Where is this famous peace process? Does it exist? Is peace even a process to begin with? We asked blogger and author Antony Loewenstein and author and co-founder of The Electronic Intifada, Ali Abunimah about how the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is reported, what is the role of new media, and how can this start its own viral uprising, independent of mass media banter.

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Black joins us via Skype from Kansas City, where he's professor of Economics and Law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, to break down the problems with the financial reform bill and make the case for Warren as the only way for real consumer protection.

We constantly hear about the size of the military budget, what percentage it is of our spending, what it did to the deficit. But numbers that large can simply become numbing. It's hard to fathom billions. So when Paris studio Moustache created this short film attempting to visualize the amount spent on war, we knew we had to share it with you.

Peace process, proximity talks, one state, two state...though these terms are often tossed around the mass media coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, they have been rendered virtually meaningless. Instead, we see footage of Benjamin Netanyahu and Barack Obama shaking hands, waxing eloquently on the need for mutual peace as the US simultaneously slips Israeli more tax dollars to further cement their occupation of Palestine. A just peace indeed.

Where is this famous peace process? Does it exist? Is peace even a process to begin with? We asked blogger and author Antony Loewenstein and author and co-founder of The Electronic Intifada, Ali Abuminah about how the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is reported, what is the role of new media, and how can this start its own viral uprising, independent of mass media banter.

Finally, Laura has some thoughts about Top Secret America: the unlimited budget for contractors and the constant cuts for kids.

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Jon Liss, Executive Director of Tenants and Workers United, joins us in the studio to describe organizing in Virginia –primarily how to recycle coalition-forming tactics that made history by turning a red state blue during the last election.

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Jon Liss, Executive Director of Tenants and Workers United, joins us in the studio to describe organizing in Virginia –primarily how to recycle coalition-forming tactics that made history by turning a red state blue during the last election.

Branch Brook Park roller rink, located in Newark, NJ, is one of the few remaining urban rinks of its kind. Serving extremely diverse subcultures within Newark, this space is a microcosm of the city that surrounds it. This film will follow three characters from distinct groups that use the space; a Skate Dancer, a Gospel Skater, and a Roller Derby Girl. Despite their differences in race, class, religion, and sexuality, these skaters are united by the rink, which serves as a refuge from the stress of their lives.

Newark is currently experiencing a 'renaissance', but it is unclear who this renaissance is actually meant to benefit. The rink stands in symbolic and visual opposition to the pervasive, inflexible and false notions attached to the city of Newark.

The Rink is directed and produced by GRITtv's own Sarah Friedland and Ryan Joseph, and you can contribute to finishing the film at Kickstarter.

Those poor oil executives have just been working themselves to death trying to maintain their public image after that completely unfair blame they're facing for those oil spills--not just in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska, but around the world. Our friends at Greenpeace came up with a product just for them, a handy way to cover-I mean clean up the spill in record time and keep people buying those oil products! Check it out.

Finally, this week, Harvey Pekar, revolutionary comics author and subject of the award-winning film American Splendor (based on his comics by that name) passed away at age 70.  Anne Elizabeth Moore worked with Pekar on The Best American Comics and shares what he and his work meant to her.

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Maya Wiley joins Laura in studio to discuss the NAACP's call for the Tea Party to renounce racism from within its ranks, the desperate need for a jobs bill, and more.

Last week, a jury in Oakland ruled that the shooting death of Oscar Grant was involuntary manslaughter: Johannes Mehserle, the Bay Area Rapid Transit officer who shot Grant, they decided, was reaching for his taser, not his gun and did not mean to kill the young African-American man. But the statistics on police shootings of young men of color tell a different story: this happens too often to be an accident.

Rosa Clemente, former Green Party Vice-Presidential candidate and hip-hop activist, and James Rucker, co-founder of Color of Change, join Laura to talk about the aftermath of the verdict, what justice for Oscar Grant would look like, and why it's a bigger problem than one officer's jail sentence--or lack thereof.

Thanks to our friends at ColorLines for the video used in this segment.

Finally, Don't Ask Don't Tell repeal has been promised for a while, but the Pentagon's $4.5 million survey of servicemembers' attitudes doesn't seem to signal any steps closer. Laura has some thoughts.

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LGBT voters came out and contributed en masse to Barack Obama's campaign. A year ago, he promised them action on, among other things, repeal of the military's discrimination policy, Don't ask Don't Tell.  This May it seemed as if they'd won. To much ballyhoo, on the eve of a war appropriation vote, the White House announced what sounded like repeal.

Now half the LGBT community thinks Don't Ask Don't Tell is already repealed, Miriam Perez of Feministing told GRITtv recently.

Except what the President actually announced wasn't repeal. It was a compromise that opened the way for a vote on repeal if a Pentagon working group, the President, the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs all approved such a thing.

Now it turns out that 400,000 service members are going to have their say as well.

