Has Larry Flynt found a chink in Obama's DU hardened armor?

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OBAMA GET $227,000 FROM NUKE INDUSTRY/WATERS

DOWN BILL TO REGULATE TRITIUM LEAKS

Nuclear Leaks and Response Tested Obama in Senate

By MIKE McINTIRE
Published: February 3, 2008

When residents in Illinois voiced outrage two years ago upon learning that the Exelon Corporation had not disclosed radioactive leaks at one of its nuclear plants, the state's freshman senator, Barack Obama, took up their cause.

Mr. Obama scolded Exelon and federal regulators for inaction and introduced a bill to require all plant owners to notify state and local authorities immediately of even small leaks. He has boasted of it on the campaign trail, telling a crowd in Iowa in December that it was "the only nuclear legislation that I’ve passed."

"I just did that last year," he said, to murmurs of approval.

A close look at the path his legislation took tells a very different story. While he initially fought to advance his bill, even holding up a presidential nomination to try to force a hearing on it, Mr. Obama eventually rewrote it to reflect changes sought by Senate Republicans, Exelon and nuclear regulators. The new bill removed language mandating prompt reporting and simply offered guidance to regulators, whom it charged with addressing the issue of unreported leaks.

Those revisions propelled the bill through a crucial committee. But, contrary to Mr. Obama's comments in Iowa, it ultimately died amid parliamentary wrangling in the full Senate.

"Senator Obama’s staff was sending us copies of the bill to review, and we could see it weakening with each successive draft," said Joe Cosgrove, a park district director in Will County, Ill., where low-level radioactive runoff had turned up in groundwater. "The teeth were just taken out of it."

The history of the bill shows Mr. Obama navigating a home-state controversy that pitted two important constituencies against each other and tested his skills as a legislative infighter. On one side were neighbors of several nuclear plants upset that low-level radioactive leaks had gone unreported for years; on the other was Exelon, the country's largest nuclear plant operator and one of Mr. Obama’s largest sources of campaign money.

<link> http://larryflynt.com/mycms/

And Hillary was a co-sponsor (one of only three, if I remember correctly), on that legislation.

when it meant something. By the time Obama got done with it she no longer would sponsor it. He raked in 227,000 from the deal AND Axlerod is a lobbyist for the nuclear company. Funny coincidence isn't it?

Would that make Kucinich a misogynist shitbag, or just a guy who got his support from a misogynist shitbag?

And that and the Ron Paul mess almost made me pull my support for Kucinich, so don't be too quick to pat yourself on the back for OMG PWNING!!!1 me.

Redstone

We could be here way past the elections, and end up with McCain as president. Do you people STILL not get it? Your country REQUIRES lots of money to run for office! You don't have a country where the media is required to provide FREE AIR TIME to candidates so everyone in the country can get to know them. Maybe your country *would* be that way if you'd been born in Europe, but you weren't. You're here. Here, the *only* way to get elected to president is to have a BAZILLION DOLLARS. And whom are you going to get a BAZILLION DOLLARS from? If you're Mitt Romney, you get it from your bank, 'cause you're a rich @-hole. If you're not, you *have* to get it from whoever is willing to pay. Otherwise, you DO NOT RUN.

As for everyone saying they're trying to get money from more reputable sources, oh please. Nobody in this country has ever run on reputable money. No such thing. The rich and corporations are all corrupt. Let's not go there about how this and that one took money from this and that one, 'cause everyone has taken money from corporations and the rich.

Now what else is there to discuss? Which nasty corps every candidate took $ from?

Change, my ass.

Global warming is the biggest threat to all living things on the earth (except flies maybe). We need nuclear power. We need conservation, renewables, etc. Nuclear HAS TO BE in the mix right now and for the next century.

They are already operating in France and Japan. St Lucie FL is building one. Nuclear is no longer needed!!!

Better ways to invest in energy. We have nuclear power in Ohio, its expensive as hell. No thanks.

Ohio won't like this kind of story about Obama. Sen George Voinovich covered up for nuclear power plants here in Ohio causing them to come close to a meltdown, too.

Voinovich and Obama should have criminal charges brought against them.

not have us know about. I'd rather not know about them either, because it makes it difficult to wholeheartedly support either one.

Shit.... that joke writes itself. I don't need to say anything else on the subject.

:woohoo:

Instead of responses of yawn, we all have skeletons, we need nuclear power so it's ok even when it leaks. Kind of funny in a sad way.

He's just playing copypasta with a NYT article. I guess that means Larry's a Hillary fan. Won't that make the ladies who love Hill proud?

and give the nuclear industry a place at the table.

Redstone

had told Iowa voters that the legislation had passed.


In place of the straightforward reporting requirements was new language giving the nuclear commission two years to come up with its own regulations. The bill said that the commission “shall consider” — not require — immediate public notification, and also take into account the findings of a task force it set up to study the tritium leaks.

By then, the task force had already concluded that “existing reporting requirements for abnormal spills and leaks are at a level that is risk-informed and appropriate.”

The rewritten bill also contained the new wording sought by Exelon making it clear that state and local authorities would have no regulatory oversight of nuclear power plants.

In interviews last week, representatives of Exelon and the nuclear commission said they were satisfied with the revised bill. The Nuclear Energy Institute said it no longer opposed it but wanted additional changes.

The revised bill was never taken up in the full Senate, where partisan parliamentary maneuvering resulted in a number of bills being shelved before the 2006 session ended.

Still, the legislation has come in handy on the campaign trail. Last May, in response to questions about his ties to Exelon, Mr. Obama wrote a letter to a Nevada newspaper citing the bill as evidence that he stands up to powerful interests.

“When I learned that radioactive tritium had leaked out of an Exelon nuclear plant in Illinois,” he wrote, “I led an effort in the Senate to require utilities to notify the public of any unplanned release of radioactive substances.”