School now offering counseling to kids upset by strawberry-tart gun!

School now offering counseling to kids upset by strawberry-tart gun!

by Jon Rappoport

March 8, 2013

www.nomorefakenews.com

It’s called doubling down. First, a teacher at the Park Elementary School in Baltimore flips out, because 7-year-old Josh Welch bites his strawberry tart, trying to make it look like a mountain—but it ends up looking (sort of) like a gun.

The teacher reports Josh, who is then suspended for two days.

Now, an assistant principal at the school has sent a letter to parents offering counseling to kids who may have been upset by the incident. I kid you not.

“…If your children express that they are troubled by today’s incident…our school counselor is available to meet with any students who have the need to do so…”

What happens when a little kid shows up in the counselor’s office and says he’s angry at the lunatic teacher who upbraided Josh Welch?

Does the school suspend that little kid, too?? Does the counselor try to convince the kid he was really upset because he saw a danish bitten into a few right angles?

“You see, Jimmy, this is classic case of displacement. You think you’re bothered by the teacher. But really, it was that tart. Do you get it? Your agitation may be sign of ADHD. I’m going to refer you to a psychiatrist. He can give you medicine. It’ll make you feel better.”

Park Elementary school isn’t retreating from their suspension of Josh Welch. They’re doubling down. And what are the parents of the students doing ? Nothing. They’re knuckling under. They’re shrugging it all off. Why? Let’s see. Oh yes. They’re rank cowards.

And do you think their kids realize that? Are you kidding? Of course they do. The kids are registering how easily their mothers and fathers are copping out. The kids see there’s a robot-setup at work. The school does something that makes no sense at all. A kid is being punished for no reason at all. And the parents are taking it. The parents are mush.

It’s all a joke, yes. The strawberry tart. The gun shape. But beyond that, the two-day suspension of Josh Welch wasn’t a joke. And nobody cares.

This is the real lesson the school is imparting. “See, we can do anything we want to. We can do the most ridiculous thing in the world. And nobody will lift a finger to stop us.”

Now the kids think, “What else can we be suspended for? Suppose we don’t like those tarts and don’t eat them? Can they kick us out for that? If a shoe lace is untied? Can one of the prison guards report us to the principal?”

Good work, parents. You’re teaching your children invaluable lessons. You’re showing them all sorts of things. A few of you are even asking your kids, “Were you upset by the strawberry tart gun? If you were, you can go to the school counselor and tell her how you feel.”

And that look your kid is then giving you? That stare? Do you know what it means? It means he’s lost faith in you. He knows. He knows you have no courage. He knows you have no balls. He knows you’re useless when it comes time to stand up and be counted. He knows you preach one thing but do another. He knows you don’t really care.

At that point, he can do one of two things. He can grow up to be just like you, which you understand, at some level, is a terrible choice. Or he can go the other way and opt for the courage of his convictions, in which case you’ve lost him. He’ll never be as close to you as he was.

You can’t like either choice, if you have the guts to think about it. But you don’t have the guts, do you? You made your own choices a long time ago. You surrendered.

“Oh, well,” you say, “this is foolish. It was just a stupid little episode with a pastry. Ha-ha. Everybody knows it’s silly.” Yes, they do. But it’s moments like this that change things.

Kids aren’t as stupid as you are. They look around, they size up what’s happening, and they come to conclusions. They make and break their own futures based on what they conclude.

You parents could come together and march into the school and into the office of the school board and say, “Enough.” You could threaten to pull your kids out Park Elementary and put a serious crimp in the school’s state and federal funding.

Better yet, you could yank your kids out of Park and start your own school. Or you could home school.

But that would be inconvenient, wouldn’t it? You’re so busy these days, and the school baby-sits for five hours a day.

And it was just a pastry.

Why get riled up?

This, too, shall pass.

Yes, everything always passes. But in the wake of those moments, subterranean decisions are made.

No, its not like a war with bombs falling. No, it’s not mass starvation. But where you live, it’s real. It happened. And you skated. You closed your eyes and thought about something else.

You’re good at that. Most of your kids will become good at it, too. And that’s what you want for them, isn’t it? The ability to skate and slide and glide past what we used to call Character.

Character is old-fashioned. It doesn’t exist anymore. It’s an ideal that doesn’t fit into today’s world, because we have no more individuals. We only have groups and communities, and in that atmosphere other traits are valued.

The traits you’ve cultivated. You’ve been imparting the substance of your lesson plans to your kids ever since they could crawl. And now, when the school provides you with the opportunity to break out and wake up and turn it all around, you do the predictable thing. You step away.

Do you want to know where all this leads? You don’t, but I’ll tell you anyway. The population of this country will melt down into one great glob of goo. This collective will look to whatever is defined as leadership, and the collective will follow along without hesitation.

Chances are good your child will be a molecule of that Unity.

So congratulations. You’ve made your statement. You’ve succeeded with all your adjustments to reality.

The tart that wasn’t a gun and didn’t look anything like a gun was a gun. Ignorance is strength. 2 plus 2 equals five. Bad is good.

You’re a teacher.

You’re hired. You’re in.

When you think about it, the school is doing exactly what you want it to, isn’t it?

Secretly, you approve.

I’m not talking about tarts or guns now. I’m talking about that Something you gave in to many years ago. You may not be able to name it, but you know what it is. You worship it every day of your life. You may go to church on Sunday, but this Something is what you really bow down to.

It’s really very mild. It’s pleasing, in a way. It puts you in the driver’s seat, as long as you agree to allow the car to drive itself. It’s more automatic than any gun ever invented. It pings your nervous system and your brain. You receive the signal and you do what’s expected of you. And therefore you fit in. You have your place. And really, it doesn’t matter what particular action or what particular silence is expected of you. It only matters that you go along.

The school issues its edict, and you must follow. The more absurd the edict, the more significant the test. That’s the point. How can the system be checked unless it gives absurd commands?

You understand that crucial point and you concur.

It’s not enough to ring a bell and see a dog drool because he expects to be fed. That’s just step one. Anyone can accomplish that. You need to ring the bell and have the dog drool because he’s been taught the moon is made of cheese or a tart is a gun. Then you really have something.

And this is what you want. You want to feel the security that comes from knowing the system is tight and fully operative from top to bottom. It can make ANY command and people will respond as expected.

Then your worship of obedience is vindicated. You know everyone else is on the same page. There are no leaks. You were right all along.

This is the only way to live life.

Jon Rappoport

The author of an explosive collection, THE MATRIX REVEALED, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29^th District of California. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free emails at www.nomorefakenews.com

Update: a perspective on Facebook shutting down my links

Update: a perspective on Facebook shutting down my links

by Jon Rappoport

February 20, 2013

www.nomorefakenews.com

Our systems are safe and sound. This goes all the way from blog posts to the ordering pages for my products.

