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The New Black Panthers and the Justice Department

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Black Panthers Endorse Obama
Obama, who has been a Panther supporter for years, has received the endorsement of the New Black Panther Party.


"Barack Obama represents 'Positive Change' for all of America.  Obama will stir the 'Melting Pot' into a better "Molten America.'"
 
Read The New Black Panther Party 10 Point Platform from the anti-white and virulently anti-Semitic black supremacist party that has endorsed Obama on the presidential candidate's own website.



Following criticism earlier this month of an online endorsement from the New Black Panther Party (NBPP), Obama's campaign removed the controversial organization from the presidential candidate's official website.  The NBPP had been a registered team member and blogger on Obama's "MyObama" campaign site.

But the NBPP endorsement was reposted on Obama's official website today.

"Obama is capable of stirring the 'melting pot' into a better 'molten America,'" states the NBPP endorsement posted on Obama's site.

The NBPP is a controversial black extremist party whose leaders are notorious for their racist statements and for leading anti-white activism.  Malik Zulu Shabazz, NBPP national chairman, who has given scores of speeches condemning "white men" and Jews, confirmed his organization's endorsement of Obama in a recent interview with WND.

"I think the way Obama responded to the attack on him and the attempt to sabotage his campaign shows true leadership and character.  He had a chance to denounce his pastor and he didn't fall for the bait.  He stood up and addressed real issues of racial discord," stated Shabazz.

Shabazz boasted he met Obama last March when the politician attended the 42nd anniversary of the voting rights marches in Selma, Ala.

"I have nothing but respect for Obama and for his pastor," said Shabazz, referring to Jeremiah Wright, Obama's pastor of nearly 20 years.

It is Wright's racially charged and anti-Israel remarks that were widely circulated this month, landing the presidential candidate in hot water and prompting Obama to deliver a major race speech in which he condemned Wright's comments but not the pastor himself.

Speaking to WND, Shabazz referred to Obama as a man with a "Muslim background, a man of color."

Shabazz's NBPP's official platform states "white man has kept us deaf, dumb and blind," refers to the "white racist government of America," demands black people be exempt from military service and uses the word "Jew" repeatedly in quotation marks.

Shabazz has led racially divisive protests and conferences, such as the 1998 Million Youth March in which a few thousand Harlem youths reportedly were called upon to scuffle with police officers and speakers demanded the extermination of whites in South Africa.

The NBPP chairman was quoted at a May 2007 protest against the 400-year celebration of the settlement of Jamestown, Va., stating, "When the white man came here, you should have left him to die."

He claimed Jews engaged in an "African holocaust," and he has promoted the anti-Semitic urban legend that 4,000 Israelis fled the World Trade Center just prior to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

When Shabazz was denied entry to Canada last May while trying to speak at a black action event, he blamed Jewish groups and claimed Canada "is run from Israel."

Canadian officials justified the action stating he has an "anti-Semitic" and "anti-police" record, but some reports blamed what was termed a minor criminal history for the decision to deny him entry.

He similarly blamed Jews for then-New York Mayor Rudi Giuliani's initial decision, later rescinded, against granting a permit for the Million Youth March.

The NBPP's deceased chairman, Khallid Abdul Muhammad, a former Nation of Islam leader who was once considered Louis Farrakhan's most trusted adviser, gave speeches referring to the "white man" as the "devil" and claiming that "there is a little bit of Hitler in all white people."

In a 1993 speech condemned by the U.S. Congress and Senate, Muhammad, lionized on the NBPP site, referred to Jews as "bloodsuckers," labeled the pope a "no-good cracker" and advocated the murder of white South Africans who would not leave the nation subsequent to a 24-hour warning.

All NBPP members must memorize the group's rules, such as that no party member "can have a weapon in his possession while drunk or loaded off narcotics or weed," and no member "will commit any crimes against other party members or black people at all."

The NBPP endorses Obama on its own page of the presidential candidate's official site that allows registered users to post their own blogs.

The group labels itself on Obama's site as representing "Freedom, Justice, and Peace for all of Mankind."  It links to the official NBPP website, which contains what can be arguably regarded as hate material.

The NBPP previously endorsed Obama on the presidential candidate's site, but following publicity of that endorsement, the Obama campaign removed the NBPP posting.

"It's our policy [to remove] any content generated by a group that advocates violence," explained Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor to FoxNews.com.

Before the campaign removed the party's page, Obama spokeswoman Tiffany Edwards told FoxNews.com the NBPP endorsement on Obama's website "has nothing to do with us."

"People can form their own groups," she said. "It's not something that the campaign -- it's not something that we've done."

While it appears anyone can initially sign up as a registered supporter on Obama's site, it isn't clear whether the campaign monitors the site or approves users.  There is a link on each blog page for users to report any abusers, such as those who post controversial entries, to the administrator.

Shabbazz chalked up the Obama campaign's initial removal of his NBPP endorsement from the website to "the game of politics."

"The Obama camp's move to remove our blog doesn't mean much because I understand politics.  We still completely support Obama as the best candidate."

Obama 'less biased' on Israel

Shabazz said that aside from promoting black rights, he also supports Obama because he may take what he called a "less biased" policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"I have hopes he will change the U.S. government's position toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because our position has been unwarranted bias.  Time and time again the U.S. vetoed resolutions in the U.N. Security Council condemning [Israeli] human rights violations. ... I hope he shifts policy," Shabazz said.

But he added he doesn't believe Obama could change America's policy regarding Israel very much since, he said, "other, powerful lobbies" control U.S. foreign policy.

Barack Obama And The New Black Panthers
Somehow, the fact that the future President of the United States shared a podium with leaders of the New Black Panthers, marched with them, and received a public, formal greeting from their party has vanished from the history of Obama’s campaign.  Apart from [Juan] Williams’ single dispatch, no other media outlets ever reported it.
    

    

After NPR initially reported that the Panthers were present at the event with Obama, subsequent reports from Selma omitted any mention of the hate group appearing with the future president.
    

Had any of Obama’s opponents appeared at an event with the KKK or Aryan Nation, The New York Times would have had to double its ink buy.
    

Obama’s appearance does much more than expose mainstream media hypocrisy. It also exposes an association between a vile racist organization and a future President of the United States. Only the degree of association is subject to debate.

Let The Brothers Go

Obama's Justice Department is dropping charges against the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense and two of its members who were involved in voter intimidation on Election Day at a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania polling station.

A Justice spokesman said the department decided to take this action after winning an injunction earlier this month against a third member, Samir Shabazz, that prevents him from ever brandishing a weapon outside a polling place again as he was charged with doing last November.

 


BLACK PANTHERS at Polling Places in Philly

Shabazz was one of the three persons from the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, charged with voter intimidation last January in a lawsuit filed under the Voting Rights Act.  Shabazz will not face any jail time or a fine.

"Claims were dismissed against the other defendants based on a careful assessment of the facts and the law," DOJ spokesman Alejandro Miyar said in a statement.  "The Department is committed to the vigorous prosecution of those who intimidate, threaten or coerce anyone exercising his or her sacred right to vote."  giggle!

On Election Day, two men in uniforms stood outside the polling station with one of them holding a police-style baton weapon and saying he was providing security there.  Justice has alleged that person was Shabazz.

In January, Justice said in a criminal complaint that the chairman of the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense confirmed its members were stationed at that location as part of a nationwide effort to deploy people at polling stations.

Combat boots, leather jackets, military-style berets and a billy club-- and notice how he's brandishing it -- no intimidation there.  I can just see little old white ladies deciding that Obama was going to win anyway, so why bother.

 


Shabazz

That's one scary-looking guy.  He would have given me a moments pause, swinging his police baton at the entrance to the polling station.  I'd have gotten the message. 

