home. laws are made in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight the big picture the deep pockets of the country's millionaires may become a wee bit lighter the new proposal could be anti tax credits for the rich plus as we approach the eight year anniversary of the war in iraq and the threats of war in distant lands remain imminent the u.s. will rise to the occasion of protecting this house and if the g.o.p. has its way kids being bullied at school may just have to tough it out on their own or just continue committing suicide at alarming rates why are some conservatives

lobbying against anti-police legislation. you need to know this all six g.e. mark one reactors at the fukushima daiichi plant are dangerously close to melting down late last night the fifty remaining workers at the plant were evacuated due to extreme levels of radiation detected when pressure was relieved from one of the reactors as workers returned shortly after the radiation subsided heroics should be recognized it started to look like they're playing a losing game a whack a mole as they desperately try to cool one reactor was seawater the other reactor start to overheat and so on u.s. nuclear watchdog describes radiation levels around the plant as extremely high situation now is dire and the secretary of state hillary clinton. told c.n.n.

today that the situation is unlike anything anyone has ever encountered and very worried this is catastrophe we know that prior to events at three mile island island chernobyl had consequences but what we're seeing unfold in japan is that on a much greater scale to a greater than three well i think what we know now is that has the potential to be and we know that it will break down the is news from japan for you in just a minute. but first there's news coming out of capitol hill this weekend is the eighth anniversary of the start of the iraq war a war that fifty thousand u.s. troops are still committed to on top of that more than one hundred thousand u.s. troops are still fighting in afghanistan and will likely be there for a while general petraeus was on capitol hill yesterday trying to get his lawmakers that the fight in afghanistan is still worth it and with rogue nations like iran and north korea threatening to destabilize their respective regions is our military

to overstretch to be able to respond to new threats congressman charlie rangle from new york joins me now to announce new legislation and a leaner and reducing congress tomorrow it could fundamentally change our nation's military congressman welcome good to meet you thank you for the good work you do thank you for a nice to meet you we've talked on my radio program was a number of times it was great to meet you in person first for the record you're a decorated war veteran the korean war purple heart i believe was the soldiers are the bronze star around valor sixty years ago yeah but the point is you know of what you speak i just wanted to establish that on the table tell us what this legislation you're proposing well it serves two purposes one it gives people an opportunity to say that they have served and everyone doesn't have to do the same thing to serve in the military and that sort of serve their nation has served the nation no matter what but it also provides a pool of americans if they get caught that they would have to serve in the

military and even though there is little chance of this plan say i want people is thought to think that just the clearing that you go into would just saying that you're invading iraq would just go into a country they are consequences that does the whole the effect the congress oh any of the upper middle income or wealthy people of this country we're talking about people like me who volunteer and you volunteer because you find that the military is the best economic deal that you can cut hardly anybody. he i think would volunteer to protect the oil wells that we have in iraq and i think it would cause people that have the ability to determine whether we're going to put kids in harm's way and think twice if it's their kids their grandkids in addition to that like i said it put god's young people an opportunity to serve our country in so many different ways in the classrooms in the hospitals that the

airports at the train stations to learn and before they make decisions as to what they want to do with their lives at least they could say they took a stab at public service and i hope they like it i lived in germany we're back in the eighty's and they have this national draft requirement you must serve a year and then you actually get free college after that and but what i noticed was that kids were traveling all over the country they they you know it kind of brought them out of the provincialism of their own community they got to know their country better you know in their service things like that it seems like there's a lot of out sides to this view you know you said germany which reminded me i was born the thirty second street and examine all the new york had it not been for the sit beside would not have known the rest of manhattan new york city or the country it was so bad i was telling someone today then i thought i'm in harmony

grits was just food black folks i had no idea that they were white southern this. eating grits blacksmithing have breakfast yes he had a very special every cent type of ignorance is uncalled for and to find out what a great country we have with our diversity to different cultures and different histories i think makes a stronger america and if it's good for germany that it would be great for us because we have more to very serious not just us mexico does it israel is a whole list and yet have what basically you're proposing do you think that a draft in addition to providing the positives that you've already described would prevent unnecessary wars or might cause everybody to think twice before hey lets go off to iraq or that kind of thing no question about it somehow i didn't think of the trillions of dollars that would cause it's two billion dollars every week and

it really amazes me i have to go to these funerals. their own li in communities that have high unemployment and see how we just ignore the number of american kids that have the might or others who are not citizens to become so this is a believe this is the thought that this way to do it it is not fear it is morally right. and i truly believe that if you tell me that you go into. a fight is one thing if you tell me that is joe in this game to fight but if you expect me and my kids the fight you have explained a little would be about what the fight is about it was i think you know herbert hoover was old man declare wars young men fight them congressman rangle that exists as a plus we need a good work thank you and good luck with this legislation thank you so much thank you the first strong advocate for mandatory military service in the united states

