On a conference call with progressive media, White House deputy national security adviser for strategic communication Ben Rhodes stressed that the United States would now commence a “normal” relationship with the Iraqi government, an equal partnership between two sovereign nations. But it’s hard to square that with the reality that the United States will have a massive diplomatic presence in the country, with the largest embassy in the world in Baghdad, two consulates in Ibril and Basra, and as many as 5,000 private military contractors under the direction of the State Department protecting it all.

I could hardly keep up with all the reports on housing that came out over the past 24 hours. So let me try to summarize a couple: • A recently unsealed lawsuit shows that banks cheated military veterans by illegally adding attorney’s fees to their refinancing loans. Illegal fee additions have a rich history, especially [...]

Chasing Madoff’s protagonist, Harry Markopolos doesn’t call himself a hero. He just says he’s a citizen “doing what your supposed to do.”

For Markopolos, that meant spending over a decade trying to get anyone and everyone to listen to his analysis of Bernie Madoff’s funds and to look at the evidence that Madoff was a fraud. Luckily, he had a trio of friends –including financial reporter Michael Ocrant who wrote the first article exposing Madoff years before the scandal broke– helping him investigate. But not even Ocrant’s story, which led to a follow-up article in Barrons was enough to get the SEC to sit up and take notice.

The President signed the 2011 appropriations bill yesterday, and he attached a signing statement to it. There were two bones of contention. The first was the measure banning funds to transfer prisoners from Guantanamo. The second, the bill defunded the offices of Presidential advisors, or “czars,” four all ready vacant or defunct.

We have clear evidence that there may be an ongoing policy of collective punishment and expulsion, war crimes under international and US law, happening in Afghanistan, and it’s time for the House oversight committee to investigate.

The AP noticed something troubling in Michael Vickers’ response to the Senate Armed Services Committee questions on his nomination to be Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence: the government did not include descriptions of its cyberwar activities in the quarterly report on clandestine activities.

Last night, it appeared that Elijah Cummings would attempt to leapfrog seniority and obtain the ranking membership of the House Oversight Committee with the backing of outgoing ranking member Ed Towns. However, Towns reversed course last night, saying in a statement, “I support Carolyn Maloney to become Ranking Member of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee. She is next in line on the Committee, she has the seniority and competence to serve the Caucus well.”

Ed Towns will give up his post as the Democratic ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, setting up a potential battle for that spot, opposite Darrell Issa, who has promised vigorous and probably endless oversight of the Obama Administration.

Liveblogging of the Senate Banking Committee hearing on foreclosure fraud continues. Senator Richard Shelby was actually pretty good, but then Sens. Mike Johanns and Bob Bennett went to some length to try to pretend the banksters weren’t doing what they were doing.

This hearing is the latest example of national policymakers getting involved in the foreclosure fraud issue. The Congressional Oversight Panel warning of the enormous risk from the failures of servicers was the first report of its kind at the federal level to take full measure of the situation, and this is the first Congressional hearing. Senators on the Democratic side like Jeff Merkley and Sherrod Brown are sure to press the bank representatives aggressively on why foreclosure mitigation programs have failed, and why they used false documents to evict people from their homes. The ranking member on the Republican side, Richard Shelby, wants to investigate failures at the major loan servicers.