back to the big picture i'm tom arbonne coming up in this half hour while japan is still recovering from last year's fukushima nuclear disaster the worst may be yet to come but this new information suggests about the possibility of the largest nuclear disaster in history also republicans an issue going to try to stop people from voting well together or at least make it nearly impossible so what's going on in the wolverine state will michiganders really have to jump through hoops to have

their voices heard and after searching long and hard and disenfranchising thousands of americans along the way republicans have finally found the culprit in their great voter fraud scandal in south they didn't have to look very hard at all explain why and i feel it. is about the rest of the news more bad news coming from the crippled fukushima nuclear plant in japan was speaking to swiss lawmakers last month japan's former ambassador to switzerland and. warned that if the building housing reactor four at that plant in fukushima were to collapse as many officials fear it might happen it would lead to a global catastrophe like the world has never seen before has reduced part of news reports a former official with the u.s. department of energy commented on consequent the. this is of

a building collapse around reactor four saying if an earthquake or other event were to cause this pool to drain this could result in a catastrophic radiological fire involving nearly ten times the amount of cesium one thirty seven released by the cherry noble accident if that fire were to consume the thousands of other radioactive spent fuel rods at the fukushima plant and the radiological event could be eighty five times greater than the chair nodal disaster so just how dangerous is the situation still at the fukushima plant and what are the consequences for the united states having campuses bacchis the nuclear waste watchdog nuclear case welcome back great to have you first of all we were talking before when on the air and i learned something i thought i knew a lot about nuclear waste and power you said that nuclear fuel before it's been run through a reactor is not so dangerous as afterwards well that's true once the nuclear fuel goes into a reactor and as a radiated and uranium atoms are split it's a million times more radioactive than when it went in as fresh fuel even when it's

fresh fuel it's radioactive it's toxic cutting metal it is a very dangerous material and so they actually wear relation suits and gloves and the works but they can work with it with their hands but once it's radiated in a reactor core it's giving off deadly doses of gamma radiation in a matter of seconds if it's just out of the reactor if you're at close range with no shielding it's a very deadly material and it stays that way for a million years given the long lasting radio isotopes so. in their infinite wisdom. general electric designed it correct me if i'm wrong on any of those design these reactors or at least some of them that you know you know for you know three you know four to have their nuclear waste stored in the ceiling . and so this is far more deadly than the fuel nuclear waste is up in the ceiling the size of the building and been blown out by the explosion the building is listing and there's this pool of radioactive waste up there. what happens if this

building collapses well it would be a global catastrophe certainly for japan it would be very devastating it would be a larger radioactivity release than what's already happened there but melted down cores at least they are inside containment structures granted those containment structures are damaged or destroyed and hence the massive amounts of radioactivity that have escaped so far in the past thirteen months but the pools again yet general electric designed this reactor not only with too small and too weak containment for the reactor cores but with the pools outside of any containment whatsoever i mean granted they were inside a building that's called the reactor building a secondary containment but the hydrogen explosions that you know it's one three and four completely destroyed those outer buildings and these pools are now open air so if there's a fire in the uniform pool if it collapses completely if the bottom drops out and they have steel jacks under there now trying to keep the floor from thawing out on this pool in a couple of hours that fuel would be on fire releasing up to one hundred percent of

its cesium one thirty seven directly into the environment and compare that to chernobyl well as robert alvarez said in the unit for poor lone there's ten times the cesium that was released by turn over the entire site of focusing my daiichi just in the pools and there are seven pools one each each reactor unit plus a common pool which is the mother lode if you add it all up it's eighty five times the cesium that was released that chernobyl and that common pool with the most waste of all at the site is fifty meters away fifty yards away from you know for if you know the horror of a job if you know for those up in flames that site is going to have to be abandoned because now it's a deadly radioactive zone you would get a fatal dose in seconds or minutes nobody could go there and you couldn't mitigate the accident all of those pools would likely go up and fully ours or any nuclear reactors in the united states where they store the waste in the ceiling we have twenty four such units here in the united states they're going to form or they gather radioactive waste in the ceiling where mark wants just like fukushima. one

