Full Program

Part 1

We begin with Marianne Duddy-Burke, the executive director of Dignity USA, the leading organization for LGBT Catholics, and look into the Pope’s surprising remarks to reporters that “if a person is gay, and looks for the Lord and had goodwill, who am I to judge them?”. And we also speak with gay political activist Mike Rogers, the Managing Director of Raw Story, about Vladimir Putin’s moves in the opposite direction as his anti-gay crackdown takes on darker and sinister tones, and discuss growing calls of a boycott on Russian products and the Sochi Winter Olympics.  

Part 2

Then we speak with economist James Galbraith about the coming showdown over raising the debt limit which the president has vowed is non-negotiable. We discuss the House Republican’s intention to tie a debt ceiling increase to spending cuts in the name of deficit reduction and the White House’s new focus on job creation to reverse income inequality and restore economic opportunity for working Americans.

Part 3

Then finally, with more clashes in Egypt between supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Army, we speak with Carrie Wickham, a Professor of Political Science at Emory University and author of “The Muslim Brotherhood: Evolution of an Islamist Movement”. She has a recent article at the New York Times examining the inner working of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, “Egypt’s Lost Opportunity”.

Full Program

Part 1

Part 2

Then we look into last night’s very close 217 to 205 vote in the House that killed an amendment to curb the NSA’s authority under section 215 of the Patriot Act to gather metadata on American citizens. Heidi Boghosian, the executive director of the National Lawyers Guild and author of “Spying on Democracy: Government Surveillance, Corporate Power and Public Resistance” joins us to discuss the alliance between Tea Party Republicans and progressive Democrats who narrowly lost to a coalition of the NSA, the White House and the Minority and Majority leadership of the House.

Part 3

Then finally we examine the implications of the indictment today of SAC Capital’s Steven Cohen on insider trading and whether prosecuting a hedge fund billionaire represents the end of the “too big to jail” phenomenon that has characterized the lackluster performance of the Justice Department under Lanny Breuer which has not gone after anyone on Wall Street responsible for the 2008 crash. Veteran financial reporter William Cohan, the author of “Money and Power: How Goldman Sachs Came to Rule the World”, joins us to look into the hedge fund business.