i am. told. in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight the big picture waterboarding well it's not a sport it's a technique of strapping someone down a flat surface place he's been achieved over their face and continuously born water over their face says the way to extract information from a terrorist suspect or just good old fashioned torture the g.o.p.'s war on women continues other plan to revoke the right for low income rape victims to receive.

and the legalization of medical marijuana could burn out tell you why the white house is urging state governors to veto their laws. you need to know this today president obama went to ground zero to honor the victims of nine eleven and join new yorkers to recognize sunday's moment of justice when the man behind this unthinkable act of terrorism osama bin laden was finally put to death in a somber ceremony the president offered no public remarks he simply laid a wreath at the site where the towers once stood congressman charlie rangle was on hand and called into my radio show earlier today and a picture of the. i was with the family when he came over and he had a conversation with a little flower and he told me i didn't give

a speech today because i could not find it were it to write no you must be feeling and the moment speaks for itself and i hope you will. give me three i thought it listening and it was so goofy you know not. but concealed it came with everything was the air the president did not give a speech he did not give a speech he said he spoke. to the families that would be he went to a fire station one of the five services that would be he took off his jacket so that i can. see the apollo john said that he couldn't believe it was the president of the united states of america who was just sitting down didn't have much enjoyed the meal and so having lunch with him it was such a and the sun was shining and the families that be here in new jersey and new

york got the group's leader and so anybody that is trying hard to decide this issue is just not going for them to work. afterward the president talked privately with the families of victims of nine eleven first responders telling the fighter fire firefighters what happened on sunday because of the courage of our military and the outstanding work of our intelligence sent a message around the world and also sent a message here back home that when we say we will never forget we mean what arse what we say that our commitment to making sure that justice is done is something that transcended politics transcended party it didn't matter which administration was in it didn't matter who was in charge who were going to make sure that the perpetrators that horrible act that they receive justice and with that private meeting with families the president by a left manhattan and flew back to washington d.c. . so while president obama was focused on healing the nation bringing closure to one of the worst things that's ever happened to us and holding us all together

right wingers had a different agenda a different issue to talk about the wake of bin laden's death and that's torture no sooner had bin laden's body been sunk to the bottom of the north arabian sea and bush apologists were quick to brag that it was torture that led to the death of bin laden was that argument's been largely dismissed not only by bush's own deputy national security adviser john brennan the chairwoman of the senate intelligence committee dianne feinstein even donald rumsfeld himself all of whom said torture had nothing to do with fight even ludden although romney did eventually backtrack once you get the right wing talking points so why is the right so obsessed with torture now and even if a shred of evidence that pointed to bin laden's whereabouts was procured thanks to torture does not make a right joining me now to offer his take is david selig former marine and federal tax practitioner and advocate david welcome to the program. thank you for having me on and thank you so your guests the last time i was on i got

a lot of really nice letters and supportive remarks so i appreciate it it's great matthew excuse me david philip of the new matthew alexander a senior u.s. interrogator who oversaw and performed over thirteen hundred interrogations of iraq guy you know he basically done everything wrong question question a waterboarding said this to any good man on her democracy now program. torture and abuse was okayed as number one recruiting tool and remember these foreign fighters they came to iraq they made up ninety percent of suicide bombers. they killed hundreds if not thousands of american soldiers and so this policy of torture and abuse did not make america safer what it did was it caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of american soldiers who are now buried at arlington national cemetery stow hundreds or thousands of american soldiers dead because of torture. you know that's nonsense that's absolutely untrue one of the biggest lies that has

been purposely was there upon us by this is this will go to the hundred sarah gave . well that does not mean the ferocity of what he is saying is so i would like to say that the again the biggest lie that has been perpetrated upon us is that this technique does not work it does work it has certainly secure and protected many of our interests and it is saved more american lives than it is ever lost but i would remind you of this tom by comparison it's really nothing compared to what in this case the islamic terrorists do i mean lopping off heads stoning women to yeth killing home a sexual. slaughtering innocent little jewish children by comparison it's like a day at the park so your argument is that if they're brutes we should become brutes even if we're not quite as brutish. well i think we have to be pragmatic and we also have to be reality politic there is

