welcome back to the big picture i'm john harbin coming up in this half hour america's war rap sheet continues to get longer and longer the most recent attack an air drone bombing in somalia so how many alleged terrorists we have to kill before we can feel safe here in america plus we all know those chertoff x. ray charles scanners at the airport are annoying and intrusive but explosive new documents released by a privacy organization reveal they may be deadly to so as securing our nation worth getting cancer. afghanistan iraq pakistan libya yemen and now those somali a u.s. military official confirmed yesterday that a drone attack was launched on two leaders of a somali militant group last week bringing the total number of nations that are that our military is dropping bombs on to six there are reports that u.s.

special forces have for some time been conducting missions in somalia is the militant organization known as al shabaab is allegedly affiliated with al qaida but last week's attacks mark the first time drones were used and bombs were dropped a clear indication that military efforts in that nation are as of late soon it will be easier to list all the nations in the arab world that we're not currently at war with and listing the ones that we are at war with so it's a strategy of endless and spreading warfare across the arab world really keeping us safe from terrorists or creating more terrorists and even so in the seeds of radicalism right here in the united states here to offer her take on this issue is catherine herridge fox news correspondent and author of the new book the new wave on the hunt for al qaeda as american recruits catherine tom thanks for having me great to have you here with us according to the f.b.i. . the by the way is a fascinating story and so it is in particular the american who has become known. as long as the public face of. but on the other hand there's kind of the other side

of this court of the f.b.i. you're being a bit hysterical about this this the f.b.i. just released a twenty five year study of terrorist incidents in the united states that we've got a graph here of the cover of the report were the graphic and other holes were here and it's actually it starts goes from one thousand nine hundred to two thousand and five years of crop and the there's also a graphic that shows the this is the breakdown of who actual attacks are inside the united states and forty two percent these are primarily these are bombings and things primarily from groups that are working for puerto rican. others as mostly the right wing extremists the left wing extremist groups or first things like the jewish defense league is like a communist five percent islamic extremist six percent right are we making much ado about nothing and shouldn't we be concerned about i would see the end of two

thousand and five and in two thousand and six i read about this in the book there was sort of a policy decision within al qaeda senior leadership to change their tactics and start going after western europeans and also american citizens because they saw that law enforcement intelligence already and was i mean they were doing no but they made a real estate sale the word terrorist you thousand and six and two thousand and seven and when i show in this book their background documents that i've seen that were produced by the justice department is that since january of two thousand and nine we've had a case of homegrown terrorism here in the united states with some kind of international link whether it's to al qaeda in yemen or the group in somalia al shabaab and then every two to three weeks during that period now you can compare that to the number of car accidents here in the united states and say well look the numbers are completely far apart but you know terrorism which has a greater impact because let me just finish my thought here because terrorism by definition is an act of violence to promote political ends it has greater and if you have ramifications in implications i would argue if you if you just looked. the

statistics for the last decade you see that you know more than ninety percent of the terrorist incidents that have happened sooner or more than eighty three percent as a whole were actually questioned like us i mean they were not muslims and you know not i'm not trying to minimize that and if your your point is that there's a slicer that we need to pay attention to maybe it's not why because i think i think it really is because what you see because what you see and i'm glad you raised the somali question is that we've had a situation since two thousand and seven where more than twenty young men from minneapolis had gone over to these training camps in somalia to fight for al-shabaab this is not affiliate and we now have two documented cases of americans who've been suicide bombers in that country and that is that's i think turnaround so since since nine eleven just the last decade. because if well that's when you just cause or a thought experiment let's say for a moment. it came out. proof barack obama

actually was born in kenya and americans were horrified medical obvious this is ok and that he's actually a muslim and so canada needs the united states to save us from a president who's illegitimate and somehow you know whatever and and you know there's a lot of republicans who think that person obama actually. below forty percent and who would probably welcome getting him out of office but my guess is that if the canadians invaded the united states. i as a democrat and many of my friends who are republicans even phil who is just out here are probably all be fighting to push them out and nobody likes their country occupied aren't we with these with these crazy wars in afghanistan or iraq with instead of taking osama bin laden more or more offered to us what you offered to george bush in two thousand and one and just dealing with them as a criminal are we. just making things worse occupy me think the first part of your

