New Black Panther Party

Obama Justice Department Sued Over Stonewalling and Cover-Up in Black Panther Case

by Hans Bader on May 26, 2010 · 2 comments

in Legal, Nanny State, Personal Liberty, Politics as Usual, Sanctimony, Zeitgeist

Judicial Watch is suing the Obama administration over its stonewalling in the Black-Panther voter intimidation case, where the administration has flouted the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in order to hide how it protected members of the racist, anti-Semitic New Black Panther Party. Although FOIA requires that documents be released within 20 days, the administration has withheld for over a year the records Judicial Watch requested about how the administration dismissed a lawsuit that career Justice Department lawyers had won against Black Panthers who used a nightstick and racial epithets to drive white voters away from a polling place.

Earlier, a career Justice Department lawyer resigned after the Obama administration illegally defied a subpoena from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. The Civil Rights Commission is investigating the administration’s politicization of the Justice Department and its selective refusal to enforce the Voting Rights Act against the Black Panthers and black political bosses.

A former Justice Department lawyer describes the Obama administration’s stonewalling, cover-up, and deceit at this link. The Black Panthers that the Obama administration sought to protect by dropping the lawsuit included a local Democratic official and Obama poll-watcher.

One of the Panthers, who has been videotaped saying “that he wanted to kill white people,” is shown in a recent documentary talking about “how much he hates and wants to kill white people, including white babies.” He called a terrified black poll watcher a “race traitor,” and told him there would be “hell to pay” if he interfered with the Panthers’ campaign of voter intimidation.

In their campaign of voter intimidation, the Panthers told a white former civil-rights lawyer and former publisher of the liberal Village Voice, “Now you are going to find out what it is to be ruled by the black man, cracker.” They called a white poll watcher who lives nine blocks from the polling place a “white devil” and a “cracker,” telling him he would be ruled by the black man the next day, and he would have to get used to “living under his boot.”

The New Black Panther Party, which has a venomous hatred for what it refers to as “bloodsucking Jews,” is designated as a hate-group even by the liberal SPLC, because of its anti-Semitism.

The Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that discrimination against whites is prohibited under federal law (including voting discrimination). The Obama administration seemingly disagrees with those rulings (which include a 9-to-0 Supreme Court decision).

Justice Department Lawyer Resigns Due to Politicization of Justice Department; Obama Administration Defies Civil Rights Commission

by Hans Bader on May 20, 2010 · 1 comment

in Culture, Legal, Nanny State, Personal Liberty, Politics as Usual, Sanctimony, Zeitgeist

A career Justice Department lawyer has resigned after the Obama administration defied a subpoena from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.  The Commission is investigating the Administration’s politically-motivated dismissal of a voter intimidation lawsuit against members of the racist, anti-semitic New Black Panther Party.  Career justice department lawyers brought and won the lawsuit, which was then dismissed by political appointees in the Justice Department, so that they could snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Members of the New Black Panther Party, one of whom was an Obama campaign poll watcher and local Democratic official, used nightsticks and racial epithets to drive white voters away from the polls in a Philadelphia precinct. But the Obama administration killed a successful lawsuit against them, dismissing it after career Justice Department lawyers had already obtained a default judgment against the defendants  (As a result of the dismissal, the only consequence for the defendants was a temporary injunction telling just one of the three defendants not to repeat his crimes in Philadelphia for a short period of time.)  The New Black Panther Party, which attacks what it refers to as “bloodsucking Jews,” is recognized as a racist, anti-semitic hate group even by liberal civil-rights groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center.

After the case was dismissed, the Civil Rights Commission began investigating the Obama administration’s actions.  The administration ordered the career attorneys who had worked on the lawsuit to remain silent and not comply with the Commission’s investigation (contrary to federal law, which mandates that “all Federal agencies shall cooperate fully with the Commission“), and refused either to comply with the Commission’s subpoenas, or to bring a motion to quash the subpoena (which is the appropriate step to take if a subpoena is somehow invalid).  This left the subpoena and one of the career lawyers “in limbo” and in apparent violation of the law, forcing him to run up thousands of dollars in legal bills.  (The other lawyer was transferred to the civil-service equivalent of Siberia to take him “out of reach of the subpoena power of the Civil Rights Commission.”)

Justice Department attorney J. Christian Adams, who helped bring the lawsuit, “resigned in obvious disgust” at its dismissal and the administration’s stonewalling.  The other career lawyer most responsible for bringing the voter intimidation case, former Voting Rights Section Chief Christopher Coates, has a liberal pedigree: he was formerly with the “Voting Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union.”  Yet both Coates and Adams have been depicted as “right-wing activists“ by “liberal media outlets“ and unnamed Obama administration officials–apparently because those officials “don’t believe the voting rights laws should ever be enforced against blacks and other minorities.”

