Free Republic

While the Obama Justice Department mounts a legal challenge against Florida for purging ineligible voters from its rolls, a television news station broadcasts an unbelievable segment that proves non U.S. citizens living in the Sunshine State vote regularly in elections. The investigative piece was aired this week by an NBC affiliate in southwest Florida that actually tracked down and interviewed non U.S. citizens who are registered to vote and have cast ballots in numerous elections. The segment focused on Lee County, which has a population of about 620,000 and Collier County with a population of around 322,000. The reporter spent...

What is the reaction inside DOJ to the Senate’s defeat of the Debo Adegbile nomination to head the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice? According to an email sent by Acting Assistant Attorney General Jocelyn Samuels, the “sacred mission” will continue. Samuels, in an email late this afternoon to Division staff obtained by PJ Media, said: I anticipate that last week’s developments will prompt a period of reflection and discussion about civil rights in this country and how we can best achieve our sacred mission. This is healthy, and I am confident that our work will emerge the...

Lois Lerner has answered questions for the DOJ investigation into the IRS targeting scandal, but continues to invoke her Fifth Amendment rights before the congressional committee. It's an interesting decision, albeit not without precedent. Either Lerner feels that the committee is doing nothing but setting "perjury traps" for her, or else she's assured that the DOJ "investigation" is little more than an exercise in making the scandal disappear, and thus is helping the department craft a narrative designed to do just that. Or both. There are, of course, a number of good reasons for objective observers to suspect that Lerner's...

A former Internal Revenue Service official who declined to answer questions at a congressional hearing, citing the Fifth Amendment, gave a full interview to the Justice Department, her lawyer said. That’s raising questions among Republican lawmakers, who wonder whether her choice to talk to Justice reflects a lack of concern about the DOJ probe. They also question the propriety of letting her avoid questions by lawmakers when she is answering DOJ’s. The comments by Lois Lerner‘s attorney “cast further doubt on the seriousness of the Justice Department’s so-called investigation of IRS targeting, as well as the legal basis of Ms....

House Republicans on Thursday slammed the former IRS official at the center of the agency’s targeting controversy for answering questions from the Justice Department after invoking the Fifth Amendment in a congressional hearing. Republicans on the Oversight Committee said that Lois Lerner’s decision to sit down with federal investigators made them wonder how seriously the Justice Department was taking the investigation into the IRS’s treatment of Tea Party groups. “Think about it: Actually, the people who can put her in jail — she’ll talk to them,” Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) told The Hill. “But she won’t talk to a bunch...

This week, the Senate, by a slim margin assured by opportunist Democrats up for re-election, rejected the nomination of Debo Adegbile, another radical Obama nominee, to head the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department. The feckless Democratic senators who broke ranks with his royalness are probably responding to the latest polling data showing that Obama has reached his all-time low for job performance approval. The Fox News poll found that just 38 percent approve of the president's job performance and that 54 percent disapprove. Prior to this poll, his worst rating was 40/55 percent in November 2013. I happen...

The Senate has voted 52 to 47 to block the confirmation of Debo Adegbile, President Obama's nominee to head the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. All Republicans and Democrats Coons, Heitkamp, Manchin, Pryor, Donnelly, Casey and Walsh voted against the nomination. Adegbile came under heavy fire for his voluntary advocacy of convicted and unrepentant cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal, who murdered Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner in 1981. Major law enforcement orgazations, inlcuding the National Fraternal Order of Police and the National Association of Police Organizations, were opposed to the nomination. Philadelphia Democratic Prosecutor Seth Williams was also...

Wisconsin Republican seeks to restore racial categories, empower Holder DOJ Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R., Wisc.) told constituents at Wisconsin town halls that voting-rights legislation he is sponsoring does not exclude white voters from the protection of the Voting Rights Act. Sensenbrenner also says he is proud to work with the ACLU and far-left groups to pass the legislation that would resurrect Attorney General Eric Holder’s powers to block state election laws such as voter ID or citizenship verification. In a video from Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe, Sensenbrenner also accused Texas and Georgia Republicans of trying to stop minorities from...

President Barack Obama's choice to head the Justice Department's civil rights division has failed a Senate test vote and his confirmation is in jeopardy. The vote was 47-52, short of the needed majority. Eight Democrats joined Republicans to block the nominee, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who voted "no" so he would be able to bring up the nomination again in the future. The controversy over Debo Adegbile stems from legal representation of a man who is currently imprisoned for the murder of a Philadelphia policeman decades ago. It was unclear what the next step will be for...

President Obama on Wednesday called it a “travesty” that the Senate had failed to confirm Debo Adegbile, his nominee to lead the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division. “The Senate’s failure to confirm Debo Adegbile to lead the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice is a travesty based on wildly unfair character attacks against a good and qualified public servant,” said Obama in a written statement. “Mr. Adegbile’s qualifications are impeccable,” he continued. “He represents the best of the legal profession, with wide-ranging experience,

The Senate voted 47-52 Wednesday to reject controversial nominee Debo Adegbile as an assistant attorney general. Seven Democrats voted against moving forward with President Obama’s nomination of Adegbile, which the Fraternal Order of Police and other groups opposed because of his involvement in the defense of Mumia Abu-Jamal, who was convicted of killing a Philadelphia police officer in 1981. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) then switched his vote from yes to no in a move that allows him to bring the nomination up again for a future vote. Every Republican also voted against the nomination, sending it to defeat....

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...