Good evening! Here’re some news items gleaned from around the internets just for you.

❖ Emptywheel reports on Patrick Fitzgerald’s very interesting press conference today.

❖ CalPERS (the CA public employees pension fund) is following CalSTRS (the CA teachers’ pension fund) in declaring it will “vote its 7.8 million share against 10 directors” of WalMart at the annual shareholder meeting on June 1 in AR.

❖Jim Hightower scores in this article on “Snarling Banks.” He also references Woody’s “Jolly Banker “, as relevant in today’s mortgage mess and TBTF atmosphere as it was when he created it. (PS: You can hear Alan Lomax at the very end.)

❖We could use more news like this. “ Freddie Mac forced Bank of America Corp. to buy back $330 million of mortgages originated over the past two years”, a result of Freddie Mac challenges “over technical issues with how the loans were manufactured.”

❖In introducing his “Congressional Oversight Over Trade Negotiations Act”, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) argues that negotiations for the Trans Pacific Partnership are being kept from Congress “while representatives of U.S. corporations–like Halliburton, Chevron, PHRMA, Comcast, and the Motion Picture Association of American–are being consulted and made privy to details of the agreement.”

❖This article contains a picture from the Frankfurt, Germany, Blockyup protests on May 19 that will do your heart good.

❖The months-long strike in Quebec over student tuitions and state repression of the strike, “is widening its nets, with students in neighboring Ontario considering striking in the fall semester and numerous unions in Quebec potentially joining . . . an ‘unlimited general strike’”. Last night 518 protestors were arrested in Montreal and 176 in Quebec City. As protests grow, and the tourist season in Quebec nears, Prime Minister Jean Charest “is

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