THE ECONOMIST: BNP Deserved A Clobbering, But Its Treatment Makes The U.S. Legal System Seem Like An Extortion Racket. “America’s system for pursuing errant banks, especially foreign ones, is anything but fair. This case, like most, did not go to court. BNP negotiated a settlement with regulators and prosecutors rather than risk a trial. No doubt the ugliness of its crimes played a role. But even if it had had a better case, BNP would have had little choice but to settle. Defeat in court might have led to the loss of its American banking licence—a death sentence for a big international bank. America’s prosecutors can also wield the threat of criminal charges against individual bankers. Not only were BNP’s tormentors, such as Benjamin Lawsky, New York’s politically ambitious banking regulator, able more or less to dictate their terms, they also had an incentive to make the fine as big as possible because the agencies involved divvied up much of it among themselves. Mr Lawsky’s outfit gets $2 billion, four times its annual budget, which it will triumphantly deposit in New York state’s depleted coffers.”

It does look rather shady.

FIRST IT WAS THE SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER GOING AFTER “COMMON CORE” OPPONENTS AND “PICKUP ARTISTS,” AND NOW THIS: NSA targets Linux Journal as ‘extremist forum’: Report. I guess if you want to avoid their scrutiny, you need to be a communist or a radical Muslim.

POLITICO: 2014 Senate rankings: Map favors GOP. Though if anyone can blow a setup like this. . . .

THE HILL: Ten quotes: Obama’s journey from ‘yes we can’ to ‘so sue me.’

THEODORE DALRYMPLE: Hobby Lobby, Assisted Suicide, and Slippery Slopes…

NEW-CLASS FLIMFLAM ARTIST: Potential Presidential Candidate Elizabeth Warren at Center of CFPB Scandal. “It therefore appears that although Sen. Elizabeth Warren was the responsible party at the CFPB who approved the ‘decision to renovate,’ the design, and the cost ‘Scope and Justification for Estimates,’ all documents regarding her decisions have vanished.”

This administration sure does have a lot of vanishing documents. And can a False Claims Act suit lie here?

THE DEEP STATE STRIKES BACK: CIA employee’s quest to release information ‘destroyed my entire career.’

His CIA career included assignments in Africa, Afghanistan and Iraq, but the most perilous posting for Jeffrey Scudder turned out to be a two-year stint in a sleepy office that looks after the agency’s historical files.

It was there that Scudder discovered a stack of articles, hundreds of histories of long-dormant conflicts and operations that he concluded were still being stored in secret years after they should have been shared with the public.

To get them released, Scudder submitted a request under the Freedom of Information Act — a step that any citizen can take, but one that is highly unusual for a CIA employee. Four years later, the CIA has released some of those articles and withheld others. It also has forced Scudder out.

His request set in motion a harrowing sequence. He was confronted by supervisors and accused of mishandling classified information while assembling his FOIA request. His house was raided by the FBI and his family’s computers seized. Stripped of his job and his security clearance, Scudder said he agreed to retire last year after being told that if he refused, he risked losing much of his pension.

This isn’t even a whistleblowing case, really, but it’s evidence of why we need whistleblowers, and whistleblower protection.

Punch back twice as hard. Sue everyone.