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MAGA makes its ugly priorities clear at the RNC
Further

Send Them Back: These People Are Hateful Human Locusts

Sorry, but much like your kids' projectile vomiting - remember it? - the them-and-us vitriol spewing from a crumbling, raving Grand Wizard and his Nazi-adjacent minions still persists in a "disinformation maelstrom" aimed at Fake News, "dumb women," raping-and-dog-eating "vile animals," windmills that "aren't wind," and Dems doing gender transition surgery on kids at recess as he pot-kettle-calls Bob Woodward, reporting on his Putin love-fest, "an angry little man, truly demented and deranged." Pleasemake it stop.

Trump's rancid word-salad has gotten so garbled even the both-sides New York Times finally deigned to write about it. Starting with the by-now-common lunatic moment when Trump claimed the audience "went crazy" for him at the Harris debate where there was no audience, they broke the shocking news it wasn't the only time he's seemed "confused," noting, "He rambles, he repeats himself, he roams from thought to thought," (sic) which are often incoherent, half-finished, or "factually fantastical." How does he ramble? Let us count the ways. Sharks, boats, Hannibal Lecter, his "beautiful" beach body, his "wide margin" in the polls, Komrade Kamala paying for “transgender operations on illegal aliens,” his "great day in Louisiana" which was in Georgia, his fear "North Korea is trying to kill me" though he meant Iran and his imaginary dystopian hellhole of an America where you can’t venture out to buy a loaf of bread without getting shot, mugged or raped by immigrants "living in those hotels and laughing at our soldiers."

Wednesday, the Times undid whatever meager good they may have done with a breezy piece on Trump's rallies - "freewheeling performances full of jokes and audience participation," presumably like shrieking "Send Them Back!" - to help readers see his "themes." WTF NYT? We wonder what "themes" they'd uncover in his call for a new Muslim ban, his plan to imprison people who oppose the overturning of Roe v Wade as well as climate protesters for up to 10 years, his strategy on Iran - "Hit the nuclear button first, that's what it's for, and worry about the rest later" - his "stunningly stupid," The Purge-like public safety idea for "one really violent day" - "and I mean real rough" - and "the word will get out and it will end immediately." He also said JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon endorsed him (not), charged migrants "are ripping down and burning our shopping centers," and mused about a fly at the podium: "I wonder where the fly came from? Two years ago, I wouldn’t have had a fly up here. We can’t take it any longer.”

Not just the crazy is escalating; so is the stomach-churning misogyny. Color us shocked. Fishing for any schoolyard diss that comes into his mean wee brain, the accomplished Kamala Harris is "stupid," “low IQ,” "mentally disabled," "a bad person": "Joe Biden became mentally impaired. Kamala was born that way." The master of projection on his debate loss: "We had a woman debating. She just talked about, like, the birds and the bees. She didn’t talk about...when you asked a question, there was never an answer...It's all lies. Everything she says is lies." The sexual predator on Roe v Wade: "And the women thing - they'll understand I did a great thing." The ultimate, infantalizing patriarch on a choice-free future: "I will be your protector. You will no longer be thinking about abortion.” On The View's hosts who welcomed Harris: They're “degenerates” and "dumb women." The ugly bottom line from women who know and want better than his "thoroughly stifling" 19th century vision of womanhood: "The truth is, he hates all of us."

Most grotesquely, the racism is spiraling, gushing, curdling, ever more vicious. Brown-skinned migrants are “vermin,” "foreign jihad sympathizers," "not humans," and "infesting" America, says the blood-and-soil eugenicist who's openly embraced Nazi race science: "I'm proud to have that German blood." "Murder is in a person’s genes, and we got a lot of bad genes in our country right now," he says. "American girls are being raped and sodomized and murdered by savage criminal aliens." His last Wisconsin rally featured huge photos of three people killed by undocumented migrants - two stabbings, one meth-crazed car crash - and banners urging, “Deport Illegals Now!" Each day, a local right-wing site helpfully highlights those "horrific" crimes by non-citizens, declaring, "Every state is a border state." Trump vowed to "liberate Wisconsin from the mass migrant invasion" of what he called "stone-cold killers and monsters" wanting to “rape, pillage, thieve, plunder and kill the people of America." The crowd roared, "Send them back!"

