When we pour $10 or 30$ billion into AIG, it doesn’t vanish into thin air. It goes to someone else. Earlier evidence suggested that Goldman Sachs had massive exposure to a potential AIG bankruptcy. And it’s been alleged — though not on any harder evidence than a certain elementary logic — that AIG got saved in part because of people tied to Goldman who were running Bailout Inc. last fall.

Whatever the truth of that, I think it’s time we know more clearly where the $100 or so billion we’ve ‘loaned’ AIG so far went. (There’s been some data on this. But I don’t believe it’s been exhaustive or particularly detailed.) And where’s the next dollop of money likely to go? Whoever these recipients are, they are by definition companies that are in the capitalism business who made a bad bet on AIG, probably a lot of bad bets on AIG.

They don’t seem to be taking the hits, however. Taxpayers are the ones paying for the bad bets.

But let’s just ignore investigating all that and blame the whole thing on irresponsible homeowners instead. It makes for a better viral video.

Frank said he had no idea the waivers were being required, and vowed to get rid of them — immediately.

Here’s the exchange:

TPM: The next question goes to mortgages, to shift a little bit. Countrywide executives testified before your committee last summer that they were requiring borrowers who had loan modifications to sign away part of their legal rights … a recent investigation found that Fannie and Freddie now make the same waiver requests of folks who are getting their loans modified. Were you aware of that? Do you think that’s a troubling trend?

FRANK: Yes, uh, it’s a very troubling trend. We were not aware of it. As a matter of fact, by the time that question was posed, Countrywide had been bought by Bank of America, and Bank of America has ended that practice. … I have friends who said ‘well, Bank of America’s too big, shouldn’t we stop them from buying Countrywide?’ … [M]y answer was, I would have been happy if Syria bought Countrywide, because it was one of the most irresponsible institutions out there. Bank of America has done a very good job … I did not know until you just told me that Fannie and Freddie were doing that and I can pretty much guarantee you that we will have put an end to that within a few days.

I’ll keep you posted on what happens with the waivers.

As Josh Micah Marshall at Talking Points Memo reported Saturday, Rep John Conyers (D-Mich), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee wrote an angry letter to Michael Chertoff, secretary of the Dept. of Homeland Security, saying the disclosure, by at least one “federal law enforcement official,” according to The AP, was “very disturbing” and warrants an investigation.

In fact, the disclosure wasn’t just disturbing –- it was either illegal, or it was approved directly by the U.S. attorney general. And, it endangered Onyango and any of her family that continue to live in Kenya.

According to the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations, 8 CFR 208.6, it is illegal to disclose that a noncitizen has applied for political asylum, without her explicit consent “or at the discretion of the attorney general.”

The Supreme Court, in United States v. Ray, explained the reason: because the applicant or her family could be subject to retaliation in their home country.

As an immigration authority fact sheet, cited by the court, explains: “Public disclosure of asylum-related information may subject the claimant to retaliatory measures by government authorities or non-state actors in the event that the claimant is repatriated, or endanger the security of the claimant’s family members who may still be residing in the country of origin.”

According to Amnesty International, the last year in Kenya has seen a crisis of deadly political violence and grave human rights violations.

In other words, this leak wasn’t just a typical ugly attack against the Democratic presidential nominee — it may have been an unusually dangerous one.

Whatever you think of the [Alaska Gov. Sarah] Palin speech, whether it was cynical or alienating to anyone outside the base, it was solidly written. I’d even say well written. [Sen. John] McCain’s wasn’t. It was decidedly second rate, not just badly delivered but clumsily written (except for the part about his POW experience, which I assume he has on file: that worked). How did that happen? Everyone knows McCain is a bad public speaker, so one would assume his campaign would it least give him a rock solid text to work from. But I suspect the campaign only has so many first-rate people on hand, and all of those people in the McCain campaign were tasked with taking care of Palin, leaving the top of the ticket to the second-stringers.

I can speak to this a little bit.

Palin’s speech was written by Matthew Scully, a former speech-writer for President George W. Bush.

Meanwhile, Mark Salter — McCain’s personal speech-writer, adviser, friend and biographer — has been working on the GOP presidential nominee’s speech for weeks. I’ve heard him say so. I don’t think anyone would refer to Salter as a “second-string” anything in the campaign. I can’t say why the finished product seemed so “second-rate,” but McCain definitely had his No. 1 guy working on it for a very long time. I guess they can’t all be home runs, or “hat tricks” to use Palin’s preferred analogy.