As was previously reported, President Obama and Congress gutted the insider trading regulations on Congress. Like a thief in the night Congress and the White House did nothing to call attention to themselves as they stealthily removed key provisions of the STOCK Act covering executive and congressional staffers disclosing their finances.

Other than FDL, a few other independent media outlets, and watchdog groups no one seemed to think the story was a big deal or even a story at all.

The Obama administration feared they might lose re-election and in the summer of last year began to develop a set of rules for using drones.

In his effort to appear on as many morning and late night shows before Election Day, President Barack Obama appeared on “The Daily Show” with Jon Stewart last night. Stewart talked to him about his record, his first debate performance, whether his candidacy’s strength is that he is not as bad as GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, what he would like to do in his second term and his administration’s response to the attack in Benghazi. He was also directly asked about the continuation of national security policies that were the hallmark of the administration of President George W. Bush.

President Obama appeared on the Daily Show last night, and Jon Stewart confronted him with the “H” word. It’s not one that comes up much in Obama’s presence; I can’t remember the last time, in fact. But last night, he had to answer for HAMP.

A “Daily Show” clip with correspondent Jason Jones aired last night on “super spy” Thomas Drake, who worked for the National Security Agency as an analyst until he was ultimately charged as “a spy” under the Espionage Act for blowing the whistle on the NSA. The segment nicely plays up the fact he did not commit espionage and, instead, was a “cost-benefit analysis expert,” who had examined two intelligence gathering programs and decided one was cheaper and would lead to less fraud, waste, abuse and illegalities.

Last night, Colbert closed his announcement with the words “Thank you, God bless you, and God bless Citizens United.” Nobody has done more to show how ludicrous our campaign finance system has become. If it leads to a reassessment of the system, his SuperPAC money will have been money well spent.

Jonathon Swift went too far in his “A Modest Proposal” (1729) when he proposed the eating of human children as a solution to Ireland’s economic woes and the plight of the hungry poor. If we were looking for a solution to our own economic crisis that might be acceptable to more people, and so better suited to a democracy, wouldn’t it be efficacious to simply let the hungry youngsters starve to death?

Politifact often does a good service checking the veracity (or lack thereof) of controversial claims made by public figures. But they seem to have encountered some difficulty fact-checking Jon Stewart’s claim that Fox Viewers are “the most consistently misinformed media viewers.

David Wittman’s (aka DJ Dave) popular video, “Whole Foods Parking Lot,” is a hilarious send-up of some of the apparent moral contradictions of participants in today’s postmodern counter-culture. It’s a counter-culture only in the sense that it has more to do with the checkout counter than it does any challenge to the culture at large. Hell, it is the culture at large.

Bill Moyers easily ranks as one of America’s greatest journalists. For decades, he has covered vital stories most others ignored, fearlessly defying orthodoxies and amplifying viewpoints that were excluded in most establishment venues. His coverage of the 2008 financial crisis provided the earliest look at how reckless and criminal was Wall Street’s conduct and how steadfast was the resolve of the subservient political class to shield it from accountability. His commentary on how the media suppresses dissenting views that fall outside of the bipartisan consensus — as exemplified by this recent interview with Tavis Smiley — makes him one of the most astute media critics in the nation. And his 2007 examination of the media’s role in selling the Iraq War — “Buying the War” — was the first and still-best examination of that largely ignored topic.