Jon Stewart opened up his show with a look at the influence of money in politics, and Hillary Clinton coming under fire from the talking heads over at Fox "news," who have been thrown into a "tizzy" over there might be some conflict of interest over donations to the Clinton Foundation.
As Stewart noted, while there may be reasons to be rightfully suspicious over foreign donations to the Clinton's organization, while the media is obsessing over their charity, they're ignoring the billions of dollars flowing into actual campaign coffers and these Super PACS.
After showing a few clips of pundits discussing the money we're going to see from the likes of Sheldon Adelson and the Koch brothers this election cycle, and former Bush spox Ari Fleischer talking about Adelson being able to "keep a candidacy alive" or "take out a candidacy," Stewart responded.
STEWART: I am Sheldon Adelson. I decide. I decide whether a candidate lives or dies. Honestly, what is this guy, Khaleesi?
Of course the talking heads over at Fox have no problem whatsoever with that money flowing into political campaigns and have spent countless hours complaining about how any attempts to fix our campaign finance system amount to stifling "free speech." They complain that the foreign money donated for charity has to be corruption, but that money from Americans flowing into our elections is just fine.
STEWART: I guess the rule here is money is free speech, unless that money speaks with a funny accent.
Stewart went onto give one example of how when it's domestic money pouring into our elections, you can almost always guarantee there's corruption, and Chris Christie vetoing a bill banning the use of hog gestation crates and doing the bidding of GOP mega-donor Bruce Rastetter.
After asking if we could prove that Christie was doing a quid pro quo to Rastetter and his brother's company, Stewart used the opportunity to throw Megyn Kelly's words back in her face, and replayed some earlier footage of her and her guest, the WSJ's Bret Stephens attacking Clinton, but with Christie's name dubbed into the sound track.
Stewart wrapped things up on a depressing note and the fact that the FEC which is supposed to be policing this ten billion dollar presidential election has already just basically thrown their hands up and said they surrender. The billionaires are thrilled.
I'm glad to see Stewart continuing to take the issue of money in politics on. It would have been nice if he'd emphasized the fact that the Clinton Foundation is a charity and not a political PAC and the fact that the media has been doing their best to conflate the two. Sadly the comedian is still head and shoulders above the majority of the coverage we've seen from our corporate "news" media on the issue.
