If you want an example of a country that’s actually taking action against corporate corruption, look no further than the People’s Republic of China. Seriously, I’m not kidding.

Since President Xi Jinping took power in 2012, his government has unleashed all hell on the leadership of China’s coal and oil industry. It has jailed powerful executives and, at the same time, unveiled a slew of new rules aimed at combating pollution, which remains one of that country’s biggest problems. The data shows that this so-called “war on corruption” has been a success: In 2014, China’s coal use and carbon emissions declined for the first time in more than a decade.

Now, there are questions about the real motive behind China’s crackdown on corporate criminals - it probably has just as much to do with consolidating power as it does fighting corruption - but there’s still a lot we here in America could learn from what President Xi Jinping is doing across the Pacific. That’s because we’re a country run by oligarchs who operate with total and absolute impunity.

Don’t believe me?

Consider this: It’s now been more than six years since the Crash of 2008 and the Justice Department has still yet to prosecute any head of any major bank for what was arguably the biggest financial scandal of all time.

This isn't likely to change anytime soon, either. Attorney General Eric Holder basically admitted a few years ago that some banks are “too big to jail” and U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch, our likely next Attorney General, has a checkered history when it comes to fighting financial crime.

Oh, and as if all that wasn’t bad enough, much of what government has done to hold the banksters accountable for their actions during the financial crisis has actually helped those banksters out. Most of the $13 billion settlement the Justice Department reached with JPMorgan back in 2013, for example, was tax deductible.

With this recent history in mind, China’s crackdown on corporate criminals and pollution looks all the more impressive.

Read more here.

-Thom

Tonight on The Big Picture on RT TV at 7pm and 10pm... Scientists on climate change...'it's personal' (check your local listings for stations or stream at RT or Free Speech TV, and catch past shows on Youtube)

Be sure to check out our new videos: CARBON, LAST HOURS & GREEN WORLD RISING - narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio

Need to Know: Israeli Elections - Why Were the Exit Polls Wrong?
- Naomi Dann, Jewish Voice for Peace

Best of the Rest: Scientists on climate change...'it's personal'
- Gretchen Goldman, Union of Concerned Scientists
- Tom DiLiberto, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

Big Picture Rumble:
- Charles Sauer, The Market Institute
- Ari Rabin-Havt, The Agenda-SiriusXM Progress 127 / The Benghazi Hoax
- Scott Greer, The Daily Caller

Community Square

"GOP, Out For Blood!"

Wednesday's Daily Stack

Article: "Watch: 7-Year-Old Makes Scott Walker Crash and Burn With 2 Questions" by Omar Rivero.

Article: "Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud Party Wins Israeli Election" by Jade Walker.

Article: "Netanyahu deployed the politics of fear. It worked like magic" by Aluf Benn.

Documentary: Merchants of Doubt.

Article: "House GOP budget shortchanges the nation's most needy, per usual" by Kerry Eleveld.

Article: "Florida Officials Banned From Using the Terms ‘Climate Change’ and ‘Sustainability’" by Tristram Korten.

Article: "Florida’s Not The Only State Where Officials Censored The Term ‘Climate Change’" by Emily Atkin.

Article: "NASA Administrator Gives Ted Cruz An Epic Lesson In How Science Works" by Katie Valentine.

Article: "Starving sea lion pups stranding on California beaches" by AP.

Letter: "To James Madison, Fontainebleau, Oct. 28, 1785" by Thomas Jefferson. "Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions or property in geometrical progression as they rise."

Article: "Dalio warns Fed of 1937-style rate risk" by Henny Sender, Stephen Foley, Sam Fleming.

Article: "Republicans’ Latest Salvo In Anti-Immigrant Fight: Take Away Social Security Numbers" by Esther Yu-Hsi Lee.

Video: Bugs Bunny A Feather In His Hare 1948 cartoon.

Article: "IPCC Reveals Climate Change Threatens Dangerous and Irreversible" by Catherine Griffin.

Article: "Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability" by IPCC.

Law: "Patriot Act", 2001.

Site: Progressive Democrats of America

Site: Move to Amend

Quote: "There was this king, and he ruled over his kingdom. right in the middle of the kingdom there was a well. that's where everybody drank. One night, this witch came along and she poisoned the well. And the next day, everybody drank from it except the king. And they all went crazy. They got together in the street and they said 'we got to get rid of the king, cause the king is mad'. And then that night, he went down and he drank from the well. And the next day all the people rejoiced because their king had regained his reason." - Serpico".

Video: Benjamin Netanyahu babysitter ad.

Article: "Cyclone Pam: Is it time for a category-6 cyclone rating?" by Peter Hannam.

Article: "Jim Jones" by Wikipedia.

Movie: "Jaws".

Hour Two: Ani's open letter to the new Saudi King
- Ani Zonneveld, Muslims For Progressive Values

Article: "Open letter to Saudi King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz" by Ani Zonneveld.

Site: Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC).

Music: "Ummah Wake Up" by Ani.

