Daily Archives: January 1, 2015

Federal Reserve audit push gains momentum with Republican Senate majority

Posted: January 1, 2015 at 7:41 am

After years of being blocked by Democratic leader Harry Reid, the Senate will finally get a chance next year to vote on legislation to force a broad audit of the Federal Reserves decision-making.

Once championed in Congress by former Rep. Ron Paul, the push to force the countrys central bank to undergo a full audit has been picked up by his son, Sen. Rand Paul, and others, and has the backing of the leader of the new Republican majority, Sen. Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican, whose office says the legislation will earn a floor vote.

But despite overwhelming support in the House, where the legislation has twice passed, the bill is not a sure thing in the Senate, and the Fed itself is pushing back. Chairwoman Janet L. Yellen said earlier this month the Fed remains opposed to stricter oversight of its monetary policy decisions, and Reuters reported she and other Fed officials are lobbying Capitol Hill to drop the audit push.

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Back in 1978 Congress explicitly passed legislation to ensure that there would be no GAO audits of monetary policy decision-making, namely policy audits. I certainly hope that will continue, and I will try to forcefully make the case for why thats important, Ms. Yellen told reporters at a press conference two weeks ago.

For supporters in Congress, the fight is a matter of constitutional prerogatives and good governance. They argue that President Obamas 2009 Recovery Act, which totaled $800 billion in spending and tax cuts, was dwarfed by the trillions of dollars of stimulus the Federal Reserve oversaw.

Theyve had luck in the House, where legislation calling for an audit has passed twice, including most recently in September on a 333-92 vote. All but one Republican, and more than half of the Democrats in the chamber, voted for the legislation.

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But Mr. Reid, Nevada Democrat, refused to give the bill floor time in the Senate, bottling it up in both 2012 and 2014.

Norm Singleton, vice president of policy at Campaign for Liberty, Ron Pauls political organization, said that was striking because, in 2010, Mr. Reid had seemed to throw his support behind doing an audit.

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Federal Reserve audit push gains momentum with Republican Senate majority

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2014 Remembrances: Honoring Some Exceptional Lives

Posted: at 7:40 am

As we begin the new year, Code Switch takes a moment to look back at some of the extraordinary, influential and interesting people whom we lost in 2014.

Sam Greenlee during the 2004 Los Angeles Film Festival. John Heller/WireImage via Getty hide caption

Sam Greenlee during the 2004 Los Angeles Film Festival.

Sam Greenlee

A native Chicagoan, Greenlee drew on his own experiences as one of the first black Foreign Service officers to write The Spook Who Sat by the Door. Published in 1969, the novel centers on a government conspiracy to eradicate black America and the well-trained Army that the country's first black CIA agent or "spook," in agency lingo assembles to foil the plan.

The idea was intriguing enough that the novel was made into a 1973 movie that has gained a cult following. (The fact that the movie opened and then disappearedall the copies of the film had been hijackedinspired a documentary, Infiltrating Hollywood: The Rise and Fall of the Spook Who Sat By The Door.

Greenlee lived quietly for several decades, but he was a constant presence in Chicago's black communities, writing and supporting his hometown's cultural life. A few years before he died, he told a Chicago radio journalist he couldn't have written the novel today. "The idea that street gangs that are now dope-dealing thugs would start a revolution is a historical absurdity," he snorted. "Now, when I wrote [The Spook Who Sat by the Door], the gangs had political consciousness." Greenlee kept his till the end. He died in Chicago on May 19.

Fred Ho

Ho was an avant garde jazz musician who didn't like to describe his work that way. He believed the term "jazz" was initially used to denigrate black musicians. Ho liked to refer to his genre as "Afro-Asian Futurism."

You couldn't miss him in a crowd: Ho always dressed colorfully, in brightly-patterned clothes he often designed himself. The colors were often riotous, but the form Mandarin-collared jackets that closed with silk frogs were a direct reference to his Chinese heritage.

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2014 Remembrances: Honoring Some Exceptional Lives

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GTA 5 Stunt Montage "Fortitude" | Cryptic Stunting | By Futurist – Video

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GTA 5 Stunt Montage "Fortitude" | Cryptic Stunting | By Futurist - Video

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