Obviously, Obama's Justice Department was just displaying some of the Obamamessiah's vaunted empathy -- "based on a careful assessment of the facts and the law" -- what a hoot! -- obviously, the biggest fact was the guy is a brother -- but Justice warned him not to do it again -- that's the ticket.

Obama and Holder would prefer to prosecute George Bush and Dick Cheney for war crimes. 

Obama has replaced Justice's blindfold with shades.
An Official Watcher
When confronted by Philadelphia Police, Black Panther Jerry Jackson stated that he was "an official watcher" -- meaning that he had been appointed by a party or candidate to observe the election at the polling location.  Only voters, election board workers, and watchers may enter a polling location.  The New Black Panther Party isn’t an officially recognized political party in Philadelphia, so they couldn’t appoint him.  So who gave this guy a credential?

We already reported here that Jackson is an elected member of the Philadelphia Democratic Committee.  And a document obtained from the Philadelphia Board of Elections confirms he was "representing the Democratic Party" at the polls in November.

Here is a copy of the watcher certificate he was issued and below is some of his "official" activity.

Definitely looks like a case of Respondeat Superior by the Democratic Party.
You Are About To Be Ruled By A Black Man, Cracker
Excerpted from the affidavit of Bartle Bull, a civil rights attorney who served in the mid-60s as a lawyer with the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law in Mississippi.  He worked closely with Charles Evers:

I served as an attorney poll observer at the polling place, 1221 Fairmount St, Philadelphia.  There I observed two men wearing Black Panther party insignia, black boots and berets.  They were positioned in front of the entrance to the polling place.

The shorter of the two men possessed a weapon in the form of a billy-club.  I watched the man with the weapon point it at individuals and slap it in his hand.

I watched the two men confront and intimidate voters.  They were positioned in a location that forced every voter to pass in close proximity to them.  The weapon was brandished in plain sight of voters.

I watched the two men interfere with the work of other poll observers whom the uniformed men believed did not share their preferences politically.

In my opinion, the men created an intimidating presence at the entrance to a poll.  In all of my experience in politics, in civil rights litigation...I have never encountered or heard of another instance where armed and uniformed men blocked the entrance to a polling location.  Their clear purpose was to intimidate voters.

I heard the shorter man (Shabazz) make a statement towards white poll observers that "you are about to be ruled by a black man, cracker."
Political Appointees Overruled Career Lawyers
Justice Department political appointees overruled career lawyers and ended a civil complaint accusing three members of the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense of wielding a nightstick and intimidating voters at a Philadelphia polling place last Election Day, according to documents and interviews.

Career lawyers pursued the case for months, including obtaining an affidavit from a prominent 1960s civil rights activist who witnessed the confrontation and described it as "the most blatant form of voter intimidation" that he had seen, even during the voting rights crisis in Mississippi a half-century ago.

The lawyers also had ascertained that one of the three men had gained access to the polling place by securing a credential as a Democratic poll watcher, according to interviews and documents reviewed by The Washington Times.

The career Justice lawyers were on the verge of securing sanctions against the men earlier this month when their superiors ordered them to reverse course, according to interviews and documents.  The court had already entered a default judgment against the men on April 20.
Black Panther Answers Overdue
Philadelphia's, The Bulletin, is reporting that the Chairman of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, Gerald A. Reynolds, has sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder seeking answers to their questions about a voter intimidation case in Philadelphia involving the New Black Panther Party (NBPP).  It considers the responses "overdue."

The letter, dated September 30, 2009, is seemingly an unprecedented action.  It asks for Mr. Holder to "instruct Department officials to fully cooperate" with the Commission's investigation, as required by federal law.

The correspondence noted that the Commission still has not received any of the documents they requested in their initial June inquiries.  It has questions surrounding the "unusual decision" by the DOJ to dismiss the case against two of the three defendants and the equally unusual injunction obtained against the third defendant.

It needs this information because the Commission is responsible to investigate voting rights deprivations and evaluate federal enforcement of federal voting rights laws.  They want to form an independent opinion about the DOJ's enforcement actions and the potential impact on future voter intimidation enforcement.  It may also try "to determine whether any decisions in the case were induced or affected by improper influences."

The communication reminded Mr. Holder that Congress mandates that, "all Federal agencies shall fully cooperate with the Commission to the end that it may effectively carry out its functions and duties."  It wants Mr. Holder to identify the person responsible for complying with the requests.

The Commission voted in September to make its review of the implications of the NBPP matter the subject of its annual enforcement report.  The report focuses on a selected area of civil rights enforcement.

The letter concludes by cautioning Mr. Holder that if he does not respond by October 14, they will contact the DOJ personnel involved directly.

The DOJ filed a lawsuit in January under the Voting Rights Act against the NBP and three of its members alleging the defendants intimidated voters last election day.  The complaint, filed in federal court in Philadelphia, alleged that NBP members Samir Shabazz and Jerry Jackson were standing at a polling location wearing a military-style NBP uniform while Mr. Shabazz repeatedly brandished a "police-style baton weapon."

The complaint said NBPP Chairman Malik Zulu Shabazz confirmed that the placement of Mr. Shabazz and Mr. Jackson was part of a nationwide effort to deploy members at polling locations.  The Justice Department initially sought an injunction to prevent any similar future actions.

None of the defendants responded to the lawsuit.  However, instead of immediately filing for a routine default judgment, the DOJ voluntarily dismissed the lawsuit for two of the defendants -- including Mr. Jackson, who was a Democratic Party poll watcher.

The DOJ only obtained an injunction against Samir Shabazz, which was granted on May 18.  However, this has been criticized because it contained none of the usual conditions for such a case.
Is The Justice Department Against Civil Rights?
The dispute between the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and the Justice Department is starting to look like the legal equivalent of World War II's Anzio campaign, which represented a major escalation late in the war.  The battleground is the controversy about the department's decision to drop voter-intimidation cases against members of the New Black Panther Party.  The commission is mounting a massive legal assault; Justice is refusing to be budged; and the casualties could be high.

The shame of it is that the department itself would be well-served if it would merely cooperate.  That's what it would do if it were confident its decision was correct.

For six months, various members of Congress and the commission have been asking for cooperation from the Justice Department.  The basic questions are simple enough: On what legal basis did Justice drop these cases, which it effectively already had won?  Who were all the officials at Justice (and possibly the White House) who were involved in the decision?  And does the decision represent a shift in enforcement policy concerning voting rights?

The Justice Department stonewalled at almost every turn or provided false information.  For instance, department official Portia Robinson wrongly claimed that New Black Panther defendant Jerry Jackson "was a resident of the apartment building where the polling place was located" (and thus presumably had more of a right to loiter there).  If the department can't even figure out that Mr. Jackson, a visibly fit age 53, doesn't live in a senior assisted-living facility, its overall reliability surely is questionable.

Frustrated by the lack of cooperation, the commission finally resorted to subpoenas to force information from the Justice Department.  The commission has specific statutory power to issue subpoenas, and executive departments are required statutorily to comply.  The Justice Department, however, claimed otherwise and ordered its lawyers to ignore the subpoenas.

That's when the commission went "Anzio" on Justice, with a letter Tuesday documenting the commission's legal authority and a legal-discovery request of breathtaking scope.  The commission's letter notes that the department fully cooperated with a commission subpoena in 2004; the unuttered follow-up question is: So why not this time?

The commission bolstered its claims by citing court precedents and Congressional Research Service reports.  It also said that by consulting on the matter with an outside group -- the NAACP Legal Defense Fund -- the department effectively waived its various claims of privilege.

