3-9-17 David Horowitz on Hannity, Fox News via YouTube
Archive for the ‘Department of Justice’ category
CIA, DOJ Sued Over Leaks of Classified Info About Former NSA Flynn
March 6, 2017CIA, DOJ Sued Over Leaks of Classified Info About Former NSA Flynn, Washinton Free Beacon,
(Here’s a link to the Judicial Watch press release on the suit. — DM)
The CIA and Departments of Justice and Treasury are being sued by a prominent legal organization for their role in leaking highly classified material as part of an effort to undermine the credibility of former Trump administration national security adviser Michael Flynn, according to an announcement.
Judicial Watch, known for its role in exposing former secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, announced on Monday that it has sued several federal agencies for information related to Flynn’s discussions with Russian officials before he officially entered the White House.
Flynn was forced to resign from the White House for apparently misleading President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence about the substance of these conversations.
However, the Washington Free Beacon and multiple other news outlets have reported on a campaign by former Obama administration officials and loyalists to spread highly classified information in a bid to handicap the Trump administration.
In addition to Flynn, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and White House adviser Sebastian Gorka have been the subject of multiple leaks aimed at jeopardizing their positions in the administration.
Judicial Watch sued multiple agencies after they failed to respond to Freedom of Information Act requests, which must legally be handled by these agencies in a timely fashion.
The lawsuit moved to unearth “any and all records regarding, concerning, or related to the investigation of retired Gen. Michael Flynn’s communications with Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergey Kislyak between October 1, 2016 and the present,” according to a statement by Judicial Watch.
“In its complaint Judicial Watch asks the court to order the agencies to search for all records responsive to its FOIA requests and demonstrate that they employed reasonable search methods; order the agencies to produce by a specific date all non-exempt records and a Vaughn index of all withheld records; and instruct the agencies to cease withholding all non-exempt records,” the organization explained in its statement.
Did the Obama Administration Try Stacking the Deck Against Trump at the Justice Department?
March 4, 2017Did the Obama Administration Try Stacking the Deck Against Trump at the Justice Department? Weekly Standard, Mark Hemingway, March 3, 2017
Amid Thursday’s over-hyped brouhaha about Jeff Sessions meeting with the Russian ambassador, a curious detail emerged. In Sessions’ recusal memo, it was explained who at the Justice Department would be handling any investigations into the Trump campaign’s alleged ties to Russia. “Consistent with the succession order for the Department of Justice, Acting Deputy Attorney General and U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Dana Boente shall act as and perform the functions of the Attorney General with respect to any matters from which I have recused myself to the extent they exist,” reads Sessions’ official statement on the matter.
Except that if the Obama administration had its way, Dana Boente wasn’t supposed to be the U.S. attorney to handle these matters in the event that Sessions recused himself. On February 10, USA Today reported the following:
Seven days before he left office, President Obama changed the order of succession without explanation to remove Boente from the list. Obama’s order had listed U.S. attorneys in the District of Columbia, the Northern District of Illinois and the Central District of California.
That seems like awfully suspicious behavior. In fact the USA Today story noted this is pegged to the news that Trump quietly signed an executive order restoring Boente to the line of succession. The Obama administration chicanery was likely brought to White House’s attention after Obama holdover and acting Attorney General Sally Yates tried to usurp the powers of the president and countermand his immigration executive order, actions for which she was summarily fired.
Why would the Obama administration make this eleventh-hour change to the line of succession at the Justice Department? “At the time, I was told it was done in consultation with Trump transition,” Gregory Korte, the USA Today reporter who wrote the story quoted above, told me Thursday. “Looking back, that’s clearly not the case.”
In fact, it seems like it was quite obviously not the case. The man Obama placed at the head of the line of succession is D.C.’s U.S. Attorney Channing Phillips, who is quite cozy with President Obama and his attorney general, Eric Holder. He is a former senior adviser to Holder, and he stayed on to work under Obama’s next AG Loretta Lynch before Obama appointed Phillips D.C.’s U.S. attorney in 2015. But Phillips goes way back with Holder—Holder first hired Philips in the D.C. U.S. Attorney’s Office in 1994. It’s also safe to say that the AG offices in the Northern District of Illinois and the Central District of California are not hotbeds of Trump supporters.
