An IG report from the Federal Housing Fnancing Agency finds that Freddie Mac used a faulty method to low ball potential mortgage losses in a settlement with Bank of America, exposing taxpayers to billions in losses. It’s another sign these agencies can’t be trusted to protect taxpayer interests.

David Brooks is really upset: We may have a lost decade because he is sitting there being right, standing in the middle, and the two extremes who control public debate won’t agree with him. But one side did the math, the other didn’t, and neither did Brooks.

Looks like Ted Leonsis, the billionaire who owns the Washington Wizards, got his fee-fees hurt when the president said all those mean things about rich people having to pay more taxes.

From Maine to Monterey, Utah to Utica — big energy corporations like Halliburton are bribing your local officials for the right to pump “proprietary chemicals” into open fractures beneath the earth that flow into local water formations. We want to know who they are, and we need your help in finding out.

The SEC has told Standard and Poor’s that they may file civil charges over the rating agency’s role in a 2007 mortgage backed securities deal. The formal warning of potential imminent charges, known as a Wells notice, was delivered yesterday.

A decision by the Administration to bypass an intermediate appeal from an adverse decision by a three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court means it’s now possible the Supreme Court could rule on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate by June 2012, right in the middle of the election season.

The Senate reached agreement on a Continuing Resolution to fund the federal government, including reduced emergency funds — but without offsets — through November 18. This was a win for the Democrats, who preserved the principle of emergency funding without offsets.

According to The Advocate, Democratic lawmakers are now questioning Speaker of the House John Boehner about the phony, junk science arguments the GOP’s lawyer, Paul Clement, has been making in defense of DOMA.

At today’s LinkedIn town hall meeting with President Obama, a former Google executive asked “Would you please raise my taxes?” The man, identified as Doug Edwards, a former director of communications and marketing at Google, said that he wanted the country to continue to be able to invest in Pell grants and infrastructure and job training programs “that made it possible for me to get where I am.”

Happy birthday to my sister. This stands in for a card or gift certificate.