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There is a place in the United States, almost half-a-mile underground, in a salt mine, where radioactive waste leftover from the production of tens of thousands of nuclear bombs was to be held separate from all contact with humanity for 10,000 years, equivalent to the entire history of civilization. This separation of civilization from the byproduct of its folly had lasted one-tenth of one percent of that immense time when on Valentine’s Day, three years ago, an explosion sent the deadly contamination back to the world of humans.

It shouldn’t have been a surprise because there were already two other failed geological repositories for nuclear waste, both in Germany and designed for civilian not military waste, that have also leaked within a short time of operation. But despite the signs of potential failure the United States in an leap of technological faith spent billions to hollow out a salt cavern in south eastern New Mexico, near the small town of Carlsbad, not far from the Texas border called the Waste Isolation pilot Plant or WIPP.

That faith wasn’t justified as events unfolded.

Supposedly safe for storage for 10,000 years, WIPP's nuke waste repository failed catastrophically in just three years
 

What happened on August 14, 2014 was that at least one of 683 barrels, about three feet tall and a little under two feet in diameter each and filled with plutonium contaminated waste burst into flames contaminating 8000 feet of tunnels and 22 workers who were either on the surface or arrived at the scene soon afterward.

The still unfinished clean up has cost taxpayers $2 billion since then.

Over the past few weeks since Trump’s election victory, a dangerous campaign has begun — initiated by the Democratic Party leaders and Hillary Clinton campaign hacks who lost this election by corruptly denying the nomination to Bernie Sanders (who would have defeated Trump handily), and backed by Obama-appointed leaders in the CIA and other intel agencies. This campaign seeks to shift blame for Trump’s win from the Party establishment onto independent online news sites, which these corrupted losers claim (on the basis on no evidence) acted in support of an alleged vast Russian conspiracy to subvert the US election.

Thanks to corporate media — itself also culpable for the Clinton nomination and the Trump victory — happy to promote this same fraudulent conspiracy theory of “false news” and of an internet filled with news sites allegedly working hand-in-glove with Russian propagandists, we’ve now seen Congress pass, and President Obama sign into law (over the holiday weekend) a new Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act. This act sets up a new commission tasked with ferreting out so-called “false news” and “propaganda sites,” which, acting as a revivified House Un-American Activities Committee, will precipitate a new McCarthy era once Trump and the Republicans take over Washington. The basis for this new McCarthyism will be a list published by an anonymous website, PropOrNot, elevated to authoritative status by the Washington Post — a list that includes as alleged propaganda organs such important independent news organizations as TruthDig, Consortium News, Truthout, Counterpunch, Antiwar.com, etc.

While our site, ThisCantBeHappening!, was not on this list, one of our articles, published Sept. 29, and republished on Counterpunch, was cited as a justification for including Counterpunch on the enemies list or propaganda sites. The article’s “crime”: honestly reporting that the report released a day earlier by a Dutch agency investigating the 2013 shoot-down of a Malaysian jumbo jet was a biased probe that only looked at evidence provided by Ukrainian intelligence and military sources, rejecting evidence offered by Russia, and not even asking for US satellite imagery and NSA telecom and internet monitoring evidence. That article, by TCBH! founder Dave Lindorff, despite being based entirely upon the report itself and western news reports, was labeled “absurdly pro-Russian propaganda” by PropOrNot’s “analysts.”

These are clearly dangerous times we are heading into. Now more than ever, independent sources of honest news are going to be critically important. Please contribute whatever you can to support our work to keep providng you with that news.

To make a (non tax-deductible) donation of support please go to our home page and use the convenient Paypal button at the top right corner of the home page. Or if you prefer, send cash or a check made out to: David Lindorff/TCBH at PO Box 846, Ambler, PA 19002

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President-elect Donald J. Trump has offered the post of nationalsecurity adviser to retired three-star Gen. Michael T. Flynn, aneoconservative war hawk with anti-muslim views.

