the capital account i'm learning mr. go back to the big picture i'm tom hartman coming up in this half hour samples taken from tokyo bay show that radioactive cesium contamination has increased in some areas by thirteen times just since last august our officials in japan dealing with these new findings and what's the state of nuclear safety here in the u.s. also everyone knows high fructose corn syrup harms the teeth and is a major player in the obesity epidemic in america but what does a startling new study reveals about that chemicals effect on the brain and in tonight's daily take for the moment we are not a frightened nation that gives up our values when times get tough america get its backbone back last night and how do we make sure the country doesn't lose it again

. in the best of the rest of the news a group of men in congress are trying to take away the rights of women in our nation's capital leading that effort is republican representative trent franks who is pushing legislation to ban abortions after twenty weeks of pregnancy for women living here in washington d.c. you could call it opening up a new front in the republican war against women to make matters worse mr franks is bahrain dc's only elected lawmaker delegate eleanor holmes norton from testifying at the hearing on the bill which directly affects her district representative franks won't say if the reason he kept her out was because she represents the women in the district being targeted because or. is she's

a woman after all republicans in the house have a history of denying women a voice on issues that affect the most like a few months back when congressman darrell i sailed here in one contraceptives refused to allow even one woman to testify so it's one thing to steal rights from women but it's another thing to steal rights and then not even give women a say in the matter but that's quite literally what's going on right now in the house republican of representatives of the republican rule for more on this lose winstead joins me she's a political satyrs co-creator of the daily show and author of the book lose free or die essays lose welcome thanks tom thanks for joining us do republicans not get the optics here disqualifying the one representative in d.c. from testifying on an issue that directly affects the women of d.c. . you know that's the interesting question in this whole entire issue is they either don't get the optics or they are so ideologically obsessed that

they can't even look at how politically damaging this is it because they're so driven by this other thing you know when ninety eight percent of women in america will use or have used birth control and they keep pushing this stuff forward and they're consulting catholic bishops and then having panels with white theologians instead of women it seems to me that it's it's reached a point of if you have utter lunacy. any idea why these conservative men. largely white men but why these conservative men are so obsessed with women's reproductive functions and body parts. well part of it seems to me it seems to me it's sort of the last gasp of of control that they have of sort of unchallenged control and now that women and people of color are demanding a place at the table and for women part of that is i want to control when then if i

choose to have children so i can balance my time and my finances and and actually be part of the decision making process i think it's incredibly threatening and it feels like fish that are flailing out of water who who don't know how to try to seize that last bit of control you know mitt romney is getting just devastated in the polls with regard to the women's vote. i'm assuming this is because he's been supporting the republican war on women all along does that mean that he's going to pick a woman as v.p. and as sarah palin ready for another go at it. these sadden me i can't imagine he would pick sarah palin i think that she is kind of worn out her welcome. does he have to pick a woman i don't know who that woman would be you know maybe one of the governors but i feel like as long as he keeps talking about women and having that and specially when he talks about women in the way that it's in reference to how his wife has talked to women and then relayed back to him how they feel about

issues i think is a losing battle and the second part is when you keep separating out the birth control reproductive health issue from the greater economic issue you know when you say things like women don't care about this issue of birth control or abortion they care about the economy and it's like honey they're inexplicably linked and he does not get that he's going to go down with the women's vote in flames you know i think you're right this is the first presidential election on the other hand this is the first presidential election was super pacs and you know karl rove spending three hundred million dollars that's a that's a third of more than a third of what obama spent you know getting a wife to do one guy so how crazy is this going to get. you know that i think that it's going to be you know pull the gloves off and as we heard today with this whole you know jeremiah wright fiasco that blew up in the face of of

rickets i think that it's going to get ugly and i think that it's interesting to hear all these insiders kind of talk about it like well it's the super pac and and mitt's going to distance himself from the super pac and it's like regular folks who see ads on t.v. are not constantly going to try to differentiate what's the super pac ad what's the one that has romney at the end saying i approve this message it's all going to get lumped into one marquee mass and i fear that yet again when we have a corporate media that doesn't call goal that we are going to end up with so much just information out there and nobody's going to be pointing out the laws as i mean they don't on the sunday morning shows anyway so it's like it won't be a change right lizz winstead thank you so much for being with us tonight. thanks sam. now moving on to some troubling news out of japan where there are more signs now that the fukushima nuclear crisis is still ongoing sludge samples taken