was thomas jefferson seven hundred eighty seven fought for a year for a ban on standing armies during times of peace replaced by a national civilian militia with mandatory service to be written into the constitution as its second amendment and that's how the first draft of the second amendment start but there should be no standing army during times of peace but every male from seventeen to forty seven should be part of a local militia and then in order for those citizen militias to be well ordered the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed in a compromise the first part was dropped in the debate about the draft and so today we have the n.r.a. in a massive for profit war machine meanwhile in germany as i mentioned for example you spent a year in the army after high school and then you get to go to college for free something i hope we can one day adopt here in the us a with or without standing armies and free college let's hope the congressman's efforts are successful and we can put an end to this decade of needless war.

the news coming out of capitol hill two weeks ago. an n.b.c. wall street journal poll results released showing eighty one percent of americans supporting placing a surtax on millionaires to restore it to reduce the deficit today congresswoman jan schakowsky is listening to the american people she introduced legislation that creates new higher tax brackets for people making a million dollars a year all the way up to a billion dollars a year currently our tax code doesn't distinguish between someone making three hundred eighty thousand bucks a year and a hedge fund manager making three billion dollars a year they both pay the top rate of thirty five percent but under congresswoman schakowsky new proposal known as the fairness in taxation act millionaires and billionaires won't get off quite as easily people who make between one million and ten million will now pay a forty five percent tax rate you soon numbers on the screen ten to twenty million forty six percent rate twenty to one hundred million forty seven hundred million to

a billion forty eight percent and those who make over a billion of forty nine percent tax rate so is this proposal the best way to solve our nation's budget crisis here with more i'm happy to welcome congresswoman schakowsky from illinois congresswoman welcome to the program thank you so much tom i'm so pleased to have you with us republicans keep saying that we all need to make sacrifices right now yet i can't think of one sacrifice that millionaires and billionaires have been asked to make under any of the republicans budget plans is that what your bill does raise my boiler to make sacrifices like the rest of us yes absolutely michael takes into account the fact the really for the past thirty years we have seen that the middle class has not enjoyed as the of the gains increase productivity we have the most productive workers in the in the world and that literally all of the gain the growth in our economy has gone not just to the rich but to the super duper rich in our country who have now seen their incomes escalate

to the point that there are four hundred individual americans who may. because much as one hundred and fifty million americans in our country the income inequality now equals that of nine hundred twenty eight which is our last record high right during the great depression and i thought that i'd go along with the american people who say the best way to deal with our debt and deficit problem would be to ask for the the very rich the millionaires and i go up to the billionaires to pay their fair share what impact will your bill on the deficit well it will raise about seventy nine billion dollars which is more than what the the republicans want to slash in programs that mainly affect ordinary americans nine million students would be affected by cuts in the public grant for college we would cut dramatically from

head start so education would suffer cancer research housing programs well at the same time that twenty five percent of the homes in america are going under are under water. in those are the programs that the republicans want to cut my legislation would raise more money than they than they say that they want to cut and that's and that would be my intention let's not go after the middle class they've suffered enough they've sacrificed enough and now let's ask people who are doing well and and it's a it's a fairly modest tax increase actually under ronald reagan the top tax bracket was at fifty percent of income and mine is less than that well it was a seventy four percent when he came into office that's exactly right in fact our if the lead historically it's been as high as ninety and ninety plus. percent through most of the eisenhower administration but how serious is the problem of wealth

inequality in america and what do you think that your bill will do to solve. well i think wealth inequality actually is a problem that's more vaccine even the debt and deficit problem that we face and we all agree we ought to do something about that the reason i say that is you cannot have a vibrant economy if you don't have a vibrant middle class they have to have people who are going to go out and buy stuff people who are actually going to make stuff and make it in in america we can't live as a low wage economy we should live as a high wage economy and so this income inequality is a threat to our economy and then also tom to our democracy it is not good when the top one percent of americans control thirty four percent of all the wealth more than the bottom ninety percent who control twenty nine percent it skews our whole

democratic processes well it is amazing eighty one percent of americans chris poll i mentioned in the sort of are in agreement with you how do you leverage that level of popular on the ground populist support for this kind of program to put pressure on republicans in power in the house to pass your bill well actually one of my co-sponsors john yarmuth said that last october when he was talking about an idea of taxing millionaires he was told by some republicans that if it actually came up for a vote they'd have a hard time voting against it i think that we have a tremendous organizing opportunity right now out in the districts to put pressure on the republicans and some of our democrats to see that this is not this isn't a vote that would take a lot of courage this is something that is wildly popular out in the in the neighborhoods and i mean street and so our first our first goal is to get more

