Portside

According to reports from a new Bank of America whistle-blower, BoA is seeking to avoid providing required payments to homeowners to compensate for an initial round of illegal practices by selling off the servicing rights to fly-by-night organizations that specialize in abusing customers.

For all the talk of scandal regarding the IRS targeting groups named “Tea Party” or “Patriot,” it’s not hard to draw an additional lesson from the facts of the case — a pattern that follows the well-worn model of the modern political age: Benefits flow to the rich and the well-connected, with pain for the rest.