It looks like the Obama administration was hoping that the reins of power here would unknowingly default to someone unfriendly to Trump in the event Sessions was forced to recuse himself—or even resign, as so many Democrats breathlessly demanded Thursday. (It’s worth noting that Sessions’s claims that he was already considering recusing himself from the Russia investigations because of his role on the campaign seem pretty sincere. Reuters reported last Sunday that the White House was considering the need for Sessions’s recusal long before the teacup tempest about Sessions failing to disclose minor encounters with the Russian ambassador.)
This might seem far-fetched, except to say that the leak-coordinated campaign by former Obama officials to undermine Trump seems to be very real, per the reporting of Lee Smith. Indeed, the New York Times reported Thursday, “In the Obama administration’s last days, some White House officials scrambled to spread information about Russian efforts to undermine the presidential election — and about possible contacts between associates of President-elect Donald J. Trump and Russians — across the government.”
It’s not inconceivable that the pandemonium of an incoming Trump administration might have meant they would overlook a little-noticed change. Sessions could have recused himself thinking the old line of succession was intact, only to have Phillips appoint a rabid special prosecutor to go after the Trump administration on Russia the next day before the Trump administration could undo things. As soon as it was evident Boentes was going to be handling any Russian investigations, Schumer called on him to appoint a special prosecutor.
U.S. Senator Colludes With Russians to Influence Presidential Election
March 3, 2017U.S. Senator Colludes With Russians to Influence Presidential Election, PJ Media, J. Christian Adams, March 2, 2017
Yes, a United States senator really did collude with the Russians to influence the outcome of a presidential election. His name was Ted Kennedy.
While Sen. Al Franken (D-Ringling Bros.) and other Democrats have the vapors over a truthful, complete, and correct answer Attorney General Jeff Sessions gave in his confirmation hearing, it’s worth remembering the reprehensible behavior of Senator Ted Kennedy in 1984.
This reprehensible behavior didn’t involve launching an Oldsmobile Delmont 88 into a tidal channel while drunk. This reprehensible behavior was collusion with America’s most deadly enemy in an effort to defeat Ronald Reagan’s reelection.
You won’t hear much about that from CNN and the clown from Minnesota.
To recap, from Forbes:
Picking his way through the Soviet archives that Boris Yeltsin had just thrown open, in 1991 Tim Sebastian, a reporter for the London Times, came across an arresting memorandum. Composed in 1983 by Victor Chebrikov, the top man at the KGB, the memorandum was addressed to Yuri Andropov, the top man in the entire USSR. The subject: Sen. Edward Kennedy.
Kennedy’s message was simple. He proposed an unabashed quid pro quo. Kennedy would lend Andropov a hand in dealing with President Reagan. In return, the Soviet leader would lend the Democratic Party a hand in challenging Reagan in the 1984 presidential election. “The only real potential threats to Reagan are problems of war and peace and Soviet-American relations,” the memorandum stated. “These issues, according to the senator, will without a doubt become the most important of the election campaign.”
Among the promises Kennedy made the Soviets was he that would ensure that the television networks gave the Soviet leader primetime slots to speak directly to the American people, thus undermining Reagan’s framing of the sinister nature of the USSR. Event then, the Democrats had the power to collude with the legacy media. Kennedy also promised to help Andropov penetrate the American message with his Soviet agitprop.
That’s right, folks. Even 30 years ago, Democrat senators were colluding with America’s enemies to bring down Republicans.
And no, Jeff Sessions didn’t perjure himself. It’s not even a close call.
So now they are after Jeff Sessions instead of Ronald Reagan. Ideological comrades throughout the Justice Department are helping out this time. Just before Trump’s inauguration, the Obamites widely distributed intelligence information throughout the Department of Justice, where their political comrades could be counted on to leak the information after January 20.
This is a problem that will plague President Trump and General Sessions until they drain the swamp at the Justice Department — something that isn’t even close to getting started. Ideological leftists throughout the DOJ are serving as agents of the Obama regime and undermining the new administration.
For example, even now, the front office at the Civil Rights Division is largely made up of Obama holdovers and “permanent career political” appointees. The Obamaites expanded the number of deputy assistant attorney general slots throughout the Department of Justice and populated them with the most reliably radical people. They also appointed swarms of radicals into political offices on January 18 to “assist” the transition. They, too, are still there watching, observing, and probably “reporting.”
