Two days after the debt limit deal the Dow Jones takes a major dive. Thom talks to economist Max Fraad Wolff about these uncertain financial times and who's really to blame for the stock markets crashing. Republicans have learned to play hostage takers. This time they've partially shut down the FAA. Paul Rinaldi, President of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, talks about how politics is affecting thousands of union workers and the country. Then the shadowy, non-profit organization known as ALEC is meeting with movers and shakers in New Orleans. Reporter and blogger, Lee Fang, discusses his rough encounter with officials and what's happening at the ALEC convention. Then Thom explains the link between water, evolution and the first great migration in the new Geek Science segment. Plus talking turkey gets heated on tonight's show.

Since President Obama gave in to the demands of Republican hostage takers during the debt-limit debate - Republicans will use the same, "give us what we want or we'll pull the trigger" tactic over and over and over again.

"Your Take - My Take" is YOUR chance to send in your questions, comments, rants and observations about anything we talk about here on The Big Picture or during my radio show. And it's my chance to give you my take on it one more time.

Regular listeners of my radio show are familiar with the Geeky Science segment I've been doing for 8 years - my chance to share what I think is a REALLY interesting science story each week. Science News is reporting this week that stone age human ancestors living in South Africa's Pinnacle Point may have learned to keep track of the tides in order to harvest shellfish and that their access to this food source - which is brain food extraordinaire - may have played an important role in human evolution. Archaeologists from Arizona State University have found artifacts in a cave in South Africa that attest to complex thinking and behavior, including lunar literacy and ritual activities. These findings challenge the long-standing view that Stone Age people did not think abstractly and perform complex rituals until about 50000 years ago.

Don't eat the turkey! Giant, transnational agribusiness corporation Cargill announced yesterday that it is recalling 36 million pounds of contaminated ground turkey - that has killed at least one person and sickened 76 others across 26 states. Cargill is just now announcing the recall even though the outbreak started back in March. Coincidentally - back in June - House Republicans passed legislation that gutted the federal food safety budget - slashing $87 million from the FDA - and another $35 million from the USDA's food safety inspection programs. As Republican Congressman Jack Kingston said in defending the bill, "The food supply in America is very safe because the private sector polices itself." Right - go tell that to the family of the person who died or the scores sickened from Cargill's contaminated turkey. Or tell it to the other 50 MILLION Americans who get sick from food-borne illness every year - or the 3000 other Americans who DIE every year because of contaminated food. So isn't this a wakeup call? Isn't the idea of food producers policing themselves just as absurd as the idea of Wall Street or big oil policing themselves? Here to throw his two-cents into this debate is Seton Motley - President of Less Government

Alan Simpson, Eric Cantor and Frank Gaffney

Lee Fang, Reporter / Blogger - Think Progress joins Thom to talk about being dragged out of the conference. The shadowy, non-profit organization known as ALEC is up to its old tricks.. this time in New Orleans, and for the first time with people looking over its shoulder.

Republicans have learned to play hostage taker...while sitting by the pool on vacation. The FAA partial-shutdown is now in its 12th day - leaving 4000 FAA workers furloughed - another several thousand FAA safety inspectors working without paid overtime or expenses - and over 70000 construction workers without a job as $2.5 billion worth of airport infrastructure projects are on hold without funding - all because Republicans wanted to turn a routine FAA funding bill into a weapon for their war against unions. And it looks like once again - they'll get everything they want - for now. Today - Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said a deal has been reached to restore funding to the FAA at least through the middle of September - but then the debate will continue. In a statement - Reid said, "This agreement does not resolve the important differences that still remain. But I believe we should keep Americans working while Congress settles its differences, and this agreement will do exactly that." Those differences Reid mentioned centers on provision to eliminate subsidies to rural airports in Democratic districts - something that Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood assured Democrats he can waive moving forward. But the real hold up in the FAA funding bill is about unions. Republicans slipped a provision into the bill that makes it harder for federal air and rail workers to unionize - knowing that the Senate would have a difficult time passing it. This new deal reached today ...

Two days after a debt-limit deal that was supposed to calm fragile markets was signed into law - the Dow Jones plummeted more than 500 points today. The 512-point drop was the worst the market has seen since October of 2008 - right in the middle of the financial crisis. And today's loss caps off a 10% drop in the market over the last ten days - erasing all the gains made so far this year. As for a reason behind the market dosedive today...pick one! Between fears over tomorrow's release of new unemployment numbers - a spreading financial crisis in Europe - and a debt-limit deal that economists are predicting will shrink the economy and kill 1.8 million jobs - investors have plenty of reason to worry about what is increasingly looking like a bear market. Remember John Boehner said he got 98% of what he wanted in the debt-limit deal? So I guess we can pile 98% of the economic calamity we're hurdling toward at the feet of the Republican Party. For more on why the stock market is crashing - and what the economic future looks like with Tea Party Republicans steering the ship of state via hostage-taking politics - Thom is joined by Max Fraad Wolff - Economist at The New School University Graduate Program in International Affairs - and Huffington Post Blogger.

