I was amazed that they may have removed the requirement for an independent audit of the accounting, but after looking into the changes it looks like it absolutely doesn't remove the requirement for an audit. Based on the summary that I read it looks like the main change with respect to an audit is that it only goes back two years from the IPO instead of five, and the auditor doesn't have to do a test of the internal controls. In practice this doesn't diminish the value of the audited financials nearly as much as your post would suggest.
The article is highly misleading on that particular point. Given how extraordinary a claim it was (enough for me to take the time to write a response to it), I should have double-checked it from an alternate source!
This is a recurring problem with Matt Taibbi's writing, which is worth knowing, because any time Taibbi writes something that remotely bears on startups, technology, or the finance industry, it's sure to be plastered to the front page on HN.
[0] http://auditorsopinion.com/2012/04/04/the-jobs-act-debate/