New Black Panthers

[Conan71]

I think the Obama Administration and DOJ has been curiously silent on the Shabazz case.  Can anyone here honestly say that if Klansmen had been engaged in the same behavior outside a polling place that the DOJ would be firmly implanted in their arse and there would have been a denouncement by the administration and this case would not have been dropped? 

http://www.theroot.com/blogs/voter-intimidation/obamas-justice-department-isnt-racist-it-should-explain-itself

This is the sort of sleight-of-hand I despise in news outlets, regardless of their political bent. At best, it seems intellectually dishonest to attack the Bush administration for its prejudice while simultaneously ignoring the reprehensible actions of the New Black Panthers, who paced in front of a polling place in paramilitary gear while brandishing a weapon and, according to sworn affidavits, using racial slurs; at worst it's intentionally negligent. Some DoJ proponents have even been plain illogical, saying things like, "There's not been a single voter from that polling place who's come forward to testify that they were intimidated." Well, isn't that the entire point of intimidation, guys?

If anything, it's a liberal's job to try and protect and progress an egalitarian agenda rather than seek revenge against foes whenever the opportunity presents itself. To that end, it is in everyone's best interests to get to the bottom of why, after having a blackjack directly outside of a polling place and allegedly telling "crackers" they were about to be "ruled by the black man," the DoJ's sole movement against King Samir Shabazz was an injunction barring him from having a weapon within 100 feet of a polling place until 2012. It's already illegal to wield a weapon that close to polling places, meaning Shabazz' slap on the wrist amounts to even less than that.

Why didn't Justice throw the book at these clowns? It's certainly wasn't a case that required the time, energy and finances of the entire Civil Rights Division, but was it really a case that should have resulted in little more than a warning to not be a bad boy again?

You'd have to be a bit crazy to actually believe that seasoned attorney Barack Obama is using the Justice Department, one of his most powerful and sacred tools as chief executive, to settle scores against "The White Man." But, as I've said before, I also think you'd have to be naïve to assume that things in Justice would have played out the same way had it been white men carrying clubs and threatening "niggers" with "the white man's reign."

-Cord Jefferson is a staff writer at The Root. Follow him

[Gaspar]

Hey, I hate crackers just as much as the next guy, but Shabazz was out of line!

[Conan71]

Hey, I hate crackers just as much as the next guy, but Shabazz was out of line!

I'm a Triscuit guy myself.

[Gaspar]

I'm a Triscuit guy myself.

I pegged you as a wheat thin guy.

[rwarn17588]

Why didn't Justice throw the book at these clowns?

Generally, lack of evidence.

And the case was downgraded at DOJ before Obama took office.

[custosnox]

Generally, lack of evidence.

And the case was downgraded at DOJ before Obama took office.

video tape of the incident and sworn testimony is lack of evidence?

[guido911]

video tape of the incident and sworn testimony is lack of evidence?

RW is running the dem talking point as a means to justify the DOJ decision refusal to follow up on the civil convictions of those Black Panthers. Here is this meme taken down:

These claims by a nonlawyer betray a fundamental ignorance of the difference between civil and criminal prosecutions and a total misunderstanding of how things work at the Justice Department and the Civil Rights Division. First of all, although the Civil Rights Division has a Criminal Section, the vast majority of its voting-rights prosecutions are civil cases conducted by the division's Voting Section. Whenever someone violates the Voting Rights Act and does so in a way that is potentially both a civil and a criminal violation, the division must decide whether to proceed first with a civil or a criminal case. With most voting cases, the decision is usually to go with a civil case, particularly if there are elections coming up in the near future. That is because civil cases have a lower burden of proof and give the government the opportunity to obtain almost immediately a temporary injunction to stop the defendants from engaging in the same wrongful behavior as the case winds its way through the federal courts.

