Free Republic

The United States Civil Rights Commission, an eight-member agency that investigates accusations of discrimination, has launched a new offensive against a most unusual target: the Justice Department. The commission is investigating why the Justice Department dropped charges in May against three members of the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense in a voter intimidation case that the government won. The Justice Department has defended its actions, saying it obtained an injunction against one member while dismissing charges against the others "based on a careful assessment of the facts and the law." But that explanation hasn't satisfied the commission or Republican...

Rep. Frank Wolf, R.-Va., issued a public statement Thursday saying that President Obama’s Attorney General, Eric Holder, has instructed staff attorneys to ignore legal subpoenas by the U.S. Civil Rights Commission (CRC) requesting information about the New Black Panther Party voter intimidation case. This is in stark contrast to Mr. Obama’s pledge for transparency in government. “We understand that the attorney general has instructed his department to ignore these subpoenas,” Mr. Wolf said. “The nation’s chief law enforcement officer is forcing these career attorneys...

Rep. Frank Wolf, R.-Va., issued a public statement Thursday saying that President Obama’s Attorney General, Eric Holder, has instructed staff attorneys to ignore legal subpoenas by the U.S. Civil Rights Commission (CRC) requesting information about the New Black Panther Party voter intimidation case. This is in stark contrast to Mr. Obama’s pledge for transparency in government. “We understand that the attorney general has instructed his department to ignore ...

A senior House Republican on Thursday introduced a "resolution of inquiry" that would require the House Judiciary Committee to seek answers on why the Justice Department dismissed a civil complaint against members of the New Black Panther Party who disrupted a Philadelphia polling place in last year's elections. Rep. Frank R. Wolf of Virginia also said he had language inserted in the Justice Department's annual spending bill requiring that its Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) provide to the House Appropriations Committee the results of OPR's investigation surrounding the dismissal of the case. Mr. Wolf, a senior member of the Appropriations...

Rep. Frank Wolf turned up the heat on the Justice Department yesterday, introducing a Resolution of Inquiry that recounts the degree to which the Justice Department has stonewalled on efforts to find out why a serious case of voter intimidation was dismissed. Wolf wants the attorney general to hand over to the House all information relating to the dismissal of the case United States v. New Black Panther Party, the egregious voter-intimidation case that was captured on videotape. Wolf ’s resolution explains: "This case was inexplicably dismissed earlier this year — over the ardent objections of the career attorneys overseeing...

The Justice Department has told the federal attorneys who filed a civil complaint against the New Black Panther Party for disrupting a Philadelphia polling place last year not to cooperate with an investigation of the incident by the US Commission on Civil Rights. The commission last week subpoenaed at least two Justice Department lawyers and sought documents from the department to explain why the complaint was dismissed just as a federal judge was about to punish the New Black Panther Party and three of its members for intimidating voters. Joseph H. Hunt, director of the Justice Department's Federal Programs Branch,...

Law Offices of Dr. Orly Taitz ESQ 29839 Santa Margarita parkway ste 100 Rancho Santa Margarita CA 92688 Phone 949-683-5411 Fax 949-766-7603 12.14.09. Via Certified Mail Attn Mr. Eric Holder United States Attorney General 950 Pennsylvania Ave NW Washington DC 20530-0001 USA Dear Mr. Holder, On March 1st on behalf of my clients I have submitted to you a request to file Quo Warranto against Mr. Barack Hussein Obama. The request was filed due to following troubling facts: 1. According to a number of licensed investigators National Databases show Mr. Obama using as many as 39 different Social Security numbers,...

The dispute between the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and the Justice Department is starting to look like the legal equivalent of World War II's Anzio campaign, which represented a major escalation late in the war. The battleground is the controversy about the department's decision to drop voter-intimidation cases against members of the New Black Panther Party. The commission is mounting a massive legal assault; Justice is refusing to be budged; and the casualties could be high. The shame of it is that the department itself would be well-served if it would merely cooperate. That's what it would do if...