a certain voice in our. politics are elected officials who think we can depose these individuals and that we can somehow appease them with talk and understanding. as i would we want to be. just to stop the swine i don't get this why would we want to descend into this presidents from from george washington to franklin roosevelt wars and never used torture why would we say i would love an embrace this now if we prosecuted it you know we we hung. her using we're using the waterboarding and i think we hung in world war two we were the firing squad we executed filipino soldiers for using waterboarding against our people and in both cases during the spanish-american war in both cases we called that torture and said it was a war crime we didn't do it and we can we executed the criminals who did it and you're and you're saying we should become wait

a minute your pay you're playing fast and loose with the word torture and you're taking only one aspect of what these individuals did the fact of the matter was waterboarding with the particular enemy combatants you previously mentions was just one thing they were doing ok waterboarding was called the trials with water in world war two and in the spanish-american war it was yes that's only was another thing they did there was also a lot of other things but again this is the liberally misleading your listening audience to believe that what we did was wrong and it was on par with what these other individuals have to go back to take offense to your saying where descending into this because that's not true back to back to matthew alexander again this is a guy who oversaw thirteen hundred tera geishas or participated in thirteen hundred or geishas in iraq since one of the top. one of the senior officials he said when i was in iraq i oversaw the interrogations of foreign fighters those foreign fighters

the majority of them said time and time again the reason they've come to iraq to fight is because of the torture and abuse of detainees at both and guantanamo bay and this is not my opinion the department of defense tracked these to to six and they were briefed every interrogator who arrived there the torture and abuse was his number one recruiting tool you know the army manual in section one thirty five is part one section thirty five as i recall says explicitly the use of violence is not necessary to to acquire information from suspects and it goes on to say that it actually is counterproductive and this is against this is against the u.c. i'm j. it's against the uniform code of military justice or what you're saying against the are absolutely this you're absolutely distorting this argument again you have a loud voice saying something that is wrong is right and something that is right is wrong in this case we're getting waterboarding has been responsible for saving many

american lives and american interests against there's no evidence ideologically opposed i disagree with that but i disagree with the secretary that it's not inciting yes i am here and you're disagreeing with the guy who was actually there and oversaw thirteen are part of yes i am i most i most certainly i am what the fuck her if you brought a presidential to do that did you have you ever waterboard anybody you got good into intelligence i have not i have not but i have to tell you as a matter of military policy i think it is that are effective tool to have in our arsenal and it would be folly for us to remove it from the medio ok well i will will will leave we'll leave with you having the last word david thank you for dropping by thank you again tom. in my opinion torture is a war crime plain and simple and waterboarding is torture and those in the bush administration who practice to are war criminals now the bin laden's dead they're

trying to claim that their atrocities are justified but frankly they're not and they never will be in loggins goal with nine eleven was not to kill americans or not just to kill us it was also to make america compromise its own ideals for us to behave as evil as bin ladin had portrayed us and since we resorted to torture and brutality in many ways like bin laden did in some small ways he won that battle but now that we have a president who refuses to go down that same road a war crimes in laden is dead and his cause well when in the end you know our first president to explicitly say no torture was george washington here's what hillary clinton had to say back on october thirty first two thousand and six speaking before the council of foreign relations about them. and the florida senate i recounted a choice that general george washington made twenty thirty years ago. york city and

long island and capture washington and the continental army had retreated across new jersey to pennsylvania suffering tremendous casualties here in new york american prisoners often held in the halls of boats anchored in the harbor off of brooklyn were suffering unspeakably at the hands of the british because of american independence was in doubt then washington won the battle of trenton capturing nearly one thousand prisoners of war and he had to decide what to do with them he ordered he gave should still speak to us treat them with humanity and let them have no reason to complain of our copying the brutal example of the british army and their treatment of our unfortunate grad run there can be no mercy for those who perpetrated nine eleven and other crimes against humanity but we have to pursue justice and

