Guests: Chris Jansing, Lee Cowan, Paul Gunter, Bill Richardson, Robert Alvarez, Ezra Klein
LAWRENCE O‘DONNELL, HOST: Brave workers trying to prevent four nuclear reactors at the Fukushima power plant from exploding have run into even more problems. The roof of reactor four is now cracked, and reactor four is on fire again.
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(MUSIC)
NORAH O‘DONNELL, NBC NEWS: The nuclear nightmare appears to be getting worse by the hour.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The third reactor was rocked by an explosion, and a fourth caught fire.
CHRIS JANSING, “JANSING AND COMPANY” HOST: The levels at the plant are enough to kill a man within five hours. This is a dramatic escalation.
L. O‘DONNELL (voice-over): Fifty heroes racing to stop four nuclear reactors from meltdown, risking their own lives to prevent a nuclear disaster.
JANSING: Those are the people trying to stave off the four reactors at the plant from a total meltdown.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This crisis centers around one complex, 170 miles northeast of Tokyo.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But the latest explosion at the Fukushima nuclear plant may have damaged the outer shell.
JANSING: And they believe it could eventually reach a level seven.
That would make it equal to Chernobyl.
ANDREA MITCHELL, NBC NEWS: The U.S. offered nuclear assistance. The Japanese said that they can do it on their own.
L. O‘DONNELL: In Japan, nuclear radiation is the next deadly threat for those who are surviving the night without food, water or heat.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are getting reports of a series of aftershocks right now in Tokyo.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everyone is scared for their child‘s safety.
JANSING: By the time, it‘s very clear that you need to move or you need to go, by then it‘s already too late.
L. O‘DONNELL: The fear of radiation has already spread across the Pacific to the United States.
JAY CARNEY, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: This is an accident and a situation that‘s happening in Japan and not in the United States.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is California prepared for a major earthquake?
STEVEN CHU, SECRETARY OF ENERGY: We clearly considered things like tsunamis and earthquakes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Ironically, while we are debating the budget here, the other side of the aisle calls for 20 percent reduction in the National Weather Service.
L. O‘DONNELL: In Washington, House Democrats, House Republicans get the spending cuts they want, including cuts for tsunami warnings.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center has been cut.
What does that mean?
N. O‘DONNELL: Certainly, that gets people‘s attention when you hear that the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center has been cut.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: House Republicans are defending cuts to foreign aid and ocean safety.
LUKE RUSSERT, NBC NEWS: This really is going to be crunch time the next three weeks.
N. O‘DONNELL: It will be the sixth—count ‘em—sixth stopgap bill for this fiscal year.
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O‘DONNELL: Good evening from Los Angeles.
Right now, workers at Japan‘s Fukushima nuclear plant are trying to put out a fire at its number four reactor unit. The fire erupted in the outer housing of the reactor‘s containment vessel.
Last night, the storage pool of that same reactor caught fire. Officials are now saying that the flames were actually never fully extinguished, which apparently caused tonight‘s fire. Workers had feared the original fire would cause the reactor‘s water to boil away completely, expose the fuel rods, and cause a meltdown.
Earlier today, plant operators scrapped a plan to use helicopters to pour water into the reactor to cool things down, but are now considering disbursing boric acid by helicopter.
And the BBC is now reporting that spent fuel rods in reactors five and six are now believed to be heating up. Reactor four which has a cracked roof has been emitting radiation directly into the atmosphere all day. There is an 18-mile no fly zone around Fukushima because of the radiation leaks. Those within a 12-mile radius have been evacuated from the area, and those within 12 to 20 miles of Fukushima have been ordered to stay indoors.
The U.S. Navy says they detected very low levels of airborne radiation at two greater Tokyo area bases today, about 190 miles from Fukushima.
Also today, several sailors were given potassium iodine tablets after they returned from humanitarian flights because of low level contamination.
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney described U.S. efforts in Japan during his daily briefing.
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CARNEY: We have offered our Japanese friends disaster response experts, search and rescue teams, technical advisers with nuclear expertise and logistical support from the United States military. Secretary Chu announced earlier today that Department of Energy has offered and Japan has accepted an aerial measuring system capability, including detectors and analytical equipment used to provide assessments of contamination on the ground. In total, the DOE team includes 34 people.
