EEOC rides to the defense of muslims, filing discrimination suits in Nebraska, California, Colorado over headscarfs, prayer

The Obama Administration’s taxpayer-funded Islamic defense program has been quite busy this week, filing several discrimination lawsuits on behalf of Muslims in different parts of the country and holding Justice Department meetings to discuss prosecuting “anti-Muslim hate speech.”

The legal actions come on the same week that the White House and various federal agencies—including the Department of Homeland Security—hosted a special workshop to provide members of radical Islamic groups with direct access to U.S. government funding, assistance and resources. Read all about that here.

Now the administration is flexing its legal muscle in its ardent quest to befriend the enemy. A federal civil rights agency known as the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has filed discrimination lawsuits against companies in Nebraska, California and Colorado for discriminating against Muslims by not accommodating prayer breaks and forbidding a headscarf on the job.

The government sued meatpacking plants in Greeley Colorado and Grand Island Nebraska for religious and racial harassment because dozens of Muslim employees were “denied prayer time” during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. The lawsuit seeks changes to policies and procedures to accommodate Muslim workers, payment for past and future damages and punitive damages.

In a third lawsuit filed this week the EEOC claims that an outdoor apparel store discriminated against a Muslim female job applicant in northern California because she wore a headscarf known as a hijab. The company has a longstanding employee dress code banning any sort of head covering but the government asserts that in this particular case it’s discriminating on the basis of religion.

Also this week, the Justice Department met with a coalition of Islamic groups that demand the administration criminally prosecute anti-Muslim rhetoric as hate speech. Besides investing more resources to combat discrimination against Muslims, coalition leaders want Attorney General Eric Holder to “make a strong public statement” condemning hate crimes, harassment and discrimination against Muslims.

While Obama tries to gain hispanic votes by fighting Arizona's immigration law, 62% of Colorado's hispanics support Arizona

Some Democrats, even in Arizona, are fearing an election backlash over immigration, as President Obama sues Arizona over its new immigration enforcement law and pushes Congress to pass a comprehensive immigration overhaul.

"My concern is that the federal government is suing the state of Arizona, ironically, over the ability to enforce immigration laws -- where if the federal government had been doing its job over the years, we wouldn't be in this situation in the first place," Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., said.

Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard, the Democratic nominee for governor, urged the Obama administration to back off Arizona's new law, which allows state and local authorities to ask people for immigration documents during unrelated enforcement encounters – such as traffic stops.

The president appears to be out of step with public opinion on immigration. The latest Fox News Opinion Dynamics poll shows 2-to-1 support nationwide for Arizona's law, including 73 percent of Republicans, 57 percent of independents and one out of three Democrats.

On immigration, the GOP accuses Democrats of ignoring a border crisis and selling out national security to cynically court Latino votes.

(snip)

...in Colorado, a recent Denver Post poll said 62 percent of Colorado Hispanics favor a law like Arizona's. The state's Republican gubernatorial front runner Scott McInnis supports it. But Democratic gubernatorial candidate John Hickenlooper, the mayor of Denver, opposes it, putting himself at odds with those Colorado Latinos.

Job floated to entice Romanoff out of Senate bid pays $165,300

One of the jobs floated by a top White House official to Senate candidate Andrew Romanoff, in an attempt to get him out of a primary challenge to an incumbent Democrat, would have paid him $165,300.

The director of the U.S. Trade and Development Agency is paid an annual salary at the Executive Level III, according to the Plum Book, the government publication that lists roughly 9,000 appointment positions every four years after a presidential election.

The Office of Personnel Management lists Executive Level III positions as receiving a salary in 2010 of $165,300. A spokesman for the USTDA confirmed this number as the director’s salary.

The USTDA’s director position is a post requiring Senate confirmation.

USTDA has an annual budget of $55 million and 78 employees. The director’s post was one of three government positions that were dangled in front of Romanoff by deputy White House chief of staff Jim Messina, according to both Romanoff and the White House.

The other two positions were Deputy Assistant Administrator for Latin America and Caribbean at USAID and Director, Office of Democracy and Governance at USAID. Neither of those jobs appeared to be as high-paying as the USTDA position, based on searches of OPM’s website.

The White House has insisted that no job was technically offered to Romanoff, but that Messina followed up with Romanoff after the former state legislator had applied online for government jobs following President Obama’s election in November 2008.

But even the mention of a potential job with such high compensation, in exchange for political activity such as leaving a Senate race, is certain to raise new questions about whether the White House has broken the law.

21 months after Obama's nomination at Mile High Stadium, Dem dream of dominance has given way to hope for survival

DENVER — When Barack Obama stood before an admiring audience at Mile High Stadium here and accepted his presidential nomination 21 months ago, Democratic leaders crowed about turning Colorado into a reliable stronghold, another step toward building the party’s strength in the West.

Those dreams of expansion have given way to hopes for survival.

Republicans are now well positioned for a statewide resurgence, threatening several Democratic seats in the midterm elections and raising questions about whether the opening chapter of the Obama administration has eroded gains that Democrats had been making here for the previous six years.

A persistently sluggish economy, the ninth-highest foreclosure rate in the country, the rising federal budget deficit and opposition to the new health care law have all contributed to a volatile environment for Democrats. The number of registered Democrats has dropped slightly since Mr. Obama’s 9-point victory here, becoming only the third presidential candidate of his party to carry Colorado since Harry S. Truman.

“We were set up for a 15- or 20-year Democratic dominance,” said Gary Hart, a former Democratic senator from Colorado, adding that the party would have prospered if the economy had not collapsed. “This state, more than most, is a pendulum. It seems to be to be swinging faster than it did before.”