Of course the lunatic nadir of this racist frenzy was in Springfield, Ohio where, Trump famously declared during the debate, "They're eating the dogs!" Improbably for a party boasting puppy-murdering Kristi Noem and a Project 2025 author who killed a neighbor's dog with a shovel, the fictional story proved wildly popular: Incorporating the key "they are taking from us" concept, it extends the migrant threat to a blood libel against beloved pets, a perfect, wrenching parable of American decline. After the tale prompted 33 bomb threats against schools and terrified Haitians, city officials repeatedly insisted there is "no evidence" of said pet-eating by what are legal Haitian migrants revitalizing the economy, and a Haitian advocacy group filed seven charges against the idiotic Vance and Trump's "aggravated menacing" - after that, Miss Sassy Pants, the missing Maine Coon cat who started the insanity, emerged uneaten from a few days' nap in the basement of MAGA owner Anna Gilgore, who's likely leery of her new black neighbors - we love the poorly educated! - but apologized to them anyway.

Of course the return of Miss Sassy Pants did nothing - we also really love alternative facts! - to stem the flood of vile immigrant demonizing at the core of Trump's otherwise entirely hollow campaign. The bonkers, brazenly false claims that migrants are to blame for all of America's ills still rage: They've “unleashed a deadly plague of migrant crime," they're draining social services, trying to vote, making housing expensive, taking jobs, bringing fentanyl, boosting inflation - all ugly fiction. Often, state and local officials take their purported leader's malevolent lead and run with it. Arizona is furiously combing voter rolls to look for illegal voters; so far they've found 97,688, but they're all old, white Republicans. Ohio's Portage County Sheriff Bruce Zuchowski asked constituents to report nearby homes with yard signs for Harris, aka "the Flip-Flopping, Laughing Hyena"; that way, when they arrive in the neighborhood, he'll know where to direct the perpetrators of the "migrant crime wave," aka the "illegal human locusts.”

He has much deplorable company. Louisiana GOP Rep. Clay Higgins, a failed ex-cop and David Duke fan who argued the FBI brought feds to Jan. 6 on "ghost buses" and once filmed a selfie inside an Auschwitz gas chamber, called the Haitians "wild thugs" and “slapstick gangsters” from "the nastiest country in the western hemisphere" who needed to "get their ass out of our country.” He later deleted the post, but when confronted he dug in. "It's all true," he squawked. "We do have freedom of speech - I’ll say what I want. It’s not a big deal to me. It’s like something stuck to the bottom of my boot. Just scrape it off and move on with my life." Jasmine Crockett had a word; so did Hakeem Jeffries, calling Higgins "an election-denying, conspiracy-peddling racial arsonist - this is who they've become. Still, fellow Louisiana Nazi MAGA Mike defended "the gentleman": "Look, he prayed about it, and he regretted it, and he pulled the post down...But you know, we move forward. We believe in redemption around here."

They also believe in mass deportation so fervently they won't let facts - like Miss Sassy Pants is fine, thanks - get in the way of their racist narrative. Vance, who also blames kids' car seat rules for bringing down American birth rates (don't ask), never apologized for starting the Springfield furor, but he did pivot to attack the media: “Did you ever think about listening to people instead of harassing them...Listening to people speak their truth?" (Weirdo Scumbags 'R Us). Meanwhile Trump, whose enduring daddy issues spark outbursts like, "THE WORLD IS LAUGHING AT US AS FOOLS, THEY ARE STEALING OUR JOBS AND OUR WEALTH. WE CANNOT LET THEM LAUGH ANY LONGER,” has lumbered ahead with rants about the "beautiful little town (he's never seen) taken over by 32,000 illegal immigrants" - though they're legal and it's about 10,000 - who will be "the first rounded up...That's a terrible thing that happened. They've gotta get much tougher. We’re gonna get these people out. You have to get them the hell out."

