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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.

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There were a great number of thing wrong with this interview on MSNBC, one being the fact that host Thomas Roberts and his producers thought that the public needed to hear from the corrupt former Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert about the need for bipartisanship during these fiscal negotiations. Another is Hastert being allowed to get away with this statement:

ROBERTS: But sir, if you were able to hold the line on spending limits, then why would you go ahead to oversee two unfunded wars?

HASTERT: Look... the wars happened. I don't know if you were around at 9-11 but we lost 3000 people, but we ended up in Afghanistan. We also ended up in Iraq. You know, we can go back. History will tell us whether we should have been in Iraq, but at the time, we thought that was the right decision. We were not going to expose this country to that type of threat and we haven't had it since then.

Roberts just completely let Hastert off the hook here without an ounce of follow up. First off, he didn't answer the question about why they didn't see the need to pay for the two wars that they didn't want to put on the books to show the hole they were blowing in the budget. And second, it's just shameful that a politician is still being allowed to use 9-11 to justify invading Iraq.

And as far as Hastert and anyone wanting his advice on how someone should govern now, here's more from our archives on him, and he received the honor of being listed by Rolling Stone as one of the The Ten Worst Members of the Worst Congress Ever in Tim Dickinson's article which was originally posted in their Nov. 2006 issue. Here's a portion of that report:

The Highway Robber: Dennis Hastert (R-Ill)

Hastert could well be the weakest House speaker in history. Tapped by Tom DeLay to serve as the mild-mannered frontman for the GOP leadership, the former wrestling coach ceded most of his power to the now-disgraced majority leader, allowing Republicans to treat the Capitol as their private piggy bank. Last year, Hastert got in on the action himself, secretly inserting $207 million into the budget for the "Prairie Parkway" – a highway that will speed development of 210 acres he owns in Illinois. Before the year was out, Hastert sold part of his land – soon to be the site of a sprawling subdivision – for a profit of $2 million.

"Here's a guy who saw a chance to profit from his official acts and took it," says Bill Allison, who uncovered the late-night earmark as a senior analyst for the Sunlight Foundation, a nonpartisan watchdog group. "Most of us aren't speaker of the House, and most of us don't have a $200 million earmark running through our back yard. Hastert does, and he made a fortune from it."

The speaker at least functions as a bipartisan defender of congressional corruption. In February 2005, he purged the chairman of the House Ethics Committee for daring to admonish DeLay. And after Rep. William Jefferson's offices were raided by the FBI last spring, it was Hastert who lodged the strongest protest on the Louisiana Democrat's behalf.

Bipartisanship! Ain't it grand?

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Republicans love to complain about voter fraud, but it seems when there are real problems with rigged elections, actual voter fraud or voter suppression, it's almost always their side that's doing it -- RNC Cuts Off Firm Over Voter Registration Fraud Allegations:

The Republican National Committee has ended its relationship with Strategic Allied Consulting, a firm it paid at least $2.9 million to register voters in several states this year, after investigators launched a probe into potentially fraudulent registration forms submitted by the company.

NBC reported on Thursday that the RNC dropped the firm after a Florida elections official referred more than 100 questionable voter registration forms to investigators.

“We’ve made it clear we’re not doing business with these guys anymore,” RNC spokesman Sean Spicer told NBC’s Michael Isikoff. “We’ve come out pretty strong against this kind of stuff — and we have zero tolerance for this.”

The firm, NBC reports, is run by GOP consultant Nathan Sproul, who has not responded to TPM’s requests for comment. Sproul’s other firm, Lincoln Strategy Group, has been paid by Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign.

And here's more from Isikoff's report at NBC -- RNC cuts ties with firm over voter fraud allegations:

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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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Jon Stewart blasted the Congress and their unwillingness to really do anything about the insider trading which was featured in that badly flawed 60 Minutes piece on the subject and the watered down language in the STOCK Act they just passed.

It's a shame Stewart referenced the 60 Minutes piece since it was riddled with inaccuracies as we noted here, but that didn't make me any less happy to see him go after the Congress with their hypocrisy and unwillingness to do anything meaningful to prevent them from engaging in activities that would have the rest of us serving some jail time.

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Ed Schultz and The Nation's John Nichols discuss the latest on Wisconsin's Gov. Scott Walker as the recall efforts there continue.

Scott Walker Slams Out-Of-State Money In Wisconsin Recall While In Washington For Fundraiser:

As Wisconsin Democrats continued their push to force his recall, Gov. Scott Walker (R) came to Washington on Thursday to raise funds for the election that is all but certain to occur. But while Walker has slammed the influence of out-of-state money in the recall effort, he defended his own fundraising from non-Wisconsinites as fundamentally different from what he called the "excessive amounts" raised by unions and liberal groups.

"The people from around the country who are helping us at the grassroots level are trying to match the amazing levels of money coming in from unions from Washington and throughout the country," said Walker at a question-and-answer event at the American Enterprise Institute on Thursday morning. Walker spoke at AEI before meeting with Republican donors at the Capitol Hill Club later in the day.

According to his latest campaign finance report, Walker has raised $5.1 million since the start of the recall effort on November 15th. Nearly half of that amount, $2.4 million, has come from outside of Wisconsin. Read on...