question if i could first which i think you were getting at how are these people sort of drawn into this ideology because you know one of the reasons i wrote this book is one of my colleagues at fox after fort hood said to me how listen that americans who are old enough to remember nine eleven have turned their backs on their own country and have bought into this icon ideology and what i write about in the book is what i call the digital jihad it's these are people who use the internet whether it's email or blogging or scraping and they're kind of like the facebook friend from hell and the person who's really at the center of it is this american and wore a lockie i think the second we were trying to kill with a stroke he's well he's you know i'm glad you raised that point because one of the issues i raise in the book is is it right that the u.s. government is really judge jury and executioner for an american citizen when on the other hand the attorney general favored bringing the five nine eleven suspects who are all foreign born and bringing them to a federal court in new york city where they would have the same rights as american citizens and the presumption of innocence i mean i raise that issue in the book

because i see this complete disconnect but i'm sure i don't agree on fact i think that we should have a trial if we're going to try and kill it's a first at least first given the trial but that's neither neither of the issue i mean. the larger point is that. iraq has a seven thousand year history of the old civilization race where we have no i haven't but i've been in the region and you know where the epic of gilgamesh was written you know north of north of seven thousand years if they had never had a suicide bomber in their country until we invaded afghanistan as an eight hundred year contiguous history right now nearly eight hundred years never had a suicide bomber until we had it seems to me like we're creating this. well we certainly didn't create the problem in yemen that we're faced with right now where we have a group i call it really the trifecta this is al qaida in yemen it's a group that was risk. for the last two major crimes against the united states if

there was something that was in it we're not opposed to the both of them world but look let me let me let me tell you they're not attacking let me let me let me tell you a story have you ever been in the guantanamo court room because i have with the nine eleven suspects and i'm going to leave this story because i think it's a real window onto who these people are and why they are not one not like us i was in a courtroom and one of the nine eleven suspects through this paper airplane in the war and the other suspect opened it and started laughing and i learned later that on the inside of that plane he written out of the flight numbers or the tail numbers for nine eleven and to me the symbolism of that in a courtroom and mocking us eight years later i mean that was a real window onto who they are let me tell you they are not like you and me. i don't disagree however we've been occupying their countries i mean the whole you know osama bin laden's whole freak out was because it original coming after us was because we were allowing women to drive in saudi arabia because we were occupying an airforce base the prince sultan air force base in saudi arabia he said get out

and and if you don't get out i'm going to come attack you and we didn't get our george herbert walker bush put our troops there for the first iraqi war and since i guess we're just going to have to disagree that on i'm not ok. to disagree that's what democracy is all about where you go on the hunt for al qaeda is american troops thank you i mean your radio show now. we can all agree like i'm going to say that it will be ok moving on from our war efforts in the middle east designed to keep us safe from terrorists to our security efforts here at home next time you're at the airport and you're forced to either walk through the x. ray scanner or take the grain checked go ahead and get groped and while you're doing it be sure to stand as far away from the x. ray machine as you can electronic privacy information center epic has released a slew of letters obtained through the freedom of information act request that shows rowing concern among t.s.a. employees about the risk of cancer from the michael chertoff x. ray scammers according to letters of pain by exxon t.s.a. agents. work with the radiation machines daily or falling ill with cancer clusters

one such a letter written by the president of boston branch twenty six seventeen of the american federation of government employees in boston t.s.a. deputy director of federal federal security director read quite a few ts those consistently complained to me about their concern over the growing number of ts those working here who have been diagnosed as having cancer and of their concerns the t.s.a. is utilize technology may be to blame b.o.'s that's the symbol for boston still has an alarmingly high number of cancer affected afflicted t.s.o.'s still working here out while trying to address the illness in another letter a t.s.a. officer wrote to the federal security director of lana international airport saying following the influx of t.s.a. employees falling victim to various forms of cancer it led a workforce is concerned about radiation levels were being exposed to on a daily basis as these chertoff x. ray porno scanners are being installed across the country back when they first started out the department of homeland security repeatedly downplayed the risk from

the radiation but with this new information obtained by epic coming to light can we really take the department's word for it stephen webster is stephen is the senior editor at raw story dot com joins me now to talk more about this issue steven welcome to the program. pleasure to be here thanks for having me what do these released documents spy epic tell you. those analysts that government is pretty much doing the same thing that it's always done i'm sure you were a whole tragic tragic conditions owing to the september eleventh attacks when all those perfect longers are wrong here it's just rust down the ground zero it's a trend how about. the health effects of a suffered from reading in things that were in the air you don't wait that's this and other things are many many died because of that and one of the government saying right after that was the average know what they're both right no problem you

don't need a respirator we go out and go in there and same thing here and it sounds like the government is going at something about poor has just missed the risk of these predictions cantors true it happens as much as we may be irritated by the t.s.a. people doing groin checks or or you know pushing us around or through the porno scanners they're people too these t.s.a. workers they're just working stiffs don't they deserve protection or at the very least have dosa meter. oh absolutely that's exactly what he any hope for it's not right there urging but seriously a process that you should change just so it wouldn't be included six dollars what we're asking or is access to these those who do so. you know see how much they've been exposed to after our long period why is the government refusing to let them have a dosimeter this i mean it has any do you know if any t.s.a. employees have ever i mean these things are not that hard to get there routinely

