Bill Maher was his usual understated self on Real Time tonight, urging everyday Americans to begin “a class war” on Wall Street. And he illustrated the need for such a fight by drawing a comparison to the backlash received by one Charlie Sheen after his disastrous show in Detroit. And as much as we groaned initially about having to hear Sheen’s name again, we’ll admit Maher got in some good lines.

For the uninitiated Fox News Watch is a weekend news program that covers the media coverage of the past week’s events; its ostensibly the FNC answer to CNN’s Reliable Sources. The past episode of the program has earned a bit of unwanted attention themselves when programming staffers inadvertently aired an awkward segment critical of NBC News coverage of General Electric that was interrupted by on off-camera “cut!” and appears to have never been meant to hit the airwaves. Updated.

Last night on The O’Reilly Factor, host Bill O’Reilly appeared to take the bait from Gateway Pundit’s Jim Hoft who yesterday suggested that the nearly $25 Million in federal stimulus money received by GE was payback for pro-Obama coverage by NBC News (which is owned by General Electric.) His guest Charles Krauthammer appeared to disagree.

News Corp’s recent donation to the Republican Governors Association given editorial positions at, in particular, Fox News certainly turned heads among Democrats and gave President Obama even more fodder to challenge the company. Yet in light of all the criticism, it seems that the only thing they’re surprised about at Fox News is that the president cares about them at all.

When NBC began their Green Initiative in 2007, a plan that forced all of their programs to incorporate “green” storylines twice a year during designated “Green Weeks,” any rational person could peg it as a cynical attempt to latch onto a social movement. However, we didn’t have proof of just how cynical it was until the Wall Street Journal’s Amy Chozick did a fascinating piece on it yesterday. Nearly everything in the article is stuff anyone could have assumed watching the “Green Week” broadcasts, but reading the quotes and seeing just how seemingly gleeful the NBC execs are in their cynicism, is surprisingly painful.

Who: Alec Baldwin interviewed by Janet Maslin What: TimesTalks’ “Live with Alec Baldwin”Where: The Times CenterWhen: December 3, 2009Thumbs: Up

The sale of NBC Universal from General Electric Co to Comcast Corp, which Comcast hoped to complete almost a month ago, looks like it’s actually happening this time. According to the New York Times‘ Michael J. de la Merced, Bill Carter, and Andrew Ross Sorkin, GE reached a tentative agreement to buy Vivendi SA’s 20 percent stake in NBC, ending a stalemate that held up the GE-Comcast deal:

Reuters is reporting that according to sources Comcast Corp and General Electric Co have agreed to make current NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker the head of their new proposed joint venture, though the “structure of a new board is still being negotiated” and Peter Chernin‘s role is still up in the air.

A report by Brian Stelter in the New York Times, and another by Joe Flint in the Los Angeles Times, reveals a deal that began at the top of each organization, and has led both networks to tamper down the criticism. Now it opens the door to more questions than before.