Attorney General Holder’s promise to escalate enforcement of the marijuana laws if Proposition 19 passes is leading the country in the wrong direction. The marijuana laws will have no legitimacy if a majority of Californians vote to legalize marijuana. The U.S. needs law enforcement leadership toward a sensible marijuana policy, not more of the failed marijuana policy.

On Wednesday, to the surprise of some spectators in the courtroom, a U.S. federal judge did the right thing: he followed the law.

Opposition is mounting to the “Burn a Koran Day” scheduled for September 11th in Florida. General David Petraeus said it could harm our troops, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called it unrepresentative of Americans. Attorney General Eric Holder called it “idiotic and dangerous,” and the Vatican has called the planned demonstration “outrageous and grave.”

Prison rape in America is a national scandal, one without any constituency, one of the few sexual assaults about which late-night comics (and progressive bloggers) can still get a laugh or an LOL. The Department of Justice was, by law, supposed to implement 2009 recommendations by June 2010; these will cost money, though, and it’s money the American prison-industrial complex whines to Attorney General Eric Holder it does not have.

Tom DeLay was at the heart of the Jack Abramoff scandal, but it appears he will escape prosecution. How?

The Obama Justice Department once ignored apparent Bush-era crimes. Now it seems to be engaging in active deceit.

The report clearing Bush officials of criminal conduct in the firings of nine U.S. attorneys reads like a bad joke.

The Obama administration finally got it right on the Shirley Sherrod matter. But what about other victims of injustice?

by Erin Rosa, Media Consortium blogger

Senate Bill 1070, Arizona’s notorious anti-immigrant law, is set to go into effect on July 29. With days left to go, Organizers are in a race against the clock to minimize the bill’s impact on immigrant communities. Meanwhile, legal experts are examining the strategy behind a federal Department of Justice suit recently lobbed against the Arizona law, and other immigrant rights supporters continue to pressure the state via boycott. All of these acts are contributing to a tumultuous fight that’s escalating by the day.

After an initial delay, Faisal Shahzad, the failed Times Square car bomber, stood up today in a federal courthouse in downtown Manhattan and entered a plea of “guilty”.