Nobody thinks the noise about Jeff Sessions is a substantive issue. Eric Holder was found in criminal contempt of Congress and there wasn’t a fraction of the sanctimonious outrage from Democrats and CNN like we see today.
Today’s Justice Department drama is a tactic by Democrats to personalize and polarize a target. It is a strategy to make Jeff Sessions devote time and energy to this instead of protecting America from foreign influences and cleaning up the Justice Department from the lawless rot that Obama caused. The Democrats prefer the lawless rot, so they want Sessions to be diverted from his job.
Of course the leaks are going to continue until the new administration has the guts to clean the place out of all the radicals that were embedded there.
Leaks are pouring out over large and small matters because so far nobody is afraid of crossing the new administration. The attacks on Sessions started when some of his own employees decided to leak intelligence information — just like happened to General Flynn. It will continue unless the administration realizes the media isn’t the only gang in Washington opposed to the interests of the American people.
On Watch: Episode 6 – Attorney General Sessions
February 7, 2017You’re Fired!
January 31, 2017You’re Fired! Front Page Magazine, Matthew Vadum, January 31, 2017
(Please see also Trump Fires Acting Attorney General. There Prof. Turley explains why President Trump was right to fire the acting Attorney General.
Trump clearly has the right to fire Yates. Indeed, Yates’ action (and rationale) contradicts long-standing Justice Department policies on such issues.
— DM)
President Trump last night fired the insubordinate acting Attorney General Sally Yates after she ordered federal prosecutors to ignore Trump’s lawful emergency executive order restricting travel and immigration from Islamic terrorist-infested nations.
The Yates termination may foreshadow a major house-cleaning at the U.S. Department of Justice. That agency is overrun by left-wing careerists who have no respect for the rule of law and who operate under the legally and morally grotesque assumption that aliens, including suspected terrorists, ought to enjoy all the same rights as U.S. citizens.
Yates “has betrayed the Department of Justice by refusing to enforce a legal order designed to protect the citizens of the United States,” Trump said in a press release. “This order was approved as to form and legality by the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel.”
He called Yates “an Obama Administration appointee who is weak on borders and very weak on illegal immigration.”
“It is time to get serious about protecting our country,” Trump continued. “Calling for tougher vetting for individuals travelling from seven dangerous places is not extreme. It is reasonable and necessary to protect our country.”
Last night President Trump also relieved acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director Daniel Ragsdale of his duties. No reason for the decision had been reported at press time. The new acting ICE director is Thomas D. Homan who has been executive associate director of ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) since 2013.
When the U.S. Senate was considering Yates’s nomination for deputy attorney general in 2015, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama), whose nomination as attorney general is pending in the Senate, made his opposition known. According to Politico, Sessions “urged his colleagues to defeat Yates” objecting “to what he said was her involvement in defending the federal government against a lawsuit 26 states have filed challenging unilateral actions Obama took in November to grant millions of illegal immigrants quasi-legal status and work permits.” Sessions described the Obama actions as “presidential overreach.”
Hours before Trump ended Yates’s employment, Yates took the extraordinary step of directing Justice Department attorneys to refuse to defend Trump’s executive order in court.
“I am responsible for ensuring that the positions we take in court remain consistent with this institution’s solemn obligation to always seek justice and stand for what is right,” she wrote in a letter to lawyers at the Department of Justice. “At present, I am not convinced that the defense of the executive order is consistent with these responsibilities nor am I convinced that the executive order is lawful.”
“Consequently, for as long as I am the acting attorney general, the Department of Justice will not present arguments in defense of the executive order, unless and until I become convinced that it is appropriate to do so,” she wrote.
Yates’s tenure as acting attorney general ended around dinnertime last night. Around 9 p.m. the president replaced her with Dana Boente, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.
Boente will serve in the post “until Senator Jeff Sessions is finally confirmed by the Senate, where he is being wrongly held up by Democrat senators for strictly political reasons,” Trump said.
Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz described Yates as “a terrific public servant” who “made a serious mistake here.”
“This is holdover heroism,” he said. “It’s so easy to be a heroine when you’re not appointed by this president and when you’re on the other side.”
Reaction on Twitter was predictably ridiculous.
Unsurprisingly, the nearly-impeached former Attorney General Eric Holder expressed support for Yates.
