Full Program

We begin with what is being described as a coup in Egypt by the Egyptian Supreme Court, who on the eve of the final round of the presidential elections, have dissolved the recently-elected parliament. Khaled Elgindy, a Visiting Fellow for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution joins us. He was recently in Egypt observing the first round of the presidential elections and we will discuss the explosive situation now developing as the remnants of the old regime brazenly try to turn back the clock.

Then we speak with a Syrian/American activist who is the spokesperson for the Syrian Local Coordination Committees. Rafif Jouejati joins us to discuss the extent of popular opposition to the Assad family as the regime desperately and ruthlessly tries to maintain its grip on power and how, in spite of deadly reprisals, more and more army soldiers are defecting to the Free Syrian Army.

Then, following reports in the Washington Post that the U.S. is expanding a secret “shadow war” in Africa, we examine the role of U.S. Special Forces in their hunt for the murderous warlord Joseph Kony and how the Rwandan Government, an ally of the U.S., is destabilizing the east of the Congo. Maurice Carney, the Executive Director of Friends of the Congo joins us along with Jacques Bahati, a policy analyst at the Africa Faith and Justice Network.

music: “Syria Will Be The Next Victory” by SAC; “#Jan 25” by Sami Matar (Producer), , Omar Offendum (MC #1), The Narcicyst (MC #2), Freeway (MC #3), Amir Sulaiman (MC #4), and Ayah (R&B Vocalist); “Lisence to Kill” by Elvis Costello and Bob Dylan; “Diamonds on the Soles of her Shoes” by Paul Simon; Los Lobos

We begin with a report just out from the Federal Reserve that finds the recent economic crisis erased two decades of accumulated prosperity from America’s middle class. Mattea Kramer, a research analyst for the National Priorities Project joins us to discuss why, while the middle class’s wealth has been eviscerated, in 2011 the federal government handed a 4.4 billion dollar housing subsidy to the top 1% of Americans.

Then we examine whether the Republicans are deliberately crashing the U.S. economy to defeat Obama and the Democrats and help elect Romney and more Republicans.  Michael Cohen, a Fellow at the Century Foundation and a columnist at Foreign Policy, where he covers politics and national security, joins us. He has an article in the UK Guardian that is attracting a lot of attention, “Did Republicans Deliberately Crash the US Economy?”

Then finally, after a second day of devastating testimony from young victims against the former Penn State football coach, we speak with the co-authors of a new book “Game Over: Jerry Sandusky, Penn State, and the Culture of Silence”. Bill Moushey a former crime reporter with the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, and Bob Dvorchak, a veteran sports reporter, join us to explain how the Mother Theresa of Happy Valley was able to avoid prosecution for so long.