Here is a new video showing 9/11 families denouncing plans by the Obama Administration to try the 9/11 terrorists - including mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed - in civilian court in New York City. The family members of those who perished on September 11 are raising their voices in indignation against giving the terrorists the rights of U.S. Citizens, and trying them in civilian court, instead of trying them as enemy combatants before military tribunals. The video urges citizens to "Raise Your Voice" by calling Congress and telling them to "not try terrorists in NYC." . . . (VIDEO)

The Land of Lincoln may still be licking its wounds–and certain real estate transactions–over Chicago’s losing the Olympics to Rio, but the Obama Administration has delivered up a small consolation prize: the state’s very own federal prison for terrorists. Big Government has received what is claimed to be a leaked DOJ memo that was allegedly sent yesterday from Eric Holder’s Department of Justice to Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Memo below:

Congress -- and possibly Citigroup -- may be gearing up to start funding the organized crime syndicate ACORN again. The current federal funding ban expires Dec. 18. On Tuesday evening the House Appropriations Committee rejected on a party line vote of 9 to 5 an amendment offered by Rep. Tom Latham (R-Iowa) that would have blocked federal funding of the radical advocacy group. The amendment was needed because the Obama administration thumbed its nose at a provision in spending legislation that banned ACORN funding until the end of next week. In a ruling revealed late last month by the Justice...

Seventy-one percent (71%) of voters nationwide say they’re at least somewhat angry about the current policies of the federal government. That figure includes 46% who are Very Angry. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that only 27% are not angry about the government's policies, including 10% who are Not at All Angry........ The data suggests that the level of anger is growing. The 71% who are angry at federal government policies today is up five percentage points since September. Even more stunning, the 46% who are Very Angry is up 10 percentage points from September.

A new tipline targets Sheriff Joe Arpaio The tip line, 1-877-613-2137, is in both English and Spanish. By KFYI News (KFYI News) The U.S. Department of Justice has set up a tip-line as part of its investigation of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio. The tip line, 1-877-613-2137, is in both English and Spanish and asks those with information about the sheriff’s department to leave their names and numbers. The USDOJ is investigating Arpaio and his deputies regarding possible civil rights violations related to crime sweeps, traffic stops and immigration raids.

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, frustrated by the Justice Department's failure to explain the dismissal of charges against New Black Panther Party members who disrupted a Philadelphia polling place during last year's elections, has subpoenaed the department demanding records showing how the case was handled. David P. Blackwood, the commission's general counsel, said Tuesday in a letter to the Justice Department that efforts since June to obtain an explanation had proceeded "without any success" and the "dearth of cooperation" had prompted the commission to issue subpoenas. "We are both mindful of the sensitivity of the subject matter involved and...

NEW YORK — A group of 9/11 families and their supporters are rallying in front of Manhattan's federal courthouse to protest the plan to put terrorism suspects on trial in New York. The protesters plan to gather in front of the lower Manhattan courthouse at noon.

You can buy a car from an out-of-state dealer and pick it up there. You can buy a house in another part of the country, as speculators unwisely did during the real estate bubble, sight unseen. But even though the Second Amendment protects an individual right to own firearms -- and presumably to buy them -- you can't purchase a handgun while you're visiting another state. A gun rights group has sued the Justice Department to overturn this prohibition, which became law as part of the Gun Control Act of 1968, and the case is now in front of U.S....

Despite near freezing temperatures and steady rain, a spirited crowd of 9/11 families, first responders, and their supporters rallied this afternoon outside a federal courthouse in Manhattan to protest Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to give Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other 9/11 conspirators the right to a civilian trial in that very court. Interspersed among the sea of umbrellas at the rally were American flags and homemade signs: "Give Us Liberty, Give Them Death," read one. "Treating Terrorism As A Street Crime Is What Brought Us 9/11 In The First Place," said another. One took direct aim at the attorney...

Police say more than 1,500 protesters, including first responders and families of September 11th victims, spoke out in Downtown Manhattan Saturday against the decision to try alleged terrorists in the city. The 9/11 Never Forget Coalition held the protest in Foley Square to express opposition to Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to hold the trial in Manhattan Federal Court. 9/11 Victims' Families Protest City Terror Trials

NEW YORK, DECEMBER 5, 2009 — Several thousand protesters gathered at Foley Square in New York City to rally against Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammad and 4 other 9/11 co-conspirators as civilians in federal court. Despite bitter cold, strong winds and heavy rain the crowd stayed through the 2-hour rally. The event was organized by the 9/11 Coalition to Never Forget and featured speakers representing 9/11 family members, first responders and our troops. See our full post-rally press release, plus videos, photograph and links to local and national news reports here at 911NeverForget.Us.

CHICAGO - Despite opposition from congressional Republicans, the Obama administration is signaling that a state prison in rural Thomson, Ill., will probably become the new home for scores of terrorism suspects now housed at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Officials from the White House, Defense Department and U.S. Bureau of Prisons spent two hours last week briefing more than a dozen members of the Illinois delegation in the office of Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill. To reassure skeptical Republicans, they emphasized security. Although the officials left open the possibility that another site could be chosen, participants...