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O‘DONNELL: Joining me now live from Tokyo, host of MSNBC‘s “JANSING AND COMPANY,” Chris Jansing.
Chris, thanks for joining us tonight. What are you hearing about the latest from the power plant?
JANSING: Well, let‘s just say what is clear is: this is now the second worst nuclear disaster in history, not as bad as Chernobyl, but worse than Three Mile Island. Beyond that, what‘s happening is unclear, Lawrence.
I have to tell you—we are getting conflicting information, for example, about that fire that‘s burning at reactor number four. Is it a continuation of the fire that was reported and then supposedly out? Is it a flare up? Is it a new fire?
What we do know is that two of those 50 workers that you talked about, only 50 workers left at that plant are now missing, following an explosion there. Obviously, grave concerns about what‘s happening. The heating up of those fuel rods, the decision not to use U.S. and Japanese military helicopters to drop in water, they really are coming up against many last-ditch efforts here.
They thought it was going to be the seawater that they were pumping in
in other words, cold water cooling off the rods inside the reactor, and that didn‘t work. It is just so hot in there. Those rods are heating up so much—just imagine a pot of water. It‘s boiling away that water they‘ve been trying to pump in, and there is no way to stop the escalation of the heat there.
So, the question is: what are they going to do next? And tensions are absolutely rising, Lawrence. There were levels of radiation detected in Tokyo—a great sense of unease as constant reminders are given with aftershocks.
We can tell you that already the French government has suggested its citizens, even here in Tokyo in the capitol, leave; that the Austrian government has temporarily moved its embassy from here to Osaka, another 250 miles away from the zone. So, a tremendous concern.
There is a watchdog group, nuclear watchdog group and research arm, very well-respected in Washington, D.C.—they have said that they believe this could potentially reach a level seven, and that would make it equal to the great nuclear disaster in Chernobyl, Lawrence.
O‘DONNELL: Chris, the Japanese government saying the real danger zone on radiation is the 12-mile radius. They say if you‘re between 12 miles and 20, just stay indoors, and if you‘re outside of that 20 mile radius, you‘re OK. And yet, we are reporting radiation being detected in Tokyo, in some areas 190 miles away.
Are Japanese citizens taking these safety zones that the government is announcing seriously or do they fear that it is dangerous everywhere?
JANSING: I think there‘s no doubt about the fact that there is—as I have put it—a great sense of unease. You understand the culture here, and the culture here is very much to all come together. And we‘ve seen the prime minister on television. He‘s been appealing to that sense of patriotism, that culture in Japan here that sort of brings people to support what‘s going on.
I have to tell you, though, as I‘ve been talking to people just around Tokyo, and I have to say I have not been closer to the plant than that. But as you talk to people around here, there is an increasing sense that the government either is not telling the complete and whole story, or perhaps I think the way it has been expressed to me more is that they‘re really in unchartered territory and there isn‘t a good handle on exactly what‘s going on.
And the question arises, if something happens and if there is another escalation in this, will it come quickly to allow people to take appropriate action? And that‘s why there definitely is controversy here, Lawrence, about how far that zone should be in terms of whether people need to be evacuated and whether they need to stay in their homes.
It is tough to say—let me just add this—you probably know in the Asian culture, if you‘re not feeling well, a lot of people wear masks. And there are tremendous numbers of people around Tokyo that we see in masks. It‘s difficult to tell whether that‘s in any way related to nuclear concerns here, Lawrence.
O‘DONNELL: Chris Jansing, host of MSNBC‘s “JANSING AND COMPANY”—thanks for joining us tonight, Chris.
JANSING: Sure.
O‘DONNELL: For more—for more on how to control this disaster, we turn to Paul Gunter, director of reactor oversight for Beyond Nuclear, a public advocacy group.
Paul Gunter, what do you read the danger level of the situation at this plant as of now?
