The McCain Plan: Homer Simpson without the Donut
By Greg Palast
(Wednesday, August 5, 2008. North Shore, Long Island)
I’m guessing it was excessive exposure to either radiation or George Bush, but Senator John McCain’s comments from inside a nuclear power plant in Michigan are so cracked-brained that I fear some loose gamma rays are doing to McCain’s gray matter what they did to Homer Simpson’s.
On Tuesday, the presumptive Republican candidate descended into the colon of a nuke to declare we need to build 45 new nuclear plants – that this is the way out of our energy crisis. Nuclear power, declared the senator, is a “safe, efficient [and] inexpensiveâ€? alternative to oil.
Really? We can argue all day about whether nuclear plants are safe (they aren’t –period). But there can be no argument whatsoever that these giant radioactive tea-kettles are breathtakingly expensive.
Read more at GregPalast.com
And:
Obama’s Nuclear Lobby
by Jonathan Williams [From: Blatant Reality]
You might not know this but Barack Obama is for expanding our nuclear power plant program (given that some safety issues are addressed). However, this information isn’t found on his “Energy and Environment� page on his website. In fact, you won’t be able to find the word “nuclear� at all on this page. To find this out, you have to go to .pdf file titled “Read the Energy Plan� at the bottom of Energy page. There, Obama has a section where he discusses why we need nuclear power and what safety measures need to be made.
When you take that he is a supporter of nuclear energy, it really shouldn’t come as a surprise then that Exelon, an energy company that uses nuclear reactors, is one of Obama’s biggest contributors.
Since 2003, executives and employees of Exelon, which is based in Illinois, have contributed at least $227,000 to Mr. Obama’s campaigns for the United States Senate and for president. Two top Exelon officials, Frank M. Clark, executive vice president, and John W. Rogers Jr., a director, are among his largest fund-raisers.
Another Obama donor, John W. Rowe, chairman of Exelon, is also chairman of the Nuclear Energy Institute, the nuclear power industry’s lobbying group, based in Washington. Exelon’s support for Mr. Obama far exceeds its support for any other presidential candidate.
In addition, Mr. Obama’s chief political strategist, David Axelrod, has worked as a consultant to Exelon. A spokeswoman for Exelon said Mr. Axelrod’s company had helped an Exelon subsidiary, Commonwealth Edison, with communications strategy periodically since 2002, but had no involvement in the leak controversy or other nuclear issues. [NY Times Feb. 2008]
This article also brings up the question on whether Obama is really for stronger safety legislation like he claims he is. Read the article, its pretty interesting.
And see:
Obama Weakened Nuclear Safety Bill After Consulting With Firm at the Huffington Post
Tags: president, McCain, obama <BR/>