from tokyo bay show that radioactive cesium contamination has increased in some areas by thirteen times since measures were taken last august health officials claim the radiation levels pose no immediate risk to the population but could get a lot worse as contaminated fish filled with radio as active isotopes travel up the food chain into the world's restaurants and dinner tables meanwhile in the united states the associated press is reporting that nuclear regulators have quietly watered down u.s. planning for nuclear emergencies despite nuclear plants all around the nation aging beyond the recommended operational lives nuclear regulators have reduced evacuation zones around them required fewer exercises for accidents and relaxed training for emergency officials in other words were last prepared today to deal with a nuclear disaster then we were before focus shaimaa happened for an update on japan and the latest on nuclear troubles here in the united states paul gunter joins me the director of the reactor oversight project at beyond nuclear paul

welcome and thank you tom so what is the state of affairs first of all the focus shame well obviously the big concerns right now are focused on any a vent that could start a cascade of what has been tallied as eighty five times this is the levels of cesium one thirty seven that were released from chernobyl any number of events i think right now a lot of focus is on another earthquake that could start a cascade beginning with the reactor building unit for falling over a nuclear fuel fire involving one hundred thirty six metric tons of nuclear waste and it's in the roof of number it's on it's up on the roof of number four but you know. there are. these other five units that would then become too contaminated to manage and then there's a common nuclear waste pool to all six units that's right there next to unit four

and this is where the major inventory of radioactive waste is right now and if this if this accident were to cascade then it would mean what's been referenced as a civilization ending vent for japan civilization and that's what the sterilize the country the former ambassador from japan to switzerland has basically put out this warning that international effort must now be mounted bringing in the united nations to basically prevent this domino from falling that could begin with unit four and the next earthquake even if they had the resources of every other nation on earth and whatever tools they may have to deal with nuclear disasters. how do they do that i mean you've got you know it's wanted to that are blowing out so much radiation right now people can't walk in those areas that. what what

technology is there that what what what they have to do i think that we are you know basically groping in the dark you know nobody really knows at this point but clearly it's been demonstrated is the the most relevant and perhaps the only relevant protection is prevention and that means that we have to in nuclear power yeah well no doubt about that and speaking of reactor four reactor four is a design that came out of the united states general electric put it together i believe correct me if i'm wrong on this and we've got a bunch of those here in the united states how are they doing well right now. the fukushima daiichi accident basically put a lot of focus on the general electric mark one boiling water reactor. but we've known since one thousand nine hundred seventy two that these things were time bombs they were ready to you know basically fail and so on that almost took out detroit this is for me well that was actually fermi one which was not a mark one but

a prototype breeder reactor but there is a fermi to a mark one there just outside of detroit but basically now the focus is on all these g.e. mark one and they have now folded in the mark two reactors because they have this vulnerable containment which now has been demonstrated at fukushima with a one hundred percent failure rate when faced with a severe accident all six one well the first the three operational reactors units one two and three they failed under these severe accident condition and they generated this hydrogen gas which then was vented into unit for an exploded and fortunately five and six were not involved yet but again we're concerned and in fact right now the united states nuclear regulatory commission and the u.s. nuclear industry and the public interest community are now all engaged in this you

know exactly how do you deal with a demonstrated failure we've got twenty three of these reactors here in the united states and eight of these more two so that's you know that's thirty one reactors that are vulnerable to failure just just very quickly we're pretty much out of time here but has the japanese government officially formally asked for help from the international community no do you expect them to i think that we have to mount a clearly there's a petition effort you can go to our website you can basically you know right now get get your put communities to begin this political move to basically draw attention to the international effort that now has to be mounted amazing thank you so no nukes. of the great work all gone through this nuclear news coming from japan and here at home should trouble us all and remind us that the only safe type of nuclear power is no nuclear power. coming up last night america

once again became a nation of values of values like bravery and due process how do we make sure we don't give up those values again or revert back to being a scared and frightened nation like we were under bush and cheney. of american power continues. things in our country are so bad that might actually be time for a revolution. and it turns out that a procurer drink of starbucks reza surprising him really here. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so. you think you understand it and then you. hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you. welcome is

a big issue. here you would like to. look into the aloneness so they'll get the real headlines with none of them are the problem with the mainstream media today is that they're completely disconnected from the viewers and what actually matters to those viewers and so that's why young people just don't watch t.v. anymore if they want news they go online and read it but we're trying to take those stories that people actually care about and transfer them back in t.v. .