Holder tweeted last night, “Sally Yates: person of integrity/attorney with great legal skill. Has served this nation with distinction. Her judgment should be trusted.”
Leftist column writer and Obama idolator E.J. Dionne tweeted, “Monday Night Massacre: Trump fires Sally Yates, Acting AG who refused to defend his indefensible #MuslimBan. History will remember her well.”
Football player Rob Carpenter tweeted, “AG upholds the law. Dictator wanna be says you don’t agree with me. You’re fired.”
Actor Jason Alexander tweeted, “King Trump fired the Attorney General. So law and constitution, which he sworn on a bible to protect now clearly mean nothing. Like truth.”
Yates may have a lucrative career ahead of her on the public speaking circuit. Maybe MSNBC will give her a talk show. The Left takes care of its own.
All of this drama flows from the executive order President Trump signed Friday that suspends travel from Muslim terrorism-plagued countries.
The executive order blocks visas for 90 days for “immigrants and non-immigrants” from the terrorism-producing Muslim-majority countries of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Sudan, and Yemen.
The order also prevents refugees from entering the U.S. for 120 days, indefinitely halts the entry of Syrian refugees, and adjusts downward the cap on refugee admission into the U.S. to 50,000 during the current federal fiscal year which ends Sept. 30, 2017.
The presidential directive also requires the government to keep Americans informed about terrorism-related activities and crimes committed by foreign nationals in the U.S. and to report on the individuals’ immigration status.
Critics have mischaracterized the executive order as a Muslim immigration and travel ban. It is an odd critique given that the three countries with the largest Muslim populations –Indonesia, Pakistan, and India– aren’t included in the order.
Groups funded by radical financier George Soros are behind a lawsuit challenging the order.
On Saturday evening Obama-appointed Judge Ann M. Donnelly of the Eastern District of New York blocked part of the executive order and prevented the Trump administration from deporting arrivals detained in airports across the nation. The restraining order preserves the status quo for those who arrived in the country shortly after the executive order was signed if they have visas or lawful permanent resident status.
Before Donnelly’s narrowly drawn restraining order was issued Saturday evening, near-riots broke out as leftist freak shows descended on airports across America. Demonstrators were horrified that some individuals were actually being detained at ports-of-entry as required by the president’s 100 percent legal and constitutional executive order. The left-wing hissy-fit consisted of radicals trespassing and endangering airport security by staging disruptive in-your-face protests at airports around the country.
The HAMAS-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is playing a major role in the protests against the executive order, Lee Stranahan reports at Breitbart. The group has been organizing demonstrations and promoting opposition to the order on social media. The United Arab Emirates has declared CAIR a terrorist organization.
To no one’s surprise, former President Barack Obama praised the airport protesters, saying through a spokesman he was “heartened by the level of engagement taking place in communities around the country.”
“Citizens exercising their Constitutional right to assemble, organize and have their voices heard by the elected officials is exactly what we expect to see when American values are at stake,” the spokesman said Monday.
Obama intends to conduct his own shadow presidency and attack the Trump administration for years to come. The former president has rented a fancy house on Embassy Row in the nation’s capital that is expected to serve as his anti-Trump administration war room.
Failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton (D) tweeted Saturday night, “I stand with the people gathered across the country tonight defending our values & our Constitution. This is not who we are.”
Meanwhile, although left-wing law professor Jonathan Turley said he disagrees on policy grounds with Trump’s executive order he argues it is nonetheless legally bulletproof.
“The law does favor President Trump in this regard,” Turley said Sunday on CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS” show. “I don’t like this order. I think it’s a terrible mistake — but that doesn’t go into the legal analysis. The Court has been extremely deferential to presidents on the border.”
The courts won’t buy the left-wing talking point that the order constitutes a ban on Muslim travel and immigration, Turley explained.
“I do not believe a federal court will view this as a Muslim ban,” he said.
I don’t think the court can. Regardless of what the court may think of President Trump’s motivations, the fact that other Muslim countries are not included is going to move that off the table and what’s going to be left is whether the president has this type of authority. Historically, courts have said that he does.
Americans who want their country back after eight years of Obama-created lawlessness don’t need to get upset at the chaos left-wingers are trying to generate to undermine President Trump.
In this case the law is on their side.
