in the us the rest of the news a new conservative the administration is in power in japan and they're promising to reverse the previous administration's plans to completely phase out nuclear power by two thousand and forty a new government led by she is also promising to restart nuclear reactors in his country as long as they are confirmed safe. it's been less than two years it's the fukushima disaster that triggered a nuclear meltdown and left hundreds of thousands of japanese almost an unknown number of poisoned by radiation and in the coming months the consequences of this disaster will be felt here in the united states as millions of tons of tsunami debris some of which could be react radioactive are expected to wash up on our west coast so shouldn't we be concerned with the new job government of japan isn't taking the risks of nuclear power seriously given camps joins me now he's the radioactive waste watchdog at beyond nuclear kevin welcome back thank you sound so

this new government in japan i don't understand this is sort of half a nuclear question half a political question i'm guessing you've been following this i haven't been i don't understand how any newly elected government japan two years after fukushima with the fukushima still and i want to get to that to still been tottering and some of the reactors could say oh or we're not going to cancel i mean what's what's what is going on well i think you know there's major issues at play. triple disaster of earthquake tsunami and meltdowns left japan in an economic freefall for one thing and so economic concerns may explain i mean it is a blow that this new government is coming in that has a pro-nuclear history remember the liberal liberal democratic party of japan ruled from the end of world war two until a few years ago and the democratic party of japan ruled for a few years there so here they are back the liberal democrat party of japan making

promises that they can turn the economy around make everything better but part of their package is they are very pro nuclear and like you said in the intro. the previous parliament of japan did a major report many hundreds of pages long that found that the actual cause of the nuclear catastrophe was the collusion between the government the regulator and the endo. so they seem to at least at first blush be throwing all of that hard learned glass and out the door and they're looking to restart their reactor so this is the liberal democratic party is the word liberal as in the european meaning more like milton friedman kind of. libertarian liberal is that what there this is this is actually what we would call the republican party or politically conservative they're economically conservative and when it comes to nuclear power they are the ones who sat this collusion in place beginning in the one nine hundred sixty s. and so could this be that they're there they're doing this because they've always

taken money from the nuclear industry i mean worst was tepco illness tokyo electric power company by a few months after the catastrophe began in march of two thousand and eleven was on the brink of bankruptcy so the japanese government had to step in and take it over for the most part so incredibly top guy was still in charge of the fukushima daiichi site in charge of trying to keep the melted down cores cool so that the worst doesn't happen trying to keep the pools from collapsing and catching on fire and what's the status of all that well in it for is still of great concern because it's a building that is greatly compromised in its structural integrity and the worry is that a big enough earthquake could simply topple the building and once the cooling water is lost from the pool in that collapse this is the building with the waste in the ceiling in the roof yeah stellar building all of the reactors have the same set up and there's waste in all of these pools nothing like what we have in the united states are pools are crammed much more full than the ones in japan but there's

enough in the unit for pool for example that what's happened already would be one twentieth of what that pool could discords in a fire. and what about this nuclear waste that's heading for the united states we've. she's almost a year ago it seems you were telling us about nuclear waste was it in the west. to the united states is this a second wave is it what's what's going on it will be continual for a long time into the future there's the surface flotsam and jetsam the floating materials which if you read the mainstream media the past couple days there's this discounting that oh it's not radioactive there's no way to know that it could well be radioactive another piece of news that just broke today is that eight crew members on the u.s.s. ronald reagan which was on the east coast of japan taking part in the rescue and recovery after the earthquake and tsunami eight of those crewmembers out of the five thousand five hundred on their craft carrier have sued tokyo electric and the

japanese government for the false information that they were operating under in those first critical days of the disaster because they were exposed on the deck of that aircraft carrier to the radiation coming off of japan this was the shining radiation as opposed to the particularly this was particulates this was gases especially the radioactive iodine one thirty one was coming out in huge quantities that that point but the japanese federal government at the time was denying that there had been a meltdown so it was tokyo electric they could have known within the first hours because there are telltale signs there are radio isotopes that can only come from the heart of the outer core how could a u.s. aircraft carrier not have radiation detectors onboard in this day of dirty bombs and. you know small nukes that's a very good question i think they do and in fact the japanese government asked the u.s. government and military to come in pretty much immediately with their state of the

