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More than 1,000 protesters march overnight at St. Louis University to condemn the recent fatal shootings of two black teenagers by police. (Reuters)

The continuing protests in St. Louis over the shooting death of a young black man offer a stark reminder that whoever replaces Eric Holder as attorney general will arrive at the Justice Department at a unique momentfor the agency's civil rights and criminal justice work. While thedepartment over the past 13 yearshas been preoccupiedwith terrorismand Wall Street's infractions, the next attorney general's tenure could well be shaped by confronting the legacy of racism in America.

Holder often spoke loudly on these issues, saying what President Obama decided he could not, but his successor will have to wrestle with a complex array of issues.Racial tension over the police shooting of an unarmed teen in Ferguson, Mo., awakened this summer national concern about the makeup of local police departments and the bias and behavior of officers.

States have recently passed an array ofnew voting laws, from mandates to obtain a voter ID to limits on early voting, that raise civil-rights red flags as well. In confronting these new regulations, the DOJ now must respond without the power of a key provision of the Voting Rights Act that was dismantled last year by the Supreme Court.

Seismic changes are also underway in how the DOJ approaches sentencing guidelines and the war on drugs, which have long driven the unmatched rise of incarceration in America, and the parallel surge in costs particularly for minority communities. As a result of a shift in thinking about the goals of prison policy (and the effectiveness of the war on drugs), the federal prison population is now declining for the first time in three decades, a trend prison-reform groups are anxious to see continue.

For all of these reasons, criminal-justice and civil-rights advocates are counting on another vocal leader to replace Holder. They are looking for someone who will prioritize those roles of DOJ's mission policing discrimination, protecting voting rights, redirecting prison policy which have been periodically neglected, deemed outdated, or unwise.

The intensity with which these issues remain in the news, however, will complicate the confirmation process for Obama's nominee. It's harder today than just a few years ago to dismiss the persistence of racial bias in the criminal justice system, a topic that may be easier to openly acknowledge post-Ferguson. But there remains far less (if any) political agreement on the racial impacts of new voting laws.

"If you say at your confirmation hearings 'were going to spend a lot of time and effort on looking at these [state] statues that seem to restrict voting,' the Republicans are going to go crazy on that. Just crazy," says Richard Ugelow, a former longtime attorney in the Civil Rights Division of the DOJ and now a member of the faculty at American University's Washington College of Law.

Part of the department's challenge in its civil-rights work is that broad public disagreement over whether discrimination still exists has widened as discrimination itself has taken on subtler forms. Government agencies no longer openlybar minority job applicants. But recruiting practices may still have the effect of excluding them. Landlords no longer advertise when blacks aren't welcome. But the housing options available to minorities are still constricted by the fewer possibilities shown to them by landlords and real estate agents.

Likewise, public schools are no longer segregated by policy. But housing patterns have the effect of making them so, exposing children to unequal education. And literal poll taxes no longer exist. But voter IDs have been likened to them even by federal judges.

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Wonkblog: St. Louis protests show the many civil rights and criminal justice battles awaiting Eric Holders successor

Democrat Betsy Markeys ad.

Democrat Betsy Markey claims in her first campaign ad that Republican state Treasurer Walker Stapleton is AWOL an awful lot a charge his campaign dismisses as silly.

At best, its inexcusable. At worst, its a scandal, the spot says. According to official key card records, Stapleton only bothers showing up at his office around 10 days a month.

Stapletons campaign spokesman, Michael Fortney, said when the treasurer forgets his key card, which is often, he goes through the public entrance where attendance records are not kept.

This is silly. Betsy knows there is more than one way to get into the Capitol. The fact is she has zero understanding of the treasurers office and public finance so she has to rely on this garbage, Fortney said.

The ad concludes by saying for a serious state treasurer, who built one of Americas 500 fastest-growing companies, businesswoman Betsy Markey.

