welcome back to the big picture i'm tom arbonne coming up in this half hour biologists have discovered radioactive seaweed off the coast of california the latest victim of the bush team a disaster just how much radiation will affect the west coast and our american lives in danger also new reports suggest recent earthquakes in the u.s. are almost certainly manmade and quote and fracking is the culprit so should we be continuing to let energy companies tear apart the ground under our feet and in some ways really take one percenters are threatening to destroy america and the middle classes you know on by a thread how can we eliminate the threat from f.d.r.'s economic royalists and restore the american dream. that i was there as the new. we all just lived through the hottest march in the

history of our nation across the country more than fifteen thousand i separate your records were set as you can see in this video showing exactly where and when the records were broken over the month making it the hottest march ever recorded in the one hundred seventeen years since the national oceanic and atmospheric association began keeping records climate change is no longer something to fear in the future it's happening right now we see it in strings of massive tornadoes a chair across the american midwest we see an enormous wildfires burning up the east coast and we see it in freak hail storms drive bowling ball size chunks of ice on the ground all of this is caused by the endless dumping toxic greenhouse gases into the environment from burning fossil fuels and we let the people exceed and we the people need to kick the oil barons and their phony climate scientists out of the halls of government so that we can finally get to work addressing mankind's most serious problem with

a plant that is turning us. planet history yes but what we don't need is iran nuclear power as an alternative to fossil fuels that's a lesson that fukushima taught us and continues to teaches caliper off the coast of california was found to contain levels of radioactive iodine stemming from last year's ongoing from pushing the nuclear crisis in japan became a biologist a california state university long beach discovered that contaminated cow though claimed that the levels of radiation were too low to be harmful any and no amount of radiation is good at this study does prove that what happens environmentally on the other side of the world does drastically affect the united states or one of the dangers of nuclear power as an alternative to fossil fuels and what's going on with all this stuff from fukushima and the rector of the reactor oversight project nuclear power will come back to where you think skin it's great to have you join us radioactive kalpas is just the beginning for the united states well i think that what we're seeing is the evidence of the fallout that when we first came on your

show back in march of last year this was this was the harbinger that we were message that we were bringing that the radioactivity coming off the plant would precipitate all across the northern hemisphere and now a little more than a year into this accident we're seeing this bio concentration this bio magnification that we were talking about a year ago it's not only appearing in the kelp now off the coast of california but we've seen recent studies by the woods hole oceanographic institute where they're concerned that hundreds of miles off the coast of japan. showing evidence of bio cumulation of radioactive cesium in see that. some of the closer schooling fish like smell. in lakes and ponds in japan the

word we're seeing levels hundreds and thousands of times greater than what would naturally be there naturally meaning that this is from would be from bomb tests and chernobyl so we're seeing this incremental increase from all these other accidents that have occurred over the past decades now being compounded now being added as additional body burden of radioactive toxicity in or environment so he's. accumulated. the water has levels that are tens or hundreds or thousands of times more concentrated it gets absorbed by the caliper the animal life that massively concentrates it so becomes tens of thousands of times and that gets eaten by the fish the small fish by the large fish and by the time it gets to something as big as a seven hundred tuna what do we have. we have a situation that can present itself as

a health threat. sometime down the road i mean any exposure at this point raises your risk but again what we have to realize is that the fukushima daiichi accident is now adding on to a history of radioactive accidents deliberate testing of nuclear weapons and this is increasing the body burden of all life. how is this going to affect americans living on the west coast and how and also how is it affecting japanese you know outside of the focus shimmery like in tokyo right well again the radioactive fallout that came from the fukushima accident it's now turning up in bamboo shoots milk beef so it's both terrestrial contamination and marine borne contamination and you know we are bio cumulated as