The discovery request, meanwhile, is 26 pages long, with 49 interrogatories and 51 separate document demands.  Among its key nuggets: The commission challenges the department to justify, at great length, any claim of legal privilege against disclosures; it hints that it suspects White House involvement in the decision; it asks for documentation that might show Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.'s involvement; it confidently asserts that the second-ranking member of the Justice Department, Deputy Attorney General David W. Ogden, took part in the decision; it challenges the department's tacit contention that the New Black Panthers (one of whom carried a nightstick) were merely exercising First Amendment speech rights; and its subtext suggests that the commission suspects all sorts of other shenanigans.  (Mr. Ogden suddenly announced on Dec. 3 that he would soon leave his position)

All of this means the commission has substantially raised the stakes of this battle.  Others can best adjudge the legal arguments, and important larger issues of constitutional separation of powers could be involved.  Yet a far simpler observation is appropriate and increasingly obvious: The Justice Department would not force the Civil Rights Commission to instigate such a huge legal battle if it had nothing to hide.
Wolf Presses For New Black Panther Probe
The Washington Times is reporting that a senior House Republican on Thursday introduced a "resolution of inquiry" that would require the House Judiciary Committee to seek answers on why the Justice Department dismissed a civil complaint against members of the New Black Panther Party who disrupted a Philadelphia polling place in last year's elections.

Rep. Frank R. Wolf of Virginia also said he had language inserted in the Justice Department's annual spending bill requiring that its Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) provide to the House Appropriations Committee the results of OPR's investigation surrounding the dismissal of the case.

Mr. Wolf, a senior member of the Appropriations Committee's commerce, justice and science subcommittee, and Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, requested an investigation into the case earlier this year.

Under House rules, committees must take action on resolutions of inquiry within 14 legislative days. Mr. Wolfs resolution directs Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to provide Congress with "all information" relating to the decision to dismiss the case.  The committee must hold a straight yea-or-nay vote on the resolution.

Mr. Wolf said he has written the attorney general six times seeking answers concerning the handling of the New Black Panther case and has yet to receive an answer.

"I regret that Congress must resort to oversight resolutions as a means to receive information about the dismissal of this case, but the Congress and the American people have a right to know why this case was not prosecuted," he said.

Continue reading here . . .
DOJ Issues Gag Order In Black Panther Probe
The Justice Department has ordered government lawyers who filed a complaint against the New Black Panther Party for intimidating voters in last year’s presidential election not to cooperate with a nonpartisan civil rights commission investigating how the Obama Administration handled the case.

Federal prosecutors filed a civil complaint in Philadelphia against members of the radical black revolutionary group for bullying voters with racial insults, profanity and weapons.  Clad in military attire, the Black Panther thugs were captured on video in front of precincts during the 2008 presidential election.

But the case was abruptly killed by a top Justice Department official just as a federal judge was preparing to punish the Black Panthers for ignoring the charges and refusing to appear in court.  The order came from Loretta King, who at the time was Obama’s acting assistant Attorney General for the civil rights division.  No explanation was offered for the sudden dismissal and outrage ensued among federal prosecutors handling the case.

Now the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, a fact-finding nonpartisan agency with subpoena power to investigate discrimination complaints -- including allegations that citizens are deprived of their right to vote -- is digging into the matter.

Continue reading here . . .
Hearing Set For New Black Panther Case
Michael P. Tremoglie is reporting that the United States Commission on Civil Rights (CRC) announced that it will hold a public hearing on February 12, 2010, regarding the New Black Panther Party voter intimidation case.  Its purpose is to collect information within the jurisdiction of the Commission related particularly to the Department of Justice's actions in the New Black Panther Party (NBPP) and enforcement of Section 11(b) of the Voting Rights Act.

The CRC wants to know the reason the Department of Justice (DOJ) dismissed voter intimidation charges in May against members of the New Black Panther Party after they had already won a default judgment in the civil suit filed in January.

One of the witnesses will be Chris Hill, a Republican poll watcher.  He told The Bulletin that one of the Republican poll watchers felt intimidated.  "He was inside the building and he refused to stand outside with the two New Black Panthers," he said.

There will be other witnesses who can testify to the facts of the case.  Also a video of the incident will be shown.

One person’s testimony which has been sought is that of J. Christian Adams the career Civil Rights Division prosecutor who compiled the voter intimidation case against the NBPP will testify.  It is not known if Mr. Adams will testify.  Allegations have been made that there were political motivations in dismissing the case.  It is felt Mr. Adams could verify or disprove this.

The DOJ has taken the unusual step of instructing its people not comply with subpoenas issued by the Commission.  A memo by DOJ to CRC General Counsel David Blackwood said it objects to the questions asked.

The DOJ has repeatedly refused to provide information requested about this case not only by the CRC, but by Congressman Frank Wolf ( R-Va.), as well as, Congressman Lamar Smith (R-Tx.).  Mr. Wolf sent a letter January 26 to Glenn Fine the DOJ Inspector General.

He said, "I have been disappointed by your reluctance to investigate the unfounded dismissal of an important voter intimidation case, U.S. v. New Black Panther Party.  As you may recall, this case was inexplicably dismissed last year -- over the ardent objections of the career attorneys overseeing the case as well as the division’s own appeal office.  Despite repeated requests for information by members of Congress, the press, and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, the DOJ continues to stonewall all efforts to obtain information regarding the case’s abrupt dismissal.  This obstruction should be of great concern to you and merit an immediate investigation."

Mr. Wolf will appear at the hearing, which will be held at 624 9th St., N.W. Room 540, Washington, DC 20425.  It is open to the public and the media.
Obama's Black Panther Pander
Ashley Taylor says, at last, an explanation for the decision to drop the Black Panthers voter intimidation case.

At the U.S. Civil Rights Commission's upcoming hearing on May 14, Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez will attempt to explain why the Obama administration dropped federal voter intimidation charges against two New Black Panthers.  Clad in paramilitary uniforms and armed with a nightstick, the Panthers had spent several hours on Election Day 2008 stalking the entrance of a voting place in Philadelphia -- hurling racial epithets at whites and blacks alike, taunting poll watchers, and intimidating voters who sought to cast their votes for president as well as other candidates on the ballot.  These voting rights violations were captured, partially, on video and uploaded to YouTube.

Attempting to defend the Justice Department's decision to change course in this case, the Obama administration's apologists have tied themselves in knots and turned the Voting Rights Act on its head.

Their principal argument is that the Panthers were not scary enough.  They contend that two men who dress up like soldiers and stand in the doorway of a voting place brandishing a billy club cannot be prosecuted for voter intimidation in the absence of testimony from a voter who was intimidated, or proof of someone who was turned away from voting.  Without such evidence, they argue, it is impossible to prove what the Panthers intended by their actions.

This argument ignores several indisputable facts.  First, the videos themselves are clear evidence of the intimidating nature of the Panthers' actions that day, which included one man thumping the nightstick against his open palm, and one shouting that voters should prepare themselves to be "ruled by the black man."  Second, multiple witnesses have testified to seeing additional egregious behavior that was not captured on video, including one black Republican poll worker who the Panthers called a "race traitor" and promised there would be "hell to pay" when he emerged from the voting place.  Another person has testified that the Panthers called him a "white devil" and a "cracker."  Witnesses also have testified that they saw voters approach the entrance, stop upon sight of the uniformed, weapon-wielding Panthers in the doorway, and turn and leave without voting.  All of this evidence and testimony was known and available to Justice when it dropped charges against three of the four Panther defendants.

