For most in the financial community the idea of auditing the Federal Reserve is borderline insane. It’s something like proposing an open audit of the CIA. But it looks like the Senate may have the votes to make it happen. Maybe as soon as today.

Given all that has befallen New Orleans, The Daily Show suspects a plot is afoot: “What’s next? Sentient po’-boys hell-bent on revenge?” Watch.

TPM Reader MS, with a perceptive take on “Heckuva Job” Brownie’s comments and those like his:

Every time you hear a Republican say, “Obama’s response to Deepwater was late because … he hates drilling … he’s in the pocket of Big Green … he’s an Islamic sleeper … he blew up that oil rig …” just focus on that first part, “Obama’s response was late”.

That’s what they’re really trying to push here, the notion that — like Bush’s response to Katrina — Obama responded too little, too late to Deepwater. While everyone is focused on the insanity of the claims (“Brownie said WHAT? Are you kidding??”), less noticed is the fact that that first part — “Obama was late” — is being taken for granted and stepped past to the next question, why he was late.

The insane is being used as a Trojan horse to bring in the factually incorrect.

My mind is still open to the federal government, including the White House, having been slow or ineffectual in responding to the spill. But while we work to determine those facts, MS’s assessment is worth keeping in mind.

Jake Tapper notes that in an interview in Jon Alter’s new book The Promise President Obama refers to Tea Partiers as “tea baggers”. I actually heard the president use the same phrase once, and was a little surprised myself.

Tapper writes “Tea Party activists loath the term ‘tea baggers,’ which has emerged in liberal media outlets and elsewhere as a method of mocking the activists and their concerns.”

But this isn’t true, though a number of conservative pressure groups have tried to claim as much. The phrase “tea bagger” was originally a coinage of the Tea Party folks themselves. Their opponents picked it up from them after they chose it and continued using it after the right-wing activists ditched it in favor of “Tea Partier” since ‘tea bagger’ can be taken as a reference to a particular sexual practice.

Colbert: The Times Square bomber hates us for our freedom and “our rhinestone studded Big Apple thongs.”

It’s Election Day! We’ll be providing live results tonight at TPM from the contested primaries in the Indiana, North Carolina and Ohio Senate races. That and the day’s other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.

Michael Steele splits his time between reaching out to racial minorities and slamming Dems for doing the same thing.

Within the last hour federal agents arrested Faisal Shahzad, a naturalized US citizen from Pakistan, in connection with the failed Times Square bomb attempt. Shahzad was attempting to flee the US at JFK airport when he was arrested. Shahzad was apparently the man who recently purchased the Nissan Pathfinder which was used in the attempted bombing.

David linked to these photos this morning. And they’ve been popular all day. But they’re simply so riveting and terrifying that I wanted to flag them again. They’re pictures of the doomed Deepwater Horizon oil rig engulfed in an inferno before tipping and sinking in the Gulf of Mexico. It almost merits that oft-overused phrase — a vision from hell.

You’ve probably seen some pictures. But probably not like these. Take a look.

In this exclusive clip from the new documentary Casino Jack, former Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) describes how he helped Jack Abramoff.