On this week’s episode of Lever Time: David Sirota is joined by The Lever’s reporters Julia Rock and Rebecca Burns to discuss recent news, including a climate protest that made international headlines for dousing a Van Gogh painting in tomato soup (4:38), and a sketchy financial bait-and-switch by Microchip giant Intel (9:00). Julia and Rebecca also break down their massive stories on Republican Senate candidate Ted Budd, who during his terms as a Congressman has helped his donors bypass predatory lending laws, and helped facilitate the merger of two giant banks, all while collecting mountains of cash from the financial industry (12:56). Then, David sits down with Melissa Jacoby, one of the foremost experts on bankruptcy law, for a deep dive on how corporations abuse the bankruptcy system to shield themselves from liability, while real people are afforded none of the same protections (27:41).

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A rough transcript of this episode is available here.

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