Obama's Enforcer (25 page)

13
.  As this book was being written, the issue was before the U.S. Supreme Court in
National Labor Relations Board v. Noel Canning
.

14
.  Michael McConnell, “The OLC Opinion on Recess Appointments,” www.advancingafreesociety.org, Jan. 12, 2012.

15
.  Edwin Meese III and Todd Gaziano, “Obama's Recess Appointments are Unconstitutional,”
Washington Post
, Jan. 5, 2012.

16
.  Todd Gaziano, “Whitewash on Illegal Appointments Won't Work,” The Foundry, Heritage Foundation, Jan. 12, 2012.

17
.  Ibid.

18
.  Lachlan Markay, “Grassley Not Buying DOJ's Non-Recess Appointment Apologia,” The Foundry, Heritage Foundation, Jan. 12, 2012.

19
.  Seth McLaughlin, “Obama Administration has Lost Two-Thirds of Supreme Court Cases,”
Washington Times
, June 26, 2013.

20
.  132 S.Ct. 694 (2012).

21
.  132 S.Ct. 1367 (2012).

22
.  Sen. Ted Cruz, Ranking Member, Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights, “The Legal Limit: The Obama Administration's Attempts to Expand Federal Power,” Nov. 2013.

23
.  Paul J. Larkin Jr., “
Sackett v. EPA
: Supreme Court Takes Up Property Rights Case,” Heritage Foundation Foundry, Jan. 9, 2012.

24
.  132 S.Ct. 945 (2012).

25
.  133 S.Ct. 511 (2012).

26
.  Ted Cruz, “The Legal Limit.”

27
.  133 S.Ct. 1216 (2012).

28
.  132 S.Ct. 2492 (2012).

29
.  18 U.S.C. § 1373(c).

30
.  
PPL Corp. v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue
, 133 S.Ct. 1897 (2013).

31
.  
Horne v. USDA
, 133 S.Ct. 2053 (2013).

32
.  
Sekhar v. U.S.
, 133 S.Ct. 2720 (2013).

33
.  Ilya Shapiro, “Why Obama Keeps Losing at the Supreme Court,” Bloomberg, June 6, 2013.

34
.  558 U.S. 310 (2010).

35
.  Transcript of
Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission
, Case No. 08-205 (March 24, 2009), pp. 28–30.

36
.  Testimony of Jonathan Turley, U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary, Dec. 3, 2012.

37
.  Ibid.

38
.  Nathan Vardi, “Department of Justice Flip-Flops on Internet Gambling,”
Forbes
, Dec. 23, 2011.

39
.  Matt Smith, “Stop Eric Holder's Online Gambling Push,”
Daily Caller
, May 21, 2012.

40
.  Wynton Hall, “Eric Holder's DOJ Legalizes Online Gambling; Donors and Friends Make Big Money,” Breitbart, Aug. 7, 2012.

41
.  Ibid.

42
.  Testimony of Jonathan Turley, U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary, Dec. 3, 2012.

43
.  Letter of Deputy Attorney General David Ogden to Selected United States Attorneys, Investigations and Prosecutions in States Authorizing the Medical Use of Marijuana, Oct. 19, 2009.

44
.  The Controlled Substances Act has been upheld by the Supreme Court in
Gonzales v. Raich
, 545 U.S. 1 (2005).

45
.  Evan Perez, “No Federal Challenge to Pot Legalization in Two States,” CNN, Aug. 30, 2013.

46
.  Sari Horwitz, “Holder Seeks to Avert Mandatory Minimum Sentences for Some Low-Level Drug Offenders,”
Washington Post
, Aug. 11, 2013.

47
.  Testimony of Jonathan Turley, U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary, Dec. 3, 2012.

48
.  Bill Otis, “Hundreds of Career Prosecutors Revolt Against Holder,” www.crimeandconsequences.com, Jan. 30, 2014.

49
.  “Top Management and Performance Challenges Facing the Department of Justice—2013,” Memorandum from Michael E. Horowitz for the Attorney General, the Deputy Attorney General, Office of the Inspector General, U.S. Department of Justice, Dec. 11, 2013, reissued Dec. 23, 2013.

50
.  Jeffrey Toobin, “A Sharp Progressive Joins the D.O.J.,”
New Yorker
, Dec. 20, 2013.

51
.  J. Christian Adams, “Meet the Dishonest Radical Academic Eric Holder Tapped to Oversee Federal Election Law,” PJ Tatler, Dec. 20, 2013.

