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Once again, the banks are given a pass for their criminal behavior, while homeowners are given the shaft: 4 million people wrongfully foreclosed on. Can they get their houses back?:

Imagine you are a homeowner who has made your mortgage payments on time. Or pretend for a moment that you have been informed you are entitled to relief or promised a modification. Now, imagine that in spite of all that, you receive a foreclosure notice, which the bank follows through on.

That is the reality for the 4 million people the banks wrongfully foreclosed on between 2009-2010. Tuesday, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Reserve announced the beginning of payments for some of those people whose homes were wrongfully taken from them.

As Hayes explained in the clip above, "given the scale of the deception and error, the amount of money on the table for those who've been victimized, is in most instances, cartoonishly small."

Here's more from Salon on Alexis Goldstein's What You Can Buy for Having Your House Stolen Tumblr page -- Bank stole your house? Have 10 pitchforks’ worth of compensation:

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From this Tuesday evening's coverage on Current TV of the Republican National Convention, The War Room host and former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm reacts to Ohio Gov. John Kasich taking credit for his state's improving economy.

As Granholm and others pointed out, if Kasich were willing to be honest, he'd be thanking President Obama for saving the auto industry and his state's economy, rather than praising and supporting the guy for president, who famously said to let Detroit go bankrupt. If it were up to Willard, Kasich wouldn't have anything to be bragging about right now.

Par for the course for a convention whose entire theme is based on a lie and distortion and taking President Obama's "you didn't build that" remarks out of context.

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This Friday, Current TV's Eliot Spitzer and comedian John Fugelsang took a humorous look back at the week that was, since we could all use a few laughs during a week like this one.

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From Current TV this Tuesday -- Bernie Sanders suggests ways to boost the US economy and reform campaign finance:

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and “Viewpoint” host Eliot Spitzer consider what the U.S. can learn from the rejection of austerity measures in the recent European elections. Sanders proposes investments to bolster the economy, calling for “fundamental changes” in U.S. trade policy: “Unfettered free trade has not worked for the United States of America and for our workers. We have to demand that corporate America start investing in this country, not China.”

Sanders also expresses concern about U.S. campaign finance in the wake of Citizens United: “We are moving into a system — and we see it now every single day — where these guys who are billionaires are literally buying politicians and trying to buy elections.”

And as Sen. Sanders noted on his web site, he supports austerity measures... for millionaires and billionaires: An Austerity Backlash:

France handed the presidency on Sunday to François Hollande, who declared that "austerity can no longer be inevitable." In Greece, Germany and Italy, parliamentary and local elections Sunday were seen as setbacks for austerity measures. Sen. Bernie Sanders saw a lesson for the United States in the European elections. "In the United States and around the world, the middle class is in steep decline while the wealthy and large corporations are doing phenomenally well. The message sent by voters in France and other European countries, which I believe will be echoed here in the United States, is that the wealthy and large corporations are going to have to experience some austerity also and that that burden cannot solely fall on working families. In the United States, where corporate profits are soaring and the gap between the rich and everybody else is growing wider, we must end corporate tax loopholes and start making the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes. At the same time, we must protect Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Austerity, yes, but for millionaires and billionaires, not the working families of this country."

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Matt Taibbi sat down with Current TV's Eliot Spitzer to discuss the bipartisan debacle just passed by the Congress and signed by President Obama last week called the JOBS Act and the potential political fallout if this is made into an issue in the upcoming presidential campaign.

Our own Jon Perr has been writing about what a terrible bill this was from the time it was introduced, when Eric Cantor was first pushing it on Fox News. Sadly, as Taibbi and Spitzer pointed out in the segment above, the law is going to effectively repeal about half of the meaningful rules that were put in place to prevent another bubble and all this did was take away what competitive advantage the stock market had in the United States because investors felt they could trust they were being told the truth about the companies they were investing in and their accounting methods.

Matt has more in his recent article at Rolling Stone here -- Why Obama's JOBS Act Couldn't Suck Worse:

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Keith Olbermann sat down with David Letterman this Tuesday to give his side of the not-entirely-unexpected firing from Current TV. I don't think Keith Olbermann did himself any favors with the $10 million chandelier reference, but he did give us a bit of insight into his take on everything from problems with the set, to his drivers not being paid for by the network, to why he had some problems appearing on the air and problems with losing his voice.

Obviously, Olbermann will present his side as contritely as possible that he tried to make it work, but he missed a whole lot of days besides the ones he addressed here. And I think it's a bit ridiculous to claim that he didn't know before he signed that Current had limited viewing access across the country and much lower budgets than the networks he had previously been on.