PAUL GUNTER, BEYOND NUCLEAR ADVOCACY GROUP: It‘s unparalleled. You know, I think that one thing people should understand is the inventory of radioactive material we‘ve counted is there are 1,700 metric tons of irradiated fuel sitting in those roof top storage ponds at the six reactors. We‘re quite concerned that, first of all, the cooling systems have been lost to those pools, and they are outside the containment. And we are seeing the danger of fire and explosions.
There was an explosion in unit four that blew a hole in ceiling and
cracks and a hole in the wall—and these are all indications that all six
fuel pools right now are at increasing risk, and the fires will eventually
these are indicators that the fuel is melting, hydrogen gas is generating, and the water level has continued to flow. And aside from the three reactors, we have the six fuel pools with tremendous amounts of radioactivity in these rods.
O‘DONNELL: Now, some people have been accused of fear-mongering simply by describing what is possible under these conditions. But one of the problems with a nuclear situation is you only really know how dangerous it is when it‘s too late.
Is there any indication of where this may be going from here with any level of predictability? Is there anything the Japanese government can say in the monitoring of this situation right now that has any value in a predictive sense?
GUNTER: Well, I think that the situation quite clearly is out of control. It‘s like being in a car careening down, you know, an icy road. We‘re out of control, but we haven‘t crashed yet. But clearly, the situation is out of control.
And what is really worrisome is that they are not taking the extraordinary measures for pregnant women and children right now. Clearly, it‘s not a good idea to be leaving pregnant women and children in radiation zones.
You know, what we are hearing from the prime minister‘s press conference yesterday was that the radiation levels outside from 12 to 20 miles is enough right now that if you stay outside, you can get radiation sickness, that you can—that men can become sterile. This was from the prime minister and the Tepco, the Tokyo Electric Power press conference. So—and, you know, continuing to stay outside will result in the lowering of white blood cell counts.
This is not a good situation for children in particular, and it really should be a women and children first kind of situation here to get this evacuation zone wider, you know. Get—particularly get these high priority populations out of there.
O‘DONNELL: Paul Gunter, has any government in the history of nuclear disasters like this, nuclear power plant disasters like this—has any government ever actually overreacted? Isn‘t the pattern to under-react and understate because they fear creating any sense of panic out there with the population?
GUNTER: You know, Lawrence, look, it appears as history will demonstrate, that this particular technology loses control, the reactors, the first thing they try to do is control the information. You‘ll recall that after the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, it was three days before Governor Thornburg advised children and pregnant women and children to leave Harrisburg.
And it was three days after the Chernobyl accident in 1986 when the Swedish government announced high radiation fields going over their nuclear power plants. And then we found out it was coming from a reactor accident 1,500 miles away.
You know, the situation is, is that information is really the first casualty in—with this particular technology. And I think that history is repeating itself once again.
O‘DONNELL: Paul Gunter, the nuclear reactor specialist for the group Beyond Nuclear—thanks for joining us tonight, Paul.
GUNTER: Thank you, Lawrence.
O‘DONNELL: Can California‘s nuclear power plants really withstand a massive earthquake?
And China is telling its citizens to leave Japan. Should the U.S. do the same? Former Energy Secretary Bill Richardson joins me next.
And later, the House passed another resolution to prevent the government shut down. But so many Republicans turned against their leader that Democrats had to save the Republican bill.
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O‘DONNELL: In Japan, dozens of brave workers are at the crippled nuclear power plant working around the clock to avert a massive disaster. The U.S. says Americans can stay in the country because there is absolutely no reason to doubt the advice of the Japanese government. Other countries are much more skeptical. Former Energy Secretary Bill Richardson joins us next.
And in the “Rewrite,” a Kansas Republican solution to the illegal immigration problem—shoot them like wild pigs.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, we are at 46 psi?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We don‘t have much time to relieve the pressure in that auxiliary building.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We‘re going to run the evacuation.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Maybe a third of the people in the evacuation zone, at least 700,000 from the region are pouring on to freeway.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Seven hundred thousand?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That‘s a conservative estimate.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Plus, there aren‘t enough buses and vans to take care of that risk populations, seniors, people with disabilities. The governor wants you to activate military support from Camp Pendleton.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So ordered. Do we have a direct line to the control room in San Andreas (ph)?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The superintendent of operations is on now.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We‘ve got helicopters overhead to give an immediate reading to make sure we‘re within the acceptable dosage.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Which is?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Five hundred milligrams.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Any way to wait for support from Camp Pendleton?