Continue reading here . . .
Obama's Justice Department Sued Over Black Panther Documents
Jennifer Rubin says Obama's Justice Department has been stonewalling individual members of Congress and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights in their efforts to get to the bottom of the Obama-Holder Justice Department’s decision to abandon a default judgment against the New Black Panther Party and multiple individual defendants in a case of blatant voter intimidation.  Now the conservative legal watchdog Judicial Watch is going to court to pry the documents loose:

Judicial Watch filed its original FOIA request on May 29, 2009.  The Justice Department acknowledged receiving the request on June 18, 2009, but then referred the request to the Office of Information Policy (OIP) and the Civil Rights Division.  On January 15, 2010, the OIP notified Judicial Watch that it would be responding to the request on behalf of the Offices of the Attorney General, the Deputy Attorney General, Associate Attorney General, Public Affairs, Legislative Affairs, Legal Policy, and Intergovernmental and Public Liaison.

On January 15, the OIP also indicated that the Office of the Associate Attorney General found 135 pages of records responsive to Judicial Watch’s request, but that all records would be withheld in full.  On January 26, the OIP advised Judicial Watch that the Office of Public Affairs and Office of Legal Policy completed their searches and found no responsive documents. On February 10, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division indicated that after an extensive search it had located "numerous responsive records" but determined that "access to the majority of the records" should be denied.  On March 26, the OIP indicated that the Office of Legislative Affairs and the Office of Intergovernmental and Public Liaison completed searches and found no documents.

It’s about time the courts rule on the panoply of made-up defenses and fake privileges that Holder has cooked up to avoid turning over these documents.  Let the courts decide if the Obama administration can have it both ways -- declining to invoke executive privilege but relying on the privilege under other names ("deliberative privilege").

A knowledgeable lawyer e-mails me: "Notice DOJ revealed nothing about the number of panther documents in the AG and deputy AG office.  Even for the associate attorney general they revealed there were 135 but they weren’t going to turn them over.  Failing to even name a number is extremely suspicious because those units can be searched quicker and easier for compliant documents.  It leads one to conclude any number would be an embarrassment, and a high number would be a catastrophe.  So, don’t reveal a number.  Typical of this non-transparent operation."

And now we’re going to see the administration’s true colors played out in open court.  As a Judicial Watch spokesman said: "If there is nothing to hide, then Eric Holder should release this information as the law requires.  And this is just one more example of how Obama’s promises of transparency are a big lie."

But the Obama team may have a different problem: if either or both houses of Congress flip to Republican control, new chairmen will populate key committees and subpoenas will begin to fly.  Congress is in an even better position to get access to the documents, as attorney-client privilege doesn’t work against a co-equal branch of government.  In sum, Holder is running out of room to hide, finally.
Pro-Black Panther Prejudice
The Washington Times says Obama's Justice Department is implementing a racial double standard.

The foundation is crumbling from the Justice Department's stonewall on the New Black Panther voter-intimidation case.  What's becoming visible is a serious corrosion in the whole edifice of the Civil Rights Division in the Obama-Holder Justice Department.

The edifice shook on Friday when a key lawyer in the case notified the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights that he is now available to testify.  The lawyer, J. Christian Adams, had been ordered by his Justice Department superiors, quite improperly, to ignore a subpoena by the commission.  Mr. Adams instead resigned from the department effective two weeks ago, largely in honorable protest over its handling of the Black Panther case.  His attorney e-mailed the commission on Friday, "Mr. Adams wants to relieve any obligation he has under the subpoena."  Mr. Adams' testimony surely will shed light on how the unreasonable decision was made.

Readers will remember that the case involved two New Black Panther Party members -- one a local Democratic Party official and poll watcher -- who used racial epithets and threats while standing at the entrance to a Philadelphia polling place on Election Day, 2008.  One Panther brandished a nightstick like a weapon.  After the case effectively had been won, political appointees of Obama's dismissed or reduced all charges or sanctions against the defendants, and then they stonewalled multiple inquiries about the case from Congress, the media and the Civil Rights Commission.

The stonewall's mortar further disintegrated when the June 21 issue of the Weekly Standard, published on Sunday, featured a lengthy, explosive expose on the Black Panther case by Commentary magazine contributing editor Jennifer Rubin.  Confirming and expanding on months of reporting by The Washington Times, Ms. Rubin provides at least five nuggets of information that are damaging to the official story line peddled by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. and the Obama White House.

First, Ms. Rubin reports that Steven H. Rosenbaum, the acting deputy assistant attorney general for civil rights, who spearheaded the decision to drop the case, was repeatedly unfamiliar with case details even as he ordered it to be dismissed.  Second, Mr. Rosenbaum repeatedly based his arguments for dropping the case on the idea that First Amendment speech protections somehow excused the Black Panthers' threats.  Yet during May 14 testimony to the Civil Rights Commission, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Thomas E. Perez repeatedly, exasperatingly, dodged questions about whether First Amendment concerns prompted the cases' dismissals, effectively suggesting that the position could not be defended.

Third, Ms. Rubin reports that Mr. Holder was briefed personally on the decision to drop the case, a fact that seemingly contradicts earlier Justice Department statements.  Fourth, the Justice Department's own internal investigation into the strange handling of the case has itself been a sham.  Even though the Office of Professional Responsibility was assigned to the case in July, it did not bother to interview the original trial team until a few days before Mr. Adams left the department.

Finally, Ms. Rubin's reporting confirms that much of Justice's Civil Rights Division rejects "the notion that any discrimination case should be filed against black defendants" for any reason.  In short, a double standard exists in which only whites and Asians can be guilty of illegal discrimination but never be its victims, while blacks can only be victims but never charged as perpetrators.

This is a dangerous and un-American notion.  If Americans of different races cannot receive equal justice from the Justice Department, there is no real justice.
The Black Panther Case -- Anger, Ignorance And Lies
J. Christian Adams says on the day Obama was elected, armed men wearing the black berets and jackboots of the New Black Panther Party were stationed at the entrance to a polling place in Philadelphia.  They brandished a weapon and intimidated voters and poll watchers (video).  After the election, the Justice Department brought a voter-intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party and those armed thugs.  I and other Justice attorneys diligently pursued the case and obtained an entry of default after the defendants ignored the charges.  Before a final judgment could be entered in May 2009, our superiors ordered us to dismiss the case.

The New Black Panther case was the simplest and most obvious violation of federal law I saw in my Justice Department career.  Because of the corrupt nature of the dismissal, statements falsely characterizing the case and, most of all, indefensible orders for the career attorneys not to comply with lawful subpoenas investigating the dismissal, this month I resigned my position as a Department of Justice (DOJ) attorney.

The federal voter-intimidation statutes we used against the New Black Panthers were enacted because America never realized genuine racial equality in elections.  Threats of violence characterized elections from the end of the Civil War until the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.  Before the Voting Rights Act, blacks seeking the right to vote, and those aiding them, were victims of violence and intimidation.  But unlike the Southern legal system, Southern violence did not discriminate.  Black voters were slain, as were the white champions of their cause.  Some of the bodies were tossed into bogs and in one case in Philadelphia, Miss., they were buried together in an earthen dam.

Based on my firsthand experiences, I believe the dismissal of the Black Panther case was motivated by a lawless hostility toward equal enforcement of the law.  Others still within the department share my assessment.  The department abetted wrongdoers and abandoned law-abiding citizens victimized by the New Black Panthers.  The dismissal raises serious questions about the department's enforcement neutrality in upcoming midterm elections and the subsequent 2012 presidential election.

Continue reading this important case here . . .
Top Justice Dept. Official Lied Under Oath
FoxNews.com is reporting that a former Justice Department attorney who resigned last month in protest of the Obama administration's handling of a voter intimidation case involving the New Black Panther Party accused a top Justice official of lying under oath about the circumstances surrounding the decision to drop the case.

J. Christian Adams, now an attorney in Virginia and a blogger for Pajamas Media, told Fox News in an exclusive interview that aired Wednesday that Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez provided false testimony in May to the United States Commission on Civil Rights, which is investigating the department's decision to drop charges against three members of the radical group in a case that the government won.