Meanwhile as Ed and John discussed, this additional news doesn't bode well for the odds of him being recalled either -- Milwaukee D.A. Announces Charges Against Ex-Walker Aide, Two Others In ‘John Doe’ Probe:

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Keith Olbermann, to put it mildly, was not happy about this hostage taking over raising the debt ceiling and expressed his discontent with our political system, our corporate media that cares more about access than telling the truth and the concern by our politicians that revolve around getting reelected rather than representing their constituents. Keith asked where the outrage was and asked why more people aren't taking to the streets.

I think he answered his own question with his criticisms of the media and "a population obsessed with entertainment, video games, social media, sports, and trivia."

I do agree with his disgust over the money that has completely taken over our political system and with a corporate media that is not doing their job and doing their best to dumb down the better part of our population while what they call "news" does their best to misinform those that bother to try to follow what's going on.

If he wants us taking to the streets, someone needs to organize that. Ed Schultz got disgusted enough to get a good number of people to go march on Washington D.C. and voice their discontent. If Keith thinks we should be doing the same, I'd say stand up and lead the charge, or start promoting those who are on your show. Maybe Van Jones who is doing some groundwork in that regard should be a regular guest if he wants to promote the efforts of those that are trying to mobilize the public.

Here's more on the segment from his diary over at Daily KOS -- Special Comment: The Four Great Hypocrisies (UPDATED with link):

President Obama's greatest vulnerability in this tragic debt deal is not that he might appear to have failed, or appear to have abandoned the principles demanded of any humane president (let alone of a Democrat). His true risk is that he and the form of government he heads have suddenly begun to appear utterly, irredeemably, irrelevant.

Tonight, after my guests, including Congressman Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO), the head of The Congressional Black Caucus and the coiner of the memorable 'Satan sandwich' phrase, Kos his ownself, and Al Gore, have had their say, I will have mine.

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As Cenk pointed out, while the media is busy with wall to wall coverage of the Anthony Weiner scandal, they're completely ignoring stories like this one.

Rep. Vern Buchanan's former company violated law, Federal Election Commission says:

The Federal Election Commission is asking a federal court to impose a $67,900 fine on a company formerly co-owned by Rep. Vern Buchanan that it says engaged in an "extensive and ongoing scheme" to reimburse employees who made contributions to the Sarasota Republican's congressional campaign.

In a motion for default filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Florida, the FEC says Hyundai of North Jacksonville — which Buchanan once partially owned — violated federal campaign finance law by making contributions in excess of the legal limit and by reimbursing employees who made the contributions.

Buchanan is not named as a defendant in the suit. The owner of the company said Tuesday he's acknowledged the company reimbursed employees, but said it was a "directive" issued by Buchanan.

"I've done nothing wrong," said Sam Kazran, who said he told the FEC he was unfamiliar with campaign finance law. "I am not a politician, just a regular Joe. I had no idea."

He said Buchanan told a group he needed to raise $1 million "to look good.

"It was 'This is what I need to do and this is what you need to do to take care of it,' " Kazran said. Read on...

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Sean Hannity among others at Fox have been flogging this story all week; Hannity's interview with Palin above just being one of the latest examples. It appears Tucker Carlson's rag, the Daily Caller started this fake controversy and surprise, surprise, Fox decided to glom onto it.

Here's more from Media Matters -- "Corrupt": Fox News Launches Fact-Free Attack On Health Care Reform Waivers:

Fox News, amplifying a fake controversy started by the Daily Caller, is claiming that 38 health-care reform "waivers" granted to businesses in Northern California are evidence of Rep. Nancy Pelosi and President Obama's "corruption." But the business owner who actually requested the waivers said that they were in no way connected to Pelosi and were part of an annual request for businesses throughout the country, not just in Pelosi's congressional district. Read on...

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This is really just a disgusting story, and it's good to see these people finally being walked off in cuffs.

Bell officials arrested as prosecutors are set to file criminal charges:

At least eight city of Bell officials were arrested Tuesday morning, a source said, as L.A. County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley prepared to announce criminal charges in the municipal salary scandal.

[Updated at 10 a.m.: Former Bell City Manager Robert Rizzo, whose high salary sparked the outrage that led to the investigations of the city, was among those arrested in the sweep. No details have been released, but a source not authorized to speak publicly about the case said that Rizzo; former Assistant City Manager Angela Spaccia; Mayor Oscar Hernandez; Councilmembers Luis Artiga, Teresa Jacobo and George Mirabal; and former Councilmembers George Cole and Victor Bello were among those arrested.

[Updated at 11:22 p.m.: Cooley filed charges against eight Bell officials Tuesday, alleging that they misappropriated $5.5 million in public funds. Rizzo has been charged with 53 counts of misappropriation of public funds and conflict of interest.

Among those arrested were former city administrator Robert Rizzo, former assistant city manager Angela Spaccia, Mayor Oscar Hernandez, councilmembers George Mirabal, Teresa Jacobo, Luis Artiga and former councilmembers George Cole and Victor Bello. Read on...

Here's more from CBS News, when this scandal first broke back in July.

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