U.S. Justice Department: Tourist Perverts Beware!
Perverts who prey on young children are learning the hard way that they can’t just skip across a few continents to satisfy their sexual appetites. On Monday the U.S. Justice Department announced that it had snared three American sexual predators in the southeast Asian nation of Cambodia and were bringing them back home to face prosecution. They are the first to be charged under an international initiative specifically aimed at Americans who go to Cambodia to sexually abuse children. Cambodia, and its traditionally lax child-protection laws, is known as a haven for such predators. “The men charged in this investigation apparently thought they could pursue their abhorrent desires by leaving the United States to prey on children in another country, but they were sadly mistaken,” U.S. Attorney Thomas P. O’Brien said in a statement. The initiative, known as Operation Twisted Traveler, is a collaboration between the Justice Department and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to crack down on sex tourism. “We are now working closer than ever with officials in other nations and concerned private parties to take every effort we can to identify and prosecute sex tourists, as well as to provide every protection we can to the world’s children.” Charged under the new law are Ronald Boyajian, 49, Erik Peeters, 41, and Jack Sporich, 75, who are facing prosecution for traveling abroad to engage in sexual contact with minors. They are facing up to 30 years in prison for each victim, according to the Justice Department. “These types of cases are disturbing not only because young, defenseless children were victimized in unspeakable ways but also because the defendants went to such lengths to engage in their dark activities overseas,” O’Brien said at a news conference.

Glum Economic Realities Ahead for Cities, Report Says
Although federal economists predict a positive forecast ahead, many city officials nationwide are finding it difficult to see the light at the end of a long, dark tunnel. Declining real estate values portend glum economic realities over the next two years, according to experts, who note that the full impact will not likely be felt until 2010 to 2012. Now, they say, cities are  still “on the front end” of the recession.  Christopher Hoene, who co-authored the National League of Cities study with Michael Pagano, says that “Things are likely to worsen before they improve.” Eight in 10 city finance officers who responded in the league survey said their cities are “less able” to meet fiscal needs this year than they were last year, CNN reports. “That’s a marked decline from just two years ago, when 70 percent of finance officers said they were ‘better able’ to meet financial needs than in the previous year,” according the network. Property taxes, sales taxes and income taxes are the three major culprits behind the dismal financial picture. “Property-tax collections actually increased 6.9 percent (or 6.2 percent when adjusted for inflation) in 2008 as assessments caught up with previous growth in the real estate market,” according to CNN. “And revenues are projected to grow 1.7 percent (or 1.6 percent adjusted) this year.” Those figures are likely to drop in the next three years as declining property values are reflected in property tax rolls.

Attorney General Eric Holder Jr., who ignited a storm recently by saying that America is a nation of cowards when it comes to addressing matters of race, is making it clear that he would like to step up the agency’s monitoring and enforcement of civil rights issues. On Wednesday, he described the Civil Rights Division as the “crown jewel of the Justice Department. In addressing a wide range of civil rights issues at the annual awards luncheon for the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs’, Holder promised that his department would be vigilant in upholding rights. He scoffed at the Supreme Court challenge to Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act and spoke out on the politically motivated homicide of a doctor who performed late-term abortions, an Army recruiter, and most recently a security guard at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. He said that the Justice Department “will not tolerate murder masquerading as political activism,” adding that the department “will use every tool at its disposal to protect the rights ensured under our constitution.”

Moroccan Concert Stampede Kills 11
A stampede on the final day of the Mawazine festival in Morocco killed at least 11 people and wounded 30, reports CNN. Five women, four men and two children are among the victims of the stampede that took place in the nation’s capital city, Rabat, Saturday night, according to local reports. Thousands of people filled the Hay Nahda stadium that evening. Singers Alicia Keys and Stevie Wonder were among the performers at the eight-day music festival.

Attorney Gen. Eric Holder Returns to Caribbean Roots
Attorney General Eric Holder made a visit to Barbados this Memorial day weekend. But it wasn’t just a few days of fun in the sun that brought Holder to the Caribbean island. Holder met Saturday with attorneys general from several Caribbean nations. “They are talking about U.S.-Caribbean cooperation on narco-trafficking, crime, gangs and judicial law enforcement technical assistance,” Justice Department spokesman Matt Miller told The Miami Herald. Holder, whose father was born in Barbados, will also be honored by the nation. The government is set to rename the Tamarind Hall Municipal Complex “The Eric Holder Centre.” In addition, the Barbados Parliament held a reception in Holder’s honor following Saturday’s meeting.

