Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the “underwear bomber” who attempted to blow up a Northwest Airlines plane on Christmas Eve 2009, will receive a life sentence today in Detroit, the conclusion of a trial that ended abruptly with a guilty plea. On the second day of the trial in October, Abdulmutallab suddenly pleaded guilty to all charges. [...]

I liked that NBC Nightly News used Yves Smith to describe the foreclosure fraud settlement last night. And she’s right that the ultimate penalty here is tiny for the banks compared to the damage done. Moreover, as Felix Salmon explains in a post actually claiming that the settlement is a win-win for everyone (I’ll circle [...]

I was just on KPFK in Los Angeles with RJ Eskow, and we have fairly similar ideas about the foreclosure fraud settlement, even though they may sound different. He thinks that we need to use the pressure available to ensure that the settlement is a beginning and not an ending. I’m just trying to be [...]

The WaPo editorial board’s biggest problem with the “rough justice” foreclosure fraud settlement is that robo-signing is a “victimless crime” because all those people were behind on their payments anyway, and that lucky duckies foreclosed upon might be getting $2,000 erroneously. That’s the media we have. Put aside the looming presence of servicer-driven defaults, fee [...]

Yesterday I talked about how the failure to prosecute represented a fundamental decay at the heart of our politics, a symbol of the lack of accountability that has plagued this country for a decade. Yesterday, we began to get some accountability for foreclosure fraud in the unlikeliest of places: Missouri.  From the New York Times [...]

We learned on Friday that Eric Schneiderman’s suit against MERS and three banks using MERS represented a carve-out on the final foreclosure fraud settlement. There was speculation, stoked by HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan, that other states might have carve-outs or grandfathered suits, so they would be able to pursue those investigations and prosecutions and still [...]

We open the day by hearing about criminal indictments for bond traders. Federal prosecutors are preparing to file criminal charges against former Wall Street traders alleging they misstated the value of mortgage bonds, an issue central to the 2008 financial crisis, according to people familiar with the matter. The Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s office is planning [...]

Remember during the debate over the Colombian trade deal when the Administration swore up and down that they would, as a condition of putting the free trade agreement forward, insist on an “action plan” that would end the murder of trade unionists in Colombia and bring about justice for those already killed? Yeah, so, we’re [...]

The sad chapter of the Haditha massacre may have been put to bed in a legal sense when Marine Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich received an incomparably light sentence, walking away with no jail time, for ordering the troops under his command to “shoot first, ask questions later” in an incident that killed 24 innocent Iraqis. [...]

Tonight at 9pm ET, the President will deliver the State of the Union Address at the beginning of his run for re-election. Unlike Obama’s other addresses to joint sessions of Congress I wouldn’t expect this one to produce much in the way of a legislative blueprint. It’s an election year and most of the major [...]

Just to recap the last 24 hours in the rule of law: if you order the massacre a village of Iraqis, you will get your charges reduced to “dereliction of duty” and get sentenced to no more than three months confinement. Furthermore, the rest of your colleagues that participated in the incident will not serve [...]