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZTA4M2NmNzY5N2FkZGEyMGI4ODkwNjYyNzgxYTAzMDQ=


Here is the video of these guys:

[guido911]

Here is more of that non-existent evidence:

A poll watcher who provided an affidavit to prosecutors in the case noted that Bartle Bull, who worked as a civil rights lawyer in the south in the 1960's and is a former campaign manager for Robert Kennedy, said it was the most blatant form of voter intimidation he had ever seen.

In his affidavit, obtained by FOX News, Bull wrote "I watched the two uniformed men confront voters and attempt to intimidate voters. They were positioned in a location that forced every voter to pass in close proximity to them. The weapon was openly displayed and brandished in plain sight of voters."

He also said they tried to "interfere with the work of other poll observers ... whom the uniformed men apparently believed did not share their preferences politically," noting that one of the panthers turned toward the white poll observers and said "you are about to be ruled by the black man, cracker."

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/05/29/charges-new-black-panthers-dropped-obama-justice-dept/

[guido911]

Here is the obligatory video of the catfight on Fox between Megyn Kelly and Kirsten Powers on the Black Panther (I have to laugh at the name of this group, as if they are a bunch of bada$$e$ or something--the dude outside the polling station with the stick looked like a freakin wuss):

[Breadburner]

Is the NAACP involved in this....If not why..?

[Conan71]

Wow, sounds like it's not only nutty right wingers who are considering 2nd Amendment solutions, eh Nathan?  This is a hate group, pure and simple.  I see no difference between them and the KKK or the Aryan Nation.  Granted, they all have their 1st Amendment right to speak out like idiots if they like, but this group espouses the ideals of armed insurrection.  I honestly don't understand how the gov't could have dropped this case.  Why are we so afraid of being labeled as "racist" for enforcing all laws equally if it falls squarely on the back of a black separatist group?

"What he wants, ultimately, are separate societies, segregated on the basis of skin color. Whites here, blacks there, brown-skinned, red-skinned and yellow-skinned people there, there and there, each in control of their own pieces of real estate.

To achieve that, he says, the white capitalist power structures of the West must be eliminated. And if this vision is ever realized, it won't be through peaceful means. Forget about the nonviolent civil disobedience of Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King.

"I love Dr. King," Shabazz says, "but I'm not going to get beat up to share a toilet with anyone."

The changes Shabazz wants, he says, will only come through armed insurrection. "Huey Newton said power flows through the barrel of a gun," Shabazz says, invoking the name of one of the original Black Panthers. "We plan to make changes the same way George Washington did, the same way any oppressed people get power."

He refuses to discuss or even acknowledge any specific plans for revolution, nor will he disclose what kind of weaponry his group has, though he does admit that they're often armed and can shift from "Martin Luther King mode" to "Malcolm X mode" at any time.

http://www.metrotimes.com/editorial/story.asp?id=7648

[swake]

I understand that it may be difficult to prosecute these "gentlemen" (racist as$hats) because they don't ever advocate how someone should vote and the weapon they are carrying is just a stick. I get that, but the government's response to this hate group is too soft and if there is no current prohibition against this kind of behavior outside of a polling place, then new laws need to be passed. There are times and places where free speech can be curtailed and outside of a polling place is one of them. Threats of any kind, implicit or implied should be illegal within a certain radius of a polling place. I would hope the administration and congress are working on this.

[guido911]

Today Christopher Coates, a career lawyer at the DoJ testified that he thought the dismissal of the NBPP intimidation case was a travesty and that the DoJ is not interested in race neutral enforcement of voting right act violations.

Here is his statement:

http://pajamasmedia.com/files/2010/09/christopher_coates_testimony_9-24-10.pdf

[Conan71]

So DOJ can simply tell employees to ignore subpoenas, just like that, eh?

[guido911]

So DOJ can simply tell employees to ignore subpoenas, just like that, eh?

Heck yes. I tell my clients all the time to ignore subpoenas. Judges love that. /sarc (for those brain dead folks in here)