the international airport in the very heart of moscow. well i'm john margaret of washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight the big picture. on friday the house approved legislation that will put an end to all the flight delays caused by the sequester if our elected representatives can find a way to make their trips home for reese subideas year yet they scrape together a plan to get cancer patients the treatment they need. for every host you know as great about that in just a moment and earlier today n.b.a. player jason collins became the first active professional athlete to come out as gay is a shocking announcement a sign of changes to come for the sports world and what does an openly gay athlete mean for the community as

a whole also you know the states may have the best cancer research facilities in the world but increasing numbers of americans can't afford what they need to beat that disease tell you why this is and what we can do about it in tonight's clearly take. heed you know this our leaders are killing us killing us with economic policies based on a failed ideology beloved only by the elites who invented it in their new book the body economic why austerity kills professors david stuck lower and sanjay basu an economist at oxford and epidemiologist at stanford respectively make a startling and some would say obvious claim about the long term effects of the budget cuts that have these stronger the european economy and thrown millions into

unemployment according to stockland boces research not only does austerity stunt growth and prolong. russian it also poses a major public health risk in greece for example a victim of some of the e.u.'s harshest budget slashing policies custom a skid row spraying program has resulted in the balkan nation's first malaria epidemic since the one nine hundred seventy s. decreased funding for hiv prevention programs have coincided with a shocking two hundred percent increase in infection rates in just the past two years the devastating public health impact of budget cuts isn't just a european problem the secrecy duration the united states has entered into the age of austerity as well and just like in greece those who need the help the most are suffering the most as a result because of completely avoidable across the board cuts to medicare for example cancer clinics across our country are telling patients that they can no longer afford to give them the chemotherapy treatment that they need and the

federal meals on wheels program is no longer able to deliver healthy meals to tens of thousands of seniors and shut ins in need administrators of one virginia meals on wheels center so these are the first cuts they've seen since the program was created in one nine hundred seventy two but makes all the sequester suffer and all the more tragic is that the ideas behind it are based on both faulty economic theory and shoddy research done to try to back it up. two weeks ago thomas fernwood a graduate student at the university of massachusetts published a critique of the famous orion our study that has been used by everyone from paul ryan to the simpson bowler's crowd to justify full throttle european style austerity according to the to his research the right in our study which concluded that high amounts of sovereign debt levels over ninety percent of g.d.p. stunt economic growth is full of distortions exclusions and frankly outright lies

reinhart and rogoff both of whom teacher left out important evidence from their final analysis and in one instance even forgot to calculate a whole line of data in the spreadsheet they used in their experiment although both professors have publicly defended their work in the week since herndon announced its findings rebuttals have fallen on deaf ears the tide is turning just last month treasury secretary jack lew called on his european counterparts to abandon their foolish budget cuts and focus instead on solving that con continents ongoing unemployment crisis even global markets agree in italy this week because of the election of an anti austerity coalition government confidence was restored worldwide in italy that southern european nation can now borrow at the lowest rate since twenty eight. it should be as obvious to washington as it is to the rest of the world austerity is

a complete and total failure on friday just in time for john boehner and company to fly home for recess cus admitted as much by passing a bill that provides funds to rehire those air traffic controllers furloughed by our off austerity are seaquest ration cuts this is the right thing to do as the dearth of air traffic controllers is cause numerous point delays across the country recent weeks but if congress can find a way to protect itself and the richest americans from the effects of the failed policies you can also find a way to help the rest of us especially those who are literally dying from this entirely avoidable mess of seaquest ration austerity standing hoyer congressman from maryland slammed his fellow representatives in a speech explaining why he would vote against the f.a.a. fix bill. while i want to end these delays for passengers in maryland across the country i will oppose this bill because it fails to address the whole impact of

sequester let me share just a handful of examples of how the sequester will affect america's education head start seventy thousand children will be kicked out of head start nothing in those buildings with them is through a long long list of programs and people nothing in that did in that deal helps them either representative where is absolutely correct the lack of empathy for the thousands of toddlers who won't get a chance to go to preschool or the tens of thousands of seniors who are now going to have to decide which meal to skip is startling is it time for congress to hold phillis constitutional obligation and work for the general welfare of all americans not just the richest one percent let's ask the last very entrepreneur and host of the truth for america radio show will welcome. hey tom thanks for having me thanks for joining us now that we know that austerity is bad policy it doesn't work it is

throwing a whole bunch of european nations into screaming disasters it is harming the united states isn't it time for the you know by the way ronald reagan never did it he spent money you know at a much faster rate frankly than a broad obama is isn't it time to say enough already we're going to we're going to undo it at the very least the sequenced ration. oh boy i mean we could really use ronald reagan now so we had some leadership in this country but come on this is being insincere the american people have had to tighten their belts and the only thing that syquest ration is done is told the federal government this save a couple of pennies on every dollar years the american be really tightening their belts so that people like mitt romney can pay twelve percent on his income taxes come on neil there's nothing fair or reasonable about that corporate income tax collections now at the low as they have been since the one nine hundred fifty s. personal income tax collections right now and personal tax income tax rates that are being paid are the lowest they've been since the one nine hundred forty s.

