rights for workers in wisconsin is on the on the line right now details on the neck and neck race for the state's new supreme court justice in just a few minutes and paul ryan's proposed budget plan is supposed to lower the nation's deficit right now don't be too quick to believe everything you hear from the g.o.p. tom we'll tell you why it's nice and. all right well japanese officials are saying that they have plug the leak in one of the reactors at the crippled fukushima nuclear plant temporarily stopping tons of radioactive waste water from flowing into the ocean every hour but that does not mean that the workers of the plant are out of the woods just yet and there are new fears of a nother explosion as massive amounts of hydrogen are building up within the reactor one and that comes into contact with oxygen boom now the daiichi plant has

already been rocked by several explosions this past month that have left reactors two three and four badly damaged and leaking enormous amounts of radiation samples of that radioactive waste water were found to contain radiation at five million times the legal limit after officials discovered contaminated seal life that government is now considering restrictions on fishing now india is not leaving on japan to act they became the first nation to actually ban all imports of food from japan so just how dangerous is the radiation in the ocean and happen that affect the food chain that we sit on top of here to shed some light on this issue is kevin council radioactive waste watcher watchdog at beyond nuclear and patti labelle assistant director of food food and water watch both of you thank you so much for being here and kevin i'll start with you what do we need to know in layman's terms about where the situation is in japan right now and what's going to happen. all

that waste water well it's a very serious situation and authorities now claim that they plug this crack in a trench where uncontrolled releases of highly contaminated radioactive water were going into the ocean for days on end but it should be remembered that at the same time tokyo electric power company has run out of space for storing radioactive water and so they've decided to don last are contaminated radioactive water in very large amounts of eleven thousand five hundred tons into the ocean so they're preventing the release of even more highly radioactive water by releasing less radioactive contaminated water so it's still a situation that's very out of control they're trying to free up space for this even more hazardously contaminated water supply and it's coming from their attempts to cool these reactor cores which are in various stages of meltdown as you mentioned unit one the danger of a hydrogen explosion and the nuclear regulatory commission a report that was gotten a hold of by the new york times fears that the you know one reactor core is without

any cooling water in it at all so that situation of that meltdown is very grave at this point and just so we understand i mean i think people get lost in the numbers and some folks will say well the ocean is so vast how dangerous is it to have that amount that's leaked out and that could potentially leak out how dangerous is that in the context of the size of the ocean well it really depends on how much radioactivity gets released and then there's another phenomenon called bio concentration io accumulation by a magnification it's where the food chain will build up radioactivity concentrations up the food chain unlike the human beings or at the top of the food chain so depending on which form of seafood is consumed by humans it could be severely contaminated with radioactivity and moving on to humans patti i want to turn to you i mean should i not go out to nice sushi dinner this evening i mean this is a concern should we be this is the problem we don't have a lot of information to help people make. decisions as individuals and it's not

really a problem that individual choice can solve and we need government responses to this situation that are appropriate and right now what we're getting is a lot of kind of empty reassurances the first thing our government says we talk about radiations don't worry is not what they're about to say they've is always preface it with don't worry because they don't really want to have this conversation unfortunately so we think that we need to be looking at the import situation much more closely i mean on a good day without an emergency the f.d.a. only looks at seeing percent of imported food so it's not like we were at a great place to start without this emergency so we need to get a better handle from them on what they're going to do they have not really given us an adequate explanation of what they're going to do on seafood and then we also need to get a much better understanding of the extent of the problem in japan so we can have an adequate response they need to be tracking how much they're releasing where it's traveling you know what kind of body of water is involved so that we can draw an appropriate line around that until we have that i think that we should be doing what other countries like india are doing the same for right now we're not going to take fish from japan and use only two percent of the food gets inspected i wonder

will happen if the government shutdown actually takes place i'm sure that's not going to be an essential priority how long i'd if you do get these kinds of threats of contamination last typically i mean is this tens of years hundreds of years just a few months what kind of an impact are we looking at in the long term the hazardous persistence of some of these radioactive poisons are very long so radioactive cesium one thirty seven which builds up in the muscle tissue of animals including humans is a three hundred to six hundred year hazardous persistence strontium ninety years of bone seeker again three hundred to six hundred year has reduced resistance plutonium to thirty nine is a two hundred forty thousand to four hundred eighty thousand year hazardous persistence and this vicious radioactive poison iodine one thirty one has an eight day half life but that means eighty to one hundred sixty days of very serious risk to people who either consume it or inhale it and patty back to you have you heard any sort of. murmuring among our political elites about potentially following in