The only issue is Facebook shutting down the capacity to post links with “jonrappoport.wordpress.com” in them. We have solved that on our Facebook page by directing people to my site instead, www.nomorefakenews.com

At the site, people will see the list of my recent articles, and they can click on them and move directly to my blog posts. You, too, can direct people to nomorefakenews.com.

How did the limited Facebook censorship occur? It could have been triggered by people making untrue “spam” or “abusive content” reports. These would have been people who couldn’t stand the heat of analysis that was deeper than what they were looking for.

They could have been paid trolls or agents. They could have been people with partisan political views and no understanding of, or loyalty to, the 1^st Amendment.

Or the “Facebook team” might have taken it upon themselves to limit access to my wordpress links, because Facebook is partnered with political players and intelligence agencies, and they decided I was too critical of current government/corporate agendas.

The main thing is my articles continue to go out, and people are reading them. NoMoreFakeNews has grown considerably over the past six months.

I thank you for your support and interest.

If you want to help me and yourself, too, consider ordering my products, which you will find in my store at nomorefakenews. I believe in giving value for value, and over the last 10 years I have been offering all the value I can assemble and report on.

My frequent articles are free to everyone. My products, which explore even deeper layers, are dedicated to exposing every aspect of the Matrix and offering solutions which involve returning to each one of us our power.

When I say power, I mean extraordinary innate creative capacities. It turns out, on analysis, that our civilization and the reality that underpins it are “subnormal.” What each one of us is capable of—as extraordinary as that is—is really a normal state of affairs.

It is just that we have forgotten what we can do.

That is why I started nomorefakenews, and my path and purpose remain the same now. I continue to research individual power and what it means and what it is and how far we can go with it.

I see no limit.

This is the great adventure. It always was.

Changing this world for the better, in all the ways it can be done, also relies on each one of us regaining and expanding our inherent and buried capabilities.

Again, many thanks for your interest and support. It means a great deal to me.

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Back in the day, when I was writing for newspapers and magazines, I had a nagging feeling I was only applying about 5 percent of my energy to it. All in all, it was rather amusing to consider I was making strides in that arena deploying so little of what I could do.

Then I realized what really motivated me was not possible to report on, given the bias and fear of editors. So I quit.

In those days, there was no Internet. If you wanted to “get the word out,” you had to find your own way. In my case, I gave lectures, and a fabulous two-person outfit called She Who Remembers often showed up and taped those talks and turned out audiocassettes.

The tapes worked their way around the US and even into other countries. It was makeshift, and very exciting.

Then, the Internet emerged. It took me a while to leave my, yes, typewriter behind, but I forced myself out of the Stone Age and on to what everybody was then proudly calling The Information Highway.

I took a few test drives and loved it. The idea that I could write a piece and then publish it in a matter of seconds was sheer ecstasy, given that I was used to pitching stories to editors, getting the green light, then writing, then submitting, then waiting, then finally seeing my stories in print weeks or even months later.

Now, a decade later, the old media are dying. They’re gasping for air. Internet technology is always cited as the cause, and of course that’s true, but even more than that, those of us who investigate and report without crippling restraints are covering material that millions of people want to know about.

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One of the two bonuses in THE MATRIX REVEALED is my complete 18-lesson course, LOGIC AND ANALYSIS, which includes the teacher’s manual and a CD to guide you. I was previously selling the course for $375. This is a new way to teach logic, the subject that has been missing from schools for decades.

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Major media refuse to cover what we cover. They are sold out to the point where they simply can’t. That’s what’s really squeezing them. They have no choice. They’re trapped. Exactly what could give them a renaissance of audience interest is what they can’t touch, because their masters won’t allow it.

One of our jobs today is making sure the Internet remains free enough to allow us to keep working and publishing and reaching the global population. Waking up to new realities is not that hard to do now. We just have to keep the channels open.

The other day I wrote and published a piece headlined: “The Ruthless State of the Union: the current crime boss speaks.” That may have been the article that triggered the Facebook Blip. In it, I responded to Obama’s statement that, in order to make progress we all had to work together.

I asked, who is this WE he keeps talking about?

Well, in the case of keeping the Internet free and open, the far more important WE is you, I, and everybody else who accesses online information that trumps old, stale, decaying propaganda reality.

This WE is taking over the news and, at the same time, creating a different world, the one we’ve all been wanting for a long time.

And this is just the beginning.

Jon Rappoport

The author of an explosive collection, THE MATRIX REVEALED, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29^th District of California. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free emails at www.nomorefakenews.com

Facebook blocks Jon Rappoport’s articles

Facebook blocks Jon Rappoport’s articles

by Jon Rappoport

February 17, 2013

www.nomorefakenews.com

I became aware of the block and censorship a few days ago, soon after I wrote and published the article: “Ruthless State of the Union: current crime boss speaks.”

http://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2013/02/13/the-ruthless-state-of-the-union-the-current-crime-boss-speaks/

That article was about Obama, and it was also about every president as far back as Nixon. It mainly described the absurdities implied by Obama’s vague notion that “we all have to work together.”

Readers began letting me know they couldn’t Facebook-share my articles. This became: no one could share any article that included: “jonrappoport.wordpress.com.”

As a reporter for 30 years, I know a little about the 1^st Amendment. Criticizing the president, or the medical cartel, or any number of other institutions I’ve taken on is par for the course. If some Facebook readers are marking these articles spam or abusive, they should think again.

Lots of people these days believe it’s part of the game to try to censor their perceived opponents. “Why debate or even allow a different voice? Let’s just block it out.”

Blocking the FB posting of my article links could also be part of the Facebook management purge of political activists, particularly those who defend the 2^nd Amendment and private gun ownership. This happened to a number of people at infowars.com last December, and it also happened at Natural News.

At the moment, I have a workaround in place, and my site and blog are working just fine, but the basic wider issue of blocking dissident opinion isn’t going away.

Some people have pointed out that Facebook is a private company, and therefore it has the right to define acceptable speech any way it wants to. This may be true, but blocking and censoring political viewpoints is a very bad policy. Claiming, for example, that Facebook is only for making and communicating with friends is a cop-out. If friends can’t share information about political realities, it’s a hollow situation.

Many reporters, including myself, came to the Internet because we were sick and tired of trying to convince editors at newspapers and magazines that our work should see the light of day. Editors routinely shot down (and still do) article ideas that wandered too far off the mainstream reservation.

That was the censorship we were leaving in the dust. Now, here it is again.

Every day, I read articles I don’t like. The idea of somehow censoring them would be absurd.

