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

history of our nation across the country more than fifteen thousand high temperature 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 happening right now we see it in strings of massive tornadoes that tear across the american midwest we see enormous wildfires burning up the east coast and we see it in freak hail storms drive bowling ball sized chunks of ice on the ground all of this is caused by the endless dumping of toxic greenhouse gases into the environment from burning fossil fuels and we let the people excuse me and we the people need to kick the oil barons and their phony climate scientists out let all the government that we can finally get to work addressing the intense most

serious problems at a plant that is turning us. planet that is true but what we don't need is a riot nuclear power as an alternative to fossil fuels that's a lesson that the shaman taught us and continues to teach cal profit goes to california was found to contain rivals of radioactive iodine stemming from last year's ongoing for cushman nuclear crisis in japan a team of biologists a california state university long beach discovered the contaminated kalpa claimed that the levels of radiation were too low to be harmful any and no amount of radiation is good but the study does prove that what happens environmentally on the other side of the world does drastically affect the united states from one of the dangers of nuclear power as an alternative to fossil fuels and what's going on with all the stuff from fukushima and director of the reactor oversight project nuclear power welcome back to a think skin tom it's great to have you join us radioactive kelp is this just the beginning for the united states well i think that what we're seeing is the evidence

of the fallout when we first came on your show back in march of last year this was this was the hardening or 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 hundreds of miles off the coast of japan. showing evidence of bio cumulation of radioactive cesium in sea the us.

some of the closer. schooling fish like smell. in lakes and ponds in japan the 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 her environment it's abusing by bio came elation. 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 ate by the large fish and by the time it gets to something as big as a seven hundred pound tuna what 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 the japanese you know outside of the focus area 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 in bourne contamination and you know we're bio accumulators as well.

which are 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. paul thanks so much for a thank you a good appreciation thanks for showing up. from one way from one way we're scarring 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. shook it was a five point eight earthquake that rattled these codes from virginia to new york an area that germany doesn't see earthquakes and some people speculated the earthquake

may not have been caused by nature but instead by man fracking the process by which companies like exxon mobil extract natural gas from miles below the earth's surface involves shooting millions and millions of gallons of water and chemicals 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 see professor of engineering at cornell university dr graff you welcome you to be back with you tom

thank you for coming back on 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. manmade blewitt usually water based also containing other chemicals and sand or ceramic proppant into an underground source of your light natural gas or oil and the purpose of opening existing fractures in that rock or creating new fractures net rock so that it actively becomes more permeable in is it's easier to get the oil or gas out of it so it's a process that the energy industry cause well stimulation isn't fractured rock part of the normal process of at least that's how i process of earthquakes. yes so an earthquake is a seismic event that results usually from either fracturing of rock that has not

been fractured or re fracturing of rock that has previously been the fractured and it's typically the result of sliding what we call shearing on a also some or an existing joint system and so natural earthquakes result from those kinds of motions for my job like fracturing it is very essence is what the industry calls a micro seismic event it's purposeful fracturing or movement along existing fractures of the rock mass so i'm i had finished he said but what the industry sometimes says however is that the actual act of i draw a correction is microseismic and that implies that it's a small release of energy a small motion on these existing fractures or existing thoughts that it's in consequential as a seismic event what they fail to point out is that there are consequences to that

fracturing that hydraulic fracturing there to be consequences both of which can lead to significant seismic events not micro again and then those two are those two are when you're injecting very large volumes and we're talking millions of gallons of fracturing into a rock mass repeatedly and 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 or a long period of time an equilibrium of 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 had been stable not wanting to slide so i second thing that happens is that hydraulic fracturing the butts nature

is meant to be a lubricant. so we also possibility even if we're not changing pressures too much we're lubricating oil that has been in equilibrium for a long time and there or allowing it so you slip in create a macro seismic event like i point three earthquake in oklahoma remark or a two point eight in england or under. two point eight 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 the fracking process right yes you did a very very good job of that dr thank you so much for being with us and i'm sure. coming up in size daily take the story of america over the last thirty years has been one of exclusion with a one percent rep in 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 i didn't tell the truth. to . the contestant i am going to get a sense that i was crap and that is that the truth. that he was kind of yesterday. i'm very proud of the role without since he has played. the game. to. the.

you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so sleep you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realized everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm sorry welcome to the big picture. the sense of. fear. for.