co-sponsors on the the legislation and then to begin to oust. side and inside the congress congresswoman jan schakowsky thanks so much for the great work you're doing good luck with this bill i thank you for being our programs here we'll see if republicans jump on board i'm kind of skeptical here since the plan violates one of the main party platforms for tenants that rich people don't have to sacrifice like the rest of us to get our nation's budget back here when they've been doing that since reagan it's like a chapter title for my book rebooting the american dream we need to roll back the reagan tax cuts. when we come back as promised a full breakdown of what's happening in japan right now and the consequences for the united states. twenty four seven live streaming newstands like to do about the ongoing financial heart of unlimited free high quality videos for download. and stories you never

find. a. political. post aren't touched. as the death toll soars of last friday's nine point zero earthquake and tsunami in

japan fifty japanese nuclear plant workers are quite literally putting their lives on the line. on another catastrophe a nuclear meltdown but there's another and potentially more serious problem unfolding at the at the daiichi nuclear plant sitting on top of each reactor our pool of nuclear waste they contain a larger amounts of harmful radiation than the reactors themselves and there are reports of those pools of waste are over eighteen catching fire and spewing that highly toxic radioactive waste of the atmosphere it's like a massive dirty bomb being constantly detonated right over those plants and efforts to cool these pools are proving to be more and more difficult because just as one reactor is put under control the next one flares up so what's going to happen here and should we be taking notes after all the united states has one hundred four operational nuclear power plants dotting the country and many of the use the very saying g.e. mark one reactor design it is now killing people in japan for more on this issue

i'm joined by linda gunter international specialist and founder of be on nuclear linda welcome back thank you tom great to have you with us if we could put this graphic of the mark one reactor can you explain what this this is the type reactor this is the type that they are so you have the fuel rods inside in the very middle of it and then the vessel around it and then disliked pulp that's the containment and that's the last line of defense was this is this is concrete here this is steel yes and so this is rods are saying it out there then you put the fuel pool which is basically on the roof on the upper level right here on either side of this so this stuff here is nuclear waste so this is the nuclear waste seven hundred metric tons between the six reactors on that side seventeen hundred metric tons of waste we calculated in the six reactors on this site so what we've been seeing happening obviously is they've been venting you know to save the reactor they've been venting

steam through here and there's been a build up of hydrogen which is then detonated and illusory roof blew the roof. off to at least of these letters which exposes these pools are those the two evils yes in a in one in three we've seen the that's who was sick say a lot of these at these at the actual photos of the reactors here i this is. this is well explain what the writers write well these are before the explicit the four reactors before the explosion and obviously you know they will that's how they look no cooling towers in a lot of people associate reactors and it will be told i know is that this underneath the square this is basically where the top of a concert hot and underneath is the nuclear waste right and in the case of unit four because the core is not no longer inside the reactor it's all of the fuel was removed from unit four so all of that waste is in the spent fuel pool and that's where we're seeing a fire oh my ok so let's go to the certain perrier this is. this is in the process

oh yes i think it's there either way around over no i see yes we've got it yes with right so we have two one in reactor three we've seen those with the hydrogen explosions where will it really messed up when their roofs are the riyadh load or still intact you're right well but you know we were following this is best we can we keep getting different information we're hearing that the containments have held on those two that the troubling one is number two where the explosion was in the suppression pool which is about do not shake that you saw the barge were in there and that blew open but it was so eager to measure it you have a containment explosion which is different to the others maybe it's the picture after the i mean the irony of these pictures is that the ones that look the worst it's have. been least of you know it's all relative i guess but radio they're really serious so you see this number two where that happened there was an explosion there it's venting there but the explosion was inside containment and

that's the vulnerability of our he's why there is a side up. they it didn't take the roof out because it didn't because a valve jammed they were trying to vent a valve got stuck so the hydrogen built up inside the suppression pool that burst open and caused that explosion so of course there you've got the issue of the containment having been brainwashed these other is we don't know but we know that there are a few who the fuel pool problems that continuing u.s. official today who declined to be identified but a high official said this area could be deadly for doubt it decades be hard to describe how alarming this is right now they need to stop pulling our people and step up with getting them back in the reactor to cool it there is a recognition this is a suicide mission i'm assuming this highly placed american it official didn't want to volunteer to go to. this you know there's no guidebook for

