Free Republic

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...

I want to know more about who is advising you on these decisions. There are attorneys at the Justice Department working on this issue who either represented Guantanamo detainees, or worked for groups who advocated for them. This prior representation I think creates a conflict of interest problems for these individuals. Grassley brought up the case of Neal Katyal, who is now the Principal Deputy Solicitor General. Katyal, formerly a law professor at Georgetown University, worked on legal challenges to the Military Commission Act -- he represented Osama bin Laden's driver -- and is reportedly still working on detainee questions...

Note: The following text is a quote: Home • Briefing Room • Presidential Actions • Executive Orders The White House Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release November 17, 2009 Executive Order - Establishment of the Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and in order to strengthen the efforts of the Department of Justice, in conjunction with Federal, State, tribal, territorial, and local agencies, to investigate and prosecute significant financial crimes and other violations relating to the current financial crisis...

"Soldier of Allah" NIDAL MALIK HASAN How do we know that the attack at Fort Hood was an act of Islamist terrorism? Simple, Major Nidal Hassan told us so. Hasan is the first terrorist in history to give an academic lecture explaining why he was about to attack. Yet that still isn’t enough for too many people—including the president of the United States--to understand that the murderous assault at Fort Hood was a Jihad attack. Hisan's Powerpoint Presentation on Jihad "Soldier of Allah" SHEIKH MUBARAK GILANI Gilani, whose organizations oversee 35 jihadist training camps in 22 states in America, is...

Some critics say a civilian trial -- instead of a military tribunal -- for self-proclaimed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his accomplices could end up targeting the Bush administration and its anti-terror policies. The Obama administration, in deciding to try alleged Sept. 11 conspirators in a New York courtroom, has said it is setting its sights on convictions, but some critics say a civilian trial -- instead of a military tribunal -- could end up targeting the Bush administration and its anti-terror policies. One of those five defendants, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, has been at the center of the...

Source: 9/11 Terror Detainees Face Trial in N.Y. Friday, November 13, 2009 WASHINGTON — Self-proclaimed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other Guantanamo Bay detainees will be sent to New York to face trial in a civilian federal court, an Obama administration official said Friday. The official said Attorney General Eric Holder plans to announce the decision later in the morning. The official is not authorized to discuss the decision before the announcement, so spoke on condition of anonymity.

Congressman Frank Wolf (R-Va.), a Philadelphia native, and House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member, Lamar Smith (R-Texas) sent a letter, on November 10, to Attorney General Eric Holder requesting information ...

Actually, in this context ’same as the old boss’ would be a comfort. To me, at least, if not the folks who made such a hullabaloo over the PATRIOT Act; I’m not worried about the government abusing its authority so much as I worry about it making an utter hash of its attempt to try to use it. But of course said ‘abuse’ was not the least common election-year theme - usually in the context of how things would change, once the Republicans weren’t running things. And usually argued by people who really should have known better. Which is why...

Attorney General Eric Holder has agreed to give a keynote speech next week to a Michigan group which includes the local branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations even though the FBI has formally severed contacts with the controversial Muslim civil rights organization. On Nov. 19, Holder is scheduled to speak in Detroit to the first annual awards banquet of Advocates and Leaders for Police and Community Trust, a coalition of several dozen law enforcement and community groups. An online registration form for the event includes the Council on American Islamic Relations-Michigan on a list of “official & participating organizations.”...

This past August, the current Attorney General, Eric Holder, decided to launch an investigation of the CIA's methods of interrogation of suspected Islamic terrorists.A move lauded by terrorists.And condemed by seven former CIA directors, that Holder's actions in that regard, could actually help Al-Qaeda. Not to mention other Islamists.Meanwhile, Janet Napolitano, head of Homeland Security, has been in Abu Dhabi in the UAE discussing "security issues" with United Arab Emirates officials.After the Ft. Hood jihad terror attack, Napolitano made comments while in the UAE, that could basically be understood as an apology to the Muslim world,--if Americans are suspicious or angry toward Islam, because we have been attacked again.After 9/11, then Attorney General John...

Saturday, October 31, 2009 Obama DOJ shovels out more grist for foreign prosecutions of Bush officials   [Andy McCarthy] Well, the hyper-"transparent" Obama administration won't share any of its internal deliberations on matters about which there is no good reason to keep the public in the dark — e.g., its strong-arming in Honduras, its dismissal of a slam-dunk civil rights case against the New Black Panther Party, and the legal analysis by DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel that explains why the DC Voting Rights Bill is unconstitutional — but it continues to shovel out previously classified information about interrogation techniques...

