Inquiring minds want to know:
As I have reported here at Pajamas Media and most recently at the Weekly Standard, the inexplicable dismissal by the Obama Justice Department of the default judgment in a case of egregious voter intimidation at a Philadelphia polling place on Election Day 2008 has unleashed a torrent of questions about why the case was dropped against all but one defendant (the individual actually wielding a nightstick got off with a proverbial slap on the hand) and who made the decision to drop it. The Justice Department has stonewalled, claiming career attorneys made the call.
But with news reports that career lawyers who did the legwork on the case were overridden and that the associate attorney general was involved in the decision to dismiss, Republicans on Capitol Hill and the bipartisan U.S. Commission on Civil Rights are swinging into action.
First, Rep. Lamar Smith, the ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee, and Senate Republicans have joined together to block, at least temporarily, the confirmation of the president’s pick to head the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, which handled the New Black Panther case. Roll Call reports:
Frustrated by what they say the Department of Justice is stalling in an investigation into alleged voter intimidation by the New Black Panther Party during the 2008 election, House and Senate Republicans have coordinated a temporary blockade of President Barack Obama’s nomination of Tom Perez to be assistant attorney general of the Civil Rights Division. …
In a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans, House Judiciary ranking member Lamar Smith (R-Texas) formally requested that a Member place a hold on Perez’s nomination.
“I write to request that you place a hold on the nomination of Mr. Tom Perez. … I ask that the hold remain in effect until the Department provides Congress with sufficient information about the sudden dismissal of a case alleging voter intimidation by the New Black Panther Party on Election Day 2008,” Smith said in the letter.
It is clear that it was a political decision to let the Panthers off the hook – Obama’s supporters look to fascist groups like the Panthers to provide the muscle necessary to intimidate the streets at election time. And all with plausible deniability – “what, us? No, no, no – that was them; they did it. We’re just sweet, innocent liberals who wouldn’t harm a fly”. If we don’t put a stop to this, we’ll soon find gangs of thugs around all our polling places – all of them menacing anyone they think might vote “wrong”.
The US Commission on Civil Rights is demanding that Justice – specifically, AG Holder – provide documents to show just why this clear violation of the Voting Rights Act was dropped. Holder can comply, or can stonewall. I believe he’ll stonewall as long as he can and then let out info in driblets, hoping it won’t go anywhere – but with the rise in voter anger as expressed in the TEA Party movement, the raucus town halls and the use of union thugs to beat anti-Obama demonstrators, this is all coming to a head. Either we’ve got a government which secures our liberty, or we’ve got liberal fascists intimidating us with government consent (actual or implied).
You liberals out there should really think hard about this.
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