With prices two times higher than they were when President Obama took office, and up 37% just this year, Americans are feeling an additional squeeze at the pumps. The White House's plan to reduce fuel costs may be a step in the right direction, says Antonia.   However, as we continue to navigate issues like speculative trading and a lack of regulation in the Intercontinental Oil Exchange, true progress may be difficult. Is there a responsible way forward? And, more importantly, is the Obama administration ready to set us on that path?

"People actually want to believe in heroes, so they'll believe in Glenn Beck, they'll believe in Barack Obama, they choose individuals to believe in but won't believe in politics itself," says Walter Mosley, author and activist.  Obama may have been pressured into releasing his "long form" birth certificate this week, but that won't heal the hurt in our politics, Mosley says, until Americans stop trusting heroes and experts and start trusting each other.

Mosley joins us for part one of a two-part conversation on his vision for a truly people-powered America.

Finally, the media is more obsessed with the British royal wedding than the US people actually are, but why should we bother with British royals at all when we have our own royals right here? They're called corporations.

“Royal wedding reminds us why we tossed Brits,” ran one letter to a local paper recently. That exorbitant $80 million spent on a medieval style ritual in time of 21st century austerity. It's shameful. It's old world. It's just what Americans fought a revolutionary war to throw off.

And then there are the folks like Rupert Cornwall at the UK Independent who argue hat people in the US love British royals precisely because they don't have their own real thing.  Gary Younge at the Nation noted that even his liberal friends wanted to know what he, a British citizen, thought of the prince marrying a "commoner." Oh please.

The only serious and in fact actually quite insidious part about this is that it re-inscribes the notion that the US has no  class.

Really? When the top one percent of wealthiest Americans own 34 percent of the country's wealth and enjoyed 80 percent of the total increase in wealth here between 1980 and 2005? No class?

As for ruling class? In the UK the commoners keep their royals on welfare. Here we do the same with our corporations. Billions in tax dollars keep them afloat and keep CEOs in mansions. Why not just give them palaces? At least we could keep them open for tours.

Since the Supreme Court has given corporations free speech rights and personhood -- how about marriage equality next?

Then, we could string up Bunting flags for the next monopolistic coupling... At the Comcast and NBC nuptials we'd all throw money while they stroll down the aisle. And -- with a nod to Jim Hightower -- instead of aristocrats with  coats of arms, the paid off politicians would express their heritage -- in corporate logos on their lapels. At least then we'd know who owns whom.

The trinkets from a corporate marriage might be dreary. And the offspring, who can say? But at least we'd get a day off and one hell of a party. Plus we'd move out of denial.  The more I think about it the more I like it. Monarchies or Megacorps? Why not declare them royal?

Robert Johnson is the director of economic policy at the Roosevelt Institute and the former chief economist for the Senate Banking Committee. Les Leopold is the author of The Looting of America. They both have some words for the Democrats on what happens if don't wise up.

To kick off our new format, the always-astute Max Blumenthal, author of Republican Gomorrah, joins Laura in studio to talk about recent news: the Obama administration's spat with Israel over settlements, the recent California Republican party convention, and the new "coffee party" movement.

A spate of profiles of Timothy Geithner hit the news recently, from Vogue to the Atlantic and several places in between. Most of them seem to sound an optimistic note on the Treasury Secretary and former chief of the New York Federal Reserve, but we ask a couple of experts what's really going on with the economy--and if Geithner deserves any of that praise.

Robert Johnson is the director of economic policy at the Roosevelt Institute and the former chief economist for the Senate Banking Committee. Les Leopold is the author of The Looting of America. They both have some words for the Democrats on what happens if don't wise up.

Nahr al-Bared ("Cold River") refugee camp in Lebanon is home to 20,000 displaced Palestinians, struggling to rebuild their home after its destruction in 2007. The camp has been around for some 60 years, and in this excerpt from "Checkpoints and More" by A Films, residents of the camp tell their stories.

Finally, Laura reminds us that while some profiles of Geithner may be cheering the former New York Fed chair, he's also implicated in the collapse of Lehman Brothers.