On Thursday, the United States House of Representatives passed a continuing resolution funding the Federal Government through December 18th. The continuing resolution was passed as part of the behemoth Interior-Environment Appropriations conference report. A continuing resolution is a stop-gap provision which allows the government to continue its operations until Congress can determine the next year’s appropriations. The actions taken today merely extended the expiration date of the resolution which went into effect on October 1st. By extending the existing continuing resolution Congress has continued to deprive ACORN and its affiliates of federal funds until December 18th. This is not a...

This is news .. the DOJ has officially notified CA Judge David Carter, presently reviewing his next move in the Keyes et al v. Obama et al lawsuit ... of a GA judge's decision in the Kerchner v Obama lawsuit. ______________________________________________________ It clearly shows that Judge Carter doesn’t deserve to be addressed as such the guy is looking for the easy way out while making sure not to upset the Usurper-in-Chief. I may be wrong but Carter has sold out. -David Crockett Maybe Judge Carter was waiting for Judge Simandle’s ruling granting dismissal in the Kerchner case. It came down...

The Supreme Court recently faced a challenge to the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. A Texas municipality requested that it be allowed to be relieved from the onerous and expensive preclearance provisions of the Act. The Supreme Court avoided a ruling on the constitutional question but did allow the municipality to “bail out “ of the preclearance requirements. Under those requirements, a number of states and voting districts (mostly in the South, but also including parts of seven non-Southern states such as Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx in New York) must obtain preclearance from the Department of...

Voters in this small city decided overwhelmingly last year to do away with the party affiliation of candidates in local elections, but the Obama administration recently overruled the electorate and decided that equal rights for black voters cannot be achieved without the Democratic Party.

Sheriff Joe held a sweep in NW Phoenix, Friday October 16, 2009. He had a press conference after. US Department of Justice Officials (approximately 5) showed up at the conference, UNDERCOVER, POSING AS REPORTERS. When contacted by a Sheriff commander, the Federal Civil Rights officials posing as journalists, conducted themselves "unprofessionally" and "refused to provide official identification. Only one official from the "covert team provided any form of ID when pressed." That was the senior trial attorney, (phonetics) G. Yong Jung. She has been conducting the DOJ's investigation of the Sheriff's office re: allegations of racial profiling. Ms. Yong Jung...

Note: The following text is a quote: Remarks by Deputy Attorney General David W. Ogden at the 78th Interpol General Assembly SINGAPORE ~ Monday, October 12, 2009 In Bucharest, a little over a year ago, my predecessor U.S. Deputy Attorney General, Mark Filip, joined by the Romanian Prosecutor General, announced criminal charges in a case that was emblematic of the evolution of transnational organized crime. That case charged that a racketeering enterprise in Romania joined forces with other criminals around the world -- including street gangs in Los Angeles -- to use the Internet to defraud thousands of people and...

Are you a conservative or libertarian blogger? Do you take issue with and write pieces that don't mesh with Obama's policies? If you do, Eric Holder, United States Attorney General, is possibly getting feedback on what you've been blogging about.

Welcome to the new Justice.gov. If you’re a regular visitor to our site, you’ll notice some changes today. If you are joining us for the first time, welcome. The Department of Justice launches Justice.gov today in an effort to increase openness and transparency in government. Utilizing a variety of online tools, we will be able to share news and information, not just on our own web site, but through popular social networks Twitter, YouTube and MySpace and Facebook. The Justice presence on these social networks will allow Americans to interact with the Department in entirely new ways. The new Justice.gov...

Various conservative blogs are talking about the existence of a "blog squad" at the U.S. Justice Department. The website, the Muffled Oar writes that a blogging unit formed within the Department of Justice to counter websites with posts, articles, and user comments critical of the Obama administration. Matthew Miller Director of Public Affair at the Justice Department told the Washington Times,: "There is no 'blog squad'. There is Tracy [Russo] who handles online media. It’s the policy of the office of public affairs to not post anonymous comments. We have not seen any evidence that anyone does post comments, and...

Back in August I posted a few videos of Rep. John Dingell's Town Hall on Health Care. Over the next few days I wasn't surprised to see a few visits from House.gov and Senate.gov on my web site. As you can see, near the bottom of my blog is a counter that tracks visits to this site. I can't tell who visited, but I can see what I.P. address they were using. Imagine my surprise that a few weeks later I see that someone from DOJ.gov logged onto my site. That's right: The Department of Justice. Why would they be...

