coverage. blondes are going to washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight the big picture the deep pockets of the country's billionaires may become a wee bit later on your proposal could up the ante tax records for the rich was as we approach the eighth year anniversary of the war in iraq and the threats of war in distant lands remain imminent in 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 boley 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 with 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 return shortly after the radiation subsided euler heroics should be recognized is starting to look like they're playing a losing game a whack a mole as they desperately try to cool one reactor with seawater the other reactors 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 i'm very worried this is a catastrophe we know that prior to events at three mile island chernobyl had consequences but what we're seeing unfold in japan is. on a much greater scale 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 and 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 convince lawmakers that the fight in afghanistan is still worth it and with rogue nations like iran and north korea threatening to destabilize the very specter of 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 leaner introduce in 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 very nice to meet you we've talked on my radio program 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 soul restore the bronze star around with 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 about this legislation you're proposing well it serves two purposes one it gives people an opportunity to say that they had served and everyone doesn't have to do the same thing to serve in the military and that's why serve their nation to serve their 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 in the middle income of 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. really i think i 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 i think twice if it's their kids or if their grandkids in addition to that right i said it provides 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 or 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 getting and but what i noticed was the kids were traveling all over the country they say you know it kind of broke them out of the provincialism of their own community they got to know the country better you know in their service things like that it seems like there's a lot of upsides to this. year you said germany which reminded me that i was born the thirty second street and exactly you know the new york had it not been put is this i would not have known the rest of manhattan new york city or the country it was so bad i was telling someone today that i thought at home and

a great speech just black folks i had no idea that they were white southern this eating grits blacks my breakfast yet here nobody measured every sabbath type of ignorance is uncalled for and to find out what a great country we have with our diversity the different cultures the paper and histories i think makes a stronger america and if it's good for germany then it would be great for us because we have more diversity and it's not just us mexico doesn't israel in this little list of b.s. that 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 let's go out to iraq or that kind of thing no question about it somehow they 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 you know. they're only in communities that have high unemployment and see how we just ignore the number of american kids that have die or others who. had citizen but want to become so this is a believe this is a thought less way to do it it's not fear it is morally right. and i truly believe that if you tell me that you're going to start a fight it's one thing if you tell me that is joe is going to fight but if you expect me to my kids that fight you have to explain a little go to me about what the fight is about it was i think you know herbert hoover. old man declare war as young men fight them congressman rangle that exists to be a good work thank you and good luck with this legislation thank you so much that you the first strong advocate for mandatory military service in the united states

was thomas jefferson one 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 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 the 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 u.s. but 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 resort 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 it goes pay the top rate of thirty five percent but under congresswoman schakowsky is a 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 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 congressman 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 beaks 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 based on my willing to make sacrifices like the rest of us yes absolutely my bill takes into account the fact that really for the past thirty years we have seen that the middle class has not enjoyed at any of the gains of increased 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 very rich the millionaires and i go up to the billionaires to pay their fair share what impact will your bill have 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 hologram for college we would cut dramatically from head start so education would suffer

cancer research housing programs at the same time that twenty five percent of the homes in america are going under or 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 it was a seventy four percent when you came into office that's exactly right and in fact are the less historically it's been as high as ninety and ninety plus percent percent through most of the eisenhower administration right temple 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 vexing 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 we 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 is skews our

whole democratic process as well it is amazing eighty one percent of americans chris paul are mentioned in sort of are in agreement with 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 neighborhood and i mean street and so our first our first goal was to get more

co-sponsors on the the legislation and then to begin to sell it out. side and inside the congress congresswoman jan schakowsky thanks so much for the great work you're doing good luck with this bill they'd like you for being our program there 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 you know i mean they've been doing that since right it's like a chapter title for my book rebuilding 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 egypt and right now and the consequences for the united states. it's twenty four seven live streaming news tells what to tell you about the ongoing financial heart unlimited free high quality videos for download. and

stories you may never find. the political. posts aren't done much to stand. as the deaths toll soars in the 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. another catastrophe 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 to contain larger amounts of harmful radiation than the reactors themselves and there are reports that those pools of waste are over eating catching fire and spewing their 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 who use the very same g.e. mark one reactor design that is now killing people in japan for more on this issue

i'm joined by linda gunter international specialist and founder of the on nuclear linda welcome back thank you tom great to have you with us if we could pull this graphic of the mark one reactor can you explain what this this is the type of reactor this is the type that they asked for so you have the fuel rods inside in the very middle of it and then the vessel around it and then dislike oh that's the containment and that's the last line of defense but this is this is concrete here this is steel yes and so this is rugs are aiming out there and then you get 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 seen through here and there's been

