Jeff Cohen, Founder of FAIR, joins Thom Hartmann. With this debt-limit fiasco nearing a conclusion now - one has to wonder just where it came from to begin with? The debt-limit had been raised over 100 times before now - and more often than not it was raised via a non-controversial one sentence piece of legislation that just erased the old debt-limit and wrote in a new one. But that's not how things worked out this time. Instead - we were all told there was a debt crisis. And for the last month or so - the REAL crisis facing America - our lack of jobs - took a back seat to this manufactured crisis of the debt-limit. A Gallup poll taken a few weeks ago showed that a majority of Americans - 58% - agreed that jobs and the economy should be issue number one - whereas only 16% of Americans thought the debt was issue number one. But the media thought differently. Last week - cable news outlets mentioned the words "unemployed" and "unemployment" 502 times. But they mentioned the word "debt" 7583 times. I guess it's pretty easy to believe there is a crisis when that's all the news is covering. But creating the crisis isn't the only ONLY role the media played in this debt-limit debate - they also created the solutions

Jane Hamsher, www.firedoglake.com, joins Thom Hartmann. In this debt-limit debate we witnessed far-right wing terrorists within the Republican Party - Members of Congress that even Vice President Joe Biden admitted acted like terrorists - threaten America with total economic destruction if they didn't get EVERYTHING they wanted in a debt-limit deal. And as we near the end - it looks like they'll get damn near everything they asked for. That's trillions in spending cuts - without one penny in tax increases on billionaire hedge fund managers - subsidized billion dollar oil corporations - and subsidized billionaire corporate jet owners. It's as though the president was totally unprepared for this assault by the Republicans. But it's not as if he wasn't warned that they were planning to play hostage-takers.

Renowned director and filmmaker, Tom Shadyac joins Thom for the first half hour of "Conversations with Great Minds". They discuss how his love for film-making and how a very difficult experience led him to make a seminal documentary about some of the biggest challenges facing the world. In the second half of the show, Thom discusses the House's decision to pass Speaker Boehner's budget plan in the Weekly Rumble.

The corporations created a monster. That monster is a group of ideologues who've wormed their way into Congress - and now have the power to take down our entire economy and condemn all of us to a second Great Depression. Make no mistake about it - we have an established Third Party in Congress today for the first time in over 100 years - the Tea Party zombies. It's a third party based in political naivete - irresponsible idealism - and corrupted morality. It's a third party that thinks compromise is a bad word - that thinks if they yell and threaten enough they can get the Democratically-controlled Senate and White House to bend to their will. It's a party that thinks it's on a mission to crash the economy - thus setting the stage to drastically remake America and trash the New Deal-economics that have created the last century's prosperity - and replace it with a libertarian free-market that has defined the last century of, for example, Somalia. It's a third party that believes in morality - that the poor - the sick - and the elderly should be condemned to death - that the socially safety net - one of the greatest accomplishments of modern man - is evil. Do you know why John Boehner had to pull his debt-limit plan off the floor? It's because the Tea Party went nuts over Pell Grants. As in-no-way-no-how will they support a bill that helps students go to college. We can no longer believe that the Tea Party is controlled by Republicans - the Tea Party is on its own now ...

Thom is joined by Vince Cogliaese, The Daily Caller, Joe Madison, The Joe Madison Show & Brian Darling, the Heritage Foundation for the Big Picture Rumble - where he debates the week's biggest stories with a panel of expert political commentators. Tonight's topics include the debt, WI Voter ID, Christian terrorism and more.

Tom Shadyac Joins Thom Hartmann. He has been a director - a producer - a screenwriter - an actor - and a comedian. His movies are some of the most widely-recognized films in the last few decades - from the "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective" series - to the "Nutty Professor" movies - to "Liar, Liar" and "Bruce Almighty." In his most recent film - "I am" he takes us on a journey in search of the nature of humanity - and what it means to live a truly fulfilling life on this planet - a topic we'll definitely get into. Currently - he is a professor of communications - and teaches screenwriting at Pepperdine Univeristy's Seaver college.

Tom Shadyac Joins Thom Hartmann. He has been a director - a producer - a screenwriter - an actor - and a comedian. His movies are some of the most widely-recognized films in the last few decades - from the "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective" series - to the "Nutty Professor" movies - to "Liar, Liar" and "Bruce Almighty." In his most recent film - "I am" he takes us on a journey in search of the nature of humanity - and what it means to live a truly fulfilling life on this planet - a topic we'll definitely get into. Currently - he is a professor of communications - and teaches screenwriting at Pepperdine Univeristy's Seaver college.

Thom talks about the latest debt ceiling developments with political pundit Karen Finney and author, Neil Howe. Later in the show, he breaks down how Ross Perot's prediction of Free Trade's negative effects on America is partly the cause of the nation's economic crisis.

Bryan Fischer, American Family Association. In the wake of the Norway shootings - what is the Department of Homeland Security doing to keep America safe from domestic terror threats? Turns out...not much. Why? Because they only have one guy in the ENTIRE Department of Homeland Security in charge of domestic terrorism - just one guy! After right-wingers blasted a 2009 DHS report that warned of the threat of domestic terror - DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano caved - and downsized the entire domestic terrorism unit until there was just one guy left - again - just one guy overseeing all the domestic terror threats in the country. Meanwhile - everyone else at DHS is looking into Islamic terror threats which doesn't make sense according to the FBI's own data about terrorism in the United States.

Neil Howe, co-author of "The Fourth Turning." While what's going in Washington may SEEM like run-of-the-mill dysfunctional politics that we've all gotten used to - the reality is - we could be watching something much, much bigger unfolding. Something bigger than Speaker Boehner - something bigger than Harry Reid - and something even bigger than President Obama. This debt-limit fiasco might actually be the start of a crisis in America unlike any this nation has ever seen since the Great Depression or even the Civil War. Thom Hartmann is joined by Neil Howe - President & Co-Founder of Lifecourse Associates & the author of eight books including the one I want to talk about tonight, "The Fourth Turning."

Thom Hartmann & Democratic Strategist Karen Finney talk about the Speaker John Boehner, the debt, and the 14 Amendment.

So raise the damn debt-ceiling - and get on with addressing the real crisis in America - the crisis created by our insane so-called Free Trade policies and treaties, and greedy corporate CEOs with too much power.

"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.

Thom talks about the Republican's plan attempts to comprise a decent budget plan with Congressman Peter DeFazio. Later in the show, he debates the issue with his conservative panel in the "Lone Liberal" Rumble.

Thom Hartmann's daily take.