Four banks were closed by the FDIC yesterday, bringing the 2010 total up to 90 — a number we didn’t reach last year until after Labor Day. The Fed, meanwhile, seems comfortable with high unemployment and apparently thinks the banks are doing just fine. But one potential financial reform proposal — the Kanjorski Amendment — still remains in play, which would take power away from the Fed and put it in the hands of a systemic risk council, which would be expected to either break up or strongly regulate institutions that pose a systemic risk.

Meanwhile, the FDIC is hiring a new Senior Congressional Relations Manager. Sounds like he or she will have some serious business on their desk on the day he or she walks in the door.

Scott Brown, last seen not committing to vote for the financial reform bill, last seen not voting to extend unemployment, last seen not interested in a climate bill or an immigration bill, apparently holds the key to the DISCLOSE Act, according to Senate Democrats, who plan to try to pass the campaign finance law in the chamber in July.

Say, did you know that waiters and waitresses pull in $100,000 a year? Really! Tom Emmer, the Republican candidate for Minnesota governor, says so — and he said it in front of a whole bunch of reporters at a press conference he’d called.

What is your favorite place and why?

It could be someplace, foreign or domestic, where you have traveled. It could be your own favorite corner or garden or park or right at home or in your neighborhood. It could be someplace inside your head that comes from a book or from your own imagination. It could be because you love the place for physical reasons, like beauty or physical accomplishment, or for emotional reasons, like associations with favorite people or memorable lifetime events.

Geri and The Atrics — Who Put The Bomp, from The Muppet Show.

Marco Rubio (BP-FL) went on Faux News the other day and belched up this weird tirade against labor.

We like to think that we live in a democracy, but the sad reality is that the US is a democracy in much the same way that the UK is a monarchy. The American voter has become a figurehead who controls very little, if anything.

Some photos from downtown Oakland earlier today, hours after the riots partially inspired by the involuntary manslaughter verdict against BART police officer Johannes Mehserle in the death of Oscar Grant:

“BP has either been blocking blood panels or they have been taking blood panels and not letting really anyone see what the blood panel works look like.”

— Riki Ott the marine biologist and author of Not One Drop: Betrayal and Courage in the Wake of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill on Virtually Speaking July 8, 2010.

Two groups–Common Cause and Public Campaign–are willing to spend up to $15 million on a much-needed push for the Fair Elections Now Act, which would provide voluntary public financing of federal elections.