David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union, comments on the villainous action of the Obama Justice Department whereby it dismissed all charges against those unrepentant Black Panthers who were over-the-top guilty of voter intimidation in Philadelphia.Apparently if it's perpetrated by the Left, just about any injustice, any hypocrisy, even any act of thuggery gets a free ride nowadays -- by the bureaucrats and the MSM both.
Here's some of Keene's article from The Hill.
...But now it seems that [Attorney General Eric] Holder and company are doing just what liberals accused Bush’s minions of doing. Last week The Washington Times revealed that political appointees at the Department overruled career lawyers to end an investigation and civil complaint against three members of the New Black Panther Party for Self Defense, who on Election Day last November took it upon themselves to make certain voters in one Philadelphia precinct “did the right thing.”
These three thugs, dressed in paramilitary garb, were caught on camera wielding nightsticks to intimidate white voters who they suspected might not be prepared to vote for their candidate. The film, as happens these days, quickly ended up on YouTube, shocked those who saw it and resulted in a Justice Department investigation of charges that the three had violated the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
The Voting Rights Act was passed in large measure to prevent intimidation of minority voters in the South, but not even ’60s Klan members had the audacity to don sheets and show up at polling places with weapons to hurl threats and racial epithets at voters. These guys, in other words, made the Klansmen of an earlier age look sophisticated — and that is quite an accomplishment.
Indeed, the Times quoted a ’60s civil rights activist who actually witnessed what went on in Philadelphia as saying that what he saw these guys do represented “the most blatant form of voter intimidation” he had ever seen. Anyone who saw the YouTube footage would have to agree.
During the DoJ investigation, it was discovered that at least one of these characters got into the polling place because he had credentials as a Democratic poll watcher. He didn’t steal the credentials. They were his, as he was and is an elected member of Philadelphia’s 14th Ward Democratic Committee. What’s more, although the three simply refused to appear in court, one bragged that what they did was part of a nationwide effort to deploy likeminded types at select polling places around the country.
It should be remembered that in previous elections, Democrats have charged that the mere request for identification at polling places is intimidating to minority voters and that Republican lawyers dispatched to polling places as poll watchers were simply — by their presence — so intimidating as to be beyond the pale. That sort of “intimidation” in the age in which we live is seen as deplorable; but a bunch of filthy-mouthed, club-wielding goons are dismissed as perhaps just a bit overenthusiastic.
To their credit, career Justice officials were prepared to enforce the law against these three, until President Obama’s political appointees ordered them to stop.
Democrats in the Senate during the Bush years were constantly calling Justice Department officials to Capitol Hill to explain their actions. It’s time to see if Attorney General Holder will be questioned by the Democratic Senate and House to explain why he and those working for him convinced themselves it is acceptable to let racist thugs who intimidate voters walk.
