Featuring new videos by John Gorka and Dan Auerbach.

Does Obama have what it takes to reinstate banking regulations?

Significant aspects of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been, and continue to be, carried out secretly by Joint Special Operations Forces. Who controls these secretive forces?

Financial regulatory “reform” is beginning to look a lot like the status quo. We’ve already heard that the proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency would be housed inside the Federal Reserve, which already held responsibility over consumer protection (and failed miserably at the task). Now the Financial Times reports that the Fed will also keep their supervision over the biggest banks, another area in which they failed but will face no diminution of power.

Howard Zinn’s monumental book, A People’s History of the United States lifted the curtain on the traditional American narrative, revealing class struggles, dissent and the efforts of everyday Americans, people of color, women, day laborers, migrant workers to gain and live with the rights promised in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

In The People Speak, Zinn is joined by a group of talented actors and musicians in bringing these people’s stories to life. Morgan Freeman, Viggo Mortensen, Marisa Tomei, Sean Penn, Rosario Dawson, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle, David Starthairn, Danny Glover, Kerry Washington, Benjamin Bratt, Sandra Oh, Jasmine Guy, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Pink, Eddie Vedder, John Legend, DMC, Chris Robinson and Rich Robinson are among the stars lending their voices to The People Speak, a documentary based on A People’s History of the United States and Voices of a People’s History of the United States, the companion volume of 200 primary sources, co-created with Anthony Arnove.

Stupak has shown how you can fight for something using your maximum leverage at the right moments. Contrast this with the behavior of Lynn Woolsey, co-chair of the progressive caucus, who, despite claiming to fight for a public option, has only asked politely.

Josh Mull, who is starting today as The Seminal’s newest Afghanistan Blogging Fellow, has deep experience blogging, reporting, and making political change.

According to former Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee Senator Bob Graham, a majority of Committee members in November 2002–including a few Republicans–supported conducting oversight of the program. And it seems that CIA mischaracterized to Roberts what Graham had planned, perhaps in an effort to dissuade Roberts from conducting that oversight.

The biggest problem here is that the reconciliation bills passed by the House and Senate are almost certain to differ, and setting up a conference report would subject the fixes to the filibuster that the reconciliation process was designed to circumvent. One way or another, the House will have to eat some bad provisions, unless the Senate installs major party discipline on everything not already worked out by agreement.

Tennessee’s Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker are going to bat for a major business in Tennessee while blocking employees from unionizing.