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DES MOINES, Iowa — On Jan. 5, 2012, Paul Valin called the police to report he’d found a backpack containing what he believed to be meth-making equipment. That simple act of good citizenship landed his and wife Cindy’s house on the National Clandestine Laboratory Register, the federal Drug Enforcement Agency’s list of meth labs. The NCLR “contains addresses of some locations where law enforcement agencies reported they found chemicals or other items that indicated the presence of either clandestine drug laboratories or dumpsites.” The fact that Valin found the backpack more than 15 miles from his house isn’t the sort...

Corruption: Attorney General Eric Holder wants his counterparts at the state level to treat the rule of law with the same contempt and selectivity that he and his boss in the White House employ. 'We the people" and "consent of the governed" are important American concepts that Holder and his boss, President Obama, do not understand. They've made it clear by spreading their creeping lawlessness among the attorneys general of the 50 states. We acknowledge the doctrine of prosecutorial discretion, which provides those charged with enforcing our laws in the courts with the authority to decide which particular cases merit...

A federal court in Tennessee has dealt a serious setback to those attacking photo voter identification laws around the country – including Eric Holder’s Justice Department in North Carolina. United States District Court Judge Ronnie Greer has thrown out a lawsuit brought by the Green Party challenging the Volunteer State’s photo voter ID law. While the decision was bad for the Green Party in Tennessee, the opinion may be even worse for voter ID opponents nationwide such as the NAACP, the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund and Eric Holder . Greer’s opinion undermines most all of the arguments being pushed...

Last week, Reporters Without Borders dropped America in the World Press Freedom Index 2014 from 33rd to 46th. James Risen of The New York Times rightly explained, “I think 2013 will go down in history as the worst year for press freedom in the United States’ modern history.” And he’s right. The violation of press freedoms has been egregious under this administration, even as the press fetes President Obama as an honest and effective commander-in-chief. Selective Access. President Obama has regularly granted special access to reporters who give him preferential coverage. CBS’ Steve Kroft admitted as much after a...

A suspected pirate, freed after a civilian trial, is seeking asylum here. Chalk up yet one more legal fiasco to Attorney General Eric Holder. Apart from failing to enforce Obamacare, immigration, and the drug laws, the administration continues to endanger national security with its catch-and-release approach to terrorists. In a preview of the consequences of its plans to close Guantanamo Bay, the Obama Justice department (DOJ) is starting to apprehend terrorists abroad and free them at home.

In the second installation of a three-part series on "gun violence in Mexico," the National Catholic Reporter (NCR) continues to blame the U.S. for gun violence in Mexico, while viewing Fast & Furious as a legitimate attempt at law enforcement which just happened to go wrong. According to NCR, Obama tried to reinstitute an "assault weapons" ban in the U.S. as a way to keep Mexico safer. He also pledged to "keep increasing the pressure on the gun traffickers." NCR claims part of the pressure on traffickers included Operation Fast & Furious, which turned out to be a "botched 2009...

Conservatives hoping to celebrate the departure of Attorney General Eric Holder might be in for a long wait. The attorney general’s position has looked perilous at various points during his tenure. But these days, he seems resurgent, pushing states to strike down voting restrictions on ex-felons and fighting hard to restore some of the key powers of the Voting Rights Act. It has been an uphill climb. In 2012, Holder became the first attorney general to be held in contempt by the House of Representatives while, the year before, he had to retreat from his earlier insistence that suspects in...

Caving into the demands of a leftist civil rights group, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has terminated an enforcement program that apprehends illegal immigrants in California’s central valley. The unbelievable story comes out of Kern County in Bakersfield, which is considered the heart of the nation’s most populous state. The increasingly powerful American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) didn’t like that the DHS agency responsible for deporting illegal aliens, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), was doing its job. So the ACLU, which has repeatedly shown to wield tremendous power in the Obama administration, fired off a letter demanding that the...

Justice Department lawyer Bradley Heard was in court today trying to stop Kansas from ensuring that only citizens register to vote. Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, relying on a United States Supreme Court opinion of last year, asked the federal Election Assistance Commission to permit him to ensure that only noncitizens were registering to vote. The Election Assistance Commission said no, so Kris Kobach went to federal court. Enter Eric Holder’s Justice Department, as usual, opposing election integrity measures. Despite harping about resource concerns (which apparently means that the DOJ can do nothing about corrupted voter rolls), Holder found...