used in hospitals has anybody has any t.s.a. employee ever just like showed up wearing one or stick one in their pocket for a couple of weeks or are or is there just no trail of that is that is that culture is that a government agency so locks down that if there were to happen we just haven't learned about it we need a whole nother for the filing. we're not really sure it's easy to see it in specially tried but it wouldn't surprise me i believe the letter that was so unique which by the way congress has been trying to refute that c.s. is doing rights so if they did exist we might not ever up this of the losin from the union so they were seeking reimbursement some places which we're trying to turn to by that some actually haven't got it. and it's interesting you as in reimbursement for buying the dosa meter and for then had on a film developed and evaluated all that kind of thing yeah that's very interesting is this a symptom these these machines appearing which by the way are not even made in the

united states they're made in most of them are made malaysia. talk about outsourcing insanity but the profits are coming to an american several american companies and michael chertoff is one of the more prominent lobbyist for them making millions on these things isn't is is this a symptom of how dominant the military security industrial paranoia complex in america has become. well you give you a little up striking statistic more americans die from lightning strikes every year from terrorist attacks but you're actually more likely to get struck from electricity struck by electricity from the sky in your get water up by something having so the real irony here is if in fact the sinners are causing cancers through who are we suppose are in there has not been through care but if they are we could see a situation where one room where the scanners end up killing more people than the terrorists themselves that would be genuinely and provably as are.

and not inconceivable but genuinely and truly bizarre stephen thanks so much for being with us tonight. my pleasure for talking with you i have a need the charity of x. ray paro scanners are to blame for the uptick in cancer among t.s.a. officers but it wouldn't be the first time we've been lied to about the dangers of a product here in the united states ever this back in one thousand nine hundred four you know you believe nicotine is not addictive i believe nicotine is not addictive if you're john. congressman cigarettes and if your teen clearly do not meet the classic definitions of the kitchen i don't believe that nicotine or products are addictive. and i'm. not. to. this isn't the first time we've

been lied to by people like this i mean this is and by the way none of those guys that you just saw went to jail in fact lou gerstner over here and i.b.m. i mean you know big not only did they commit a crime of lying to congress but because they're the ultra rich white guys they they got you know even bigger paychecks but this was the first time that we've been lied to back in the 1930's and one hundred thirty five was the time of the first publication was made in a scientific journal showing a clear association between exposure to asbestos and a deadly form of lung cancer called musicophilia. in one hundred fifty one my dad was in college on the g.i. bill and my mom got pregnant with me and so he dropped out of college and went to work in a steel mill because he had a new family had to provide for his kids because steel was coming out over rollers made of especially since he was working in a cloud of spaces

a few years ago i was with him when he died of musical misery was as special as caused cancer it was a horrible horrible death to watch and this is something that was absolutely unnecessary. very the industry knew the dangers but they were. the end of the iroquois had this notion that any any decisions that are made have to consider its consequences on the seventh generation and europeans have a concept called the precautionary principle where you before you rule rule a new product out into the workplace you've got to prove that it's safe here in the united states we do it the other way around we say oh yeah roll their product out and if people start dropping dead then you're going to have to stop. you know i wonder if michael chertoff would be willing to stand next to one of his scanners forty hours a week with this guy would he stand next to one of his scanners for forty hours a week somehow i doubt which is why he's lobbied to prevent t.s.a. agents to even have those meters could that be. frankly are is stereo is killing us

with regard to security and our short term profit based thinking with regard to products in general and the workplace is killing us as well we need to re-evaluate both of them and we need to do it now. after the break a daily take on my idea to resolve the debt limit debate that's starting to gain a lot of traction on capitol hill and even on fox news. let's not forget that we had an apartheid regime right and.

i think the fun to be the one well. we have the government says they're for keeping safe get ready because freedom. you know how sometimes you see a story and it seems so for lengthly you think you understand it and then he glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realize that everything is ok if you don't know i'm charming welcome to the big picture. the first.

