Free Republic

To read the Associated Press's Friday evening coverage of a federal judge's refusal to block North Carolina's election law reforms from taking effect in the upcoming general election, you'd think it was an unsuccessful effort on the part of a group of poor Davids to defeat the Tar Heel State's government Goliath. As J. Christian Adams at PJ Media noted shortly after the decision, it was nothing of the sort. Attorney General Eric Holder's Department of Justice weighed in heavily, and is in fact listed as the plaintiff in one of the three cases Federal District Judge Thomas D. Schroeder...

In the last couple of weeks my cigar company has had a hell of a time trying to find a credit card processing company that’ll do recurring revenue charges for my customers who’d like to get an automated, monthly dose of one of the finest cigars on this planet, our Safari Cigar. As my team and I were going back and forth trying to find a company to handle our transactions, I started redlining, getting a wee bit pissed, about how ridiculous it has become to do trade. My business boys tried to calm me down by telling me it...

The left trumpeted a voter ID decision in Wisconsin as if it were the end of the issue. Let’s see what they do with this one. A federal court today smacked down the Holder Justice Department and refused to enjoin (block) North Carolina’s voter ID law, curtailment of costly early voting and end of fraud-infested same day registration. This means the state’s voter ID law will be in place for the midterm congressional (and Senate) elections in November. The Justice Department had actually argued that even if black voters turned out at higher rates under voter ID (which they do),...

Crime is so high along the Mexican border that nearly half of all the criminal cases filed by federal prosecutors in the United States last fiscal year were concentrated in a handful of districts located in that region, according to the U.S. government’s figures. It’s not as if this is new, but to see it spelled out in a government report with a detailed breakdown is truly alarming. The statistics illustrate that the Mexican-border region is a cesspool of crime that’s costing American taxpayers a chunk of change not to mention loads of grief. There are 94 federal court districts...

Eric Holder does not shy away from being called an activist – in fact, the U.S. Attorney General considers the label an honor. “If you want to call me an activist attorney general, I will proudly accept that label,” Holder told journalist Juan Williams in an interview published at The Hill. “Any attorney general who is not an activist is not doing his or her job,” he continued, adding that “the responsibility of the attorney general is to change things [and] bring us closer to the ideals expressed in our founding documents.” Asked later about his response to critics who...

Saying that the physical fitness tests that the Pennsylvania state police uses to identify entry-level candidates are not job-related, the Department of Justice is suing the agency for sex discrimination since more men pass the tests than women. “Through the use of these physical fitness tests, Defendants have engaged in a pattern or practice of employment discrimination against women in [Pennsylvania State Police's] selection process for entry-level trooper positions in violation of Title VII [of the Civil Rights Act of 1964],” reads the DOJ’s lawsuit. At issue are the state agency’s 2003 and 2009 physical fitness tests that are one of...

WASHINGTON — U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder sent a scathing letter to Gov. Rick Scott over voting changes in Florida and issued a warning that the Justice Department is "carefully monitoring" the state. "Whenever warranted by the facts and the law, we will not hesitate to use all tools and legal authorities at our disposal to fight against racial discrimination, to stand against disenfranchisement and to safeguard the right of every eligible American to cast a ballot," Holder wrote. Scott's office dismissed it as a "bizarre attempt to help Charlie Crist." The letter, dotted with pointed language and examples of...

The Obama administration lost a crucial legal battle on July 18 when a federal court ordered the White House to release previously withheld information on Operation Fast and Furious to the government watchdog group Judicial Watch. According to a press released issued Thursday, the court case stems from a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit (that originally began as a FOIA request) filed by Judicial Watch in 2012 to obtain all documents that the president has withheld from Congress under claims of executive privilege.

....Eric Holder this month sent a scathing letter to Gov. Rick Scott over voting changes in Florida and issued a warning that the Justice Department is “carefully monitoring” the state....

Thanks to a Freedom of Information Act Lawsuit pursued against the Department of Justice by government watchdog Judicial Watch, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has ruled documents being withheld from Congress under President Obama's claim of executive privilege must be turned over. Obama made the claim on the same day Attorney General Eric Holder was voted in criminal and civil contempt of Congress in June 2012. "This order forces the Obama DOJ, for the first time, to provide a detailed listing of all documents that it has withheld from Congress and the American people for...

