do you have a feeling people are already starting to forget just how serious this nuclear situation in japan is and just how volatile nuclear power is in general and if we do forget it was like we forgot after three mile island is that like we forgot after chernobyl about to happen again. coming up polygamy the so-called taboo marriage lifestyle never fails to grab national attention and the two thousand a polygamist raid in texas to the reality show sister wives is no rotation on the t.l.c. network after the break an inside look at his mormon tradition. sometimes

you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else here see some other part of it and realize that everything you say. i'm sorry is a big. welcome back to the big picture on thom hartmann coming up in this half hour the obama administration does a major shift from supporting medical marijuana to cracking down on state governors who allow marijuana pharmacies and clinics that's behind the sudden flip flop plus

if you ever wondered about the life of a polygamist i'll speak with an author who devoted part of his life and wrote an entire book about the once. and there's an infectious plague crippling the nation's middle class we have time to find a cure. that . is the obama administration having a change of heart about pot back in two thousand and nine attorney general eric holder reversed a policy of george w. bush and promised he would not use the f.b.i. to bust up medical marijuana dispensaries in states that had legalized medicinal marijuana but earlier this month the department of justice started singing a different tune sending a letter to the governor of washington threatening to prosecute any state employee or business involved in the unlawful marketing and sale of marijuana prompted the

governor christine gregoire to veto that state's medicinal marijuana law other governors around the country are now having second thoughts about legalizing medicinal marijuana as well so why is the white house suddenly targeting medicinal marijuana and what's the future of marijuana legalization in america alan see here joins me now is the executive director of normal at ash an organization for the reform of marijuana laws alan malcolm thank you great to have you with us what's behind this letter from the department of justice is this just some bureaucrat who's just been running on autopilot left over from the bush administration or is there an actual change of policy that's happening under the old it's there has definitely been a positive change from the reformers point of view with the election of obama they've got a lot of positive things to rubicon seem to have been crossed a few months ago in oakland where the city was going to seed for plots of land that were to grow two hundred thousand square feet of marijuana and i think in one of the greatest acts of see why

a choice would have to describe what that means the city attorney i think wrote to the federal attorney saying can you give me some instruction whether i can sign off on this and until the federal laws change really. every state that allows the sale and production and taxation of marijuana for any reason is a violation of federal law well yeah of course and and so for the city attorney or any state attorney for that matter to ask any federal attorney to say yeah go ahead you know it's that's not going to happen it's never going to happen the obama administration know up to this point. i miss i'm assuming the guy never got a response or got a negative response and then some of the things stopped but what it was was the called the ha ha a.g. memo it kind of counters the argument well you just mentioned a moment ago and what it did was it seems to point to the zenith of medical marijuana from the obama administration as he moves towards the election he seems to be getting to the middle on this discussion so that suddenly the light goes off

tony to all this happening. as do you so they're just there genuinely has been a change of policy or and it wasn't provoked by exogamous events by you know what's going on in berkeley or something like that well what we see now is not the swan are not the swat routine that was used on bush administration where they came in violently invaded these clubs today i call it the al capone effect where now they're just getting a soft little certified letter from the i.r.s. and now we're at the juncture of whether or not courts are going to determine whether these are legitimate businesses or not right and as long as federal law against it they're not they're not technically at all levels and if this were to spring court they'd simply say there's a federal law and there's but as you indicate there are fifteen states in the district of columbia that have changed the laws there are six states that have caps station and regulation rhode island vermont washington colorado all of those states and this we could receive those letters from the federal government so the easy

solution is to change the federal law and has there is there any movement that direction we since one thousand nine hundred seventy two so it's a long slog that is the ultimate way to fix this cannabis conundrum well and i you know i don't see that coming out of john boehner republican house of representatives but the democrats control the senate there are you know over boss told a lot of democrats left the house of representatives. his is the failure of democrats at the federal level to take this odd a reflection of a genuine public say dislike for the legalization of pot or they do or a decriminalization medicinal marijuana or is it political cowardice or is it just low on their priority list here are some numbers that are important seventy five percent of the public wants medical access to marijuana that's huge numbers out's the same percentage want to decriminalize what vexes me the most as an actress is