I don‘t like the idea of the elderly and disabled taking the brunt of this.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The longer we wait, the more chance of an explosion. And God knows how much radiation shooting into the atmosphere.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Vent it now.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Open the stack.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: That was season seven of “The West Wing,” in an episode written by Eli Attie.
Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu was supposed to appear before the House Appropriation Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development today to discuss President Obama‘s fiscal 2012 budget proposal. Instead, Chu spent much of the hearing trying to reassure lawmakers that America‘s nuclear reactors are safe.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEVEN CHU, SECRETARY OF ENERGY: We clearly consider things like tsunamis and earthquakes and fires.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We‘ve been doing that?
CHU: We have been doing that all the time. And whenever there is a reactor near an earthquake site, we look to what‘s the maximum size of that particular earthquake, the geologists say can ever happen and we design considerably above that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: Such reassurances haven‘t been enough for Representative Ed Markey, the ranking Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, along with the California Congresswoman Lois Capps. Markey sent a letter to the chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission requesting more information on the safety of domestic nuclear reactors, particularly those right here in southern California.
“We are concerned that San Onofre, Diablo Canyon and possibly other nuclear reactors located in seismically active areas are not designed with sufficient levels of resiliency against the sort of earthquakes scientists predict they could experience.”
Congressman Markey has advocated for measures in the U.S. that were just announced in Germany. Chancellor Angela Merkel has ordered seven nuclear plants that began operations before 1980 temporarily closed to conduct safety tests. Critics claim Merkel‘s decision is politically motivated, three state elections take place later this month.
“The New York Times” reports that on Monday, an estimated 110,000 people in 450 towns across Germany demonstrated against nuclear power.
Joining me now, former Department of Energy secretary, U.N. ambassador, and former governor of New Mexico: Bill Richardson.
Thanks for joining us tonight, Governor.
BILL RICHARDSON, FORMER SECRETARY OF ENERGY: Thank you, Lawrence.
O‘DONNELL: Governor, I showed a clip from “The West Wing” coming into this segment because it showed the reality of what one would have to confront if there was a problem at San Onofre, or at a nuclear plant here in California. The evacuation plans absolutely do not work. There is absolutely no way to move millions of people at once in southern California in any direction, and that‘s what that scene is depicting right there, and they were discovering that the theoretical ideas that they had on paper on how to deal with this absolutely wouldn‘t work.
What is your view of how ready the United States is for anything like what has happened in Japan, particularly in our earthquake areas?
RICHARDSON: Well, this is an alarm for America to get better prepared. I can tell you as a governor, and having read an American Medical Association study that states we are ill-equipped to deal with a radiation type of catastrophe that we have to rely on the federal government, that we have to rely on their plans or contingency, their military bases. So, I think it‘s very important that we get this wakeup call from this incident in Japan.
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Now, I don‘t think we need to panic, but I think we have to look at all procedures. We have to look at the five nuclear plants that are probably going to be built in the next 10 years. Nuclear power should be part of our energy mix because it‘s not a polluting source, but at the same time, we got to deal with the safety issues.
We got to deal with the containment vessels in earthquake-prone areas like California. We‘ve got to deal with looking at the technology of these plants that crippled the Japanese system. We have to look at perhaps a pause in some of these very seismically active areas.
I think this is a time not necessarily to talk about stopping nuclear power or moratoriums, but it‘s a time for—I guess a timeout, a pause. Let‘s look at all of the safety procedures in the 104 nuclear reactors that we have in the 31 states. And let‘s be sure that the lessons learned from this catastrophe are applied here in America.
