I don’t need a source to tell me that there will be no criminal charges arising from the Residential Mortgage Backed Securities working group, the task force set up to “hold accountable” those financial institutions who crashed the economy through misdeeds in the securitization process. Take only this piece of evidence: all of the subpoenas so far issued by the RMBS working group have been civil in nature, not criminal. That’s about all the evidence I need.

Talking Points Memo picks up on Eric Schneiderman’s investigation of Bain Capital’s tax avoidance strategies, and asks a couple questions about why the New York Attorney General is probing something clearly within the purview of the IRS.

Eric Schneiderman may not be on the roster of speakers at the upcoming Democratic National Convention. But he appears to be providing a much more valuable service.

CNN passes along a “no, really this time, seriously” promise that the RMBS (Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities) working group, tasked with looking into securitization fraud, will soon make a major announcement.

Standard Chartered Bank avoided a contentious Wednesday hearing that could have led to the revocation of their ability to do business in the state of New York, by reaching a settlement with the state Department of Financial Services for $340 million over widespread money laundering charges. This is a bit less than some of the rumors that came out yesterday about the negotiations, but it does include a monitor for New York to enforce compliance.

It has now been six months since the announcement of the foreclosure fraud settlement between multiple federal agencies, the state Attorneys General and the five leading banks. It has also been six months since the establishment of the RMBS working group, the task force inside the larger financial fraud unit at the Justice Department, which is supposed to be ferreting out fraud among the major banks in the securitization phase of the housing bubble. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman famously said that if nothing happened in the task force within six months, he would walk away in very loud fashion.

I think it’s fair to say that nothing has happened.

This shift toward Holder, however, deserves scrutiny. There have been plenty of documented stories of reluctance toward investigation from Treasury and the SEC and HUD. This centers all the attention on DoJ, however. It’s not entirely credible that Holder is operating independently to slow-walk an investigation that has been slow-walked by virtually every official in the Obama Administration at one point or another. It feels as if Holder has become the “rotating villain” in this scheme, someone to deflect attention away from the whole policy framework to let the banks off for their crimes. Ultimately, the buck has to stop at the very top, with the President.

The Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force is an investigatory sham. Wall Street gets to keep the money and its reputation for brilliance. Pot smokers and guys carrying water to Occupy events should be so lucky.

Good news, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman issued a wide-ranging subpoena yesterday. Only it had nothing to do with the financial fraud task force he’s co-chairing. Instead, this was a subpoena about campaign contributions to tax-exempt groups.

Throughout the three-plus days of panels, training sessions, caucuses and keynotes, attendees quite likely heard no mention of nuclear power, its persistent threats to safety, its drastic drain on the budget, its onerous oppression of workers or its brazen gouging of rate-payers. For, while there were well over 100 panels, and dozens of other training sessions and caucuses, nothing on the schedule even made a passing attempt to address nuclear energy here in the United States or the ongoing (and growing) crisis of radioactive contamination from Fukushima spreading across the globe.