it will. be a woman in a. hello i'm tom harkin in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture we survived the great d.c. earthquake that only just barely is the epicenter of yesterday's quake was near a nuclear power plant i'll tell you how we just barely missed a pushing like disaster right here and here the nation's capital and a looks like mission accomplished for president obama on the libya crisis but republicans are not ready to give the president any credit at all and according to a new wiki leaks cables master wonder just whose side the republicans were on from the beginning obama's are good office.

you need to know this the concerns raised by yesterday's five point nine earthquake here in the virginia d.c. area are still reverberating long after the quake itself in a few small aftershocks are over today schools and government buildings are closed in washington d.c. out of fear of aftershocks and damage has been discovered at the national cathedral and the washington monument was the largest earthquake to strike for jane in well over one hundred years and near the epicenter this is the north anna nuclear power station rated the seventh most likely nuclear power plant in america to receive core damage in the event of an earthquake due to budget cuts the quake sensors at the plant were moved back in one nine hundred ninety s.

luckily diesel backup generators kicked in to prevent a meltdown after the plant was powered or in the earthquake but only one and only one of the four of them failed. failed the only one even luckier the plant was built to withstand a six point one earthquake yesterday's was a five point eight meaning we were not back close to suffer enough worker shima like nuclear disaster or the nation's capital so will this quake serve as a wake up call here to offer his take on this is all guns or director of reactor oversight reactor oversight project at the nuclear power welcome back to the program thanks again for having me to have you what's the latest from the north anna plant well i think there right now the concern is what kind of damage happened at the plant we're. going to be monitoring this what we understand is that the plant is undergoing some surveillance now. i think without

a question there has been structural damage to the plant we're most concerned about a buried pipe that carries radioactive water underneath the plant there's probably eight to ten miles of very pipe carrying radioactive tritium and other isotopes and that could very well have ruptured broken and is leaking into groundwater right now is there any evidence that it is or isn't is the speculation and you know we saw when the new mayor grid earthquake happened back in two thousand and five that a nuclear power plant in illinois hundreds of miles away the dresden nuclear power station had a broken pipe as a result of that earthquake so you know this is this process that was four miles away from the epicenter so i would say without question there's going to be structural damage to things like pipes. concrete retaining walls things like that

one of the things the i read the paper today and you confirm for me if this is as true about the. moral as a hundred years ago we had an earthquake here in the wood in the d.c. area that was there in virginia that was between seven and eight they didn't have the richter scale back then but you know was ringing church bells make bad you know ways that we can infer how severe it was it was worse than six point one if that's the case. why on earth would anybody design build and license a nuclear power plant in this area for a maximum six point one earthquake well even more concern is back when this plant was originally being cited in the one nine hundred sixty s. . electric power company actually falsified reports to the u.s. nuclear regulatory commission and eventually got twelve counts of making false statements to the federal government where they said there wasn't even an earthquake fault in the area so they were charged with twelve crimes. and you know

fortunately they only got a sixty thousand dollars fine for making false statements to the federal government but this is the kind of cost benefit analysis that benefits the corporation and potentially puts the public safety a great risk i mean right now the whole idea of earthquake assessment is is pretty much guesswork and if you look at what the in our sea was saying back in one thousand nine hundred nine and then reassessments in two thousand and eight there was a thirty five percent increase for this particular plant just in the risk of having a core melt from from a core accident so the risks are going up speaking of the risks going up my understanding again correct me if i'm wrong is that this plant draws its power from a lake that is created by a dam that's on a river i don't know the name of the river and that that dam is one of the. you

know we talk about our crumbling infrastructure that that dam has been identified as one of the most at risk bands in the united states if that dam goes and that lake drains down the river level or let nuclear power plant have water to cool itself or will we see if we're pushing the type in soil there you know certainly given that we've got a we've got a tornado hurricane rather right that may well hit us and three or four days and. that dam suffered structural damage from the earthquake and then you dump another couple hundred million gallons of water from you know and yeah we saw a report this morning in the washington post that the dam which is a dam on the north anna river which has been backs up for the lake can a resident war which provides the cooling water for these two very large reactors that dam was inspected and it was reported to have passed but what they don't address in this inspection is that the american association of since civil

engineers had given this particular dam and one hundred forty two others in virginia a d. minus for being. a keep in maintenance on this particular and very important piece of infrastructure so the question is you know if in fact we get another challenge like a hurricane and a heavy surge of water from rain if in fact this dam can withhold it all and there's no question if this dam goes does that mean that the new well right now the new cars shut down and very likely the north anna plant will not be operational when hurricane irene comes in so as things still need power to keep to keep the waste cool and to keep the cooling water is a minimum with the plant shut down you know it's a big difference between having a plant operational and the plant to shut level so it's not such