As the jobless go with nothing and school libraries are shut up tight for lack of cash, we the taxpayers have, it turns out, paid a research firm  some $4.4 million to send an email-survey  to 400,000 troops.

Leaked copies include the following questions: "If a wartime situation made it necessary for you to share a room, berth or field tent with someone you believe to be a gay or lesbian service member, what are you likely to do?" (The survey offers options.) "If Don't Ask Don't Tell is repealed and you are assigned to bathroom facilities with open bay showers with a gay or lesbian service member, would you: Take no action? Use shower at different time?"

There's also a question asking service members, if a gay or lesbian member moved into military housing with a same-sex partner, would they pick up their family and move out.

There's no question about how troops feel about serving under Don't Ask Don't Tell (of course.)

And -- no question, this is a first. No one surveyed the troops when it was time to desegregate. No one surveyed male soldiers about allowing women in. When it came to school desegregation, the Supreme Court didn't survey white kids. In fact it's impossible to imagine such a thing.

About as impossible as imagining that LGBT campaign contributors will be doling out much cash to Democratic candidates this fall.

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Norman Finkelstein joins us in the studio to report that one should judge the alleged "peace process" with results, not rhetoric. Obama has certainly given enough lip service to settlement moratoriums, proximity talks, and direct talks, but what are the results? Since the Oslo Accords in 1993, there are three times as many settlers and Israel has annexed 42% of Palestinian land for even more expansion. Though Obama waxes eloquently about "direct negotiations," there are no signs of Israel withdrawing to the 1967 borders that would only begin to indicate a successful peace process.

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Norman Finkelstein joins us in the studio to report that one should judge the alleged "peace process" with results, not rhetoric. Obama has certainly given enough lip service to settlement moratoriums, proximity talks, and direct talks, but what are the results?

The Obama administration set up a clash with Arizona over the state's immigration bill, SB 1070, this week when it filed suit in federal court claiming that the law is a breach of federal authority.  The law goes into effect later this month and would allow law enforcement officials to stop anyone on suspicion of being undocumented.

In the wake of SB 1070's passage, states around the country have initiated copycat bills and other legislation aimed at cracking down on immigration. But in addition to the Holder Justice Department's lawsuit, progressive state legislators are fighting back on the state level, and activists are pushing for commonsense immigration bills on both a state and federal level. We are joined by Arizona state legislator Kyrsten Sinema and Suman Raghunathan of the Progressive States Network to discuss the ongoing fight.

Finally, inspired by the film Winter Bone, Laura has some thoughts about the military, the economy, and what happens when we bring home thousands of soliders in need of new jobs.

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Expressing political redemption through semi-spiritual language, Walter Mosley joins us in the studio to discuss the late West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd’s varied career, quite possibly one of redemption. Byrd was known for shifting his politics in accordance with his country and his constituency; while he once filibustered the Civil Rights Act, he also vehemently spoke out against the Iraq war and executive power. Should he be credited for his progress and “redemption”, or should his constituents?

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Dean Baker is part of a Nation forum on inequality that will be posted Thursday - featuring Robert Reich, Orlando Patterson, Jeff Madrick, Dean Baker, Katherine Newmann and Matt Yglesias. It looks at the widening inequality gap in the recession and under President Obama, and at possible solutions.

Media coverage of this week's G20 summit focused on "violent" protests and police crackdowns, and reporters Brandon Jourdan and Beka Economopoulos certainly found themselves in the middle of the conflict--Jourdan, as well as Jesse Freeston of The Real News network, were attacked outside of the summit.

But amid the chaos, Jourdan and Economopoulos found a renewed bond between labor activists and environmentalists, all struggling for green jobs. They submitted this report for GRITtv.

“Redemption is looking at ourselves, asking what we can do better instead of blaming our leaders,” says Walter Mosley,  author and columnist for the Nation Magazine. “We can’t look to corporate media for our answers,” he continues, “we have to look to ourselves.”

Expressing political redemption through semi-spiritual language, Walter Mosley joins us in the studio to discuss the late West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd’s varied career, quite possibly one of redemption. Byrd was known for shifting his politics in accordance with his country and his constituency; while he once filibustered the Civil Rights Act, he also vehemently spoke out against the Iraq war and executive power. Should he be credited for his progress and “redemption”, or should his constituents?

Since their arrest last July by Iranian forces near the Iraq border, three Americans — Shane Bauer, Josh Fattal and Sarah Shourd— have been at the center of a diplomatic struggle between Tehran and Washington.  Esther Kaplan is Editor at the Investigative Fund at the Nation Institute and has worked closely with Shane Bauer in the past.  This week, the Investigative Fund and The Nation broke the story that the detained hikers were most likely arrested in Iraqi territory, not in Iran.

Esther gives us her thoughts on the ongoing fight to win the hikers' freedom and the role of investigative journalism in the matter.

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