Weeks ago, he said he was going to deep, dark Springfield. "You may never see me again, but that’s OK. I gotta do what I gotta do," he said. "'What ever happened to Trump? Well, he never got out of Springfield." (Cue Gary Larson's Far Sidecartoon of a dog trying to lure a cat into a washing machine with a scribbled "Fud" sign as he mutters, "Oh please, oh please...") After both the GOP mayor and governor said it'd be "fine" if he didn't visit, Trump instead descended on Charleroi, Penn., another now-"totally different place" with another "foreign invasion" he promptly "warped and weaponized." Seething about "the cruelty Kamala Harris has inflicted" with "thousands and thousands of migrants from the most dangerous places on earth," Trump seethed, "You have to get 'em the hell out." Again, local officials pushed back, noting it's 700-800 Haitians and they've really helped rebuild their post-Covid economy. The Manager Joe Manning: “There’s what the former president is saying, and then there’s easily observable reality."

Regrettably, the former president is wholly uninterested in observable reality, which is why he's doggedly charging on with his plan for "the biggest deportation force this country has ever seen." Appropriately, key to this dystopian, despicable initiative to deport over 10 million people is dystopian, despicable Stephen 'Goebbels' Miller, whose last project of brutally separating screaming babies from their distraught mothers at the border and/or putting them all in cages we all remember so fondly. Reportedly using as a model Eisenhower's infamous, deadly Operation Wetback to push migrants back into Mexico, a vast militaristic venture using trucks, planes and cargo ships later compared to slave ships, Miller giddily envisions a nationwide “detain-and-remove strategy”; for this noble cause, he will build enormous prison camps, each housing up to 70,000 immigrants, that he excitedly boasts will be "greater than any national infrastructure project in American history" - a vision one former DHS official likens to "Schindler’s List."

In this election season, the loathsome Miller has been popping up in interviews to confirm he's implausibly grown ever more vile. This week, he inexplicably appeared on Fox to offer "vomit-inducing" dating tips to other white supremacist ghouls. (Please don't ask). Last month, he had an on-camera hissy fit after NTN24 reporter José María del Pino challenged numbers he was spouting to support his claim that Venezuela is now safer than the U.S. after sending all their criminals here, a theory based on a debunked story about Venezuelan gangs taking over a Colorado apartment complex. As the Venezuelan-born del Pino kept asking, "Are you trusting the figures of the dictatorship?" Miller got redder, and louder, and burst. “I am trusting the fact (Harris) is letting illegal immigrants into this country who are raping and murdering children,” shrieked the reviled-by-his-family descendant of immigrants. "CHILDREN ARE BEING RAPED AND MURDERED!" Del Pino: "Why are you yelling?" Miller stalked off. Only the best people.

Clutching at the only sorry facsimile of a "policy" he has - hatemongering and scapegoating poor people of color (along with Dems) for everything wrong in the world - Trump continues to play the vicious race card. The details can vary: In a recently unearthed audio from an August fundraiser in Colorado, he unleashes, for bootlickers willing to pay up to $500,000 to listen to it, a foul tirade claiming Democratic Republic of Congo officials just dropped 22 newly released prison inmates into the U.S - a charge the DRC flatly denies. In his supposed encounter with the supposed former inmates, "We said, ‘Where do you come from?’ They said, ‘Prison’. ‘What did you do?’ ‘None of your fucking business.'" "You know why? Because they're murderers," he sneered. "These are the toughest people, coming in from (all) the bad parts, the parts where they’re rough, and the only thing good is they make our criminals look extremely nice." He only left out one exquisite bit of the supposed story: He flew in on Jeffrey Epstein's former jet.

From Bob Woodward's new book - he's suing him - it also transpires that as "president" and in the face of 1,125,000 American deaths from COVID he was secretly talking with and gifting Daddy Putin much-needed tests. Vance in response to outrage: "Is there something wrong with engaging in diplomacy?" So many lies, so little time. At a Pennsylvania rally, he bragged of his "beautiful" rallies, “We never have an empty seat, look at it.” Cue video of half-empty arena. At a Michigan rally, non-auto-worker yahoos wore Auto Workers For Trump shirts. At a flamboyant return to Butler, "this hallowed place" where his ear was grazed - "This man cannot be stopped," "In a true miracle God saved him" - he honored "our beautiful Corey" who died instead though he's joked about him. Then he lied about Dems: "They impeached me, indicted me tried to throw me off the ballot (and) maybe even tried to kill me. We have a very sick world." No wonder "undecided" voters look bewildered when asked about his "policies."