<p>Several hundred people rallied in the rain near Manhattan's federal courthouse complex to protest the plan to put major terrorism suspects on trial in New York.</p> <p>The demonstrators, including 9/11 families and their supporters, gathered in Foley Square, just blocks from the site of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks. They say a New York trial could again make the city a terrorism target.</p>

Statement by Judea and Ruth Pearl as read at the New York rally by Brian Dennehy on December 5 2009 Friends, On behalf of the Daniel Pearl Foundation, we wish to join you today in a call to reverse Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to try America's new-type of enemies in New York Federal court. We wish to add to your rally the perspective of our own personal tragedy which, in many ways, has come to symbolize the depth of inhumanity that has swept our planet in the 21st century, and the sense of urgency with which this planet is...

We're guessing the Baucus Plan is toast now. ----- AP: Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus was romantically involved with his current girlfriend when he recommended her for U.S. attorney, a spokesman said. The Montana Democrat and his former state office director Melodee Hanes began their relationship in the summer of 2008, after Baucus separated from his wife, Ty Matsdorf told The Associated Press late Friday. Baucus nominated Hanes for the U.S. attorney post in Montana in March. But she later withdrew, saying she had been presented with other opportunities she couldn't pass up. Don't miss: Everything you need to...

A group of 9/11 families and their supporters are rallying in front of Manhattan's federal courthouse to protest the plan to put terrorism suspects on trial in New York. The protesters plan to gather in front of the lower Manhattan courthouse at noon. They say a New York trial could again make the city a terrorism target, and that the five should instead face a military tribunal. Other victims of the 9/11 attacks disagree. Lorie Van Auken lost her husband at the World Trade Center. She says its fitting that the accused answer charges a short walk from ground zero....

A spokesman for U.S. Sen. Max Baucus says the Montana Democrat was in a romantic relationship with the woman he nominated for U.S. attorney. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus was already involved with his girlfriend and former staffer when he recommended her earlier this year to become the next U.S. attorney for Montana, a spokesman said. The Montana Democrat and his former state office director Melodee Hanes began their relationship in the summer of 2008, after Baucus separated from his wife, Ty Matsdorf told The Associated Press late Friday. Baucus nominated Hanes for the U.S. attorney post in...

Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus’ office confirmed late Friday night that the Montana Democrat was carrying on an extramarital affair with his state office director, Melodee Hanes, when he nominated her to be U.S. attorney in Montana. According to a source familiar with their relationship, Hanes and Baucus began their relationship in the summer of 2008 – nearly a year before Baucus and his wife, Wanda, formally separated in April. The Senator has since divorced his wife. Hanes ended her employment with Baucus in the spring of this year. Hanes, who is divorced and now lives with Baucus in the...

DALLAS (AP) - The U.S. Justice Department made the right call in dismissing a voter intimidation lawsuit against the New Black Panther Party and recent questions about that ruling are a "political witch hunt" to discredit Attorney General Eric Holder, the party's leader said this week. Malik Zulu Shabazz, national chairman of the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, told The Associated Press the civil lawsuit filed by the federal government had "no merit" because the party doesn't condone voter intimidation. Shabazz said he was speaking publicly about the issue for the first time because he wanted to set the...

The second-in-command at the Justice Department is leaving his post, officials announced Thursday — making him the third top Obama legal official to announce his departure in recent weeks. Deputy Attorney General David W. Ogden will return to private practice in February. White House General Counsel Greg Craig will step down in January, and Phillip Carter, a top Defense Department deputy assistant secretary dealing with detainee issues, has already left. Ogden, who managed the civil division during the Clinton administration, headed up President Barack Obama’s transition into office last year. In a statement, Ogden said that his tenure in the...

Last week we were jolted with the news that the global warming crisis is a hoax, an ideologically-driven scam based on data that have been routinely doctored, selectively presented, and when necessary, furtively disposed of. But there's another global disinformation campaign that is still going strong. It's called the Cult of Domestic Violence. This ruse threatens the very foundation of American society: the traditional family. This past Thursday Catherine Pierce, acting director of the Department of Justice Office of Violence Against Women, issued a Thanksgiving message — now that sounds comforting, doesn't it? Ms. Pierce called for "a national conversation...

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department has concluded that the Obama administration can lawfully pay the community group Acorn for services provided under contracts signed before Congress banned the government from providing money to the group.

I’m not an attorney. For better or worse I didn’t go to law school, but rather, I instead went to graduate school to study philosophy. But you don’t need to be an attorney – or a philosopher – or the Attorney General or the President of the United States or a Representative or a Senator you don’t even need to be a community organizer to understand what I understand. In fact, if you are one of “those” that I just listed, there’s a good chance that your station in life will blind you from seeing and understanding the reality that...