that about forty six percent want it legalized so there's a thirty percent gap there for the softer forms versus the much more difficult legalization or if you're a politician you should be following the tip o'neill school here and realize this is what the people want. and but that they're not moving in that direction no any is there is there any evidence at all do you have any legislative champions yes barney frank jerde polis ron paul you know war barker to name the republicans republicans even yes libertarian leaning to be sure so from our point of view can a pox on both houses that they haven't addressed what is really now a seventy five year probation or oh well good luck allen st pierre thanks so much for being with us and i don't appreciate it i see the war on drugs a complete failure and prison populations soaring now doesn't seem to be the right time to be taking a step back from a responsible drug policy in america let's call america for what it is an effective

medicine and not too bad for recreational drug either. republicans that are likely to jump into the race for president and mitt romney and jon huntsman happen to both be mormons the leading priest literally of the hard right wing is glenn beck another mormon and one of the leading tenants of mormonism has historically been polygamy joseph smith the guy who wrote the book of mormon founder of the church of latter day saints at well over forty wives many of them under eighteen years of age some as young as fourteen and even though the mormon religion is outlawed polygamy it's still a regular practice in some sects around america take a look at the case of warren jeffs the new taurus polygamist who was the head of the f.l.s. l.d.s. church and twenty wives found himself on the f.b.i.'s most wanted most wanted list back in two thousand and six right next up in la there are estimated to be around

six million mormons in america it's the fastest growing religion in the country and as many as thirty thousand people practicing polygamy in fact the polygamist lifestyle has been back in the headlines in recent months after t.l.c.'s popular reality show sister wives gave us all a unique look into the polygamist lifestyle. cody and i met again so is this young in a lab here in april we would take another wife arrives into the family i just fell in love i'm in a film love again and to know i saw in love again is this is cody's thirteenth child she's a sister the same mr and he's a brother from another mother some people think how do you feel when he's off with another woman thing you know they're having sex will cost aren't they better. so what is the real story behind this phenomena in america you can find a place in the white house in a too distant future joining me now is a man who spent considerable time studying the mormon religion and polygamy and

just finished a book at the topic he is sanjeev bhattacharya filmmaker and author of the book secrets and wives the hidden world of mormon polygamy sunday walk into the program . thanks is is mormon polygamy anything like what was portrayed in that little clip that we saw the preview the t.v. show. where. you can't really get your reality from reality t.v. let's be honest. but one of the things that not only not only sister wives but big love has done very successfully is humanize a group of people that had been prejudiced against had been misunderstood and been the subject of some very new read headlines and pretty much nothing else so. you know i applaud them i applaud the show sister wives i think it's great entertainment but the reality of polygamy is it's at once a lot stranger and

a lot darker interesting what what provoked you to write this book. well the subject kind of sucked me in bit by bit you can probably tell i'm i'm not your cookie cutter mormon i'm not mormon saw i don't have any personal connection to this but. in two thousand and three round about warren jeffs was kind of going nuts he was banning music and laughter and different colors of the rainbow and the f.b.i. was after him you know as you said and while all of this was going on i was relatively new to the to america i just moved there been here for a couple of years and the revelation that there was this enormous population for me like thirty to forty thousand people who were living outside the law it struck me as a tremendously exciting thing it had to be explored and so that's how it began back

in two thousand and three and you lived with some of these people for weeks months you were not as is yasser yeah really weird fourth of july. there were various different kinds of groups. some groups were very hospitable they let me and it took a lot of persuading but once they let me in they literally gave me. the keys to their neighborhood so i had them over for dinner and it was all very friendly i went to church and you know i spent a lot of time there. i found that some fundamentalists actually drink unlike the vanilla mormons and so we have something in common. and there's a there was another group that i stayed with inhabit an enormous rock there's no other way to describe it it's a it's a big rock and it's out in the desert near nowhere but it's powered by solar panels it's you can really make it up but they were very nice i stayed there for a few weeks. you know to the happy stories yeah all polygamists with that happy to