Because, per Paul Krugman, "The Trump campaign rests entirely on denouncing things that aren’t happening," he has now turned to another "firehose of lies" about the federal response to Hurricanes Helene and Milton, which he obviously calls "the worst ever." The lurid charges mount: Biden was at the beach, "they" control the weather, "they" only care about diversity not disasters, "they" stole all the FEMA money "so they could give it to illegal immigrants to vote for them" - which it turns out is what Trump did as president to fund migrant detentions; he also repeatedly, repulsively tried to deny disaster funds to blue states. A furious Biden pushed back - "He's lying" - as did peeved GOP pols demanding an end to "completely false" MAGA lies dangerously obstructing recovery efforts, and, again, observable reality.. They are in fact "deeply appreciative" of feds who are "working quickly," "working well," "a great team effort" and doing a "superb" job. Trump on the other hand, notes The Liberal Redneck, stays busy "tellin' lies and stirrin' shit."

And whining: 60 Minutes "must be investigated!" for their "FAKE NEWS SCAM" of editing Harris' interview, like every interview on every show, to make her look “more Presidential"; it's also "a major Campaign Finance Violation." "TAKE AWAY THE CBS LICENSE!' he screeched. "An UNPRECEDENTED SCANDAL!!! The Dems (should) concede the Election? WOW!” Yes, wow. He's also making windmill word salad - "The wind is bullshit" - trashing Detroit in Detroit - "Fuck this guy"- and as usual grifting. Having claimed the economy is so bad nobody can afford bacon - "the stomach is speaking" - he's launched a $100,000 Trump Victory Tour watch - "These watches are truly special" - and a $600-ish “Fight Fight Fight” watch - "Don’t wait, they will go fast!" He's also hawking crypto - AI needs a lot of electricity? with brilliant Barron as “DeFi visionary”? - and of course his $59.99 “God Bless the USA” Bible, which is not only selling fast in Oklahoma but, it turns out, is made in China. For under $3. Get your patriotic Chinese Bibles here. Don't wait, they will go fast.

O God who avenges, shine forth. - Psalms 94:1-2.

“God will bring into judgment both the righteous and the wicked, for there will be a time (to) judge every deed.” - Ecclesiastes 3:17

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A resident walks through flood waters that inundated a neighborhood
News

Climate Advocates Demand Hurricane Town Hall With Harris and Trump

As families mourned the deaths of hundreds of people from Hurricane Helene and Floridians began to take stock of the damage done by Hurricane Milton on Thursday, climate advocates called on major news networks to hold a town hall focused on the growing threat of extreme weather—and demand answers from the two major presidential candidates regarding what they plan to do about it.

Campaigners with the Sunrise Movement in Florida and North Carolina said CNN, ABC, NBC, or CBS should host a "Hurricane Town Hall" with Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris and former Republican President Donald Trump in the latter state before early voting starts there on October 17.

Manu Ivan, an 18-year-old Sunrise member from Orlando, Florida, noted that—as his group demanded—in the vice presidential debate earlier this month, CBS moderators asked Republican candidate Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) and Democratic contender Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota how they would confront the climate emergency.

"We deserve the opportunity to hear from Harris and Trump about what they will do to take on Big Oil and fight for people like me who are scared about what our state will look like when I'm older," said Ivan.

Sunrise said the town hall would present an opportunity for questions about Trump's promise to oil executives earlier this year that he would swiftly unravel climate progress made by President Joe Biden and expand drilling if the industry donated $1 billion to his campaign.

Advocates also have concerns about Project 2025's proposal to dismantle the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, which includes the National Hurricane Center and National Weather Service.

"Americans deserve to know the truth: Donald Trump sold out Asheville, North Carolina and plans to sell out the rest of us for his own political gain," said the group, referring to the city that faced devastating flooding from Hurricane Helene.

