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DOJ Tries to Stop School-Choice for Poor Children in Failing Louisiana Public Schools

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The U.S. Justice Department is trying to stop the state from distributing school vouchers in any district that remains under a desegregation court order.

In papers filed Saturday in U.S. District Court in New Orleans, the Justice Department said Louisiana distributed vouchers in 2012-13 to nearly 600 public school students in districts that are still under such orders, and “many of those vouchers impeded the desegregation process.”

Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal called the department’s action “shameful” and said President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder “are trying to keep kids trapped in failing public schools against the wishes of their parents.”

“The Obama administration thinks parents should have to seek their approval any time parents want to send their child to a school of their choice,” Jindal said in a news release. “After generations of being denied a choice, parents finally can choose a school for their child, but now the federal government is stepping in to prevent parents from exercising this right. Shame on them. Parents should have the ability to decide where to send their child to school.”

Louisiana has 70 school districts, and 34 remain under desegregation court orders, many of which are decades old.

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NSA and DOJ Mum on Investigation into al-Qaida Conference Call Leak

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller Neither the National Security Agency nor the Department of Justice will say whether the government plans to investigate intelligence leaks about al-Qaida’s so-called Legion of Doom conference call.

The NSA declined The Daily Caller’s request for comment about whether an internal investigation into the leaks had been initiated. The DOJ did not respond to the Daily Caller’s multiple requests for comment by the time of publication.

There is currently little indication, however, that the federal government is investigating the three anonymous U.S. intelligence officials who spoke to The Daily Beast, or the anonymous U.S. official who spoke to McClatchy, about the intercepted Internet al-Qaida conference call.

The U.S. government ordered the closing of 22 embassies across the Middle East and Africa due to national security threats made during an intercepted Internet conference call between over 20 al-Qaida representatives, including al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.

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DOJ Memo Asserts that All US Phone Calls Are ‘Relevant’ to Terrorism

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Photo Credit: USDAgovThe Justice Department on Friday released its legal rationale for why all U.S. phone calls are “relevant” to terrorism investigations.

The administration released the memo as part of President Obama’s push to enhance public confidence in the National Security Agency’s controversial surveillance programs.

Section 215 of the Patriot Act allows the government to collect business records if they are “relevant” to a terrorism investigation. The NSA has acknowledged that it has been using the provision to force phone companies to turn over records on all U.S. phone calls.

The records include phone numbers, call times and call durations, but not the contents of the conversations.

Numerous lawmakers, including Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), the author of the Patriot Act, have accused the NSA of abusing its power under Section 215.

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DOJ Files Civil Suit Against Bank of America (+video)

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The U.S. government on Tuesday filed two civil lawsuits against Bank of America for what the Justice Department and securities regulators said was a fraud on investors involving $850 million of residential mortgage-backed securities.

The Justice Department and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed the parallel suits in U.S. District Court in Charlotte, according to the court filings.

The securities date to about January 2008, the government said, putting them just at the beginning of the global financial crisis.

Bank of America responded to the lawsuits with a statement: “These were prime mortgages sold to sophisticated investors who had ample access to the underlying data, and we will demonstrate that.”

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DOJ Ripped for Making Transgender Use of Opposite-Sex Restrooms the New Civil Rights Priority

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Photo Credit: Fox NewsThe U.S. Department of Justice’s latest cause – fighting for a transgendered California ninth-grader’s right to use the boy’s room at school – has conservative groups wondering just how far Washington will go in the name of civil rights.

The student was born a girl but “has identified as a boy from a young age,” according to the Department of Justice, which reached a settlement with the public school district in Arcadia, an affluent LA suburb. Under the deal, the district must not only change the student’s restroom privileges and make similar accommodations on overnight trips. It also must institute a host of measures to ensure transgender students are treated as whatever gender they consider themselves to be.

Randy Thomasson, president of SaveCalifornia.com, said Attorney General Eric Holder is off-base in pushing the case as a matter of civil rights.

“Eric Holder needs to reread the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and find out that civil rights are based on an unchangeable, immutable characteristic,” Thomasson said. “You cannot change your genes or your gender. You have chromosomes and they are either XX or XY. This is a girl who has been environmentally warped to believe she is a boy, and, instead of coddling this confused child, her parents should have gotten her into counseling with an expert on gender confusion.”

According to a DOJ report, the student began her gender transition from female to male during fifth grade after being teased and socially ostracized at school and on a school camping trip. After spring vacation, she adopted a male name and began wearing masculine clothing and teachers and classmates were told to use masculine pronouns in reference to her. She also used a gender-neutral bathroom for the remainder of the school year, according to the report.

