Thom debates the week's hottest political topics among his guest panelists and interviews author and medical ethicist, Dr. Harriett Washington in Conversations with Great Minds.

In this week's Conversations with Great Minds Harriet A.Washington joins Thom. Her book Deadly Monopolies: The Shocking Corporate Takeover of Life Itself is an exposé of the medical industrial complex's rush to own and exploit the raw materials of human life - including your body tissue and DNA! Her book "Medical Apartheid" documents how people of color - particularly African Americans - have been subjected to everything from medical experimentation and vivisection to the denial of medical services from the days of slavery to today.

In this week's Conversations with Great Minds Harriet A.Washington joins Thom. Her book Deadly Monopolies: The Shocking Corporate Takeover of Life Itself is an exposé of the medical industrial complex's rush to own and exploit the raw materials of human life - including your body tissue and DNA! Her book "Medical Apartheid" documents how people of color - particularly African Americans - have been subjected to everything from medical experimentation and vivisection to the denial of medical services from the days of slavery to today.

Now - the new weapon of choice for police - as we're seeing so often used against peaceful Occupy Wall Street protesters is pepper spray. GOP TV aka Fox so-called News has been quick to defend pepper spray as...not being all that bad. The point of this is...pepper spray is a chemical weapon. It's more painful than getting tasered - and has far more long lasting effects than waterboarding, at least physically. Which might be why GOP TV talking heads are willing to praise its use from afar - but not willing to put their face in front of one of Lieutenant Pike's pepper spray cannisters. And until they do - until Hannity - or Megyn Kelly - or O'Reilly walk the walk - and take in a faceful of pepper spray - then they should hold off on making comments about how it's a legitimate use of force against the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Erikka Knuti, Democratic Strategist & Vince Coglianese, Daily Caller & Brian Darling, Human Events all join Thom Hartmann. And now Conservatives have employed Frank Luntz to fight OWS. Luntz said he's "frightened to death" of the movement - and called on Republicans to be careful with the words they use - So after ignoring, ridiculing, and fighting OWS - isn't it clear the movement is winning?? When did the Republican Party hand over the power to pick it's nominees to Rupert Murdoch? Turns out the Republican debate at the end of the month in Iowa will be hosted by none other than the Donald himself! In what will likely be the most-watched - and biggest train wreck of a debate so far - everyone is wondering just what kind of questions Donald Trump will ask the candidates?

Erikka Knuti, Democratic Strategist & Vince Coglianese, Daily Caller & Brian Darling, Human Events all join Thom Hartmann. And now Conservatives have employed Frank Luntz to fight OWS. Luntz said he's "frightened to death" of the movement - and called on Republicans to be careful with the words they use - So after ignoring, ridiculing, and fighting OWS - isn't it clear the movement is winning?? When did the Republican Party hand over the power to pick it's nominees to Rupert Murdoch? Turns out the Republican debate at the end of the month in Iowa will be hosted by none other than the Donald himself! In what will likely be the most-watched - and biggest train wreck of a debate so far - everyone is wondering just what kind of questions Donald Trump will ask the candidates?

Thom speaks with Think Progress reporter and blogger, Zaid Jilani about the Republican's increasing apprehension surrounding the nationwide occupy movements. He then debates a conservative commentator about the Republican's push for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program to make spending cuts...jeopardizing millions of low income families.

In the 1960's we were told that by the year 2000 - Americans would be living in a leisure society where our biggest problem would be how to manage all of our extra leisure time. So what went wrong?

Elizabeth Ben-Ishai, Public Citizen joins Thom Hartmann. Cash strapped schools around the country have turned to other methods to raise money, now that mostly Republican governors are slashing education budgets. For example - after Florida Governor Rick Scott slashed nearly $2 billion out of his state's education budget - the Miami-Dade County Public school system is having to sell advertising space to corporations so they can target school kids. Similar school advertising proposals are being negotiated in Georgia as well. In an open letter to the Douglas County Board of Education in Georgia - the organization Public Citizen blasted the decision to bring corporate advertising into the classroom writing, "We know your primary concern is to avoid shortchanging students as a result of budget cuts. However, subjecting children to even greater amounts of advertising is the wrong response. It will raise little revenue while undermining Douglas County's educational and child development mission. Educational institutions should promote civic virtue and the public good, not commercial values."

In this week's Geeky Science - new research shows that video games DO hurt your child's brain - but it might not be too late!

Amie Stepanovich, National Security Council-Epic joins Thom Hartmann. You might want to think twice about what you search for on the Internet and who you send a text message to on your new smartphone. That's because a piece of software - known as "Carrier IQ" - was recently discovered buried deep within millions of cell phones - including Nokia, Android, and RIM devices - that is tracking everything you type. A 25-year-old systems administrator in Connecticut named Trevor Eckhart discovered the existence of Carrier IQ while working on his HTC Evo phone. The software logs each keystroke a person makes, along with the person's location, and other data - and then sends the information back to Carrier IQ headquarters. As for what they do with the personal information...who knows?

Thom Hartmann's crazy alert.

The Good! Senator Tom Harkin. The Democrat from Iowa is telling his fellow Members of Congress to hold off on making plans for Christmas - at least until they do something for the millions of unemployed Americans and pass an extension of unemployment benefits. The Bad! Apple. Earlier this week - news broke that Apple's newest Iphone feature known as "Siri" - a voice assistant that helps users find information they need - appears to be bias against helping women find abortion services. And the very, very ugly...Jeremy Clarkson. Clarkson is the host of the BBC's most popular TV show known as "Top Gear" - a show primarily about cars. But yesterday - Clarkson went out of his area of expertise and talk about the massive labor strike that rocked the UK yesterday - and had some vile words to say about public workers.

David Selig, Conservative Commentator joins Thom . According to forecasts by the US Energy Information Administration - the price of heating the average home with oil this winter is expected to spike 10% to $2500 for the whole season. That's a 45% increase from just two years ago. There are more than 8 million homes in America that rely on oil for heating purposes - and roughly 1-in-4 in the Northeast. Unrest in the Middle East - and rampant speculation on Wall Street are to blame for the oil price spike - but the situation is about to get a lot worse for those dealing with the price hike. That's because earlier this year - thanks to Republicans demanding spending cuts - the LiHEAP program - or the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program - saw it's budget nearly cut in half this year - meaning more and more poor people won't be able stay warm in America during the winter. So why is it - when millionaires and billionaires have never had it better in America - that poor people could be put in danger of freezing to death this winter? Memo to Republican lawmakers - Somehow "Let them eat FROZEN cake!" just doesn't have the same ring to it!

Victoria Jones, White House Correspondent joins Thom Hartmann. One day after 2 million workers poured into the streets in the largest strikes Britain has seen in generations - people are returning to work - but there's still an uneasiness in the streets. As one protestor from yesterday - Ron Foulkes of the University and Colleges Union said, "This is just the opening round of the battle about what ordinary people have the right to expect from society. We need to be prepared to continue this struggle for as long as it takes." Meanwhile the coalition government of David Cameron of the Conservatives, and Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats, is pushing ahead with more planned austerity as though yesterday's massive strike never happened. Cameron even resorted to ridiculing the movement calling it a "damp squib" that was "irresponsible and damaging." So where is this headed now?