In this country (and other countries), we have people who believe in and support free speech. Then we have True Believers, whose cause in their minds outdistances any considerations about liberty. They would trample liberty at the drop of a hat to make the world over in their image. Finally, we have organizations who enter into covert political alliances to advance their own interests. These organizations also care nothing about the 1^st Amendment.

Where is Facebook in all of this? Are they just a front for gathering personal information on a billion people? Are they just another wing of the vast surveillance apparatus that is operating from a playbook that wants androids instead of thinking citizens?

It’s time for the bosses at Facebook to step out into the light and explain, in detail, exactly how they block information and on what grounds. How are reports of spam and “abusive content” processed by their algorithms? What is their position on the 1^st Amendment?

Failure to make this clear is evidence of purposeful concealment.

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Perhaps an article I wrote and published last August, “Facebook, the CIA, DARPA, and the tanking IPO,” will help put this situation into perspective:

The big infusion of cash that sent Mark Zuckerberg and his fledgling college enterprise on their way came from Accel Partners, in 2004.

Jim Breyer, head of Accel, attached a $13 million rocket to Facebook, and nothing has ever been the same.

Earlier that same year, a man named Gilman Louie joined the board of the National Venture Capital Association of America (NVCA). The chairman of NVCA? Jim Breyer. Gilman Louie happened to be the first CEO of the important CIA start-up, In-Q-Tel.

In-Q-Tel was founded in 1999, with the express purpose of funding companies that could develop technology the CIA would use to “gather data.”

That’s not the only connection between Jim Breyer and the CIA’s man, Gilman Louie. In 2004, Louie went to work for BBN Technologies, headed up by Breyer. Dr. Anita Jones also joined BBN at that time. Jones had worked for In-Q-Tel and was an adviser to DARPA, the Pentagon’s technology department that helped develop the Internet.

With these CIA/Darpa connections, it’s no surprise that Jim Breyer’s jackpot investment in Facebook is not part of the popular mythology of Mark Zuckerberg. Better to omit it. Who could fail to realize that Facebook, with its endless stream of personal data, and its tracking capability, is an ideal CIA asset?

But now the Facebook stock has tanked. On Friday, August 17, it weighed in at half its initial IPO price. For the first time since the IPO, venture-capital backers were legally permitted to sell off their shares, and some did, at a loss.

Articles have begun appearing that question Zuckerberg’s ability to manage his company. “Experts” are saying he should import a professional team to run the business side of things and step away.

All this, despite the fact that Facebook’s first posted revenue as a public company has exceeded analysts’ predictions, according to the LA Times.

This has the earmarks of classic shakeout and squeeze play. It’s how heavy hitters gain control of a company. First, they drive down the price of the stock, then they trade it at low levels that discourage and demoralize the public and even semi-insiders. As the stock continues to tank, they quietly buy up as much of it as they can. Finally, when the price hits a designated rock bottom, they shoot it up all the way to new highs and win big.

And they hold enough shares to exert more control over the company itself.

That is how Facebook will survive. Zuckerberg’s grip on Facebook will loosen.

The company is too important as a data-mining asset of the intelligence community to let it fall into disrepair and chaos. The CIA and its cutouts will save it and gain more power over it. It’s what they’ve wanted all along.

From the time Mark Zuckerberg was a child and attended the summer camp for “exceptional children,” CTY (Center for Talented Youth), run by Johns Hopkins University, he, like other CTY students, Sergey Brin (co-founder of Google), and Lady Gaga, have been easy to track.

CTY and similar camps filter applications and pick the best and brightest for their accelerated learning programs. Tracing the later progress of these children in school and life would be a standard operation for agencies like the CIA.

When Zuckerberg founded an interesting little social network at Harvard, and then sought to turn it into a business, the data-mining possibilities were obvious to CIA personnel. Through their cutouts, as described above, they stepped in and lent a helping hand.

Now it’s time for Zuckerberg to pass the baton to his handlers, so they can maximize the economics of Facebook and utilize it to spy even more extensively.

The media will play along, pretending the eventual upswing-recovery of Facebook stock happens for fundamental reasons connected to the company’s “better level of performance.” The media take this approach to every stock and every company, to avoid letting the public know how massive manipulation actually runs these trading markets.

End of the August 2012 article.

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People might ask, “Then why, Rappoport, do you use Facebook at all?”

That’s a legitimate question. My answer is simple. Since I began working as a reporter in 1982, I’ve used every possible opportunity and venue to put my information out there.

There’s a big difference between that and overtly supporting all those venues.

When I admire a writer, broadcaster, or organization, I say so, and I have. Even then, that doesn’t mean I have to agree with everything they say or stand for.

That’s a distinction with a meaning. It’s exactly the distinction I’m asking Facebook to clarify: what will they allow, whether they agree with it or not?

Do I expect them to spell it out in sufficient detail? No. But then that means something, too.

None of this will change one iota of what I write or say.

Jon Rappoport

The author of an explosive collection, THE MATRIX REVEALED, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29^th District of California. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free emails at www.nomorefakenews.com

Is Christopher Dorner another psychiatric killer?

Is Christopher Dorner another psychiatric killer?

By Jon Rappoport

February 11, 2013

www.nomorefakenews.com

Accepting on faith any part of the official scenario in this case is risky and ill-advised, but assuming Dorner is guilty of committing murders, his highly publicized manifesto may hold a clue.

Buried in the text, here is one of his statements. As usual, the major media are ignoring it completely:

“If possible, I want my brain preserved for science/research to study the effects of severe depression on an individual’s brain. Since 6/26/08 when I was relieved of duty and 1/2/09 when I was terminated I have been afflicted with severe depression. I’ve had two CT scans during my lifetime that are in my medical record at Kaiser Pemanente. Both are from concussions resulting from playing football. The first was in high school, 10/96. The second was in college and occurred in 10/99. Both were conducted at Kaiser Permanente hospitals in LA/Orange County. These two CT scans should give a good baseline for my brain activity before severe depression began in late 2008.”

So the question is, did Dorner ever see a doctor for his depression? Was he diagnosed? Was he given one of the SSRI antidepressants (Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, etc.)?

Either taking one of these drugs or withdrawing from it can and does cause violent behavior, including suicide and homicide. This is well established from both reports and studies. (See the extensive reports at ssristories.com, and consult the work of Dr. Peter Breggin at www.breggin.com and Dr. David Healy at www.davidhealy.org.)

No doubt, the LAPD and other investigating agencies know a great deal about Christopher Dorner’s medical history, but they aren’t saying anything. This suggests the situation in both the Aurora and Sandy Hook massacres, where no public statements have been made about psychiatric drugs the accused shooters were prescribed.

In Dorner’s case, his possible psychiatric history doesn’t affect the veracity of his accusations against the LAPD—which is a separate matter for independent investigation—but it certainly is relevant to his actions.