a way that lifts up our values the rule of law and sets an example we can point to with pride not shame and in fact george washington's policies were followed was a result of the hundreds of thousands of british soldiers actually deserted to the american side knowing that they would be treated well and it was one of the things that helped us win the war. flash forward to world war two hitler is having victories and he's just taken france a top secret facilities put together for what it's called p. o. box eleven forty two the at this facility they conducted over four thousand interrogations the highest value nazi targets i recall for example was one of the master interrogators he was actually a physicist from mit the washington post and to some an act over sixty two thousand and seven an article by petula dvorak titled for hunt's quiet men break silence on world war two. quoted henry call the guy who ultimately was

well here's the here's the quote actually from we got more information out of a german general with a game of chess or ping pong than they do today with their torture said henry call ninety an mit physicist who had been assigned to play chess in germany with it we're just getting rudolph hess about high value targets in in the article she continued several of the veterans all men in their ny eighty's and ninety's denounced the controversial techniques and when the time came for them to accept honors from the army's freedom team salute one veteran refused citing his opposition the war in iraq and procedures that have been used to guantanamo bay in cuba she went on to write actually this is a quote we did it with a certain amount of respect and justice this is john gunther dean eighty one he was talking about interrogation became a career foreign service officer ambassador to denmark the interrogators had standards that remain a source of pride and honor and finally george frankel eighty seven of kensington

said during the many interrogations i never laid hands on anyone we extract that information in a battle of the wits i'm proud to say i never compromised my humanity george w. bush took us to a place where we as a nation compromised our humanity fortunately president obama has as repudiated that and let's hope it never happens again. it's time for our daily poll your chance to tell us what you think here's today's question do you agree with president obama saying no go on the bin laden death photos your choices are yes i agree with him we don't need to trot this out as a trophy is obama said that's not who we are or no as sarah pale and said stop pussyfooting around and show photos as a warning to others so far over eighty percent of you voted yes you can log on to

thom hartmann dot com let us know you think the poll will be open until tomorrow morning. coming up plant workers in japan are back back at the fukushima daiichi plant only two months after the nuclear meltdown so what's first on their to do was to try to stop a total worldwide disaster. for . five. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so. you think you understand it and then you glimpse something

else you hear see some other part of it and realized everything you thought you knew you don't i'm sorry there's a big issue. every single republican representatives yesterday voted to pass a radical piece of legislation that redefines rape and further subordinates women as with one in seven people in food stamps in america republicans are focusing on the important issue like how to screw over victimized women and no taxpayer funding for abortion act passed it was pretty much a party line vote dropping women who've been victims of a variety of forms of nonviolent rape but rapes children incest victims or victims of bait rape for medicaid coverage for abortions the bill also raises taxes on small businesses and women by a limb an aging tax deductions for health insurance plans that may cover abortion

services even the chamber of commerce acknowledged the bill with a tax hike the bill also forces women who have to have abortions using federal dollars to undergo a rate audit or she will have to prove the i.r.s. with written documentation that she was indeed a victim of rape or incest or that her life was in danger or the one hundred thirty five thousand people petitioned speaker of the house john boehner did not pass this radical new law be ignored every single one of them since as a man he knows much more about abortion than women do so why on earth is going after pregnant women the top priority of the republican party here to offer their takes on this issue rather serve a conservative strategist and managing owner for forty group public relations and sam bennett president and c.e.o. of the women's campaign forum heather sam welcome heather to paraphrase grover norquist. it seems the republicans are are hell bent for leather and shrinking government down to the size where it can fit into

a woman's uterus what is small limited government about trying to trying to legislate and involve the federal level women who've been raped but let's not forget we're not going to we're focusing on abortion as well and we have in two thousand and ten overwhelmingly people say we want pro-life representation and therefore. you know i don't know that it's not you know the one of the economy to these topics that is bad those are not mutually exclusive they are they're saying i'm not going to tell you all this and i'm sorry it's we've always had mean to have our taxpayers' money go towards abortion go ahead and start talking about what really happened what really happened in two thousand and ten was a mandate on the economy had nothing to do with choice so proceed we had over one hundred percent it's coming up pro-life and they were outspoken about it and that was not something that worked against them that actually worked for them it's not mean they did no good to be pro-life and pro-choice all government is not with me or let me begin airline showing towards abortion let's not boil down to the u.s.