of them has been shut down since one thousand nine hundred seven the waste is still in the pool to save money on dry cask storage. is vermont yankee one of those is a mark one so as pilgrim near boston so those two near detroit these mark ones are near our biggest cities they're the oldest reactors in the country they have much more waste in their pools than any of the pools of daiichi so if you lose primary grid power if you lose emergency back up these rules at our mark ones it's a matter of time at fermi to take four hours and twelve minutes before the pool starts to boil and then maybe some days that's what happened. some days later that pool water is gone the waste is now in the open air and on fire as kevin camps thank you for being with us thank you. our addiction to nuclear power has put our planet and every human living and all life at risk today no nukes. in other news democracy is on the march out of michigan apparently unsatisfied with trashing

democracy in places like benton harbor and flint for unelected financial managers are now running the city's republicans the wolverine state are trying to stop people from voting altogether or at least making it a lot harder for people to vote as they try to use reports legislation is in the works that would quote retire require voters to affirm their us citizenship at the polls and photo identification when registering to vote in government sanctioned graininess to register others to vote in other words of the legislation is passed michiganders are going to jump through all kinds of hoops just to get a chance to have their voices heard in our democracy which by the way is exactly what republicans want fewer people voted as republican strategist and founder of the american legislative exchange council alec paul way rick once said. that many of our christian. what i call them grow good government but they want everybody to bow. i don't want everybody to vote elections are won by

a majority of people they never happened from the beginning of our country and they are not now go matter up october to the elections quite proud of what goes up only talk about gold. so is that what's going on in michigan joining me now is susan casement president of the league of women voters in michigan susan welcome thank you very much them i know you're a league of women voters is a totally nonpartisan organization i'm going try and do this in as an nonpartizan a fashion as i can what are the republicans in michigan and are there any democrats who are in on this trying to do with these new restrictions on voting well it seems to be a move afoot to bring in what the. secretary of state election reform and it's going to unfortunate michigan has had a very clean election system for many years and

unfortunately there's a lot of. a lot of inaccurate information being put out we do not have her i'm zouaves welder impersonation from out in so there really is no reason for us to expand a photo id requirement to absentee voting and we also. are having facing a difficult situation where the league of women voters and other organizations like the leigh are going to find it very difficult to register people to vote you know time voting is a fundamental right in our country and it's crucial to the future of our democracy the league is very concerned that unnecessary barriers not be put out to prevent people from voting these unnecessary barriers like photo id requirements for example do not affect the population in the same way some

parts of the population find it much more difficult to give peace photo id. people who are over sixty five people who are poor minorities many of those folks with disabilities it just makes certain parts of the elation. in the situation where it's much more difficult for them to participate in this very important part of our democracy which of course is voting in fact i understand legal women voters in florida were this kind of law has been passed has just stopped registering people altogether because of the legal potential legal liabilities associated with it are there efforts in michigan underway to push back on this kind of legislation well certainly the league and many other voters who are concerned about these new barriers and a new concern proposed constraints on our ability to register voters have been

attending the committee hearings in advocating very vociferous lee against these bills and we've been trying to get a lot of a media attention about them so we appreciate this opportunity to talk about it. we are very concerned that this has happened but. the republicans control will be house and senate in the michigan legislature and it's extremely difficult. to and to prevail right now. and i didn't want to really it's very important to point out that the going to lead is nonpartisan and we are not supporting either party we are supporting the voters and their rights to participate in our democratic process but there's but it seems that there's one party who is pretty committed not to having that happen unfortunately

the league has been registering people since the nineteenth amendment was passed are we have just a little less than a minute left are they are are you going to have to stop functioning in michigan now well because of the way the legislation is written certainly it's going to have a chilling effect because the way it now states. it really would have a fiduciary responsibility i'm assuming is the president that would be me and it would be extremely difficult of course for me to be monitoring what really members across the state are doing as they engage in this very important of voter registration providing this community service susan so this is a case for thank you so much for being with us thank you tom i'll have more on the right wing war on voting coming up in tonight's kaley take.