If Dorner indeed has killed people as part of a plan to enact revenge on his former employers, those actions and that plan could be fueled by antidepressant use or withdrawal.

In 1999, shortly after the Columbine school massacre, I interviewed Dr. Peter Breggin, and he confirmed that an antidepressant like Luvox, which one of the shooters, Eric Harris, had been taking can stimulate the desire to “make grandiose plans for mass destruction.”

Contrary to pronouncements by psychiatrists and pharmaceutical companies, the whole theory about depression stemming from an imbalance of serotonin in the brain is an unproven hypothesis. And the antidepressant drugs, claimed to selectively target serotonin levels, actually have wildly unpredictable effects on brain neurotransmitters.

CT scans and other brain-imagining technology do not reveal definitive changes that can be attributed to the onset of depression or any other so-called mental disorder. The whole “science” of psychiatric diagnosis, as I’ve demonstrated in several articles, is nothing more than supposition and pseudo-analysis.

But if Dorner sought medical or psychiatric help for what he called “severe depression,” it’s almost certain he would have been diagnosed and prescribed one of the highly dangerous drugs that can cause a brainstorm and ensuing violence.

It is exactly this volatile situation that President Obama and other gun-control advocates are encouraging and implementing through their new program of expanding mental-health services across America: more treatment, more drugs, more murders.

Dorner’s stated history of concussions could also play a role in his actions, even years after the fact—-just as dosing with antidepressants can result in violence long after a person has stopped taking them.

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As I’ve written before, every time a mass shooting occurs, pharmaceutical companies make their presence known behind the scenes, with the goals of covering up the shooter’s psychiatric-drug history, blacking out the name of the doctor who prescribed the drugs, and keeping media exposure to a bare minimum.

On their part, the police and other investigating agencies cooperate in full, because they don’t want to tangle with the psychiatric profession. They use psychiatric experts in court to make their cases. They don’t have the professional clout to counter medical claims that the drugs are safe and effective. And the role of psychiatric drugs in committed murders would only serve to let suspects off the hook.

If there is a psychiatrist who prescribed SSRI antidepressants to Christopher Dorner (just as with James Holmes and Adam Lanza), he’s keeping very quiet. The last thing he wants is exposure as the doctor who treated a killer.

Meanwhile, in court cases all over America, the plea of non-guilty by reason of insanity is being used as a cover for: committed murder because he was prescribed psychiatric drugs. Christopher Dorner may well be one of these cases.

Jon Rappoport

The author of an explosive collection, THE MATRIX REVEALED, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29^th District of California. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free emails at www.nomorefakenews.com

Having trouble getting on my email list?

Having trouble getting on this email list?

Hi, it’s Jon. A few of you have tried to get on the free email list and run into that little thingo where you have to type in letters that are distorted, to prove you aren’t an alien from Andromeda.

Turns out that security feature, called CAPTCHA, automatically kicks in when a lot of people are signing up. A lot of people are signing up these days.

I’ve talked to Constant Contact about it and they’re aware some people have a problem with it. I’ve had problems with it when I run into it.

So here’s a solution. After giving it a good try (and please give it a good try), if you can’t get by it, just email qjrconsulting at gmail dot com, and someone will put you on the list right away.

We won’t do anything else with your email address. We’ll just get you on the list, so you can receive my articles in your Inbox.

Thanks, and sorry for any inconvenience you may have experienced.

Jon

HELLO? OBAMA PHONES DON’T EXIST, BUT THE DISINFO HELPS HIM

 

HELLO? OBAMA DIDN’T GIVE YOU YOUR CELL PHONE

(IN CASE THAT’S WHY YOU’RE VOTING FOR HIM)

 

by Jon Rappoport

September 29, 2012

www.nomorefakenews.com

 

Maybe somebody inside Obama’s re-election campaign is spreading disinfo about the president giving away free cell phones, but if so, it isn’t true.

 

Poor people aren’t getting free phones or discounted service fees from the Obama administration.

 

People voting for Obama because they have a free cell phone are way off. They should try voting instead for a giant telecom company—only that company isn’t running for president.

 

Since 1997, people below the poverty line have been getting discounted phone service, because big telecom companies have been making it possible, by charging everybody else a few bucks extra on their monthly phone bills. That’s how it works.

 

The basic program is called Lifeline, a branch of a non-profit company, Universal Service Administrative Company, set up by the FCC in 1997, as part of the 1996 Telecommunications Act passed by Congress. That’s how the poor get discounted phone bills.

 

The Constitutionality of the federal government setting up a non-profit company is another story for another time. Suffice it to say, it should be illegal.

 

Free cell phones for the poor come from SafeLink which, according to FactCheck.org, is operated by America Movil, a giant wireless company. SafeLink, however, is paid for by that non-profit the FCC set up, Universal Service Administrative Company, which in turn gets its money from the big telecoms, who charge everybody who isn’t poor a few extra bucks on their phone bills. Got it?

 

Nothing to do with Obama. There is no Obama Phone.

 

But what a windfall for the Obama campaign when poor people believe the president gave them their phones. In Ohio alone, a key election state, there are now a million people who have some kind of discounted phone service.

 

Are government-funded community groups and community organizers out there, across America, recruiting poor people and telling them they can get Obama Phones? There are now 16.5 million people in the US receiving discounted phone services. Between 20 and 30 million Americans are eligible. That’s quite a nice election-vote bump.

 

“Obama re-elected! It was the phones, pollsters say.”

 

Jon Rappoport

The author of an explosive collection, THE MATRIX REVEALED, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29^th District of California. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world.

www.nomorefakenews.com

PROZAC? ZOLOFT? PAXIL? DID ONE OF THESE DRUGS DRIVE THE EMPIRE STATE SHOOTER?

 

PROZAC? ZOLOFT? PAXIL? LEXAPRO? DID ONE OF THESE DRUGS DRIVE THE EMPIRE STATE SHOOTER TO COMMIT MURDER?

By Jon Rappoport

August 25, 2012

www.nomorefakenews.com

Jeffrey Johnson, a disgruntled ex-employee of a Manhattan company, Hazan Imports, is accused of killing a former co-worker before engaging police in a shootout that left two people dead and nine wounded at the Empire State Building.

In assessing possible reasons for the attack, police and FBI will omit one glaring possibility: Johnson’s festering resentment was ignited and driven over the edge by an SSRI antidepressant: Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, etc.

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On September 14, 1989, in Louisville, Kentucky, another disgruntled ex-employee, Joseph T Wesbecker, entered the premises of his former company, Standard Gravure, killed eight people, and wounded 12. He then killed himself.