Actually, most folks identify Markey as a former congresswoman who took out ultra conservative Marilyn Musgrave in 2008, despite Congressional District 4 being incredibly favorable to Republicans. Markey was defeated by state Rep. Cory Gardner in the 2010 GOP wave; he now is running for the U.S. Senate. Stapleton that same year defeated the incumbent state treasurer, Democrat Cary Kennedy. He now is running for re-election.

Heres the script for the ad:

At best, its inexcusable. At worst, its a scandal.

State Treasurer Walker Stapleton.

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Treasurer's race: Betsy Markey hammers Walker Stapleton on attendance

President Obama speaking with Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell about the new Ebola virus diagnosis in Dallas. (Associated Press) ** FILE ** more >

President Obama needs to sweep through his inner ranks and weed out those who arent doing him any political good those who are simply telling him what he wants to hear, rather than what he needs to hear, a key Democratic strategist said.

Only the strategist unnamed in The Hill article used more colorful language: Mr. Obama should take a flamethrower to his office, the Democrat said.

He needs dramatic change its not even a debatable point, the strategist went on, The Hill reported. The general consensus is that the president is surrounded by people who do him more harm than good because they are more focused on pleasing him than they are challenging him or proposing a different course.

The Hill reported other Democrats are saying similarly, due in large part to the presidents failure to pass much of his agenda since his re-election. Meanwhile, most Democrats seeking political re-election have seemed to distance themselves from Mr. Obama, preferring he stay far from their campaign trails.

When he lost [David] Plouffe, when [David] Axelrod left, there arent too many people who can walk into the Oval Office and shut the door, said Democratic strategist Peter Finn, The Hill reported. And those guys could they could speak really frankly to him. How does he put people in the White House with serious political chops?

Meanwhile, Jim Manley, a former aide to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, said the White House was going to have to face a quick overhaul soon, and its probably something theyre going to have to consider for a lot of different reasons, The Hill reported.

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Democrat strategist says Obama 'should take a flamethrower to his office'

HARTFORD - The last time a non-Democrat held the office of attorney general in Connecticut was 1959. The current Democratic occupant, George Jepsen, was all of five years old back then.

In this election, Jepsen is being challenged by opponents who occupy opposite ends of the political spectrum and have very different approaches to the campaign.

Republican Kie Westby is a conservative lawyer from Thomaston who believes Connecticut must drop its "anti-business attitude" that he claims has driven companies out of the state and hurt job growth. He's also an NRA member opposed to new state gun controls passed after the Sandy Hook killings, and a harsh critic of "Common Core" educational standards.

Green Party candidate Stephen Fournier is proudly "to the left of the other two" in the race. He considers the federal government an "enemy of the state of Connecticut," and wants to investigate its role in the 9/11 disaster. Fournier thinks many voters out there are as angry as he is with big government and big business.

Jepsen's challengers are leaving the incumbent a lot of room in the political middle. Like his predecessors in the attorney general's office, Jepsen casts himself as a champion of consumers and a defender of personal privacy.

Tried-and-true formula

It's a tried-and-true formula, and a recent opinion survey by Public Policy Polling indicates it may well be working again: the poll gave Jepsen a 15-point edge over Westby and a 36-point advantage over Fournier.

Both Jepsen and Westby are planning on using the state's public campaign finance system, which would give each more than $812,000 in taxpayer money to spend on this election. Fournier isn't seeking any public election funding, and expects to spend less than $1,000 on his third-party candidacy.

Jepsen last week put up his first TV campaign ad of the race. Westby, who only recently made his formal application for public financing, is hoping for a quick approval so he can respond with his own TV commercials.

In 2010, Jepsen won his first attorney general contest with 53.7 percent of the vote. Republican Martha Dean another GOP conservative pulled 43.6 percent, while Fournier got 2.9 percent of the ballots cast.

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Attorney General Facing A Conservative And Radical Liberal In General Election

Immense Lie About ISIS Spreads Fear, Confusion The Republican Message
"Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) claimed Tuesday that "at least" 10 Islamic State fighters were apprehended while attempting to enter the U.S. at its southern border. The San Diego Republican...

By: The Young Turks

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Immense Lie About ISIS Spreads Fear, Confusion & The Republican Message - Video