see me come knocking on the door i have to say i can imagine you mention the dark side it has always seemed to me that the dark side of polygamy is the surplus boys what happens to the extra boys. well they either rebel at an early age when when it becomes clear that they're not required or they get kicked out i mean this is this has been widely documented with the f l d s but my book focuses because the f l d s is attracted so much attention over the years my book focuses on a lot of the other groups but the same you see you see the same sort of currents where where boys are disenfranchised. pierced this too many of them in these kind of little bubble societies and and yes you're right that that that is a very dark side of of of polygamy is these these redundant boys who are kind of

cast away. but also the there are their sisters as well you know the young girls who are kind of trapped to to a large extent. once you grow up in a culture like that and you don't know any different then it becomes very difficult to break away from your religion your family and to stand on your own two feet and so there are some very sad stories in the book of girls who just thought they were doing things out of consent agreeing to marry certain people. consent is a very elastic term when you're fourteen to fifteen years old and you've grown up in a very insular environment like that remarkable sunday and thank you so much free world . thank you you know cultural norms are just as subject to evolution as is everything else back when we had warrior societies men killed men and there were more women and so polygamy

a volved in response to that imbalance but in today's world at least in the developed western world ratio men to women is about fifty fifty so polygamy really just doesn't work here anymore at least at the societal level but that didn't stop the die hard polygamous like mitt romney's great grandfathers who had five and twelve wives respectively strange times we live. crazy alert not worth the paper it's written on c.n.n. conducted a poll yesterday asking americans whether or not they think osama bin laden is in hell sixty one percent of respondents said yes they think he's in hell and only one of the people offered up a reasonable answer saying they didn't have any in five percent of those polled said they didn't believe in hell and you know what i'm going to leave the analysis of those hard hitting poll to the professionals. really hard on the news media you

know what they say they have a right to ask people you know what their opinions are our new c.n.n. poll shows sixty one percent of americans believe the al qaeda leader is in the right. so in my well so. well done john coming up america is suffering from what could be a terminal disease so what is it how do we fight it answers and i believe take. let's not forget that we had an apartheid regime.

i think. even one well. whenever the government says they're safe to graduate because their freedom. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so for please give think you understand it and then something else hears you some other part of it and realize everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm sorry welcome to the big picture.

for. your world. and yet call. into it only. doodle to bring justice or.

i have every right to know what my government would want to know why i paid taxes. well i would characterize obama as a charismatic version of american exceptionalism. just. coming out. now the good the bad and the same really ugly the good. and the congressional progressive caucus leaders of the caucus sent a letter to president obama yesterday calling for an end the afghanistan war the letter read in the wake of osama bin laden's death now is the time to shift toward the swift see and responsible withdrawal of u.s. troops military contractors from afghanistan well. by the way the progressive

budget from the progressive quackers their proposal does end our foreign wars and it also taxes millionaires these people out of solve problems the bad one back on his morning shows his radio show this morning beck attacked the president for visiting ground zero. george w. bush said no i don't like. the sickly what both of them are saying is this is a little crass and obscene and you go ahead. there. and that's my opinion i don't know if anybody else feels this way but i think it's chris so after the president didn't speak out against the ground zero mosque back to attack him for insulting victims of nine eleven now that he's honoring the victims in a solemn ceremony and even give a speech just showed up the president is being crass. this president could see the eight kids from a burning building that would be the first to say it was done you know just to boost his poll numbers. and the very very ugly steve doocy while criticizing the

president's decision to not release the photos of bin laden to see argued we should be worried about reactions from those limbs what i think is important is that you have millions of muslims across the world who may be still struggling defense to like the u.s. . and that is i don't know if they're. every light goes out come on i just. never going to like it's like the d.n.a. of muslims to hate america or specifically written the qur'an to read it. that's what they do over a fox and friends and i use those folks long l.b.o. with your morning coffee and that's very very ugly. right now we are in the cancer stages of capitalism. i should say the cancer stages