A month earlier, Wesbecker had started on a course of Prozac. Eventually, the people he wounded, and families of the deceased, filed a lawsuit against Eli Lilly, the maker of Prozac, claiming that the drug had pushed Wesbecker into murder.

At the time, Lilly was facing a number of potential lawsuits on this very issue, and the Wesbecker case was crucial to establishing a precedent. Lilly knew Prozac could induce violence. If they lost the Wesbecker case, they would face a flood of similar court actions and a loss of business and reputation.

An instructive article, “Protecting Prozac,” by Michael Grinfeld, in the December 1998 California Lawyer, describes the astonishing Wesbecker trial.

Grinfeld details a set of maneuvers involving attorney Paul Smith, the plaintiffs’ lead counsel.

After what many people thought was a very weak attack on Lilly by lawyer Smith, the jury came back in five hours with an easy verdict favoring Lilly and Prozac.

Grinfeld writes, “Lilly’s defense attorneys predicted [their victorious] verdict would be the death knell for [anti-]Prozac litigation.”

“Rumors began to circulate that [prior to the trial] attorney Smith had [illegally] made several oral agreements with Lilly concerning the evidence that would be presented, the structure of a postverdict settlement, and the potential resolution of Smith’s other [anti-Prozac] cases.”

In other words, the rumors said: This lawyer made a deal with Lilly to present a weak attack, to omit evidence damaging to Prozac, so that the jury would find Lilly innocent of all charges. In return for this, the case would be settled secretly, with Lilly paying out monies to Smith’s clients. In this way, Lilly would avoid the exposure of a public settlement, and through the favorable verdict would discourage other potential plaintiffs from suing over Prozac.

The rumors congealed. The judge in the case, John Potter, asked lawyers on both sides if “money had changed hands.” He wanted to know if the fix was in. The lawyers said no money had been paid.

Judge Potter didn’t stop there. In April 1995, Grinfeld notes, “In court papers, Potter wrote that he was surprised that the plaintiffs’ attorneys [Smith] hadn’t introduced evidence that Lilly had been charged criminally for failing to report deaths from another of its drugs to the Food and Drug Administration.”

Judge Potter alleged that “Lilly sought to buy not just the verdict, but the court’s judgment as well.”

In 1996, the Kentucky Supreme Court issued an opinion on all this: “… there was a serious lack of candor with the trial court and there may have been deception, bad faith conduct, abuse of the judicial process or perhaps even fraud.”

After the Supreme Court remanded the case back to the state attorney general’s office, the whole matter dribbled away, and then resurfaced in a different form, in another venue. Finally, the original judgment in the case was allowed to stand. Lilly had won the battle.

It’s important to note that the violence-inducing effects of Prozac apply, as well, to the other SSRI antidepressants, such as Zoloft, Paxil, Luvox, and Lexapro.

After commenting on some of the adverse effects of the antidepressant drug Prozac, psychiatrist Peter Breggin notes, “From the initial studies, it was also apparent that a small percentage of Prozac patients became psychotic.”

Prozac, in fact, endured a rocky road in the press for a time. Stories on it rarely appear now. The major media have backed off. But on February 7th, 1991, Amy Marcus’ Wall Street Journal article on the drug carried the headline, “Murder Trials Introduce Prozac Defense.” She wrote, “A spate of murder trials in which defendants claim they became violent when they took the antidepressant Prozac are imposing new problems for the drug’s maker, Eli Lilly and Co.”

Also on February 7, 1991, the New York Times ran a Prozac piece headlined, “Suicidal Behavior Tied Again to Drug: Does Antidepressant Prompt Violence?”

In his landmark book, Toxic Psychiatry, Dr. Breggin mentions that the Donahue show (Feb. 28, 1991) “put together a group of individuals who had become compulsively self-destructive and murderous after taking Prozac and the clamorous telephone and audience response confirmed the problem.”

Breggin also cites a troubling study from the February 1990 American Journal of Psychiatry (Teicher et al, v.147:207-210) which reports on “six depressed patients, previously free of recent suicidal ideation, who developed `intense, violent suicidal preoccupations after 2-7 weeks of fluoxetine [Prozac] treatment.’ The suicidal preoccupations lasted from three days to three months after termination of the treatment. The report estimates that 3.5 percent of Prozac users were at risk. While denying the validity of the study, Dista Products, a division of Eli Lilly, put out a brochure for doctors dated August 31, 1990, stating that it was adding `suicidal ideation’ to the adverse events section of its Prozac product information.”

An earlier study, from the September 1989 Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, by Joseph Lipiniski, Jr., indicates that in five examined cases, people on Prozac developed what is called akathisia. Symptoms include intense anxiety, inability to sleep, the “jerking of extremities,” and “bicycling in bed or just turning around and around.”

Breggin comments that akathisia “may also contribute to the drug’s tendency to cause self-destructive or violent tendencies … Akathisia can become the equivalent of biochemical torture and could possibly tip someone over the edge into self-destructive or violent behavior … The June 1990 Health Newsletter, produced by the Public Citizen Research Group, reports, ‘Akathisia, or symptoms of restlessness, constant pacing, and purposeless movements of the feet and legs, may occur in 10-25 percent of patients on Prozac.’”

Akathisia can also occur after taking a non-SSRI antidepressant, Wellbutrin.

California Lawyer magazine, in its December 1998 article, “Protecting Prozac,” mentions highly qualified critics of Prozac: “David Healy, MD, an internationally renowned psychopharmacologist, has stated in sworn deposition that `contrary to Lilly’s view, there is a plausible cause-and-effect relationship between Prozac’ and suicidal-homicidal events. An epidemiological study published in 1995 by the British Medical Journal also links Prozac to increased suicide risk.”

There are other studies: “Emergence of self-destructive phenomena in children and adolescents during fluoxetine [Prozac] treatment,” published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (1991, vol.30), written by RA King, RA Riddle, et al. It reports self-destructive phenomena in 14% (6/42) of children and adolescents (10-17 years old) who had treatment with Prozac for obsessive-compulsive disorder.

July, 1991. Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Hisako Koizumi, MD, describes a thirteen-year-old boy who was on Prozac: “full of energy,” “hyperactive,” “clown-like.” All this devolved into sudden violent actions which were “totally unlike him.”

September, 1991. The Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Author Laurence Jerome reports the case of a ten-year old who moves with his family to a new location. Becoming depressed, the boy is put on Prozac by a doctor. The boy is then “hyperactive, agitated … irritable.” He makes a “somewhat grandiose assessment of his own abilities.” Then he calls a stranger on the phone and says he is going to kill him. The Prozac is stopped, and the symptoms disappear.

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In the current case of the Empire State shooter, why don’t police and district attorneys immediately check on the accused’s psychiatric-drug status? Why isn’t that right at the top of the list?

