This settlement arises from multiple abuses found in the servicing of loans and the foreclosure process over the past several years. At the height of the housing bubble, banks sliced and diced mortgages and traded them with little regard for the rules following land recording or securitization to such a sloppy extent that they lost track of the true owner on potentially millions of homes.

To cover up for this massive failure, banks and their servicing units have been found to have routinely forged, back-dated and fabricated documents at county recorder offices and state courts across the country. Furthermore, they employed “robo-signers,” who signed hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of documents and affidavits without any knowledge of the underlying mortgages. In addition, investigations uncovered massive servicing abuses, including illegal fees charged to borrowers, putting borrowers into foreclosure at the same time as they were working out loan modifications, failing to honor previous settlements where promises were made on modifications, and countless other errors that maximized servicer profits and gouged homeowners.

There are also cases of wrongful foreclosures where homeowners have been turned out of their homes without just cause, and servicer-driven foreclosures, where servicers illegally added late fees and applied payments inaccurately, pushing the homeowner into foreclosure. This is but a smattering of the examples of foreclosure fraud and servicer abuse found in a series of interlocking investigations, court depositions, reviews of documents in registers of deeds offices, and homeowner testimonials.

This is a victory for environmentalists who wanted to stop the fracking regulations from taking effect. The commission wanted unanimous support and Delaware’s announcement guaranteed a close vote. If New York and Delaware continue to hold out this will be postponed indefinitely.

Yves Smith has liberated Beau Biden’s brief to a New York court asking for intervention in the Bank of America mortgage settlement. She finds Delaware Attorney General Biden talking along the same lines as New York AG Eric Schneiderman. Biden’s main objection is that he “does not have sufficient information to evaluate the reasonableness of the proposal.” But he goes further to say that his preliminary investigation into the mortgage backed securities business of the midd-2000s has turned up some problems.

Bank of America was just getting over having the New York Attorney General step in on their settlement with Countrywide investors over mortgage bonds, when Delaware’s AG decided to join in.

Delaware Governor Jack Markell signed a law approving the use of medical marijuana. His signature makes Delaware the 16th state (plus Washington, DC) to approve the medical use of marijuana.

GOP nominee Christine O’Donnell is clearly one extremely flawed candidate, and her upset win in the Republican primary helped all but guarantee that Democrats will keep control of this open Senate seat. Two new polls have Democrat Chris Coons leading by double digits.

Say what you will about the Tea Parties, the conservative grassroots, the Republican base, the right wing anti-establishment or whatever you would call them; they have done a very good job of trying to take control of their party from the Republican establishment and reshaping the GOP in their own image.

Staunch conservative Christine O’Donnell is challenging Rep. Mike Castle (R-DE at large) for the Republican nomination for the Delaware Senate seat formerly held by Joe Biden. Despite Castle being the establishment choice with a good chance of winning in a blue state, O’Donnell has lined up impressive endorsements from powerful conservative organizations, including the Susan B. Anthony List, Tea Party Express and Concerned Women for America. Seeing conservatives wrestle with which candidate is the best choice for advancing their policy goals is a great way for the progressive community to understand the policy and economics of primary challenges.

Here’s a round-up of the latest action in Minnesota, Oklahoma, Colorado, Connecticut, Kentucky, Texas, New Mexico, Montana, Maryland and Delaware.