and. by the way you know when you know one when our when our country is falling apart and we have literally one in seven americans on food stamps one in six americans living below the poverty line. are there are things i mean you know sure we can we can have a debate and probably should about abortion and you know all these things in congress at some point but shouldn't the shouldn't republicans last or present is to be focused on what getting jobs for people you know like the promise that john boehner made when he convened one hundred twelfth congress that the most important priority would be the economy that is not going to say he's not a single thing it is all been about ramrodding through this is a piece of blackmail this is not a piece of reasonable legislation it is blackmail it is blackmailing women who are at the receiving end of rape who don't have the money to. they themselves out of their pocket so what are we going to do with that it is a form of blackmail against small businesses it's against of it's

a form of blackmail against people that have to pay their own life their own health insurance and it's a way of telling health insurance companies we're not going to we're going to penalize you penalize you if you offer of the full headers this is no it's not this isn't penalized this is not a very hard this is going to ask what are you showing preferential treatment towards insurance companies that. nonsense what this is saying is we're no longer anything about where you know you're going to hear it he's going to say this is not going to affect a woman who earns a couple hundred thousand dollars a year that's her who comes from a family that has millions of dollars johnson's not going to affect them at all because she can it is talk of exactly exactly thank you so i mean is it shouldn't that in another itself cause all of our antenna to go but if i could if on this one the eighty seven percent of the american people said that they are tired of abortion being part of this debate they said we support reproductive health choices we support it and nine percent of extremists way over there have

been dictating all of this legislation trying to pull all of this happening that election in two thousand and twelve times of twenty five with my head and i saw in two thousand and ten heather that was about the economy that was about jobs the fact that one hundred legislators got elected that happened to be anti choice not pro-life or anti choice those are not about they're only nine of a set of them were roach i'm not and i'm also a pearl i know that they were elected not great only when i had a child let me think that we're on our show elected on that they were related on the economy and they have this is john boehner has violated every promise he made and he's allowed nine percent of extreme this to pull the whole legislative agenda that this is my question is is if if the whole thing is supposed to be about the economy and this is what we're supposed to be concerned about war if we want to make it just about abortion and talk about whether abortion should be illegal. illegal or at what trimester when does life begin or any of those debates why would why would the pro-life movement support

a piece of legislation with it please doesn't in my present sorry whatever you whatever you want to call it why would that movement launch a support piece of legislation that has no impact whatsoever on rich women it has everything to do with the economy we're talking about no more the bill is titled no it can read your money or abortion right down to that is we can say you know me better all and i know you are going to get it back on the economy not only for women here but you know you won't have a great solution either way i would agree a solution let's say to save the taxpayers money that all poor children will not be educated thank you we've just so i think i think that they're actually doing that in detroit anyway let's just say it's all just say that all poor children cannot be educated in texas they're going to lay off sixty seven years let's also say that women who have been at the receiving end of. who are putting more or less than one percent of those you know i don't worship oh ok fine you made us all that very well no but that's the that is the lot that is what this law says they've gone out of

their way here on out a plan parenthood help you get an abortion if you need one oh please you know that i could do without but not even be able to say no you just services that planned parenthood offer are about reproductive choices and options a fraction of what they invest their dollars just for that i mean we just have twenty seconds left and i was. curious about both of your thoughts very quickly on the obama justice department cracking down on the anti-abortion groups it looks like they're going to start finally going if you so much fail i don't see how they could have any sort of legal reason for doing that given that we've been working with and you know you haven't i'm sorry but i mean no you have to bring i was a others i've been doing and i said it would be very good to be that i was in there is a good i think you obama for finally doing this it will say we'll see how it gets worse and i think you've got to. and i say another thing to say again i say in advance obama thank you so much for vetoing this bill i think it's out of the senate and