india's footsteps and banning these imports we've been asked that question for several weeks now we've been making these recommendations for several weeks and to date we haven't heard the kind of response we think that we should be hearing unfortunately we're hearing a lot of reassurances and we're getting a lot of kind of false comparison so don't worry when you find it in milk that's just like this other type of exposure that might come from the environment or you know writing in an airplane or a cat scan when we don't eat those things right so we need a more honest discussion we need more honest comparisons about what levels are we really finding we need more data and then we need a better discussion from the government and better response that we're dealing with the risks appropriately and things that ingesting things is a different type of risk and i wonder if people contrast this with what happened in the aftermath of hurricane katrina i mean do we see that government act properly in terms of restricting certain foods that were contaminated after that situation. that's a good question i'm saying but katrina the more recent example with actually built

oil spill in the gulf there was a lot of conversations you know with different agencies and doing testing and a lot of this boils down to transparency you know data collection so we would like to see more data collection in this country with our food system you know looking at the rain in the soil and the air in places where we grow food we start to see a problem that might start testing the food and so i think we need to gear up that way and we're not there's been slow to gear up i think in this country and so i think we need to get more data and we need a lot of transparency to what the data is that people can can have some confidence or not they can decide for themselves this is adequate and i feel ok about that reassurance or i don't and i'm going to avoid that product and that many more commitment to do you know more commitments trance track record so far really quickly before we run out of time your predictions on what's going to happen with the fukushima plant a year from now i mean is it done oh well incredibly tokyo electric power company in the midst of this disaster has moved to build two new reactors at the very same site it's really incredible and the local fukushima officials said no way about

getting the meltdowns under control and we're seeing very high levels of radioactive iodine one thirty one in drinking water in boise idaho it's seventy to eighty three really for most of those. unfortunately not not the best developments from there i hope to have both of you back on to discuss this in detail thank you you now you think that we might all be affected by contaminated seafood as a result of this disaster in japan but is that really the only thing that we should be worrying about here in the united states a few weeks ago tom explained how our nation is just as vulnerable as japan to a potential nuclear catastrophe taking. all this crisis unfolds in japan or something the u.s. media is ignoring that's our own spotty record when it comes to nuclear safety. this is. pretty amazing stuff nuclear power plants here in the united states. here's a map of the united states. first of all what does the n.r.c. say about this is this information by the way from the new concerned scientists and

in their findings they made the state a nuclear power plants continue to experience problems with safety related equipment and worker errors that that increase the risk of damage to the reactor core and that's. to the employees of the public nuclear power plants continue to experience problems so what are these problems well let's look at a few of them is actually a fairly long list i'm just pulling five out. for example diable cannie or diablo canyon california what's actually been going on there well here's this is you know pacific gas and electric this from the n.r.c. or from the concerned science is the n.r.c. by the union of concerned scientists misguided repaired a valves that would not open fast enough preventer other key valves for opening tests after the valve repairs failed to detect the problem. then there were the reactor operated for nearly eighteen months this reactor operated for eighteen months with out its emergency systems would be with the emergency systems disabled

. the next one is in fort calhoun hope near omaha nebraska. in this case a case of this reactor pumps an emergency water make up system failed repeatedly over several years the plant owner never identified the true cause of the failures and therefore did not take the right steps to prevent the recurrence in hill robinson said in florence south carolina on the thirty first anniversary of three mile island this event we visited nearly all the problems that caused a meltdown bad design poor maintenance of problematic equipment either in an inadequate operator performance and poor training and in surrey newport news virginia the next one after an inadvertent shutdown of the union you know one reactor the fire began in the control room due to an overheated electrical component similar component in unit two company didn't take steps to protect unit one from the problem identified in unit two and wolf creek in burlington can. anzus seven hours after the reactor shut down automatically because of

a problem of electrical grid and n.r.c. inspector phone water leaking from the system because you needed the diesel generators and two thousand studies seven study had forecast the leakage and leak actually occurred after the reactor thousand eight or whatever the owner it says has taken few problems to correct the steps to take this problem as a real problem. and wisconsin voters took to the polls yesterday to a look at a new state supreme court justice now normally this kind of race would get very little attention outside of the state but of course it's become a proxy fight over the governor scott walker is also it's on collective bargaining rights now the race pits incumbent justice walker and walker supporter david prasar against democrat back to joe and kloppenburg it all kloppenburg did declare victory in that context today and that's what is likely to face a recount a vote now the process remains on the bench conservatives will maintain of the forty three majority on that state's high court

a court that will likely be the ultimate decider when it comes to contentious anti union legislation now in that light i think it's fair to say that faith in the selection is the labor fight in wisconsin and joining us now for his take on this is robert craig he's the executive director of citizen action of wisconsin robert welcome thank you great to be here now before we get to the implications i just want you to update us briefly on the latest in the selection is the recount definitely going to happen what are you hearing on the ground. recount is not an announced justice process or how to ask for that but almost certainly we have a two hundred four vote margin between prop and berg the challenger and the incumbent prosser with over one point five million votes cast and so that's such a thin margin i'm sure they'll be a recount and we could have a florida like situation where i think the walker forces will certainly pull out all the stops to try to overturn this election now one point five million votes cast that's huge i mean this is a normally the kind of election that gets this kind of attention what what do you

