When it comes to enforcing civil rights laws, the Obama administration is making it clear that there’s a new sheriff in town. For many years, the traditional civil rights establishment has argued that many of the most important issues affecting women, Blacks and other people of color have been ignored by the Bush administration. Instead of pushing for voters’ rights, fair housing, employment and bank-lending practicing, the previous White House politicized the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, irking rights advocates, particularly Black and Hispanic leaders, critics say. Enter Attorney General Eric H. Holder, Jr., President Obama’s choice as U.S. attorney general. Holder, the nation’s top prosecutor, is “planning a major revival of high-impact civil rights enforcement against policies, in areas ranging from housing to hiring, where statistics show that minorities fare disproportionately poorly,” The New York Times reports. Under Bush, the department took less of a broad-brush approach, choosing instead to concentrate on individual cases where there was evidence of deliberate bias, according to the Times. To execute this more aggressive enforcement, the current administration has begun scores of more civil rights lawyers. This, Holder told the Times, will help the division get “back to doing what it has traditionally done. But it’s really only a start. I think the wounds that were inflicted on this division were deep, and it will take some time for them to fully heal.” But Holder isn’t without his share of critics. Some conservatives, still frustrated with charges that Bush’s appointees were less concerned about enforcing civil-rights laws than they were about maintaining a right-wing political agenda, are now blaming the Obama administration of playing political games. Holder rejects such claims. “Of course there are going to be critics,” Holder said. But “any objective observer” can see that he is sticking with “the historical mission of the division, not straying into some kind of liberal orthodoxy. It really is just a function of enforcing the statutes.”

The Obama administration has sent out a call-to-action that allows the public to declare support for the three principles of the president’s health care plan.  Visit the site.

The suddenly chatty Cheneys refuse to let up when it comes to blasting President Obama. On Tuesday, Liz Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, continued the family’s air assault on Obama that began shortly after he became the nation’s first African-American president. Speaking to Fox News, Liz took her father’s criticism of Obama a step further, saying that it appears the president is actually siding with terrorists. The insult was in response to the Obama administration’s decision to release photographs alleged to show abuses at U.S. prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan during the Bush administration. “I think it is really appalling that the administration is taking this step,” she said in the interview. “Clearly what they are doing is releasing images that show American military men and woman in a very negative light.” She continued: “I have heard from families of service members from families of 9/11 victims this question about when did it become so fashionable for us to side, really, with the terrorists. …You know, President Obama has a lot of rhetoric about support for American military families, support for our men and women who are fighting for us overseas. But if he really cares about them, then he wouldn’t be making such an effort to release photos that show them in a negative light.” The hundreds of photos in question were taken during more than 60 criminal investigations between 2001 and 2006, and allegedly show military personnel abusing detainees. In recent weeks, Dick Cheney, who was rarely heard from during his eight years as vice president, has railed against President Obama, accusing him of making America less safe. His daughter told Fox News, that the Obama administration appears “only to be interested in releasing things that really paint American in a negative light and don’t give the American people a full picture of what went on.”

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.