Obama's Attorney General, Eric Holder, has apparently hired a cadre of left-wing, Democrat campaign bloggers to troll through the Internet looking for news stories and blog posts that denigrate the Obama agenda. After such websites are found it is the job of these secret lefty bloggers to leave comments that come to the support of Obamaism in the comments sections. It seems that Eric Holder has created his own little propaganda unit in a valiant effort to become the Bloggi Riefenstahl of the Obama era. As reported at The Muffled Oar, a blog that first broke the story of Holder's...

Below read a post by Hans von Spakovsky at "The Corner" blog at NationalReviewOnline about how the Eric Holder-run U.S. Department of Justice has reportedly established a disinformation unit at DOJ. The Most Transparent Administration Ever? Not at DOJ [Hans von Spakovsky] Is the Department of Justice engaging in fraud, or is it simply trying to hide its propaganda? Those of you wondering how DOJ uses your tax dollars to enforce our nation’s laws might be interested to learn that Eric Holder has apparently hired former Democratic campaign bloggers to work at the department in what appears to be a...

The latest count shows ACORN under investigation in 20 states, its employees were charged with more than 50 counts of “election-related fraud,” and that ACORN has spent more than $1 million on restitution to avoid criminal prosecutions (although the Louisiana AG says that number is closer to $5 million).The is more than enough evidence to show that ACORN is corrupt throughout its vast organization and in so many ways. For weeks these pages have been calling for a special prosecutor.We cannot rely on the the politically appointed Democratic Party-led justice department to run an investigation, especially when you consider the...

Civil Rights Commission Chairman Seeks Responses In Voter Intimidation Case The Chairman of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, Gerald A. Reynolds, has sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder seeking answers to their questions about a voter intimidation case in Philadelphia involving the New Black Panther Party (NBPP). It considers the responses "overdue." The letter, dated September 30, 2009, is seemingly an unprecedented action. It asks for Mr. Holder to "instruct Department officials to fully cooperate" with the Commission's investigation, as required by federal law. The correspondence noted that the Commission still has not received any of the...

In a 24-page filing littered with all-caps, bold, and underlined text, Birther attorney Orly Taitz is demanding that a federal judge recuse himself in a case that has morphed from a soldier's attempt to resist Barack Obama's orders to what Taitz sees as a prosecution of herself. Taitz alleges that Judge Clay Land met with Attorney General Eric Holder, who was allegedly spotted at a small coffee shop across from Land's courtroom in Columbus, Georgia, on the day of a Birther hearing. A strange affidavit by one Robert Douglas describes the putative sighting of Holder, sans entourage, who "probably thought...

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts hardly seems a likely setting for rampant sex discrimination in state hiring, but apparently the Obama administration doesn't agree. The Justice Department this week filed suit against the state and its Department of Corrections, alleging they have engaged in a "pattern or practice of discrimination against female applicants for entry-level correctional officer positions." So what exactly constitutes this discrimination? Apparently, female prison guard applicants have a more difficult time passing a required physical abilities test (PAT) than their male counterparts, which is unacceptable to the Obama Justice Department. "Bringing an end to practices that have a...

The Department of Justice has hired a team of partisan Democrat campaign bloggers to work at the Department.....Tracy Russo is one such blogger from the campaign of John Edwards. The unit is housed in the Office of Public Affairs....They are also tasked with posting anonymous comments, or comments under pseudonyms, at newspaper websites with stories critical of the Department of Justice, Holder and President Obama....“There is clearly a designed effort to rebut stories that are exposing the Holder Justice Department as more political than the last. We’ve seen a change in the pattern of anonymous emails we receive and comments...

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights asked Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Wednesday to name a Justice Department official to oversee the production of what it called "our overdue information requests" for documents in the dismissal of a civil complaint against New Black Panther Party members accused of disrupting a polling place in the November elections. Commission Chairman Gerald A. Reynolds, in a letter, said the department has been "largely non-responsive" to requests for information since questions about the dismissal were first raised in June and had turned over "none of the documents" being sought. Mr. Reynolds said...

Note: The following text is a quote: Attorney General Establishes New State Secrets Policies and Procedures Attorney General Eric Holder today issued a memorandum instituting new Department of Justice policies and procedures in order to ensure greater accountability in the government’s assertion of the state secrets privilege in litigation. "This policy is an important step toward rebuilding the public’s trust in the government’s use of this privilege while recognizing the imperative need to protect national security," Holder said. "It sets out clear procedures that will provide greater accountability and ensure the state secrets privilege is invoked only when necessary and...

