the heart of moscow. and for tom hartman live from washington d.c. and i'm sam sachs and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture. president obama has announced a new federally funded scientific initiative to map the human brain and some republicans are even going along with it so should we be investing even more in scientific research for the benefit of all americans that and more in tonight's big picture rumble also we all know that the japanese people will face decades of health issues as a result of the fukushima nuclear disaster but could americans be facing similar issues to what is new research suggests about the radiation fallout from fukushima and its effects on americans living on the west coast and in tonight's daily take tom we'll tell you about an easy and straightforward method to reduce gun violence

in america. all right and we begin tonight with the big picture rumble joining us are marc harrold libertarian commentator and attorney and vince cohen a senior online editor at the daily caller market thank you both for joining us and i thank you so let's start off by talking about the brain yesterday the president proposed this one hundred million dollars project to basically map the human brain it's called the brain initiative setting for brain research through advancing innovated innovative neuro technologies here's a clip of what the president said yesterday. as humans we can identify galaxies light years away we can study particle smaller them adam but we still haven't unlock the mystery of the three pounds of. matter that sits between our ears there's this enormous mystery. waiting to be unlocked. the brain

initiative will change that by giving scientists the tools they need to get a dynamic picture of the brain in action and better understand how we think and how we learn and how we remember and this research can also lead to new developments in how to treat all timers other brain injuries epilepsy things like that maybe you can give us some insight into why conservatives like you guys all the way you guys who are up to them saying don't forget autism and all this stuff so interestingly this is something that republicans seem to support at least house majority leader eric cantor who said quote mapping the human brain is exactly the type of research we should be funding it's great science so if this is great a great investment if this is something we should be doing then where do we draw the line what else should we be investing in right now as opposed to cutting as it seems like most republicans have been obsessed with over the last few years mark let's start with you the brain project it sounds cool and i'm sure there are some

things that it can do i think if it doesn't work it sort of ends up being like reagan star wars you know you got this thing literally called the brain project problem here and what i've seen on the coverage of this is they want to balance and say is this something we should do when we're making cuts and we have sequester ation this isn't something we should do period i hope this is good science and i think there are places that should do this universities for instance and the pi the private sector but this the idea that they're going to go after this i think this is way outside the u.s. isn't it supposed to do in universities get federal funding that is really sort of research or saying this should know should they get some federal funding in certain limited ways there is it basically comes to student tuition in the loan programs which is completely ballooned and we've seen the tuition skyrocket with the loans but you know this is you know this is one of those things this is not only what the government supposed to hold on a second now and i think the outside way when the government generational mandate when the government gets involved in doing research for example creating velcro shoes or create the whole idea of velcro which was the government's massive project benefits that it benefits the human race that benefits the world so why can't the government be involved in sort of investigating the human brain because the

government can be involved with this only in sofa. or and it serves a legitimate government purpose of something government supposed to do under the constitution they're out there fishing this is the brain project they keep saying hey it'll lead to something and maybe they'll help people inside when they were as you didn't answer when you were talking about investing in the internet yeah and we said well you know this is just some bogus idea this might not work and i've been pretty silly i mean really lost out on a bunch of stuff on the right or i absolute the government's involvement in the creation the internet is undeniable light but you know when we talk about a project like the brain project or whatever i generally think that things that are that have a general purpose in terms of research purposes can be good they're better at least then picking like a certain technology specifically and putting all of our money behind and an example to that is solar certainly the a lot of the green energy projects that we've seen collapsed during the obama administration there's definitely been a lot of money put in that direction when it's not entirely clear what our energy future is it's sort of like they're just shoot pool blindly i'm going to have when

you have like a thing like the brain initiative or nasa you have programs that have general purposes which is to try to determine how to cure some of the things that help humanity specifically and i actually think that this could be a good use of government funds i totally agree with eric cantor on this and i do think it's kind of funny what marc harrold said i love the headlines that we have lines could be if it fails are brain dead i mean i see all sorts of there's all sorts of really great have i just want to bookmark that for the record that we have republicans agreeing the government spending is a good thing on some things and so you republicans and libertarians are my but that's ok yeah i don't but others i think title god all of that got you there and served without being a republican or the other way around i don't see the difference here but between investing in this brain project and investing in things like alternative energy here you said it's a this is something that affects all of us the health of all of us. and you also said that we're not certain what our energy future is we should be throwing a bunch of money at something we're not certain i think it's pretty certain what we do our fossil fuels are not our energy future and there are there are other certainties i think that like oil shale and like there's a there are