well. which were the very top of the food chain and i think that the big concern right now is that all of the radiation standards are not taking into account the most vulnerable vulnerable of our population namely children and lactating mothers but instead you know the standards continue to be antiquated because they're based on the most robust in our population twenty five year old male worker in a nuclear power plant so well not good. thanks so much for a thank you a good appreciation thanks for showing up. from one way from one way worse on the planet to another way we're scarring the planet let's talk about fracking. you might remember in august of last year the ground here in washington d.c. showed it was a five point eight earthquake that rattled these codes from virginia to new york area that generally doesn't see earthquakes and some people speculated the earthquake may not have been caused by nature but instead by

a man fracking the process by which companies like exxon mobil extract natural gas miles below the earth's surface involves shooting millions and millions of gallons of water and chemicals and deep underground there's several fracking wells up and down the east coast and according to the u.s. geological survey fracking might have something to do with the uptick in earthquakes in strange places since two thousand and one as the u.s.g.s. put it recent earthquakes are quote almost certainly man made and quote and the u.s.g.s. has already linked to nearly fifty recent earthquakes in oklahoma just in that one state underground fracking so knowing what we know now about fracking earthquakes should we continue to let energy companies punch holes deep underground risking more tremors dr tony in graphene joins me now he is the joint seed professor of engineering at cornell university dr graff you welcome your money back to you tom

thank you for coming back in the program he first explain the process of fracking and how the u.s.g.s. concludes that it's causing earthquakes. sure fracking is the injection a manmade blewitt usually water based also containing other chemicals and sand or ceramic beads. into an underground source of a fossil fuel like natural gas or oil for the purpose of opening existing practice in that rock or really new fractures net rock so that effectively becomes more permeable. it's easier to get the oil or gas out of it so it's a process that the energy industry because well stimulation is a fractured rock part of the normal process of at least that i process of earthquakes. yes so an earthquake is a seismic event that results usually from either fracturing of rock that has not

been fracture or re fracturing of rock that has previously been fractured and it's typically the result of sliding what we call sharing a thought system or an existing joint system and so natural earth quakes result from those kinds of motions for my job like fracturing in a very essence is what the industry calls a microseismic with its purposeful fracturing or movement or long existing practice of the rock mass so i'm good at this he said but what the industry sometimes says however is that the actual act of hydraulic fracturing is microseismic and that implies that it's a small release of energy a small motion on these existing fractures or existing thoughts but it's in consequential as a seismic event but what they fail to point out is that there are consequences to that fracturing that hydraulic fracturing there to consequences both of which can

lead to significant seismic events not micro events and those two are those two are when you're injecting very large volumes when we're talking millions of gallons fracturing into a rock mass repeatedly in one well and using current technology repeatedly in closely adjacent wells you have the possibility of changing what's called the pressure profile or the equilibrium state that rock had been in places where earthquakes had not occurred for a long period of time in equilibrium all the natural forces that work down there are paired off against each other and in balance when you create additional pressures or change the pressures down there by injecting these fluid under high pressure you run the risk of causing something that has been stable not wanting to slide so i like anything that happens is that hydraulic fracturing but it's nature

is meant to be a lubricant. so we also possibility even if we're not changing pressures too much relief work eating well. that has been in equilibrium for a long time and therefore allowing it to slip and create a macro seismic event right or five point three earthquake in oklahoma remark or a two point eight in england or hundreds of point eight to twenty three two point five in arkansas texas. ohio or so i'm sorry i'm being long winded here but. i want to explain to your readers that the it's not just cracking process right yes you did a very very good job of that dr thank you so much for being with us i'm sure. coming up in size daily take the story of america over the last thirty years has been one of exclusion for the one percent ripping the american dream away from the

average joe i would toss out the one percenters and restore the american dream for the middle class. we just put a picture of me when i was like nine years old to tell the truth. i think that's an amateur get a sense that i would rather get caught is a country. that he was kind of yesterday. and i'm very proud of the role that option c. has played the. the . you know sometimes you see

a story and it seems so for life sleep is if you understand it and then you glimpse something else if your see some other part of it and realized everything you thought you don't know i'm sorry alcohol is a big issue. for . you to. fill.