Because, in a crime of murder, how many cops and prosecutors want to go to war with “psychiatric experts” and drug companies?

As time passes, fewer and fewer.

It may appear that the days of accusing psychiatric drugs of inducing murder are over, because “we have better knowledge now,” or “the newer drugs are safer.” That’s what the drug companies would like you to assume. But the truth is, the drugs are just as dangerous. The law-enforcement community has decided to take a pass, though. They would rather keep blinders on.

However, the configuration and unfolding of the James Holmes case in Aurora is going to ignite new fires, despite the police and FBI wanting to leave the lid on.

Warning: Sudden withdrawal from any psychiatric drug can be highly dangerous to the patient. See www.breggin.com for advice on this subject.

Jon Rappoport

The author of an explosive collection, THE MATRIX REVEALED, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29^th District of California. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world.

www.nomorefakenews.com

FACEBOOK, THE CIA, DARPA, AND THE TANKING IPO

 

FACEBOOK, THE CIA, DARPA, AND THE TANKING IPO

By Jon Rappoport

August 20, 2012

www.nomorefakenews.com

 

The big infusion of cash that sent Mark Zuckerberg and his fledgling college enterprise on their way came from Accel Partners, in 2004.

 

Jim Breyer, head of Accel, attached a $13 million rocket to Facebook, and nothing has ever been the same.

 

Earlier that same year, a man named Gilman Louie joined the board of the National Venture Capital Association of America (NVCA). The chairman of NVCA? Jim Breyer. Gilman Louie happened to be the first CEO of the important CIA start-up, In-Q-Tel.

 

In-Q-Tel was founded in 1999, with the express purpose of funding companies that could develop technology the CIA would use to “gather data.”

 

That’s not the only connection between Jim Breyer and the CIA’s man, Gilman Louie. In 2004, Louie went to work for BBN Technologies, headed up by Breyer. Dr. Anita Jones also joined BBN at that time. Jones had worked for In-Q-Tel and was an adviser to DARPA, the Pentagon’s technology department that helped develop the Internet.

 

With these CIA/Darpa connections, it’s no surprise that Jim Breyer’s jackpot investment in Facebook is not part of the popular mythology of Mark Zuckerberg. Better to omit it. Who could fail to realize that Facebook, with its endless stream of personal data, and its tracking capability, is an ideal CIA asset?

 

But now the Facebook stock has tanked. On Friday, August 17, it weighed in at half its initial IPO price. For the first time since the IPO, venture-capital backers were legally permitted to sell off their shares, and some did, at a loss.

 

Articles have begun appearing that question Zuckerberg’s ability to manage his company. “Experts” are saying he should import a professional team to run the business side of things and step away.

 

All this, despite the fact that Facebook’s first posted revenue as a public company has exceeded analysts’ predictions, according to the LA Times.

 

This has the earmarks of classic shakeout and squeeze play. It’s how heavy hitters gain control of a company. First, they drive down the price of the stock, then they trade it at low levels that discourage and demoralize the public and even semi-insiders. As the stock continues to tank, they quietly buy up as much of it as they can. Finally, when the price hits a designated rock bottom, they shoot it up all the way to new highs and win big.

 

And they hold enough shares to exert more control over the company itself.

 

That is how Facebook will survive. Zuckerberg’s grip on Facebook will loosen.

 

The company is too important as a data-mining asset of the intelligence community to let it fall into disrepair and chaos. The CIA and its cutouts will save it and gain more power over it. It’s what they’ve wanted all along.

 

From the time Mark Zuckerberg was a child and attended the summer camp for “exceptional children,” CTY (Center for Talented Youth), run by Johns Hopkins University, he, like other CTY students, Sergey Brin (co-founder of Google), and Lady Gaga, have been easy to track.

 

CTY and similar camps filter applications and pick the best and brightest for their accelerated learning programs. Tracing the later progress of these children in school and life would be a standard operation for agencies like the CIA.

 

When Zuckerberg founded an interesting little social network at Harvard, and then sought to turn it into a business, the data-mining possibilities were obvious to CIA personnel. Through their cutouts, as described above, they stepped in and lent a helping hand.

 

Now it’s time for Zuckerberg to pass the baton to his handlers, so they can maximize the economics of Facebook and utilize it to spy even more extensively.

 

The media will play along, pretending the eventual upswing-recovery of Facebook stock happens for fundamental reasons connected to the company’s “better level of performance.” The media take this approach to every stock and every company, to avoid letting the public know how massive manipulation actually runs these trading markets.

 

Sources:

 

http://www.crunchbase.com/person/jim-breyer

 

http://www.investigatemagazine.co.nz/Investigate/?p=1601

 

Jon Rappoport

The author of an explosive collection, THE MATRIX REVEALED, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29^th District of California. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world.

www.nomorefakenews.com

MARTIAL LAW SHAKES HANDS WITH THE U.S. VACCINE PROGRAM

MARTIAL LAW SHAKES HANDS WITH THE U.S. VACCINE PROGRAM

by Jon Rappoport

August 1, 2012

www.nomorefakenews.com

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UPDATE: To hear Jon talk about the issues raised in this article, click here.

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Who knew the Pentagon had muscled into the US vaccine program?

DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) has been doing research on vaccine production. They’ve found a way to produce flu vaccines a lot faster than Big Pharma.

DARPA Effort Speeds Biothreat Response (Nov. 2, 2010, by Cheryl Pellerin, American Forces Press Service)

http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=61520

DARPA’s Blue Angel – Pentagon prepares millions of vaccines against future global flu (28 July, 2012, RT.com)

http://rt.com/usa/news/future-vaccine-darpa-research-255/

Utilizing vaccines grown on tobacco cells, instead of the traditional chicken eggs, DARPA has turned out a staggering 10 million doses of flu vaccine in just one month.

This “Blue Angel” project, as it’s called, suddenly puts the Pentagon in the forefront of the vaccine business. The big question is: why is the Army involved in vaccines at all? And the answer is no surprise. According to DARPA, it’s all about readiness in containing bio-threats. Translated, that means terrorist attacks that could use flu viruses.

This is a sinister development. It creates a potential scenario in which the military can invent the “bio-threat” and then step in and provide the solution. It doesn’t really matter whether the bio-threat is real or imaginary.

The threat would offer the chance to initiate a martial-law scenario, after which the military vaccine would be made mandatory, destroying the right of each state in the union to permit, as is now the case, people to opt out of vaccination on religious, medical, or ethical grounds.

The Pentagon is famous for developing weapons and then lobbying for battlefield opportunities to use them. This is part and parcel of their “war is forever” mentality. Well, in this case, the vaccine becomes the defensive weapon, and you can be sure the Pentagon will strive to deploy it in a situation that “demands it”—a chilling prospect.

