Let’s contrast two lawmakers from the Upper Midwest and their reactions to the still-without-terms foreclosure fraud settlement. Al Franken has a video out toeing the party line on the settlement, really just informing borrowers that, over the next 6-9 months, they may be contacted if they’re eligible for a cash payment from a wrongful foreclosure [...]

Sen. Ron Wyden has led a lonely battle against state secrecy. He wanted his findings from the Intelligence Committee on what he perceived as a misuse of the Patriot Act to be made public. And now, he wants a public record on the death of Anwar al-Awlaki. Five months after Yemeni-American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki was [...]

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy Eric Schneiderman, co-chair of the newly titled “RMBS working group” investigating financial fraud, appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show last night (the interview starts around the 5:00 mark), and there were a few interesting moments. First you have his assessment of the the [...]

The people who at least have a line into the national conversation inform me that this potential foreclosure fraud settlement is more than a drill. I’m hearing what Yves Smith is hearing. The meeting next Monday will attempt to bully Democratic AGs to back up their President in an election year. As Marcy Wheeler writes, [...]

The Justice Department, under the authority granted to them by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, rejected a voter ID law from South Carolina, making good on a promise to exercise vigilance on voting rights as we near the 2012 elections. Per the Voting Rights Act, DoJ must pre-clear changes to election law in [...]

Eric Holder gave an address at the LBJ Library in Austin yesterday billed as the opening salvo in a Justice Department counter-attack against disenfranchising voter laws, particularly in states which just turned over to conservative legislatures and governors. We saw legal action taken yesterday by the ACLU against Wisconsin’s voter ID law, so this speech [...]

Eric Schneiderman’s profile lately has been to go where federal regulators fear to tread, to actually do the jobs of the federal government when they fail to do so. In foreclosure fraud, he undertook the investigation that the feds would not. Now he is applying that to military foreclosures, although the authority here is a [...]

Either Rep. Joe Walsh or someone associated with posting the video of his meltdown at a meeting with constituents has now made the clip private, which is kind of hysterical in and of itself (UPDATE: there’s another version of the exchange here). But Think Progress provided a transcript so you can get the gist of [...]

As Marcy Wheeler says, this plot has it all – Mexican drug cartels, Iran, assassinations, attacks on the Saudi AND Israeli embassies. You name it, it’s in there. FBI and DEA agents have disrupted a plot to commit a “significant terrorist act in the United States” tied to Iran, federal officials told ABC News today. [...]

As yet another deadline in the foreclosure fraud settlement passes, an intriguing dynamic is taking hold. Attorneys General with aspirations for higher office – and that describes almost all Attorneys General – are feeling pressure, entirely from the side which doesn’t want to see a broad settlement and a whitewash for the banks. Two more [...]

The Global Commission on Drug Policy, a panel of luminaries from around the world, including former Republican Secretary of State George Schultz and former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker, has concluded that the war on drugs has failed, and that countries should change their regulatory policies to reflect this reality. “The global war on drugs has [...]