O‘DONNELL: Let‘s listen to something else that Secretary Chu said today about these plants in earthquake areas.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHU: What you do when you design for them, you ask the geologists, geophysicists, what is the maximum—depending on where it is in the fault, what is the maximum earthquake that could be in that region, and then you design well over that region. They designed 7.5 where the maximum might have been 6.2.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: Governor, when you were energy secretary, surely those kinds of numbers were somewhat negotiated, that there was dispute as to exactly what is the level that is likely in a given area and what is the high level, what is the low level. I mean, this is science that gets politicized when it gets brought into Department of Energy and elsewhere in the government, and huge spending decisions are going to be based on exactly which scientific number we end up on.
So, when we say we believe that the maximum earthquake in a given area is, say, 7.5, how confident would you be in the process we have at arriving at that number that that is actually a scientific number as opposed to a political number that comes out of a negotiated scientific process?
RICHARDSON: Well, I have a great respect for Secretary Chu. He‘s a scientist. He knows these issues well.
My concern is that we have planned for 7.5 on the Richter scale. Look what happened in Japan, it was 8.9 -- plus you had the double punch of a huge tsunami that wasn‘t expected to be that severe. So, I would—I would be extremely careful in finding ways I think to ensure that those two plants in California are properly—are properly taken care of, that there are strong evacuation plans, that we find ways to ensure that the containment vessels are strong, that we look at the technology to see if it‘s up to speed.
I think it should be. But I think again, Lawrence, this is a time for us to look at our entire nuclear power safety procedures. This is an international wakeup call, too. It should involve the international community—France, America, Japan. They are the three largest producers of nuclear power. I think we should lead this effort with the International Atomic Energy Agency.
But at this time, I think we have to say some prayers for the Japanese people, our allies in Japan, the Japanese government. This is an unspeakable tragedy.
O‘DONNELL: Former governor and former energy secretary, Bill Richardson—thank you for sharing your unique insights on this with us tonight, Governor.
RICHARDSON: Thank you.
O‘DONNELL: With the eyes of the world on Japan‘s crippled nuclear plant, the bravest heroes are the 50 plant employees risking their own lives to try to prevent a catastrophic meltdown. Their courage and sacrifice are in tonight‘s “Spotlight.”
And up next, amid all the destruction today, there were small moments of hope.
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O‘DONNELL: From the devastation in Japan, two more stories of hope emerged today. Rescuers pulled a man from a collapsed building after four days, after hearing his cries for help. Today, Osaka rescuers found a conscious but hypothermic 70 year old woman alive inside her house which had been swept away by the tsunami Friday.
NBC News correspondent Lee Cowan was in what was once a bustling fishing port and now resembles a ghost town.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LEE COWAN, NBC NEWS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They call it the town that disappeared. All we could find was a shattered footprint at the end of a washed out road.
(on camera): It just doesn‘t stop.
(voice-over): Some 17,000 people used to live and fish here. Now close to half of them, it is feared, are under the mud. The racing wall of water, some 30 feet high, was only about a half hour away when the warning went out.
At the city‘s main hospital, that wasn‘t enough time.
The water took everybody, this nurse told us, all the patients. She only survived by getting as many patients as high as she could as fast as she could as fast as she could.
(on camera): It is good she was on the upper floors of the hospital, because this is what‘s left of the lower flours. This is the third floor of that hospital, it looks like what‘s left of one of the patient wards. Nobody in here would have stood a chance.
(voice-over): The wave broke high. On one floor after another, the sea poured in, through windows, down corridors, into patient rooms. Terrifying can‘t begin to describe it.
(on camera): They were clearly proud of their hospital. This is a photo album that we found, pictures what the hospital looked like in far better days.
(voice-over): Only the fifth floor was left untouched. It was there, though, that we found a makeshift morgue, bodies lined up on the floor in what looked to be the doctor‘s lounge.
As we left, we found evidence that someone else had been here, too. A small memorial had been created, perhaps for a patient, maybe a nurse. Faces staring back at us from a photo, one of the few remaining bits of color in a building draped in black.
Lee Cowan, NBC News, Minaminsunriku, Japan.
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O‘DONNELL: Coming up, while thousands have moved farther from the troubled nuclear plant, 50 workers have put their lives on the line to stay at the center of the crisis, in an all-out effort to prevent a devastating nuclear meltdown.
And later, the budget battle on Capitol Hill. The House passes another bill to delay a government shutdown a few more weeks, but this one really, really might be the last temporary extension. Really.
