Here in my backyard of sunny (sorry!) Los Angeles, our county sheriff is suffering through the worst performance record in the country outside of noted racist Joe Arpaio in Maricopa County, Arizona. First, Sheriff Lee Baca had to endure credible allegations of mistreatment of prisoners in county lockups. Now, he has a new scandal on [...]

If you look at the economic statistics, what should cause the most worry for policymakers is the troubling bifurcation between private sector and public sector jobs. The private sector hasn’t created jobs at a spectacular or even a good pace, but they’ve seen modest, sustained growth for 20 straight months. By contrast, the public sector [...]

Occupy Wall Street protesters returned in force last night to Zuccotti Park, but they encountered new restrictions. In particular, they had to enter the park single file, and they couldn’t bring in tents, tarps or sleeping bags, or even lie down on the park grounds. Obviously law enforcement was applying the term “tents” broadly, because [...]

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has received a lot of the headlines for his no-holds-barred investigations against the banks, but he’s had a partner in Delaware’s Beau Biden. Because New York and Delaware were where most of the securitization trusts were originated, having a united front on this issue of fraud is vital, and [...]

Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan wants you to know that you disgust him. You, with all your whining and bellyaching about having to pay a fee to access your own money. Bank of America Corp. Chief Executive Officer Brian T. Moynihan said he’s “incensed” by public criticism of his company and is pushing back [...]

(UPDATE: The injured protester in the above video was a veteran who now has a skull fracture) The shocking police crackdown at Occupy Oakland, which featured flash grenades, rubber bullets, tear gas, and as you can see above, targeted firing of “non-lethal” weapons directly at protesters, has started to cause a response from California’s progressive [...]

I’ve written about the revival of the Move Your Money movement alongside the Occupy Wall Street protests. But there’s a second-wave innovation here that has the potential to make the banks take notice in a much more direct way. When ordinary citizens take their savings out of big banks, it has a small effect, but [...]

Adam Serwer writes about a new report on DHS’ Secure Communities program, showing that it harms law enforcement efforts: The law enforcement argument against Secure Communities goes something like this: Because the program is automatic, undocumented immigrants are discouraged from talking to police because of the possibility that they might end up getting deported. “When [...]

Republicans are barnstorming across the country in support of a balanced budget amendment. This, they say, will force government to “live within its means” and lead to surging economic growth, though I’m not really sure how they get from A to B. But we don’t really have to guess about the impact of a balanced [...]

Lori Montgomery reports that the White House is “speeding up” debt limit talks, with an outline of spending cuts and deficit triggers in exchange for a debt limit increase. Montgomery breaks some news about one potential trigger, which would, according to Delaware Senator Chris Coons (D), lead to tax increases and specifically entitlement cuts, if [...]

MADISON, WI (FDL) – The Assembly Democrats have presented an alternative budget proposal and are meeting with the head of the Department of Administration, Mike Huebsch. We’re trying to get a copy of the alternative proposal, but I’m not sure they’ll have any more success with that as they’ve had with their litany of amendments [...]