this is crazy tom tom is the richest country in the air along during this is all care mongering in fear mongering going on you're just seventy thousand years not getting to me also so here my american people but let's get people working in this country and the only way we're going to get people working in this country is if we take on this fiscal crisis that we're in we have to reduce government spending maybe tom both of you and big both you and i can agree on is that if we attack to government waste we would have all the money we need have reduced to sort of the end to spend on these programs i mean even we have reduced just as if we had millions million dollars a government waste in our we have reduced government spending and it has led to more unemployment europe reduce government spending radically and now spain has twenty eight percent unemployment. if anything what we should be saying is we don't have a spending problem in this country and we don't have a debt problem in this country we have an unemployment problem in this country and in the past we've had unemployment problem we not only government has reached

combine the employer the employer of last resort because republicans like you won't let them do it. no that's not in taken out of hand they never had a plan there are laws that they think just never been connected with the american entrepreneurial you and i. just you and i both know just that if it was not a republican and we don't have a question. them now nancy pelosi passed a number of good pieces of legislation out of the house of representatives she was there every single one got destroyed by the republicans in the united states and every effort to put americans back to work every effort to put the job creators back to work the people who spend all of the money that they make to make the government the owner of last resort to bring our manufacturing back home all of those efforts so that they could blame the sea canonical just like that why don't we that's why we want to tax the american entrepreneur more that's when we passed obamacare the american addicted early american and the lowest taxes they have paid in three generations tom tom unfortunately and i agree with you when this

unemployment in this country is it is a travesty unemployment has become a career in this country we shouldn't be ashamed of that long term unemployment is only teaching our people to stay at home they're not being told to go out there and even look for just those that are giving people a lot of movement and his country instead of he means people out of this i wish i can respond why don't let the for the why don't we bring back the dead. in this and the c.c.c. and put those people to work with the two trillion dollars worth of infrastructure that needs to be repaired since basically reaganomics stokley going to pay for old america are we going to pay for it we have plenty of other which are going to grow old we're the richest of our liberal china is that our only solution we are the richest no is the only solution we can say to mitt romney sorry buddy you're going to pay the same tax rate as the surgeon who saved my wife's life. you know what we've got to do in time is we have to create an environment where all our risk takers and entrepreneurs want to get back into the game company and rebuilding

their businesses but we're never going to do that with this it ministration unfortunately because our will are there is a taker is an object and rices are risk takers and entrepreneurs are not the ones who create the jobs the people who create the jobs of the people who spend the money that creates the demand that people like you and i fill and if those people have no one who are they they are the long term unemployed is that our solution and bad is my point instead of instead of first of all the longer on employers are getting less and less and less in terms of money the sequester is cutting on employment benefits but instead of getting people on employment benefits why don't we go back to what f.d.r. said he said the best welfare program is a job let's make the government if capitalism is incapable of filling a need in america let's have the government of capitalism is very capable we're the richest country in the world we're the most successful country in a while look at all the you know we're not is that this country is responsible for but right now we have this new surround our heads in that school the obama administration who has no clue what it takes to create jobs in this country and

that's why we have this credo the obama when we have the last phase employed onst and obstruction in the united states senate by republicans oh well now on who will not even let him appoint judges to the first circuit court term much less that the democrats control the white house and they control the senate don't they share any blame in this at all. absolutely act actually no you know given how much obstruction they have don't give in that given that conspiracy made in the you know the night that obama was first inaugurated five and a half years ago at the caucus room restaurant here in washington d.c. where these guys where these republicans be you know paul ryan and the others basically swore a blood oath to each of the jim de mint that they would do everything they could to screw the obama administration and os to make things better no i am i am blaming the i'm laying in is a totally the government of the right of the whole barrel for to do is not going to roll they go anything with it they control the governor. for thirteen weeks until scott brown was sworn in that was it and then the field then there have been the filibusters began to heal we're out of time there was give america obamacare which

is one of the biggest disasters that generation will every i it's a disaster the forty one people are going to get health insurance ok neil thanks a lot for being with us thanks thanks for having me. let me i want to know why don't we ask you a question. here on this network as we're having the debate we have our knives out. to do this right it's a bad thing mary gearin situation will be and i don't even talk to the mainland. 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 or see some other part of it and realized everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture.