your take my take is your chance to send in your questions comments ranson observations about anything we talk about here in the big picture or during my radio show our first comments a night from miti call it full of call of your rant line he had this to say about a quarter used inside but last night hello. anyone here. i really like that. scrooge segment that quote of reagan there that was an absolute gem police have that somewhere on you tube or wherever that i can clip it and send it so my socks crazed relatives appreciate it keep up the good work. thanks

a lot smitty here just for you is the reagan saw. the just a moment ago a few moments ago i told some people inside the building here of a letter that i just received a day before yesterday it's a letter from a man out here in the country an executive who's earning in six figures will be one hundred thousand dollars a year he wrote me in support of the tax plan because he said i am legally able to take advantage of the present tax code nothing dishonest doing what the law prescribes and wind up paying a smaller salary than my secretary gets or get i mean big or small and start paying a smaller tax than my secretary paid. and he wrote me the letter to tell me he'd like to come to washington and testify before congress as to

how that's possible for him to do and why it is wrong. really so ronald reagan and our final comment of the night comes from ty law our first from denmark she posed on the tom hartman facebook page in response to last days daily take on why europeans think americans are not so she said i live in denmark in this country has an equivalent to the tea baggers the d.f. or danish people's party there's also a good number of people in this con and who hate the muslims and blacks anders breivik in norway and only real difference between europe and the usa is a lot of them don't go around their own neighborhoods carrying guns returning their law enforcement well actually yes you're right on that you know racism is racism and it happens all over the world and you shit you certainly have your share of them in denmark as well however i did my radio show for an entire week from from the headquarters of danish radio are there in copenhagen. it was three years ago as

i recall and i had a whole series of conservatives on the program one after another and i asked them you know ok you're a conservative you want to get rid of your national health care system oh no no we love it you want to cut the taxes no no they're fine we get we get our money's worth you want to you know lower the price of gas no it's it we should be paying for our health care with the with that you know. finally had said what makes you conserve it we don't want any more immigrants and so you're right about the whole racism thing but you're conservatives are conservatives big difference that's it for your take my take tonight if you'd like your comments and questions heard on the segment the big picture listen we want to know your to send us your comments by visiting the tom hartman facebook page by a twitter at tom underscore her phone or in the chat room on the message boards or through the blog at tom hartman dot com you can also leave a message on our rant line at two two by three six fifty three zero six agree disagree sound off it's all welcome to remember that your comments may be used on the air.

it's the good the bad in the very very oxer of vaillant posts lee ability the good judge of lizabeth magner judge magner a federal bankruptcy judge in the easy anna said that wells fargo's behavior during five years of litigation with one single homeowner was in her words highly reprehensible and she ordered the big bank to pay the homeowner a staggering three point one million dollars in damages its fine is one of the biggest yet for mortgage servicing misconduct judge magner has a history of criticizing the home loan practices of big banks and defending the homeowners it's about time we punish the big banks that destroyed our economy was more than just a slap on the wrist good idea george magnus the bad jacqueline because sell the superintendent of pontiac academy for excellence middle school in michigan hired

one of her teachers last week for organizing a fundraiser for trayvon martin's family brooke harris the teacher knew that many of her students were politically engaged and wanted to help martin's parents so she helped them plan a fundraiser for each student would donate a dollar to wear a hoodie for a day early superintendent cosell is against such activism and pirate heiress. saying that harris was being paid to be a teacher not an activist somebody should let superintendent his cell know that teaching about activism is teaching about the very core of the history of this nation and a very very ugly herman cain interview today on fox so called duz cain suggested that romney is losing support of women because women aren't as familiar policy issues as men are referring to president obama's policies he said i think many men are much more familiar with the failed policies than a lot of other people as well as the general public basically kane was saying that women are stupider than men and don't have the ability understand politics sorry

herman the republican war on women is much more subtle than simply calling them stupid calling them stupid that's just very very ugly. for most of the last hundred years the story of america has been one of inclusion bringing more and more people into economic prosperity and creating a larger and larger middle class for bringing women into the middle class of the right to vote the right to work to bring african-americans in the middle class by any legal segregation and passing civil rights law laws to bring in the poor and the middle class through l.b.j.'s great society legislation over the last thirty years since reagan's election it's been a very different story it's been a story of exclusion cutting people out of the american dream turning the united