feel like is at stake for the vote especially out there is actually the question of the workers' rights protest movement change this election i mean a turnout is a low well below twenty percent in a typical spring election like this and so it was over thirty three percent even higher in some areas like in madison and so we really did become a proxy for the whole debate over workers' rights and justice prosser who is a warmer republican but you were speaker of the state assembly clearly in a majority leader he clearly was associated with walker and clearly would have ruled in favor of walker and all the court challenges for word around the god the attack on like a pardon does it hold then it sure does long as we can we keep it going again and make sure the boat is there in terms of the recount there's actually creates a supreme court that could look objectively at the legal case being raised against the attack on protected pardoning and the rights of union members and tell me are

you seeing a national shift the labor movement beyond wisconsin as the excitement and energy sort of spreading. absolutely the whole levon on scott walker or words attack on gardner ok national you're equally national guard issue help you to use the national guard and their national international interest in this i think it is changed everything in a lot of respects starting with walker finally went far enough to show people that this is an attack on the middle class and our friends and neighbors and relatives and so i think that it's amazing how much national international interest there is on what's going on in wisconsin and very briefly how do you maintain the momentum so that folks here on capitol hill take into account the will of the people i mean you know our politicians tend to be very isolated from the rest of the country and you can see that for yourself if you look at representative paul ryan's budget which i know you've written about so how do you make folks like him pay attention to the rights and needs of the working class. well we just have to keep the

movement going to work everything out walker here and in tremendous progress or get out of here because he's doing more and more outrageous things like trying to implement one bought a couple weeks ago when there was a restraining order preventing him from an asian i think they'll probably be fresh outrages when we come to this recount which will take a long time and be very contentious and it's budget it has cracked only in education healthcare and out so we just need to keep this movement going because people finally broadly understand the stakes in what's going on here and the decline really of economic opportunity the old in with constantinople country we need to keep this movement spreading and you could go in and i think it will go in given what happened by the way you know what i like incumbent supreme court justice has a lot in forty one years in wisconsin this was not going to be a competitive race. to lose this race by twenty thirty points except for what happened except for this movement that started on probably a lot and all right well robert i know that you're going to work on keeping the

movement going and we're going to continue to get an eye on exactly what's going on in wisconsin and the rights of workers all across the country thank you so much thank you for having me i right coming up. that republicans are hiding in their budget agenda that's going to tonight's daily take. all right. let's not forget that we are tonight right.

safe. will. you know something should see the story at the scene so. you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else some other part of it and realize that everything you. don't. charge is a big. fat . for.

a while while republicans and democrats squabble over short term funding to avoid a government shutdown there's still the bigger question of our late nation's long term budget and of course here two republicans are promoting their radical policy changes now their plan was introduced yesterday by house budget committee chairman paul ryan and approaches to cut more than four trillion dollars in spending over the next decade sounds good except that there's a bit of a problem with paul ryan's mouth and apparently his morals too well the congressional budget office just released its analysis of the plan and if you're

old if you care about the nation's debt or happen to not be a millionaire prepared to get screwed you see that four trillion dollars in spending cuts comes at the expense of low income americans moreover seniors will be paying forty percent more and medicare costs under paul ryan's plan and here's the kicker the g.o.p. plan will actually increase our nation's debt why is that because the four trillion dollars in cuts are offset by gigantic. tax cuts for the rich tax cuts that will cost our nation much more in the long haul so basically the republicans don't do anything this country will probably be better off perforce this is probably what we should expect from a party that's subservient to transnational corporate c.e.o.'s who want their tax cuts not to mention the for profit health insurance c.e.o.'s that seem to be more than happy to see him a few billion dollars off medicare and these republicans will lie to get their way now three months ago just as the g.o.p. were taking power in the house tom started to take on this lie that's been told by

the right and the consequences for us americans here today take a look we're all being lied to it's a lie perpetrated by major transnational corporations it's a lie that's then promoted by republican politicians for the benefit of their millionaire and billionaire campaign donors a lie that was picked up by our media and is now broadcast daily on mainstream news outlets allies spoon fed to the politically naive masses to encourage average working people to not only vote against their best interests but to protest and commit violence against their own best interests it's a lie that was allowed to grow unchecked by democratic members of congress and even picked up and repeated by presidents clinton and obama all people who knew it was a lie but didn't speak up ultimately it was a lie that shifted the balance of power in our country in the midterm elections two months ago and a lie that now threatens to take down our country today the lie is our country is