DOJ Declines To Comment On Why Agency Won’t Investigate Threats To Electors
December 2, 2016DOJ Declines To Comment On Why Agency Won’t Investigate Threats To Electors, Daily Caller, Kerry Picket, December 1, 2016
WASHINGTON — The Department of Justice did not want to discuss why the agency refuses to investigate alleged harassment and death threats toward Electoral College voters in states that went for Donald Trump.
“The department will decline to comment,” DOJ deputy press secretary David Jacobs told The Daily Caller in an email Wednesday afternoon.
The Justice Department seemed concerned about protecting voters from being intimidated at the polls on Election Day. It deployed 500 monitors to 67 jurisdictions in 28 states to watch polling stations this past presidential election cycle.
The department’s goal is “to see to it that every eligible voter can participate in our elections to the full extent that federal law provides,” Attorney General Loretta Lynch said in a statement at the time to the Chicago Tribune. “The department is deeply committed to the fair and unbiased application of our voting rights laws and we will work tirelessly to ensure that every eligible person that wants to do so is able to cast a ballot.”
Some have wondered, then, why the Justice Department and the FBI will not investigate the recent claims of threats and harassment of these electors as per violation of Section 11b of the Voting Rights Act (52 U.S.C. §10307).
Attorney J. Christian Adams, who previously worked in the DOJ’s civil rights division, appeared unsurprised by the department’s reaction, telling TheDC in a statement Thursday, “The Justice Department should be investigating the brutal attacks on Trump voters caught on video and the death threats to Trump electors. Federal law protects people who want to vote. The Obama Justice Department unfortunately only protects people who vote the right way.”
According to the law, it is a crime to “intimidate, threaten, or coerce, or attempt to intimidate, threaten, or coerce any person for voting or attempting to vote.”
The law was used in the past to protect the rights of average American voters in nationwide elections, but the language is not restricted to the individuals who make up the popular vote.
Voters of the Electoral College who are casting their votes for president and vice president are also protected by Section 11b, since the College is a necessary part of the federal voting process.
Section 14(c) of the Voting Rights Act, for example, says that “voting” includes “all action necessary to make a vote effective in any primary, special, or general election.”
The votes Americans cast for president and vice president three weeks ago cannot go into effect if electors, chosen by the voters, are intimidated or threatened from casting their votes in the Electoral College on Dec. 19.
Cut-off of federal funds to sanctuary cities is possible immediately upon inauguration of President Trump
November 25, 2016Cut-off of federal funds to sanctuary cities is possible immediately upon inauguration of President Trump, American Thinker, Thomas Lifson, November 25, 2016
Thanks to a little-noticed action of Texas Congressman John Culberson taken last July, President-elect Trump will able to cut-off federal law enforcement funding to 9 sanctuary cities, plus the entire state of California, immediately upon taking the oath of office. Brenda Walker of Vdare explains:
Because of the foresight of a Texas Congressman, President Trump will be able to end certain funding to the largest sanctuary cities plus the entire state of California on his first day as President. Working quietly, Culberson convinced the existing Justice Department to certify those cities as non-compliant with federal law, thereby making them vulnerable to loss of money from Washington.
With great foresight, the Congressman, as he explained to Eric Shawn of Fox News (video embedded below):
…using existing law and the power of the purse, I have seen to it that the top 10 sanctuary cities in America have already been certified as violating existing federal law and therefore everything is pre-positioned for these 10 cities — including Chicago, New York, the entire state of California — they will lose all their federal law enforcement money, if President Trump chooses to, the president can cut off their money at noon on January 20th of 2017. If they do not change their sanctuary policies and hand over criminal illegal aliens in their custody to be deported, their days of receiving federal law enforcement money are over.
SHAWN: Obviously this is something that the Obama administration has not agreed with.
CULBERSON: In fact I, as chairman of the subcommittee in charge of all the money for the Department of Justice, I quietly persuaded Attorney General Loretta Lynch to implement this new policy this past July seventh, so it’s already done. I did it as subcommittee chairman using existing law and the influence of the power of the purse that the founding fathers so wisely entrusted to Congress. I did it quietly and and thoughtfully, and I didn’t embarrass anybody so it’s already done, pre-positioned.
SHAWN: I’m sorry — pre-positioned but hasn’t gone into action?
