Shorter Kathleen Parker.

The Department of Justice has announced a $335 million settlement with Countrywide, the former subprime mortgage giant now subsumed into Bank of America, on claims of housing discrimination. And once again we see that Countrywide doesn’t have to admit wrongdoing for their crimes.

Unbelievably, in 2011 this question has not yet been settled in the courts of the United States. Human rights attorneys are headed back to court in the coming month to argue that, yes, victims of war crimes and torture by contractors should have a path to justice. Attorneys from my organization, the Center for Constitutional Rights, along with co-counsel, are representing Iraqi civilians who were horribly tortured in Abu Ghraib and other detention centers in Iraq in seeking to hold accountable two private contractors for their violations of international, federal and state law.

After posting 1,200 National Guard troops at the US-Mexico border to stop crossings of undocumented immigrants, the Department of Homeland Security will draw down those forces by 75% and shift the mission considerably, including expanded use of unmanned aerial surveillance drones.

The EPA has been under assault from the GOP for the past year, and this has led to some uncomfortable rollbacks and compromises. The Administration’s cancellation of new ozone standards was particularly galling. But today, the EPA came through with new rules on mercury and air toxics that will deliver massive public health benefits, in addition to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

You probably didn’t know this, but Newt Gingrich wrote the original “Dear Virginia” letter about Santa Clause. Fortunately this historic document has now been recovered, along with a receipt for $100,000 paid to Newt for providing historical perspective (not lobbying) about Santa.

Earlier in the week, Syria agreed to allow Arab League monitors into the country to observe the pullback of security forces from residential areas throughout the country. But they aren’t due to enter the country for a few days. In the meantime, Syrian security forces are wiping out the opposition.

Yesterday we published a list of 61 active occupation encampments across the country that are planning to be there through the winter. People were helpful in the comments in identifying 5 more. One received and eviction notice and moves to today’s list of 9 occupations facing eviction from the city. That brings the total number of encampments we’ve been able to document in the past week that are planning to be there through the winter to 65.

During a pro forma session designed to block recess appointments (streams crossing), Steny Hoyer asks for unanimous consent to bring up the Senate two-month stopgap on the payroll tax, unemployment insurance and the doc fix. Instead of just objecting to UC, the presiding officer, in this case Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick (R-PA), just ignores Hoyer and gavels down the session, walking away. This allows Hoyer to grandstand on CSPAN.

It is now almost guaranteed that next year’s voters in both Washington State and Colorado will get to decide on marijuana legalization ballot initiatives. In both states legalization campaigns have managed to gather signatures well in excess of what is necessary to qualify to get an initiative on the ballot.