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Protesters Around the Country Call for Fed’s Prosecution of Zimmerman, But Leading Dem Says not so Fast

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Photo Credit: werthmediaProtesters call for federal civil rights lawsuit in Trayvon Martin case

By Elise Viebeck. Protesters around the country on Saturday are calling on the Obama administration to prosecute George Zimmerman, the man acquitted of killing unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin, on civil rights grounds.

The demonstrations come after President Obama downplayed the possibility that Attorney General Eric Holder would take the case, calling it an issue for “state and local” law enforcement.

Martin’s parents were scheduled to lead protests in New York and Miami in partnership with the Reverend Al Sharpton, who said demonstrations would take place in more than 100 U.S. cities.

For days, activists have rallied around the goal of a Justice Department (DOJ) suit against Zimmerman, who was acquitted of second-degree murder and manslaughter charges in Sanford, Fla.

Zimmerman’s attorneys argued that he acted in self-defense, but many have alleged that racial bias was a factor in Martin’s killing. The 17-year-old was unarmed at the time he died. Read more from this story HERE.

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Leading Dem casts doubt on possible DOJ charges against Zimmerman

By Elise Viebeck. A leading House Democrat questioned Friday whether the Justice Department (DOJ) has the evidence to mount a civil rights case against George Zimmerman, the man acquitted of killing an unarmed black teenager in Florida.

Rep. Henry Waxman (Calif.), the top Democrat on the Energy and Commerce Committee, said in a television interview that “it seems unlikely” Attorney General Eric Holder would file discrimination charges against Zimmerman…

“I haven’t heard that they could show that there was anything with regard to race involved,” Waxman told C-SPAN’s Newsmakers program.

“There was a boy and this fellow Zimmerman thought he was up to no good and they got into a fight. Read more from this story HERE.

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Whether Feds Prosecute Zimmerman or Not, Little Obama Can Do to Rollback ‘Stand Your Ground’ Laws

By Ben Goad and Julian Hattem. President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder have little if any power to compel states to dial back “stand your ground” laws the two have criticized in the wake of George Zimmerman’s acquittal in the death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.

While the Justice Department may review the case and could seek civil rights charges against Zimmerman, experts say the federal government has little recourse with the stand your ground laws themselves.

“There’s little the Department of Justice can do,” UCLA law professor Adam Winkler told The Hill.

“States are allowed to have their own criminal laws, including self-defense laws,” Winker said. “DOJ may be able to pursue civil rights charges in individual cases, but it has no authority to overturn state laws.”

The stand your ground laws in two dozen states around the country have come under national scrutiny in the wake of last week’s acquittal of Zimmerman, a volunteer neighborhood watchman, in Martin’s shooting death.
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DOJ Defunds Youth Programs that Reference God

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

A Louisiana lawman is livid over the federal government’s decision to cut off funds for two programs to help troubled young people, all, he says, because he refused to sign a pledge to bar prayer or any mention of God at their meetings.

Julian Whittington, the sheriff of Bossier Parish, La., told Fox News the Department of Justice Office of Civil Rights defunded $30,000 for their Young Marines chapter as well as a youth diversion program. Federal officials objected to a voluntary student-led prayer in the department’s youth diversion program and an oath recited by the Young Marines that mentions God, according to Whittington, who blasted what he considers the government’s “aggression and infringement of our religious freedoms.”

“We were informed that these are unacceptable, inherently religious activities and the Department of Justice would not be able to fund the programs if it continued,” Whittington told Fox News. “They wanted a letter from me stating that I would no longer have voluntary prayer and I would also have to remove ‘God’ from the Young Marine’s oath.”

The DOJ and the Office of Civil Rights are aware of the controversy but did not return phone calls seeking comment.

Fox News obtained an email written by an attorney for the DOJ’s Office of Civil Rights raised questions about references to God and church along with the phrase “love of God.” The attorney also raised questions about one of the five elements of the Young Marines Creed – “Keep myself clean in mind by attending the church of my faith.”

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President Obama Got By With a Little Help From His Friends at DOJ, IRS, MSM and Now Even the NSA?

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Photo Credit: Irish Central

As America gets assaulted with one scandal after another surrounding the Obama administration, there is speculation more is to come….And that speculation adds fuel to a bonfire of suspicion that this administration would stop at nothing to win its’ re-election.

The 2012 presidential election was really not decided on a national level, it was always about who could take the edge in the deciding 9 swing/battleground states.

According to polls leading up to the election, the race was razor thin between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama in many of those important states.

Hindsight is 20/20 and if the public knew in November 2012, what it knows today, would the election results have been different?