52
.  “Peter Baker, “Favorites of Left Don't Make Obama's Court List,”
New York Times
, May 25, 2009.

53
.  Pamela S. Karlan, “Lessons Learned: Voting Rights and the Bush Administration,” 4
Duke J. Const. L. & Pub. Pol'y
17, 28 (2009).

54
.  John Fund and Hans von Spakovsky,
Who's Counting? How Fraudsters and Bureaucrats Put Your Vote at Risk
(New York: Encounter Books, 2012), p. 108.

55
.  Ed Whelan, “Pamela Karlan, Anti-Textualist Fantasist,”
National Review Online
, Oct. 20, 2013.

56
.  Carl Rowan Jr., “Adegbile Utterly Unfit for Justice's Civil Rights Post,”
Washington Times
, Jan. 22, 2014.

57
.  “The Attorney General's Duty to Defend and Enforce Constitutionally Objectionable Legislation,” 4A O. O.L.C. 55 (1980).

58
.  Drew S. Days III, “In Search of the Solicitor General's Clients: A Drama with Many Characters,” 83 K.Y.L.J. 485, 502 (1995).

59
.  Defendant's Motion to Dismiss at 25,
Smelt v. U.S.
, Case No. 09-00286 (C.D. Cal. 2009).

60
.  Testimony of Jonathan Turley, U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary, Dec. 3, 2012.

61
.  
U.S. v. Windsor
, 570 U.S.
___
(2013), Slip Op. at 12.

62
.  “Supreme Court Puts Utah Same-Sex Marriage on Hold,” CBS News, Jan. 6, 2014.

63
.  Ed Whelan, “AG Holder's Lawless Action on Marriage in Utah,” BenchMemos,
National Review Online
, Jan. 10, 2014.

64
.  Ibid.

65
.  Elizabeth H. Slattery and Andrew Kloster, “An Executive Unbound: the Obama Administration's Unilateral Actions,” Heritage Foundation Legal Memorandum No. 108 (Feb. 12, 2014).

Chapter 4: The (Un)Civil Rights Division

  
1
.  Byron York, “Obama's Zealous Civil Rights Enforcer,” Townhall.com (Aug. 9, 2010).

  
2
.  
U.S. v. Bowen
, Case. No. 10-204 (E.D. LA. Sept. 17, 2013).

  
3
.  Perez was confirmed as the new secretary of the Department of Labor in July 2013 despite his radical record.

  
4
.  Byron York, “Obama's Zealous Civil Rights Enforcer Gets Busy,”
Washington Examiner
, Aug. 6, 2010.

  
5
.  Wil S. Hylton, “Hope, Change, Reality.,”
GQ
, Dec. 2010.

  
6
.  “A Review of the Operations of the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division,” Office of the Inspector General, U.S. Dept. of Justice, March 2013.

  
7
.  Chuck Neubauer, “Taxpayers Financed Justice Official's Romantic Travel,”
Washington Times
, Oct. 5, 2011. This employee was not asked to pay back the money he embezzled and he was given a bonus to agree to an early retirement.

  
8
.  Hans A. von Spakovsky, “Revenge of the Liberal Bureaucrats,”
Weekly Standard
, January 23, 2009.

  
9
.  “Justice Department Bids to Trap Poor, Black Children in Ineffective Schools,”
Washington Post
, Sept. 1, 2013.

10
.  “DOJ's Quid Pro Quo with St. Paul: How Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez Manipulated Justice and Ignored the Rule of Law,” Joint Staff Report, House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, April 15, 2013, p. 62.

11
.  
U.S. v. AIG Federal Savings Bank
, Case No. 10CV178 (D. Del. March 19, 2010).

12
.  “The Ambitious Mr. Perez,”
Wall Street Journal
, April 17, 2013.

13
.  “DOJ's Quid Pro Quo with St. Paul: How Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez Manipulated Justice and Ignored the Rule of Law,” Joint Staff Report, House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform,
April 15, 2013, p. 14.

14
.  “The Ambitious Mr. Perez,”
Wall Street Journal
, April 17, 2013.

15
.  Ibid.

16
.  
U.S. v. Dillard
, Case No. 11-1098 (D. KS Aug. 15, 2013)

17
.  
U.S. v. Pine
, Case No. 10CV80971 (S.D. Fla. Jan. 13, 2012).

18
.  132 S.Ct. 695 (2012),

19
.  
U.S. v. Arkansas
, 794 F.Supp.2d 935 (E.D. Ark. 2011).