lead. has put a picture of me when i was like nine years old like the silage through. the incessant i am an old get of friends that pile of crap because. he was kind of the jester that. i'm very proud of the role that algis you as playing. look look . you know sometimes you see

a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear see some other part of it and realize that everything you saw. i'm sorry is a big. crazy

alert they're not asking around not that way a village in austria is in the middle of a heated debate over changing their name why well the village is currently known as austria as you can imagine such a name comes with a lot of mr having village street signs are for routinely stolen and teenagers prank call at being residents on a daily basis but i mean the troubles don't stop there they can tourist couples often go to abstain to play in the street and pose next to various village signs almost to the effete villagers are fed up with all the african mischief taking advantage of it local business people have made f. ing post cards at being christmas cards even having their abilities will meet later this week to discuss various name changes including cockiness and well being here's

hoping the name change will stop all the effing non-sense. our first comments a night comes from deanna thom hartmann facebook page he said this about america not having a universal healthcare system we say we are a moral country i think that not having universal health care and putting money and profit over human pain and suffering is so immoral i cannot wrap my head around the fact that some people and mainly the you know who's don't give a damn they say they do but they don't know how pathetically set hedley agreed and we all know who the you know who is are in fact they just passed again the paul ryan budget which is going to say now we're going to take medicare and turn into a voucher program here grandma here's a peasant box good luck finding health insurance company that will cover you now

that you had a heart attack it is wrong it is morally wrong as the catholic bishops of pointed out and you know i think that when in the declaration independence how mr jefferson wrote about life liberty the pursuit of happiness how to have a right to life without having health care any our next comment of the night comes from a viewer at home is that pennsylvania we called in to our viewer rant like he said this about mitt romney possibly being our next president i'm just amazed at the stupidity of the country to even entertain the thought of having will want to wrap it there in the white house draft dodger just like george w. . vietnam he ran like a little mouse distance of the threats and now he's a multibillion air. he's done nothing but outsource jobs and by his

own admission the choice murdering people. i think that poetic justice would be the day we take mitt romney time to the roof of his car like he did his dog drive to canada. first of all let me clarify mitt romney isn't a multi billionaire he's a multimillionaire he's worth about a quarter of a billion dollars it seems but beyond that i don't think timing anything to the right of a car and driving a candidate where they rather be mitt romney or whether it be is dog is a decent or humane idea. you know just saying i mean i'm not trying to be in the bag for mitt or anything but i just i wouldn't time our final count of the one comes from brian who calls it a viewer rant line he had a couple questions that he wanted me to address. brian i want to know where in the constitution for filibustering my understanding is the vice president cast in

deciding vote in. filibustering by a minority. point secondly. i've heard you say many times that supreme court justices are there for life but my understanding is supreme court justices can be impeached if they overstep their bounds could you care to. discuss these issues thank you very much for taking my call. sure. first of all of the a concept that supreme court justices can be impeached is in the constitution just like in the constitution in answer actually both the questions it says that at the beginning of every every legislative session which is every two years every congress every two years both the house and the senate will make their own rules for their own behavior so the filibuster is part of the rule making process you are

right the constitution says a majority and the vice president great majority but you know they can change their rules they've chosen not to which some of us think is a bad bad idea and that's that's how they've decided to do it with regard to the supreme court justices they can be impeached but it requires just like when bill clinton was impeached it requires a build impeachment to be presented in the house of representatives it requires a supermajority vote the house representatives that it goes to the senate for conviction and then removal frankly i think a better way to solve the problem of our supreme court of these guys are men and women actually mostly these five right wing men behaving like they're the kings of america is for congress to exercise the power that they have an article three section two of the constitution which says that they can establish rules for the supreme court in other words they get what franklin roosevelt tried to say was let's have a rule as if you're over seventy years old you know get a vote on the supreme court which would have knocked your four or five justices off so that's a start a if you like your questions or comments heard on the side going to big picture

listen up. we want to know your to send us your comments by visiting the tom hartman facebook page via twitter at tom underscore her 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 by three six fifty three zero six agreed to disagree sound off its all welcome but remember that your comments may be used on the ear. it's the good the bad in the very very quack versal asli ugly the good through cox cox a six year old english water texas raised over ten thousand dollars from a lemonade stand was set up to help raise money for sick father randy cox it's v i was diagnosed with cancer earlier this year all insurance would pay for some of the costs they'd still be out thousands of dollars drew up and stand outside as all last saturday morning charging twenty five cents a pop were busy after it spread quickly some customers came from dozens of miles

