Stephen Colbert appearing at the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law has done its job. They wanted to distract everyone from the bombshells coming out of the Black Panther hearings when Christopher Coates testified, and it sure did. Glenn Reynolds:
Front page of Daily Caller: Colbert. Drudge led with Colbert until the news of the Klein & Zucker firings came out. Limbaugh led off today talking about Colbert. NRO has covered Colbert at The Corner, but not Coates. Washington Examiner headline: Colbert. Looking around other sites, I see more about Colbert than Coates.
What is the MSM ignoring? Only the fact that Coates, taking whistleblower protection, testified why the case against the Black Panthers was dismissed: (PDF of testimony here)
…the result of their deep-seated opposition to the equal enforcement of the VRA [Voter Rights Act] against racial minorities and for the protection of whites who have been discriminated against.
How wide was the opposition to the equal enforcement of the law in the Black Panther case?
I talked with one career attorney with whom I had previously worked successfully in a voting case and ask him whether he might be interested in working on the Ike Brown case. He informed me in no uncertain terms that he had not come to the Voting Section to sue African American defendants. One of the social scientists who worked in the Voting Section and whose responsibility it was to do past and present research into a local jurisdiction’s history flatly refused to participate in the investigation. On another occasion, a Voting Section career attorney informed me that he was opposed to bringing voting rights cases against African American defendants, such as in the Ike Brown case, until we reached the day when the socioeconomic status of blacks in Mississippi was the same as the socio-economic status of whites living there.
More example of the widespread opposition to enforcing the law against black defendants:
Opposition within the Voting Section was widespread to taking actions under the VRA on behalf of white voters in Noxubee County, MS, the jurisdiction in which Ike Brown is and was the Chairman of the local Democratic Executive Committee. In 2003, white voters and candidates complained to the Voting Section that elections had been administered in a racially discriminatory manner and asked that federal observers be sent to the primary run-off elections. Career attorneys in the Voting Section recommended that we not even go to Noxubee County for the primary run-off to do election coverage, but that opposition to going to Noxubee was overridden by the Bush Administration’s CRD Front Office. I went on the coverage and while traveling to Mississippi, the Deputy Chief who was leading that election coverage asked me, “can you believe that we are going to Mississippi to protect white voters?”
Even more damaging:
When I became Chief of the Voting Section in 2008 and because I had experienced, as I have described, employees in the Voting Section refusing to work on the Ike Brown case, I began to ask applicants for trial attorney positions in their job interviews whether they would be willing to work on cases that involved claims of racial discrimination against white voters, as well as cases that involved claims of discrimination against minority voters. For obvious reasons, I did not want to hire people who were politically or ideologically opposed to the equal enforcement of the voting statutes the Voting Section is charged with enforcing. The asking of this question in job interviews did not ever, to my knowledge, cause any problems with the applicants to whom I ask that question, and in fact every applicant to whom I asked the question responded that he or she would have no problem working on a case involving white victims such as in the Ike Brown case.
However, word that I was asking applicants that question got back to Loretta King. In the spring of 2009, Ms. King, who by then had been appointed Acting AAG for Civil Rights by the Obama Administration, called me to her office and specifically instructed me that I was not to ask any other applicants whether they would be willing to, in effect, race-neutrally enforce the VRA. Ms. King took offense that I was asking such a question of job applicants and directed me not to ask it because she does not support equal enforcement of the provisions of the VRA and had been highly critical of the filing and civil prosecution of the Ike Brown case. From Ms. King’s view, why should I ask that question when a response that an applicant would not be willing to work on a case against minority election officials would not in any way, in her opinion, weigh against hiring that applicant to work in the Voting Section.
The election of President Obama brought to positions of influence and power within the CRD many of the very people who had demonstrated hostility to the concept of equal enforcement of the VRA. For example, Mr. Kapplehoff, who had complained in 2008 that the Brown case had caused problems with civil rights groups, was appointed as the Acting Chief of Staff for the entire CRD. And Loretta King, the person who forbid me even to ask any applicants for a Voting Section position whether he or she would be willing to enforce the VRA in a race-neutral manner, was appointed as Acting Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights.
King wanted only those who saw the world as she saw it. If you’re white you cannot be racially discriminated against. So once she gained power under Obama and friends Coates wasn’t even allowed to interview applicants.
Any attorney or paralegal that DID help in the Black Panther case was harassed incessantly, but nothing was done to stop the harassment.
In the end the dismissal of the case was done to send a message:
The final disposition of the NBPP case, even in the face of a default by the defendants, was caused by this incorrect view of civil rights enforcement, and it was intended to send a direct message to people inside and outside the CRD. That message is that the filing of voting cases like the Ike Brown and the NBPP cases would not continue in the Obama Administration.
Are we hearing about any of this in the MSM? So far not so much. This should be the lead story on the nightly newscasts, and front page news in the papers.
You know full well it would be if this stuff happened during Bush’s time in office and the defendants were white.
It would have been huge.
Now, not so much.
More here
See author page
This was streaming live on Pajamas Media TV all this AM.
Anybody else see it all?
I was astonished.
The Holder DOJ should be in deep water but who holds his feet to the fire?
Is there a controlling legal authority?
The Human Rights Commission doesn’t even seem to have the power to make DOJ officers respect their subpoenas.
On the flip side of the issues Curt raises… Colbert today. OMG. If you want to view his opening statement, you can do so at the MSNBC site.
