sarah palin

We're heading for a government shutdown, Glenn Beck's leaving FOX, John Boehner is still crying, and Donald Trump is running for president? No, this isn't a joke or a game where you guess which one of these things is true--they all are. And who better to make sense--or fun--of all of this than GRITtv contributor John Fugelsang? John's on the Laughing Liberally "This Ain't No Tea Party" tour with Dean Obeidallah right now, having fun at the expense of all that's ridiculous these days, and John and Dean join Laura in studio for a quick run-down on this week's big news.

"I think the myth is shattering in front of us," Eugene Jarecki says of Ronald Reagan. Conservatives have tried for so long to "engineer Reagan into our drinking water," he notes, but it's an illusory Reagan, a Reagan who stands for whatever program those people want to pass, whatever agenda they're promoting. The real Reagan was quite different from what we hear about--and this week we're hearing a lot about Reagan, as it's the 100th anniversary of his death. Eugene Jarecki joins Laura in studio to set the record straight. He's the director of a new HBO documentary on Reagan, premiering Monday at 9 and available this week on that channel.

"It's dangerous to discount as mere theater what the Republicans do," notes Rebecca Dana of the Daily Beast. ; She points out that a lot will depend on who controls Congress in 2012--symbolic moves to repeal health care reform will be a lot less symbolic if the Senate is under Republican control as well.Rebecca joins guest host John Fugelsang to discuss the ongoing political debates over health care, over Sarah Palin, and over political language itself.

We speak with Tucson shooting survivor Eric Fuller. A 63-year-old disabled veteran, Fuller had campaigned for Arizona Democrat Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in her reelection campaign and was at the supermarket in Tucson on Saturday to meet with her. He was shot in the knee and also wounded in the back. "It looks like Palin, Beck, Sharron Angle and the rest got their first target," Fuller says. "Their wish for Second Amendment activism has been fulfilled." For more than a year, Fox News host Glenn Beck has been increasingly targeting Frances Fox Piven, a 78-year-old distinguished professor of political science and sociology at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. Beck has repeatedly accused her of advocating violence and of hatching a plan in 1966 to overthrow the system. Piven joins us in our studio. We speak with Daniel Hernandez, the 20-year-old intern for Rep. Gabrielle Giffords who has been credited with likely saving Giffords’ life immediately after the shooting. "I think a lot of people are realizing the political discourse has, for years, become completely destructive and more about tearing the other people apart instead of trying to work together to build up a nation and the state," Hernandez says. Democracy Now!, a daily independent newshour.