a ton of clean energy. nuclear for instance is sort of the great enigma that like there's like environmentalists that are opposed to nuclear on grounds that really aren't all that realistic nuclear is that clean as they want to guarantee a pretty realistic road or you're supposed to nuclear and don't give the show away sam no no i know you're cutting out and that's a great example of why we have to start talking about. good to talk about government spending vents in just a couple in just a couple days from now but emerge the emergency unemployment compensation program which helps folks who have more than twenty six weeks of unemployment will sort of take a ten percent cut meaning folks usually got about three dollars a week will lose a good chunk of that money about forty dollars by the end of the year and you know forty percent of those folks that are unemployed have been unemployed for more than twenty seven weeks so we're not want to send money to people back to work we're not with x. millionaires to pay their fair share to deal with our deficit problems but we were willing to cut you know the most vulnerable individuals in this country those that are unemployed looking for work or those have lost their jobs at no fault of their

own isn't this a little bit some sort of backward logic here well i'd argue that that there are plenty of studies that definitely show that actual the receipt of unemployment does create its own vulnerabilities in terms of keeping people out of the job market because unemployment is actually a deterrent from re entering the job market as much as as much as we as much as we have a specifically so that people i find that i think that might be true in theory but i think you talk to anybody who is unemployed receiving unemployment benefits the first thing they'll tell you is i want to get back to work but if i am looking for a job right but it's not theoretical we know that when we place what it is no matter how to be there at the only place like those of talking people who are employed when we place budget controls on unemployment we there's always a correlation between employment rising ok ok i get the point you're making here but let's look at the economic situation we're currently living in so in the ninety's when you know bill clinton reformed quote unquote reformed welfare we had a boom time sir plus there were jobs everywhere people you know people could find employment so they made it work for welfare requirement you know you had to pretend

like you were looking. find a job in order to hopefully not pretend i mean that was the point where i said we'll sit but you had to at least secure some sort of job to get benefits nowadays though when the economy is in the tank there's roughly three people looking for every one job opening here so whether or not people are lazy or not they can't find jobs period there's just not enough jobs for how many people are unemployed so you can't blame them all most i mean do we want these people to be suffering do not hear i mean are we are we are we focusing on maybe the two to three percent who are abusing the program started screwing over the you know the rest of the ninety seven percent who need it the service going to all of mark to market and well i mean is this program going to take a hit absolutely if you look at the way it's coming down it's also a lot of burden shifting from the states it's very hard to plug in the federal programs in the state programs so there's some inconsistency is there you know problem here is that the economy is not growing because there's too much government regulation of too much money that you're now but there's the government not going

because there's too much government regulation is the government not growing because business is in millionaires and billionaires are sitting on the sidelines raking up the cash now they're sitting on the sidelines because what you're doing with the corporate tax and what you do with capital gains you got to get them back into the game corporate taxes that really if you look at what corporations are paying are the second lowest in the developer who are corporate taxes huge it's one of the reasons they hire i mean i don't i don't i don't know about that one argument x. is very you know i mean you know what is the g.m. only to zero dollars in taxes this year if you look at the strictly the nominal rate of what they should be paying their high in the developed world but as far as exactly right back everything they look for what's actually being paid is the second lowest i mean these are the facts also the fact is you know we did have a record low corporate tax rate we would attract corporate business in the united states that are not let's not i don't i just know i disagree with that argument because that big argument oh we raise taxes or we raise x. corporations are all going to leave we've seen no european corporations leave europe actually the thriving there and there's better benefits for their employer do you think there's been a better bit there but there's a higher standard of living there for their employees and all those companies will