a crisis like this was what it doesn't look like is happening what can we expect you know takes longer for the water to boil off the waste than for the reactors themselves to what's most alarming is the fact that have been able to get power fully backed i mean if they can get electricity back to these reactors maybe there's a chance they can save them and i did i've been monitoring the japanese news that it's all up to noon you know where i can and they have talked about bringing lines in now off the grid to this site so that the pumps and valves will still work you know it's anybody it's so hard to tell me when you look at that last picture it almost looks like chernobyl you know you see shells in blackened shells of two at least of those reactors it's really hard to know exactly what's in them but we did hear a great gasket as well the chairman of the nuclear regulatory commission tell congress today that he thought that that number four was in meltdown and was unstoppable i believe i don't want to missouri he said that the water was gone it was going crazy in the fuel pool and that's the one with the whole fuel load in the pool amazing

amazing linda thanks so much for coming in i want it speaking with. while the rest of the world reconsiders new. they are power americans could get screwed by elected representatives who are snugly in the pocket of the nuclear energy lobby so it's one germany china even who chavez is venezuela have all put a hold on nuclear power pending a full review but here in the united states where money and politics are fused together it's unlikely that that same sort of precautionary action will be taken politico notes that last year the nuclear power lobby spent ends of millions of dollars in campaign contributions and used to call it i think we used to call it bribery and lobbying efforts to ensure a future spot in america's energy portfolio unlike the big oil lobby and you guys didn't even blink at the future risks posed by their own industry and so it doesn't take you to ask your feet like what's happening in japan to happen here before our elected representatives wake up to the dangers of nuclear power for them let me just lay this out these very very simply you haven't heard the words nuclear waste

used much in the media they talk about fuel pools they talk about the spent reactor fuel this is what we have always referred to in the united states as the nuclear waste what are we going to do with nuclear waste oh let's put it in the uk amount let's put it in the salt flats let's put it let's turn into glass let's figure out a way to recycle it and nobody knows what to do with the nuclear waste and that's the problem the nuclear waste is up on the top of these reactors and it's and the reason my opinion the reason why nobody's talking about nuclear waste in the united states that phrase is not being used is because it is the achilles heel of the nuclear industry once you point out that the nuclear waste is going out once you point out that there's no solution for the nuclear waste once you point out the disaster associated with this nuclear waste the whole shimmer of the whole the whole the whole fantasy of nuclear power being safe begins to dissolve in on top of

itself. it's the you know it's the waste stupid i mean it really does take it down to bad we have to figure out either what to do with the nuclear waste or we could working on that one for fifty years no solutions no no serious solutions that are that will last as long as the nuclear waste will last or we need to wake up and say you know nuclear power is a really dumb way to generate electricity and and let's come up with some ways to generate you know the lifetime for nuclear power plant twenty thirty forty years at the most let's come up with some and you can just rip top solar panels have a fifty year lifetime and i'm just scared to have these kinds of problems associated with let's come up with some sane solutions we have not had a a comprehensive energy policy in the united states since the last year the carter administration

jimmy carter put this thing together he said that you know we will be united states will never again import more oil than we did in one nine hundred seventy eight and by the year two thousand we would have a solar bank that would represent twenty percent of the nation's electricity he actually put us on the path to travel around rural areas or not even rural as you travel around america looking at houses for sale occasionally you'll find these houses that are completely off the grid i slept in one a week it will weaken a half ago when i went to vermont and did a gig with bernie sanders over the weekend house completely off the grid these houses were all built during the carter era because jimmy carter provided the funding or the tax breaks reagan did away with all of it and we've had no energy policy since then but we need to get ones so. it. is time for our daily poll your chance to tell us what you think here's today's

questions will our question will the republican succeed in cutting tsunami warning funs yeah they actually want to do that your options are yes you've got to give tax breaks to millionaires the money has to come from somewhere or no even tea baggers want to be safe so far the majority of you think that the tea baggers want to stay safe and event of a natural disaster like a tsunami but you still have time to let us know what you think log on to thom hartmann dot com and cast your vote the polls be open till tomorrow morning. crazy alert tomorrow marks the beginning of march madness the n.c. double a college basketball tournament that causes the american workforce productivity to drastically slow down on thursday and friday afternoons and for those of you who don't half who don't want to have to hide from your boss that you're secretly watching the games that were hooters may just have the answer for

you the restaurant is offering a promo that includes a free appetizer and an actor's note to assist people who want to skip out of work altogether sorry boss i got a fever and the only cure for it is hooters and college basketball unclear how many people plan to take advantage of the promo but let's just say it shouldn't feel too worried of the centers for disease control suddenly issue a warning tomorrow that there's been a net nationwide massive endemic and they can't figure out what caused. coming up the republicans are clearly not for the middle class neither are they for kids who want to get their lunch money stolen by one particular right wing group is turning the cheek of school bullies.

let's not forget that we had an apartheid regime right now and. i think. even one well. we never government says they're very safe get ready because you get your freedom. a charmer in here broadcasting live from washington d.c. coming up today on the big picture.