a concern so i think that we have more margin of safety now with the plant shut down actually all nuclear power plants are safe when the shut down so that i think that's what we're trying to get a great axiom what's the latest out of focus well today's news is that. the authorities of confirmed that hot particles of cesium one thirty seven three times the. so-called permissible level have now been found one hundred twenty five miles away from the site so this is another indication of an ever expanding ever more contaminating nuclear event that will not only present a threat in terms of distance but also time that kind of cesium is if i remember my periodic table right about two and a half times heavier than i or you know how does how does a metal you know we're not talking about you know vaporized iodine here that

a metal particles how do they get that far away from the reactor explosions and what we have now been able to confirm through the u.s. nuclear regulatory commission is that the initial explosions at fukushima were very likely the jetsons of core material into the atmosphere and vaporization of some of those some portions of those cores and so you know we remain concerned that this is as it has always been a game of hide and go seek where these particles are now seeking out to bio concentrate and bio magnify in the biosphere. that sort of thing and cesium imitates potassium right and it's absorb the bones it goes into the muscle muscle yes paul thank you so much the good news being with us. a course

the best way to prepare east coast nuclear power plants for another way is to close them all down time gets nuclear power the most dangerous and the most expensive energy source on the face of the planet for a good. sign for our daily poll your chance to tell us what you think here's the day's question support of the tax loopholes pushed by paul ryan benefit. campaign contributors will we get campaign finance reform the choices are yes let's get working out or no meet congressman paul ryan the best lawmaker money can buy now going to let us know what you think the poll the open until tomorrow morning. crazy alert deadly donuts police suppose that a copilot tasty crime ring near the city of lonia croaks and thugs had cornered the

donut market in a greek beach resort city mostly by beating up the competition to make sure that their donuts and their donuts alone were on sale in the area don't again consisting of two bulgarian men and a former greek wrestling champion is discovered after an undercover police officer posing as a donut seller was attacked by the men and krispy kreme gang is now facing charges of fraud and blackmail as well as several food safety violations this is what's going on to greet the owner mark i hate to see the dust ups in the back lot of them are. coming up on the big picture are lonely liberal robot with my conservative paddle and this is where the studio doesn't actually rumble. what drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions to break through get through and be made who can you trust no one who is you know in view with the global machinery to see where we had

a state controlled capitalism is called satchels when nobody dares to ask we do our tea question more. this was a the night when i'm alone liberal and go up against two expert political commentators to debate the week's biggest stories so far on

a palin panel tonight daniel helper the deputy online editor of the weekly standard and jimmy weinstein senior editor at the daily caller. thanks homie let's get started ok first of all it looks like gadhafi is gone obama's strategy with you know was a success for now the republicans don't give credit where credit's due john mccain lindsey graham released a strange joint see statement this week saying we commend our british french and other allies as well as our arab partners especially the tar in the u.a.e. for their leadership in this conflict we regret that the success was so. long in coming due to the failure of the united states to employ a full weight of our air power. according to wiki leaks diplomatic cables back in two thousand and nine mccain lindsey graham and joe lieberman met with gadhafi senator mccain assured libya that the united states wanted to provide libya with if it needed for the libyan security program including c one thirty s. he pledged to see what he could do to move things forward in congress so whose side of these republicans are ocado us or climb up the reason that khadafi was not able

to use any weapons of mass destruction that he was building in his arsenal and it's because republicans launched a war in iraq if you want to count the success there is the fact that he got scared of what happened in iraq as he told the italian prime minister and was willing to negotiate his weapons away i think lindsey graham and and you know the weapons the lindsey graham and john mccain going over to get through those talking actually all we've got you imagine u m d's there's no question about it he negotiated in the way this is this is well known and and what and where did they go and what they gave about the international inspectors as a result of the iraq war he told the view telling prime minister he was scared what happened to saddam i didn't want to happen to him that was moved to how to deal and become part of the league of nations and become legitimate is by the way start selling his oil to us and get a lot of money from the be another reason but what he told the italian prime minister is that he was scared what he saw in iraq and you believe berlusconi i do

i do believe that he was was that it was anything but a little bit what it was he was going at the time but i think i think you're sort of missing a larger point i think a lot of republicans have learned a lesson that they don't want to start waving banners and say mission accomplished because mission has not yet been accomplished what obama's done has been good and he's good getting rid of gadhafi but i think it's still premature to even say that yet because we don't know where gadhafi is i think that's been good i don't think i think that in a way that's the easiest part is getting rid of the dictator the harder part is is having a stable good government take its place i think just look at. along we've been in iraq and afghanistan but that's the hard part so this is but so there are a lot of people an interesting there are a lot of obama supporters are turning around saying why will republicans give why will republicans give credit where it's due i think republicans are saying let's take let's wait because you know you've always aware of the like the easy part was tato the heart you know he's here with the ongoing said ah here is harder part was here is trying to bolster democracy in iraq saying the same will be true of libya