BTW, you’ll notice that Sheila Jackson Lee was busy texting in one of the committee shots. Probably her way of returning fire for Colbert’s mocking of her when she did the same to the cancer victim in the town hall. 😆
After a liberal Democrat respectfully requested that Colbert leave without testifying, just put in his written statement, I think a lot of Dems were trying to look invisible.
Who can blame them?
Even if it appeared they were taking him seriously ads could be created making them into laughingstocks
I think madam chairwoman is in line for a few ads like these.
She was an idiot.
She made it impossible for Democrats to look serious at all.
That “liberal Democrat” was none other than John Conyers, the Judiciary committee chair, Nan G. Colbert was appearing at the request of Sen. Lofgren, the subcommittee chair. When Conyers asked Colbert to leave the room, Lofgren had a side chat with CA Republican Sen. Dan Lungren (former CA AQ, BTW…) as to how to handle it. The conversation we are not made privvy to, of course, but when Colbert came up for speaking, Conyers withdrew his request for Colbert to leave.
You can find more indepth data at the WA Examiner.
The MSM is just a propaganda branch of the democratic party. They go along with whatever the democrats want, even going along with known lies. That is why I call them the propaganda media. I used to get ALL of my news from the Internet until King Obama told me not to listen to Fox News. I don’t have cable, but I listen to my local Philadelphia Fox station now, and they tell me more in one day than the propaganda media does in one year. I don’t know how the other Philadelphia stations covered the story, or even if they did.
So now the cat is out of the bag …
The next time Republicans need to suppress a bunch of white liberal voters, they just hire a bunch of Blacks to go over an harass them .. the DOJ won’t protect their sorry asses.
Republican wins .. Black unemployment goes down .. a win-win.
Mark Levin covered this today in the first hour of his radio show. You did a great job getting all the details on this, Curt. I firmly believe this was smoke and mirrors to detract from the Black Panther hearings.
What I don’t understand is why the Democrats were willing to look like bigger fools then they already are by putting up with Colbert, when everybody knows that the MSM is going to sugar coat whatever comes out the the Black Panther hearing. Thomas Jefferson once said “When injustice becomes law, then rebellion becomes duty” if we do not have injustice right now, we never will. Election fraud, voter intimidation, illegal immigrants flooding our country and the Attorney General has time to sue a sheriff for doing his sworn duty. This is pathetic!
The socialists had the utter gall to criticize the Bush admin for firing a handful of US attorneys as “politicizing” the dept. This is REAL politicization. And the media willfully ignores it.
Curt wrote this in his OP:
And ain’t it the truth!
There are plenty of people who find each of the itty-bitty irrelevant details of that Colbert farce more important to comment on (in TV, radio, print, even blogs), than the far more substantive and earth-shattering testimony from the Coates’ testimony!!!
The DOJ is only complying with the Postmodern philosophy that is being taught by academia. Society has repressed the black people. Because of that, they should be allowed to make up by pushing other races around. That is the same philosophy for wealth redistribution. Giving the Black Panthers a pass is something all of us should have expected from this administration.
And if Shabazz stands on a street corner and says they need to kill Cracker (sic) babies, it is not a Hate Crime, it is just a fact of life. Maybe Holder was correct when he said we were cowards to speak of race. Well, I’m not, that bastard needs to be in prison.
The white House is claiming that the Malik Shabazz who visited the White House for a PRIVATE meeting in the RESIDENCE part of the place was some other Malik Shabazz!
Throughout July Congressmen Frank Wolf (R-VA) and Lamar Smith (R-TX) were beginning to ask questions about to the dropped charges against the NBPP. So was the United States Commission on Civil Rights. Here is a timeline, according to former attorney in the Civil Rights Division of the Dept. of Justice, J. Christian Adams:
* July 8, Representative Frank Wolf sent a letter to Judiciary Chairman John Conyers and Ranking Member Lamar Smith demanding hearings before the House Judiciary Committee.
* July 9, Ten members of the House sent a letter demanding the DOJ Inspector General open an investigation.
* July 13, The Dept. of Justice replied but their letter contained factual inaccuracies about the case
* July 17 Smith and Wolf send a swift and pointed rebuttal
* July 20, Low-level DOJ staffers were sent to the Hill to brief Wolf on the Panther story, but Wolf threw them out of his office claiming they weren’t being truthful to him.
* July 22, Wolf sent another letter to Attorney General Eric Holder demanding answers.
* July 24, Portia Robinson, intergovernmental liaison at DOJ, sent a letter to the Civil Rights Commission trying to deflect attention.
* July 25, a man named Malik Shabazz visited the exclusive, private residence in the White House.
* July 30, the Washington Times broke the news that top political appointee, Tom Perrelli (the #3 official at Justice) was involved in the dismissal of the case. Perrelli was also a top campaign bundler for Obama.
I noticed the White House has never produced this supposed ”other” Malik shabazz.
Now Nan….we all know that the name Malik Sabazz is almost as popular as the names John Smith or Barack Obama.
Lots and lots and lots of guys have those names.
Gotta be thousands of “Malik Sabazzes” runnin’ round out there….
You couldn’t possibly believe that the White House would be dishonest about such a thing could you?
Nah, nothing to see here.
@Nan G: #13 I noticed the White House has never produced this supposed ”other” Malik shabazz.
Give them time. I’m sure they are working on it.
When asked why the MSM wasn’t pursuing this and applying the basics of journalism to this issue, they replied, “Journalism? Journalism? We don’t need no stinkin’ journalism.”