September 10 – Is the DOJ Really Going After Corporate Criminals?; Why the Hungarians are Mistreating Refugees; Oil Company Lobbyists Scuttle California’s 50% Cut in Gas Use by 2030

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with new guidelines issued by the Department of Justice that emphasize the prosecution of individual executives in white-collar crime over going after the corporation. Russell Mokhiber, the editor of the Corporate Crime Reporter and author of “On the Rampage: Corporate Predators and the Destruction of Democracy” joins us to discuss whether these new rules will name and shame corporate criminals and how much they are a response to widespread criticism that the Obama Administration has not put on trial or jailed any senior Wall Street executive responsible for the 2008 crash that cost the economy 13 trillion dollars and wiped out 9 trillion dollars in home equity.

Part 2

Then we examine the politics of Hungary to try to understand why the country is behaving so badly in its treatment of refugees, particularly since after the 1956 Hungarian revolt, the countries that are welcoming refugees fleeing from mistreatment in Hungary today, were the same countries who took in Hungarian refugees fleeing the brutal Soviet crackdown that crushed the 1956 uprising by Hungarians demanding freedom. Charles Gati, a Senior Research Professor of European and Eurasian Studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies joins us to discuss Hungary’s own refugee crisis where up to 700,000 Hungarians have been purged by Viktor Orban’s right wing regime which has an even more virulent Neo-Nazi party Jobbik challenging it on the right.

Part 3

Then finally we will speak with Jamie Court, the president of Consumer Watchdog and the author of “The Progressive’s Guide to Raising Hell: How to Win Grassroots Campaigns, Pass Ballot Box Laws and Get the Change You Voted For – A Direct Democracy Toolkit”. He joins us to explain how gangs of oil company lobbyists were able to buy off enough junior Democratic legislators in the California statehouse to scuttle Governor Brown’s and the leadership’s groundbreaking efforts to have petroleum use cut by 50% in vehicles in California by 2030.