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Jon Stewart took a shot at Sean Hannity after his ridiculous hackery the previous night promoting the latest debacle to come out of the Breitbart lackeys, trying to paint President Obama as a "radical." Stewart opened the show promising to show viewers a tape which would reveal the "real" Sean Hannity that he didn't want you to see.

He followed with making a mockery of the latest non-scandal which Hannity is making a fool out of himself pushing with the "newly"... or not so new it turns out "secret" tapes of President Obama that Karoli already wrote about here.

Gotta' love the Clockwork Orange screen shot with what's required to force anyone to actually have to watch Hannity's show followed by Stewart calling out Hannity for hanging around with "an admitted perjurer" (Oliver North), "a convicted Watergate murderer (G. Gordon Liddy), or "a man who stomped another man to death in Cleveland" (Don King), or "whatever this is." Cut to Ted Nugent which C&L covered here -- Ted Nugent curses out Hillary, Obama, Feinstein and issues threats with Machine Guns.

Stewart wrapped things up saying if Hannity really wanted to go after President Obama for his "radical" associations or for "damaging Obama footage" he might consider his hiring of Larry Summers to fix the financial crisis he helped cause, his claim that he'll close Gitmo, or maybe he should look into that foreign Portuguese Water Dog they've got living in the White House. That last one would not be all that much more ridiculous than Hannity's latest attack sadly.

This looks like it's going to be one hell of a read from Robert Sheer. Democracy Now's Amy Goodman interviewed Sheer about his new book, The Great American Stickup: How Reagan Republicans and Clinton Democrats Enriched Wall Street While Mugging Main Street. I wish Obama would take some of Sheer's advice here and put a floor on housing foreclosures so people can stay in their homes and appoint Elizabeth Warren to head the consumer protection agency.

I'd like to see him get rid of Tim Geithner and Larry Summers as well. If he wants some enthusiasm from his base this mid-term election, looking out for main street instead of Wall Street would go a long way. I already know the Republicans are horrible. I'm tired of Democrats just saying we're not as bad as they are while they're protecting the bankers instead of the home owners. I'm not quite as down on him as Sheer is since I don't think you can discount all of the things President Obama has managed to get done in the face of unprecedented Republican obstruction, but on this matter, I agree with Sheer.

They haven't fixed the problems with the financial institutions. The bill they got passed was weak tea and they haven't done nearly enough to keep people in their homes and he's surrounded himself with the wrong people. And he was right about what needed to be done when he said the problems with our economy were due to reckless deregulation when he was on the campaign trail. I want to see that Obama come back, not in words, but in his actions. He gave a really great speech on Labor Day. President Obama, I hope you decide to back up that speech with some action. Talk is cheap if you don't back it up with some action.

Robert Scheer on The Great American Stickup: How Reagan Republicans and Clinton Democrats Enriched Wall Street While Mugging Main Street:

AMY GOODMAN: As we continue our discussion on the state of the economy, we’re joined in Los Angeles by veteran journalist and Truthdig.com editor Robert Scheer. His book is out today; it’s called The Great American Stickup: How Reagan Republicans and Clinton Democrats Enriched Wall Street While Mugging Main Street.

Bob, welcome to Democracy Now!

ROBERT SCHEER: Hi, Amy.

AMY GOODMAN: What is wrong with the economy today? And how did we get here? 

ROBERT SCHEER: Well, you know, you say a longtime journalist. I worked for the Los Angeles Times as a national reporter, and I covered these hearings in Washington when the Clinton Administration in the '90s basically fulfilled the promise of the Reagan Revolution. Reagan was not able to reverse the sensible regulations of the New Deal of Franklin Delano Roosevelt designed to prevent us from getting into another depression. And those regulations of Glass-Steagall, which Feingold was against—was for keeping and against reversing, said that investment banks playing with supposedly rich people's money should not be allowed to merge with commercial banks that were using the deposits of people that were insured by the taxpayers and that these were different activities. And Reagan could never pull off that kind of deregulation. In fact, because of the savings and loan scandal at the end of his term, he actually had to sign off on increased financial regulation. But when Clinton came in, he brought in one of the big players on Wall Street, Robert Rubin, who has been head of Goldman Sachs, and basically turned to him and said, "You know, what do I need to do to get Wall Street on my side?" And they said, reverse what they considered to be onerous financial regulation. And Clinton delivered on that. He brought in Rubin then to be his Treasury secretary, who was followed by Lawrence Summers, who’s now the top economics adviser in the Obama White House.