The group said the town hall would also allow media networks to "set the record straight on disaster response and fact-check Donald Trump's dangerous lies about the Biden-Harris disaster response," after the Republican nominee spread baseless claims that Harris spent Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) funding on housing for undocumented immigrants and that Biden ignored Republican-controlled states' calls for help.

"Media networks need to do their jobs and host a hurricane town hall," said Shiva Rajbhandari, a 20-year-old North Carolina student. "In just the last two weeks, millions of people have been affected and thousands have lost their homes, loved ones, and livelihoods. I'm sick of seeing death count headlines and pretending like this is just an act of God. The climate crisis is here, it's caused by Big Oil, and the American people deserve to know what our future president will do to keep us safe and hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for its crimes against humanity."

Climate campaigners have expressed doubt that Harris would be a "climate president," following her promises at the presidential debate in September that she would allow fracking to continue and her comments boasting about the country's "largest increase in domestic oil production in history."

But advocates have said the prospect of pushing a Harris administration to act on the clear evidence of the climate emergency is preferable to pushing Trump and Vance, who have called the climate crisis a "hoax" and "weird science."

The Sunrise Movement on Thursday circulated an open letter to its supporters asking networks to host a hurricane town hall, to allow "Vice President Harris and former President Trump to explain to the American people what they will do to stop the climate crisis."

"Without bold climate action from the federal government, all of our communities risk being wiped away," the letter reads. "Our leaders must answer to those who have lost everything."

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U.S. Economy Adds More Jobs
News

'Wowza': Economy Added 254,000 Jobs Under Biden-Harris in September

Friday's job report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics offered a "better than expected" picture of job growth as federal unemployment hit 4.1% and more than a quarter-million people were added to the payroll last month alone.

In what ABC Newsnoted was "one of the last major pieces of economic data before the presidential election," the jobs report offered an indication of economic strength—a possible boon to outgoing President Joe Biden's legacy and a political advantage to Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris ahead of November 5.

"U.S. hiring surged in September," the news outlet reported, "blowing past economist expectations and rebuking concern about weakness in the labor market."

Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich responded to the new data Friday morning by pointing out that "more jobs have been created during the Biden-Harris presidency than during any single presidential term in history."

Donald Trump "doesn't often tell the truth, but he was right about this," added Reich, who quoted the GOP presidential candidate in 2004 admitting that "the economy does better under the Democrats than the Republicans."

"Wowza," said economist Justin Wolfers, a professor at the University of Michigan and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute, in response to Friday's report.

Mentioning how payrolls grew by over 254,000 in September—"well above expectations"—and that large upward revisions were made to the August and July payroll numbers, Wolfers said the overall picture shows an "economic expansion that is motoring along."

"It was 'wow' across the board, much stronger than expected," Kathy Jones, chief fixed income strategist at Charles Schwab, toldCNBC. "The bottom line is it was a very good report. You get upward revisions and it tells you the job market continues to be healthy, and that means the economy is healthy."

Pointing to a recent analysis by her colleague Josh Bevins, Economic Policy Institute (EPI) economist Hilary Wething on Friday credited the strong performance represented by the new jobs numbers as the result of specific policies by the administration.

"You might think we just magically stumbled upon a consistently strong labor market—but no, this labor market is the result of policy choices that prioritized full employment—as it turns out putting people first, works," said Wething.

Elise Gould, a senior economist at EPI, also championed the "strong" figures:

In a blog post on Thursday, ahead of Friday's report—Gould detailed the strength of the labor market, despite the real pain that many workers and families still feel in their day to day lives:

It is indisputable that the U.S. labor market is strong. The share of the population ages 25–54 with a job is at a 23-year high, median household incomes rose 4.0% last year, and real wage growth over the last four years has been broad-based and strong. The economy has not only regained the nearly 22 million jobs lost in the pandemic recession, but also added another 6.5 million.