tell you that. because the higher standard of living they get more productivity out of their workers for less than ours the only people they can invest economy in the private sector the people that have some disposable income those who have a habit of the say look at that line that having all this i was sitting on the sidelines because you're not giving the incentives to get involved are doing or blaming the wrong or for every problem owner and they said you know it's not even their fair share they're paying the same percentage that everyone else or they're not paying their fair share are you not going to cyprus let me let me jump in here that's well it's clear that it's more that it's more than taxes here though they're sitting on the sidelines because there's simply no demand for their products people have no money in their pockets to go out into the market and go and spend so now we're talking about taking even more money out of people's pockets unemployed people's pockets who would be spending that money how is that going to encourage any of these you know this is how do you want to get us out of them and so they spend in the market well yes at the very least that's what we should be doing we know not that i'm a theory but that economics would tell here and it works and we know that economic stability and as i was sure. we know that economic stability provided by the

federal government right so soon as we saw the fiscal crisis resolved at the beginning of the year you saw stocks jump because we saw the companies and corporations certainly had a lot more confidence in the market once we knew we were past the fiscal cliff once we know we're past these continuing resolutions when the government is in gridlock and you don't have fiscal certainty these businesses it's unclear the stock market isn't a good indicator of our the health of our economy i think it's true and people don't want to invest when they're uncertain no matter what the rules are going to be you've got to make the most sort of people know what to do but that's a question i brought this up i brought this up yesterday sam like we've talked about this government uncertainty and they're like oh there's government but that's because we've had john boehner in the speaker's mantle we've said the s. and p. five hundred first of the back of the congress of the gridlock you have john boehner and republicans willing to get to work in their majority house they would get we would get where there would be this gridlock and get to those then they would come off the sidelines right well then there's no question republicans play a role in this but that's because they're in these fights and when you have both sides both sides lining up and i know it is because you have

a grandpa and i want to go as a member. the g.o.p. and we've seen that in his endorsements and some other things he's not i mean his libertarian principles i don't think he really would be the libertarian can it was certain of his policies now. i mean with the party would take him at this point most likely in many respects mitch mcconnell has given him the sloppiest wet kiss i've seen any politician ever give anyone ok let's go let's pick this up let's let's go forward to war with the big nor the big the big picture we get back after this break. potentially deadly blizzard taking aim for the northeast it's expected to hit stunning in a few hours from new york to maine we have team coverage of the storm. we're

watching is the very heavy snow moving into boston proper earlier today it was very sticky you can see it start to become much more powdery down the line there's still a lot of snow out here the place for snowball fight. d.c. it is going to pretty incredible day there and even record snowfall throughout much of it might still be slightly drunk in some emergency. dangerous experiments on prisoners they want to make money and they have healthy guinea pigs in the regular society and now they will be used prison any more they wish they could. drug tests on human guinea pigs. to deadly pills you can play he was killed.

is pharmacy really helping people. and welcome back to us for tonight's big picture rumble our marc harrold column is guys let's get back to it yesterday illinois senator mark kirk claim out for his support of same sex marriage and joins rob portman as the only two republican senators to come out in favor of marriage equality senator lisa murkowski now the

republican side her position is evolving on this so is there anything to read into this is the republican party. realizing that this is a losing issue and kind of coming around to the fact i don't like what someone says their positions evolving like i think you should have a position like like my position is developing it's coming out in ten weeks and then i think that it's the way it's a way they can jump out of a you know so defend a flip flop in the case of mark kirk it's very clear he's got he's under a lot of pressure and on politics to come to to come out in favor of gay marriage. definitely among his constituency there's really little option for him if you want to continue old elective office at least in illinois so when and when people assess this and say well mark kirk he's on the leading edge of republicans they're all going to be spilling over into this i don't think that's true i think he's really being reactive i think he's being responsive to what he's electorate wants his constituency wants so if i was a run down alabama right now and start asking you know u.s. senators what they think you're not going to see them jump across the line but

that's interesting point i think i think you're right to say that because i think he is in a blue state a very very blue state a deep blue state for that matter but what how do obama's old seat i mean i mean but how do you explain how do you explain murkowski who's possibly going to cross late them in florida who's also said she's in support of trying to explain those to how do you explain those flips will portman again is another that doesn't surprise me he was kind of criticized because like oh just from her i thought you i thought you i thought you didn't have the rest of your dollars to go to the principal's dinner yeah and when you have a personal experience of course your personal experiences should influence your politics because we agree there yeah i mean you will you live your life that way now he could have made a decision to make a principled stand still against gay marriage but he didn't and that's not surprising and i mean i listen i would do that when to the point where i've even said for those progressive who attacked him for coming out so late isn't all right usual off base there i don't know that attack on obama and obama only did that recently not as i said i was i said the professor said but i think you guys went too far it's an evolution what do you what's your take on tomorrow the president

