Thom discusses a recent ABC/Washington Post poll and Gallup poll which reveals Americans are in favor of increasing tax hikes on the wealthy and are greatly concerned about job growth. Later in the show, Thom debates president of Less Government, Seton Motley on Governor Rick Scott's refusal to take government funds to help Florida's needy and abused children.

Last night - a man in Texas was executed. His name was Mark Stroman - and he was given a lethal injection by the state of Texas because he let himself get consumed with hate. 10 days after 9/11 - Stroman went on a shooting spree hell bent on killing as many Muslims as he could. On three separate nights he walked into Dallas gas stations with a shotgun -opening fire - killing two Muslim men - and shooting another man in the face. The third victim - Rais Bhuiyan - just barely survived the shooting. Bhuiyan will be partially blind for the rest of his life because of his injuries - but he wasn't interested in eye-for-an-eye justice. Why? Because his Muslim religion preaches forgiveness. All the way up until the day that Stroman was executed - Bhuyian petitioned the state of Texas to spare Stroman's life - launching a global petition to have his sentence commuted to life without parole. And Stroman took notice - he was struck by the compassion that was afforded to him by one of his victims - and he changed his ways. In a message to Rais BhuIyan from jail - Stroman said, "In the free world, I was free but I was locked in a prison inside myself because of the hate I carried in my heart...It is due to Rais' message of forgiveness that I am more content now than I have ever been." And last night - Stroman built on the message and used his final breath to issue these last words for us all to hear. He said, "Hate is going on in this world and it has to stop. Hate causes a lifetime ...

Herb Kohl, the Tea Party Nation and Brian Kilmeade

Seton Motley - President of Less Government, joins Thom. Children in Florida are screwed. Last year - Republicans in Florida leveled a 43% cut to their Healthy Families Florida program that provides assistance to expecting parents and newborns in an effort to curb child abuse and neglect. As a result of the cut - services were dropped to more than 3500 high-risk families - and more than 5000 children. But this year - Governor Rick Scott was given a life-line by the federal government to keep the program afloat - more than $8 million was available to Florida to continue home visitation services for at-risk children as part of the Affordable Care Act. But as you would expect from any diehard Republican nowadays - Rick Scott said no thank you to the funding because he has an ideological problem with "Obamacare." So is this what it comes down to for Republicans? - to hell with abused children - we need to take down the President?!

David Selig, Conservative Commentator joins Thom Hartmann. MurdochGate has officially crossed international time zones...into the US! NewsCorp has admitted to dishing out bribes for information...could Fox News become the next to crack? And now some people are beginning to connect the dots between NewsCorp - Fox News - and another hack job - the ClimateGate scandal of 2009.

Cliff Schecter, Progressive PR strategist, joins Thom Hartmann. Now that it's crystal clear what Republicans are up to - and that's crashing the economy before the 2012 elections to make President Obama look bad - why the heck is the President going along with the nefarious - and what some may call "treasonous" plot?

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?

Thom explains how the tax cuts implemented by President Bush ten years ago are the reason why the nation is in tremendous debt. Later in the show, the debates the latest debt ceiling developments, Rupert Murdoch's hacking scandal and media monopolies in the "Lone Liberal" rumble.

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 ...

Lisa Graves, Center for Media and Democracy joins Thom Hartmann. Meet the American Legislative Exchange Council - a corporate-funded right wing organization in charge of writing custom-made legislation to spread to Republican lawmakers across the country to push in their respective state legislatures - or in Congress itself. One of ALEC's hottest items - amendments that require super-majorities to pass any new tax increases. Already 16 states around the country have fallen victim to this supermajority rule including Arizona, California, and Colorado - and are now handcuffed by it when they are trying to close their respective budget gaps. So is that what ALEC is trying to do in Congress - deliver the death blow to our federal government's finances?

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?

Jamie Weinstein, Daily Caller & Daniel Halper, Weekly Standard join Thom Hartmann.

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?

Since Dwight Eisenhower left the presidency in 1961 - 5 different Republicans have been President of the United States. And every single one of them - from Richard Nixon to George W. Bush - have been illegitimate - ascending to the highest office in the land NOT through small-D democratic elections - but instead through fraud and treason. Don't believe me? Watch!

James Ridgeway, Senior Correspondent-Mother Jones Magazine, joins Thom Hartmann.