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Digital technology was touted as a huge saver on costs and solution for ills during the health care reform debate. That bill has pssed, but is digital technology actually helping? In the Mississippi delta, there's a long history of low-income people suffering medical mistreatment. The Huffington Post Investigative Fund looked into it to see if the new tech was helping or hurting.

Finally, Laura has some words about the Obama adminsitration's once again rolling over on its own in fear of Glenn Beck--this time, over Agriculture Department official Shirley Sherrod.

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Parenti joins us in studio to point out that if the U.S. post office switched to electric cars, that subsidy alone would bring down the price and create infrastructure for the rest of the country. He also talks Bill Gates, more green technologies, and the war in Afghanistan.

Across the United States, the brutal and dysfunctional juvenile justice system sends queer youth to prison in disproportionate numbers, fails to protect them from violence and discrimination while they're inside and to this day condones attempts to turn them straight.

So wrote Daniel Redman in a terrifying new article in The Nation this week, where he investigated the treatment of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth in the juvenile justice system. Redman joins us via Skype, along with Gabrielle Prisco of the Juvenile Justice Project at the Correctional Association of New York, to talk about the way the justice system fails all youth--and the reasons LGBT youth wind up in the system more often than straight teens.

Finally, Katrina vanden Heuvel, Editor and Publisher of The Nation, has some words for "the false apostles of austerity."

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They are cowards, not leaders.

Republicans have blocked aid which would spare 300,000 school teachers pink slips. They have refused to vote for funds so that a million unemployed workers could keep their unemployment insurance and COBRA health coverage. Around 400,000 people a day are losing their benefits.

Obama and most Democrats (not those heartless Blue Dogs) have tried to hang this callous stance around the GOP's necks.

As they should.

Mass unemployment is a human and national calamity. It destroys families, crushes hopes. The longer it lasts, the more it cripples economic recovery and undermines democracy.

Yet what was also needed in these last months was a strong and consistent argument from the White House. A message that a bold jobs agenda--not deficit and spending cuts--was the priority.

The political staff in the White House argues that the public cares more about deficit-reduction than about jobs. These advisers are fools. Yes, you can get poll respondents to say the deficit is a serious concern, but it's a far less relevant one than worries about losing your job, your pension or the value of your home. If Obama can persuade Americans that he is on their side on these immediate pocketbook issues, the abstract worry of the deficit evaporates.

While the White House has puttered, the AFL-CIO has detailed a $400 billion plan that would put people back to work. It would have a negligible effect on the deficit, which primarily reflects soaring health care costs. The AFL and other progressive groups have also proposed a financial speculation tax and a tax on banks that kicks in a couple years from now. That at least would send the bill for the crisis to those who caused it.

We can no longer afford to take half steps. It is bad economics and suicidal politics not to aggressively address the job crisis now.

Voters won't believe the economy is on the mend until more people are back at work. The outcome of the November elections will hinge on that.

Why not bring the Congress back into session and filibuster obstructionist and stingy Republicans into submission?

A nation that ignores the calamity of joblessness is a nation at risk.

Katrina vanden Heuvel is Editor and Publisher of The Nation.

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Senator Sanders joins us via Skype from Washington to talk about the ongoing struggle to get even weak bills passed. The stimulus and health care reform were small steps forward, he points out, but at least they were steps in the right direction.

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Senator Sanders joins us via Skype from Washington to talk about the ongoing struggle to get even weak bills passed. The stimulus and health care reform were small steps forward, he points out, but at least they were steps in the right direction.

Nomi Prins, former Wall Street trader and author of It Takes a Pillage, says that the current financial reform legislation is like throwing your extra junk in the attic and pretending that your house is clean.  She says that it allows banks to keep all sorts of securities off their balance sheets--that it does nothing to prevent, in short, the kind of shady dealings that helped land us in this financial mess to begin with.

Together with Roosevelt Institute Fellow and blogger Mike Konczal, Nomi joins Laura in studio to discuss the financial reform legislation, its chances of passage, and what it would do--and wouldn't.

Finally, Hanna Rosin wrote about "The End of Men" at the Atlantic. But Daisy Hernandez at ColorLines pointed out that gains for some privileged women doesn't mean equality is around the corner. Laura has some thoughts about the "he-cession" and race.

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Meanwhile, Sanders also tells us about his home state's plan to push toward a single-payer health care system, lowering costs and providing true universal care for all. He thinks they can do it.

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Meanwhile, Sanders also tells us about his home state's plan to push toward a single-payer health care system, lowering costs and providing true universal care for all. He thinks they can do it.

It takes $1 million a year to keep one U.S. soldier in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, drone strikes and occupation are a way of life in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and longtime peace activist Kathy Kelly just returned from a trip there to see firsthand the consequences for the people on the ground.

Kathy joins Laura in studio to discuss the consequences of a "robotized" U.S. military. She describes the devastation she has seen and the way people are forced to live, and questions the logic of continuing to spend all this money on war.

Finally, "I feel your pain" -- how many times are we going to hear that between now and the midterm elections? Republicans and Democrats all know that the economy weighs first on people's minds, and they all pay lip service at least to the idea of doing something for Main Street. What's ahead -- months of millionaires making pledges?

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Most notably businesswomen  -- Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman the latest incarnation of a familiar breed - the faux feminist populist. You go girl -- the slogan was already snagged by Sarah Palin.

(For the full F Word, please check out the video!)

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What can we do about it? To discuss the ongoing crunch on the medical profession, the problem with funding and the falling tax base, we asked Arthur Cheliotes of the Communications Workers of America union and Dr. Greg Dodell of the Committee of Interns and Residents and a resident physician at St. Lukes-Roosevelt Hospital in New York.

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