Perez told the commission that the facts and the law didn't support the case against the group.

"I know about the truth…and I know what the truth is and I know to say the facts and law don't support the Black Panther case is not true," Adams said, adding that Perez ignored his warnings not to provide false testimony.

"We made it very clear that continuing to say that the facts and the law don't support this case would not be consistent with the truth," he said.

Continue reading here (with video) . . .

Scott Johnson adds, Adams is a protagonist in this story with first-hand knowledge of the Department of Justice's machinations in the case.  His accounts of what transpired are credible and devastating.  Did Eric Holder approve of the dismissal of the case against the NBPP?  Adams provides ground for concluding that he did.

The department has responded by characterizing Adams as a conservative and a disgruntled employee.  As Adams states in the interview with Kelly and as Roger Simon reports, Adams was disgruntled only about the department's disgusting treatment of the NBPP case.  He was otherwise fully gruntled.

And Adams's senior Department of Justice colleague on the case (Christopher Coates) has been exiled to South Carolina.  What was his offense?

A Google News search on "Washington Post Christian Adams" and "New York Times Christian Adams" turns up only my own posts noting the lack of interest in the case on the part of the Post and the Times.  Yet the case has all the ingredients of a major scandal if a single standard were applied to these matters.

Rush Limbaugh turned his attention to the case yesterday.  So word has gotten out.  Even the Associated Press covered the story yesterday.  AP reporter Jesse Washington quotes Jennifer Rubin on the case and he does a creditable job with the story.

If the mainstream media did not have an intolerably high threshold for embarrassment, professional pride among the AP's colleagues would dictate that they take an interest in it too.
Media Blackout For Black Panthers
The Washington Times says that explosive racial allegations are being ignored by the poodles in the press.

Where is the New York Times?  Where is The Washington Post?  Where are CBS and NBC?  A whistleblower makes explosive allegations about the Department of Justice; his story is backed by at least two other witnesses; and the allegations involve the two hot-button issues of race and of blatant politicization of the justice system.  A potential constitutional confrontation stemming from the scandal brews between the Justice Department and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.  A congressman highly respected for thoughtfulness and bipartisanship has all but accused the department of serious impropriety.  By every standard of objective journalism, this adds up to real news.

Or it would be real news if a Republican Justice Department stood accused.  It would be real news if the liberal media weren't mostly in the tank for our celebrated but failing first black president.

Tomorrow, the Civil Rights Commission will hear long-awaited testimony from J. Christian Adams, who resigned from the Voting Section of the Justice Department after the department improperly ordered him to refuse compliance with the commission's lawful subpoena.  Mr. Adams first told his story in public in these pages on June 28 and later did two major interviews with Fox News' Megyn Kelly.  In those appearances, he flatly accused the Obama Justice Department of adopting an unlawful, immoral policy identified in previous Washington Times editorials -- namely, enforcing civil rights laws against white perpetrators who victimized minorities but never against black perpetrators who victimize whites or Asians.  If this is indeed the policy, it makes a scandalous mockery of the cherished American principle of "equal justice under the law."

All these allegations stem from what should have been a slam-dunk voter-intimidation case against members of the New Black Panther Party videotaped in menacing behavior outside a Philadelphia polling place in 2008.  The Obama Justice Department dropped or seriously reduced all the charges or penalties in the case after it already effectively had been won.  Mr. Adams' former colleague, longtime award-winning civil rights lawyer Christopher Coates, has been reported on multiple occasions to have backed Mr. Adams' version of events and of the Obama team's openly discriminatory policy.

If the department's motives are not racial or racist, Justice officials surely appear political.  One of the Black Panthers against whom the department declined to press charges was an official poll watcher for the Democratic Party and an elected local party official.  The department dropped charges just four days before another election, allowing him again to serve as a poll watcher.

Mr. Adams says the official most directly involved in dropping the case, Steven H. Rosenbaum -- whose ethics have been subject to judicial sanction -- refused to read his own team's legal briefs before deciding to dismiss the case.  Mr. Adams accuses Thomas E. Perez, head of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, of providing false answers in testimony to the Civil Rights Commission.

On a parallel track, The Washington Times has reported strong circumstantial evidence suggesting that department officials may have consulted the White House before dismissing the case.  That possibility, too, cries out for investigation.

These broad policy questions and suggestions of political chicanery are important.  Do we have a nation of laws equally applied to all, or is justice being reduced to raw politics?  Investigating such questions is the essence of the news business.  Failure to look into such a scandal is evidence of the institutional corruption of the much-ballyhooed "fourth branch of government," a supposedly independent media.
Ex-Official Accuses Justice Department Of Racial Bias
Fox News is reporting In emotional and personal testimony, an ex-Justice official who quit over the handling of a voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party accused his former employer of instructing attorneys in the civil rights division to ignore cases that involve black defendants and white victims.

J. Christian Adams, testifying Tuesday before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, said that "over and over and over again," the department showed "hostility" toward those cases. He described the Black Panther case as one example of that -- he defended the legitimacy of the suit and said his "blood boiled" when he heard a Justice official claim the case wasn't solid.

"It is false," Adams said of the claim.

"We abetted wrongdoing and abandoned law-abiding citizens," he later testified.

The department abandoned the New Black Panther case last year. It stemmed from an incident on Election Day in 2008 in Philadelphia, where members of the party were videotaped in front of a polling place, dressed in military-style uniforms and allegedly hurling racial slurs while one brandished a night stick.

Continue reading here . . .
NAACP Helped Shut Down Black Panther Case
Robert Moon says its support for anti-white race quotas were already enough to demonstrate the NAACP's blatantly racist views (since they decided to bring up racism), we now learn that they were directly involved in protecting fanatical racist militants from prosecution.

According to the Washington Times, Congressional testimony has revealed that the NAACP spoke regularly about the Black Panther voter intimidation case to the Justice Department and lobbied for the case to be dismissed.  Or, as Obama would put it, they "acted stupidly."

It's a stunning revelation considering the pot-kettle "racism" smears they've spent the last few days hurling at the Tea Party movement from their shiny glass house.  Has the Tea Party movement intervened in any cases against armed Klansmen caught on tape intimidating voters at the polls?  Does the Tea Party movement routinely fight for racist preferential treatment for white people?

No.  That kind of flagrant racial bigotry comes from the NAACP -- the group accusing anyone who dares to disagree with Obama of hating black people.

As noted, contrary to everything we are told, the Tea Party movement is mainstream, more educated and best reflects the racial make-up of the country.  As also noted, the only actual bigots here are our "post-racial" Marxist-in-chief and his black power allies at the New Black Panther Party and the NAACP.

RelatedThe Islamists at CAIR back the NAACP Resolution on Tea Party Racism. 

Surprised?
More Black Panther Hi Jinks
Mark Tapscott says Democratic election lawyer and Obama political appointee Samuel Hirsch was deeply involved in the Justice Department decision to drop the federal prosecution of two Philadelphia New Black Panthers for voting rights violations in the 2008 president election (file here), according to documents identified by Judicial Watch.

The documents describe eight email exchanges between Hirsch, who is Deputy Associate Attorney General, and Deputy Assistant Attorney General Steve Rosenbaum.  Rosenbaum is a career attorney in DOJ.

The involvement of Hirsch in the decision contradicts sworn testimony by Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

In response to a direct question from Commissioner Peter Kirsanov about political appointees influencing the decision to drop the New Black Panther prosecution, Perez responded by saying: "No.  The decisions were made by Loretta King in consultation with Steve Rosenbaum, who is the Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General."

Judicial Watch discovered the existence of the email exchanges between Hirsch and Rosenbaum as a result of a DOJ-compiled Vaughn Index in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.  The index describes documents that were not provided in an FOIA response by a federal department or agency.