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department has concluded that the Obama administration can lawfully pay the community group Acorn for services provided under contracts signed before Congress banned the government from providing money to the group. The department’s conclusion, laid out in a recently disclosed five-page memorandum from David Barron, the acting assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel, adds a new wrinkle to a sharp political debate over the antipoverty group’s activities and recent efforts to distance the government from it. Since 1994, Acorn, which stands for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, has received about...

A Housing and Urban Development Department lawyer asked the Justice Department whether the new law meant that pre-existing contracts with Acorn should be broken. And in a memorandum signed Oct. 23 and posted online this week, Mr. Barron said the government should continue to make payments to Acorn as required by such contracts. The new law “should not be read as directing or authorizing HUD to breach a pre-existing binding contractual obligation to make payments to Acorn or its affiliates, subsidiaries or allied organizations where doing so would give rise to contractual liability,” Mr. Barron wrote. The deputy director of...

ACORN is the largest radical leftist group in America today. This radical group worked closely with the Obama camp during the election. But, the community organizing group was not open about this. The photo below was scrubbed from the ACORN website before the election: One of Barack Obama’s first big “community organizer” jobs involved ACORN in 1992. He has been working along side ACORN since before he became an elected official. Obama also trained ACORN employees. He represented ACORN in court. Obama worked with and protested with ACORN. His campaign donated $800,000 to ACORN in 2008 for voter registration efforts....

...As reported, in part, at the NY Times: “WASHINGTON — The Justice Department has concluded that the Obama administration can lawfully pay the community group Acorn for services provided under contracts signed before Congress enacted a law banning the government from providing funds to the group. “The department’s conclusion, laid out in a recently disclosed five-page memorandum from David Barron, the acting assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel, adds a new wrinkle to a sharp political debate over the antipoverty group’s activities and recent efforts to distance the government from it. “Mr. Barron said he had based...

Obama's Justice Department really knows how to take care of the President's buddies especially the criminal enterprise ACORN. According to the NY Times, the Justice department has directed the Administration to continue to pay ACORN for any services whose contracts were signed before congress cut off funds. Section 163 of Division B (“Continuing Appropriations Resolution, 2010”) of Public Law 111-68 does not direct or authorize the Department of Housing and Urban Development to breach a pre-existing binding contractual obligation to make payments to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now or its affiliates, subsidiaries, or allied organizations where doing...

When Eric Holder announced he was moving the 9/11 terrorist trial to New York City, a rash of worries were released, the case will be dismissed because of the waterbording, all the evidence will be thrown out because they weren't read their Miranda rights..etc. The Wall Street Journal is warning of the very real possibility that the two of the terrorists, Ramzi Binalshibh and Mustafa al-Hawsawi may be declared mentally unfit to stand trial. Their attorney's claim that the terrorists have mental disorders caused by harsh CIA treatment. The issue already has arisen in military-commission proceedings at the military's detention...

Justice. Webster's defines it in this manner: “the maintenance or administration of what is just (acting or being in conformity with what is morally upright or good) especially by the impartial adjustment of conflicting claims or the assignments of merited award or punishment”. (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/justice) This is the premise of law that binds our courts and legal system.

A new one from CNS featuring Kent Conrad, who’ll be spared a “worst person in the world” award on Olbermann’s show for this bit o’ demagoguery solely by virtue of his party affiliation. Consider this a sequel to Lindsey Graham’s grilling of Holder last week: In both cases, we’ve got a Democrat who’s (a) absolutely confident that civilian trials are the way to go and (b) plainly unprepared to address the rather significant constitutional implications of his preference. The search warrant question here is bait but the underlying point isn’t: FrumForum interviewed former FBI and CIA agents to get their...

AG Eric Holder's statement that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will remain in custody no matter what the verdict in his upcoming Manhattan trial, coupled with Obama's instructions to the jury that KSM be "convicted and executed", reveals the entire exercise as a show trial, a ritual effort intended not to achieve justice, but to make a public political point. The question is, what could that point possibly be? Show trials had a long and ignoble history in the last century. Pioneered in the USSR by the Stalin regime, they were used as method of instilling terror into the vozhd's enemies, ensuring...