kind of forced into it with some comments that were made i agree this is a blue state decision i think that the impetus in many cases is personal relationships played with them across the switching if she does which i last which is read is read to be i think the reach starting to read some tea leaves on this issue i think most i've always thought most americans are fiscally conservative and socially taller and i think this can be a losing issue a divisive issue i think it's also a tough issue to talk about being very small government very limited government when the government wants to define marriage i mean i can't think of too many issues which are is integral to the part of the role of the lives that people leave as who they're married to who they can love in a formal relationship so i hope the g.o.p. comes around on this weed. you need marriage equality there's no doubt in my mind that i agree with you about it because i think if you talk about the nanny state telling people who they can sleep with that is my definition of nanny state for the republicans let's use that term the same time the republican party vince has made this alliance with the you know the right with the conservative christian right. can they afford to break that alliance moving forward i mean aren't they going to

have to break that alliance at some point well they're going to raise your you refer to this is see this is the great problem that chris the chris so-called christian right has here and it's not exclusive to just like white southern questions you have black christians who are opposed to gay marriage this is this is something that runs across the board and christians are not a french group i mean they make up the lion's share certainly of the population of the united states and when it comes to the way they're portrayed especially in the media they're often like vilified we saw the washington post talked about how it addresses gay marriage like a couple months ago and now gone wrote about this and then revealed any reaction from a reporter that works for that paper and when he was writing he said when i write about gay marriage why would i include traditional marriage proponents that would be like including a racist when i write about blacks i think that is a bad comparison and one that really hurts the debate but do you do you think that in fifteen years of this is going to be a non-issue do i think it'll be a non-issue i mean do you think this will be a settled issue in the same way that interracial marriage the set list of christian

churches has held for as long as two to about two thousand years now a little i don't forsee that changing you don't see anyone around saying that are already about it i have to see is this what i fancy is more and more christians coming out and being like look we have to be very specific about this we love gay people and i know this is something the left hates we love gay people but we only believe in traditional what's your take on that mark well i think you have to draw a lot i saw something the other day i was watching some show and it was talking about how if this goes through they they have to force pastors to you know go and marry certain people this isn't about what's going to happen in the church this doesn't even have to do with the. people view it i say i do know people that don't believe in a racial marriage but as a political issue as a legal issue it's been settled for a long a horse i do know people like that and the bottom line here is you have to you have to divorce this and they're relevant as people they're actually irrelevant they're completely wrong i'm just saying i do know people that feel that way but the bottom line here is we're not talking about whether you have to there are some people in the catholic church who don't get annoyed you get remarried they don't consider you marry that's fine people can all hold their position about the ceremonial part of

marriage and whether you're aligning god's eyes the question here is about benefits being extended by the government the legal and political question and i think the only way to do it is to say look you know i believe in small government we're not going to get involved in this i still have my own personal views and they haven't changed i think about religion north of the north carolina republican party introduced legislation to create an official state religion claiming that the constitution and the federal government doesn't apply to here's what the law says and section one of the law in north carolina general assembly asserts that the concept of the united states of america does not prohibit states or their subsidiaries from making laws respecting of the stab of an established religion in section two the north carolina general assembly does not recognize federal court rulings which prohibit otherwise regulate the state of north carolina in its public schools or any political subdivision of the state from making laws expecting and stablished whatever religion is it just me or is this the craziest of crazy crazy of state rights no it's not really it's not it's ridiculous and it shouldn't happen

in the now but it's not completely crazy you have to remember when the bill of rights came out with a completely crazy vote for hillary no not from a store point of view and i just thought or to be a no no because it's exactly right it was after the civil war that the bill of rights was incorporated in the states originally when the states the states you said will ratify this you give us a bill of rights they only understood it before ratification to be a restriction on the federal government so this isn't complete so it's any less stable than the state religions when the first one was right here that while they were here they were here for i want you guys here is that what this goes back to a problem that i have with i think the tea party and i was at the conservative movement as they talk about constitution calm. constitution one of the fundamental rights in the constitution is the freedom of religion and now they're saying we agree with the constitution we carried in our pockets but we want to be struck out of the first moment of the state of north carolina actually the ten to mimic the ninth and tenth amendment sort of pitted against the fourteenth you have to remember that the you know just a minute or so about it not only but remember the first amendment fourth a minute those were not incorporated states they didn't apply to the states to the fourteenth amendment to them through the courts but it applies to the people that