The Vaughn Index listing, according to Judicial Watch, said the denied documents the non-profit had requested included:

"An 'Email Chain with Attachments' from Rosenbaum to Hirsch dated April 30, 2009: The email chain includes '…a detailed response and analysis of the proposed draft filings in NBPP (New Black Panther Party) litigation…The response includes a candid assessment of legal research and raises questions about the case law and proposed relief….This document also contains attorney discussion, opinions, and analyses of the draft documents and case law.'”

The Judicial Watch discovery is likely to fuel new controversy about the case that arose from the voter intimidation video featuring the combat-clad New Black Panthers at a Philadelphia area polling place.
Coates To Testify
The news that Christopher Coates, former chief of the Justice Department’s Voting Section, is set to testify Friday before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights is crucial to the panel’s investigation of allegations that the Obama administration has not enforced the nation’s civil rights laws in a race-neutral manner.

The testimony by Coates, a career government lawyer, is expected to shed light on whether DOJ:
    

•  Discriminated against white voters in dismissing the voter-intimidation case against two members of the New Black Panther Party and the party itself that arose from incidents at a Philadelphia polling place on Election Day 2008.

•  Had a general policy or practice in its Civil Rights Division of not enforcing voting laws when the subjects of complaints were racial minorities.

•  Had a racially motivated policy of not enforcing Section 8 of the National Voting Rights Act, which requires states to remove ineligible voters from the voter rolls.

    
When Thomas Perez, the assistant attorney general who heads the Civil Rights Division, testified under oath before the independent Commission on Civil Rights in May, the Obama appointee repeatedly denied a racially motivated policy was in place.  Perez also testified that he would investigate any statement to the contrary by anyone in his division.

However, Perez has refused to address the truth of subsequent sworn allegations alleging that Julie Fernandes, his deputy assistant attorney general in charge of voting issues, ordered and implemented such a race-based policy.  In fact, Perez has publicly embraced her leadership.

In July, J. Christian Adams, a former career lawyer, testified under oath about Fernandes’ statements.  Some veteran DOJ watchers say the absence of any Section 8 enforcement activity by the Civil Rights Division more than 20 months into the Obama administration, despite evidence of non-compliance by states throughout the country, lends credence to Adams’s charges.

Testimony by Coates that the Civil Rights Division under Perez purposely did not pursue full, equal, and race-neutral enforcement of federal voting laws could -- and rightfully should -- cause huge problems for this or any administration.

Adams testified on these matters after resigning from the Justice Department.  He said Coates could confirm his testimony and specific accusations that Fernandes did not equally or fairly enforce voting rights laws.

The news that Coates indeed will testify follows revelations earlier this week by Judicial Watch.  A privilege log obtained by Judicial Watch in a lawsuit against the Justice Department under the Freedom of Information Act shows that political appointees at Justice were much more involved in the decision to dismiss the Black Panthers case than they repeatedly claimed.

Continue reading here . . .

Related:  Congressman Warns AG Holder not to Block Coates’ Testimony
Malik Shabazz Visited The White House
Andrew Breitbart says, that in May 2009, the Obama/Holder Justice Department dropped charges in a voter intimidation case against Malik Shabazz, a leader of the New Black Panther Party, despite having already won a summary judgment against him, and his New Black Panther Party colleagues King Samir Shabazz and Jerry Jackson who were video-taped outside polling place in Philadelphia intimidating voters as they arrived on election day, 2008. In July 2009, when Congress began looking into the matter, someone named Malik Shabazz visited the private residence at the White House.
    
    
When news of the visit was released under the auspices of transparency, the White House denied that the Malik Shabazz on the visitor’s log was the same Malik Shabazz involved in the New Black Panther voter intimidation case.  According to Norm Eisen, Special Counsel to the President for Ethics and Government Reform, the records contained "a few "false positives" -- names that make you think of a well-known person, but are actually someone else."  He specifically cited Malik Shabazz as an example of one of these "false positives".

At the time, the media did not challenge the White House on the veracity of this claim.  The White House’s position was, basically: "We’re being transparent, here are all the visitor logs, and this guy is not the guy you think he is, TRUST US."

The White House has assured the American people that the Malik Shabazz that visited the White House at that time is not the same Malik Shabazz at the center of the New Black Panther story.  But, the White House has not provided any information to verify its contention or who this "other" Malik Shabazz is.

The great thing about transparency -- when there is actual transparency -- is that it renders trust unnecessary.  We ask that the White House identify which Malik Shabazz visited the White House residence on July 25, 2009.

Extract -- read the entire piece here . . .
Black Panther Case:  Red Hot
The Washington Times says Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez has an obligation to clean house at the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division.  That's clear after explosive new whistle-blower testimony under oath Friday in the New Black Panther Party voter-intimidation case, which triggers a pledge Perez made under oath on May 14.  Failure to fire some officials and to radically revamp practices in the Civil Rights Division would represent clear dereliction of duty by Perez.

Friday's testimony to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights came from much-decorated Justice Department veteran Christopher Coates, a hero of the civil rights legal community when he was a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union.  "The election of President Obama," he said, "brought to positions of influence and power with the Civil Rights Division many of the very people who had demonstrated hostility to the concept of equal enforcement of the Voting Rights Act."

Coates named names and gave numerous examples of how the division and its political supervisors refuse to enforce civil rights laws to protect white victims against black perpetrators.  He said his supervisor, Loretta King, then serving in a political position as acting assistant attorney general, specifically forbade him from asking prospective employees if they would be willing to enforce civil rights laws in a race-neutral manner.  Additionally, he testified that the department under Perez has refused to enforce federal law that requires states to remove ineligible voters -- including dead people and incarcerated felons -- from their voting rolls.  Coates officially recommended a full year ago that the department enforce the law against at least eight states that were flagrantly noncompliant, but Perez and the Obama team ignored the issue.

All of this puts Perez, among others, in a bind.  Not only is some of Perez's sworn testimony misleading, but his pledge to crack down against employees who act in a race-biased manner is being put to the test.  On May 14, under questioning from Civil Rights Commissioner Todd Gaziano about employees making racialist non-enforcement statements and decisions, Perez said four different times that he would not put up with what he called "people of that ilk."  Perez indignantly challenged Gaziano, "If you have such a statement, bring such a statement to our attention."

Coates now has confirmed sworn testimony from other witnesses that Perez's team did and continues to act in a race-biased manner.  Coates swore that he told the same thing to Perez before Perez testified in May.  Even before that, multiple press reports dating back to last September indicated this allegation of racialist non-enforcement of voting rights laws was a serious concern.  Yet Perez seems to have questioned nobody about it, disciplined nobody over it or raised a finger to address the problem.

This broad issue of deliberately unequal enforcement of the law is the main point of the Black Panther investigation.  The evidence points to racially unequal enforcement -- and a dangerous abrogation of justice.
Malik Shabazz Incriminates Himself

         
"We decided that on election day we would go out to the polls because of what?  Because they said they was going to be stopping black people from coming to vote.  We knew that they didn't want a black man in office and there were strong intelligence indicators that there was going to be some trouble at the polls and that we wanted to make sure that the police weren't harassing our people, so we wanted to go out and do what we could.  It's just that the New Black Panther Party sometimes, whatever we do, we just tend to do it kind of strong.  You know what I mean?  (laughter)  Sometimes whatever we do, sometimes we just do it, just REAL strong, and sometimes it can even be TOO BLACK, and TOO STRONG.  And so what happened was one of our men, one of our brothers, my little brother, and I love him, King Shamir Shabazz just was a little bit TOO STRONG and he was caught out there in the polling place with a nightstick.  At the polling place, and the John McCain campaign rolled up on him with some cameras and some poll watchers and jumped all over the issue and all over the brother. . ."
The Wrongdoing, the Cover-Up, And Executive Privilege
Jennifer Rubin says, that like any administration snared in a Beltway scandal, the Obama team has two problems in the New Black Panther Party scandal: the wrongdoing and the cover-up.