Note: The following text is a quote: Terror Charges Unsealed in Minnesota Against Eight Defendants, Justice Department Announces The Justice Department announced that terrorism charges have been unsealed today in the District of Minnesota against eight defendants. According to the charging documents, the offenses include providing financial support to those who traveled to Somalia to fight on behalf of al-Shabaab, a designated foreign terrorist organization; attending terrorist training camps operated by al-Shabaab; and fighting on behalf of al-Shabaab. Thus far, 14 defendants have been charged in the District of Minnesota in indictments or criminal complaints that have been unsealed and...

Attorney General Eric Holder lacks authority to make a decision on moving terror detainees to civilian courts for trial, one of his predecessors said Wednesday. Former Attorney General John Ashcroft, who held his position during the Bush administration from 2001-2005, said that Holder lacked the legal standing to decide to move alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and other terror detainees to federal courts in New York City to stand trial. >p> "The attorney general doesn't have the authority to mandate that the secretary of Defense turn somebody over to him and yield jurisdiction so that something that would have...

... [Geraldine Davie] joined 12 other 9/11 family members at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the Obama administration's decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) and four other 9/11 planners not as enemy combatants and war criminals before a military commission, but as civilians in federal court in New York City. They brought with them more than 100,000 signatures gathered by three 9/11 and national security websites--TheBravest.com, 911Familesfor-America.org, and Keep-AmericaSafe.com (on whose board this magazine's editor serves). Holder spoke of the trials as a correction of Bush-era delays and an overdue attempt to seek justice for the victims of...

he prosecution team I led in 1995 convicted the notorious Blind Sheikh and 11 others for conspiring to wage a terrorist war that included the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and attempting (unsuccessfully) to attack New York City landmarks. Consequently, some observers seem puzzled that I'm a vocal critic of civilian trials for our terrorist enemies. But they are confusing litigation success with national-security success. So is the Obama administration in deciding to transfer Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four other 9/11 plotters to federal court in Manhattan. We certainly can convict terrorists in civilian court. We've done it too many...

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder continued the federal government's campaign to reach out to local Arab Americans, saying last night in Detroit that civil rights must be respected even as the country deals with security threats. "For the last nine months, I've heard from Muslim and Arab Americans who feel uneasy about their relationship with their government, who feel isolated and discriminated against by law enforcement," Holder said, according to the Detroit Free Press. "It is inconsistent with what America is all about." Holder spoke at the Detroit Marriott as part of the Advocates and Leaders for Police and Community...

On Wednesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee met to question Attorney General Eric Holder about his decision to prosecute Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others in criminal courts rather than military tribunals. As the father of Todd Beamer, who died on United Airlines Flight 93, I was able to attend that hearing. What transpired caused me great concern and shook my confidence in our current administration....How can we be assured that these enemies will be found guilty? Given that criminal courts are now the presumed venue for those captured on the battlefield, will soldiers need to read them their rights at...

President Obama has said it was Attorney General Eric Holder who decided to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed 9/11 mastermind, and four other Guantanamo Bay detainees in civilian federal court in New York City. Yet, as a matter of law, that can't be true. "You know, I said to the attorney general, 'make a decision based on the law,' " the president told CNN. In Holder's testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, he confirmed that Obama had left it up to him: "This was a tough call, and reasonable people can disagree with my conclusion that these individuals should...

There may be additional e-mails that could have tipped off law enforcement or military officials to the Fort Hood shooter before he went on his deadly rampage, the chairman of the Senate Armed Forces Committee said Friday. The U.S. government intercepted at least 18 e-mails between Hasan and Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical American-born cleric. They were passed along to two Joint Terrorism Task Force cells led by the FBI, but a senior defense official said no one at the Defense Department knew about the messages until after the shootings. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss...

Here are a few facts we can’t overlook. *A retired Army lawyer speaking at a TEA Party rally this past week explained the dangers this trail poses to national security. He predicted a “civilian” trial will lead to the exposure of some of America’s most important military secrets and methods of keeping us safe since 9-11. During the trial of John Walker Lindh he was in charge of a team of military lawyers whose only job was defeating ACLU filings designed to expose America’s secrets. He confidently predicted this would happen again during this trial, but sadly concluded the military’s...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 19 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Before the Senate Judiciary Committee November 18th, 2009, Attorney General Eric Holder revealed a stunningly broad and aggressive anti-gun agenda. "The President of the United States asked that politicians not use the Ft. Hood attack to engage in 'political theater.' It appears those committed to attacking gun owners and the Second Amendment simply can't help themselves and are engaged in blaming guns and gun owners on the heels of this terrorist attack. Sadly it looks like 'politics as usual,'" said LEAA's spokesperson, Ted Deeds. After explaining and defending his decision to give enemy combatants constitutional...