We’re happy to see the Department of Justice take Standard & Poor’s to court — but this civil suit represents just a small step in holding Wall Street accountable for the 2008 financial crisis.

Because of a ten year mainstream media whitewash, it’s been generally accepted that “mistakes” resulted in a war that claimed over 4,800 US troops. But this week, MSNBC will rock the boat, suggesting false pretenses took us to war, meaning the nation should start debating consequences.

Anyone remember that Mortgage Task Force President Obama put together to finally take on Wall Street over rampant fraud in the mortgage market? You know, the one Obama announced while running for re-election after having done exactly nothing to help struggling homeowners while shoveling taxpayer money to the banks. Well, apparently even that miniscule gesture was not only empty but fraudulent.

Last night Frontline aired a program on the Department of Justice’s failure to prosecute Wall Street executives over fraud in the mortgage market that caused the 2008 financial crisis. The program included compelling testimony from the “due diligence underwriters” those responsible for the integrity of the loans that were being originated from firms like Countrywide (now Bank of America) then chopped up into derivatives and sold by Wall Street to the world.

As if more evidence was needed that Wall Street has rigged the game in its favor, the IRS is going to allow the banks that engaged in a massive nationwide program of mortgage fraud to write off their settlement.

Yesterday I dashed off a post about the guilty plea taken by Lorraine Brown, the founder of DocX/LPS in which she admits that it was the custom and practice of her company to employee people to forge the signatures of others and to falsely notarize those signatures creating assignments, allonges and affidavits that were both forgeries and perjuries. In short, fraud.

Jeff Connaughton has authored a powerful, and chilling insider’s perspective on the financial crisis and the pathetic governmental response to it. The second part of his title sums up the result and the first half explains why Wall Street always wins. Many, perhaps most Americans are likely to agree with both parts of Connaughton’s title so this book will not transform the public’s view of the issues. The public largely has this set of issues correct. Connaughton gives the readers unique access to the facts because he had a front row seat to many of the key discussions and he has the analytical abilities and expertise to explain the significance of those facts.

Ah, so much fraud and conflict of interest packed into such a small package!

Artist Thomas Kinkade–whose paintings featured bucolic, idealized landscapes and homespun visions fraught with cloyingly twee Christian themes, as though Rick Santorum’s frothy dream of America spilled out of his well-lubed head and splattered on a canvas–has died at age 54. And the faux-art market world is one ego smaller.

In the aftermath of the foreclosure fraud settlement, and as we look ahead to the working group on securities fraud co-chaired by Eric Schneiderman, one of the best people to look to for answers on how this whole thing could have gone – how it could still go – is William K. Black. The author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One, and a central figure in exposing fraud among both financial executives and members of Congress during the S&L scandal, Black has been relentless on exposing the lax nature of regulation and prosecution during the past decade and more. His latest scoffed at the new task force on securitization fraud.