New media is changing the face, pace, and language of the election-what does it mean? Bill Moyers get perspective on the impact of the Web-blogs, YouTube, and social networking-on the election with Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center. And with pastor and denominational leader Mike Huckabee, surging in the polls and Mitt Romney giving a widely anticipated speech on his Mormon faith, Moyers and Jamieson are joined by scholar Melissa Rogers for a discussion of religion in politics. Rogers is visiting professor of Religion and Public Policy at Wake Forest University Divinity School.

In the wake of this week's peace summit in Annapolis, Bill Moyers Journal profiles the politically powerful group Christians United for Israel (CUFI), whose leader Pastor John Hagee wants to bring millions of Christians together to support Israel. But some say his message is dangerous: "It is time for America to...consider a military preemptive strike against Iran to prevent a nuclear holocaust in Israel and a nuclear attack in America." Bill Moyers Journal reports on CUFI and then gets theological and political context on Christian Zionism from Ronald J. Sider, Professor of Theology, Holistic Ministry and Public Policy and Director of the Sider Center on Ministry and Public Policy at Palmer Theological Seminary and President of Evangelicals for Social Action, and from M.J. Rosenberg, Director of Policy Analysis for Israel Policy Forum.

With the noose and the lynching tree entering the national discussion in the wake of recent news events, Bill Moyers interviews theologian James Cone about how these powerful images relate to the symbol of the cross and how they signify both tragedy and triumph. "It was the poor, black victims being lynched. In Rome time, it was poor Jews being lynched. The analogy is almost perfect there," he says. "So, how are we today going to understand what was happening to Jesus unless we see what was happening to black people in those trees?" Dr. Cone is the Charles A. Briggs Distinguished Professor of Systematic Theology at Union Theological Seminary in New York.

Two years after Katrina, casinos, hotels and condos are coming back strong in the hardest hit areas of Mississippi, but tens of thousands of people are still displaced-in limbo with no solution in sight. Bill Moyers Journal profiles a group known as The Steps Coalition, which is fighting on behalf of families who are still in need of housing, and examines what's happened to the money Congress sent to rebuild. The Steps Coalition argues that Governor Haley Barbour's recovery plan has made it difficult for the states' poorest families to rebuild. Also on the program, a different take on immigration from author Manuel A. Vasquez. "This whole concept of illegality...is really problematic. Because it really doesn't go to the complexities of the situation," he says.

Bill Moyers interviews best-selling historian Thomas Cahill in a far ranging interview that takes viewers from the Coliseum in Rome to death row in Texas and examines what our attitudes toward cruelty can tell us about who we are as Americans. "However difficult it may be the only way you are going to gain closure is to let go of your hatred," says Cahill, who is best known for his The Hinges of History series of books, which includes the widely read How the Irish Saved Civilization. Cahill says his books ask how we became the people we are: "It's human cruelty that is evil. We're not willing to acknowledge that this is inside of us. It's there," he says. "I'm really interested inwhat's good about us."

Big Media is pushing the FCC to relax ownership rules again to give conglomerates more control over what Americans read, see, and hear. What most Americans don't know is that the FCC plans to fast track the rule changes and cut off public comment in December. Who wins and who loses? Bill Moyers Journal reports on the real-world consequences of media policy through the lens of how it affects minority media ownership in America. Also on the program, Moyers interviews Katherine S. Newman, author of The Missing Class: Portraits of the Near Poor in America, about the millions in America, who despite decent wages can't access public assistance and are one step away from poverty.

How far can a President go to defend the nation? Bill Moyers Journal examines the unprecedented Presidential power some say is being amassed by our current Administration and kept secret in the name of national security. Moyers gets perspective from Charles Fried, who teaches Constitutional law at Harvard law School and served as solicitor general in the Reagan Administration, and Fritz Schwarz, who served as counsel to the U.S. Senate select committee led by Frank Church of Idaho that uncovered decades of abuse by the CIA and other intelligence agencies.

Blackwater CEO Erik Prince has been on the PR offensive this week, appearing on television to answer questions about his security firm Blackwater and its involvement in the shooting deaths of Iraqi civilians. Why is the press buying it? Bill Moyers interviews journalist Jeremy Scahill to help separate the spin from the reality. Scahill is an award-winning investigative journalist and the author of the bestselling book, Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army.

Could we see a repeat of the big stock market crash of '29? This week on Bill Moyers Journal, veteran market watcher Robert Kuttner and Wall Street insider William H. Donaldson give their read of the current economic landscape and discuss the risks of the deregulation of the financial industry. Donaldson was the 27th chairman of the SEC and is the former chairman and chief executive of the New York Stock Exchange, and Kuttner is co-founder and co-editor of The American Prospect magazine and was a longtime columnist for Business Week. Also, novelist and essayist Anouar Majid, who talks about the necessity for dissent in his most recent book, A CAll FOR HERESY: WHY DISSENT IS VITAl TO ISlAM AND AMERICA and honoring Doris lessing.

A year after the tragic shooting, Bill Moyers looks at what the Amish can teach us about healing.