Alas, the latest from our Holder Watch.

Republicans in the House, in particular Frank Wolf and Lamar Smith, remain up in arms over the Justice Department’s inexplicable dismissal — after the government had already won the case – of a civil-rights/voter-intimidation complaint against three members of the New Black Panther Party who threatened voters at a Philadephia polling station on election day. Jerry Seper has another report today in the Washington Times. Representative Wolf wants the charges refiled (it’s a civil case so there’s no constitutional double-jeopardy bar, though I imagine there will be contractual complications — the government is expected to honor its agreements, even if it has made a moronic settlement against the public interest).

Republicans meanwhile are pressing for details about internal DOJ deliberations on the case, particularly the role played by Obama political appointees in the dismissal. Holder, Mr. Transparency, is naturally stonewalling. Obviously, the enforcement of the civil rights laws is not as important as the discretionary firing of U.S. attorneys (regarding which congressional Democrats demanded, and got, reams of DOJ documents and testimony). Nor is transparent law-enforcement as critical as the top-secret prisoner photos that Holder wanted disclosed to the world despite warnings from military and intel officials that disclosure would endanger our troops.

Seper recaps the sordid facts:

Two NBPP members, wearing black berets, black combat boots, black dress shirts and black jackets with military-style markings, were charged with intimidating voters, including brandishing a nightstick and issuing racial threats and racial insults. A third was accused of managing, directing and endorsing their behavior. The incident was captured on videotape…. Witnesses said [Minister King] Samir Shabazz, armed with the nightstick, and [Jerry] Jackson used racial slurs and made threats as they stood at the door of the polling place.

I’m sure you’ll be stunned to learn that the sweetheart settlement Holder’s Department gave these defendants does not require them to refrain from election activities. So of course Jackson, the alleged menacing racist who is also — surprise! — a Democratic party operative, is right back in business again:

Mr. Jackson was an elected member of Philadelphia’s 14th Ward Democratic Committee and was credentialed to be at the polling place Nov. 4 as an official Democratic Party polling watcher, according to the Philadelphia city commissioner’s office. A check of his MySpace Web page shows similar taunts. It also shows him in numerous poses with a variety of weapons. Records show Mr. Jackson obtained new credentials as a poll watcher “at any ward/division in Philadelphia” just days after the charges against him were dismissed.

(Emphasis added.) But Holder wants you to know his DOJ means business. The settlement includes an injunction against the nightstick-wielding Samir Shabazz: He is prohibited him from displaying a weapon at a polling place . . . until 2012. And the Department bravely warns that it “will fully enforce the terms of that injunction.”

I must say this is a new one on me. Is Holder saying that if Samir Shabazz wants to swing his nightstick at, say, the 2014 mid-terms, that’s cool? When I was a federal prosecutor, DOJ sort of assumed that people were already forbidden from doing things that were illegal — we didn’t tell bank robbers (after they were actually prosecuted rather than having charges dismissed), “And hey, no more robbing banks for the next three years, ‘kay?” That was understood — for three years and forever.

But I suppose the Shabazz nightstick injunction is better than what happened with Binyam Mohammed, the terrorist the Obama administration released outright to Britain. There was no waiting-period in that no-prosecution deal: Binyam gets to plan blowing up infidels again straightaway.