and i think there's a huge difference because you know iraq we had boots on the ground and the iraqis were gone those guys are occupying our country and that's the case that i think that they would absolutely that's another situation very clear not only but that way to say in fact in your response jamie you've referenced the big picture here and i think the big picture is this president obama went to egypt and standing right next to hosni mubarak or he was off stage but they had been together president obama stood up and he said this. there are some who advocate for democracy only when they're out of power. once in power they are ruthless in suppressing the rights of others so no matter where it takes hold government of the people and by the people. sets a single standard for all who would hold power. you must maintain your power through consent not coercion so he goes into the home the belly of a dictator and says to the people dictators no good and those people rise up i mean

you know the whole are now down to the ground doesn't us repudiate. going on and was buried in the ten years i'm afraid that narrative is just not true if you look at the democracy program under obama even in the easiest cases where the wars and many much calculation of having to try to be friendly with and save a regime like in cuba if you talk to the people on the ground there for democracy programs were cut under obama it's not the case that anybody about the state department's efforts to this i'm talking about what. happened what you know. when russia was going to bomb what you were going to say the soviet union fell because ronald reagan said tear down this most of this was the one who doing with your time we think was worth their rhetorical about freedom which is second inaugural address not even even to utopia he was he was he says it was like the one behind me in that speech that sounded like he was george w. bush good for him i applaud him for that and for for promoting democracy now he has

always had that this is been rhetoric we jetted have signed we know who is on the ground that line that you played he has not brought down three dictators he helped bring down khadafy he did not hit engaged with mubarak soon enough and assad is that is saad is in syria murdering his people he had nothing to do with tunisia look i give obama a threat and asia would have happened if he had you know i know i think it i think it would have been regardless of his speech and his speech had nothing to do with this i think this is missing the book obama's ratings in the muslim world are low much lower than even george w. bush so i think if you want to give credit where it's due to you know the muslim world worldwide if you're talking about baptists of the world know that you know we're seeing this through say a series we want to thank you i hope or mama's more successful than it has been i don't think it's a great idea that without any democracy it's the. that egypt is now where it is i'm very afraid that it's going to be coming in as long as government there i wish he spoke up when when the iranian lamas when you have been with the arabians were

protesting in the streets we're looking at is it time pretty smooth up there with the biggest offices in downtown in the downtown no not even fags dad are the bank of ukraine on the middle east is changing there's obviously arab spring with its bait were we can debate what how we got here with the point is that it's changing if america wants absolutely anything rankly assert itself and i don't think i would alter the any help that we need to stop that that's what obama's we need to. be criticizing our own president is that in you know i hope we do successful i. thought i'd leave it that the martin luther king memorial is going to be dedicated this weekend and according to washington post only thirty six percent of african-americans now believe that dr dream of dr king's dream has been realized down from sixty five president obama was inaugurated after americans have been the hardest hit by the recession but bush recession fifty three percent decline in total growth since the last year of the bush administration typical white households right now hold a hundred thirteen thousand dollars in wealth typical black households in the

united states five thousand dollars this is a staggering disparity between these two and and republicans claim the age of racial discrimination is dead that we should be rolling back affirmative action and so what is the alternative that the republicans are offering instead of affirmative action or other programs to address these wealth inequality is. racial lines or the republicans just not care a roaring economy. and you're going to get that. vibe it is not dressing in any particular community by unleashing the entrepreneurial forces of america there's a lot of money so they're all right well you know you mentioned before there's a lot of money companies have on the sidelines we want to get those in play so so the billionaires are going to help african-americans. billy bears if you call in companies that create so basically the. fifty seven percent of jobs

overseas are going to help there is there's also been jobs created in the south we're come for car companies if we're talking about auto companies coming to the south from japan because there's been this sort of foreign companies are going to hell so ever going to companies that companies have racial preferences that you seem to favor for the for more than the last few decades close for the last three hundred fifty years which they have if you were racial preferences it has everything to do with we've had affirmative action programs racial preference programs for the last you know what is going to years and they haven't been successful this is this isn't a this isn't you know notice that there's a huge black middle class that didn't exist fifteen years ago then why are you breaking these these sad statistic because what i just said is that this is those have these programs that are reasonably average white house hold as one hundred thirteen thousand dollars and in total wealth is part of that is skewed by the fact that most most of the billionaires are white and so you've got that effect but the larger part of it is that there is multi-generational both physical wealth and

cultural wealth in white families that has not by and large existed in black families because you've only had a generation since we have legalized not just agreeing with the spirit of the facts are the facts but i'm saying what i'm suggesting is that the policies that we've had in place have not been helping have been agitating the problem and i think we could do more by not having the policies it's not the end goal of the policies. i'm inclined i'm sympathetic toward of course the problem is that they're not successful in these statistics that you showed prove that point do you have a policy you disagree with what we disagree on if you disagree with the statistics i think we can both agree that the best way to help anyone in poverty black white or hispanic is to create a warning economy we know this is a recurring economy is principally to the benefit of. this is that shows that the decline has been dramatic but a run economy would presumably lift everybody so the old you know rising tide lifts

