Eric Holder

21st Century Wire says…
Our weekly documentary film curated by our editorial team at 21WIRE…

Perhaps you were angry that Obama's Justice Department never went after Wall Street elites. I sure was. Last year David Sirota did a powerful piece for International Business Times about how prosecution for white collar crimes was at a 20-year low-- although not because there was less of that kind of crime.

-by Skip KaltenheuserIt was a long hard slog to publish Lucifer's Banker. Had Brad Birkenfeld managed to get his book out say, a year or so earlier, we might not be staring at the political train wreck we are now. It might have changed the political landscape, perhaps the standard bearers. Maybe even elevated different issues for the last lap beyond the cursory checklist now fed us. But I’m glad it’s arrived.

Cartoon by Steve Sack ©2016, The Minneapolis Star Tribune (source)by Gaius PubliusA follow-up to this recent piece — "A Clinton Speech to Millennials That Will Work" — in which my hoped-for Hillary Clinton says, among other things, that she will start a criminal investig

Let’s start with some stats. The District of Columbia has the densest concentration of lawyers in the world. If you factor in the fact that 88% of lawyers are white and 60% of the capital’s population are minorities, you end up with some really mind warping numbers.
The population of the District is 672,000 (2015 census) and the number of households is slightly over 250,000. With 52,000 lawyers running around – it means that you can find a lawyer by randomly knocking on five doors. If you happen to be looking for a lawyer in Georgetown, a couple of knocks should do the trick.

Part of Last Conversation Piece by Juan Munoz, by the Hirshhorn Museum. Its conspiratorial feel, with panicked outsiders, seems apt for Washington.- by Skip KaltenheuserFrustrations on the coverage of the Democratic primaries have been slow-cooking quite awhile. Not just with the networks, I’m also looking at you, National Public Radio.

By Michael Brenner | Consortium News | June 3, 2016 Illicit financial behavior has been decriminalized in the United States – for all practical purposes. Despite the revelations of massive misconduct by banks and other financial services businesses, criminal investigations are rare, indictments exceptional and guilty judgments extraordinary. Most potentially culpable actions are overlooked by […]

Legal double standards are the norm in the U.S. – no jail for law-flouting Wall Street bankers but mass incarceration for average citizens, especially minorities, who get caught up in the prison-industrial-complex, as Michael Brenner describes. By Michael Brenner Illicit financial…Read more →

Given the mounting evidence concerning marijuana’s healing potential and the fact that legalization in states has not spurred true conflict and only served to produce tax revenue, I think it’s about time for Congress to proactively reschedule marijuana. But will they listen?

Despite the 2008 Wall Street crash and government promises of reform, the old back-scratching ways of special favors and influence are again in vogue – as if they were ever out of style, writes JP Sottile. By JP Sottile You’ve…Read more →