The United States has spent tens of billions of dollars on reconstruction in Iraq - but it might surprise you to find out what some of that money is really going towards. In tonight's Conversations with Great Minds - Thom talks with State Department veteran Peter van Buren about our government's bungled attempts to re-build a post-war Iraq. His new book is We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People.

Susan Jacoby, Journalist/Author, "Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism," and most recently, "Never Say Die: The Myth and Marketing of the New Old Age" is tonight's Greatest Mind. Forty years ago - very few politicians flaunted their religious beliefs for personal gain. So what's changed - and what's given rise to the Christian Right in American politics? Her latest piece is - How The Founders Ensured America Would Not Be a Christian Nation.

Climate change is the greatest threat our planet has ever faced - and we need to take action now to prevent the situation from getting any worse. But will there ever be enough political will to put the policies in place that are needed to save the future of the only planet we can call home? We'll ask William Becker - Executive Director of the Presidential Climate Action Project - in tonight's special Conversations with Great Minds

Wendell Potter, Nation On the Take: How Big Money Corrupts Our Democracy and What We Can Do About It (w/Nick Penniman)/Center for Public Integrity/Center for Media and Democracy, joins Thom. The United States of America is now - for lack of a better word - the best democracy money can buy. Billionaire oligarchs like the Koch Brothers now outspend political parties - members of congress spend most of their day begging for donations instead of writing new laws - and lobbyists make millions and billions selling access to the commons. Needless to say - this is not the world our founding fathers envisioned when the declared a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people." We are now - as my guest for tonight's Conversations with Great Minds has titled his new book - A "Nation on the Take." So how did we get to this point? And how can we reform our campaign finance system to reclaim the democratic institutions our founders created?

For more information on the stories we've covered visit our websites at thomhartmann.com - freespeech.org - and RT.com. You can also watch tonight's show on Hulu - at Hulu.com/THE BIG PICTURE and over at The Big Picture YouTube page. And - be sure to check us out on Facebook and Twitter!

Thom's guest for tonight's Conversations with Great Minds is one of America's most influential thinkers on muliticulturalism and race - Professor Derald Wing Sue. Currently a Professor of Psychology and Education at the Teacher's College at Columbia University - Professor Sue has been at the forefront of some the most forward-thinking scholarship on race relations in America. His book "Microaggressions in Everyday Life" is now considered a classic of its kind - and it won the inaugural UnityFirst dot com National Diversity and Inclusion Book Prize .Professor Sue is also the co-founder and first President of the Asian American Psychological Association. His new book - "Race Talk and the Conspiracy of Silence: Understanding and Facilitating Difficult Dialogues on Race" - is a fascinating look into how we talk about race and racism.

In tonight's “Conversations with Great Minds" Thom discusses what a post carbon planet would look like with the Post Carbon Institute’s Richard Heinberg, author of the book "Snake Oil: How Fracking's False Promise of Plenty Imperils Our Future."

Former Congressman Bob Ney, "Sideswiped: Lessons Learned Courtesy of the Hit Men of Capitol Hill" joins Thom Hartmann. If - like most Americans - you think Congress is corrupt ..... well - you're right!