Many immigrants are drawn to the Midwest for the same reasons that anyone moves to the heartland: job opportunities, the strong educational system and the high quality of life. However, new immigrant workers are too often vulnerable to discrimination, exploitation or unsafe working conditions, according to Amy Weismann, University of Iowa Center for Human Rights deputy director. The U.S. Department of Justice has awarded a grant of $50,000 to the UI Center for Human Rights, the UI Labor Center and Nebraska Appleseed for Law in the Public Interest to extend significant outreach activities to immigrant workforces in Iowa and Nebraska....

The Justice Department's inspector general has agreed to investigate whether ACORN has applied for or received any DOJ grant money, in the wake of bipartisan criticism of the community activist group's operation. And seven other inspectors general are being asked by two congressional members to take a look at their funding mechanisms.

It now looks very much like there was a lot more truth to the criticisms about ACORN—the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now—than its leadership, its allies on Capitol Hill and its supporters in the media were willing to acknowledge.... This latest round of problems for ACORN may be the best documented, but they are not the first nor, for that matter, are they the most serious. A report issued last summer by the Republicans on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, according to Sunday's Washington Times, "presented evidence that ACORN had engaged in criminal misconduct." Among the...

"The Justice Department's inspector general has agreed to investigate whether ACORN has applied for or received any DOJ grant money, in the wake of bipartisan criticism of the community activist group's operation. And seven other inspectors general are being asked by two congressional members to take a look at their funding mechanisms."

An internal watchdog at the Justice Department said he was reviewing the agency’s involvement with the national community organizing group Acorn. Inspector General Glenn Fine wrote to Representative Lamar Smith, Republican of Texas, that his office would examine whether Acorn sought or received any Justice Department grant money, or conducted any reviews of the group’s use of such money. More than a dozen state and local authorities

(Excerpt from The Commerce Game EXPOSED re: FDR's gold confiscation & the penaties for non-compliance - stay with me on how this may relate to Obama) AN OVERVIEW On April 5, 1933, then President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, under Executive order, issued April 5, 1933, dec;ared: "All persons are required to deliver ON OR BEFORE May 1, 1933, all GOLD COIN, GOLD BULLION AND GOLD CERTIFICATES now owned by them to a Federal Reseve Bank, branch ro agency, or to any member bankof the Federal Reserve System." James A. Farley, Postmaster General at that time, required each postmaster in the country...

Justice Dept. investigating former Interior Secretary Gale Norton's ties to oil companyWASHINGTON (AP) -- The Justice Department has launched an investigation into whether former Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton illegally used her position to steer lucrative oil leases to Royal Dutch Shell PLC, the company she works for now, officials with both departments confirmed to The Associated Press.

A serious clash may be looming between the Department of Justice and the U.S. Civil Rights Commission about the department's dismissal of a voter-intimidation case against agents of the New Black Panther Party. The commission -- not Justice -- is on the side of the just. Charges had been filed against two Black Panthers, national Panther Chairman Malik Zulu Shabazz, and the party as a whole after the two Panthers were videotaped outside a Philadelphia polling place in paramilitary garb. One of them was brandishing a night stick, while they reportedly made racially inflammatory remarks. The case was already effectively...

As was the case with Obama’s US Attorney General Eric Holder reversing the conviction for overt voter intimidation by New Black Panthers—who supported Barack Obama in his presidential run—the logical question is “Will Obama’s Department of Justice block any and all investigations of ACORN?” Both ACORN and the New Black Panthers worked almost tirelessly to “elect” Obama—by any means necessary

The Justice Department is urging a federal court to toss out a lawsuit in which prominent birthers' attorney Orly Taitz is challenging President Barack Obama's Constitutional qualifications to be president. In a motion filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana, Calif., government lawyers did not directly rebut the conspiracy theory Taitz propounds that Obama was not born in Hawaii as he claims and as asserted by Hawaiian officials as well as contemporary newspaper birth notices. Instead, the federal attorneys argued that the suit is inherently flawed because such disputes can't be resolved in court and because the dozens...

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights sent a letter in August to Attorney General Eric Holder, issuing a stinging rebuke to the Obama administration's Department of Justice (DOJ). A footnote in the letter criticized the DOJ's dismissal of a Philadelphia voter intimidation case against a group called the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense (NBP). The footnote called the DOJ's voluntary dismissal of the case “even more corrosive to the rule of law than the dismissal without comment.” The DOJ filed a lawsuit in January under the Voting Rights Act against the NBP and three of its members alleging the...