all boats i mean there's some small amount of truth of that but you know what about the fact that some of those boats are rowboats and some of those boats are you know three story for wonderful yachts so what do you do instead you propose during the ira bolstering the programs that we've had in place up until now i don't pose a major bootstrapping you know giving people bootstraps program that would that would in any way that were huge and it just hasn't worked that's the elderly getting up our body in half in the united states in six years and bill clinton cut away most of that program we know from fifty seven percent of people who are eligible for welfare being able to get it to now it's less than what i was you know i think that right claims that because bill clinton cut away the social safety net which didn't seem like a problem in the ninety's because we had you're an economy and now when we get the bush recession it's a disaster but the social safety net has and there's an. solve the problem that you're suggesting it isn't solved closing the gap and creating parity as it is that's how it is and i'm going to resolve this that it will and we only have two minutes that the city of aurora california or colorado rather is cutting

a deal with gaillard entertainment and familiar with this as seniors this is this is this is classic the incentive agreement let me read this with respect to any taxable or real personal property within the area or a proposed area whose owner is not a natural person one natural person who is qualified to register to vote in the general elections in the state and is designate. by such owner that is the corporation to vote for such honor that is the corporation whether such a natural person resides in the area as proposed or not the only one such person should be does a designated by h.r. and other words a corporation gets to designate a human to vote on their behalf and presumably even to run the city for city council or congress on their behalf so the question should this designated person if the corporation commits a crime. or kills somebody with one of their products should this designated person go to jail as a cheerful optimist tom i think you're looking at the wrong way this is this is

what's great about america you can have somebody in aurora colorado proposing some on some city council proposing some silly policy and people may or may not accept it but that that's what democracy is about and that's what i mean that's why you have these local governance is that's why you have these this is why if you have one of these i like about what you guess is that your post and see history you know this is exactly what was needed oh this is not what he says all in garland and have three not even every congressional district had it on the margins corporation designators why do humans as it is said they don't know why no deposits no corporate system like he once did the council and tom look with the point of this what they're trying to do is they're trying to entice a corporation a large corporation that will move into their district because they're not they're going to get it right in two thousand race in the end of the reason they're doing it and i think we can all be sympathetic to this is that is because the economy so bad because what you've been going to already you want to have you want to have

a core and really didn't have a hat or doesn't anymore you don't think you understand you're doing either of us or either of us are suggesting we should have a corporation have a vote i think was this i said you know you're serious and just so here's the i don't neither of us are suggesting that you're not there you are defending you know what you're suggesting is that this one instance of a town council is indicative of new so we need taking over the kind of blood pressure on the town can i put it this is the logical next step from superglued it . i disagree which part of the do you get that because you know actually i mostly in the dissent where they just lay it right out there and i if you haven't read it courage is strongly encouraged to read justice stevens as you sent me a last question quote for last night funny man david letterman says he this discovered the cause of yesterday's freak earthquake on the east coast take a look. they traced the epicenter of the earthquake a governor chris christie's aerobics class. cheap shot

and comedian andy borowitz reports that billionaire televangelist pat robertson said this on his seven hundred club today that it was only a mild earthquake because yesterday's mile of the east coast earthquake was god's revenge on people who act to get robertson said all across the eastern seaboard there are men who get manicures where designer i wear and know about thread counts god made this somewhat gave a lighter finds this somewhat like gay like behavior confusing and he responded by getting mildly he was is a borowitz report but let's assume neither irritated god nor governor christie is to blame for the earthquake then who is it a couple of choices president obama of the nature smite him while he's on vacation he didn't leave town you know or eric cantor the epicenter is right in the middle of his district is he responsible for cutting and and he's responsible for cutting funding to the u.s. geological service and disaster. we just reported at the daily caller hottest web

site they have given the explanation it is actually punishment from allah for our sins and if we do not repent it might be more serious he said it would be a moderately gay guys and could could be a hurricane of this it was if you could be a hurricane or tornado and hurricane irene is heading up the coast so i would suggest you could strongly consider converting what maybe does chris christie jumping into the republican race or growing it all up i think ryan's not going to do what we want a risky and my take on it fracking i'm very concerned that this may isn't the right but i will see any. basis. coming out is the republicans wishy washy approach to lowering tax cuts actually there are two strategy for crashing the economy and securing the presidential seat which won it well.

let's not forget that we had an apartheid regime right. i think rock the feet of one well. whenever government says for the keep you safe get ready because you have the freedom. you know sometimes you see a story and the seem so sorely sleep you think you understand it and then you've lived.