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 are night from smitty call it a hell of a call of your rant line he had this to say about a quarter used inside that last night hello to. anyone here. i really like that. scrooge segment that quote obama reagan there that was an absolute gem. please have that somewhere on you tube or wherever that i can clip it and send it so my socks creedence relatives first keep up the good work.

thanks a lot smitty here just for you is the reagan saw. that just a moment ago a few moments ago i told some people inside the building here of a letter that i just received before yesterday it's a letter from a man out here in the country an executive who's earning in six figures will above 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 jeremy big or small i'm sorry 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 tyler our first from denmark she posed on the thom hartmann facebook page in response to last night's daily take on why europeans think americans are not so she said i live in denmark and 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 pretending they're 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 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 all 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. i think finally i'd said you know what if you're conservative we don't want any more immigrants and so you're right about the whole racism thing but you're conservatives are conservatives a 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 up we want to know your take send us your comments by visiting the tom hartman facebook page by a twitter at tom underscore her friend or in the chat room on the message boards or through the blog at thom hartmann dot com you can also leave a message on our rant line at two two five three six fifty three zero six agreed disagree sound off its all welcome or 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 drudge and lizabeth magner drudge magner a federal bankruptcy judge in louisiana said that wells fargo's behavior during the 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 this time is one of the biggest yet for mortgage servicing misconduct magner has a history of criticizing the home loan practices the big banks and defending the homeowners it's about time we punish the big banks that destroyed our economy with more than just a slap on the wrist good on you but maggie the bad jacqueline because sell sell the superintendent of pontiac academy for excellence middle school in michigan fired

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 to sell is against such activism and tired of terrorists . saying that harris was being paid to be a teacher not a matter of missed somebody should let superintendent his cell know that teaching about activism is teaching about the very core of the history it was an age and a very very ugly herman cain interview today on fox so-called news came suggested that mitt 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 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 to 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. 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 bringing african-americans in the middle class by any legal segregation passing civil rights laws laws to bring the poor and the middle class through l.b.j.'s great society legislation but 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 person has moved to destroy the middle class was done stealthily quietly 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 right 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 failed and in a time when the consequences of greed is good mentality is put on full display in the two thousand and eight economic meltdown the one percent's war on the middle class no longer has any gimmicks. now it's right out in the open right now our faces and on politics unapologetic best 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 it would say and 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 it was great depression helped them to keep their homes keep their cars keep their lights on in their houses it kept them out of desperation and on track to get back on their feet again so one day they could follow the american dream but despite the incredible economic benefits of food stamps and paul ryan 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 unless it's out of a trash can and now the war on the middle class is targeting students

a college degree is now pretty much an assessment 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 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 and disabled americans out of their health insurance plan 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 health americans are there is that those savings are going to be handed off to the top one percent as a three trillion dollars tax cut especially to me for the millionaires and billionaires if ryan's budget isn't acted in the middle class guys and the one percent wins the class war and here's the kicker another one percent even have their number one guy running for the highest office in the land mitt romney has taken more money from the bankers 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 i doubt if he stashed 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 in taxes we know he's pretty good at it as i said he's called 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 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 isn't it's the same threat to face president franklin roosevelt and a fledgling middle class in one nine hundred thirty nine hundred thirty six second

new deal was asked me put into place and here is what roosevelt said about this threat people that he called the economic royalists way back in one nine hundred thirty six. this economic royalists flame. thrower the institutions of america. what they really claim. is that we seek to take away the oh oh really it should. be just so american to. break. they overthrow. just like in one hundred thirty six today our allegiance to american institutions requires the overthrow of that kind of power let's get to work.

that's it for the big picture tonight don't forget the marker see begins when you show up get out there and get active tag your it to. me he he. he.

downplayed the official anti obligation job on the phone called touch for me i choose not to. light on the. video. i'll tease mine field goals. an r.s.s. feeds now in the palm of your. question on the call.