Aired 10/07/08 HARVEY WASSERMAN is one of the nation's experts on the GOP's efforts to shrink and steal the vote in 2000, 2002, and 2004. He'll give us an update on where we stand a month from the election, and what we can do to stop they from doing it again. HARVEY WASSERMAN is senior advisor to Greenpeace USA and the Nuclear Information & Resource Service, senior editor of www.freepress.org and author of several books, including SOLARTOPIA and co-authro with Bob Fitrakis of HOW THE GOP STOLE AMERICA'S 2004 ELECTION & IS RIGGING 2008 and AS GOES OHIO: ELECTION THEFT SINCE 2004.

Aired 10/07/08 DEAN BAKER is one of the smartest progressive economics thinkers and we talk about the economic crisis, the bailout, the election, and what we might expect from an Obama or McCain administration. DEAN BAKER is the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). http://www.cepr.net/index.php/dean-baker/ He is the author of THE CONSERVATIVE NANNY STATE: How the Wealthy Use the Government to Stay Rich and Get Richer (link). He also has a blog on the American Prospect http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/ where he discusses the media's coverage of economic issues.

Aired 09/30/08 The US spends over $2 trillion a year — over $6K per person — on health care, yet is the only major industrial nation without universal coverage. 47 million Americans live without health insurance, and 80% of them are from working families who either cannot afford insurance premiums or lose their insurance exactly when they need it most: when they fall ill and can no longer work. Despite spending 50% more on health care than any other country in the world, America ranks 15th in preventable death, 24th in life expectancy, and 28th in infant mortality. The struggles of the four families profiled in CRITICAL CONDITION by ROGER WEISBERG ("Waging a Living," P.O.V. 2006) put a human face on the nation's growing health care crisis. They discover that being uninsured can cost you your job, your health, your home, your savings, even your life.

Aired 09/23/09 THOMAS FRANK, founding editor of The Baffler and a contributing editor at Harper's, is The Wall Street Journal's newest weekly columnist. He is the author of WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH KANSAS?, THE CONQUEST OF COOL, ONE MARKET UNDER GOD, and his newest, THE WRECKING CREW. THOMAS FRANK in THE WRECKING CREW: "We can now say of that philosophy which regards good government as a laughable impossibility, which elevates bullies and gangsters and CEOs above other humans, which tells us to get wise and stop expecting anything good from Washington - we can now say with finality that it has had its chance. Whenever there was a choice to be made between markets and free people - between money and the common good - the conservatives chose money. It's time to make them answer for it." www.tcfrank.com

I'd heard of Dr. Bacevich and read some op-eds, but as soon as I saw into his interview a few weeks back with Bill Moyers, I knew I had to talk with him. The next day when I looked at Barnes and Noble for his book I was surprised and pleased that it had jumped to #1 in sales. I believe Andrew Bacevich in his new book pulls things together in ways that I hadn't seen before. Things like our politics of personality, the rise of the imperial presidency, and our national culture of consumption and how all of those link to our military adventures. I say each week that I'm looking for pieces of the puzzle, and I believe today's guest is pulling some of them together in ways that make our problems clearer and change more possible. ANDREW BACEVICH, professor of history and international relations at Boston University, served twenty-three years in the U.S. Army, retiring with the rank of colonel. He also lost his son in Iraq last year. A graduate of the U. S. Military Academy, he received his Ph. D. in American Diplomatic History from Princeton University. His writing has appeared in Foreign Affairs, the Atlantic Monthly, the Nation, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the Wall Street Journal. He is the author several books, including THE NEW AMERICAN MILITARISM and his newest, THE LIMITS OF POWER: The End of American Exceptionalism