art radiation detectors which are airborne they're really designed to detect atmospheric bomb blasts so they can sniff down who just blew up a nuclear bomb and who was responsible and what's going on to find out what north korea is up to that so yeah exactly and those were deployed in japan and there was real time transmission of that data back to dia we had quarters here in d.c. but were any of our intel ready. us and they weren't telling those soldier or the sailors onboard this ship there was direct communication between the governments of the u.s. and japan and so for you know experts to say that the flotsam and jetsam hitting the west coast of north america is not radioactive there's no radiation monitoring going on and then turn them all off you know not all there are. updates that are done once a month or once a season on various things like the milk supply the water supply the air what are we finding. there's still the the worst of the emissions from fukushima daiichi

were in the first weeks and months but there are continual problems there are breakdowns in the cooling system so there are still emissions there's just nothing like it is for example fish that people on the west coast are eating is contaminated with cesium and some of the other in season has a half life of thirty four thirty eight years does not the two different yeah it's about thirty years so a hazardous persistence of at least three hundred years if not six hundred years so that which got out which was massive is in the food supply and in fact because of bio cumulation that's going to build up over time as big fish eat little fish we're at the top of the food chain so we're going to get the worst of that eventually and because of the lack of monitoring or adequate monitoring we don't really know what's going on and real quickly we have we have some some civilian monitoring don't we isn't there of the network of people are they learning anything there are people across the country in various places who are trying to keep tabs on thing but of course there's no funding these are nonprofit efforts the federal government

the united states has really been derelict in its duty to protect our health camps thank you so much for being with us tonight thank you to keep up the great work of beyond where. now for an update on a story we brought you last week online movies streaming giant netflix is one stop a step closer to being able to sell your viewing history to whoever they want. on thursday of last week the senate followed the house's lead in passing an amendment to the video privacy protection act of one nine hundred eighty eight a law that originally banned publicly releasing consumers video rental histories in them it now allows netflix to share their consumers if you are in history with others on social media the president is expected to sign this amendment into law meaning you may want to think twice about what sort of subversive documentaries or soft core flicks you decide to watch on netflix this law change will be a huge benefit for online advertisers who can target users based on the movies they

watch but more importantly americans are losing yet another layer of privacy and anonymity on the internet and the time of social change in movement politics when anonymity is so important to losing it could have disastrous effects for future peaceful revolutionaries it's not too late to call the white house at two hundred two four five six eleven eleven and urge president obama to veto these amendments that eat away at our online privacy. is just. it's the good the bad of the very very jethro for all good glee glee. the good los angeles mayor antonio veal via what goes on in reaction to the newtown connecticut shootings the mayor held a gun exchange in his city on wednesday allowing residents to turn over their firearms in exchange for grocery store gift cards gun owners could receive as much

as two hundred dollars in groceries for handing over their assault rifles and handguns change was highly successful as the city collected nearly two thousand guns in just one day gun buyback program was started in two thousand and nine and has taken more than eight thousand guns off the streets of l.a. other cities follow allays lead with their own gun buyback programs the bad christopher found found is a blogger who is upset with a new york newspaper. the journal news for publishing the names and addresses of local gun owners in westchester and rockland county new york so in retaliation fountain took to his blog and published the names and addresses of the newspaper's publisher editor and staff who worked on the story he told c.n.n. yesterday he was offended by the newspaper's decision to call out local gun owners any quote wondered how they'd like it if their addresses were published too and quote whatever your opinion what the journal news did is something weird about violating the privacy of journalists who are just doing their jobs and at the very least found should have remembered what we all learned in first grade two wrongs

don't make a right and the very very ugly the state of kentucky the animal legal defense fund is out with the seventh annual report ranking the worst states in the nation when it comes to animal protection laws number one this year say kentucky according to the l.d.f. the state of kentucky has inadequate definition of what is considered basic care for animals state has absolutely no felony provisions for neglect or abandonment of animals no provisions at all for sexual assault of animals and no provisions to allow for veterinarians to report animal cruelty or fighting and those who violate the few laws that kentucky does have on the books to protect animals can still on animals in the future without any restrictions there are a number of areas where states should be happy to rank number one this is a want to sorry kentucky but your lack of protection for animals is very very ugly coming up a lot of people are wondering what's wrong with the republican party that if you're a resident a billionaire or a stand and the republican party is acting just fine i'll explain in tonight's

daily take. well with. this month's high tech means good health whether it be the latest laser cutters or lifesaving heart rushing innovators are working hard to keep you healthy for some companies it's been a winding road from car simulators to cutting edge streaming systems for others it's been a lifetime of work and looking the mysteries of this chicken on technology we've got the future covering. the mission. couldn't take three. more chargers.

