Via America’s Lawyer: PG&E is criminally charged for causing the 2019 Kincaid Fire that destroyed hundreds of homes. This is the third time the CA utility giant has been prosecuted for setting neighborhoods ablaze. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more.
Transcript:
*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.
Mike Papantonio: And finally tonight, some good news. California power company PG&E has been charged with multiple felonies and misdemeanors for their role in 2018 fires. And I have Farron Cousins, the best progressive voice in the business, to talk to me about this one. As I look at this story, Farron, I say, okay, got a corporation. You know, what are we going to do? Let them go with a fine. They’ve killed people. It’s, it’s manslaughter. It’s no different from somebody on the street saying, hey, I’m going to fifth this, I’m going to drink this fifth of Jim Beam. And I’m going to drive 90 miles an hour through a school zone. That’s manslaughter. These people killed people and we fine them. Nobody goes to prison. What’s your take?
Farron Cousins: You know, it’s really great what California has decided to do here, because this is the logical step that we have to with corporations.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah, the first step. First step.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. And they did it in 2017. They did it in 2018. And now they’re doing it again in 2020. But at some point, you know, I think Thom Hartmann used to talk about this all the time, you have to bring back the corporate death penalty. When you have a company that is out there killing people and admitting to it and pleading guilty. Yeah. Okay. We killed people this year. We killed people that year. We killed people now. Then this corporation needs to face some kind of very strict, your done type, type situation. They can’t continue to operate because they can’t be trusted.
Mike Papantonio: It is manslaughter. You’ve killed people and somebody has to do more than pay a damn fine.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: Thank you for joining me, Farron.
Farron Cousins: Thank you.
