After the passing of Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) will first appoint someone to replace him temporarily and then will be in charge of holding a Senate election for a permanent replacement.

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee and NJ Working Families Alliance have launched a petition and online ads calling on Christie to hold the Senate election during the November 5th gubernatorial election this year. Here's a portion of a PCCC email sent today arguing for a November 2013 Senate election:

Yesterday, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) aggressively questioned Treasury Secretary Jack Lew about efforts to break up so-called "too big to fail" banks. She noted that under the previous Treasury Secretary, the administration failed to support a Senate amendment to break up these banks.

She then probed Lew about if he would support such efforts. Watch the video:

Since news broke that the IRS inappropriately audited a variety of grassroots tea party groups, Congress has started a number of investigations aimed at figuring out why the agency engaged in this behavior.

But a bigger question is, why did the IRS target such small, mostly grassroots organizations for audits and ignore massive political players? As the Conservative Intel's David Freddoso points out, the median income of the groups targeted by the IRS was $16,700.

While the IRS was looking at groups with such a small budget, it ignored the groups with the most money. Here's the top 3 501(c)(4)s from election 2012:

Crossroads GPS: Karl Rove's dark money organization spent more than $70 million in election 2012, all of it undisclosed.

Americans For Prosperity: This Koch Brothers-founded organization spent over $33 million, mostly to attack Obama. It can be assumed much of this money came from the Kochs, but we actually have no idea where it came from exactly because it is not required to be disclosed.

American Future Fund: This pro-Romney group spent nearly $24 million, not a penny of it disclosed to the public.

As we wrote in March, the city of Chicago unveiled plans two months ago to close over 50 schools, mostly in the poorest areas.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel's plan has sparked fierce protests, with thousands of protesters hitting the streets last weekend to oppose the school closures --arguing that they would put children at risk by having to travel further to overcrowded schools.

But while the city insists it must close these schools to close budget gaps, it has just announced that it will be dedicated as much as $100 million in public funds for the construction of a new basketball arena at DePaul University -- which is about a third of the cost of the project.