NOW with Bill Moyers Lineup for Friday, July 16 at 9PM Eastern on PBS

[checks-n-balances]

NOW with Bill Moyers
Friday, July 16 at 9PM on PBS

Check local listings at http://www.pbs.org/now/sched.html

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This week on NOW:

* Fueling politics and policy. David Brancaccio sits down with Center
for Public Integrity's Charles Lewis to gauge what Big Oil is getting
for pumping cash into the political parties.
* America's most vulnerable. NOW reports on how tough cuts in Medicaid are forcing some Mississippi elderly and disabled to choose between buying food or buying medicine in MEDICAID MESS.
* A cultural divide? Bill Moyers talks with FOX News host Cal Thomas
about the cultural values dividing America in an election year.

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CHARLES LEWIS

On Thursday, the Center for Public Integrity disclosed the findings of
their investigations into Big Oil. Among other disclosures, the Center revealed that the oil and gas industry has spent more than $440 million dollars on campaign contributions and lobbying since 1998 and that US gas and oil companies have 882 subsidiaries in tax haven countries.

David Brancaccio sits down with the Center's executive director Charles Lewis, to talk about Thursday's report, the first in a series expected to be released throughout the year to identify the size and scope of the international oil and gas industry and measure its influence in the halls of government worldwide. The Center for Public Integrity is a non-partisan, non-profit organization that conducts investigative research and reporting on public policy issues in the United States and around the world. This year, Lewis and the Center released the bestselling book, THE BUYING OF THE PRESIDENT 2004: WHO'S REALLY BANKROLLING BUSH AND HIS DEMOCRATIC CHALLENGERS - AND WHAT THEY EXPECT IN RETURN.

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MEDICAID MESS

In Mississippi, as many as 65,000 people are bracing for the deepest
cuts any state has ever made in Medicaid eligibility for senior citizens and the disabled. The cuts are so severe, critics say, that many of the state's most vulnerable are facing an unthinkable choice between buying food and buying medicine. Bill Moyers goes inside the Mississippi Medicaid crisis and examines the cutbacks championed by the state's Republican Governor Haley Barbour. Are tough cuts necessary, as Barbour argues, to save the program for the future, or are other viable options being overlooked?

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CAL THOMAS

Is there a clash of cultures in America? From prayer in schools to
censorship to abortion - the values debate is dividing America this
political season. But is there only one source of morality and values?

And what role should government play in the religious life of Americans?

To get his take on what America's thinking and his thoughts on such
hotly debated cultural issues as gay marriage, Bill Moyers talks with
Cal Thomas, the country's most widely syndicated columnist and host of
FOX News' AFTER HOURS WITH CAL THOMAS.

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NOW WITH BILL MOYERS continues online at PBS.org (www.pbs.org/now). Log on to find out how much oil driving green might save; to investigate the oil industry's political influence; to get a brief history of Medicaid and status of the program today; to get information on how your state is meeting its budget gap; to take a poll on the gay marriage amendment; and more.

[TheMightyFavog]

1. He's got Captian Peacock on?

This oughta be interesting.