Ashcroft liable for detentions, court finds By Tony Romm - 09/04/09 04:18 PM ET Former Attorney General John Ashcroft may be sued and held liable for wrongly detaining witnesses after the Sept. 11 attacks, a federal appeals court ruled on Friday. In its decision, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said that Abdullah Al-Kidd, a U.S. citizen detained as a material witness for two weeks, may sue the former attorney general for breaching his constitutional rights. Al-Kidd claimed during the case that his brief imprisonment caused him to lose a scholarship and crippled his chances of finding employment, according...

In February, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. noted that it was hard to talk about race, but cowardly not to try. In that spirit, he should answer questions being raised about the dismissal of a voter-intimidation case involving a hate group in Philadelphia. If you missed the incident, it's understandable. It was a YouTube blip on a historic election day. On Nov. 4, two black men in paramilitary uniforms, one wielding a nightstick, were reported harassing voters at a polling place. It had no effect on Barack Obama's landslide win in the city. He doesn't condone the hate group...

LITTLE ROCK — The Catholic Diocese of Little Rock announced today it has been awarded a $151,500 grant to provide services to immigrant crime victims across Arkansas. The U.S. Department of Justice provided the funding to Arkansas under its STOP (Services, Training Officers and Prosecutors) Violence Against Women program, created by the federal Violence Against Women Act of 2005. The state Department of Finance and Administration awarded the two-year grant to the diocese. The money will be used to create a Crime Victim Services Unit under the diocese’s immigration services program. Two additional employees will be hired to provide education...

WASHINGTON — Seven months after taking office, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. is reshaping the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division by pushing it back into some of the most important areas of American political life, including voting rights, housing, employment, bank lending practices and redistricting after the 2010 census. As part of this shift, the Obama administration is planning a major revival of high-impact civil rights enforcement against policies, in areas ranging from housing to hiring, where statistics show that minorities fare disproportionately poorly. President George W. Bush’s appointees had discouraged such tactics, preferring to focus on individual cases...

It’s Friday! Time for our weekly dumping of news you may have overlooked this week. While the rest of the media was covering the death of Senator Ted Kennedy, there were several other news items that may have escaped your attention. As we wait to see if Washington takes a Friday News Dump, lets proceed with the roundup, shall we? Click on the link for the full round-up. Click here to go to full article

President Barack Obama said, "Nobody has ever escaped from one of our federal, supermax prisons, which hold hundreds of convicted terrorists," during his May 21, 2009 speech at the National Archives. In this morning's Washington Post, they report a 2006 Department of Justice memo states that convicted al Qaeda prisoners in Supermax at Florence, Colorado "coordinated the beginning of a hunger strike" and developed "a sophisticated method to resist compulsory feeding" by communicated via "tapping on the pipes." (Has no one at the Bureau of Prisons ever heard of the Hanoi Hilton and how John McCain et al communicated by...

The criminal indictments may as well be captioned, “The United States vs. The Central Intelligence Agency,” because that’s the correct way to identify the adversaries. The Democrats’ war on our intelligence agencies has now become a two-front war with the Obama administration attacking where Congressional Democrats couldn’t. Attorney General Eric Holder has announced he will appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the CIA interrogators who used tough interrogation techniques to see which of them will be prosecuted. Holder has drawn a line in the sand. On one side stands the US Department of Justice, its army of second-guessers and scalp-hunters...

An immigration judge in Miami dismissed a deportation case Friday against 23-year old Youseff Megahed, an Egyptian-born college student who was acquitted of terrorism-related charges in April but was detained for months pending removal for allegedly associating with terrorists. The case outraged U.S. Muslims, who believed detaining the University of South Florida engineering major amounted to double jeopardy after he had already been found not guilty by a federal jury in Tampa... The undergraduate was arrested in 2007 in South Carolina with a companion, another USF student from Egypt named Ahmed Mohamed. The two were driving Mr. Megahed's brother's car,...

President Obama's Justice Department continues to stonewall inquiries about why it dropped a voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party. The episode—which Bartle Bull, a former civil rights lawyer and publisher of the left-wing Village Voice, calls "the most blatant form of voter intimidation I've ever seen"—began on Election Day 2008. Mr. Bull and others witnessed two Black Panthers in paramilitary garb at a polling place near downtown Philadelphia. (Some of this behavior is on YouTube.) ... The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights voted on Aug. 7 to send a letter to Justice expanding its own investigation and...