#361 - January 7, 2017
This week, Georgetown law professor Peter Edelman explains how the justice system punishes the poor and rewards the rich. Former FCC Commissioner Michael Copps says pending media mergers will give big business even more influence on what we see and hear.
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Peter Edelman
Just before the end of the year, Attorney General Jeff sessions revoked an Obama-era administration guideline that advised local courts against imposing excessive fines and fees on poor people. The issue attracted wide attention after an investigation into the practice in Ferguson, MIssouri raised concerns of a “modern day debtors’ prison.” It also attracted the attention of Georgetown University law professor Peter Edelman who wrote a book about the issue titled, “Not a Crime to be Poor: The Criminalization of Poverty in America”.
Michael J. Copps
Michael J. Copps was an FCC commissioner from 2001 to 2011 and currently heads the Media and Democracy Reform Initiative at Common Cause.
Jim Hightower
How America's middle class rose… and fell.