For Tuesday night’s Rachel Maddow show, guest-host and Nation DC Editor Chris Hayes, reports on “something remarkable” that happened in Washington earlier that day. On Tuesday, the Senate voted 96-0 to add the “Audit the Fed” amendment to the financial regulatory reform bill. As Hayes explains, the Federal Reserve is the bankers’ bank and beginning in 2007 when the economy went into an “apocalyptic death spiral,” identifying how much money the Federal Reserve lent out—and to which banks—met a similar, apocalyptic death. In one instance, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke flat-out refused to say which banks received money.
“The effort to combat that secrecy, and to account for the basic facts of who is getting how much money from the Fed, on what terms, has given rise to the ultimate strange bedfellows political coalition,” explains Hayes. “The Audit the Fed alliance includes lefty bloggers like Jane Hamsher, and the über-conservative right wing anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist…And now, remarkably, the Audit the Fed movement includes all of the 96 Senators who were present today.”
—Clarissa León