I wonder who he thinks they will vote for? Let me think about that a while, ahem, tough call. Eric Holder wants millions of convicted felons to vote, urging states to change existing laws. Holder Urges States to Repeal Bans on Felons’ Voting: Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Tuesday urged states to repeal laws that prohibit felons from voting, a move that would restore the right to vote to millions of people. The call was mostly symbolic — Mr. Holder has no authority to enact these changes himself — but it marked the attorney general’s latest effort to...

by Gina Cassini | Top Right News Today, an Arizona state senate committee approved a bill that would virtually nullify all federal gun acts, laws, orders, rules or regulations. The vote was 6-3.Along with twelve sponsors and co-sponsors, Arizona State Sen. Kelli Ward introduced the Second Amendment Preservation Act in the Grand Canyon State. SB1294 prohibits the state from enforcing “any federal act, law, order, rule or regulation that relates to a personal firearm, firearm accessory or ammunition within the limits of this state.” “We’ve sat back and allowed the federal government to trample the Constitution long enough,” Ward said. “We’re going...

A man convicted in the shooting death of a federal Border Patrol agent during a firefight that revealed the government's botched gun-smuggling investigation known as Operation Fast and Furious was sentenced Monday to 30 years in prison. Manuel Osorio-Arellanes, who is from El Fuerte in the Mexican state of Sinaloa, is the only person to be convicted in the Dec. 14, 2010, shooting death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry near the Arizona-Mexico border. U.S. District Court judge David C. Bury handed down the sentence, 360 months with credit for time served.

PHOENIX (AP) — A Mexican man has been sentenced to 30 years in federal prison in the 2010 killing of a U.S Border Patrol agent that revealed the botched gun-smuggling investigation known as Operation Fast and Furious. #Manuel Osorio-Arellanes was sentenced Monday after pleading guilty in Flat Rock native Brian Terry’s shooting death.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder will step down this year, he said in an interview with the New Yorker’s Jeffrey Toobin in the magazine’s Feb. 17 edition. In a feature article, Mr. Holder said he plans on staying in his position “well into” the year. Last November, Mr. Holder, the first black attorney general, told CBS News he didn’t have “any plans” to step down.

Kent Terry, the brother of slain border agent Brian Terry, sent a scathing letter to Attorney General Eric Holder demanding to know why the United States has let years pass without holding anyone accountable for Operation Fast and Furious. In his letter, Mr. Terry wrote, Breitbart.com reported: “Mr. Holder, I am going to get right to the point of this letter. I am not pleased with your behavior as America’s Attorney General. Simply denying that you had no knowledge about Operation Fast and Furious is troubling in itself, but for you to not comply with Congress is even more troubling....

The Justice Department on Monday will instruct all of its employees across the country, for the first time, to give lawful same-sex marriages sweeping equal protection under the law in every program it administers, from courthouse proceedings to prison visits to the compensation of surviving spouses of public safety officers. In a new policy memo, the department will spell out the rights of same-sex couples, including the right to decline to give testimony that might incriminate their spouses, even if their marriages are not recognized in the state where the couple lives. ... “This means that, in every courthouse, in...

In an assertion of same-sex marriage rights, Attorney General Eric Holder is applying a landmark Supreme Court ruling to the Justice Department, announcing Saturday that same-sex spouses cannot be compelled to testify against each other, should be eligible to file for bankruptcy jointly and are entitled to the same rights and privileges as federal prison inmates in opposite-sex marriages. The Justice Department runs a number of benefits programs, and Holder says same-sex couples will qualify for them. They include the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund and benefits to surviving spouses of public safety officers who suffer catastrophic or fatal injuries...

‘The House should sharply reduce IRS funding until the agency is more responsive.” Well, I’d have omitted everything after “funding” but this was still an astute observation, offered at the conclusion of Thursday’s excellent Wall Street Journal editorial. I’m grateful to have smart guys on the team, even if slumming with us power-of-the-purse radicals may get them booted from the GOP’s “We’re only one-half of one-third” circle of submission. The editors were exercised over the revenue agency’s latest shenanigans, which include covering up its past shenanigans — the willful targeting of conservative groups in order to frustrate their opposition to...

On December 14, 2010, Border Agent Brian Terry was shot and killed by drug smugglers north of the Arizona/Mexico border. He was hit once and pronounced dead at the scene. Two rifles from Operation Fast & Furious, an ATF gun walking operation, were recovered from the crime scene.

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson’s newest appointee to his inner circle, chief of staff Christian Marrone, rose to Washington power player via the streets of Pennsylvania’s pay-to-play politics. Mr. Marrone acknowledged in court that as a Pennsylvania legislative aide he oversaw the private renovation of his politician boss’s mansion — all while drawing paychecks from taxpayers ... “You’re looking at a state not unlike New York, New Jersey and Illinois for pay-to-play politics,” Mr. Madonna said. “But it’s pretty fundamental that you aren’t supposed to work privately when you’re supposed to be on the state payroll, and he was on...