And in addition to the Gramm bill that reversed Glass-Steagall, he did something even more significant for our current crisis. He—after Summers had pushed it through, Congress signed off on the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000. He was already a lame duck president. It was in the closing weeks of his administration. And this is the source of our whole problem, really, in terms of the housing meltdown, because we had these suspect derivatives that sensible people in the administration, like Brooksley Born, had warned against. No one knew what these toxic investments all about, the bundling of mortgages, which is what encouraged all of the wild subprime and Alt-A financing, because they were then going to be packaged together, made into securities, and then backed by credit default swaps, and all of this stuff that really didn’t exist. It certainly didn’t exist in Adam Smith’s capitalism, but it didn’t really exist even in Ronald Reagan’s capitalism. This newfangled—these gimmicks that were developed and spiraled wildly out of control were made possible because of that Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which Clinton signed and which said in Titles III and IV, no existing government regulation, no existing government regulatory body, will be allowed to supervise these credit default swaps, these collateralized debt obligations that were there. Read on...

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Donna Brazile takes the rest of the CNN panel to task for their concern for the deficit at a time when our main concern should be putting people back to work. Of course Bill Bennett continues to claim we need more tax cuts and thinks the Democrats are going to "go off the cliff" if they increase the deficit. Brazile reminds him "we've been off the cliff".

Transcript via CNN.

KING: And, Donna, on that point, I want you to listen to Larry Summers because Gloria notes they're starting to talk about the deficit because they're going to raise the federal debt ceiling this week and the numbers get incredibly high. Republicans are starting to say, you know, where's the fiscal discipline here?

And yet, if the you listen to Larry Summers, he seems convinced that they have a little more political space to make the case, that, in the short term, spending to help the economy is more important than reducing the deficit.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SUMMERS: We've got to do a lot more. There's no more important issue facing the country than job growth because, if we don't create jobs, we've got no prospect that the kind of budget deficits we want. If unemployment stays high, we're not going to have the strength in the world that we want, if unemployment stays high.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: They get away with that a bit longer?

BRAZILE: All the politics aside, the administration is walking a real tightrope between creating the jobs that the American people clearly want and trying to focus on the long-term fiscal health of the nation, the debt.

The Republicans raised the debt ceiling 2002, 2003, 2004, 2007. SO this is customary sometimes during a budget process, to raise it that way. But because of the additional spending that we have on the wars and other issues, we have to raise it again. That's a responsible thing that Congress needs to do.

On the other hand, I think the president is absolutely right to use some of the additional TARP money that will be utilized to pay down the deficit, but to use some of it to create jobs.

Now, hopefully, the private sector -- the president will be able to put some fire under the bankers tomorrow for them to start lending to small businesses so we don't have to continue this rate of government spending.

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From Morning Meeting Nov. 25, 2009, Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi and the Financial Times' Chrystia Freeland discuss Matt's recent article at Rolling Stone and the divide between the recoveries on Wall Street and Main Street. Their analysis about what's wrong with the economic team Obama has surrounded himself with is spot on and until he starts listening to some different voices on how to fix our economy, Matt Taibbi is correct, the cycles of bailouts are going to continue to repeat themselves.

Ratigan: But Matt’s ultimate point is that we have all these people that are still perpetuating a policy that is supportive of the banking system for sure, regardless of who’s in there and an economy that is, has small business lending off a cliff, profits back at a record on Wall Street, one in four, one in seven mortgages delinquent; you know I could go on and on with these statistics but basically the economy was torpedoed and the financial markets were supported and the reality Matt is that it’s far more profitable not to lend money In this country. The fact of the matter is we’re giving banks money at a time when the government has rules that say you can make more money if we give you money if you don’t lend it.

Taibbi: Right…right…

Ratigan: And that is the inherent insanity of the entire situation. It’s like giving the banks money, legalizing the banks to make money without having to lend it is like letting the cops create a military state. They’re the custodians of wealth, the custodians of security have been completely compromised—you think it’s the people around the President that are largely responsible for that, correct?

Taibbi: I think so. I mean you have to remember that probably, if you were going to have a Nuremberg for the financial crisis, Bob Rubin would be one of the first people on the dock.

Ratigan: Yeah.

Taibbi: I mean he has a unique responsibility for what went wrong because he was not only responsible for the bad policy, the deregulatory policy under Clinton but he also helped destroy one of the biggest companies in the world in CitiGroup. And yet he was the guy who was put in charge and his people of being the architect of Clinton’s economic policies.

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From Democracy Now, Robert Sheer weighs in on how difficult it is to cover Wall Street during a discussion about Wall Street's massive profits and bonuses while the economy for most Americans continues to deteriorate. The one bright spot here is that tonight the House Financial Services Committee approved Ron Paul and Alan Grayson's amendment to audit the Fed.

Robert Sheer's latest article at Truthdig is Who Are You and What Have You Done With the Community Organizer We Elected President?

AMY GOODMAN: What about this new government report that’s found Goldman Sachs could have suffered dramatic losses if the federal government hadn’t intervened to bail out AIG, American International Group, the report by the special inspector general for the government bailout program raising doubts about Goldman’s previous claims that it was hedged against potential AIG losses?

ROBERT SCHEER: Yes, well, first of all, this has been—

AMY GOODMAN: What does all that mean?

ROBERT SCHEER: This is the big lie from Goldman, is that, you know, we didn’t—look, look what happened. Lehman was Goldman’s competitor, was allowed to go belly up, OK? The Secretary of the Treasury was a former head of Goldman Sachs. I don’t want to get into conspiracy theories here, but Robert Rubin was a head of Goldman Sachs, OK? And Paulson was a head of Goldman Sachs. They decide not to—you know, and Rubin was involved in these discussions, Lawrence Summers, Paulson and so forth. Timothy Geithner, who is our Secretary of Treasury, was head of the New York Fed for five years while all this was going on. So they say, “Let Lehman go, you know, down the tubes,” which is great for Goldman Sachs, because now you have basically two investment houses that are getting all the business. “But on the other hand, we’ll put all this money into AIG,” which was backing these junkie derivatives, these mysterious packages, “and it will be a pass through. People won’t notice, because we’re giving it to AIG.” $180 billion of our taxpayer money, we taxpayers get nothing in return, AIG is still in the toilet, but Goldman got its money. You know, it got upwards of $20 billion, that they don’t have to pay back. They make a big thing about “We’re going to pay back some of the TARP funds” and everything. And by the way, they were allowed to become a bank. No hearings, no judicial proceedings and so forth. You know, the very thing Lehman was asking for—“Let us become a bank so we can get some of this TARP funds and everything”—that was granted to Goldman Sachs.

You know, Ron Paul, by the way, who has been trying to go after the Fed, and he has an accountability piece of legislation that the Democrats have gutted, and said, “Let’s have an audit of the Fed. Let’s find out what does the Federal Reserve do. What are the deals they made? Where did the money go?” We don’t have that. And the inspector general of the Treasury Department, the inspector general, you know, Elizabeth Warren, all of these people have pointed—from the Congressional Oversight Panel—all of these people point out, “We don’t have the facts. We don’t know where the trillions are going.” We know trillions have been committed. We know all of these huge pools—Bank of America’s $300 billion of toxic assets have been backed up. But there’s no accountability.

I have covered the CIA, I’ve covered national security, and I’ve covered banking. I did it for the LA Times in one way or another for thirty years, OK? It is more difficult to cover Wall Street, in terms of secrecy and classification and their protection, than it is to cover the CIA and the Pentagon. That much I’ll tell you. You know, you get greater claim on the truth covering the Pentagon, as I did in my last book, than I’m having in my current book called The Great American Stick-Up that Nation Books is publishing. And, you know, these people go, “No, it’s proprietary. It’s our business. It has nothing to do with you.” And that goes for the Fed, which is supposed to be a government agency.

