Aired 10/28/08 The economy is in crisis. Unemployment is rising. Families are hurting. Despite recent drops in oil prices, the days of cheap gas and oil are gone forever. Climate change calls for massive changes in the way we supply and use energy. Today’s guest sees that these crises are connected and believes that together they present an enormous opportunity. VAN JONES, a young, dynamic, charismatic, optimistic, solutions-oriented African American with an Ivy League law degree – boy that sounds familiar -- is the founder and president of GREEN FOR ALL and author of THE GREEN COLLAR ECONOMY A new report just released by the U.S. Conference of Mayors says that we can create over 4 million green jobs if we aggressively shift away from traditional fossil fuels toward alternative energy and a significant improvement in energy efficiency. Another report just released by the Political Economy Research Institute and the Center for American Progress shows that the U.S. can create two million jobs over two years by investing $100 billion in a green economic recovery plan. The report also shows that this investment would create four times more jobs than spending the same amount of money within the oil industry. Green For All and its partners are proposing a Clean Energy Corps that includes a revolving loan fund to finance the ambitious retrofitting of the nation's building stock. An investment of less than $3 billion per year would provide financing and can be expected to create close to 120,000 green jobs a year and 600,000 over five years, while also lowering home heating and electricity bills for homeowners and small businesses. VAN JONES is the founder and president of GREEN FOR ALL, a national advocacy organization based in Oakland, California, committed to building an inclusive, green economy - strong enough to lift millions of people out of poverty. Van also co-founded the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and Color of Change, both committed to equal justice and opportunity for low-income people and people of color. Van has earned many honors, including the 1998 Reebok International Human Rights Award; the International Ashoka Fellowship; selection as a World Economic Forum “Young Global Leader;” the Rockefeller Foundation “Next Generation Leadership” Fellowship; and Campaign for America’s Future “Paul Well­stone Award 2008.” Van is a Senior Fellow with Center for American Progress. His first book, THE GREEN COLLAR ECONOMY is a New York Times best-seller.

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