away and one person wrote a five thousand dollars check good on you drew for helping your dad afford the health care he needs something our current system tragically can't do for the bad pat robertson robertson a highly controversial televangelist responded to another on his show yesterday who said her fourteen year old daughter had engaged in unsavory acts to other girls and might be a lesbian on hearing about the situation roberts robertson gave his advice on how to revert the teenager. rule work or i think what she should do just say i don't think you can see susie of the world it is you know you've got to explain to the birth of god i will say this it's a likely that they have a is that she is you know has homosexual tendencies well despite your obvious and think studies have shown that children as young as nine years old are aware of their sexuality robinson is the same man who said the haiti earthquake was caused

by a pact with the devil so this. comment shouldn't come as much of a surprise and the very very ugly they should daniel genki genki of michigan illinois spoke at a mass this weekend calling a catholic men's march we can but he actually compared president obama to hitler take a listen. hitler and stalin at their governments which is barely tolerate some churches remain open but would not tolerate any competition with the state in education social services and health care. in clear violation of our first amendment rights president obama with his radical approach abortion and extreme secularist agenda now seems intent on following a similar path. actually hitler tried to exterminate millions of people because they were of a different faith president obama wants to make sure all working women have access to contraception because of two very different things the fact that they should

genki would suggest that president obama's actions come anywhere near those of a brutal dictator both highly offensive and very very good. while republicans finally did it in their quest to find a quest to find someone anyone who's committed voter fraud to justify these new radical voter id laws that are now in that five million voters off the rolls in seventeen states in just the last year republicans have finally found a call for say a heck of a lot of work to finally find a real voter fraud criminal even your study of bush couldn't find a voter fraud stars he launched a five year investigation through the department of justice to find out just how rampant voter fraud is and found virtually zero interest instances of partisan voter fraud in fact the number of people struck by light. and the number of u.f.o.

sightings there in the same time massively larger than the number of voter fraud cases uncovered by the department of justice and the brennan center for justice did a detailed study between two thousand and two thousand and six and several states to find the rate of voter fraud and here's what they found and wisconsin the voter fraud rate was just point zero zero zero two percent and new york the voter fraud rate was just point zero zero zero zero zero nine percent and you jersey the rate was just point zero zero zero four percent in hampshire just as point zero zero zero six percent in missouri same story in other words voter fraud pretty much doesn't exist it definitely doesn't exist any degree to warrant voter id laws that will take millions of poor elderly and urban voters off the voter rolls this election. as protecting the vote dot com uncovered eighteen percent of young americans people who tend to vote for democrats don't have appropriate government

issued i.d.'s to vote right now and twenty five percent of african-americans again people who tend to vote for democrats also don't have the appropriate government issued i.d.'s for voting states of these new voter id laws so if republicans couldn't find just one person just want a high profile name to repeat over and over and over again to the american people what willie horton kind of convincing them that voter fraud is a real problem and that these laws are necessary they could just get that one name everything else would fall into place then they'd have a justification for laws that require super tight i.d. and send people to jail for years and years they couldn't voter fraud well luckily for the republicans they found their guy they found their voter fraud let me tell you about the suspect in two thousand and ten this suspect allegedly cast a fraudulent vote in massachusetts in the senate race he bragged to the voters illegally in that state just so he could help the candidate he's recorded fill ted kennedy's vacant senate seat to be eligible to vote the suspect claimed his legal

residence was in massachusetts believe it or not this guy actually wrote on the voter registration form that he lived in his son's unfinished basement massachusetts law for a location to be the primary residence of a voter it has to be quote where a person's wells in which is the center of his domestic social and civic life and quote however according to the suspects former realtor he didn't even live in his son's unfinished basement in fact he had actually moved to california long before the election that means the suspect illegally claimed a false residence just so he could illegally vote in the senate race and that ladies and gentlemen is textbook partisan voter for the voter fraud carries with it it's. five years in prison so who is it who is the man who committed this crime in masters of two thousand and ten is the member of acorn maybe than you but black panther party maybe a democratic. party operated i guess it really doesn't matter to republicans who it is because they you know they have what they need they've now got a name all is good in the republican party that i right now they're here to screw

those up maybe it was the republican hoops that are both a fraud suspect is none other than mitt romney the republican party's nominee for president where is joe arpaio when you need to add some of the big picture that i don't forget it mark receive begins with you get out there get action tag your it.

down the official. called touch from the. video. and omissions feeds in the palm of your. machine. that's.