CULBERSON: Attorney General Lynch has already notified every city and state in the country that unless they cooperate 100 percent of the time with requests for immigration information about criminal aliens in local custody, then those local jurisdictions lose all their federal law enforcement money. That’s already up on the Department of Justice website. It has been official policy since July seventh. I just didn’t make any noise about it because the purpose of this election — America wants us to get it done, to get the job done, so I’ve taken care of it the job is done and President Trump can now cut off their money at noon on January 20th because it’s been policy.
You might wonder how Congressman Culberson “persuaded” AG Lynch. Good old arm-twisting, based on the power of the purse:
Citing his committee’s power over the DOJ’s budget, Culberson stated in February:
Any refusal by the Department to comply with these reasonable and timely requests will factor heavily in my consideration of their 2017 budget requests, and whether or not I will include language in the fiscal year 2017 CJS appropriations bill prohibiting the award of law enforcement grants to jurisdictions that harbor illegal aliens. I will include language in this year’s bill requiring the DOJ to amend the application process for Byrne JAG, COPS, and SCAAP grants so that grantees must certify under oath that they are in compliance with section 1373 of title 8 of the United States Code.
Master showman Donald Trump thus has the opportunity for a lot drama upon taking his oath. Such a dramatic move as announcing the cut-off of law enforcement grants to the ten large jurisdictions would immediately place the Left on defense, for:
…a November Rasmussen poll found that large majority of voters favors deportation of illegal alien criminals:
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 81% of Likely U.S. Voters favor a plan that calls for mandatory deportation of illegal immigrants who have been convicted of a felony in this country. Just 13% are opposed. These findings are nearly identical to those measured in August of last year.
Stand by. There is going to be a very interesting four years ahead.
Obama Justice Dept. sues NJ township for rejecting mosque
November 23, 2016Obama Justice Dept. sues NJ township for rejecting mosque, Jihad Watch,
(If the Westboro Baptist Church had been denied permission to build a church in the township, would the Department of Justice have sued the township? — DM)
People have legitimate concerns about mosques going up in their neighborhood. Four separate studies since 1999 all found that 80% of U.S. mosques were teaching jihad, Islamic supremacism, and hatred and contempt for Jews and Christians. There are no countervailing studies that challenge these results. In 1998, Sheikh Muhammad Hisham Kabbani, a Sufi leader, visited 114 mosques in the United States. Then he gave testimony before a State Department Open Forum in January 1999, and asserted that 80% of American mosques taught the “extremist ideology.” Then there was the Center for Religious Freedom’s 2005 study, and the Mapping Sharia Project’s 2008 study. Each independently showed that upwards of 80% of mosques in America were preaching hatred of Jews and Christians and the necessity ultimately to impose Islamic rule.
In the summer of 2011 came another study showing that only 19% of mosques in U.S. don’t teach jihad violence and/or Islamic supremacism. Specifically: “A random survey of 100 representative mosques in the U.S. was conducted to measure the correlation between Sharia adherence and dogma calling for violence against non-believers. Of the 100 mosques surveyed, 51% had texts on site rated as severely advocating violence; 30% had texts rated as moderately advocating violence; and 19% had no violent texts at all. Mosques that presented as Sharia adherent were more likely to feature violence-positive texts on site than were their non-Sharia-adherent counterparts. In 84.5% of the mosques, the imam recommended studying violence-positive texts. The leadership at Sharia-adherent mosques was more likely to recommend that a worshiper study violence-positive texts than leadership at non-Sharia-adherent mosques. Fifty-eight percent of the mosques invited guest imams known to promote violent jihad. The leadership of mosques that featured violence-positive literature was more likely to invite guest imams who were known to promote violent jihad than was the leadership of mosques that did not feature violence-positive literature on mosque premises.” That means that around 1,700 mosques in the U.S. are preaching hatred of infidels and justifying violence against them.
But none of this is allowed to be a consideration when a mosque is proposed for a particular area. It must be assumed by all parties that the mosque will be entirely benign and peaceful, and no different from a synagogue or church. So community leaders try to find other ways to keep mosques out — only to find themselves facing the full weight of Barack Obama’s Justice Department. And then it becomes a matter of having one’s career ruined and life destroyed, or approving the mosque.
