Associate Attorney General Thomas J. Perrelli, the No. 3 official in the Obama Justice Department, was consulted and ultimately approved a decision in May to reverse course and drop a civil complaint accusing three members of the New Black Panther Party of intimidating voters in Philadelphia during November’s election, according to interviews.

The department’s career lawyers in the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division who pursued the complaint for five months had recommended that Justice seek sanctions against the party and three of its members after the government had already won a default judgment in federal court against the men.

Front-line lawyers were in the final stages of completing that work when they were unexpectedly told by their superiors in late April to seek a delay after a meeting between political appointees and career supervisors, according to federal records and interviews.

The delay was ordered by then-acting Assistant Attorney General Loretta King after she discussed with Mr. Perrelli concerns about the case during one of their regular review meetings, according to the interviews.

Ms. King, a career senior executive service official, had been named by President Obama in January to temporarily fill the vacant political position of assistant attorney general for civil rights while a permanent choice could be made.

Yesterday, we saw that the Obama administration’s political appointees at the Department of Justice force career prosecutors to withdraw from a case that they’d already won against the New Black Panther Party over egregious voter intimidation in Philadelphia.  Today, the Washington Post reports that the DoJ now appears to be taking on a political fight against a conservative and controversial figure in Arizona.   A new investigation about alleged civil-rights violations has Sheriff Joe Arpaio fuming over what he sees as a political attack

WHISPERING in President Obama’s ear is one of the most ruthlessly effective masters of identity politics in America — and the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the high court is his ultimate victory.

Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin — one of Obama’s earliest confidants and promoters — is an accomplished veteran of the federal judiciary wars.

An influential member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and now the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, Durbin has always been among the most brazen about using federal judgeships to promote the political and demographic goals of the Democratic Party.

Operating under close direction from liberal lobbyists, Durbin and fellow Democrats have worked to fill the federal courts with judges who rule most reliably in favor of the party’s top donors and supporters such as trial lawyers, labor unions and abortion-rights groups.

At the same time, Durbin and his fellow warriors also have used federal judgeships to advance their party’s dominance among certain demographic groups — especially Hispanics, the nation’s fastest-growing minority.

This has meant not only promoting minority judges, but also thwarting those nominated by Republicans.

No case has been more blatant than the 2001 nomination of Miguel Estrada, who was picked for the federal appeals court by former President George W. Bush.

When nominated to the appeals court, it was widely speculated that he was being groomed to become the first Hispanic nominated to the Supreme Court.

But liberal lobbyists, Durbin staffers wrote their boss in a secret memo that later became public, identified Estrada as especially dangerous, because “he has a minimal paper trail, he is Latino, and the White House seems to be grooming him for a Supreme Court appointment.”

Durbin and his fellow Democrats put Estrada on ice and eventually the respected jurist asked for his nomination to be withdrawn.

Now comes Sonia Sotomayor, who stands to become the first Hispanic to sit on the Supreme Court. But, unlike Estrada before her, she doesn’t share his discomfort with allowing the federal courts to legislate from the bench to the benefit of liberal interests.

In other words, Durbin and his fellow Democrats on the Judiciary Committee are all in favor of promoting Hispanic nominees within the federal judiciary — just so long as they think the way they’re supposed to.

Yes, they would if the Hispanic has a record like this:

Judge Sotomayor is a liberal judicial activist of the first order who thinks her own personal political agenda is more important that the law as written.  She thinks that judges should dictate policy, and that one’s sex, race, and ethnicity ought to affect the decisions one renders from the bench.

She reads racial preferences and quotas into the Constitution, even to the point of dishonoring those who preserve our public safety.  On September 11, America saw firsthand the vital role of America’s firefighters in protecting our citizens.  They put their lives on the line for her and the other citizens of New York and the nation.  But Judge Sotomayor would sacrifice their claims to fair treatment in employment promotions to racial preferences and quotas.  The Supreme Court is now reviewing that decision.

She has an extremely high rate of her decisions being reversed, indicating that she is far more of a liberal activist than even the current liberal activist Supreme Court.

Why would Republicans not dare to vote against her?  Is she the only Hispanic out there?  Doubt it!

Sotomayor: 'I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male'...
Prospect's Résumé...
Self described 'Newyorican'...
MAG: The Case Against...
VIDEO: Sotomayor on the court: 'Where policy is made'...

Good news: “Capitalism will be different” now, declares Geithner

Obama on pork: Gone With The Change

WSJ survey: Economists give Obama, Geithner failing grades so far

Hypocrisy Thy Name Is Obama

By all means Obama, keep talking about Rush, or make more promises you have no intention of keeping.  Newsflash..Half of those that voted to get you in are not following what you do, which is good news for you.  The bad news is that the other half is paying attention

President Barack Obama knows Americans are unhappy that the government could rescue people who bought mansions beyond their means.