of reagan's capitalism it's lingered for thirty years and has now gone malignant in the united states republicans on capitol hill this week are calling for the privatization of medicare and the dismantling of critical social safety net programs part of their efforts to make or to finish reagan's revolution started back in one thousand nine hundred one to make it complete today it was a revolution the try to render the greatest invention man has ever come up with a democratic self rule government into a nasty evil beast government is not the solution to our problem government is the problem. all of us need to be reminded that the federal government did not create the states the states created the federal government the answer to a government that's to be used to stop feeding its groove an ancient chinese philosopher now truth. govern a great nation and as you would cook

a small fridge he would not do it even after i leave office i would never stop campaigning for the tools needed to limit the insatiable appetite of government well you may have stopped campaigning but his cult of reaganites never did another to his billionaire backers as it's not just about starving government so corporations can step in and take over and make money on what should be public functions like parking meters bridges health care education to take that kind of power the rich guys behind the reagan revolution had to bring in more than just the rich so they appealed to fundamentalist christians and massage mystic men. case in point yesterday republicans passed legislation the house to dismember this empower women by redefining rape and the symptom of reagan and his embrace of the so-called moral majority a marriage that's still going strong within the republican party today in the last

four months since republicans took power in state legislatures all around the nation and the house of representatives here in washington d.c. have seen their own our nation into the final stages of this cancer after busting up a state employee unions in the name of ronald reagan governor scott walker's republicans in wisconsin are now telling college students they can't vote anymore because like reagan killed free public college education in california when he was governor there and there's a constitutional battle underway in michigan where the benton harbor city council rules of that governor rick snyder's financial manager or dictator brought in to break up the unions fire local elected officials and sell the city off to republicans and corporations or republican cronies is unconstitutional unfortunately their ruling isn't going to go very far since governor snyder has already stripped down of their powers and this cancer is also infecting new jersey georgia florida iowa pennsylvania maine south carolina kansas and arizona all

states were republicans are setting fire to government programs that heal us educate us and keep us safe in order to give away billions in tax cuts for millionaires billionaires and transnational corporations this was reagan's ideal vision a nation where the rich were swimming in cash and poor were on their own the government was neutered and ineffective women were marginalized working people screwed and democratic voters disenfranchised. this is what a nation that's on the verge of going to terminal looks like twenty five million people on or under employed one in seven people on food stamps more than fifty two million people without health insurance one in six people living in poverty including one in three african-american children. all the while the richer never been richer in the united states of america that's the result of reaganomics if republicans are successful in these final stages then by the end of this decade

america will look completely different than it looked just thirty years ago will be a limping deteriorating nation ready to succumb to the rate isn't answer that seat and stuff from within but there's one problem for republicans in american people are tired of being sick and they're not ready to give up yet on the vision america had of itself for the first two hundred years before reagan came to power unlike the cheers reagan got thirty years ago take a look at how americans are responding over the last two weeks to these reagan republicans these political cancer cells led by paul ryan a town hall meetings across the nation you just. can't hear them until it works but only medicare ultimately playing back to the people who are in there that they are adults for that they have not done that here and i said nothing in the campaign that i'm going to change medicare now you're here. for my health that will destroy. the

earth. and you are right there will. be no bill the question today is will this public outrage last and help america cut out this cancer or will the millionaires and billionaires who view the cost of buying republican politicians as simple investments to get more corporate welfare and massive tax cuts will they be able to spend enough on political advertising and think tanks and right wing pundits that bill can be able to continue to convince americans to vote against their best interests will they convince us all to be just complicit in this ill. well we continue to lie cheat and steal when moral actions in the future this is the challenge in front of us and we organize and fight back nationally like people are doing in wisconsin and michigan where we saw succumb to the cancer i don't know

about you but i'm going to fight. that's the big picture for tonight for more information on the stories we covered visit our website it's all arvin dot com and our team also check out our you tube pages at youtube dot com slash lovely picture r.t. and slash our and this entire show is available for free podcast on i tunes and don't forget democracy begins when you show up get out there get active tag your it will see them are. wealthy british soil. is not right with.

the. market why not. find out what's really happening to the global economy with much stronger for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune in to kaiser report. more news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the street the camera that. challenge corporation to rule today.