Several medical issues arise as well. First, what safety tests have been done to ensure that tobacco viruses don’t enter these DARPA vaccines through lab contamination, thereby finding their way into the human bloodstream, via injection, and causing uncharted health problems? No word about that, just as there was no word, historically, about various Pentagon weapons systems that later proved to be dangerous to the soldiers using them (e.g, the Bradley Fighting Vehicle).

Hidden in the story about the new means of vaccine production: the employment of a synthetic construction that is supposed to mimic the human immune system. To test the ability of the tobacco-vaccines to induce a “robust immune response,” this new chemical lab-version of an immune system becomes the guinea pig. But there is no proof that such an artifact works or is translatable to actual processes of the human body.

Finally, DARPA states that the vaccine it just produced contains aluminum. Toxicity for humans is thus guaranteed.

In the hands of the Pentagon, what could possibly go wrong with this Blue Angel program? Everything.

In case we need to review the most recent “epidemic” advertised by the CDC and the World Health Organization (WHO), it killed, by the most generous estimates, 20,000 people worldwide. Despite being labeled a catastrophic level-6 pandemic, the H1N1 Swine Flu turned out to be a comparative dud. WHO states that, every year, seasonal non-pandemic flu kills between 250,000 and 500,000 people.

The CDC and WHO relentlessly promoted Swine Flu as a monster menace that could invade and decimate the planet. Therefore, everyone needed to step up and take the vaccine. These civilian agencies are mere pikers compared to the Pentagon. Can you imagine what the Dept. of Defense would promote and launch to guarantee their vaccine finds a place in your bloodstream? The DOD regularly makes conflict of interest into an art form.

Martial law? No problem.

Jon Rappoport

The author of an explosive collection, THE MATRIX REVEALED, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29^th District of California. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world.

www.nomorefakenews.com

qjrconsulting@gmail.com

FUKUSHIMA IN THE NUCLEAR AGE

 

FUKUSHIMA IN THE NUCLEAR AGE

 

By Jon Rappoport

April 7, 2012

www.nomorefakenews.com

 

Before I launch into this subject, I want to point out something about alternatives to nuclear, something that has been laughed off and passed off as absurd for many decades now. It’s all wrapped up in a defunct project called Passamaquoddy, in Maine, and it involves tidal power—the ability of changing tides to turn turbines for power—instead of using radioactive substances to produce steam that turns these turbines.

 

A tireless researcher named Andrea Silverthorne has pursued a deeper understanding of Passamaquoddy, and its connection to JFK, for a long time. You can find her article on it at:

www.dreamofpassamaquoddy.com

 

Michael Collins at EnviroReporter.com measured radiation levels in Santa Monica, CA, a few days ago and found, in mist samples, a 500% escalation above what is considered normal—as a result of the drift from Fukushima.

 

He also states that, at the San Onofre nuclear power plant, a few miles up the freeway from where we live in San Diego, there is a problem. The facility has been shut down for two months, after radioactive steam escaped through a leak in a tube.

 

According to Collins, many tubes there show signs of wear, and the officials at San Onofre have been ordered to fix them—but some of the tubes are new. They have been shaking and rubbing against each other and against other structures. No one is sure why. New equipment from Mitsubishi was recently installed at the plant—and the basic position of the officials at San Onofre was: we don’t need detailed inspection; we’re simply replacing the old with the new and there are no important changes being made. Collins states this is untrue. One change, among several, has been an alteration in the rate of water flow through the tubes.

 

Everything I’ve said so far in this article is nothing compared with what is going on in Japan at Fukushima. Nothing. For example, ABC News is now reporting a new leak of 12 tons of radioactive water from the nuclear plant.

 

What I’m hearing from Collins and others: one of the Fukushima buildings (unit #4) has a second floor where a pool of water containing many uranium rods is in danger of drying out or collapsing. And if that happens, we are looking at a global catastrophe the likes of which we’ve never seen.

 

This is way beyond “a sobering thought.”

 

Assuming this scenario is accurate, we are hearing, reading, and seeing virtually nothing about it via major media.

 

There are no easy fixes. To tackle the delicate job of repair on Fukushima unit 4 or the transport of its dangerous materials away from the site…I have not yet heard any straight-ahead solutions that are being touted enthusiastically. There has been some buttressing construction work on the second floor at unit 4; I don’t know how successful it will be, over the short or long term.

 

According to Collins, the company that runs Fukushima, TEPCO, is working their people five days a week, and they go home on the weekends, as if it’s business as usual.

 

He finds no evidence that a herculean effort is being made to solve the unit 4 problem.

 

(I’m fully aware, by the way, that environmental disasters can be used as a pretext for “clamping down tighter on the population.” I know all about this. I know about these ops.)

 

But if what is happening at Fukushima is as massive as I’m hearing it is, then finding the best way to fix it, if it can be fixed, is not only urgent, it’s imperative—without any gestures toward martial law or other criminal operations. There are still aftershocks from the earthquake in Japan (or some say the earthquake is really continuing), and this could be what brings down all that water and those fuel rods.

 

In addition to what I’ve mentioned and sketched about the situation at Fukushima, there are 4000 tons of radioactive waste stored there. This is not unusual, because where are they going to put it?

 

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A member of the Union of Concerned Scientists has sent me the following email:

 

“In 1997, Brookhaven [National Laboratory] released the attached report on spent fuel pool accidents at US reactors.

 

“Tables 4.1 and 4.2 summarize the results for PWRs and BWRs, respectively. Fukushima Unit 4 is a BWR.

 

“Table 4.2 Case 1H reported 138,000 latent cancer deaths out to 500 miles, 2,170 square miles of condemned land, and a total cost of $546 billion.

 

“But Unit 4 [at Fukushima] did not have a full pool, as do most US BWRs.

 

“Instead, Unit 4 essentially had only the last core in the spent fuel pool, which is Case 2H.

 

“‘Only’ 86,400 latent cancer deaths with a total cost of ‘only’ $234 billion.

 

End email.

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I have read estimates of death and damage that are much more severe and much less severe. Naturally, a great deal revolves around how you project numbers of future cancer cases.

 

Now, here is a comment emailed to me by Dr. Helen Caldicott, who has been a passionate and outspoken opponent of nuclear power for many years. Dr. Caldicott voices warnings and predictions that some have called far too extreme. For others, she is one of the central heroes in the struggle for a safer world.

 

“Jon, yes it [unit 4 at Fukushima] has over 1000 fresh fuel rods straight out of the no 4 reactor and the building is fragile because of the earthquake, if there was another quake and the building collapsed the Japanese government is saying that Tokyo would have to be evacuated – 30 million people, and the rest of the northern hemisphere would be seriously impaired. Already Fukushima is 2.5 to 3 times worse in releases than Chernobyl and the NY Academy of Science report indicates that over one million have died in the first 25 years post Chernobyl!”