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O‘DONNELL: In tonight‘s Spotlight, some of the bravest people on Earth: the workers who are staying behind at the Fukushima Nuclear plant, risking their lives to try to head off a meltdown. Eight hundred other employees were evacuated yesterday after the explosion in the number two reactor. Approximately 50 remain inside.
They are being rotated in and out quickly to try to reduce exposure to radiation. They are fighting to keep sea water flowing in to cool the reactors, after battling fires and explosions that injured 15 of their colleagues.
Joining me now, Robert Alvarez, a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies, and a former senior policy adviser at the Department of Energy. Mr. Alvarez, what risks are these workers facing now by going back into this plant at this time?
ROBERT ALVAREZ, INSTITUTE FOR POLICY STUDIES: Well, I think that they are—they have the risk of encountering life threatening doses of radiation. Some of the measurements that have been reported are clearly those that would—if you were exposed an hour or more, would be very, very serious and could prove lethal in some circumstances.
O‘DONNELL: And how quickly lethal? Are these doses that you see results quickly or is it might be that you see—you end up dying of cancer a year or two years from now?
ALVAREZ: Well, the—they—the doses that I am talking about are what they call tissue destructive doses. These are doses that cause actual evidence of radiation injury, such as burns, loss of hair, bleeding gums. And what‘s happening is that your body—most of your organs are getting heavily irradiated.
The dose that would kill 50 percent of the people exposed to this would be comparable to—at least what one of the measurements indicated to me earlier today would be working in an area for three or four hours.
So what that means is that you don‘t promptly die. If you get doses that high, you will die—or you may die, and it may take weeks. And it is not a very pretty thing.
O‘DONNELL: Workers that typically find themselves in these situations in a crisis like this, are they very well versed in exactly what the risk levels are and what the radiation levels are that they are exposing themselves to?
ALVAREZ: I think very much so. I think the people who were chose or selected to stay behind know very well what consequences they may face.
O‘DONNELL: And typically are these people who have already been working in the plant or are they specialists who are brought in only for management of a crisis like this?
ALVAREZ: I think they are workers who have hands-on experience at the plant. There may be instances where they may require emergency responders, like firemen and the like, to come in as well.
O‘DONNELL: What is the likelihood that we will come to a spot in the management of this crisis where some workers will, in effect, be told we need you to go in now, but know if you go in now, this will be the last thing you do in your life?
ALVAREZ: I don‘t know. I don‘t know a clear cut answer to that. I don‘t think I can speculate.
But one thing I do know is that this is a situation that is not under control and seems to be slipping out of the hands of the control of the people that are wrestling mightily and, in some cases, heroically with this problem.
O‘DONNELL: Robert Alvarez with the Institute for Policy Studies, thank you very much for joining us.
ALVAREZ: Thank you for having me.
O‘DONNELL: In the Kansas Statehouse on Monday, State Representative Virgil Peck suggested that Kansas should deal with illegal immigrants the same way it does with wild hogs, by shooting them from a helicopter. That good Christian lawmaker and his homicidal suggestion of how to make this a better world gets tonight‘s Rewrite.
And later, the federal budget battle continues. Why did 54 Republicans vote against the short term funding bill to keep the government open, even though their leader, Speaker John Boehner, supported it? That‘s coming up.
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O‘DONNELL: Time for tonight‘s Rewrite. Kansas has a wild pig problem, and his name is Virgil Peck. One of the more successful methods used by the state of Kansas and the U.S. Department of Agriculture for shooting wild hogs is shooting them from a helicopter. When the spending for feral hog control—it‘s Kansas—the spending for feral hog control came up in the Kansas House Appropriations Committee on Monday, Republican Virgil Peck of Tyro (ph), Kansas, wondered allowed if shooting hogs from the sky was so effective, perhaps it would be equally effective to control illegal immigration in the same way.
Quote, “it looks like to me if shooting these immigrating feral hogs works, maybe we have found a solution to our illegal immigration problem.”
When he was first asked about that comment, he was unapologetic. “I was just speaking like a southeast Kansas person,” he said. He expected no controversy over the remark. “It‘s over,” he said.