The wrongdoing is not merely that the Obama administration dismissed a blatant case of voter intimidation.  It is not merely that an NAACP attorney pressured the Obama team to dump the case.  It is not merely that the Obama Justice Department explicitly told attorneys not to enforce Section 8 of the Voting Rights Act, which helps prevent voter fraud.  It is that the Obama team believes that the civil rights laws run only one way and offer protection only to certain racial or ethnic groups.  That’s not the law (or the Equal Protection Clause has no meaning), and it runs afoul of Americans’ basic sense of fairness.  That is why the Obama administration denies that it holds such a view.  They may be radicals, but they aren’t dumb.

The cover-up takes two forms.  There are the false statements put out by the Justice Department and made under oath by the assistant attorney general for civil rights, Thomas Perez, first, denying that political appointees were involved in the case and, second, disclaiming the existence of hostility toward race-neutral enforcement of voting laws.  But there is also the Nixonian abuse of executive privilege to prevent scrutiny of the Justice Department.  It is this latter issue that has gotten too little attention.

The administration has refused to produce witnesses and documents, employing a spurious claim of "deliberative process" privilege.  Case law and Justice Department memoranda make clear that this is an offshoot of the executive privilege that is applicable only when invoked by the president (or, some would say, a Cabinet-level official).  But Obama hasn’t done this.  After all, "executive privilege" sounds bad.  It reeks of "cover-up."  But without a formal invocation of the privilege, it is lawlessness, pure and simple, to withhold documents and witnesses in response to lawful subpoenas, FOIA requests, and a federal statute (which obligates the DOJ to cooperate with the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights).

It was both inaccurate and nervy for the Justice Department’s spokesman to claim that Chris Coates’s testimony was short on facts.  To begin with, Coates cited example after example to support the conclusion that the Obama team considers only racial, ethnic, and language minorities to be protected by civil rights laws.  But more to the point, he was prevented from disclosing even more details because of the administration’s privilege claim.  Again and again, Coates explained that he couldn’t answer questions out of respect for the DOJ’s position.  Similarly, the log obtained by Judicial Watch lists dozens of e-mails and documents transmitted between political appointees and the voting section that would substantiate testimony by Coates.  All that information remains hidden from view because the Justice Department is concealing it.

The mainstream media have just woken up to the extent and importance of the scandal, so perhaps they will get around to this aspect of the case.  Yet I get the feeling that if it had been the Bush administration telling whistleblowers not to testify and withholding, absent any legal basis, key documents that could implicate high-ranking officials, the media would have already been all over this.
And Speaking Of The Black Panthers
Here's another video from King Shamir Shabazz, from the Philadelphia chapter of the New Black Panthers.  Shabazz is the dude who was swinging the nightstick at the voting poll, that began this entire sordid story.  In this one, Shabazz accuses white people of using black babies as "alligator bait."
    
     
This is the guy that Obama and Holder's Justice Department have defended.  What does that tell you?

Shabazz is beyond a racist -- he's an insane racist -- just watch this video, in which he calls for the killing of white babies.

When this bunch of hard-core Obama supporters is added to those who are holding the 10/2 rally, you begin to get a really good picture of ObamaWorld.  These people are not Americans.  By their own words they identify themselves as the enemy of everything we hold dear -- and Obama is their champion.
Black Panther Blackout
The Washington Times says new reports raise the stakes on voter-intimidation case.

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights votes today on its report regarding the Black Panther voter-intimidation case.  The Obama administration's malfeasance in this scandal is becoming impossible to avoid -- even for the White House's most reliable defenders.

After 17 months of averting its eyes, The Washington Post finally ran a major front-page feature on the controversy on Saturday.  Three current Justice Department lawyers told the Post that whistleblowers J. Christian Adams and Christopher Coates are accurate in stating that anybody who tries to enforce civil rights laws in a race-neutral fashion will be ostracized, criticized and denied promotions because leaders at Justice believe "it is not the voting section's job to protect white voters."  One senior official confirmed and even defended that view.

While the left has tried to demonize Mr. Adams as a conservative hit man, several current Justice officials admitted Mr. Adams performed his work admirably when he was a civil rights attorney for the department.  This gives added credence to the whistleblowers' assertions that the Obama administration dispenses race-based justice, a charge backed up by the facts in the New Black Panther Party case.  Consider the elements:

The Black Panthers caught on videotape intimidating voters both have convictions for assault.  One used a club -- much like the one brandished on Election Day -- to hospitalize a victim with a serious head injury.

Political interference in the ongoing prosecution is obvious.  Federal prosecutors already had won the Panther case before Obama appointees at Justice dismissed it.

Justice has made extravagant claims of "privileges" from divulging otherwise public information.  In one never-before-known form of exemption from public transparency, the administration is claiming "deliberative process" privilege for discussions that occurred after decisions were made.  As a legal argument, that's nonsensical.

There has been a persistent failure by Justice officials to honor legal subpoenas issued by an independent governmental commission.  By law, all federal departments "shall" honor subpoenas from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.  Yet the Justice Department is defying the commission and likewise continues to ignore repeated inquiries from respected congressmen.

Obama officials claimed repeatedly that political appointees played no role in dropping the Black Panther case. An e-mail log proves otherwise.

A timeline of White House meetings lends credence to the idea that the White House interfered.  For example, Associate Attorney General Thomas J. Perrelli made a series of visits to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. that corresponded exactly with major developments in the case -- but he almost never visited the White House otherwise.

The Civil Rights Commission's vote tomorrow is largely a ruling on the Obama administration's attempts to evade justice.  Despite all the stonewalling, there's little doubt Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.'s department made race-based decisions in this race-based conflict.
Civil Rights Panel Postpones Vote As Democrat Walks Out
Jerry Markon is reporting that a federal commission had to postpone a vote on a report that criticizes the Justice Department's handling of a voter-intimidation lawsuit Friday after a Democratic panelist walked out of the meeting in protest.

The draft of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights report says that Justice tried to hide the extensive involvement of high-level political officials in the dismissal of the suit against members of the New Black Panther Party.  The move, the report says, indicates that Justice's Civil Rights Division is failing to protect white voters and is "at war with its core mission of guaranteeing equal protection (under) the laws for all Americans.''

The Justice Department has strongly denied the allegations in the report, which follows the commission's year-long investigation into the Obama administration's handling of the 2008 incident.  The Bush administration had filed the lawsuit against the New Black Panther Party members, but the Justice Department under the Obama administration dismissed most of the case.

The commission was scheduled to vote on the report Friday morning. But it could not reach a quorum because commissioner Michael Yaki, a Democratic appointee and a former senior adviser to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, refused to participate.  The commission needs five members present to meet quorum.

"This has been a procedural and partisan farce from the beginning,'' Yaki said in an impromptu news conference.  "It's not my responsibility to make a quorum for this kangaroo court ... they want to score political points against the Obama Justice Department.''

Members of the commission's majority, who drafted the report, denied they were motivated by politics and accused Justice Department officials of blocking their investigation, failing to turn over key documents and instructing witnesses not to testify.

"The degree of stonewalling that the Justice Department has engaged in is unprecedented in the 53-year history of the commission,'' said commissioner Todd F. Gaziano, a senior fellow in legal studies at the conservative Heritage Foundation.  He said the commission would vote on the 131-page report at its meeting next week.

Continue reading here . . .

