Off the beaten judicial path we go:
Some good looks at Judge Rakoff’s ruling denying the $285 MM mortgage settlement between the SEC and Citigroup:
NYTimes. ProPublica. FT. Daily Kos. Forbes. HuffPost.
My summary comments are:
(1) It’s why judges wear robes, don’t smile (much), and we rise when they enter: Not everybody can be bought. People talk politicians and lobbyists and greed and government brought to you by corporations. And law is corrupt. But ahead of others, judges have made decisions that made swaths of the otherwise most influential and rich stakeholders accustomed to buying privilege mad, and changed history’s course. Judges have said no to ruling classes, precedent, ethnic majorities, and to the most moneyed and powerful among us in the tobacco industry, auto firms, and yes, banks.
(2) Rakoff isn’t new to boldness. But OccupyWallStreet may be priming the atmospherics for mainstream discourse and making his boldness translate unusually beyond the hallowed Wall of US streets.
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