not the capital and now i'm learning mr. thursday so let's get according to a new study published tuesday by a group of researchers at u.c.l.a. eating too much high fructose corn syrup can eat away at your brain and make you stupid the scientists at u.c.l.a. fed two groups of rats a solution that contained high fructose corn syrup for six weeks before the rats were given the sugary drink they trained in ran in a complicated maze for five days after six weeks of drinking the sugar solution the rats were place back in the maze to see how they would fare according to fernando gomez a neurologist who was one of the researchers in the study quote the animals were

slower and their brains showed a decline in synaptic activity the corn syrup rats quote brain cells had trouble signaling each other disrupting the brain's ability to think clearly and recall the route they'd learned six weeks earlier and quote a closer look at the brains of the rats showed that those who got corn syrup compared to those who didn't those who got corn syrup also had developed signs of resistance to insulin the hormone that controls blood sugar and regulates brain function thereby gomez said the quote because insulin can penetrate the blood brain barrier the hormone may signal neurons to trigger reactions that this wrapped learning and cause memory loss basically eating too much high fructose corn syrup can interfere with insulins ability to regulate how cells use and store simple sugars which is critical for processing emotions and thoughts and memory the study says that while insulin is important for controlling blood sugar in the body it may have a different and adverse role in the brain. meanwhile every year the average american

consumes more than forty pounds of high fructose corn syrup and while the study didn't say how much high fructose corn syrup needs to be consumed to affect human brains it showed that high fructose corn syrup an arm both the body and the mind oh and did i mention that you and i taxpayers have subsidized the corn industry to the tune of seventy billion dollars over the last fifteen years and you wonder why america seems to be getting dumber and fatter just as the processed and fast food industry. just. puts the good the bad in the very very proto taurus layout really the good rob a hack hatch a republican businessman a ten year veteran of the wind energy industry wrote a scathing op ed in the des moines register attacking quote the oil billionaire is

spending millions of dollars on false smear t.v. commercials he went on to say is difficult to watch these people air their t.v. ads slapping around the president support of my employees jobs president kept our doors open and our employees working because of the wind production tax credit in iowa alone when production is producing twenty percent of that state's electricity creating more than two hundred fifteen businesses and employing over six thousand people signed for more republicans to think like mr hatch and realize when power is the energy of the future and an economic life saver. the bad representative mike coffman colorado representative was caught on tape earlier this week ranting about how he thought president obama was not an american. citizen. kaufman is the

latest republican to join a whole brand new wave of birth or ism and like the rest of his colleagues the more time kaufman spends on this ridiculous debate the less time he's spending on the issues that americans actually care about like fixing the economy or helping our environment. and the very very ugly virginia delegate bob marshall this week marshall and other virginia republican delegates rejected former navy pilot tracey thorn baghlan for a seat on virginia's lowest trial court because he's gay marshall said the thorn begala is gay lifestyle. lifestyle is exactly contrary to his obligation to uphold the state constitution and on c.n.n. this morning he stood by these outrageous remarks we now know they don't have to the taliban repealed obviously you know blacks used to have to sit in the back of the bus they don't have to anymore there was discriminate women couldn't vote and they can vote now times have changed do you not agree that he could be given

a chance. dr martin luther king and rosa parks never took an oath of office that they broke sodomy is not a civil right it is not the same as the civil rights movement. first of all marshall is wrong sodomy as you crudely put it is a civil right which was established in the landmark case of lawrence versus thomas but more importantly marshall and his colleagues disqualified thorne baghlan because of his sexual orientation and paid no attention to his ability to do his job and that is a very very. my new year's eve last year president obama quietly signed into law the national defense authorization act containing a provision giving the president and the military the power to indefinitely detain