live in that state because the first the what the first you let me guess i would only if it only affected the federal government was that what happened i agree with you at the end of this i'm just saying this is where the things are and what i think this law i think this law passed by the un is completely unconstitutional because that means that you are muslim you know caroline you should be kicked out the state here and he is unconstitutional now with the incorporated are ever be unless they want to be as they should be the list of war here's my conclusion yes here's my question is still out until i find out what the religion is and what's i know i may be for against i've been there i think they're considering pasta fairy and there's less of that who ever introduced this is already well you know they were talking about as nationally it's down in north carolina this is what they want to do they know it's not going to this is this is another bigger point that we've seen over the last four years and we're seeing now in the gun gun debate or as well we saw when rick perry is talking about texas secession everything it's like anything that happens that comes from the obama administration states red states ok well we can ignore the constitution we can ignore the federal government i mean this is something that well we've tried before and i don't know this rose lord

knows liberty loving citizens should welcome the opportunity to always be considering hey what are the limits of federal power to the extent to what extent can we just as a state decide on these things and i think that's why we have the arson amendment it's a pretty good but that's only exercise and i mean far too often especially with obama the presidency liberals come out from the perspective of no no no there's no such thing as state tries to federal and i don't know i differ on this i think we do think that there are states' rights but to some extent states can go around just doing the will in early stuff like succeeding from the union or the past having their own. religion that's an interesting point because the constitution is basically a contract that was ratified between the states and the union and there's really no al cause i don't think anywhere in the world would think that's a big contract as it doesn't say how you get at. all to really say you guys are right we do have we do should respect some states' rights but only when it comes to marijuana legalization i'm not ok everything comes back to marijuana every day and always good i always know when i watch the big lesson and are very my two good

buddies thank you so much for being on the show you have to take a look. now it's time for tonight's the good the bad and the very very. big. the good florida atlantic university students after a month and a half of protests series have florida atlantic university have successfully stopped private prison conglomerate g e o group from buying naming rights the school's new football stadium since f a you unveil g u g e o group stadium in february students at the boca raton school have led a concerted campaign to stop what they call alcatraz a reference to the f.a. you mascot and the famous alcatraz prison in san francisco while their activism

worked on tuesday geo group announced that it would withdraw its sponsorship for quote public relations reasons good work you als now the bad ol gary hart one of the most pervasive right wing conspiracy theories of recent years has been the fear that agenda twenty one just a simple un sustainable development plan is actually a stalking horse for a new world order tyranny and oklahoma tea party activist al gore heart has a lot of care. payne to get his state to ban the plan and its guidelines for combating deforestation and pollution their hearts crusade has taken a turn towards intimidation in recent weeks however on monday the oklahoman published an e-mail gary hart sent to republican state senator cliff brennan demanding that he supports the agenda twenty one band email contain the following warning quote. get that bill heard or i will make sure you are greg not doing it i

will make you the laughingstock of the senate if i don't hear that this bill will be heard in past we will dig into your past your family your associates and once we start on you there will be no end to it this is a promise well not surprisingly brennan has reported the e-mail to the oklahoma state bureau of investigation it really is terrifying stuff and now the very very ugly deadly brown during an interview with n.p.r. this morning brown the founder of the rocky mountain gun owners group urged his fellow republicans to get ready to hunt democrats in the two thousand and fourteen midterm elections. i liken it to the proverbial hunting season we tell gun owners there's a time to hunt deer in the next election is the time to hunt democrats similar. while brown isn't actually calling for open warfare on democratic candidates he's

actually calling out democrats for supporting what he sees as unpopular gun control measures his violent rhetoric couldn't come at a worse time that membership in right wing terrorist groups is at an all time high and law enforcement officials suspect that white supremacist gangs are responsible for recent assassinations of public officials in colorado and texas so given that context brown's comments are just very very ugly. and we'll be right back.

the war.

the international airport in the very heart of moscow. welcome back to that picture coming up on this half the fukushima disaster and all of you.