March 27 - FBI Sting Nabs Lawmakers in North Carolina, New York and California; A Strategic Alignment Between the Egyptian Military and the Saudi Monarchy; Obama Meets the Pope

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the nationwide FBI sting Wednesday that netted the mayor of Charlotte North Carolina, a New York State Assemblyman and a California State Senator Leland Yee. Dan Walters, a political columnist for the Sacramento Bee and co-author of “The Third House: Lobbyists, Money and Power in Sacramento” joins us to discuss the political consequences for the Democrats in California from the arrest of a prominent California lawmaker, who had championed an assault weapons ban, and his political consultant, who were brokering an arms deal for Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow, a leader of the Triad criminal gang in San Francisco involved in gun-running, murder-for-hire and liquor smuggling.

Part 2

Then we speak with Dr. Sheila Carapico who was recently the Chair of the Political Science Department at the American University in Cairo about the announcement by Egypt’s military chief General Sisi that he is resigning in order to run for president. She joins us to discuss the consolidation of the military’s grip on Egypt with the army taking charge of billions of dollars of development aid from the Saudis and the Gulf states, and the broader strategic alignment of the Egyptian military and the Saudis aimed at confronting Iran and stamping out political Islam, in particular the Muslim Brotherhood.

Part 3

Then finally we get an assessment of the meeting between President Obama and Pope Francis from Christopher Hale, a senior fellow at Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good in Washington D.C. He helped lead national Catholic outreach for President Obama’s re-election campaign in 2012 and we discuss whether some of the new Pope’s tremendous popularity will rub off on Obama and whether the Catholic Bishops who opposed Obama on the Affordable Care act will turn their condemnation towards prominent Republicans like John Boehner and Paul Ryan who oppose immigration reform which the bishops will highlight when they celebrate mass at the Mexican border on April 1 to commemorate the 6,000 immigrants who have died trying to get into the United States.