In the next few weeks, the deficit “super committee” will develop a deficit reduction plan that could set the direction of the federal budget for the next decade. There are 12 people in the room making those decisions, and they need to hear from you.

Click here to tell the super committee to support a plan that ends the wars, cuts wasteful military and nuclear spending and protects alternatives to war. You will be redirected to their public comment page, where you can fill out your information and personalize the sample message.

Friends,

In a previous post (Nuclear 18 Wheelers; Yee Haw!!! , Sept. 6, 2009) I wrote about the government’s “Safeguards Transporters”, those big rigs that travel the nation’s highways and byways, delivering nukes to naval and air force bases, and who knows where else.

As an Occupational and Environmental Health professional I spent a great deal of time dealing with risk assessment and risk management. Bottom line: Everything entails some level of risk, no matter how small. Of course we have to look at not only the probability that something might happen (accident), but what would be the severity of the outcome(s).

Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) gazes adoringly at a nuclear weapon

While the media was obsessed with its favorite kidnapping story, they have failed to notice that Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) has been holding our security hostage by using partisan tactics to delay ratification of New START in exchange for $10 billion in ransom money for the nuclear weapons complex.

From the beginning, we knew that false claims about the need to “modernize” our nuclear arsenal (read: build new nuclear weapons) would enter into the debate around New START and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Despite scientific evidence that current programs in place can safely maintain our arsenal as we reduce its size, Jon Kyl and other members of Congress are trying to argue that the exorbitant amount of money the Obama administration is allocating to the nuclear weapons complex is insufficient.

The Prague Project compiled this hilarious chart in response to the über right-wing Heritage Foundation’s claims that “the list of experts [against New START] is large”:

One of the most egregious arguments peddled by New START proponents is that no reasonable arms control expert is opposed to New START. That is blatantly false. Americans deserve honesty in this debate…

The graph speaks for itself. They also offered this brief analysis:

Over Seventy former high-level government officials and senior military officers have come out in support of New START.  In addition, every administration official supported the treaty, from Hillary Clinton, to Bob Gates, and, representing the entire uniformed military, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Adm. Michael Mullen.

A major nuclear agreement between the US and Russia, called New START (The new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) is awaiting approval from the Russian Parliament and US Senate.

The treaty calls for reductions in the sizes of US and Russian nuclear arsenals, as well as an increase in information sharing between the two nations. The original START expired last December, along with the framework it provided for verifying that each nation was in keeping with the agreement. The new agreement will replace the expired one, and the verification measures have provided a backdrop of urgency in ensuring the treaty passes. Since December, there have been no “boots on the ground” inspecting Russian arsenals. Sen. Dick Lugar, a leading Republican in favor of the treaty, had this to say: