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We've covered both of these stories here, whether it's the "too big to jail" corrupt HSBC, or the out of touch greedy AIG, which was considering suing the taxpayers after they'd bailed them out. This Wednesday evening, The Daily Show's Jon Stewart took his turn going after them.

AIG decided not to join their former CEO "Hank" Greenberg's lawsuit against the government after all. I guess they took a look at those booming sales of pitchforks and torches and decided it might not bode well for them to do so.

Good for these kids for doing the right thing and for exposing yet another abuse by corporate America and their race to the bottom on wages and exploiting foreign students rather than paying workers in the local community a living wage.

From Democracy Now -- Alleging Captive Labor, Foreign Students Walk Out of Work-Study Program at Hershey Plant:

We look at the story of 300 foreign students who came to the United States as part of a work-study program and found themselves engaged in what they refer to as captive labor at a Hershey’s packing plant in Palmyra, Pennsylvania. The students — from Eastern Europe and Asia — went on strike two weeks ago, after they were reportedly required to lift heavy boxes, work eight-hour shifts beginning at 11 p.m., and stand for long periods of time while packing candy on a fast-moving production line. Federal agencies have launched four investigations into the alleged exploitation. The walkout apparently marks the first time that foreign students have engaged in a strike to protest their employment. The guest workers are demanding a return of the $3,000 to $6,000 each student paid for the cultural exchange program to work at Hershey, that Hershey end exploitation of J-1 student cultural exchange workers, and that the 400 jobs the guest workers filled instead be given to local workers paid a living wage. We speak to two of the student guest workers who took part in the strike at the Hershey plant: Decebal Bilan, an economics student from Romania, and Zhao Huijiao, a foreign languages student from China. We are also joined by Saket Soni, director of the National Guestworker Alliance. "Today the J-1 program has essentially become the United States’s largest guest worker program," says Saket. He notes that while students are recruited ostensibly for cultural exchanges, "they do learn about American culture, just the wrong part of American culture."

Some highlights from the transcript below the fold.

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The Young Turks' Cenk Uygur weighs in on a recent article at the Huffington Post via Reuters, which at a time when we've got record income disparity in the United States is yet another example of why we need to get the money out of politics, do something to fix these corporate tax loopholes and offshore tax havens and last but not least, address the issue of CEO pay being completely out of whack with what the average employee out there is making.

Highest-Paid CEOs Often Earn More Than Company Pays In Income Taxes, Study Finds:

Twenty-five of the 100 highest paid U.S. CEOs earned more last year than their companies paid in federal income tax, a pay study said on Wednesday.

It also found many of the companies spent more on lobbying than they did on taxes.

At a time when lawmakers are facing tough choices in a quest to slash the national debt, the report from the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), a left-leaning Washington think tank, quickly hit a nerve.

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Around 4300 people attended the Working Families Rally at Kiener Plaza in St. Louis, Mo., this Friday to protest corporate greed and the push to turn Missouri into a "right to work" state. I attended the rally and took quite a few photos, which I wanted to share with the readers here at C&L.

The video above is from one of our local stations, which decided to give "right to work" advocate and former State Senator John Loudon some equal time, all in the name of being "fair and balanced" don't you know. According to the St. Louis Beacon, there was a pro-right-to-work rally held in St. Charles, Mo., this Friday as well, but KSDK didn't air any footage from that "rally." I have to wonder if it's because almost no one showed up there.

Here's more from the St. Louis Beacon on the rally at Kiener Plaza -- Thousands of union workers turn out to protest 'corporate greed' and attacks on bargaining rights:

Thousands of area union members -- from teachers to janitors -- packed Kiener Plaza this afternoon, to protest actions by corporations and Republican-led state governments that speaker after speaker called "an attack on the middle class."

"Now is the time to send a powerful message to the enemies of working men and women," declared Jo Wanda Bozeman, president of the Parkway National Education Association.

She asserted that the nation was witnessing "a methodical and planned assault" on the collective-bargaining rights of union workers.

The crowd roared as Bozeman shouted, "We're not going to take it anymore!"

Bob Soutier, president of the Greater St. Louis Labor Council called the turnout -- the official count was 4,300 -- the biggest local labor gathering he's seen in years.

Although smaller than union crowds in some other states with labor fights, including Wisconsin and Indiana, Soutier said the local rally -- organized in a few days -- was evidence that "people in St. Louis are fed up, not just by Washington, but in Jefferson City."

The rally was aimed, in part, at sending a message to Missouri legislators in the state Capitol. The state Senate is slated to take a floor vote Monday on a proposal, officially called "right to work," that would bar union shops, in which all workers at a business must pay dues if a majority have voted to be represented by a union.

Soutier and other area labor leaders plan to be in the Capitol for the Senate vote, even though it's unclear if the state House will take up in the issue. It's also doubtful that Gov. Jay Nixon, a Democrat, would sign it.

Even so, the "right to work" fight -- initiated by Senate President Pro Tem Rob Mayer, R-Dexter -- has galvanized unions and many business groups.

Mayer and his allies contend that "right to work" will make it easier for the state to attract and retain businesses. Union leaders dub the measure "right to work for less" and say it's aimed at reducing worker wages, particularly since the Legislature also is voting on a proposal to curb the state's minimum wage.

Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, headlined a pro-right to work event held earlier Friday in St. Charles. (Click here to read the Beacon's advance coverage, including an interview with Mix.)

I know there are a lot of St. Louis union members planning to go to Wisconsin to support the protesters there and the speakers talked about that at the rally today. If anyone has any photos to share of rallies in your area or information on groups in your area supporting the workers in Wisconsin, please share them in the comments section.

Photos I took of the event in St. Louis below the fold.

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From Democracy Now: British Novelist John le Carré on the Iraq War, Corporate Power, the Exploitation of Africa and His New Novel, "Our Kind of Traitor":

Today, we spend the hour with world-renowned British novelist John le Carré, the pen name of David Cornwell. Le Carré’s writing career spans half a century, during which he has established himself as a master spy writer. His latest novel, his twenty-second, is entitled Our Kind of Traitor. David Cornwell worked in the British Secret Services from the late 1950s until the early 1960s, at the height of the Cold War. His third novel, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, became an international bestseller. As the Cold War ended, le Carré continued to write prolifically, shifting focus to the inequities of globalization, unchecked multinational corporate power, and the role national spy services play in protecting corporate interests. "The things that are done in the name of the shareholder are, to me, as terrifying as the things that are done—dare I say it—in the name of God," le Carré tells Democracy Now! Perhaps best known among his many post-Cold War novels is The Constant Gardener, depicting a pharmaceutical company’s exploitation of unwitting Kenyans for dangerous, sometimes fatal, drug tests. In this rare US interview, le Carré also discusses Tony Blair’s role in the Iraq war, US policy toward Iran, and international money laundering.

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Ed Schultz pretty well lays it in the line with what a whole lot of the progressive community thinks about President Obama right now. Katrina Vanden Heuvel from The Nation weighs in on how "angry, infuriated and heartbroken" the base is and that they need to stand up if they don't want things to be very ugly in 2010. As Ed notes, the President needs to quit listening to Rahm Emanuel and the insurance lobby and start paying attention to those that got him elected.

Transcript via Lexis Nexis.

ED SCHULTZ: Good evening, Americans. And welcome to THE ED SHOW from New York.

Mr. President, pull that chair up in front of the fireplace here. What you say we sit down and have a little talk here tonight? What do you think, huh?

The base is restless. They are wandering in the wilderness, Mr. President. They are looking for your GPS coordinates.

They want to know, where are you? They think we can do a heck of a lot better. Liberals and progressives think that they`re not being treated properly.

Right now, Mr. President, your base thinks you`re nothing but a sellout, a corporate sellout, out that. I know it`s tough audio, but I`m your buddy Ed. I`ve got to tell you this. I don`t think anybody else is.

You aren`t listening to the very people who put you in office, Mr. President. This isn`t about your legacy. It`s about the people in America who need health care now.

Mr. President, I don`t know if you`ve noticed or not, but you have carved out the most important elements of reform. The only people who like this current bill right now, Mr. President, is the insurance industry. They get a bunch of new customers.

Here is what Wendell Potter, a friend of mine, told me on the program last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WENDELL POTTER: The Senate bill is full of loopholes, and the insurance industry knows that. In fact, they`ve made sure that they are in there.

One in particular will allow employers to charge certain workers thousands of dollars more just based on health factors. And it can be obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol.

The insurance industry will be able to write the rules. They are not being set in the legislation as currently written.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHULTZ: Mr. President, don`t leave the room. We`ve got some more talking to do. You can`t make it?

Apparently none of that matters. You see, at the White House, not long ago, the president told liberal Democrats to suck it up and listen to Joe Lieberman`s version on health care.

Now, here`s what gets me. The guy standing behind Obama is the biggest taker from big pharma and the insurance industry. Our old buddy, Max Baucus, chairman of the Finance Committee, is taking $3.4 million from the health industry over the last six years, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. That`s an average of $1,500 a day to Baucus from big health care.

Now, the travesty continues. Last night, 30 Democrats voted against an amendment that would help you and me, the consumers -- the drug importation bill.

It would let consumers buy prescription drugs from overseas at a fraction of the price that we pay right now. But you see, voting for it would have really endangered the deal that the White House cut with big pharma.

Mr. Personality, Rahm Emanuel, he must have gotten a hell of a deal. So, the Democrats got together and they killed it. So much for change we can believe in.

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From the Today Show Oct. 15, 2009. Dylan Ratigan and Michael Moore slam Wall Street for the latest round of bonuses being paid to their executives after being rescued by our tax dollars.

Lauer: Dylan, let me start with you. There are going to be a lot of confused people out here. The Dow is over 10,000 again. The bonuses are back, but on Main Street you’ve got money still tight, spending is tough, people can’t get mortgages, and unemployment is still a problem. Is it just the reality now that Wall Street and Main Street are completely disconnected?

Ratigan: Largely they were. Unfortunately the government has changed the rules on behalf of Wall St. to allow them access to trillions of our dollars as you and I have discussed, as Michael Moore has documented. When you have access to trillions of dollars of taxpayer money with no strings attached, it's very easy to make a few billion dollars. A billion is only 1/1000 of a trillion and because our government is allowing the indulgence of the risk taking of the trillions of our own money not only is it allowing Wall Street to make the billions, but it is also depriving the rest of our economy out of the use of those funds which is why you see the heart wrenching antidotes that Michael Moore is so good at portraying.

There is a direct connection between those who you see suffering in films that Michael documents and the abdication of duty by our government to allow all the taxpayer money we all work so hard to create to be the plaything, the gambling toy, of the financial industry as opposed to forcing the financial industry to get back to the business of being investors and becoming the next Warren Buffet, actually putting money into the economy as opposed to taking it out.

Lauer: Michael, let me make sure people understand this. The Wall Street Journal report says that firms are going to pay out about a $140 billion dollars in bonuses this year. The year before the economic meltdown, 2007, they paid out about $130 billion, so it’s gone up. How is this news going to go over with people like the ones in your home state Michigan that just found out unemployment is 15.3% in that state?

Moore: Well eventually people aren’t going to take it and I don’t know how many gated communities these people who are taking this $140 billion in bonuses, I don’t know how many castles with moats around them they can build, but I’ll tell you something—there’s an anger that’s building out there and I mean Matt, these people, they burned down our economy. They completely crashed it. And now they're getting rewarded for it. It would be like I burned down your house today and then tomorrow you send me a check for it thanking me. It's absolutely insane that we allow this to happen but not surprising because that’s our capitalist system. They can get away with it because it’s legal. They can get away with it because they can make whatever they want to make. They can take whatever they want to take. There’s no such thing as enough.

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Rachel Maddow breaks down who is behind the smears against ACORN and why, and how dishonest the reporting has been by the right wing media on the topic.

MADDOW: It may seem like the only thing happening in Congress these days is the never-ending fight over and of health reform. But if you happen to be watching the House floor at 3:00 this afternoon, this is what you would have seen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. STEVE KING ®, IOWA: Who has consistently called for the clean-

up of the corrupt ACORN, the criminal enterprise ACORN and all of their affiliates? It‘s been people on the Republican side of the aisle that have done that. This is the star of ACORN. He is—he is the lead chief organizer. He is the—he is the person who told the people at ACORN, “I will invite you into the—and we will be setting the agenda for America,” even before he is inaugurated as president of the United States. This is the man who worked for ACORN.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: This is the star of ACORN!

That was paranoid Republican Congressman Steve King of Iowa, today, railing against the community organizing group ACORN, and falsely accusing President Obama of being ACORN‘s lead chief organizer. This sort of animus toward ACORN is something that‘s been percolating on the right for a really long time, but it‘s broken open recently as even Democrats in Congress have decided to go along with efforts to defund and demonize ACORN, and some Republican governors have even enthusiastically defunded ACORN as well, despite the fact that those governors didn‘t fund them in the first place.

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Part 2

From GoLeftTV:

Thanks to an almost complete lack of regulation, the executives on Wall Street were able to gamble our economy for their own personal gain, ignoring ethics and in some cases the rule of law along the way. And while Congress is still trying to figure out whether or not to take action, the labor movement in America has decided to take matters into their own hands. Mike Papantonio of Air America's Ring of Fire talks with Richard Trumka, the secretary treasurer of the AFL-CIO, who has some big ideas on how to reign in the corruption and greed that has become too commonplace among Wall Street insiders.

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Charles Grassley is starting to sound as incoherent during his television interviews as he does in his Tweets. Grassley doesn't think we need more regulation. We just need more transparency. Yeah, that's going to make the finace companies behave. And when asked if the banks are in any position to protest if they're not going to make as much money, Grassley comes back with this:

Greed is human nature. We shouldn't blame greed any more than you'd blame gravity when a plane has an accident and goes down.

I'm sorry Senator, but I think we can blame greed for the mess we're in. Greed and the unwillingness of the government to put a check on it.