Right before the a senate hearing on whether regulators are treating big banks with kid gloves, the Federal Reserve Board has announced a review of how its watchdogs supervise the country's biggest financial institutions.

Top of the Alty World

“Federal Reserve Announces Sweeping Review of Its Big Bank Oversight”—ProPublica

While immigration activists are heartened by President Obama's executive actions, they warn there is still a long way to go.—Democracy Now!

Thousands march in Mexico over the likely massacre and disappearance of 43 students.—Al Jazeera

The heroin epidemic in America is spreading like wildfire, thanks in part to new addicts from more affluent, subruban backgrounds getting hooked on the drug.—The Economist

Top of Alty Utah

A bill in the next legislative session proposes to cut water to the NSA data center in Bluffdale.—Utah Political Capitol

A hearing over a bill to allow the firing squad to be brought back as a primary means of execution when lethal injection drugs are unavailable was marked by old arguments and bad jokes.—Salt Lake City Weekly

Utah business and community leaders call for reform to the country's immigration system (video).—Utah Policy

Utah Democrats lost three seats after a final election count.—Utah Political Capitol

Rantosphere

While Democrats have decried the recent election losses as the result of gerrymandering, Daniel Burton with the Utah Politico Hub points out that Democrats almost unilaterally voted in favor of the final bills redrawing legislative boundaries.

But Legislative Dems are confederate with their Republican colleagues. Blame the Republicans, but the Democrats were confederate.When the maps were drawn and redistricting happened in 2011, every Democrat member of the Utah House of Representatives voted to support the map (see below). In fact, the only Democrat in the House who did not vote for the map was Rep. Janice Fisher, ostensibly because Fred Cox, another representative, had been drawn into her district, forcing them into a re-election fight. (Spoiler alert: Fisher won).—Utah Politico Hub

The Long View

ProPublica breaks down the dark alliance between the Firestone tire company and Charles Taylor, who used the company's plantation in Liberia as a base of attack for a horrific civil war in the country in the early 1990s.

Firestone wanted Liberia for its rubber. Taylor wanted Firestone to help his rise to power. At a pivotal meeting in Liberia’s jungles in July 1991, the company agreed to do business with the warlord.
In the first detailed examination of the relationship between Firestone and Taylor, an investigation by ProPublica and Frontline lays bare the role of a global corporation in a brutal African conflict.
Firestone served as a source of food, fuel, trucks and cash used by Taylor’s ragtag rebel army, according to interviews, internal corporate documents and declassified diplomatic cables.

The company signed a deal in 1992 to pay taxes to Taylor’s rebel government. Over the next year, the company doled out more than $2.3 million in cash, checks and food to Taylor, according to an accounting in court files. Between 1990 and 1993, the company invested $35.3 million in the plantation.—ProPublica