states into a place where only the top one percent and achieve enormous economic prosperity and everyone else has to settle to be the working poor at first this move to destroy the middle class was done stealthily quietly through clever slogans about how government is the problem through bogus trickle down economics and through the brainwashing of the american electorate that greed is good don't you know but now thirty years later at a time when americans need the government the most at a time when trickle down economics has been demonstrated proven to be a fair and a time when the consequences of greed is good mentality is put on full display in the two thousand and economic meltdown the one percent of war in the middle class no longer has any gimmicks. now it's right out in the open right now our faces and on politics unapologetic as seen in the republican budget best carried out by the likes of multimillionaire congressman paul ryan who wrote that budget and

multimillionaire mitt romney who called that budget marvelous consider these numbers in two thousand and nine the food stamp program reduced the poverty rate in america by nearly eight percent in two thousand and eleven the food stamp program cut the number of american children living in poverty in half that's because helping people put food on the table during rough economic times like the bush great depression helped them to keep their homes keep their cars keep their lights on in their houses and kept them out of desperation and on track to get back on their feet again so one day they can follow the american dream but despite the incredible economic benefits of food stamps a polarized republican budget would kick millions of americans out of the program condemning them to horrible poverty and hunger the one percent don't want the poor to eat the lessons out of a trash can and now the war on the middle class is targeting students

a college degree is now pretty much a necessity in america if you want to be successful it's become the new high school diploma republicans in congress pushing for trickle down austerity want to end the practice of middle class and poor americans going to college despite college tuition and fees going up more than five hundred percent in the last twenty five years and student loan debt topping one trillion dollars for the first time in history federal pell grants for students next year will be smaller than they've ever been since the program was created as this chart shows it's been a steady decline in financial aid for students over the last thirty years of thirty years of reaganomics and next year pell grants will cover less than one third of the total cost of attending a four year public university. and the paul ryan republican trickle down austerity budget takes a million more students out of the pell grant program but all together and then there's health care paul ryan trickle down austerity republican budget ends

medicare as we know it turns it into a voucher program stripping middle middle class senior citizens of the ability to take care of their medical costs and it cuts deep into medicaid health care for poor people taking tens of millions of poor disabled americans out of their health insurance plans it repeals obamacare so fourteen million children and one hundred million adult americans with preexisting conditions will lose their insurance and all the savings that paul ryan gets from all of these cuts to american else america's health care system those savings are going to be handed off to the top one percent as a three trillion dollars tax cut specially tuned for the millionaires and billionaires if ryan's budget is an active in the middle class the guys in the one percent wins the class war and here's the kicker they're not the one percent even have their number one guy running for the highest office in the land mitt romney has taken more money from the banks in this election cycle than any other candidate

even way more than president obama he's hiding most of his tax returns so americans can't bite out of the stash money away in his swiss accounts or his cayman bank account we can't even find out just how good he is that using tax loopholes to avoid paying his fair share of taxes we know he's pretty good at it as i said he's called the paul the paul ryan budget marvelous and he supports even more tax cuts for the one percent and more cuts to programs for students in the middle class and thanks to the supreme court which is the most one percent friendly high court in modern history one percent will be able to throw as much money as they want into this election to support mitt romney and make sure that they win their war against the middle class. so this is where we stand today for the middle class under threat and while this might seem like a new threat to most americans it really is it's the same threat the face president franklin roosevelt and a fledgling middle class in the one nine hundred thirty nine hundred thirty six

after the new deal was passed we put in a price and here is what roosevelt said about this threat to the people that he called the economic royalists way back in one nine hundred thirty six. this economic royalists claim wake up throw the institutions of america what they really claim. is that we take away that. oh really. so america that notion. they overthrow. just like in one nine hundred thirty six today our allegiance to american institutions requires the overthrow of that kind of power let's get to work.

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