But his assurance Tuesday night that only the deserving will get help rang hollow.

Even officials in his administration, many supporters of the plan in Congress and the Federal Reserve chairman expect some of that money will go to people who used lousy judgment.

The president skipped over several complex economic circumstances in his speech to Congress — and may have started an international debate among trivia lovers and auto buffs over what country invented the car.

A look at some of his assertions:

OBAMA: “We have launched a housing plan that will help responsible families facing the threat of foreclosure lower their monthly payments and refinance their mortgages. It’s a plan that won’t help speculators or that neighbor down the street who bought a house he could never hope to afford, but it will help millions of Americans who are struggling with declining home values.”

THE FACTS: If the administration has come up with a way to ensure money only goes to those who got in honest trouble, it hasn’t said so.

Defending the program Tuesday at a Senate hearing, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said it’s important to save those who made bad calls, for the greater good. He likened it to calling the fire department to put out a blaze caused by someone smoking in bed.

“I think the smart way to deal with a situation like that is to put out the fire, save him from his own consequences of his own action but then, going forward, enact penalties and set tougher rules about smoking in bed.”

Similarly, the head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. suggested this month it’s not likely aid will be denied to all homeowners who overstated their income or assets to get a mortgage they couldn’t afford.

“I think it’s just simply impractical to try to do a forensic analysis of each and every one of these delinquent loans,” Sheila Bair told National Public Radio.

——

OBAMA: “And I believe the nation that invented the automobile cannot walk away from it.”

THE FACTS: Depends what your definition of automobiles, is. According to the Library of Congress, the inventor of the first true automobile was probably Germany’s Karl Benz, who created the first auto powered by an internal combustion gasoline engine, in 1885 or 1886. In the U.S., Charles Duryea tested what library researchers called the first successful gas-powered car in 1893. Nobody disputes that Henry Ford created the first assembly line that made cars affordable.

——

OBAMA: “We have known for decades that our survival depends on finding new sources of energy. Yet we import more oil today than ever before.”

THE FACTS: Oil imports peaked in 2005 at just over 5 billion barrels, and have been declining slightly since. The figure in 2007 was 4.9 billion barrels, or about 58 percent of total consumption. The nation is on pace this year to import 4.7 billion barrels, and government projections are for imports to hold steady or decrease a bit over the next two decades.

——

OBAMA: “We have already identified $2 trillion in savings over the next decade.”

THE FACTS: Although 10-year projections are common in government, they don’t mean much. And at times, they are a way for a president to pass on the most painful steps to his successor, by putting off big tax increases or spending cuts until someone else is in the White House.

Obama only has a real say on spending during the four years of his term. He may not be president after that and he certainly won’t be 10 years from now.

——

OBAMA: “Regulations were gutted for the sake of a quick profit at the expense of a healthy market. People bought homes they knew they couldn’t afford from banks and lenders who pushed those bad loans anyway. And all the while, critical debates and difficult decisions were put off for some other time on some other day.”

THE FACTS: This may be so, but it isn’t only Republicans who pushed for deregulation of the financial industries. The Clinton administration championed an easing of banking regulations, including legislation that ended the barrier between regular banks and Wall Street banks. That led to a deregulation that kept regular banks under tight federal regulation but extended lax regulation of Wall Street banks. Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, later an economic adviser to candidate Obama, was in the forefront in pushing for this deregulation.

——

OBAMA: “In this budget, we will end education programs that don’t work and end direct payments to large agribusinesses that don’t need them. We’ll eliminate the no-bid contracts that have wasted billions in Iraq, and reform our defense budget so that we’re not paying for Cold War-era weapons systems we don’t use. We will root out the waste, fraud and abuse in our Medicare program that doesn’t make our seniors any healthier, and we will restore a sense of fairness and balance to our tax code by finally ending the tax breaks for corporations that ship our jobs overseas.”

THE FACTS: First, his budget does not accomplish any of that. It only proposes those steps. That’s all a president can do, because control over spending rests with Congress. Obama’s proposals here are a wish list and some items, including corporate tax increases and cuts in agricultural aid, will be a tough sale in Congress.

Second, waste, fraud and abuse are routinely targeted by presidents who later find that the savings realized seldom amount to significant sums. Programs that a president might consider wasteful have staunch defenders in Congress who have fought off similar efforts in the past.

——

OBAMA: “Thanks to our recovery plan, we will double this nation’s supply of renewable energy in the next three years.”

THE FACTS: While the president’s stimulus package includes billions in aid for renewable energy and conservation, his goal is unlikely to be achieved through the recovery plan alone.

In 2007, the U.S. produced 8.4 percent of its electricity from renewable sources, including hydroelectric dams, solar panels and windmills. Under the status quo, the Energy Department says, it will take more than two decades to boost that figure to 12.5 percent.

If Obama is to achieve his much more ambitious goal, Congress would need to mandate it. That is the thrust of an energy bill that is expected to be introduced in coming weeks.

