Three Ritzy Eric Holder Events Cost A Staggering 400K In Awards Alone

The Justice Department’s internal watchdog blasted the U.S. Marshals Service for excessive spending on “swag,” but the attorney general spent half as much on just three events.

Internal documents reveal that award spending for the Annual Attorney General Awards Ceremony — headed by Attorney General Eric Holder — more than doubled between 2009 and 2011, coming to a total of over $410,000 in the course of just three ceremonies.

The event is held by the Justice Department to recognize employees for their work. Holder presents the awards himself, which may explain why the department spared no expense when purchasing them.

Via: Daily Caller

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Congressman wants Justice Department to investigate raid on reporter’s home

A Republican congressman is calling on the Justice Department to investigate why state and federal law enforcement raided the home of a veteran investigative reporter and confiscated a stack of her confidential files in August.

“This is unbelievable,” Republican Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert said during remarks on the floor of the House this week. “This is happening in America.”

The Daily Caller broke the news last week that the confidential files of freelance journalist Audrey Hudson, a former reporter for the Washington Times, were taken by the Department of Homeland Security during a predawn raid of her Shady Side, Md. home on Aug. 6. The raid was carried out due to an unrelated criminal case.

On Tuesday, Gohmert read excerpts from that article on the floor of the U.S. House and expressed outrage over the incident.

“I would say that if the subpoena did not allow for them to take her notes pertaining to DHS whistleblowers that provided this reporter information, it begs the question that perhaps these law enforcement officers acting under color of State law or Federal law stole these without due process,” Gohmert said.

“It bears looking into,” he added.

But the Texas Republican expressed a lack of confidence that the Justice Department would actually investigate the incident and “do justice in such an abuse of power.”

“That doesn’t seem to be the case,” Gohmert said.

Via: The Daily Caller

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DOCS: JUDGE ALMOST SHUT DOWN NSA DOMESTIC SURVEILLANCE PROGRAM BECAUSE OF MISUSE BY GOV’T OFFICIALS

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal judge who oversaw a secret U.S. spy court almost shut down the government’s domestic surveillance program designed to fight terrorism after he “lost confidence” in officials’ ability to operate it, documents released Tuesday show.

U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton issued a blistering opinion in March 2009 after discovering government officials had been accessing domestic phone records for nearly three years without “reasonable, articulate suspicion” that they were connected to terrorism.

Walton said the government’s excuse that the program was complicated “strained credulity,” and he ordered the National Security Agency to conduct an “end-to-end” review of its processes and policies while also ordering closer monitoring of its activities.

Later in 2009, a Justice Department lawyer reported to the spy court a “likely violation” of NSA surveillance rules. The lawyer said that in some cases, it appeared the NSA was distributing the sensitive phone records by email to as many as 189 analysts, but only 53 were approved by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to see them.

Judge Walton wrote that he was “deeply troubled by the incidents,” which he said occurred just weeks after the NSA had performed a major review of its internal practices because of the initial problems reported earlier in the year.

Via: The Blaze

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[OPINION] Obama’s cruel fight against school choice

While President Obama publicly celebrated the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech last week, his administration took action behind the scenes in Louisiana that was a complete rejection of King’s dream.

The Justice Department has challenged my state in court for having the temerity to start a scholarship program that frees low-income minority children from failing schools. In other words, Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder would rip children out of their schools and handcuff them to the failing schools they previously attended. And, in the ultimate irony, they are using desegregation orders set up to prevent discrimination against minority children to try to do it.

Never mind that 90 percent of the children receiving scholarships in Louisiana are minorities or that 100 percent of their parents choose to apply for these scholarships.

By his own words, the president is fighting for the right of these children to live the American dream, but his actions would destroy their dreams.

We as a country have made significant progress toward King’s dream. We have more work to do, but this blatant political maneuver by the Obama administration will set the fight for civil rights back decades.

We all know the harsh cycle of poverty that exists in the United States and that a disproportionate share of those in poverty are minorities. Studies of health-care outcomes, incarceration levels and economic opportunity all show that education is key to improving quality of life.