“Justice Dept. sues NJ township for rejecting mosque,” by Kelly Cohen, Washington Examiner, November 22, 2016:
The Justice Department announced on Tuesday it is suing Bernards Township, N.J., because it denied zoning approval for the Islamic Society of Basking Ridge to build a mosque on land it owns.
The township in December unanimously voted down the Islamic Society’s application to build a mosque, which the Justice Department says violates the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act.
In the complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, the department said the denial was discriminatory based on the Islamic Society’s members’ religion. The denial imposed a substantial burden on the Islamic Society’s religious exercise, according to the complaint, it said.
The complaint also alleged that the township violated the law “by amending its zoning ordinance in a manner that imposes unreasonable limitations on all religious assemblies.”
According to Justice Department officials, the land where the Islamic Society wanted to build the mosque is located in a zone that permitted construction of places of worship as a matter of right at the time of the zoning request.
“As alleged in the complaint, Bernards Township has treated the Islamic Society of Basking Ridge differently than other houses of worship,” said U.S. Attorney for New Jersey Paul Fishman in a statement. “RLUIPA ensures that municipalities must treat religious land use applications like any other land use application. But here, township officials kept moving the goalposts by using ever-changing local requirements to effectively deny this religious community the same access as other faiths.”…
Sessions will make a fine attorney general
November 22, 2016Sessions will make a fine attorney general, Washington Examiner, November 21, 2016
Whenever there is a chance to publish an inflammatory piece about Alabama Sen. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, the New York Times and left-wing politicians make sure to use his full name, filled as it is with references to the Confederacy.
But Sessions, like Barack Hussein Obama and all the rest of us, did not choose his first, middle or last names. And like all of us, he has nothing to be ashamed about.
What he does have is the right experience and temperament to serve as attorney general. Even if we disagree with him on some issues, he represents a reassuring choice by President-elect Trump, who considered others who were less suited for the role.
Sessions served as an Army Reserve captain during the Vietnam War era. He is a former country and city lawyer in private practice. He also served as a U.S. attorney and as Alabama’s attorney general, which means that he understands the obligations that go with the role of a top prosecutor.
He knows that these are distinct from the skill set required to win elections as a vote-hungry politician, which sadly is not a given for all public servants nowadays.
Even as a politician, Sessions is not known as a big self-promoter. He is amicable with reporters, but it’s also safe to stand between him and the nearest camera, which cannot be said of others. And he would be the last person one might expect, in a highly divided and partisan nation where this is an issue, to wield the tools of law enforcement in a petty or vindictive way.
Some will oppose Sessions because they disagree with his conservatism and support of Trump. That’s fair game. But it is deeply unjust that a lame joke he once told about the Ku Klux Klan changed the course of his career, excluding him from the federal bench and tarring him as a racist. People have been prone to hurl that rhetorical grenade at him without checking the origin of the claim.
Sessions quipped to a colleague that he turned against the KKK only because he discovered some of its members smoked pot. His interlocutor understood it was a joke, but Sens. Joe Biden and Ted Kennedy, two of the most disingenuous and partisan pols ever to sit on the Senate Judiciary Committee, seized on it as a pretext for torpedoing his nomination ahead of an anticipated fight over the Supreme Court.
Sessions has been praised by several civil rights leaders. His only known interaction with the Klan was his oversight, as Alabama’s attorney general, of the execution of the KKK boss in the state.
It was the first execution of a white man for murdering a black man in Alabama in more than 80 years, and the only case in the entire nation in which a KKK member was executed for killing a black man in the 20th Century.
We disagree with Sessions for his opposition to sentencing and criminal justice reform, and also to his support of civil asset forfeiture, by which members of the public neither convicted nor even charged with a crime can be deprived of their property.
But Sessions’ opinions on these matters will matter less than those of his new boss, which remain unclear. The senator’s departure from the Senate Judiciary Committee might even expedite some positive reforms.
In terms of experience, fairness, and administrative capability Sessions is a fine candidate for attorney general. He is sure to emphasize workplace enforcement of immigration laws and to enforce the laws on the books against sanctuary cities. These were near to the top the agenda on which Trump was elected, and his voters will get their way.
The Department of Justice’s reputation is in tatters after its embarrassing and deadly Operation Fast and Furious scandal, to say nothing of its gymnastics in protecting Hillary Clinton during the election. Sessions’ leadership can only make things better.
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