few. just. it's the good the bad and the very very not ugly or good for the city of san francisco according to a new survey by the siemens corporation and the economist intelligence unit san francisco is the greenest city in north america a survey explored consumption habits recent attitudes toward renewable living as

well as water and energy efficiency vancouver and new york followed san francisco in the ratings or so this is just another reason for the right wingers eight san francisco which must mean the base it is doing something right back rush limbaugh on his radio show yesterday limbaugh has weighed in on president obama's demands on the debt ceiling debate he had this to say in reference to closing tax loopholes for millionaires like him and billionaires like he'd like to be but we want obama to stop stealing from our children and he refuses as you would expect he's a burglar all liberals are burglars. all liberals are thieves that's what they do it is who they are. you know what i'll give lynn paul's the benefit of the doubt here after all if i made four hundred million bucks like him then i might you know actually i don't even think then i think the way he does is just a limp as listeners are clear his show is geared to people who are worth four hundred million dollars and if you're in the middle class then rush limbaugh all

along with the republican party just wants to screw and a very very ugly dr marcus bachmann if you thought the show bachmann had some far out anti-gay views you should hear what her husband has to say think progress uncovered a seminar conducted by dr marcus bachmann and maybe back through the last summer in which he compared gays to barbarians who need to be educated and disciplined and he didn't stop there we have to read the bill of experience and it will work if not encourage such thought and feeling moved into action steps yeah three do wow looks like michele bachmann really is the better half in that marriage she's a very strange guy and that's very very. you

may remember a few weeks ago i weighed in on the debt ceiling debate by talking about a little known power the secretary of the treasury tim geithner has to prevent our nation from defaulting on a on our debt i referred to it as president obama's secret weapon to make republicans agree to a debt limit increase take a look. racially secretary tim geithner has the sole authority to determine how our debt obligations are met by deciding which bills to pay and when to pay them. so we for publicans really want to play hardball the president can direct tim geitner to play hardball right back after. is there cannibalizing federal pension funds he could cut into federal assistance to states whose republican senators and congressman are blocking a limit on the debt increase pay john boehner you know want to raise the debt ceiling that's fine but kiss all that federal money ohio gets every day go by we're

using that money to pay off our debt no more highway funds no more medicaid funds number education funds no more not to ohio you're out of business. the next day glenn beck's web site the blaze posted a creatively edited version of my take on their website with the headline lib talkers calls on our border to star people in red states which isn't exactly true i was hoping president obama would get the message about how to force republicans to have a little skin in the game in the debt ceiling negotiations exactly calling for mass starvation of people in ohio but you know that's what back does which is fine and i saw the usual uptick in death threats that happen whenever they mention the funny thing about this is yesterday someone on t.v. echoed pretty much the exact same thing i'd said a week or so ago about baker's power to pick and choose who or what gets paid if the debt ceiling isn't raised and it came from the most unlikely of places brit

hume on fox news. there will come a time when there won't be enough money to fund all government departments and agencies which would mean real disruption the administration would then get to decide which programs were funded in which are not and will surely blame republicans for any fallout that the democrats and the white house have a certain advantage in that they get to decide when the money runs short which agencies and departments get funded and which do not and they will be able to pick and choose in such a way as to put maximum pressure on republican lawmakers on the hill one senator i know of has told his leaders that if for example the agriculture department were not able to fund the fish and meat poultry and. actions which would effectively shut down that industry because you have to expect me to sell that would be the moment he caved and voted to increase the debt limit so that's the. part of all this is i still think it's a great idea on august third the day after the deadline our nation will owe thirty

two billion dollars but will only have about twelve billion dollars in revenue to pay out i mean about twenty billion dollars will need to be cut out immediately in just one day and as we know now figuring out which bills get paid and which ones get pushed off is solely up to treasury secretary tim geithner and president obama so if the republicans really want to play hardball on the debt limit and president obama should hold them accountable and put their favorite programs on the chopping block first it could mean cutting off payments to john boehner zeph thirty five pet project now payments to the bomb making factory in oklahoma no welfare payments in the oil coal and natural gas industries and close all the federal buildings named after ronald reagan whose policies brought us this disaster once folks in eric cantor's virginia district home of the headquarters of most of our nation's defense contractors see their payments cut off and you can bet cantor will have a new interest in raising the damn debt ceiling so let's push the put the real

consequences of their obstructionism in their face and watch the republicans blink and in the meantime we can sit back and much people's heads explode in the republican echo chamber. as the big picture for tonight for more information on the stories we covered is it our web sites tom hartman dot com free speech dot org and archie dot com also check out our two you tube channels there are links to thom hartmann dot com this entire show is also available as a free video podcast on i tunes and we have a free tom hartman i phone or i pad app at the app store you can send us feedback at twitter at underscore hartland on facebook at some other school open on our blogs message boards and telephone comment line all it's all part of dot com and don't forget democracy begins when you you show up to get active tag your it will see the.

wealthy british style sign it's time to.

market. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike stronger or a no holds barred look at the global financial headline. today . proof these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of. new plug. the for.