Citing concerns about equal justice in sentencing, Attorney General Eric Holder has decided to oppose certain statistical tools used in determining jail time, putting the Obama Administration at odds with a popular and increasingly effective method for managing prison populations. Holder says if such rankings are used broadly, they could have a disparate and adverse impact on the poor, on socially disadvantaged offenders, and on minorities. Holder says using static factors from a criminal’s background could perpetuate racial bias in a system that already delivers 20% longer sentences for young black men than for other offenders.

Forget about that phony IRS scandal… The DOJ apparently has a real problem to handle. The Pennsylvania State Police are being sued by Eric “The Extortionist” Holder for alleged sexual discrimination. No, the Penn police didn’t do anything as egregious as force women to pay for their own birth-control; but apparently it was enough to persuade the DOJ to file a lawsuit. The offense: Women are being held to the same standards as their male counterparts! Apparently, requiring all candidates to pass the same standard physical fitness test is sexist. See, women are having a tough time passing the test...

The Justice Department on Wednesday sided with challengers of voting laws in Wisconsin and Ohio, saying in court filings that measures in those states unfairly affect minority voters. The department criticized a Wisconsin law that requires voters to present photo identification at the polls and an Ohio law that limits when voters can cast an early ballot. The court papers from the federal government are aimed at persuading judges that the laws, which are being challenged in court, are discriminatory and block access to the ballot box. […] The Justice Department has warned of legal actions against states after the...

Former IRS official Lois Lerner cursed conservatives in emails released on Wednesday, leading House Republicans to intensify their push for criminal charges. Lerner, in an email conversation with an undisclosed person, suggested that listeners to conservative talk radio were “ass----s.” She followed that up by saying: “So we don't need to worry about alien teRrorists [sic]. It's our own crazies that will take us down.” Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee said the emails showed – not for the first time – Lerner’s bias against conservatives. Other documents released Wednesday also suggest that Lerner used her home computer...

Officials have said that more than half of all children initially placed in shelters have gone on to be reunited with at least one parent already living in the United States, and 85 percent of all children have been placed with a close family member.

Google has signed a deal to buy game-livestreaming firm Twitch for $1 billion, confirmed sources familiar with the matter. We don’t know everything about this deal, such as when it will be announced and the exact purchase price. We do know that...

While President Obama decries gun violence and presses for more laws to restrict ownership, his Justice Department has prosecuted 25 percent fewer cases referred by the main law enforcement agency charged with reducing firearms violence across the country, a computer analysis of U.S. prosecution data shows. Federal prosecutors brought a total of 5,082 gun violation cases in 2013 recommended by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, compared with 6,791 during the last year of George W. Bush’s presidency in 2008, according to data obtained from the Executive Office of U.S. Attorneys. The 2013 totals represent a 42 percent...

Examples of Serious Crimes of Illegal Aliens The information below is taken from news sources. The aliens in these reports were all identified as being in the country illegally, and many of them had come into the hands of law enforcement agencies prior to the crime that is described below, but the alien was not deported or in some cases was deported but reentered the country. These cases are listed as a demonstration that better prevention of illegal immigration is a public safety issue even though these cases are not representative of the illegal alien population in general. These cases...

Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-Mo) is sponsoring H.R. 4986, the End Operation Choke Point Act of 2014. The bill aims to stem Department of Justice abuse of legitimate businesses. Under Operation Choke Point the DOJ working in concert with the FTC, FDIC, OCC, CFPB, and FBI has been intimidating banks in order to deny these financial resources to targeted commercial operations. While DOJ claims it is merely combating criminal activity, legal, but pariah businesses like firearms vending, marijuana dispensaries and check cashing firms have frequently been shut off from the banking system. The Administration opposes the bill. “Even though some businesses...

With her life’s dream of being a small family farmer in Virginia, Martha Boneta obtained 64 acres in Fauquier County, Va in 2006 to raise vegetables, herbs, raw honey, eggs, and host small animals. Little did she know that a birthday party with eight ten-year old girls would trigger zealous county regulators who saw the party as an event needing special exception permits and required a hearing that would impose fees. Thinking she had all the right commercial permits and licenses, Boneta was still threatened with $5,000 per day fines despite Virginia being a right to farm state, where local...