Supporters of death-row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal, the former Black Panther and journalist convicted of killing a Philadelphia police officer nearly three decades ago, are hoping President Obama will intervene to overturn a sentence they say is unjust. “It’s clear Mumia did not have a fair trial,” said MOVE member Pam Africa, one of the organizers of a Free Mumia petition now being circulated. “Evidence was most definitely withheld. This is a test for this new administration right here.” Read the rest.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, who has made it clear that he will ensure that landmark laws particularly affecting Black Americans will be safe during the Obama administration, told a crowd in Selma, Ala., Sunday that the Voting Rights Act must be defended at all costs. The nation’s first Black attorney was speaking at the city’s bridge-crossing jubilee, marking 44 years of the Selma-to-Montgomery, Ala., march that led to the passage of the landmark Voting Rights Act. Read more.

Obama Says Holder Misunderstood

President Barack Obama said Saturday that Attorney General Eric Holder probably could have chosen his words better when he called America a “nation of cowards” when it comes to discussing race relations. Read more.

Legendary Politician Dies
James Flournoy, who as a Republican candidate for California secretary of state became the first African American nominated by a major party for statewide office, has died. He was 93. Having suffered a long illness, he passed at his home in Moreno Valley, Calif., late last month, according to his wife, Marilyn. Flournoy, who was a renowned attorney in Los Angeles for many years, was a rare Republican politician at the time. “He was fairly moderate, pragmatic and a delightful person to be around with a great sense of humor,” Stuart K. Spencer, a political consultant who has been involved in nearly every California election since the 1960s, told The Associated Press. As his popularity surged, the GOP nominated him to run against Jerry Brown, a member of the L.A. Community College trustee’s board, who went on to become a two-term governor of California and two-term mayor of Oakland. Brown is now the state attorney general and is vying to take over again as governor. Brown beat Flournoy back in the day by an overwhelming 300,000 votes. “He was a wonderful man and a true gentleman,” Brown said of Flournoy, in an interview with The Times on Tuesday.

 America’s first Black attorney general ignited a firestorm Wednesday when he proclaimed that the United States is a “nation of cowards” when it comes to dealing with matters of race. “Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial, we have always been and we – I believe – continue to be in too many ways essentially a nation of cowards,” Eric Holder told Department of Justice employees at an event Wednesday celebrating Black History Month. Read more here.

 The U.S. Senate, despite strong posturing by some Republicans, confirmed President Obama’s choice of Eric Holder Monday as the nation’s top prosecutor. While 75 lawmakers – including more than a dozen Republicans – agreed that Holder should be the first African-American attorney general, 21 Republicans cast a nay vote for the 58-year-old former deputy AG with the Clinton administration. Holder’s confirmation marks a dramatic shift in an agency that was the bane of the Democratic Party during the Bush administration. Read more here.

By the end of the day, the nation will likely have its first African-American attorney general. On Wednesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 17-2 to send the nomination of Attorney General-designate Eric Holder to the full Senate. Pennsylvania Republican Arlen Specter had signaled trouble for Obama’s nominee, questioning two weeks ago whether the former deputy attorney general under President Clinton was “fit for office.” He was referring to Holder’s refusal to investigate then-Vice President Al Gore’s fundraising practices. Specter was also critical of the 58-year-old nominee’s role in Clinton’s pardoning of fugitive financier Marc Rich.

Eric Holder, Sen. Barack Obama’s choice as the nation’s top prosecutor, said Thursday during his confirmation hearing that he would shut down the troubled detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He told the Senate Judiciary Committee that while closing the compound is not so tough, finding a place for the roughly 250 inmates residing there poses a more difficult dilemma. Some of them can be prosecuted, he said, but others would have to be sent to other countries.  He added, however, that some are in limbo, because they can’t be put on trial “for a variety of reasons” and can’t be released because they are too dangerous. That reality, he noted, would prevent the Obama administration from closing the Guantanamo Bay detention facility “as soon as we’d like.” Holder also promised the committee that he would ban torture or any interrogation techniques that would violate America’s treaty obligations or be used by America’s enemies as a recruitment tool.