Millions of single parents in this country work two jobs to make ends meet, hoping that their children won’t have the same struggles. Hope is their only option because they live in neighborhoods with chronically failing public schools and lack the means to move to better school districts or to send their children to private schools.

Via: Washington Post

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The Wrong Conversation on Voter ID Laws

Last week, President Obama's Justice Department filed suit against the state of Texas over Texas' new voter ID law. It wasn't surprising, but it's the latest salvo by progressives to delegitimize the effort by many states across the country to pass voter integrity laws.

One of those laws, signed by North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory recently, was written about last week by Phyllis Schlafly - and she defended the measures that would cut down on early voting, party-line voting, and institute voter ID requirements.

Progressive writers have seized on Schlafly's column and other conservatives' comments on voter ID laws to be a trend in which, as Kevin Drum writes, "conservatives are finally admitting what voter suppression laws are all about." Drum was following what was written by Steve Benen, and the theme was picked up by Jamelle Bouie. Progressives think that what conservatives are earnestlyafter is the suppression of voting demographics that are unfavorable to Republicans.

That's wrong, and it's wrong for an obvious reason. Conservatives are genuinely concerned about voter fraud nationwide. The typical response is that voter fraud is not a big deal (something that is contentious, obviously). If voter fraud is not a legitimate issue to be concerned with, progressives have done a lousy job of doing the convincing. The impetus for voter ID laws is not voter suppression - it's ensuring clean and fair elections. And this is not to mention that the arguments about who would be disenfranchised by such laws are egregiously trumped up by progressives.

Via: Townhall

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Feds won't sue to stop marijuana use in Colorado, Washington state

The federal government said Thursday that it won't sue to stop the states of Colorado and Washington from allowing recreational marijuana use. 

In a sweeping policy announcement, the Justice Department outlined eight top priority areas for its enforcement of marijuana laws. 

They range from preventing the distribution of marijuana to minors to preventing sales revenue from going to criminal enterprises, gangs and cartels and preventing the diversion of marijuana outside of states where it is legal under state law. 

Other top-priority enforcement areas include preventing state-authorized marijuana activity from being used as a cover for trafficking other illegal drugs and preventing violence and the use of firearms in the cultivation and distribution of marijuana. The top areas also include preventing drugged driving, preventing growing marijuana on public land and preventing marijuana possession on federal property. 

The announcement follows the first-in-the-nation legalization of recreational marijuana use by the states of Colorado and Washington. 

Last December, President Obama said it does not make sense for the federal government to go after recreational drug users in a state that has legalized recreational use of small amounts of marijuana.

Via: Fox News Politics

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Holder looking to require Texas to get federal approval before changing voting laws, citing a history of racism

In response to the Supreme Court’s recent decision that states are innocent of institutional racism until proven guilty, Attorney General Eric Holder is arguing that Texas’ “history of pervasive voting-related discrimination against racial minorities” should make its voting laws subject to the Department of Justice’s oversight indefinitely.

While speaking before the National Urban League in Philadelphia on Thursday, Holder said his agency would ask a federal judge to require Texas to submit all its voting laws to the DOJ for review before they can be legally enacted because the state has a supposed history of discrimination and racism.

“And today I am announcing that the Justice Department will ask a federal court in Texas to subject the State of Texas to a pre-clearance regime similar to the one required by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act,” Holder said at the organization’s annual conference.

The Attorney General cited “evidence of intentional racial discrimination” found following the case Texas v. Holder, in addition to a ”history of pervasive voting-related discrimination against racial minorities.” He continued, saying the state would need to acquire “pre-approval” from either the Department of Justice or a federal court before implementing any future changes in voting laws.

In the case Shelby County v. Holder, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Section 4b of the Voting Rights Act, which defined a formula to single out states to undergo a pre-clearance for voting laws based on previous discriminatory practices — much like that alleged in the case Texas v. Holder — was unconstitutional. Without this provision, Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act — which Holder referenced in his remarks — becomes near impossible to implement until Congress outlines a new formula, which it has yet to do.

Via: Red Alert

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