Confronting the Fed, Alan Grayson Returns

Alan Grayson Returns To Congress ... Alan Grayson, Jewish Democrat, Rides Hispanic Support Back to Congress ... Thanks to overwhelming support from a growing Puerto Rican community in Central Florida, Alan Grayson, the pugnacious Jewish Democrat ousted in the Tea Party wave of 2010, is returning to Congress after a historic landslide. Grayson's success comes after the 18-point shellacking he took as an incumbent congressman two years ago. This time, he won by a margin of 62 percent to 38 percent in a newly drawn Orlando-area district, after a two-year effort to woo Puerto Rican voters. – The Forward

Dominant Social Theme: Democrats gain a second act.

Free-Market Analysis: So Alan Grayson is back. We certainly disagree with his leftist politics but we liked the way he stood up to Ben Bernanke and analyzed information provided by the Fed.

We've written about Grayson mostly in respect to his grilling of the Fed's inspector general, Elizabeth Coleman. Here's what we wrote about those historical sessions way back in 2009:

Beginning of the End? Fed Cannot Account for $9 Trillion

We saw the interview with Elizabeth Coleman on TV and then again and again and again on youtube.com. It is entitled "Is Anyone Minding the Store at the Federal Reserve?" and it is one of the single most astonishing moments (or minutes) ever manifested or preserved in this already-amazing digital era. A century ago, when the powers-that-be pushed through the act that set up the American Federal Reserve − which basically kicked off the central banking era in America and abroad − the kind of technological ubiquity offered by the Internet would certainly have been seen as a major and alarming challenge. Well, it is.

The Grayson/Coleman confrontation has to be seen to be believed, and even then it may not seem quite believable. How could the Fed, in all its monied majesty, offer up someone so unprepared to answer the questions of a single quiet and persevering congressman? 

During the questioning of Coleman, Grayson asks her over and over if there is a formal accounting available for the trillions in off-book balance sheet activity for the Fed. He asks patiently, and he repeats the question many times. Coleman stutters, makes statements that are obviously evasive and finally all but admits that she actually has no authority even to examine the Fed's off-balance sheet activities. She admits this in a frazzled manner, but only after losing her way so badly that she has to ask Grayson to repeat the question (which he has already asked about ten times.)

Now Grayson is back and we look forward to him continuing where he left off − at least as regards the Fed. Here's an amazing clip of him questioning Ben Bernanke at a House Hearing:

(Video from Conservative1001BG's YouTube video channel.)