The National Security Advisor is a president’s main foreign policy person and plays a key role as coordinator of implementing thepresident’s foreign policy decisions. Bearing that in mind, Gen. Flynn, seen as one of Trump’s closest and most trusted advisors, takes the view that the U.S. is in a global war, not just against Islamic jihadists but against Islam itself. It’s not really a religion, Flynn argues, but a dangerous political ideology. Flynn has called Islam a “cancer” and has said, “Fear of Muslims is rational.” In April 2015 he told Fox News, “I’ve been at war with Islam, or a component of Islam, for the last decade.”

According to Dana Priest in the New Yorker, “The greatest accomplishment of Flynn’s military career was revolutionizing the way that the clandestine arm of the military, the Joint Special Operations Command, undertook the killing and capture of suspected terrorists and insurgents in war zones.”

Trump's National Security Advisor pick, ex-Gen. Michael Flynn, carries on a trend of blood-thirsty security advisors
 

The position of National Security Advisor has been held in the past by among others Henry Kissinger, who was responsible for numerous war crimes and the death of millions under President Richard Nixon. Under President Ronald Reagan, National Security Advisor John Poindexter was convicted of lying to Congress about the Iran-Contra affair along with another Reagan National Security Advisor, Robert McFarlane, who later pleaded guilty to withholding information from Congress regarding arm sales to Iran and was spared being scarred by that conviction record only thanks to a pardon by President George H.W. Bush in 1992.

Gen. Flynn as Trump’s National Security Advisor will be a “critical gatekeeper for a president with little experience in military or foreign policy issues” according to the New York Times. Flynn, a registered Democrat, served as Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency under President Barack Obama but was reportedly fired for his ultra-right pro-war views aimed at Iran at a time when the Obama administration was negotiating a deal with that nation on shutting down its uranium enrichment program. Flynn is a bitter enemy of Iran and has advocated toppling Iran’s government as the only way toprevent that nation from becoming a major power in the Middle East.

Flynn argues that the U.S. shouldn’t be restrained by human rights,international law, rules of engagement, or other forms of “political correctness” but should ruthlessly fight this “existential enemy.”

¤ Fidel defied the monster and got away with it all these years, something cherished by billions in a hundred countries. He even brought a warmongering US president to his land, sporting his fine talk. For the first time, the perennial enemy pretends to be a friend hoping to stab Cuba in the back.
 

(This is the first of seven articles on the reality of Scandinavia’s “socialism”)
 

I first met Denmark’s last truly Social Democratic Prime Minister, Anker Joergensen in his state office, unannounced, in late 1980.

Grethe and I had just been married. We had met the year before in Los Angeles where I had been a “participatory journalist”, and activist for social/racial/gender equality and against the Vietnam War. I wanted to start a new life with Grethe in her peaceful, social democratic land.

I took odd jobs and did freelance writing for some Danish media, and for progressive media in the US and England. As such, I often walked from Grethe’s centrally located Copenhagen apartment to Christiansborg. The palace is the only building in the world that houses all government branches. The royal palace stood beside the seat of economic power, Denmark’s Stock Exchange (Boersen).

Sometimes I covered official politics from my “palace playground”, as my new wife quipped. The six-story building is a labyrinth of hard wooden stairs, long hallways and hundreds of offices. On my second trip inside, I ambled about unable to find the stairs that led directly to the balcony reserved for journalists covering the parliament. There were no guards and no signs on most doors. I stopped before a high door and turned the bronze polished handle. A small man sat behind a large desk. He turned about to look at me, a smile on his face. I flushed and spurted an apology for disturbing what I realized was the nation’s political leader.

“That’s quite alright. No problem,” replied the prime minister unperturbed. His face wrinkled cozily through a black-white mustache and goatee. Thinning black hair was brushed back revealing a partially bald scalp. No guards or assistants appeared as I quietly closed the big door.

