Grinding Veeerrry Slowly

The Federal wheels of justice are about to grind their way through the New Orleans Police Department on various Federal charges associated with the alleged murderous acts allegedly committed by police officers after Hurricane Katrina.

A retired police lieutenant was charged Wednesday with obstruction of justice, the first charge in a wide-ranging federal inquiry into whether police misconduct led to civilian deaths in the chaotic days after Hurricane Katrina.

Next up for a slow grinding will be the New York Federal Reserve and Goldman Sachs, for it is becoming clearer and clearer that Goldman Sachs's bloody fingeprints are all over the collapse of AIG and Societe Generale.

When a congressional panel convened a hearing on the government rescue of American International Group Inc. in January, the public scolding of Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner got the most attention. ...

A potentially more important development slipped by with less notice, Bloomberg Markets reports in its April issue. Representative Darrell Issa, the ranking Republican on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, placed into the hearing record a five-page document itemizing the mortgage securities on which banks such as Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Societe Generale SA had bought $62.1 billion in credit-default swaps from AIG.

Goldman Sachs, among others, allegedly created a class of extremely toxic securities and then, allegedly knowing full well that the securities were garbage, insured them with AIG.

Ron Beasley is right: This would be just like taking out an insurance policy on someone, then having them whacked and collecting on the insurance policy. Only instead of killing one person, these bespoke-suit-wearing grifters threw millions of people out of work and were instrumental in shuttering thousands of businesses.

And they continue to live their lives, unmolested in any way. This is indeed a curious world we live in.