Richard Eskow, Campaign for America's Future joins Thom Hartmann. Tonight - led by the Tea Partiers in the Republican Party - the House of Representatives is expected to vote down a 2-month extension of the payroll tax cut for 160 million Americans. It was an extension agreed on by both Republican and Democratic Senators - one that was approved by the White House - and one that Boehner himself supported when it initially passed on Saturday. Shortly after though - his Tea Party Republicans went into revolt. They're unhappy that the plan is only a 2-month extension - and unhappy that a lot of the far right-wing goodies had been stripped out of the bill in the Senate. So, Tea Party Republicans voted to screw-over 160 million Americans tonight with a $1000 tax hike that kicks in in two weeks, and is ONLY paid by people making less than $106000 a year. You can call it the "Tea Party Tax Increase"

Debunking the latest myth about the men who ratified the American Constitution.

In this week's Conversatiosn with Great Minds - Thom Hartmann is joined by Professor Frances Fox Piven who envisioned the 99 percent movement over a year ago. For the past thirty years - she has been a professor of political science and sociology at the Graduate Center at The City University of New York. She gained notoriety for an article she co-wrote with sociologist Richard Cloward in 1996 that advocated increased enrollment in social welfare programs in order to collapse the dysfunctional parts of that system and force reforms - leading to a guaranteed annual income. This political strategy is now known as the "Cloward-Piven strategy" and has been a hot topic of discussion in recent years. Professor Piven has served as the President of the American Sociological Association and is currently an honoray chair of the Democratic Socialists of America. And she is one of the people responsible for the fact that you can now register to vote at the DMV - In 1983 she co-founded Human SERVE, an organization with the goal of increasing voter registration by linking vehicle registration with access to social services and voting. Human SERVE's initiative was incorporated into the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 - more commonly known as the "Motor Voter Bill" - and signed into law by President Bill Clinton. In addition to numerous scholarly articles, Professor Piven is the author of a dozen books - the latest being "Who's Afraid of Frances Fox Piven?: The Essential Writings ...

Political Science professor and author of "Who's Afraid of Frances Fox Piven?: The Essential Writings of the Professor Glenn Beck Loves to Hate", Frances Fox Piven joins Thom for the first half hour for Conversations with Great Minds. Later in the show, Thom discusses the last minute budget deal which avoided a government shutdown and the Iowa GOP Presidential candidate debate in the weekly rumble.