a build up of hydrogen which is then detonated and you lose the roof blew the roof . off two at least of these exposes these pools are those the two yes in of in one in three we've seen the bits he was sick so a lot of these allergies the actual photos of the reactors this is. this is well explain what this is where i write well these are the before the sleeze or 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 people don't know is that this underneath this square this is basically like the top of a concert and underneath that 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 over my ok so let's go to the second picture here this is. this is in

process yes i think it's the reactor way around oh no i see yes we've got it yes but right so we actually one in reactor three we've seen those with the hydrogen explosions where you know it really messed up here where the roofs are the reality of course still intact 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 the the the troubling one is number two where the explosion was in the suppression pool which is through that do not shake that you saw the body tourists yes in there and that blew open it was so eager to measure it you have a containment explosion which is different to me you know that maybe it's the picture of i mean the irony of these pictures is that ones that look the worst what's happening at least all of the you know it's all relative but they're really serious so you see this number two where that happened there was an explosion there

is venting there but the explosion was inside containment and that's the vulnerability of our bodies either as the side of a. it didn't take the roof out because it didn't because the valve jams they were trying to vent a valve got stuck and so the hydrogen built inside the suppression 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 people the fuel pool problems are continuing a u.s. official today who declined to be identified but a high official said siri could be deadly for decades be hard to describe how alarming this is right now we need to start pulling our people and step up with getting them back in the reactor to cool word there is a recognition this is a suicide mission i'm assuming this highly placed american an official didn't want to volunteer to go do. this you know there's no guidebook for

a crisis like this was what does it look like is happening what can we expect i know it takes longer for the water to boil off the ways than for the reactors themselves to what's most alarming is the fact that have been able to get power fully back in 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 service in luxor noone 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 if anybody is so hard to tell me when you look at that last picture it almost looks like you know you know sea 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 you ask it was well the chairman of the nuclear wreckage commission tell congress today that he thought that that number four was in meltdown that was ansel digital i believe i don't want to miss it he said that the water was gone it was going to zero in from the fuel pool and that's the one with the hole fuel load in the pool

amazing amazing linda thanks so much for coming out tonight speaking with. while the rest of the world reconsiders new. we are power americans could get screwed by elected representatives who are snugly in the pocket of the nuclear energy lobby switzerland germany china even who are chavez's 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 i used to call that an excuse to call it bribery and lobbying efforts to ensure a future spot in america's energy portfolio and like the big oil lobby is has didn't even blink at the future risks posed by their own industry so it doesn't take it as a feat like what's happening in japan to happen here before our elected representatives wake up to the dangers of nuclear power and i'm let me just lay this out 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 no let's put it in yucca mountain let's put it was self let's let's put it let's turn into glass let's figure out a way to recycle it 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 killie's heel of the nuclear industry once you point out that nuclear waste is going up 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 so that we have to figure out either what to do with the nuclear waste we did working on that one for fifty years and those solutions yet no serious solutions that are that will last as long as the nuclear waste would 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 just rip top solar panels have a fifty year lifetime and tim told have these kinds of problems associated with them let's come up with some sane solutions we have not had 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 that you travel around rural areas or not even rulers 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 week it we can a half ago when i went to vermont and did a gig with bernie sanders over the weekend a 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's time for a daily poll your chance to tell us what you think here's today's questions we'll

our question will the republicans succeed in cutting tsunami warning funs yeah they actually want to do that your options are yes you got to give tax breaks to millionaires the money has 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 in the 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 poll be open till tomorrow. crazy alert tomorrow marks the beginning of march madness the n.c. double a college basketball tournament because the american workforce is 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 at work hooters may just have the answer for you

the restaurant is offering a promo that includes a free appetizer and a doctor'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 in college basketball unclear how many people plan to take advantage of the promo. but let's just say it shouldn't feel too worried at the centers for disease control suddenly issue a warning tomorrow that there's been a net nationwide massive and emic and they can't figure out what cost. coming up the republicans are clearly not for the middle class neither are they for kids who want to get their lunch money still why one particular right wing group is turning the cheek on school bullies.

let's not forget that we had an apartheid regime. i think. either one well. we never got that says they're going to keep you safe get ready because you're going to have freedom. charter here broadcasting live from washington d.c. coming up today on the big picture.