americans who are suspected of associating with terrorists and wednesday night though that very same indefinite provision was struck down by a federal judge so for now until another court case here's the case until the supreme court eventually has the final say our nation has once again at least in this area found its values we are for the moment not a frightened nation that indefinitely detain people without due process of law we are for the moment not a frightening ation that gives up our values and since the going gets tough this ruling restores a tradition that goes all the way back to before this nation was founded back to when general george washington won the battle of trenton and ordered his soldiers to treat with the respect about a thousand captured german mercenaries who had been fighting for the british washington said treat them with humanity and let them have no reason to complain of our copying the brutal example of the british army in their treatment of our

unfortunate brother and provide everything necessary for them on the road washington's order was so effective that other mercenaries and even british soldiers began to routinely surrender george washington instead of fighting against us because they knew they'd be treated well many stayed after the war and became american citizens particularly have first wave of german immigrants who initially came here to fight against us in the seventeenth seventies. in the last decade we lost sight of george washington's values and of his brilliant strategy after nine eleven george w. bush trashed our nation's values he started two illegal wars he opened up illegal secret prison camps all around the world he committed illegal torture atrocities at places like i have been and get mo and made the indefinite detention of terror suspects routine he with the help of fellow war criminals dick cheney and don

rumsfeld scared the hell out of our lawmakers so that they too would go along with shredding civil liberties out of fear that terrorists would do could american city if they didn't comply we descended into a national insanity and in the midst of all of this george w. bush left office and president obama moved in and went to still terrified congress tried to in shrine bush era indefinite detention into law president obama pushed back arguably he didn't push back near hard enough and ended up signing into law the national defense authorization act including indefinite detention but he did so with a signing statement that read i want to clarify that my administration will not authorize the indefinite military detention without trial of american citizens indeed i believe that doing so would break with our most important traditions and values as a nation my ministration will interpret section ten twenty one in a manner that ensures that any detention that authorizes complies with the

constitution the laws of war and all other applicable law. but there's a major problem with signing statements they're not binding law just because president obama promised that his america administration would not indefinitely detain americans there was nothing to stop future administrations from doing so so it was up to the american people to take action and we did led by a group of journalists whistleblowers and activists including chris hedges noam chomsky and daniel ellsberg a lawsuit was filed against president obama arguing that the indefinite provision was unconstitutional specifically the lawsuit argue that journalists and whistleblowers operating well within their first amendment rights to free press could be locked up forever if they had interviewed or associated with terrorist networks while covering a story and it was on these grounds the judge catherine forrest agreed and struck down the provision saying the statute issue places the public at undue risk of

having their speech chilled for the purported protection from al qaeda the taliban and foreign terrorist organizations so for now indefinite detention is dead but if we the people who are not terrified little men like bush and cheney don't keep the pressure on our lawmakers then indefinite detention will surely return right now a new version of the end is being debated in congress and brave members on both sides of the aisle are arguing that there should be no indefinite detention provision in it that's the good news and ironically we all have to depend on the same guy who signed indefinite detention into law president obama to eventually see it repealed that's because this case is going to eventually work its way up to the supreme court where five right wingers will likely rule in favor of indefinite detention but four of the justices on the supreme court are over seventy years old

including two republican appointees. meaning whoever is the next president will be able to change the makeup of the high court in a way that will last for generations we can't trust that romney is select a court that upholds our national values or the rule of law he's already set the point more scalia's thomas is an alito we have a horrible history of shredding our constitutional protections instead since the supreme court is even more powerful than the president we need a president in office who will appoint thoughtful and honest in un corrupted jurists like alina kagan and sonia sotomayor. last night was a victory but this battle is just beginning. we must return to our values the values our nation was founded upon which include bravery and due process and exclude fear and medieval imprison tech imprisonment techniques and we need to do

everything we can to prevent our supreme court from becoming even more hard right there already is. as the big picture for tonight for more information on the stories we've covered visit our website thom hartmann dot com free speech dot org. you can also check out our two you tube channels there are links over the thom hartmann dot com this entire show is also available as a free video podcast or i tunes and you can visit thom hartmann dot com to download the audio podcast of our daily three to six pm radio show and we have a free tell our of an i phone and i pad app at the app store that was just upgraded really cool spiffy you can send us feedback on twitter at tom underscore aravind on facebook at tom underscore hartmann our blogs message boards the telephone comment line at tom hartman dot com and don't forget democracy is not a spectator sport it requires you get out there get active tag your it occupy something.

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