here is mitt romney trying to figure out the name of that thing that we americans call a dog. i'm sorry i'm just a guy who cares an awful lot but you sir are a fool you know what that is my theory sells. wants us to defeat terrorism the only liberal that kristen. stewart. you know the corporate media distracts us from what you and i should care about because their profit driven industry that sells of sensationalistic garbage. he calls it breaking news i'm having martin and we're going to break that it's.

looking pretty down the field that you won't find it here if you're looking for relevant stories you need back to from top my skin's. in screw news remember the bird flu and might be worse than ever in march the chinese government announced a new form of the avian flu known as h seven n nine as spread to humans an earlier version of the that very one disease called h five n one created panic when it spread to humans in two thousand and three killing hundreds around the world and reigniting memories of the global epidemics that were so common before modern medicine almost twenty three people have died from the bird flu is the latest form scientists of the national institute of allergy and infectious diseases have concluded that as of now age seven and nine has not yet to spread between humans

but if the virus mutates the results could be catastrophic according the world health organization h seven n nine is one of the most lethal influenza viruses the world has ever seen as a higher mortality rate than the spanish influenza of one thousand nine hundred eighteen so how are scientists preparing for an outbreak of the bird flu and what sort of impact could a worldwide plague have a country struggling to climb out of the worst economic downturn since the great depression assessed dr laurie garrett senior fellow for global health with the council on foreign relations dr garrett welcome back. hi it's great to have you here again could you explain this blue bird flu for us word originated how it's spreading what we know about it. up to twenty four deaths quite a large number of cases that have been identified but we have more mysteries than we have answers about this strange new flu it was first noticed in the end of february when a cluster of family took ill all together with pneumonia once in shanghai and has

since spread you know. nine provinces and major cities of china and as well taipei taiwan so in two countries at this point and as best we can determine it originated in birds but it has mutated to such a degree that it doesn't actually make bird sick anymore it only makes humans sick as far as we can tell and it has two mutations in it that we know can only be acquired inside of mammals so if it hasn't only been in humans and birds it must have gone through pig. or some other animal hosts that they have not yet identified and are still mutating it's still evolving my recollection is and please correct me if i'm wrong here the strongest of my recollection is the the the spanish flu of eighteen thousand nine hundred eighteen had

a it was very very widespread spread but the variance level was fairly low was two or three percent of people who got it died maybe it's about are two percent but two percent ok and that the variance of this particular flu is very very high over thirty percent over forty percent something in that neighborhood is is that hives that high. is is is it possible that a high level of very low like with a ball for example which is very very high would actually inhibit the spread of it because it would become self limiting to kill off. well that's always been the classic theory with infectious diseases that there's some kind of a tradeoff between being very ill and and spreading rapidly but we've certainly seen plenty of examples of viruses that have emerged and had a really high kill ratio. and cause a lot of havoc with sars is a good example. and of course the one nine hundred eighteen flu i mean the thing

about flu that makes it special is that it is so contagious between human beings when a flu virus adapts to our species it spreads in a hand shake it spreads in a cough it spreads with the fluid from your eyes it's so contagious between people that when you talk about two percent sounding like a low kill rate well two percent of a billion human beings is a lot of death and that's what happened in one thousand nine hundred nineteen you're looking at an outer limit estimate of one hundred million people died a slow low level estimate of seventy five million this is a staggering for one hundred years ago before jet travel and with a much smaller world population of human beings the other thing tom that makes this particular flu so bizarre is that so far it's an urban phenomenon now every other bird flu we've ever looked at starts in the farms starts on chicken farms and

poultry growing areas rural and usually the first cases are children that play with the chickens or the ducks and get exposed that way but this is just the opposite it's an urban phenomenon there's almost no visible flu in the rural areas at all in china it's in twenty three million population shanghai enormous beijing and the biggest emerging cities of eastern china superstar cities and the majority of the sick are older adults not children so something very strange is going on here we don't understand what's happening ok we have just a just a minute left dr laura europe what should we be doing about this the united states . well i think we're doing the right things trying to come up with a vaccine anticipate that the virus will mutate so whatever you first make as your vaccine is probably not going to be right be ready to mobilize to make a better one start getting your public health departments ready and the c.d.c.

