March 25 - Dark Days Descend on Egypt; Supreme Court Poised to Open a Pandora's Box; Washington's War Between Politicians and Spies

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with what appears to be dark days if not years, descending on Egypt where the military government is issuing mass death sentences on hundreds of supporters of the ousted Muslim Brotherhood government for the death of one policeman. Khaled Elgindy, a Fellow with the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution joins us to discuss the dashed hopes for democracy in Egypt where the popular backlash against the incompetent Morsi government has given the military and their Saudi backers a blank check and an opportunity to turns back the clock.

Part 2

Then we examine the arguments before the Supreme Court in a case which could allow business owners to refuse to comply with the Affordable Care Act’s provisions to cover the birth control needs of female employees. Jodi Jacobson, the president and editor-in-chief of RH Reality Check, joins us to discuss whether on not the Supreme Court will open a Pandora’s Box that would sanction bigotry and anti-science ignorance, allowing businesses to refuse service to LGBT customers on religious grounds and parents to refuse to immunize their kids based on Biblical interpretations.

Part 3

Then finally we speak with the veteran reporter and best-selling author William Greider,whose latest book is “Come Home America: The Rise and Fall (and Redeeming Promise) of Our Country”. He joins us to discuss his article at The Nation “Spy Agencies, Not Politicians, Hold the Cards in Washington” and the extent to which the Washington portrayed in the hit TV series “House of Cards”, exaggerates the power and mendacity of politicians, when it is as Greider suggests, “the spooks and the spies who shuffle the deck and deal the cards”.