Article: "Sufism" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Home of Mohammed's Wife Turned into a Public Toilet" by Gil Ronen.

The good: Jeremy Leggett: "Oxford Alumni to Hand Back Diplomas After School Defers Divestment" by Lauren McCauley.

The bad: Ken Graves: "WATCH: Bellowing pastor warns that gays, Muslims, and liberals will establish a ’secular humanist caliphate’" by Travis Gettys.

The very, very ugly: "Tony Perkins: 'Makes Sense' To Think Obama Is A Muslim" by Brian Tashman.

Article: "Walker supporters ushered in through underground tunnels at Capitol for his budget speech".

Article: "Dale Carnegie Course".

Article: "The melting of Antarctica was already really bad. It just got worse." by Chris Mooney.

Video: FFRF Ron Reagan Ad.

Talk Radio News Segment:
- Luke Vargas live from Jerusalem

Article: "Exit Polls: Netanyahu Scores Narrow Victory in Israeli Elections" by Luke Vargas.

Article: "Pre-election and exit polls were “wrong” – Netanyahu Easily Wins Israeli election" by Jack Blood.

Article: "Israel's Governance Law: Raising the Electoral Threshold" by Neri Zilber, March 10, 2014.

Article: "Israeli Arab Parties Unite, Place Third in National Vote" by Luke Vargas.

Article: "Erekat: Israel’s election results mean Palestinians will press at ICC" by JTA.

Article: "On Israeli election day, Netanyahu warns of Arabs voting ‘in droves’" by Ishaan Tharoor.

Article: "TRNS News Notes- 3/18" by Victoria Jones.

Article: "TRNS News Notes- 3/17" by Victoria Jones.

Hour Three: Does America hate God...?
- Bishop Council Nedd II, Episcopal Missionary Church / Project 21

Book: Does America Hate God? Faith Under Fire by Council Nedd II with David Almasi.

Book: What Would Jefferson Do?: A Return to Democracy by Thom Hartmann by Thom Hartmann.

Book: "Unequal Protection: The Battle to Save Democracy" by Thom Hartmann (read online).

Book: "Unequal Protection: How Corporations Became "People" - And How You Can Fight Back" by Thom Hartmann - new updated version out now!

Book: The Writings of Thomas Jefferson. Monticello Edition, (complete in 20 volumes) by Andrew A. Lipscomb, Editor-in-chief; Albert Ellery Bergh, Managing Editor).

Letter: "Letter to Major John Cartwrigt" by Thomas Jefferson, Monticello, June 5, 1824. "We had no occasion to search into musty records, to hunt up royal parchments, or to investigate the laws and institutions of a semi-barbarous ancestry. We appealed to those of nature, and found them engraved on our hearts"

Article: "Declaration of Independence".

Article: "Jack and the Beanstalk".

Article: "A Christian Nation? Since When?" by Kevin M. Kruse.

Quote: "It would be a strange thing if Six Nations of ignorant savages should be capable of forming a scheme for such an union, and be able to execute it in such a manner as that it has subsisted ages and appears indissoluble; and yet that a like union should be impracticable for ten or a dozen English colonies, to whom it is more necessary and must be more advantageous, and who cannot be supposed to want an equal understanding of their interests." by Benjamin Franklin, letter to James Parker, 1751.

Article: "Opium of the people" by Karl Marx.

Article: "Unitarian Universalism" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Scott Walker dodges evolution question: 'That's a question a politician shouldn't be involved in' – video".

Article: "The Powell Memo or Powell Manifesto".

Article: "Equal Rights Amendment" by Wikipedia.

Lawsuit: "Dodge v. Ford Motor Company", Mich. 1919.

Book: "Cracking the Code: How to Win Hearts, Change Minds, and Restore America's Original Vision" by Thom Hartmann.

Article: "Poll Of Likely 2016 Voters" by GBA Strategies on behalf of the Progressive Change Institute.

Thursday on The Thom Hartmann Program, 3-6pm ET

Ona Porter of Prosperity Works and I will be discussing the question, who is "hijacking our democracy" now?

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Full Show 3/17/15: GOP Prevents Sex Trafficking Bill From Passing

Thom discusses the private email controversies surrounding Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush with attorney and radio host Mike Papantonio and the evils of Wahhabism with singer and activist Ani Zonneveld. Tonight’s “Politics Panel” talks the failure of Congress to confirm Loretta Lynch, how the GOP prevented the sex trafficking bill from passing and the recent positive news on Obamacare.

Republicans Need to Keep Reaching out to the Suckers...

Where are the Progressive Muslims?

The Right-Wingification of the World...

Republicans Find Their Next Group of Suckers...

Why "More Than Scientists"?

What Should we do about Internet Trolls?

Caller: Are SCOTUS Decisions Universal or Specific?

Could Dred Scott Have an Effect on Obamacare?

The GOP: A Coalition of Suckers...

Republicans Really do Believe in Reaganomics...

What Does 'Freedom' Mean to you?

Loretta Lynch Nomination Delay Smacks of Racism!