He was wrong. Very wrong. Democratic State Representative Bob Grant of neighboring Cherokee said “I have no intention of letting Representative Peck brand me with his own extremist views just because I live in the same region.”
And State Representative Doug Gatewood of Columbus said “we want to make it absolutely clear to the people of southeast Kansas that we absolutely do not share Representative Peck‘s point of view.”
Then today, less than one hour after Republican Kansas Governor Sam Brownback said Mr. Peck should apologize, and the state Republican party director paid him a visit, Representative Peck issued this brave statement:
“my statements yesterday were regrettable. Please accept my apology.”
Apology not accepted. Some apologies require more than a piece of paper. Getting most apologies accepted usually actually requires that you somewhere use the words I‘m sorry, or I apologize. I invited Virgil Peck to come on the show and use those words in this segment tonight, and Rewrite himself.
But he never returned our repeated phone calls. The murder minded Mr. Peck, who delights in imaging unarmed men, women and children running along under helicopters as they are being shot dead in their tracks by good, Christian Kansas sharp shooters is, of course, pro-life. Sadly, he is not the only Kansan whose fidelity to the principle of pro-life ends at birth.
Everyone—everyone who Virgil Peck would be amused to see shot dead as they run across Kansas fields in fears of homicidal maniacs in helicopters was once a fetus. And when they were fetuses, Mr. Peck would spare no effort to protect them, no matter where they came from, no matter what papers they had or didn‘t have.
The God-fearing Christian man of principle, Virgil Peck, no doubt is -
his orders to the murderers in Kansas helicopters regarding any pregnant woman they found running across a Kansas field would surely have been aim for the head. We‘ve got to save that fetus.
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O‘DONNELL: Today, the House passed a three week funding bill that cuts six billion dollars from the federal budget and postpones the next possible government shut down to midnight, April 8th. The bill passed 271-158, with 54 Republicans voting against the Republican bill, despite Speaker John Boehner‘s support.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MIKE PENCE ®, INDIANA: I will not vote for the short-term continuing resolution that is coming to the floor of the House today to make that statement. Things don‘t change in Washington, you do what you have to do. It‘s time to pick a fight.
REP. JOHN BOEHNER ®, HOUSE SPEAKER: Listen, I understand some of our members want to do more. But what is it in this bill they disagree with? Nothing. Nothing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: Republicans voting against the bill generally feel like the overall spending cuts aren‘t moving fast enough, or they want to target specific items like Planned Parenthood, healthcare reform and environmental regulations sooner.
So it looks like the stage is now finally set for the real final show down in three weeks, when enough Republicans will probably refuse to vote for another continuing resolution and insist on tackling the rest of fiscal year 2011, which is where the tough work is. Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is already framing that debate in terms of core party values.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D), MINORITY LEADER: We are talking about trying to find middle ground. I think that that may not be enough. I think the debate is on a higher ground, not just middle ground, but on a higher ground of our values. It is not just about the dollars. It is about the values.
And again, we can cut in a way that does not undermine our values. It is not about—again about money, it is about the morality of what we are doing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: Democratic Congressman Colleen Hannabusa tied the budget crisis to the situation in Japan.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. COLLEEN HANNABUSA (D), HAWAII: Look at what we experienced in Hawaii, for example. There‘s a cut. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center has been cut. What does that mean? Look at all of you who are watching the news reports and how many of you relied on those reports? It is a cut.
Those are jobs. Those are essential jobs, not only for us in the states, but throughout the Pacific region. That is not how we build public confidence.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: Joining me now, budget geek Ezra Klein, a columnist for “the Washington Post.” Ezra, it is getting hard out there for a speaker of the House, now that we have a three party system in the House of Representatives, anyway.
EZRA KLEIN, “THE WASHINGTON POST”: It has. To be fair, this is about my values. It isn‘t about the lower, higher ground. But I think that—but Boehner is getting into a little trouble here. So before, 100 Democrats voted for the first one of these two week guys. Now 80 some did.
About four or six Republicans voted against the first one. Now more than 50 did. I don‘t think they have another temporary continuing resolution in them. But the question is has anybody moved even an inch towards a compromise?