Denmark's last real social democratic prime minister, Anker Joergensen
 

We have to admit that most of our readers are failing to take up our modest proposal that everyone who reads us should commit to sending us $5 a year to support out work. It’s just not happening. We do get generous support from some of you, but most readers just read us and then move on.

But if you appreciate what we’re doing and just don’t want to spring for some cash, there is an important way you can help us that takes only a few seconds of your time, and doesn’t cost you anything. When you read an article on our site that you think is important, just scroll down to the bottom of the article’s first page and click on the “send by email” button. That will give you a page that lets you send up to three email notices at one time (addresses separated by commas), to people whom you think should be reading us, but who may not know about our site.

It’s a small thing to do, but if you all did it whenever we ran an article that you really valued, our circulation would grow exponentially, and that would be even better than monetary support.

Thanks for supporting our work.

The TCBH! Collective

Good news! Some of our readers are starting to come through. We have, six months into this first-ever fund-raising effort, raised one-fifth of our goal: $4000 in mostly small donations. That is great as far as it goes, but really, people are paying into all kinds of crazy Kickstarter campaigns. Why not just support great journalism?

Think about it a second. What other news source is willing to point out that obviously, Turkey would not have dared to shoot down a Russian fighter plane using its American-supplied F-16s and heat-seeking missiles unless it first got the go-ahead from the US? And yet in a potential threat of a WWIII confrontation between the US and Russia, you and all Americans need to know that. Only TCBH! is telling you. What other news site calls out the US government and its Afghan operation commander for blatant lying about a history of US bombing hospitals deliberately?

What’s been raised so fare is not nearly the kind of money that would allow the dedicated members of this collective — who put out the reports on this award-winning site for nothing, doing the reporting and writing in our spare time — to cut back on our day jobs and actually devote serious time to alternative news reporting, but it’s the start. If you, our readers, can get into the habit of occasionally supporting a site like this that you turn to regularly or even occasionally to know what’s happening, big things will happen here.

We know this can work. You all clearly want what we are producing, and value our reports (we know that because you keep coming back and reading what we write), and yet still far too many of you, our readers, are just taking what we do for free. That isn’t going to help build a movement. We need solidarity to build a new media model. And solidarity aside, just from the point of view of self-interest, we could provide so much more of the unique news we have been providing for almost four years if we had some serious money coming in to support us in that work.

So readers, hear our call! Join those TCBH! readers who are coming through with support, show some solidarity for a change, support what we do, don’t just take it, and send us what you can. We’re hoping from $5 per reader, but even $1 would help, if you all did it.

It’s easy: use the handy Paypal button above, or send cash or a check made out to Dave Lindorff/TCBH to POB 846, Ambler, PA 19002

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In a remote place in the desert of West Texas, outside the small town of Andrews, something dirty has been going on which threatens the water supply of nearly a third of America’s farmland (and perhaps the millions of people who eat the food grown using that water).  

The highly radioactive spoils of nuclear power plants from 36 states — as well as other seriously toxic or carcinogenic substances, such as PCBs dredged from the Hudson River — are being dumped there on a regular basis, and this will continue until the designated hole in the ground is filled.  

That designated hole happens to be right on the Ogallala Aquifer, according to environmentalists. 

At 174,000 square miles, the Ogallala Aquifer is the world’s second largest, providing water to 27 percent of the entire agricultural land in the United States.  An aquifer can be a superhighway for nuclear waste, as shown by studies of the movement of waste at polluted nuclear sites such as Hanford, Washington. 

The dirty dump owes its existence to dirty politics. Local residents say officials came to town to conspire with billionaires on ways to silence their opposition to the dump. Owned by Waste Control Specialists (WCS), the site was built by Harold C. Simmons, a top contributor to the campaigns of George W. Bush, Rick Perry and the Super PAC run by Bush confidant and Republican Party strategist Karl Rove.  Opponents say that WCS amounts to “a privatization of nuclear waste to help a billionaire make billions of dollars more.”  