Related:  New Black Panthers Will Be Watching Polls In Houston (video)
New Evidence Political Appointees Ended Black Panther Case

Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that it has obtained documents from the Obama Department of Justice (DOJ) that provide new evidence that top political appointees at the DOJ were intimately involved in the decision to dismiss the voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party for Self Defense (NBPP).  These new documents, which include internal DOJ email correspondence, directly contradict sworn testimony by Thomas Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, who testified before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights that no political leadership was involved in the decision.  The new documents were obtained last week by Judicial Watch pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit (Judicial Watch v. Department of Justice (No.10-851)).

 

The new documents include a series of emails between two political appointees: former Democratic election lawyer and current Deputy Associate Attorney General Sam Hirsch and Associate Attorney General Thomas Perrelli.  Both DOJ officials were involved in detailed discussions regarding the NBPP decision.  For example, in one April 30, 2009, email from Hirsch to Perrelli, with the subject title "Fw: New Black Panther Party Update," Hirsch writes:

      

Tom,

   

I need to discuss this with you tomorrow morning. I’ll send you another email on this shortly.  If you want to discuss it this evening, please let me know which number to call and when.

      

These emails were put in further context by an updated Vaughn index obtained by Judicial Watch, describing NBPP documents the Obama DOJ continues to withhold. These documents, which were attached to the DOJ’s Motion for Summary Judgment filing, include a description of a May 13 email chain that seems to suggest political appointee Sam Hirsch may have been orchestrating the NBPP decision.

 

Acting DAAG [Steven Rosenbaum] advising his supervising Acting AAG [Loretta King] of DASG’s [Hirsch’s] request for a memorandum by the Acting DAAG reviewing various options, legal strategies, and different proposals of relief as related to each separate defendant.  Acting DAAG forwarding emails from Appellate Section Chief’s and Appellate Attorney’s with their detailed legal analyses including the application of constitutional provisions and judicial precedent to strategies and relief under consideration in the ongoing NBPP litigation, as well as an assessment of the strength of potential legal arguments, and presenting different possible scenarios in the litigation. [Emphasis added]

      

Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division Thomas Perez testified before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights that no political appointees were involved in the NBPP decision.  Perez suggested that the dispute was merely "a case of career people disagreeing with career people."

 

In fact, political appointee Sam Hirsch sent an April 30, 2009, email to Steven Rosenbaum (then-Acting Assistant Deputy Attorney General in the Civil Rights) thanking Rosenbaum for "doing everything you’re doing to make sure that this case is properly resolved." The next day, the DOJ began to reverse course on its NBPP voter intimidation lawsuit.

    

Judicial Watch also obtained two email reports sent by former Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division Loretta King to Attorney General Eric Holder.

 

The first report, entitled "Weekly Report for the Week ending May 8, 2009," and sent on May 12, 2009, notes: "On May 15, 2009, pursuant to court order, the Department will file a motion for default judgment against at least some of the defendants" in the NBPP lawsuit.  The report further notes that the New Black Panther Party for Self Defense "has been identified as a racist hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Anti-Defamation League and the founders and members of the original Black Panther Party."

 

The second report, entitled "Weekly Report for the Week ending May 15, 2009," and sent on May 18, 2009, demonstrates that the DOJ did an abrupt reversal on the NBPP issue: "On May 15, 2009, the Department voluntarily dismissed its claims" against the NBPP and two of the defendants, the report noted.  The DOJ moved for default judgment against only one defendant.

 

"It is now obvious to me why the Obama administration continues to be so secretive regarding the Justice Department’s decision to abandon its lawsuit against the New Black Panther Party.  These documents show that not only was the Black Panther decision shamelessly politicized by the Obama administration but also that Obama officials lied to cover up the scandal.  And these documents raise more questions about Attorney General Holder’s involvement.  The American people need to know if racism and political favoritism are corrupting the nation’s highest law enforcement agency," stated Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

 

The DOJ filed its lawsuit against the NBPP following an incident that took place outside of a Philadelphia polling station on November 4, 2008.  A video of the incident, showing a member of the NBPP brandishing police-style baton weapon, was widely distributed on the Internet.  According to multiple witnesses, members of the NBPP blocked access to polling stations, harassed voters and hurled racial epithets.  Nonetheless, the DOJ ultimately overruled the recommendations of its own staff and dismissed the majority of its charges.  Current and former DOJ attorneys have alleged in sworn testimony before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights that the Holder DOJ’s NBPP and other civil rights-related decisions are made on the basis of race and political affiliation.

Holder Let's Black Panthers Skate... Again

Fox Nation is reporting that J. Christian Adams, a former Justice Department Attorney, talked to Brian Kilmeade on Fox & Friends this morning about why he felt the New Black Panther party were being ignored by Attorney General Eric Holder, despite their illegal threat to 'capture' Trayvon Martin shooter George Zimmerman.

Adams argues that the Justice Department needs to focus on them because "You cannot solicit kidnapping in the State of Florida, it's a felony."

"The new Black Panthers think they are above the law" and Adams attributes this thinking to Eric Holder's Department of Justice.

   

   

This is not the first time the New Black Panther party have gotten a pass from the Attorney General after a voter intimidation case was dropped.

   

Adams, now an attorney in Virginia and a conservative blogger for Pajamas Media, says he and the other Justice Department lawyers working on the case were ordered to dismiss it.

"I mean we were told, 'Drop the charges against the New Black Panther Party,'" Adams told Fox News, adding that political appointees Loretta King, acting head of the civil rights division, and Steve Rosenbaum, an attorney with the division since 2003, ordered the dismissal.

  

Related: Bond set for New Black Panther leader in weapons case

Federal Court Finds Obama Appointees Interfered With New Black Panther Prosecution

Conn Carroll is reporting that a federal court in Washington, DC, held today that political appointees appointed by Barack Obama did interfere with the Department of Justice’s prosecution of the New Black Panther Party.

    

The ruling came as part of a motion by the conservative legal watch dog group Judicial Watch, who had sued the DOJ in federal court to enforce a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for documents pertaining to the the New Black Panthers case. Judicial Watch had secured many previously unavailable documents through their suit against DOJ and were now suing for attorneys’ fees.
 
Obama’s DOJ had claimed Judicial Watch was not entitled to attorney’s fees since “none of the records produced in this litigation evidenced any political interference whatsoever in” how the DOJ handled the New Black Panther Party case. But United States District Court Judge Reggie Walton disagreed. Citing a “series of emails” between Obama political appointees and career Justice lawyers, Walton writes:

   

The documents reveal that political appointees within DOJ were conferring about the status and resolution of the New Black Panther Party case in the days preceding the DOJ’s dismissal of claims in that case, which would appear to contradict Assistant Attorney General Perez’s testimony that political leadership was not involved in that decision. Surely the public has an interest in documents that cast doubt on the accuracy of government officials’ representations regarding the possible politicization of agency decision-making.

In sum, the Court concludes that three of the four fee entitlement factors weigh in favor of awarding fees to Judicial Watch. Therefore, Judicial Watch is both eligible and entitled to fees and costs, and the Court must now consider the reasonableness of Judicial Watch’s requested award.  

The New Black Panthers case stems from a Election Day 2008 incident where two members of the New Black Panther Party were filmed outside a polling place intimidating voters and poll watchers by brandishing a billy club. Justice Department lawyers investigated the case, filed charges, and when the Panthers failed to respond, a federal court in Philadelphia entered a “default” against all the Panthers defendants. But after Obama was sworn in, the Justice Department reversed course, dismissed charges against three of the defendants, and let the fourth off with a narrowly tailored restraining order.

    

“The Court’s decision is another piece of evidence showing the Obama Justice Department is run by individuals who have a problem telling the truth,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said. “The decision shows that we can’t trust the Obama Justice Department to fairly administer our nation’s voting and election laws.”

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