Are some folks still having a hard time? Absolutely. Even when the unemployment rate is low, there are still sidelined workers, and it remains difficult for many families to make ends meet on wages that are still too low. Unfortunately, that's a long-term phenomenon stemming from a too-stingy U.S. welfare state, rising inequality, and the legacy of anemic wage growth during past economic recoveries. But when comparing the labor market with four years ago (during the pandemic recession) or even before the pandemic began, the answer is clear: More workers have jobs and wages are beating inflation by solid margins.

With the Federal Reserve easing interest rates, in part based based on the strength of the hiring trends alongside lower inflation, Friday's jobs report was welcomed as a show of strength for progressives who have argued since the Covid-19 pandemic that pro-worker policies—as opposed to endless fealty to the demands of corporate powers and Wall Street—alongside public investments can work together to create strong economic foundations for the nation.

"Today's strong jobs report confirms once again that we never had to throw millions of people out of work to tame inflation," said Kitty Richards, a senior fellow with the left-leaning Groundwork Collaborative.

"Thanks to big investments in [pandemic] relief, manufacturing, and green energy, inflation is low, and the economy is still delivering for workers," Richards said. "The pundits who said we couldn't have low unemployment, growing wages, and stable prices at the same time have been proven wrong."

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Kamala Harris and Bernie Sanders high-five during a 2019 Democratic presidential primary debate.
News

'Thank You, Kamala': Sanders Welcomes Harris Plan to Expand Medicare

Independent U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont—a longtime universal healthcare advocate—on Wednesday hailed aw proposal by Democratic presidential nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris to expand Medicare to cover in-home care for seniors as well as dental and vision for the first time ever.

As Common Dreamsreported Tuesday, labor unions and consumer advocates applauded Harris' plan—unveiled on the ABC talk show "The View"—to expand Medicare coverage in order to better serve what the Democratic nominee called the "sandwich generation" of middle-aged Americans who are simultaneously providing for their children and aging parents.

Responding to the proposal, Sanders said, "Congratulations to Vice President Harris for announcing a bold vision to expand Medicare to cover not only home healthcare, but also vision and hearing."

The senator continued:

It is no secret that we have a major crisis in home healthcare. Millions of seniors would prefer, when possible, to receive care in their homes rather than be forced into nursing homes. Kamala's plan is a major step forward not only in improving the quality of life for seniors and their families, but also in saving the healthcare system large sums of money.

Further, her plan to expand Medicare to cover the cost of vision and hearing is enormously important. In the wealthiest country on Earth, millions of lower-income seniors today are unable to afford the hearing aids and eyeglasses they desperately need. That is not acceptable. Every senior in America should be able to access these basic healthcare needs.

"Thank you, Kamala," added Sanders, who has been campaigning for Harris across the country and plans to visit the Midwest this week.

Sanders' remarks echoed those of progressive healthcare advocates, with Social Security Works executive director Alex Lawson on Tuesday calling Harris' plan "life-changing for seniors, people with disabilities, and those who love them."

"Currently, seniors and people with disabilities who need care that family can't provide are too often warehoused in dehumanizing nursing homes," Lawson continued. "Often, these nursing homes are owned by private equity corporations who are exploiting patients for profit. Under the Harris plan, seniors and disabled people would have the freedom to stay in their own homes."

"This is a universal benefit," Lawson added. "Everyone on Medicare would qualify. This is a win for everyone in America—except the billionaires."

Harris' campaign and supporters contrasted the Democratic nominee's plan with the White House record of the Republican presidential candidate, former President Donald Trump, and sounded the alarm on the dangers he poses to Medicare and Social Security.

"Trump tried to cut Medicare and will cut the program as president," the Harris campaign said Tuesday.

Some critics also warned how Project 2025—the far-right initiative to expand U.S. presidential power and purge the federal civil service—poses a dire threat to seniors' public health by making private, for-profit Medicare Advantage plans the default option for all Medicare enrollees.

Harris' campaign added: "Trump spent a long career exploiting seniors, mocking disabled Americans, trying to take away seniors' hard-earned benefits, and supporting others who harm them. As president, Trump tried to destroy the Affordable Care Act and to cut Medicare and plans to do it again."