Activists charge that the state of Texas granted WCS its license after repeated intervention by politicians bought by Simmons. And unlike most applicants for licenses, WCS bought the site even before it had performed a proper environmental study of it.

This Waste Control Specialists radioactive waste dump site in Texas threatens the nation's largest water aquifer, activists warn
 

How many days has it been
Since I was born?
How many days
‘Til I die?

Do I know any ways
I can make you laugh?
Or do I only know how
To make you cry?

― Leon Russell, Stranger in a Strange Land
 

The US invasions of Iraq in 2003 and Afghanistan in 2001 have produced holocausts in both countries
 

The mass media in the US have covered up the most important fact in America’s ongoing wars: the number of people slaughtered. Even before the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, the mainstream media served as cheerleaders for the bloodshed, spreading the major lies that led us to war.

As a combat vet still shocked by what I saw almost 50 years ago in Vietnam, where we earlier slaughtered millions in another war based on lies, I decided to look into what is happening in the current wars. I discovered that as many as seven million innocents may have been slaughtered in Afghanistan and Iraq.

I say “innocents,” because even most combatants American forces have killed were merely defending their homelands from invasions by foreigners (that is us). The invasion of Afghanistan was avoidable ― the Taliban had offered to give up bin Laden if the USA would show them proof that he was responsible for the 9/11 attacks.
The invasion of Iraq meanwhile violated international law and was little more than genocide.

I first looked for government or mainstream media reports in researching this article, but found little help there, forcing me to conclude they are not at all interested in counting victims. Anything they’ve put out to date is so simplistic that it should be ignored by anyone seeking facts. They wouldn’t even report on or take seriously a 2006 report by the respected UK medical journal, the Lancet, which, based upon household surveys and other data, concluded that between the March 2003 US invasion of Iraq and the beginning of 2006, Iraq had suffered over 650,000 war-related deaths, representing an astonishing 2.5% of the country’s population.

It should go without saying that nobody has a completely accurate count of the dead. But over the years, the impact of a corporate media and National Security State have taken their toll on the truth, warping it to imply that relatively few people have died in America’s phony “War on Terrorism.”

The charge of a cover-up by the mass media seems obvious, as it is unconscionable that major media, a multi-billion dollar industry, could not find the numbers if they made even a feeble attempt. It seems obvious as well that such numbers would shock the public and turn them against the wars, which probably explains the silence of the mainstream, which is in line with their avid war support and simply echoes the words of General Tommy Franks that “We don’t do body counts.”

Something about how life or God or who ever is behind the curtain of
all things pulling all our strings,
the strings that jerk us up out of the void and into the light and
heat and cold and make us put on
our boots and start walking and talking and eating cornflakes for
breakfast and slaps us around and
dumps us in the middle of deep dark holes of despair and desperation
where monsters come out of the night
and gobble up our happiness when we aren’t looking and then throws us
in the ocean of self doubt and confusion that dries up the
next minute and leaves us spread out like dead butterflies on the
specimen table of alienation…
Only to have the phone ring and someone tell us that the person we
love most in the world just died
and now we have to look at the sunrise and wonder what we ever thought
was beautiful about it and if it will
ever look beautiful again. . .
And how wonderful it is that after all that happens Life or God or
who ever it is that is behind the curtain of all things pulling
our strings now Jerks up out of the void the most incredible being
that says, “Look at me! I’m going to start it all over again.
And I’m so beautiful none of what has come before me matters a flea’s
butt because I bring with me the promise that
life can be different and nobody can deny that who looks at my tiny
fingers or by big bright eyes and the way I wiggle my toes
at the cosmos because I’m alive and that’s all that matters and if
there’s anything
at all close to pure being it’s me!”
 
 
  — Frank Asch
 
 
This poem was offered to ThisCantBeHappening! by Frank Asch, the noted children’s book author/illustrator. He lives in Hawaii. (It is copyrighted may not be reprinted without permission of the author.)