Truthdig Editor-in-Chief Robert Scheer, economist Robert Reich and the other “Left, Right & Center” panelists discuss President Obama’s criticism of the sequester cuts. Has Capitol Hill devolved into a state of perpetual dysfunction or is this disagreement finally proof that there’s something worth fighting for?

Also, Supreme Court conservatives take a hard line on the Voting Rights Act while the White House and a coalition of Republicans ask the justices to overturn California’s ban on gay marriage. Scheer decries the government’s role in squashing whistle-blower rights in its prosecution of Pfc. Bradley Manning, and Weekly Standard writer Jonathan Last (who provides the perspective from the right) looks at what it means to have a new pope before the pope emeritus has shaken his mortal coil.

— Adapted from KCRW by Alexander Reed Kelly.

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