Joshua Holland, Editor, AlterNet joins Thom Hartmann. The American people have spoken - and it's time Republicans AND Democrats listen. According to a new ABC/Washington Post poll - 62% of Americans want to see a balanced approach to raising the debt-limit that includes both spending cuts and revenue raises. And when it comes to what sort of revenue raises the American people want to see - the Republicans' heads are about to explode. A whopping 72% of Americans support raising taxes on people who make more than $250000 a year. Only 27% oppose. Not only that - large majorities of Americans also support: raising the Social Security tax cap - closing the hedge fund manager tax loophole - and cutting off taxpayer subsidies for big oil corporations. Curiously - none of these reforms are part of the Gang of Six deal that is now all the rage on Capitol Hill. So why isn't Congress doing what Americans want them to do - and that's just raise the debt-ceiling already - and get back to work creating jobs? And when it comes to creating jobs - can we once and for all agree that the real job creators aren't the millionaires and billionaires who are sitting on $2 trillion of corporate cash and not creating a single job - but instead the real job creators are working Americans who spend money and create demand?

Perhaps the most dangerous monopoly there is...is a media monopoly. Today - the UK is finding that lesson out the hard way. And it's a lesson we here in America need to take note of - because we're headed down the same road. Let's start with Italy though - a place where the power of a media monopoly is on display for the entire world to see with Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Berlusconi started out as a cruise boat lounge singer and small-time hustler. But then he bought a newspaper, then a small television station - and then a radio station - then another TV station - then a newspaper - then another radio station - then another TV station - then another newspaper - then a radio network - then a TV network - and suddenly Berlusconi ended up owning about 95 percent of the media seen in Italy. And with control of the information in Italy - Berlusconi jumped into politics and wouldn't you know it - he ended up being the Prime Minister of Italy. And despite the fact that Berlusconi has since been accused of everything from tax fraud - to false accounting - to corruption - to bribery - to perjury - to mafia collusion - to aiding terrorist organization - and most recently to participating in sex parties with underage prostitutes - Berlusconi is still in power as Prime Minister. He's the one of the most corrupt politicians in the world - and has overseen Italy's freedom of the press downgraded from "free" like the rest of Europe and the developed world - to only "partly-free ...

Eric Burns, former President-Media Matters for America, joins Thom Hartmann. What lessons can we learn from Murdoch-Gate on this side of the Atlantic?

Zaid Jilani, ThinkProgress.org, joins Thom Hartmann. Ten years ago - on August 1st, 2001 - the Associated Press ran this prophetic article just as President Bush was dishing out his first round of tax cuts Entitled, "US To Borrow Billions To Cover Tax-Refund Checks." History calling... And, so who - or what - is behind this new push by Republicans for a balanced budget amendment that makes it impossible to raise taxes on millionaires and billionaires?