worse off today because of a government is too large sounds like you've heard it before. christians are ready. to see. washington a repudiation of big government and abbreviation of politicians who refuse to listen to the american. i see the problems in health care is that there's not enough capitalism if there's too much government and we're going the opposite way. we reduce government under reagan then it was two thousand and six. and now obama has moved to say year and only hiring and firing people a car companies and everything else this is where we are. total government in our case we have to look at is the growth of government and the waste in government and that's what we're going to do. more tax than that but you act because you are

really terrible on you somebody else everybody else if you've got your income your property your inventory your investments where you are is how they would really like it we go on to every bank and they're running banks insurance companies car companies it was a student loan business taking over health care. we don't need the government taking equity positions ownership position change anymore private sector businesses is this growth of government a good idea and this center for freedom and prosperity video we're going to analyze the economic impact of government spending on dan mitchell and the cato institute there are eight ways that government spending can undermine economic performance it's a lie now in power republicans are plenty use this lie to advance the interests of corporate c.e.o.'s and wall street the very people who started this line more than eighty years ago saying franklin roosevelt social security program was socialism until the latest to stalin as

a that's why when reagan came into power he immediately cut taxes on the rich in an effort to starve the beast of government reagan famously claimed this phrase the. here coming. from the government and i'm hearing from bat from that point on government was public enemy number one after all it's government that has the power to stop big polluters from poisoning us it's government that has the power to tax huge profits on wall street to discourage danial of dangerous speculation it's government that has the power to enforce labor regulations to protect workers therefore its government stands in the way of millionaires and billionaires who want to turn our country into rule by rich plutocracy it's government that ranks and they win when government shrinks today our country faces staggering problems the need that the government solutions were in

a recession and demands government spending a good place to start with government spending are deteriorating infrastructure our roads bridges energy grids unfortunately why is blocking government spending so we sit waiting for growth that isn't happening waiting for new public works projects that have been on hold since ronald reagan starve the beast our country desperately needs a new energy strategy the policymakers in washington won't budge the law is allowing the big oil lobbies to continue pumping carbon into the atmosphere crippling our planet and choking all of us who would have it. not to mention the hundreds of billions of dollars that are shipped to people after way around the world who want to blow us up on the name of oil profits then the b.p. oil spill happens and nothing changes because the law forbids new government regulations meanwhile we're getting shellacked by china south korea brazil when it comes to clean energy investments fifty million people are without health insurance in this country forty five thousand of us die every year because of it health care

costs are going up exponentially they're the single greatest threat to our nation's long term budget deficits but little is done to address it because of the lie be pushed by for profit health insurance companies with c.e.o.'s like stephen hemsley i made over four hundred million dollars and first five years as c.e.o. of united healthcare lies about big government that wants to institute death panels and pull the plug on grandma and now republicans in their first order of business will try to repeal obamacare based on this lie and because of this people will die so as the hundred twelfth session of congress begins today that's reflected on the slide the put john boehner in his corporate republican colleagues and power and let's start speaking the truth our country finds itself in economic peril today not because of a big government but because of a government that no longer does its job a government that's allowed the wealth inequality gap to grow so large that even

the middle class doesn't have enough money to buy things anymore to stimulate our economy that's all thanks to the insane tax cuts for the rich and the war against labor unions by these same rich guys we need to raise taxes on millionaires and billionaires sixty one percent of americans say should we cut raise the minimum wage lift up those in poverty not give will for wall street we are here today because of thomas friedman's flat earth insane economic policies because our jobs to be shipped overseas by the millions. just last year a million jobs sent to mexico and china and india how are we supposed to fix our economy without jobs we need to raise tariffs and close tax loopholes that allow companies to benefit from outsourcing we need to join the rest of the industrialized world and get rid of for profit health insurance companies and finally realize that health care is a right just like education is a right just like safety from crime in fire or right and just like access to clean water and uncontaminated foods in this country are right we need to restart the

green economy the jimmy carter birth and ronald reagan put to death just a few years later and we need to understand that rights have only one guarantor government no corporation will ever protect your rights it's not their job while today's republican party is once again in power thanks to this big government lie tomorrow's political leaders will be the men and women who have the courage to stand up to the plutocrats who created that lie the first political party is willing to take on these corporate special interests address our nation's dangerous wealth inequality recognize the importance of labor unions reform our global trade strategy make health care a right and not a privilege and kick big oil out of our national energy strategy that party will be the party that wins hearts and minds in the next american election let's start telling the truth and put an end to this lie for good. and that's the big picture now for more information on the stories we covered please visit our website at thom hartmann dot com and our team dot com and this entire show is also

available as a free podcast on i tunes of course check out our view to page at youtube dot com slash the big picture our team this time always says democracy begins with you get out there get out there and tag the euro. news today violence is once again flared up. and these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. trying to cope for a chatroom today. we'll

. bring you the latest in science and signal from the realms. we go to the future of coverage. yes. thank you.