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Los Alamos National Laboratory
News

'Significant Victory': Court Rules Planned Plutonium Pits for New Nukes Violate US Law

In what advocates called a major win for frontline communities and the rule of law, a U.S. district court judge ruled on Monday that the federal government could not move forward with producing plutonium pits—"the heart and trigger of a nuclear bomb"—at two proposed sites in New Mexico and South Carolina.

Instead, Judge Mary Geiger Lewis agreed with a coalition of nonprofit community groups that the Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) by failing to fully consider alternatives to producing the pits at New Mexico's Los Alamos National Laboratory and South Carolina's Savannah River Site (SRS). Now, the federal government must conduct a full environmental impact statement of how pit production would work at sites across the U.S.

"This is a significant victory that will ensure NEPA's goal of public participation is satisfied," attorney for the plaintiffs Ben Cunningham, of the South Carolina Environmental Law Project, said in a statement. "Public scrutiny is especially important because the activities at issue here, by their very nature, result in the production of dangerous weapons and extensive amounts of toxic and radioactive waste. I hope the public will seize the upcoming opportunity to review and comment on the federal agencies' assessment."

"This is a victory for public transparency, and hopefully will result in alternative proposals that are more protective of the environment and affected communities around these sites."

Making plutonium pits means working with "extremely hazardous and radioactive materials," Nuclear Watch New Mexico, one of the groups behind the suit, pointed out. As of 2018, the government had planned to produce at least 80 pits a year by 2030—30 or more in New Mexico and 50 or more in South Carolina.

Yet these pits are not intended to maintain the United States' existing nuclear weapons stockpile. Instead, they would be for future, experimental weapons that could not even be tested without violating the Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty. What's more, making the pits would cost U.S. taxpayers over $60 billion over the next three decades, and the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that the NNSA has not made reliable cost estimates for production at the two proposed sites.

"The DOE and NNSA have been on the GAO's 'High Risk List' for project mismanagement and cost overruns for more than 30 years," said Jay Coghlan, the executive director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico. "Nevertheless, these agencies think they can proceed with their most expensive and complex project ever without required public analyses and credible cost estimates."

Coghlan continued: "Public scrutiny and formal comment under the National Environmental Policy Act have proven time and again to improve public safety and save taxpayers' money. A nationwide programmatic environmental impact statement [PEIS] on expanded plutonium pit production will hold DOE and NNSA accountable for just that."

It will also give local communities a chance to have a say in potentially dangerous projects being implemented near their homes. The plaintiffs were composed mostly of frontline groups: Savannah River Site Watch, Nuclear Watch New Mexico, Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment (CAREs), and the Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition.

"Native Gullah/Geechees, including the Gullah/Geechee Fishing Association and Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition members, rely on safe and healthy water in order to sustain ourselves and our community," said Gullah Geechee Nation Chieftess Queen Quet. "Therefore, it is critical that the public is fully aware of any and all potential negative impacts that projects will have on critical resources such as our water supplies and water bodies."

If the DOE and NNSA's plans had gone ahead, it would have been the first time that plutonium pits were manufactured at the Savannah River Site, at a facility which could cost between $11 and $25 billion to complete. However, Judge Lewis concluded that the agencies had not updated their plans to account for production at two sites at once and must therefore conduct a PEIS considering production at potential sites across the U.S. as well as the handling and disposal of waste.

"In our comments, it was repeatedly stressed that the agency violated the law by failing to take a hard look at alternatives for this 'two-site' plan," said Scott Yundt, executive director of the Livermore, California-based Tri-Valley CAREs. "Additionally, commenters pointed out the lack of inclusion in the environmental review of the other affected sites involved in the plan, chief among them Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, where the scope of work and the corresponding impacts was largely left out of the analysis and, again, no alternatives were offered or analyzed as required by NEPA. The judge saw these violations clearly and ordered agencies do the analysis that should have been done at the outset. This is a victory for public transparency, and hopefully will result in alternative proposals that are more protective of the environment and affected communities around these sites."

Tom Clements, who directs Savannah River Site Watch and was also an individual plaintiff in the case, said the ruling was "a notable victory for the main argument in our lawsuit—that the NNSA's NEPA analysis on plutonium pit production was inadequate."