Thom sits down with Democratic Congresswoman Donna Edwards to discuss the Democrats recent loss in the debt deal debate. Then Thom takes on two conservatives in the Lone Liberal Rumble. Discussions include the economy, job creation, the manufacturing industry, the GOP shutdown of the FAA and the Koch brothers election tampering in Wisconsin. Also in tonight's show author, Sam Pizzigati, joins Thom to talk about inequality in America and which former president Barack Obama should turn to for political advice. And freelance journalist and author, Sanjiv Bhattacharya, talks about how the polygamy trial of Warren Jeffs could potentially affect two Republican Presidential candidates. Plus Thom's daily take focuses on what Progressives need to do now to influence the Democratic party.

I have a mission for you - and it's not impossible. Progressives shouldn't just be FIGHTING the Tea Party - we should be LEARNING from the Tea Party too. No - not learning from their bizarro economics - or selfish morality - or destructive idealism - but instead learning from how they took control of the Republican Party and forced the entire Conservative establishment to lurch so far to the Right that they've even dumped people like David Frum. If progressives hope to have any shot at influencing today's Democratic Party - and kicking out the corporate Blue Dog Democrats and replacing them with real-deal progressives - then we need to get to work right now - and do exactly what the Tea Party did a year and a half ago to take power. And it starts in our own backyards. Let me introduce you to the Concord Project - a right-wing organization in charge of getting out the vote for Republicans. Last year - the Concord Project expanded their get out the vote strategy beyond just traditional phone banking - canvassing - and putting up "vote Republican" signs - they decided to infiltrate local politics by encouraging Tea Partiers to become Precinct Committeemen.

With Sanjiv Bhattacharya, writer/journalist/editor / US correspondent for Esquire UK. Two of the Republican Party's presidential candidates are Mormons, and a new lawsuit in Utah seeks to decriminalize polygamy for Mormons, whose sacred texts some interpret as recommending multiple wives for a man to get into heaven. Mitt Romney's great-grandfather had four wives, and his great-great grandfather apparently had 30 wives. And speaking of polygamous Mormons, today is day eight of the Warren Jeffs trial in Texas. Jeffs is the leader of the Mormon polygamist sect known as the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints - and he is charged with sexually assaulting two underage girls by raping - he called it marrying - a 12-year-old and impregnating a 15-year-old. Today - Prosecutors played for jurors a 21-minute sex tape Jeffs had recorded - allegedly featuring Jeffs and the 12-year-old girl. Toward the end of the tape - after what sounds like heavy panting - Jeffs is heard saying, "In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen," To which the 12-year-old - echoed, "Amen." The prosecution then rested its case - and the attention now turns to Jeffs to mount a defense...all on his own - because he fired his entire legal team on Friday - when he decided to defend himself by sermonizing to the jury - and justifying the religious tenets of his church. So what is it exactly that motivates Jeffs and other polygamist Mormons - and what could this trial mean for their community? With ...

Thom Hartmann's crazy alert.

Nancy Pelosi, Gretchen Carlson and Herman Cain.

With Sam Pizzigati, Associate Fellow Inequality and the Common Good - Institute for Policy Studies. As we speak right now - 46 million Americans are on food stamps. Combine that with soaring poverty numbers and soaring unemployment numbers - and we see a pretty grim picture of the American working and middle class. And yet - as we just saw in this debt-limit debate - it is precisely these people who are suffering around the nation - and who will bear the brunt of deficit reduction. Not the billionaire hedge fund manager who pays a lower tax rate than his secretary - not the billion dollar oil corporation that is raking in more profits than any corporation in the history of the world but still gets billions in taxpayer subsidies - and not the billionaire corporate jet owner who pays lower taxes than normal jet owners. Republicans - and half the Democrats in Congress - let these oligarchs off the hook - even though the richest Americans today have seen their tax contributions drop to a 50-year low. President Obama still wants us to believe that the "Super Congress" Gang Of Twelve in charge of finding another $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction in November will make the necessary tough choices to raise taxes on millionaires and billionaires - but as Speaker of the House John Boehner told CBS - there's not a chance. But just like last December - the billionaires in America dodged another tax bullet. So how long can our economy - with growing wealth inequality creating a whole ...