Today, the House Financial Services Committee passed an amendment to their financial regulatory reform bill that would mandate an audit of the Federal Reserve. The Paul-Grayson amendment, named for its chief sponsors, Reps. Ron Paul and Alan Grayson, passed the committee by a count of 43-26.

Back in May 2007, while researching the activities of the American Psychological Association (APA) in support of the U.S. government’s interrogation program, I came across evidence that the APA had engaged in a discussion of torture techniques during a workshop organized by APA and the RAND Corporation, “with generous funding from the Central Intelligence Agency [...]

      After he was elected AFL-CIO president in September, Richard Trumka traveled around the country on a listening tour. Here’s one story he heard, which he described this week as the AFL-CIO, along with several key allies, launched a jobs initiative to help get our nation back to work. Last summer at an [...]

Abortion language in the merged Senate bill resembles that which was originally in the House bill–before the House adopted the Stupak amendment.

The Republican Party has engaged in a decades-long project to portray any Democratic electoral gains as fraudulent, chipping away at the legitimacy of any Democratic politician. A new poll by a Democratic firm shows that these efforts have paid off.

Before she got the veep nod, Steve Schmidt grilled Palin about her views on evolution, apparently to ensure she wasn’t a flat-earther creationist. The CSM provides this exchange from Going Rogue. [Schmidt] knew my position: I believed in the evidence for microevolution – that geologic and species change occurs incrementally over time. But I didn’t [...]

RYAN GRIM: Just this morning the blog Firedoglake organized a letter that’s signed by the AFL-CIO, the SEIU and other economists saying we need to back the Paul/Grayson amednement and a vote for the Watt amendment is a vote for more secresy at the Fed, more secreat bailouts. But you also have unanimous Republican support for this in the committee, so you have this left/right convergence, kind of a grass roots movement, that is trying to challenge the establishment.

This is what I call “solidarity.” Richard Trumka, President of the AFL-CIO, Andy Stern, President of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), and Leo Gerard, President of the Steelworkers Union, both signed a letter with economists, labor leaders, and bloggers blasting Rep. Mel Watt’s amendment to gut the audit of the Federal Reserve.

It is encouraging that Senator Reid respected the will of the American people and included a public option in the merged Senate bill. However, the addition of a state opt-out provision threatens to leave millions of Americans at the mercy of private insurance monopolies, with the federal government acting as enforcers for a product with [...]

Not like it’ll matter to Republicans who are attacking Eric Holder’s decision, but Sheldon Whitehouse slammed Republicans for beating up on federal prosecutors. And then he got really steamed, accusing the Republicans of politicizing prosecutorial opinions. From my perspective, popular opinion is a very dangerous bellweather to hold prosecutors to. … I think it gets [...]