In addition, it provides a reprieve for the project's concerned neighbors.

"The design and construction work on the proposed SRS pit plant should be put on hold until the PEIS has been finalized," Clements said.

Dylan Spaulding, senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, also applauded the ruling.

"NNSA skirted the rules and now they are being held accountable—this is a victory for transparency," he said.

Spaulding added that he was unsure whether or not this would delay the planned plutonium pit production blitz.

"There are still a lot of environmental hazards and questions that need to be addressed," he said. "We should be pausing and thinking about that before this hugely expensive project goes forward."

This piece has been updated to included comments from Dylan Spaulding of the Union of Concerned Scientists.

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Lebanese are seen among the rubble of an Israeli airstrike in Beirut
News

Israel Used US-Supplied Bomb in Beirut Strike That Killed at Least 22 Lebanese

At least one U.S.-supplied bomb was used by Israel in a Thursday night airstrike that killed at least 22 people and wounded over 115 more in the Lebanese capital of Beirut, according to a Guardiananalysis published on Friday.

The crisis, conflict, and arms division of Human Rights Watch and a former U.S. military explosives expert analyzed shrapnel from a bomb used by Israel in the strike on an apartment complex in the densely populated Basta neighborhood near central Beirut and concluded it came from a joint direct attack munition (JDAM) manufactured by Boeing.

"The bolt pattern, its position, and the shape of the remnant are consistent with the tail fin of a U.S.-made JDAM guidance kit for MK80-series air-dropped munitions," HRW senior researcher Richard Weir told The Guardian.

MK80-series JDAMs are attached to so-called "dumb" bombs ranging from 500 to 2,000 pounds to convert them into GPS-guided "smart" munitions.

"The use of these weapons in densely populated areas, like this one, places civilians and civilian objects in the immediate area at grave risk of immediate and lasting harm," Weir said.

In May, the Biden administration—which has approved tens of billions of dollars in armed aid to Israel, even as the key ally is on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice— suspended transfers of 500- and 2,000-pound bombs over fears that the devastating munitions would be used in airstrikes on Rafah, the southern Gaza city where more than a million Palestinians had sought refuge.

By that time, Israel had already dropped hundreds of 2,000-pound bombs—which the U.S. military avoids using in civilian areas because they can destroy entire city blocks—on Gaza, including in an October 31 attack on the densely populated Jabalia refugee camp that killed more than 120 civilians.

The United Nations Human Rights Office said in June that Israel's use of 2,000-pound bombs and other U.S.-supplied weapons likely violated international law by deliberately targeting civilians in disproportionate attacks. Israeli military commanders have also been criticized for using artificial intelligence-based target selection to approve bombings they know will cause high civilian casualties.

The Biden administration resumed shipments of 500-pound bombs to Israel in July, while keeping the temporary proscription on 2,000-pound munitions in place.

While Israeli forces and Hezbollah have been engaged in cross-border attacks since the armed wing of the Lebanon--based political and paramilitary group began firing rockets and other weapons at Israel in solidarity with Gaza after the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack, the intensity of Israel's assault has increased dramatically since last month.

Since then, two waves of Israeli-engineered detonations targeting thousands of pagers and other communication devices killed dozens of people including Hezbollah members and civilians, two of them children. Later in September, Israeli forces unleashed an aerial bombing campaign in Lebanon, including the September 27 strike that assassinated Hezbollah political leader Hassan Nasrallah and other senior members of the group.

Expert analysis concluded that Israel used U.S.-supplied 2,000-pound bombs in the strike on a densely populated suburb of Beirut, which flattened several residential buildings.

Lebanon's Ministry of Public Health says that more than 2,200 people—including at least 127 children—have been killed and over 10,000 others wounded by Israeli forces since last October. Hezbollah attacks have killed 28 civilians and 39 soldiers in Israel over the same period.

On Friday, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres joined foreign ministers from countries including China, France, Italy, Indonesia, and Turkey, as well as human rights organizations around the world, in condemning Israeli attacks on U.N. personnel in southern Lebanon after two Indonesian U.N. peacekeepers were wounded by Israeli tank fire.

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