I regret the loss of both his MSNBC and Current TV shows, mainly because he was one of the few willing to speak out about the excesses of the Bush administration years ago and risk getting fired or publicly shamed. He did it anyway when we sorely needed not just Keith, but others speaking out in the same manner. This site was always very supportive of his show and he had been generous to us as well, even acknowledging C&L in one of his books.

That said, he was famous for being prickly and difficult to work with and work for. I'm not so sure how much of a chance he was willing to give Gore's network, nor how much Gore and the others there let him down with promises not kept of production standards and professionalism. It's sad that what looked to be another potential news network not governed by right wing corporate talking points is going through this sort of turmoil. Hearing about all of it aggravates me just as badly as when I found out about the problems with Air America.

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Jon Perr explained how awful this so-called JOBS Act, or "Jumpstart Our Small Business Startups" is that was being pushed by Eric Cantor was last month. Well, now sadly it's passed the House and with wide bipartisan support and it's due for a vote in the Senate this Tuesday.

Eliot Spitzer, filling in for Keith Olbermann on Countdown spoke to The American Prospect's Robert Kuttner about the bill this Monday evening -- Robert Kuttner excoriates the creators and supporters of the JOBS Act, says it will strip investor protections :

Robert Kuttner, co-editor of The American Prospect and a senior fellow at Demos, and Eliot Spitzer, former governor of New York, discuss the nefarious intentions of the JOBS (Jumpstart Our Business Startups) Act. “The one thing we have going for us is, there are disclosure laws so that if investors have the wit to read the disclosures, they can protect themselves, and that’s what this wretched piece of legislation would gut. Shame on anybody who votes for this,” says Kuttner.

Thankfully as the Politico article linked above noted and as Kuttner pointed out, there is still some hope that this can get stalled or amended in the Senate since there are actually a number of Senators who have the sense to realize that this bill should not pass.

Here's more from Bloomberg News -- Small Biz Jobs Act Is a Bipartisan Bridge Too Far:

A spirit of bipartisanship is sweeping Capitol Hill, with lawmakers poised to approve a package of bills aimed at reducing regulatory burdens on small business.

We wish we could raise a glass. This moment has been too long in coming. But the legislation it has spawned would be dangerous for investors and could harm already fragile financial markets.

At issue is a measure called Jumpstart Our Business Startups, or JOBS Act, which lawmakers in both parties claim would relieve small businesses seeking to raise capital from burdensome regulations, and thereby create jobs. The U.S. House overwhelmingly passed the measure 390-23 last week, and the Senate is expected to consider it this week. The White House has said President Barack Obama will sign the legislation.

We agree that red tape can needlessly tie up small companies. We also agree that securities laws that bar startups from harnessing the power of the Internet to raise funds could use updating. And it makes sense to allow, as the bill does, an initial public offering on-ramp, which would give startups a chance to grow before saddling them with certain costly and time-consuming regulations.

Accounting Scandals

But the JOBS Act goes too far. It would gut many of the investor protections established just a decade ago in the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley law. A wave of accounting scandals -- think Enron and WorldCom -- had destroyed the nest eggs of millions of Americans and upended investor confidence in Wall Street. The relief would extend beyond small businesses and apply to more than 90 percent of companies that go public.

Lots more there so go read the rest. Here's more from Spitzer at Slate -- Kill the JOBS Act!:

The appalling bill that would repeal essential Wall Street reforms.

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On this Saturday's Up With Chris Hayes, Eliot Spitzer found himself getting some push back (thankfully) from his fellow panelist, Demo's Heather McGhee and Illinois Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky when he suggested that Democrats should consider raising the retirement age gradually for Social Security beneficiaries because Americans are living longer.

MCGHEE: I wish this weren’t so dire, but for wealthier white men, absolute longevity and healthiness has increased.

SPITZER: Yes.

MCGHEE: For working class women, it has decreased.

SPITZER: Over time we can do it.

MCGHEE: So you have to look at the equity issues unfortunately. I wish that weren't the case. [...]

SCHAKOWSKY: The very idea that we would raise the retirement age as Heather said for poor woman... that longevity has actually gone down. Maybe at some point we can do this. The other question is, so then where are the jobs? Are you going to go out at age sixty five and go find yourself a job? Where are those jobs? How are you going to have income? Ten percent of people rely on Social Security for one hundred percent of their income.