20
.  
U.S. v. Jones
, 125 F.3d 1418 (11th Cir. 1997).

21
.  Letter of May 9, 2013, to President Royce Engstrom, University of Montana.

22
.  Byron York, “Why Did Feds Claim Kindle Violates Civil Rights?,”
Washington Examiner
, Aug. 3, 2010.

23
.  Ibid.

24
.  Ibid.

25
.  
U.S. v. Florida
, Case No. 4:12cv285 (N.D. Fla. June 28, 2012). See also
Arcia v. Detzner
, Case No. 12-22282 (S.D. Fla. Oct. 4, 2012), in which the court dismissed a similar lawsuit filed by private parties concluding that under their theory of the NVRA, a state would be prohibited from removing from its voting rolls anyone who was improperly registered, such as noncitizens, minors, fictitious individuals, and individuals who live in other states, which “would produce an absurd result” (Slip Op. at 14).

26
.  For a description of the problems caused by illegal voting, see John Fund and Hans von Spakovsky,
Who's Counting?
.

27
.  “Attorney General Eric Holder Speaks at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library & Museum,” Dec. 13, 2011, available at www.justice.gov/iso/opa/ag/speeches/2011/ag-speech-111213.html.

28
.  Hearing on the Department of Justice's Actions Related to the New Black Panther Party Litigation and its Enforcement of Section 11(b) of the Voting Rights Act, U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, May 14, 2010, pp. 32–33.

29
.  A Review of the Operations of the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division, Office of the Inspector General, U.S. Dept. of Justice, March 2013, p. 90.

30
.  Ibid., p. 127.

31
.  Ibid., pp. 129–30.

32
.  Ibid., pp. 119–20.

33
.  Ibid., p. 129.

34
.  Ibid., pp. 123, 129–30.

35
.  Ibid., pp. 160–61.

36
.  Ibid., p. 166.

37
.  Ibid., p. 163.

38
.  Andrew Ramonas, “Texas Lawmaker Says Civil Rights Division Only Protects Black Voters,” MainJustice, March 1, 2011.

39
.  J. Christian Adams, “What's In Eric Holder's Wallet? His Real Race Card,” PJ Media, July 12, 2013.

40
.  Ibid.

41
.  A Review of the Operations of the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division, Office of the Inspector General, U.S. Dept. of Justice, March 2013, p. 258.

42
.  Interview with Christopher Coates, Jan. 28, 2014.

43
.  Hylton, “Hope. Change. Reality.”

Chapter 5: The Billion-Dollar
Pigford
Scam

  
1
.  Daniel Foster, “Pigford's Harvest,”
National Review
, Feb. 21, 2010.

  
2
.  Rich Lowry, “The Obama/Clinton Reparations,”
National Review
, April 30, 2013.

  
3
.  Sharon LaFraniere, “U.S. Opens Spigot After Farmers Claim Discrimination,”
New York Times
, April 25, 2013.

  
4
.  Foster, “Pigford's Harvest.”

  
5
.  LaFraniere, “U.S. Opens Spigot After Farmers Claim Discrimination.”

  
6
.  Ibid.

  
7
.  Daniel Foster, “
Pigford
and Discrimination,”
National Review
, April 20, 2013.

  
8
.  Foster, “Pigford's Harvest.”

  
9
.  Ibid.

10
.  Helena Andrews, “Shirley Sherrod Says She'll Never Work for the Government Again,”
Washington Post
, Jan. 14, 2014; http://www .ruraldevelopment.org/shirleydirector.html.

11
.  Foster, “Pigford's Harvest.”

12
.  LaFraniere, “U.S. Opens Spigot After Farmers Claim Discrimination.”

13
.  Ibid.

14
.  Gary Hewson, Peter Schweizer, and Andrew Breitbart, “The Pigford Shakedown: How Black Farmers' Cause Was Hijacked by Politicians, Trial Lawyers & Community Organizers—Leaving Us with a Billion Dollar Tab,” Breitbart, Dec. 6, 2010, p. 11.

15
.  Ibid.

16
.  Ibid.

17
.  LaFraniere, “U.S. Opens Spigot After Farmers Claim Discrimination.”

18
.  Ibid.

19
.  Ibid.

20
.  Foster, “Pigford's Harvest.”

21
.  Ibid.

22
.  Ibid.

23
.  Ibid.

24
.  Kevin Bogardus, “CBC Upset Over Obama's Stance on Black Farmers,”
Hill
, April 23, 2009.