Truth-telling in the face of powerful and  fierce resistance; it's part of our American identity. From Upton Sinclair's The Jungle to unnecessarily vulnerable personnel carriers in Iraq, the average citizen depends on those brave enough to tell the truth to power. What hurdles do they still face?  On the first part of the show, the guest is Tom Devine, legal director of the Government Accountability Project. They include discussion of Obama's policy on transparency in government. And the second guest is US Marine Fanz Gayle who caused all that noise a few years ago about the needless and avoidable lack of protection from insurgents' bombs in Iraq. Gayle still faces heavy personal pressure from powerful interests for his decision to tell the truth.

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Some say the fact that Hamas is against it means the proposed United Nations vote on recognizing Palestine as a state means it's probablya good idea. On the other hand, many observers see it as a power play by Mahmoud Abbas. To analyze what's at stake for the Palestinians, Israel, and the US, Burt's guest on this segment is Robert Naiman, policy director of Just Foreign Policy.

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Fukushima. The NRC trying to ram through a 20 year extension for Seabrook. Entergy fighting Vermont's legal power over the Vernon plant. Huge public relations campaigns to sell us on "safe clean nuclear."  Presidential candidates talking about our energy future. State's rights versus centralized decision making.
Burt's guest on this segment is Paul Gunter of Beyond Nuclear. It really is a crossroads for the subsidized ailing industry. A very informative discussion.

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Aside from the nearly 3,000 lives lost, what lasting damage has been done to our cherished traditional American liberties? On the first segment, Burt's guest is Marjorie Cohn, immediate past president of the National Lawyers Guild. She specifies reasons for her concerns that we are headed toward a police state. On part two, Republican presidential candidate Gary Johnson, former governor of New Mexico, talks about his concerns about secrecy, transparency, and the erosion of our basic freedoms, and what freedom means to him.

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Some progressives disenchanted with President Obama may be looking seriously at Republican Ron Paul. On this show, Alternet Washington Bureau Chief Adele Stan does just that: she takes a deeper look at who Ron Paul is and the actual positions he takes. If you're at all considering voting for him,  you owe it to yourself to give a full listen.

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How different from the usual flock of Republican presidential wannabes is front-runner Texas Governor Rick Perry? All candidates since Reagan have sought the support of the Christian Right, but there is evidence suggesting he, and Micelle Bachmann, are quite a bit more. There's something called Dominionism, which Burt's guest Sarah Posner addresses fully on this show. Posner is senior editor of Religious Dispatches, and is author of "God's Profits: Faith, Fraud, and the Republican Crusade for Values Voters." How worried should we be about the traditional separation of church and state? Give a listen.

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