sent out notices to doctors all over america and said watch for these symptoms if you see them call us don't wait dr laura i've been i've been reading your books for years and following your words it is so good thank you so much for being with us thanks tom. you know the news in an exclusive cover story for the most recent issue of sports illustrated n.b.a. synergies and collins made a surprising announcement he said i'm a thirty four year old n.b.a. center i'm black and i'm gay i didn't set out to be the first openly gay athlete playing in a major american team sport but since i am i'm happy to start the conversation i wish i wasn't the kid in the classroom raising his hand and saying i'm different if i had my way someone else would have already done this nobody have which is why i'm raising my hand collins's announcement comes at an important time for professional supports sports excuse me although a handful of retired athletes have gone public with their sexuality no active

player in any of the major leagues has come out and locker room homophobia remains a major problem with the tide appears to be turning just last month the n.h.l. began a joint partnership with the you can play group an organization devoted to fighting anti-gay bigotry and sports at such a time collins announcement could be a major catalyst for change in american athletic culture for more on this i'm joined by chris gardner senior political and legal reporter for buzz flash the guy who wrote the story of this. how are you doing great great great to have you with us what first of all what's the significance of this i mean i think the significance of this is that it's been a long time coming. so there is never been in till today and out gay player in a major league male sport and that is a barrier the a lot of people have been talking about for a long time and today it was broken do you expect that this is going to be the

beginning of a cascade. i think that remains to be seen i think that obviously jason wrote about in his piece in sports illustrated this is a very individual decision and so i think that the reaction that we see i mean president obama called up chasing collins to talk about about this and give images of war so that that's a pretty that's a pretty good reason to come out but it's going to be something that as players see the reaction as players see the way that his career moves forward he's a pretty agent and so it's not clear yet where he's going to be playing next season and so it remains up in the air and we'll see how it moves forward as a free agent who picks him up and how and what circumstances that's going to tell us a lot yeah it's going to be very very interesting e.s.p.n.

incr commentator chris broussard had this take on collins is coming out of this. personally i don't believe you can live and openly homosexual lifestyle or and openly like premarital sex between heterosexuals if you're openly living that type of lifestyle then the bible says you know them by their fruits is. that sin and if you're openly living in unrepentant sin whatever it may be not just homosexuality adultery fornication premarital sex which we had to research whatever it may be i believe that's walking the open rebellion to god jesus christ is this kind of. bigotry caller i don't i don't have a better word he's he's dressing it up in religion but it's bigotry is. is this is this fellow that we just saw going to be regarded as a fossil and as

a bigot you know soon as as so many are in other areas we're is the sports world different than the rest of america you know increasingly across america we don't put up with this kind of talk anymore but in the sports world it seems like it's like this insular little subculture play a think that we're this is going to be a similar situation to the way the reaction to collins is going to influence the way that other players who might be considering coming out react i think that the way that people react to broussard's comments the way that the network reacts to it the way that other anchors react to it will influence the way that the sports world deals with these issues as as more i mean it this is similar to don't ask don't tell this isn't an issue of whether or not there will be gay players in the future there are gay players now and the question is whether or not

they're going to be comfortable coming out we have just a minute left i understand the congressman joe kennedy influenced his decision you . read about that i mean congressman kennedy had been his roommate at stanford and they had talked about it and he had been. pride parade in massachusetts and the congressman had an when with who's straight and call and saw it he said that that for him was the real powerful reason of of what he wasn't able to do when he wasn't out and planning on marching with the congressman this year and at the pride parade it's more more of this this is a this is a genuine story of courage i mean to be the to be the first guy. to to do this it was a long time coming indeed indeed thanks so much from thanks a lot. after the break since the terrorist attacks in boston the far right has been up in arms over the muslim world label and is law as

a violent religion the core teachings of islam say otherwise so why are those in the far right so quick to condemn all of his long for the actions of a few radical extremists. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and they glimpse something else

you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you thought you don't know i'm tom harkin welcomes a picture. of 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. but what 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 this is the bottom line there is still a lot of snow out here a good place for snowball fight. he said it is going to be pretty incredible day there and even record snowfall throughout what's it been like you'll be slow to be driving lessons to merge and see if you're exceptional.

the worst you're going to think only white house superman. radio guy. minestrone. all want. to do because you've never seen anything like this i'm told. bag of the big picture i'm tom marvin coming up in this half hour the attacks in boston have reignited the conservative debate over islam and the role that radical extremism plays with that religion writer conservatives lashing out at the entire religion and only

a few are responsible for the violence we've seen over the past couple of decades and each year millions of americans are diagnosed with cancer or discovering the cancer drugs are more and more outrageously expensive far more so here in america than anywhere else in the world but we can change that and make prescription drugs affordable in america i'll tell you how to stay taking. so sometimes you know what you know and sometimes you know what you don't know and sometimes it's the far as i spires on theater says everything you know is wrong i don't think. you're right. i'll just say.