thank you both for thank you for taking time to appreciate. just for the record the bill has no chance of passing the democratic controlled senate but for the pro-life movement hope for two thousand and twelve springs eternal. as breaking news coming out of japan in the nearly two month long effort to prevent a nuclear catastrophe tepco workers walked inside one of the crippled nuclear reactor buildings at the daiichi plant for the first time today trying to reconnect ventilation equipment within the reactor one so they can get the cooling system back on line to stop the reactor core from melting and they're going to try to perform a cold shutdown there are still high levels of radiation in the building so plant operators will be working in shifts until we are heirs are finished we should take about five days so one of these new details mean is the situation close to being resolved here to offer some answers kevin camps radioactive waste watchdog at beyond nuclear or kevin welcome thanks to see again just. first of all what's a cold shutdown oh a cold shutdown means that the water's no longer boiling and they declare that

define that as a stable condition of the reactor core and they're far from that in the multiple reactor cores that fukushima daiichi they have above boiling temperatures they're admitting the company itself but they have fifty five percent fuel damage and you know one thirty five percent units who and thirty percent in unit three the situation is almost as out of control as it was on march eleventh doesn't feel gammage mean that the rods have been busted up the fuels around it's in the water at the very least if not melted down severely like and unit to the worst damage st after we have most melted fuel on the bottom of the reactor pressure vessel and likely melted through the bottom of the vessel and on the floor of the primary containment which is severely damaged so those are direct and assuming it's a concrete floor it's this is a metal primary containment floor and if enough of that molten fuel gets together in one place it can burn its way through the primary containment which is. already damaged this is we don't necessarily want to only water but it hits the concrete floor and you're right it burns its way through that into the water table but one

of the explodes back out again exactly the explosions of groundwater that form steam and so none of this is under control you know what are they doing to try to reassert control over pouring unlimited amounts of water into these reactor buildings they're stressing the structures to the point where another aftershock that's big enough could completely destroy what's left and then massive catastrophic radioactivity releases can low and the water that is being continuously poured in and it's continuously going in is going to be continuously going out someplace it's serving out it's passing exposed gammage radioactive material so it is it coming out radioactive going into the ocean and you've got it they are announcing even now further leaks into the ocean we're talking massive leakage of radioactivity into the ocean over the past six weeks seven weeks incredibly u.s. government agencies like the f.d.a. the e.p.a. noah have to clear that they're largely dismantling whatever added monitoring they

have put in place they say the food is safe coming from the ocean and i notice that today that the federal government so that we're not going to be testing seafood coming from asia the attitude is like once it goes in the ocean it disappears into nothingness that is not the case these are massive quantities of radioactivity they're completely ignoring this phenomenon called bio accumulation bio magnification the food chain is going to reconstitute trainee what they claim is being diluted to harmless levels in the ocean there is no harmless level of radioactivity the food chain will recounts and trade it to much more hazardous levels i've noticed there are geiger counters available for sale and some measure altho some measure be it has some measure both if somebody wants to get very paranoid it a geiger counter what's it with what should they get well it's not paranoia it's protecting themselves as the federal government of this country tries to. downplay the magnitude of this nuclear catastrophe one of the best companies out there is called international medcom they are based in sebastopol california they have been

supplying radiation monitors to the entire nuclear movement the environmental movement around the world for decades and they've helped people material the region set up their own monitoring systems they've helped people in this country set up monitoring systems around nuclear power plants because the real tool of the nuclear establishment not only here but around the world is to deny to downplay the high invisible you can't smell it can't see can't feeling can't taste it yeah it is very convenient for them and really what's at foot is a murdering of the truth i mean people are dying in japan in evacuation centers because they don't have the care they had each of these people who's going into the into this reactor they're all being exposed to cancer causing levels of radiation that's right they try to rotate people in and out so you you know lower the individual doses but people are getting massive doses of radiation at the daiichi site this is tragic this is just tragic. kevin thank you for the great work you're doing thanks for playing.