why not what's really happening to the global economy with mike's cancer for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune into kinds a report. i

welcome back if you were listening to republicans over the last four years you'd think that undocumented immigrants were pouring across our borders and the president obama was the want to lift up the fence for them their reality the president has been tougher than any president in history on undocumented immigrants which really isn't something to be proud of term in office while the administration applauds itself by saying fifty five percent of those deported this year were criminals convicted of misdemeanors and felonies others are far more skeptical like congressman luke louise good out as we told n.p.r. quote this is nothing to be proud of. according to good yet as many as ninety thousand undocumented immigrants have committed no crimes whatsoever and are the

main breadwinners for their families are deported every year and leaving thousands of children to be raised in foster care this is inhumane and creating more problems for us in the future it's time to end the debt limit and fiscal cliff nonsense and get to work on serious stuff like much needed comprehensive immigration reform. is thursday so let's get geeky and being happy or not to be happy it's actually wired into us and there's an evolutionary reason for this evolution would you know happiness is like a behavior reward to our behavior and so the question is what kind of behavior produces that reward what makes us happiest so interesting studies on this and what it turns out is that selflessness giving to others doing things to others seems to

be the number one thing that produces happiness now we all know about this among mothers in all mammal species with regard to their young you know their mothers will fly and birds and things like that they will it will draw attention away from their young to themselves we also know that this is among the most studied mammals with their young and others you know it's just a well known fact but one of the really interesting things is about giving. behaviors within a group what it does is it actually not only creates individual happiness for the individuals who gives who are altruistic but it also reduces the overall level of aggression within the group itself what when we talk about a group of humans we call bullying. a professor at the university of british columbia's faculty of education and her co-author at the university of california riverside said that increasing peer acceptance is

a key to preventing bullying the study done at the university of british columbia university california researcher by these two researchers was published december twenty sixth what they did is they looked at a bunch of students nine to eleven years old for a four week period one group daily reported on their happiness and identified a happy behavior by others things that made them happy this was now self directed so one group was basically looking at their own happiness you know gee i felt happy when i do this i kind of like doing that i you know that kind of thing the other group instead of looking at their own happiness they did things that made other people happy for example during class sharing lunch or intentionally before they went to school in the morning or when they get home hugging mom or dad or be nice to a sibling they did this for four weeks these two groups one with his inner directed happiness the other with the outer directed study and at the end of the four weeks of the study the authors wrote while both groups said they were happier kids that

it performed acts of kindness selected higher numbers of classmates to work with on school activities in other words doing things that make others happy made the people doing it happier and more social than simply noticing their happiness. we're programmed to be altruistic genetically biologically which is why the most altruistic societies among us the danes the scandinavians the where they were equality is the greatest where people are giving are the happiest and why when america goes through its periodic fits of libertarian selfishness like post reagan we all get unhappier and less social one researcher said we show that kindness has some real benefits for the personal happiness of children but also for the classroom community so it's pretty straightforward stuff the best thing we can all do for ourselves is to do things for others.

at some point the next few weeks we should all expect the republican majority in the house of representatives to quietly take down the american flag beyond the speaker's rostrum and replace it with a new flag one that's emblazoned with hundred dollar bills and money signs instead of stars and bars it'll be the new national flag of billionaire a stand a loosely associated nation existing in various parts of the world where there are private airports resorts and only billionaires are allowed. murmurs of on republican insiders before the two thousand and twelve election are now anxious shrieks asking what the heck is wrong with the republican party a few weeks ago former reagan george w. bush advisor bruce bartlett lashed out at his party from which he has now been

excommunicated saying this. things have changed so dramatically since the days when i first got involved with the republican politics when the republican party was the party of ideas and now it's the party of crazy people ignorant tea party people people who know nothing and are proud of it earlier this month charlie crist who as recently as two thousand and ten was a very popular republican governor in florida switched parties and joined the democrats saying what changed is the leadership of the republican party i didn't leave the republican party it left me even current republican members of congress are openly talking about what's wrong with their party after speaker that was john boehner his plan b. failed last week as proving that even the smallest tax increase on the smallest group of rich americans camp as the republican house republican congressman steve la tourette blasted the tea party wing of his party saying it's the continuing

