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Sean Hannity just came out and said it last night before his "All-American Panel": He's attacking Kevin Jennings, the Obama White House's "School Safety Czar," for ostensibly looking the other way when informed of a teenage boy's affair with an older man.

Hannity, you see, thinks he abetted "statutory rape" and displayed "bad judgment." Therefore:

Hannity: I want him fired!

As usual, Media Matters has the whole story:

Despite evidence to the contrary, Fox News -- led by Sean Hannity -- and other right-wing media have claimed that Department of Education official Kevin Jennings "cover[ed] up statutory rape" and violated Massachusetts law by not reporting to authorities a 1988 conversation in which a high school student told Jennings about his relationship with an older man. In fact, Jennings' attorney wrote in a 2004 letter that the student was 16 years old, which is -- and was at the time -- the legal age of consent in Massachusetts.

What exactly should Jennings have reported to authorities, Sean?

Hannity is just seething with jealousy, and you can tell it. Glenn Beck has two scalps already, and he wants one too, just to keep up. The behind-the-scenes rumors are that Hannity despises Beck and the feeling is mutual -- and that, moreover, Beck is gunning for Hannity's prime evening slot.

Too bad for Hannity he's shooting blanks again with this takedown try. Here's wishing you even worse luck next time, Sean.

Greg Sargent at the PlumLine has more, as does Steve Benen.

Crooked Timber: Sunstein Becked

Emptywheel: Cheney's Sabotage of Counter-Terrorism

The Washington Independent: When is a Czar not a Czar?

Relaxed Politics: The REAL problems with Obama's speech yesterday

Frank Chow: This horse exhaust has been working on the dim bulbs since the 60s so expect more of the same

HOLY CRAP: Hope fading fast...Church/State schism in Italy...Mary Magdalene health care...The Temperature of Hell...Icons...Bible according to Zach...Silly Clothing...WTF Moment... Jesus on a toilet...Amazing Jesus...Helicopter to church...Christ and the Black Heart...

It's nice to know that as Americans struggle with unemployment and lack of health insurance, at least one worthy group of lads are doing well!

American International Group is preparing to pay millions of dollars more in bonuses to several dozen top corporate executives after an earlier round of payments four months ago set off a national furor.

The troubled insurance giant has been pressing the federal government to bless the payments in hopes of shielding itself from renewed public outrage.

Uh, hon? We don't care if the Pope himself blesses you. We're not going to be happy about this. Nope.

The request puts the administration's new compensation czar on the spot by seeking his opinion about bonuses that were promised long before he took his post.

AIG doesn't actually need the permission of Kenneth R. Feinberg, who President Obama appointed last month to oversee the compensation of top executives at seven firms that have received large federal bailouts. But officials at AIG, whose federal rescue package stands at $180 billion, have been reluctant to move forward without political cover from the government.

"Anytime we write a check to anybody" it is highly scrutinized, said an AIG official, who declined to speak on the record because the negotiations with Feinberg are ongoing. "We would want to feel comfortable that the government is comfortable with what we are doing."

I don't know about you, but I'm not feeling all that comfortable with this.

The payments coming due next week include $2.4 million in bonuses for about 40 high-ranking executives at AIG, according to administration documents from earlier this year. Though the actual sum may have changed since then, the payments are much smaller than those that caused the upheaval in March.

To those of us who are lucky enough that they're still employed, I'll bet they're thinking about that past ten years of one- and two-percent raises, wondering how to get on that magical merry-go-round. Dream on!

This whole incestuous mess just gets worse and worse, doesn't it? It appears the foxes are dining quite well while working as henhouse security guards:

Last month, a little-known company where [Larry] Summers served on the board of directors received a $42 million investment from a group of investors, including three banks that Summers, Obama’s effective “economy czar,” has been doling out billions in bailout money to: Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and Morgan Stanley. The banks invested into the small startup company, Revolution Money, right at the time when Summers was administering the “stress test” to these same banks.

A month after they invested in Summers’ former company, all three banks came out of the stress test much better than anyone expected -- thanks to the fact that the banks themselves were allowed to help decide how bad their problems were (Citigroup “negotiated” down its financial hole from $35 billion to $5.5 billion.)

The fact that the banks invested in the company just a few months after Summers resigned suggests the appearance of corruption, because it suggests to other firms that if you hire Larry Summers onto your board, large banks will want to invest as a favor to a politically-connected director.

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