I don‘t think you can look at this and really say they have. I think that, if anything, you see them moving further away from one, with a similar level of cuts engendering a larger amount of opposition.
O‘DONNELL: When Boehner gets rejected by 54 Republicans on the House floor, he knows that he has to come up with some other move that comes forward. What are his options?
KLEIN: That is the difficulty for John Boehner. To be fair, it strengthens his hand a bit. When you talk about a three party system, what the White House hears and Democrats hear and what the country, to some degree, gets is that John Boehner does not have control of his members.
That may not say great things about John Boehner‘s control of the House. But what it does say is that he has more leverage across the table, saying listen, you know that I can‘t just go make them do whatever you want them to do. So you‘re going to have to give me more to get them on board.
In terms of policy, that, at least from my perspective, is not likely to lead to great policy. In terms of what options he has, essentially he has the option of credibly threatening a shut down. The reason he can do it credibly is even though people know he doesn‘t want it, they also know he may not be able to prevent it.
O‘DONNELL: But in the older world of governing in these situations, say back during the Bush presidency, one of the decisions a Republican could make, as President Bush did at that time, was to work with Democrats. Boehner could walk over to the Democrats and say hey, I am losing my Tea Party guys. I can‘t put together a vote here on my side that will carry it.
So what do I have to do? What do I, John Boehner, have to do to move closer to you Democrats to find the compromise spot between the Republican party and the Democratic party. And by the way, in the process, ignoring the Tea Party?
KLEIN: I assure you Eric Cantor is hoping he does exactly that. I think the problem for Boehner is that Republicans have become very, very good at knocking off the people they consider, for one reason or another, heretics. They were very good in the previous election of taking down moderate Republicans, even when they weren‘t so moderate.
This year, we have Orrin Hatch looking embattled. Orrin Hatch used to be the gold standard of conservatism. Boehner knows that if he begins to move towards the Democrats, he will be kicked out of that leadership position very fast.
And Eric Cantor, who is a bit more of a hard liner, has very good relationships with the young freshmen who will be brought in. So again, John Boehner has very few good options here. But the problem is he knows a shutdown isn‘t going to be popular.
Polling released today shows that Barack Obama is trusted more on the deficit, that people believe the Republicans have been less willing to compromise than the Democrats, and also that a lot of these specific cuts they want to make are heavily, heavily unpopular.
So I don‘t think John Boehner is getting a particularly good night of sleep tonight, because he doesn‘t—he may have a strategy going forward, but I am not sure that he knows if it will work.
O‘DONNELL: There are a lot of cuts in here that are getting a lot of attention: NPR, different itemized cuts, Planned Parenthood. Those kind of things have been thrown around.
But my favorite for idiotic cut is the IRS. Workers at the IRS are the only people working in the government who actually make money for the government. They actually collect money. They collect more than they make in salaries like by gigantic multiples.
So we are going to go there to cut the fat out of the agency that actually collects the money in the first place. It gets stupider than that, but for me, not much stupider.
KLEIN: Republicans have been penny wise and pound foolish in a lot of these things. IRS, for ever dollar you spend on an auditor, you get 10 dollars back in revenues, revenues that were owed to the government, revenues people were dodging.
There are a lot of cuts like that. When you don‘t do maintenance on roads and bridges, that costs much more down the road because they crumble. It is cheap to fix something than to rebuild it from scratch.
When you cut the SEC, the Securities Exchange Commission, and you have another financial crisis, that is bad for spending.
So just because you‘re cutting spending doesn‘t mean government will spend less. You have to cut spending wisely, and their budget doesn‘t do that very well.
O‘DONNELL: Ezra Klein and I could talk budget all night. But we have to get out of the way for another show coming up here on MSNBC. Ezra Klein of the “Washington Post,” “Newsweek” and MSNBC, thanks for joining us tonight.
KLEIN: Thank you.
O‘DONNELL: You can have THE LAST WORD online at our blog, TheLastWord.MSNBC.com. Tomorrow night on the show, I will have an exclusive interview with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
“THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW” is up next.
END
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