And so, for Chris Dodd to say, “No, we have to take power away from the Fed. We have to create a new independent agency to supervise these too big to fail institutions to make sure that they don’t go belly up and we taxpayers pay for them again,” he’s absolutely right. And people watching this, if there’s one thing they should demand from the Obama administration, is get behind the Dodd bill on taking power from the Fed and creating a new publicly accountable agency. That’s absolutely critical. Without that, we’re not going to get out of this mess, and we’re not going to prevent a future one.

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From The Ed Schultz Show, Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) says President Obama is not being served well by his economic advisors and that there is a growing consensus from the Congressional Progressive Caucus that the president needs to dump Tim Geithner and Larry Summers. DeFazio added that "We may have to sacrifice just two more jobs to get millions back for Americans."

Schultz: What kind of progress can be made to make sure that TARP goes where it's really going to stimulate the economy--small business and infrastructure?

DeFazio: Well, that's our money. It was borrowed in the name of the American people. It was borrowed to bail out Wall Street which has worked famously for Goldman Sachs and others. You know, we think it is time, maybe, that we turn our focus to Main Street, we reclaim the unspent funds, we reclaim some of the funds that are being paid back, which will not be paid back in full, and we use it to put people back to work. Rebuilding America's infrastructure is a tried and true way to put people back to work.

Unfortunately, the President has an adviser from Wall Street, Larry Summers, and a Treasury Secretary from Wall Street, Timmy Geithner, who don't like that idea. They want to keep the TARP money either to continue to bail out Wall Street if there are future problems or maybe to...

Schultz: So Geithner does not want to give the money to small business--the TARP money?

DeFazio: No. They're saying they've got to keep the money. There may be more needs on Wall Street or maybe they should use it to pay down the deficit. That's absurd. We borrowed the money. How do you pay down the deficit...

Shultz: Should he stay in his job Congressman?

DeFazio: No.

Schultz: You think he should be gone as Treasury Secretary?

DeFazio: I do especially if you look back at the AIG scandal and Goldman and others who got their bets paid off in full--instead of saying " Well you bet, you lost"--they got paid back in full with taxpayer money through AIG. We channeled the money through them. Geithner would not answer my question when I said, 'Were those naked credit default swaps by Goldman or were they a counter-party?' He would not answer that question." I think they were naked credit default swaps, they were bets. They should not have gotten their money back.

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Frontline Oct. 20, 2009. The Warning:

In the midst of the 1990's bull market, one lone regulator warned about derivatives' dangers--and overnight became the enemy of some of the most powerful people in Washington.

You can watch the entire program on line here as well as additional invertiews with Brooksley Born, Gary Gensler, Michael Greenberger, Arthur Levitt and Joseph Stiglitz.

From Frontline's interview with Brooksley Born:

Q: What's the message that you're trying to spread now in the ashes of what happened in 2008 and '09?

BORN: I think we have to close the regulatory gap. ... We cannot afford as a society to go forward with an enormous unregulated market that poses this kind of danger because it’ll happen again if we don't take the appropriate steps. ... We need to take a lesson from the existing futures markets where exchange trading has been safe. As much as possible of the over-the-counter derivatives market should be traded on a regulated derivatives exchange. The transaction should be cleared on a regulated clearinghouse. There should be robust federal regulation of any remaining OTC derivatives market. And personally, I think that remaining market should be limited as much as possible to no more than the customized contracts that are needed for specific businesses to hedge particular business risks. ...

Q: If this moment passes again, the consequences are what from your perspective?

BORN: I think we will have continuing danger from these markets and that we will have repeats of the financial crisis. It may differ in details, but there will be significant financial downturns and disasters attributed to this regulatory gap over and over until we learn from experience.

Frontline also put together a video timeline of the events starting in 1987-today.

I highly recommend watching the entire hour at PBS's site, but here's one more portion I wanted to share here.

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Larry Summers' address before the Economic Club in Washington D.C. on Thursday was interrupted by two members of Code Pink who jumped on stage with a banner, yelling derogatory comments.

Both Larry Summers (L), the Director of President Obama's National Economic Council and David Rubenstein, Economic Club of Washington President and Co-Founder and Managing Director of The Carlyle Group, seemed to take the disruption in stride. When asked by Rubinstein if he ever regretted taking the job Summers replied "There are moments that are more pleasant and some that are less pleasant. ... Honestly, I felt honored to be asked by the president to help at this moment."