Neal Asbury, Conservative Talk Show Host joins Thom Hartmann for a debate. The core issue behind this ongoing debate between Democrats and Republicans in Washington boils down to just one thing: INEQUALITY.

Thom talks about Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's concise summary of conservative constitutionalism. Later in the show, Thom debate the issue of the GOP's refusal of raising the debt limit, Rupert Murdoch's hacking scandal and Medicare reform with his conservative guest panelists in the "Lone Liberal" rumble.

In last night's Daily Take - I said that I agree with Newt Gingrich when he said that the Supreme Court has to work under rules set by Congress; that Congress can limit the Court's powers; and that the court has taken onto itself the power to both shut down legislation and to create doctrine - like the ideas that corporations are persons and money is the same thing as speech. I pointed out that the Founders never intended - as you can read in Federalist 78 and Federalist 80 - for the Supreme Court to have jurisdiction over Congress and the President. The Supreme Court was beyond their Constitutional power when they handed George W. Bush the victory in 2000. They were beyond their Constitutional power every single time they struck down a law passed by Congress and signed by the President and - most importantly - every single time they created out of whole cloth new legal doctrines like "Separate but Equal" in Plessey versus Ferguson or "Corporations are people" with Citizen's United. If you want to see the whole thing, complete with the quotes from Hamilton and Jefferson, it's the July 12th, 2011 Daily Take on our YouTube page, and you can easily find it via thomhartmann.com. So - in response to yesterday's daily take, a number of people have posted messages over at thomhartmann.com and on youtube and other places asking a few questions about this. The first is, if the Supreme Court can't decide what is and what isn't Constitutional, then what is its purpose? What's it ...

Jared Polis, Bill O'Reilly and Kevin Brady.

Dr. David Ansell, author, County: Life, Death and Politics at Chicago's Public Hospital. Both Medicare and Medicaid remain on life support as lawmakers discuss MASSIVE cuts to the entitlement programs! Could the growing health inequality do more harm than good to the economy?

Lizz Winstead, Activist/Comedian joins Thom Hartmann. Republicans have taken off the gloves in their war against women...So why is the GOP so hell-bent on following the Taliban's path?

Brian Darling, Human Events & Heather Cirmo, Conservative Strategist join Thom for the Lone Liberal Rumble.

Alan Grayson, former/future Congressman (D-FL, 8th District) Joins Thom. Time keeps on ticking until our nation is no longer able to pay its bills. When will Republicans stop their charade - their defense of their billionaire patrons - and let our country get back to work? Did Senator McConnell miss the lecture in Civics 101 that explains elections as the first cornerstone of DEMOCRACY?

On this, Gingrich agrees with former President Thomas Jefferson - and most of the other founders of this country. Let's break it down. First, Newt's assertion that the Congress can pass laws that limit the powers and behavior of the Supreme Court. The Constitution, in Section Two of Article Three which establishes the Judiciary, does give Congress the power to define and limit what the Supreme Court can and can't do. Here's the exact language, "The Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make." Yes, that's what the Constitution says - in plain black and white. If Congress disagrees with - for example - the Citizens United decision or the Bush v. Gore meeting - they can simply pass a law that says that the Supreme Court has overstepped its authority and that's the end of that. Why, you may ask, did the Founders write it this way? The answer is really simple. They wanted the greatest power to be closest to the people - and Congress is up for election every two years. It's the body in our representative democratic republic that is closest to the people. It's where they wanted most of the power, which is why it's defined in Article One of the Constitution - the first among equals. As Thomas Jefferson wrote in an 1820 letter to Mr. Jarvis, who thought Supreme Court justices should have the power to strike down laws, "You seem to consider the judges the ultimate arbiters of ...

Sam Lane, Reporter - Minnesota Independent joins Thom Hartmann. It's said the states are the labs of democracy for the entire nation - and in the case of Minnesota we could be seeing where our national government is headed. Has Gov. Mark Dayton come out swinging on this shutdown going city to city blasting the Republican for the hardships & cuts to education, seniors & healthcare - while asking the wealthy to pay more?

Sen. Olympia Snow, AZ State Sen. Lori Klein and Speaker John Boehner.

Economist/Professor Richard Wolff joins Thom Hartmann talk about the economic troubles in Europe & America.

Adele Stan, Washington Bureau Chief - AlterNet joins Thom Hartmann. It now appears that the narrative of what we know so far about Murdoch's NewsCorp is that they targeted political enemies, lied to public officials in official investigations, bought the silence of troublesome employees and didn't disclosure of conflicts of interests. Doesn't this all demonstrate a culture of corruption? As outraged as British lawmakers and the public may be over this scandal right now - they may soon have to face the grim reality that very little may change in the media landscape as long as corporate profits trump journalistic integrity.

Gretchen Hamel, Executive Director- Public Notice joins Thom Hartmann. Since the Republicans, mostly Reagan, HW Bush and GW Bush ran up the debt - $9 trillion - why is it they don't want to pay the bill now? And, tragically, the unemployed are not only being forgotten in all this sturm und drang, their benefits are actually being cut in several states by Republican governors. Anything to ratchet up the pain Americans feel, so Mitch McConnell will get his wish that Obama is a one-term president.

Thom debates the executive director of Public Notice, Gretchen Hamel on why the GOP are intentionally refusing a compromise on raising the debt ceiling. Later in the show, he discusses the latest developments in the recall elections in Wisconsin.