dumbing down of the republican party and we are going to be seen more and more as a bunch of extremists that can't even get a majority of our own people to support policies that we're putting forward is singled out forty chuckleheads that all year of screwed this place up and in the editorial pages of today's financial times an op ed asked about the future of the republican party and described the faltering party this way today's republican party is a bit like a headless body striking out blindly against change. with this sort of talk making the rounds of serious publications like the financial times clearly something is wrong the republican party which thought it was headed for a big night november end up getting creamed losing the presidency losing seats in the senate and receiving more than a million fewer votes in the house than democrats in fact the only reason republicans still have a majority in the house is because republican state legislatures in places like

pennsylvania virginia and ohio gerrymandered the congressional districts to neutralize democratic voters in america the republican party is following in the footsteps of the nineteenth century we already rapidly descending into irrelevance but in the fledgling new nation of billionaire a stand your republican party is achieving new prominence and has staked out their position as the ruling party of this tiny nation comprised of extremely wealthy american ex-pats the problem whether you're republican party as we knew it is that a handful of billionaires have taken it over and they're using it to push the interests of their exclusive little nation a billionaire a stand at the expense of our nation the united states arguably at the expense of the entire world fact which is why a london based publication like the financial times is so concerned it's oligarchy like the koch brothers who've given fortunes to the republican party to refocus the

part on billionaire astin and banks years like paul singer in john paulson as billionaire harold summons is now making a fortune story nuclear waste in the united states not in the billionaire stan areas of course he's given tens of millions to the republican party there's foreign casino magnate sheldon adelson who spent more money than anyone in the history of our elections trying to get republicans in office he wants to make sure the united states justice department can get its hands on him across the border in billionaire . excuse me. but. understanding the republican party in this way answers a lot of questions about how that party is behaving today why the republican intransigence on capitol hill as our nation hurdles toward self-inflicted economic wounds good question well it's because residents of billionaire astin don't give a damn about the so-called fiscal cliff or the debt limit billionaires taxes are going to go up because phil pay the same income taxes the working people do they

have their carried interest in their capital gains loopholes so you know like romney their income taxes are kept out at less than after that of working people billionaire and standees could care less about cuts to social insurance programs like medicare and social security with billions in their bank accounts and a lot of it offshore already have their retirement their health insurance coverage and they pay virtually nothing in taxes to keep these programs alive billionaires standings don't give a damn about crumbling infrastructure they have their private jets which they can fly over congested roads and crumbling bridges billionaire a standings aren't bothered by custom public education they send their kids to the most elite private schools and ultimately billionaires standings could care less about the american economy and make most of their money overseas anyway in developing nations where they've outsourced what were once american jobs and american factories and they keep it stashed in offshore tax havens like the cayman

islands it's the united states collapses billionaires stand will be just fine so if you look at the republican party from the perspective of the billionaire a standings there's nothing wrong with it all the republican toadies are doing all they can but for those of us who are left in the united states who are watching the billionaire standings take our wealth out of america job by job factory by factory commons by commons time we wake up to what's really happened to the republican party. their allegiance is no longer to the united states of america but now to the residence of billionaire a stand they become an insurgent party in a fringe want to pass so it's up to the only real political party left in america the democratic party to reclaim its real roots and launch an all out assault a billionaire a stand now in police with new wealth taxes serious regulations and protections for workers the right to join unions if the democrats don't do this

the residents of billionaire a stand will soon finish their job of looting everything of even marginal value that's left in the united states of america. and that's the way it is tonight thursday december twenty seventh two thousand and twelve for more information on any of the stories we covered this at our website the tom hartman dot com free speech or an r t dot com and if you missed any of the night's show you can now watch it in h.d. on hulu at hulu dot com slash the big picture also check out our two you tube channels or links of thom hartmann dot com also thom hartmann dot com check out all the different ways you can send us your feedback and don't forget democracy is not a spectator sport it begins with you get out there get active tag you're it.

more news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images seen from the streets of canada. giant corporations rule the day.