——

OBAMA: “Over the next two years, this plan will save or create 3.5 million jobs.”

THE FACTS: This is a recurrent Obama formulation. But job creation projections are uncertain even in stable times, and some of the economists relied on by Obama in making his forecast acknowledge a great deal of uncertainty in their numbers.

The president’s own economists, in a report prepared last month, stated, “It should be understood that all of the estimates presented in this memo are subject to significant margins of error.”

Beyond that, it’s unlikely the nation will ever know how many jobs are saved as a result of the stimulus. While it’s clear when jobs are abolished, there’s no economic gauge that tracks job preservation. The estimates are based on economic assumptions of how many jobs would be lost without the stimulus.

Here is a video for you:

This is not a time for the left wing of our Party to draw conclusions about the Cabinet and White House appointments that President-Elect Obama is making. Some believe the appointments generally aren’t progressive enough. Having worked with former Senator Obama for the last two years, I can tell you, that isn’t the way he thinks and it’s not likely the way he will lead. The problems I mentioned above and the many I didn’t, suggest that our president surround himself with the most qualified people to address these challenges. After all, he was elected to be the president of all the people – not just those on the left.

Did he just say that Obama doesn’t think like the people he chose for the cabinet, but he needed smart people and liberals aren’t smart enough to lead?  I do believe he did!  And if this isn’t the way Obama thinks, just who appointed these people?  Didn’t Obama hire them?  I do believe that people are having buyers remorse

Politico:

Liberals are growing increasingly nervous – and some just flat-out angry – that President-elect Barack Obama seems to be stiffing them on Cabinet jobs and policy choices.

Obama has reversed pledges to immediately repeal tax cuts for the wealthy and take on Big Oil. He’s hedged his call for a quick drawdown in Iraq. And he’s stocking his White House with anything but stalwarts of the left.

Now some are shedding a reluctance to puncture the liberal euphoria at being rid of President George W. Bush to say, in effect, that the new boss looks like the old boss.

“He has confirmed what our suspicions were by surrounding himself with a centrist to right cabinet. But we do hope that before it’s all over we can get at least one authentic progressive appointment,” said Tim Carpenter, national director of the Progressive Democrats of America.

OpenLeft blogger Chris Bowers went so far as to issue this plaintive plea: “Isn’t there ever a point when we can get an actual Democratic administration?”

Even supporters make clear they’re on the lookout for backsliding. “There’s a concern that he keep his basic promises and people are going to watch him,” said Roger Hickey, a co-founder of Campaign for America’s Future.

Obama insists he hasn’t abandoned the goals that made him feel to some like a liberal savior. But the left’s bill of particulars against Obama is long, and growing.

Scott:”Ya mean the man w ZERO experience is really just sizzle and no steak? Amazing! Whodathunkit?  color me shocked-SHOCKED I SAY!”

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President-elect Obama has decided to tap Eric Holder as his attorney general, putting the veteran Washington lawyer in place to become the first African-American to head the Justice Department, according to two legal sources close to the presidential transition.

Holder, who served as deputy attorney general during the Clinton administration, still has to undergo a formal “vetting” review by the Obama transition team before the selection is final and is publicly announced, said one of the sources, who asked not to be identified talking about the transition process. But in the discussions over the past few days, Obama offered Holder the job and he accepted, the source said…

The only hesitancy about Holder’s selection was that he himself had reservations about going through a confirmation process that was likely to revive questions about his role in signing off on the controversial pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich. Although there is no evidence that Holder actively pushed the pardon, he was criticized for not raising with the White House the strong objections that some Justice Department lawyers and federal prosecutors in New York had to pardoning somebody who had fled the country. But after reviewing the evidence in the case, and checking with staffers on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Obama aides and Holder both decided the issue was highly unlikely to prove an obstacle to his confirmation, one of the sources said–especially given the Democrats’ more sizable post-election majority in the Senate.

So Obama doesn’t think it is a problem because of the amount of Senate seats the Democrats hold?  Really?  He looked at the evidence?  And it wasn’t cause for concern?  Wow!  Well, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, he sat in a church for 20 years and never heard Wright use inflammatory language.  He lied about his relationship with Ayers, had Fannie Mae CEO Jim Johnson on his VP vetting committee, the Bailout Bunch on his Transition Economic Advisory Board, but not to worry, Wink Wink, Obama Transition Team Adopts Ethics Rules, Wink Wink

Ace:

Thank goodness we won’t have any pesky questions over this “distraction.”

Allahpundit

Even better, he was deputy AG when federal agents extracted Elian Gonzalez at the point of a machine gun and did a cable news tour defending that decision. Elian’s father’s attorney at the time, incidentally? The One’s new White House counsel, Greg Craig.

Exit quotation: “These guys didn’t put together a campaign in order to turn the government over to the Clintons.”

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