonathan Glazer used his Oscar acceptance speech to \u201c[denounce] the bloodshed in the Middle East and [ask] the audience to consider how it could \u2018resist\u2026dehumanization,\u2019\u201d per NBC. Glazer\u2019s award winning film \u201cThe Zone of Interest\u201d examines how \u201c[a] Nazi commandant\u2026and his family\u2026attempt to build an idyllic life right outside the walls of the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland during the Holocaust.\u201d Glazer said \u201cAll our choices were made to reflect and confront us in the present \u2014 not to say, 'Look what we did then,' rather, 'Look what we do now.' Our film shows where dehumanization leads at its worst\u2026Right now, we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation, which has led to conflict for so many people." Glazer was the most forthright in his criticism of the Israeli campaign, but NBC notes \u201cBillie Eilish, Mark Ruffalo and Ramy Youssef wore red pins on the Oscars red carpet symbolizing calls for a cease-fire.\u201d

6. Aware that they are losing the public relations battle, pro-Israel lobbying groups like the UJA-Federation and the Jewish Community Relations Council have enlisted Right-wing messaging guru Frank Luntz to help with their Hasbara PR, the Grayzone reports. Leaked talking points from his presentation run the gamut from playing up unsubstantiated claims of systematic sexual violence committed by Hamas to acknowledging that \u201c\u2019The most potent\u2019 tactic in mobilizing opposition to Israel\u2019s assault\u2026\u2018is the visual destruction of Gaza and the human toll\u2019\u2026 [because] \u2018It \u2018looks like a genocide\u2019.\u201d

7. Turning from Palestine to East Palestine, Ohio Cleveland.com reports that during a recent Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee hearing, National Transportation Safety Board\xa0 Chair Jennifer L. Homendy told Ohio\u2019s junior Senator JD Vance that \u201cThe deliberate burn of rail cars carrying hazardous chemicals after last year\u2019s crash\u2026wasn\u2019t needed to avoid an explosion because the rail cars were cooling off before they were set on fire.\u201d In a statement, Ohio\u2019s senior Senator, progressive Democrat Sherrod Brown, called the testimony \u201coutrageous,\u201d and said \u201cThis explosion \u2013 which devastated so many \u2013 was unnecessary\u2026The people of East Palestine are still living with the consequences of this toxic burn. This is more proof that Norfolk Southern put profits over safety & cannot be trusted.\u201d

8. In positive labor news, Bloomberg reports that \u201cAbout 600 video game testers at Microsoft\u2026\u2019s Activision Blizzard studios have unionized, more than doubling the size of labor\u2019s foothold at the software giant, according to the Communications Workers of America.\u201d This brings the unionized workforce at Microsoft to approximately 1,000. To the company\u2019s credit, Microsoft has been friendly towards unionization, a marked difference from other technology companies \u2013 namely Amazon and Tesla \u2013 which have gone to extreme lengths to prevent worker organizing.

9. In not so positive labor news, Matt Bruenig\u2019s NLRB Edge reports \u201cThe ACLU Is Trying to Destroy the Biden NLRB.\u201d In a narrow sense, this story is about the ACLU fighting its workers to preserve its internal mandatory arbitration process. More broadly however, Bruenig illustrates how the ACLU is seeking to oust Biden\u2019s NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo \u2013 arguing her appointment was unconstitutional \u2013 which \u201ccould potentially invalidate everything the Biden Board has done.\u201d This is yet another example of the non-profit industrial complex run amok, doing damage to progressive values and opting to possibly inflict economic harm on workers nationwide rather than treat their own workers fairly.

10. Finally, according to the Corporate Crime Reporter, \u201cBoeing whistleblower John Barnett was found dead in his truck at a hotel in Charleston, South Carolina after a break in depositions in a whistleblower retaliation lawsuit.\u201d Barnett\u2019s lawyer Brian Knowles told the paper \u201cThey found him in his truck dead from an \u2018alleged\u2019 self-inflicted gunshot.\u201d Barnett had gone on record saying \u201c[Boeing] started pressuring us to not document defects, to work outside the procedures, to allow defective material to be installed without being corrected. They started bypassing procedures and not maintaining configurement control of airplanes, not maintaining control of non conforming parts \u2013\xa0 they just wanted to get the planes pushed out the door and make the cash register ring.\u201d The timing and circumstances of Barnett\u2019s death raise disturbing questions; we hope an exhaustive investigation turns up some answers.

This has been Francesco DeSantis, with In Case You Haven\u2019t Heard.

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