A characteristic lack of curiosity by the main stream media into any malfeasance by the Obama administration helped the President. This lack of curiosity helped quell outrage by the American public just prior to the election, as our Libyan Ambassador was killed. The cover story and the cover up by the administration to hide the magnitude of failure in foreign policy should have been a major campaign issue. But this news was suppressed with the aid and abetting of the major media.

Perhaps there is an easy answer when you see the inbreeding between the White House and influential members of the main stream media….The connections are astounding. Read the full story here in the Washington Post.

Suppose the latest scandal of IRS targeting of conservative organizations and individual donors had been exposed back in 2010-2011 and brought to a halt? As more gets revealed on this scandal it seems this was a deliberate attempt to suppress a major segment of opposition to the Obama campaign.

How much of a difference did it make in organizing voter turn out and support for the Romney campaign? Romney received 2-3 million votes less than McCain did in 2008. Perhaps if the TEA Party and other conservative groups weren’t being bullied by the federal government, they could have at least boosted voter turnout and matched voter numbers of 2008. See conservative vote was suppressed.

Many states prior to the 2012 elections had been trying to clean up their voter rolls as well as help stop vote fraud by requiring picture ID in order to vote. This was in response to widespread suspicion and reports of tainted elections due to vote fraud. But the Justice Department under Eric Holder, fought these safeguards tooth and nail and filed suit to delay any changes. Did not having strengthened voter ID laws and other safeguards have an effect on the election? Did precincts in heavily Democrat areas reporting 140% voter turnout help sway the outcome See Holder blocks Voter ID at every turn.

The recent revelation of how the NSA has collected and stored email and phone communications of millions of Americans is disturbing. Especially when coupled with the knowledge of how this administration has used the IRS and other government agencies to target political foes.

Would it be too much of a stretch to think the administration wouldn’t tap into this massive data base to help get itself elected?

From today’s World Net Daily: According to U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif , Barack Obama now holds a database “no one has ever seen before in life” that has “information about everything on every individual.” It’s a fact Obamas election team had use of massive amounts of data that gave them an edge in the election.

It’s disturbing to know Waters made her statement back in February of 2012 long before the election and long before we were aware of this administrations abuse of power.

Any of the above factors individually, could have helped tip the election in Obamas favor in just a few of the close battleground states. But if you add them all together, it makes it an unbeatable combination.

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Ed Farnan is the conservative columnist at IrishCentral, where he has been writing on the need for energy independence, strong self defense, secure borders, 2nd amendment, smaller government and many other issues. His articles appear in many publications throughout the USA and world. He has been a guest on Fox News and a regular guest on radio stations in the US and Europe.

DOJ Regards Criticism of Islam, Obama as Criminal?

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Photo Credit: WND

The U.S. attorney who warned last week that “inflammatory speech” against Islam could violate civil-rights laws was the prosecutor who brought firearms charges against a Navy veteran who challenged the validity of President Obama’s birth certificate.

William Killian, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Tennessee, made the warning in a slide presentation June 4 in Manchester, Tenn.

The Navy veteran, Darren Huff, came on the federal government’s radar in 2010 when he and another Navy veteran living in Tennessee, Walt Fitzpatrick, filed civil actions in court charging President Obama with treason. The veterans claimed Obama assumed the presidency while refusing to prove he was born in Hawaii by presenting to the American public a 1961 original long-form Hawaii birth certificate that could be independently authenticated by court-recognized document experts.

According to the Department of Justice website, Huff, on April 20, 2010, traveled from his home in Dallas, Ga., to Madisonville, Tenn., upset at the refusal of the grand jury in Monroe County, Tenn., to indict Obama for treason. He allegedly carried with him a .45 caliber handgun and an AK-47 with ammunition for both weapons and subsequently was arrested.

“Huff told people that day that he had 300-400 rounds of ammunition with the AK-47,” the DOJ website said. “During a traffic stop by a Tennessee State Trooper on his way to Madisonville, Huff stated, ‘I’ve got my .45 because ain’t no government official gonna go peacefully.’”

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Could the Obama Administration’s Next Scandal be Brewing at the EPA? (+video)

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Photo Credit: Free Enterprise

With the continued Benghazi investigation, IRS political targeting and DOJ press surveillance, could a scandal at the EPA be the next shoe to droop for the Obama administration?

The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) been closely following the EPA’s misuse of private communication to conduct public business, and fees the agency has placed on conservative groups seeking information that they usual waive for media and watchdog groups. After successfully gaining access to former EPA Chief Lisa Jackson’s emails, CEI is now suing to gain access to the text messages of Gina McCarthy, the senior EPA official the President has nominated to now run the agency.

Read more from this story HERE.