And the average Social Security benefit is $12,000; $10,000 for women. This is such a modest benefit. I think the idea right now of raising the age, which is a benefit reduction, is just ridiculous. At some point maybe we can consider it, when there are jobs for older people and when people are actually all living longer, not just rich white men.

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After interviewing the president of Planned Parenthood, Cecile Richard the night before, CNN's Eliot Spitzer felt somehow obliged to bring in the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins to respond to that segment, who of course continued his organization's attacks on Planned Parenthood despite Spitzer's best efforts to get him to admit that Planned Parenthood isn't doing anything any different than most hospitals or other health care providers across the United States that provide reproductive health services for women.

Why CNN felt the need to bring in someone from a group that the Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled a hate group for their anti-gay rhetoric is beyond me, but controversy for the sake of controversy seems to be what they do these days for ratings.

What I found extremely irritating about this segment is that after a long back and forth between Spitzer and Perkins on whether Planned Parenthood is really any different than any other medical provider that Perkins group is not singling out, which he never really answered for, Eliot Spitzer only half-assed called out Perkins his lie about Planned Parenthood and the sex traffickers.

Dave wrote about O'Reilly pushing that same lie on Fox here -- Right-wingers don't care if Planned Parenthood video was already exposed as a hoax -- they'll do it live!.

Word to Eliot Spitzer. If you're going to let known liars from hate groups come on your show to discuss Planned Parenthood, be prepared with a few facts ahead of time so you can give them some specifics about why they're full of it when they lie, instead of leaving your audience wondering what the truth is.

And Tony Perkins does not deserve one iota of "respect" or a 'respectful" conversation. The man is a hate monger and deserves to be treated as such. He trafficks in fearmongering and lies and the policies he's pushing for are harmful to the LGBT community and to women and he deserves every bit of scorn which can be given to him for that hatred and fearmongering, and who he's aligned himself with politically.

The man's "Christian values" align perfectly with those that manage to line his pockets for pushing the GOP's agenda of hatred and bigotry and to keep voters distracted from caring about their own economic interests and he should be treated as such. Heaven forbid we might ever see that happen on CNN or any other of our corporate networks he's willing to come on and be interviewed.

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From CNN's In the Arena, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich weighed in on the second GOP presidential "debate" held this week and the fact that all of the Republicans sounded like they were reading a page from Herbert Hoover's economic playbook.

Sadly it appears the only politicians in Washington who aren't reading it right along with them is the progressive caucus in the House.

SPITZER: You know, I think that's exactly right. I mean the party has moved towards Ron Paul, not vice versa.

Secretary Reich, let me ask you this. Did you hear anything last night? We heard very much the same thing from all the candidates about cutting taxes, deregulation. Anything there that gives you as an economist comfort that jobs would be created because of the policies they were espousing?

REICH: Eliot, I don't see the logic. You can't create jobs if consumers are scared, they have a huge debt load, their wages are going down, their jobs are disappearing, they're not going to spend. And if you say government has got to cut spending, where's the spending going to come from?

I mean, there's a fundamental kind of logical flaw at the core of this. You know, after the debate last night I went back to the "Great Speeches of America," a volume I have on my -- on my bookcase, and I looked back at Herbert Hoover's statements after the great crash of 1929 and leading up to the election of 1932.

And what he was talking about was cutting public spending, balancing the budget, privatization, deregulation. I mean, his statements, Herbert Hoover and his secretary of the treasury, Andrew Mellon, could have been -- well, they could have been the speech writers for the Republicans last night.

SPITZER: Look, I agree. Much of what they're talking about sounds like Hoover.

(CROSSTALK)

SPITZER: As a factual matter, one of President Hoover's speeches is in your volume of "Great American Speeches"? This is news to me.

REICH: Well, great in the sense of influential.

SPITZER: All right. OK. I just wanted to make sure this --

(CROSSTALK)

GERGEN: Well, I just want to -- I do think -- you know, for the historical record I think it's worth pointing out in 1932 in Pittsburgh, Franklin Roosevelt gave a famous speech calling for cutting spending and balanced budgets. Herbert Hoover wasn't alone in that. But --

(CROSSTALK)

REICH: David, you're absolutely -- you're absolutely right. And I -- but I think that the important thing is that we learned a lot. I assumed we learned a lot during the 1930s, '40s, '50s. I mean, even Richard Nixon has said we're all Keynesians now. And to go back to the 1920s, pre all of that learning, is absolutely -- I mean, it's just extraordinary.