 

If you want a completely opposite view, you can visit Rod Adams, a pro-nuclear-power advocate, at Atomic Insights. Rod has written extensively, defending nuclear power plants, and in his view the dangers from leaks have been grossly overstated.

 

Again, one key lies in how you predict and project cancer as a result of radioactive emissions. In the past, I’ve interviewed people who stand on both sides of the question. Their assessments are miles apart.

 

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Finally, here is an article from iicph.org, the International Institute of Concern for Public Health, by Willi Nolan: “Fatal Flaws: Unsolved Problems of Nuclear Reactors.”

 

December 1, 2011

Since the catastrophic accident at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant, independent investigations of safety issues are revealing more and more little-known facts about the unsolved dangers inherent to virtually all nuclear power plants in the world.

In Canada, Dr. Michel Duguay, of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering studies at Laval University, joined with public interest groups to share troubling scientific facts about problems that are intrinsic to all CANDU reactors. Duguay cites reports from staff at the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) about a design flaw in CANDU nuclear reactor cooling systems, which can, with loss of pressure while in operation, cause a chain of events to commence, including explosions on the scale experienced in Japan, Chernobyl and Three Mile Island.

Historical investigations have also revealed that the vast majority of nuclear reactors everywhere are operating with another fatal design flaw … the radioactive fuel is encased in a zirconium metal alloy.

Zirconium becomes explosive when in contact with air or steam. One of the potential causes of the generation of the highly explosive hydrogen gas during a nuclear power plant accident comes from the reaction of steam with the zirconium-alloy metal in reactor fuel delivery systems.

This concern was raised at least as early as 1975 by Dr. Earl A. Gulbransen ( 1909-1992), a professor in the Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh. Despite this evidence, all CANDU reactors still use fuel delivery systems that contain zirconium alloy. Fuel rods containing pellets of uranium fuel for CANDUs are assembled into “bundles” or cylinders or tubes which are inserted into the reactor’s calandria vessel. Both the fuel rods and bundles are made of “zircaloy” an alloy composed mainly of zirconium.

A “calandria tube” containing insulating CO₂ gas (carbon dioxide) surrounds each fuel bundle for delivery into the reactor’s calandria vessel while a cooling system dissipates the heat to prevent hot particles from becoming overheated and causing the reactor to go critical, which could result in reactor meltdown. The CANDU is designed so that failed or leaking zirconium fuel bundles can be located and removed from the reactor core while in operation and reduce radiation fields in the primary operating systems.

However, because zirconium explodes when in contact with hydrogen (air), fuel bundles are always kept covered with water. As has already happened at Fukushima and Three Mile Island, loss of water from pools of “spent” radioactive fuel leads to spontaneous ignition of the zirconium alloy cladding. In response, explosions of hydrogen gas from the surrounding air, damage to fuel assemblies, release of radioactive materials, reactor criticality leading to a potential meltdown can follow. All CANDU installations in Canada store used fuel bundles on site.

In 1979, a list of nuclear plants around the world published the fact that almost all Light Water Reactors (LWR) are also affected by this flaw. The same source indicates that 85% of the nuclear power plants in the world are affected by this design flaw.

“Earl A. Gulbransen: One of the potential causes of the generation of highly explosive hydrogen gas during a nuclear power plant accident comes from the reaction of steam with the zirconium-alloy metal cladding (or tubing) of the fuel rods that hold the uranium fuel pellets.”

Managing waste fuel bundles presents yet another set of problems. According to a November 2008 study by Gordon R. Thompson of the Institute for Resource and Security Studies, there are no published studies on the potential for an accidental release of radioactive material from spent fuel stored at a nuclear power plant employing a CANDU reactor.

In October 2011, plant operators at Point Lepreau, New Brunswick, announced the installation of a passive hydrogen capture system to prevent possible hydrogen explosions in the reactor. No such measures were announced for its waste management facility. It is noteworthy that, because operators are relying on simulations to test potential for explosions, there is no way to obtain certainty about either the safety of this measure in real life situations, or the validity of software simulations under changing conditions, such as life extension projects for aging reactors.

Until Fukushima, science has not focused adequately on worst-case nuclear accident scenarios. There is no agreement on what exactly can or has or will happen in nuclear accidents or on the plans of action needed to protect populations from harm. Many hydrogen explosions have been reported at Fukushima; there is at least some growing consensus that loss of containment of used and unused reactor fuel assemblies are the cause of at least some of these explosions.

Governments regulators on both sides of the U.S.-Canada border, although mandated to protect public health and the environment, are under fire for rubber stamping operator licenses and not paying enough attention to ensure that regulations to avoid severe accidents are enforced. Although the U.S. National Academy of Sciences has determined that there is no safe level of exposure to ionizing radiation, regulators have in fact increased allowable levels of radiation for workers and the public while minimizing actual risks to health and safety. IICPH continues to note that independent medical opinion is missing from regulatory oversight of nuclear plant licence applications.

The states of New York and Vermont have both won successful rulings in lawsuits against the Nuclear Safety Commission (NRC) and reactor operator Entergy. These historic legal precedents demonstrate that the NRC violated regulations by allowing the nuclear plants to continue to operate without requiring complete assessments for environmental protection and safety in the case of severe accidents.

It is time for nuclear operators, proponents and the industry itself to admit that, whether through “acceptable” or accidental releases and exposure to the public or measures to mitigate severe harm and widespread damage, nuclear power plants will never guarantee public safety or complete control of radioactive materials.

Perhaps it is some comfort that, at the inception of the age of nuclear power, they were only designed to last forty years. That time has passed. Humanity must now learn wise use of energy. Conservation and efficiency must replace the practice of wasting precious energy resources. Economies and industries based on dirty energy generation must be replaced.

Fortunately, this trend has already begun, with strategies that combine wise energy use with renewable resources. We hope that it is not too late to alter our individual and collective ecological footprints to ensure the survival and well being of humanity.

End article.

 

Jon Rappoport

Jon Rappoport has worked as an independent investigative reporter since 1982. The LA Weekly nominated him for a Pulitzer Prize, for a interview he did with the president of El Salvador University, where the military had taken over the campus and was disappearing students and burning books. He has written for In These Times, Village Voice, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, CBS Healthwatch, Stern. He is the author of a new collection, THE MATRIX REVEALED, and the co-author, with Robert Scott Bell, of a new ten-hour audio seminar, VACCINES, ARMED AND DANGEROUS. His work can be found at www.nomorefakenews.com