(The idea that the civil rights laws do not protect whites or apply to minorities was rejected by a unanimous Supreme Court ruling in 1976, in an opinion authored by the black justice and civil-rights icon Thurgood Marshall.  See McDonald v. Santa Fe Trail Transportation Co. There are limited to exceptions to bans on race discrimination for affirmative action, but they do not apply to voting, as the Supreme Court made clear in its 7-to-2 ruling in Rice v. Cayetano (2000).  In his 2008 campaign, Obama promised “change,” and apparently that change includes a departure from basic legal norms that even liberal judges like Thurgood Marshall, and liberal lawyers like Christian Adams and Christopher Coates took for granted.  If you want to work in the Obama Justice Department, you had better disagree with the Supreme Court.)

“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.” But Obama’s political appointees at the Justice Department overruled them, dropping the case after victory was already assured because “the court had already entered a default judgment against the” Black Panthers. Thanks to that outrageous decision, the only result of the case was a meaningless injunction telling one of the three defendants not to commit such crimes again (and telling him not to commit such crimes only until 2012, and not barring him from committing such crimes in his home city, but rather barring such crimes only in Philadelphia).

As the Washington Times notes,

The Voting Rights Act is very clear. It prohibits any ‘attempt to intimidate, threaten or coerce’ any voter or those aiding voters. The explanation for moving to dismiss the case is shocking. According to the Department of Justice: ‘These same Defendants have made no appearance and have filed no pleadings with the Court. Nor have they otherwise raised any other defenses to this action. Therefore, the United States has the right … to dismiss voluntarily this action against the Defendants.’ In other words, because the defendants haven’t tried to defend themselves, the Justice Department won’t punish them. By that logic, if a murderer doesn’t respond to the charges, he should be let free. That’s crazy. The Obama Justice Department did take one action against one of the four defendants: It forbade him from again ‘displaying a weapon within 100 feet of any open polling location’ in Philadelphia. Given that it already was illegal to display a weapon at a polling place and that he was not even enjoined from carrying a weapon at polling places outside of Philadelphia, it is hard to see what this order accomplished. We asked the Justice Department if it was unable to provide any explanation for dropping the case. Justice press aide Alejandro Miyar merely said: ‘That is correct.’ Multiple times we asked both the department and the White House to comment on charges that the dismissals represented political bias. We received no substantive response. Hans Von Spakovsky, a legal scholar at the Heritage Foundation and a former commissioner at the Federal Election Commission, tells us, ‘In my experience, I have never heard of the department refusing to take a default judgment… . If a Republican administration had done this, it would be front-page news and every civil rights group in the country would be screaming about it.’ Consider that the behavior of the defendants was so bad that witness Bartle Bull, a former Robert F. Kennedy organizer who did extensive legal work on behalf of black voters in Mississippi, testified it was “the most blatant form of voter discrimination I have encountered in my life.’ Eric Eversole, a former litigation attorney with the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, told us: ‘It is truly unprecedented for the Voting Section to voluntarily dismiss a case of such blatant intimidation. The video speaks for itself.’ We couldn’t agree more. After the 2000 Presidential election, Democrats complained about voter intimidation in Florida by pointing to a police car that had been two miles away from a polling place. The police didn’t do anything to anyone, but their presence was deemed sufficient to vaguely intimidate people en route to the polls. In this case, the New Black Panther Party actually blocked access to a poll. Unlike the Florida incident, this case involving the New Black Panthers screams out for tough justice. Instead, the Obama administration looks the other way. This all but invites racial violence at future elections.

In 2008, Obama disingenuously complained about the supposed “politicization” of the Justice Department under Bush. But Obama has politicized the Justice Department far more than Bush was accused of doing. Obama’s Justice Department has given a green light to unconstitutional bills pushed by liberal congressmen that even liberal Justice Department attorneys have conceded are unconstitutional. It has been deafeningly silent about blatant voter fraud and voter intimidation committed by black officials, chronicled in a ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. And it did little to prevent violations of the voting rights of overseas soldiers and sailors that may have tipped election results in the Minnesota Senate race (which provided the deciding vote in the Senate for passage of the costly new health care law) and the New York special Congressional election.

The Obama’s Administration’s Strange Double Standards on Hate Crimes, Terrorism, and Health Care: Soft on the Guilty, Cruel to the Innocent, Unfair to Taxpayers

by Hans Bader on July 30, 2009 · 3 comments

in Healthcare, International, Legal, Personal Liberty, Politics as Usual, Sanctimony

When black panthers were caught on videotape menacing white voters in Philadelphia, using nightsticks and racial epithets to drive them away from the polls, Obama political appointees, including Assistant Attorney General Tom Perelli, intervened to dismiss the lawsuit that had been won against them by career Justice Department lawyers — dismissing the case after it had already been won! The Obama political appointees insisted that the Justice Department should throw out its victory by not permitting a default judgment against two of the defendants even after the court clerk had already entered a default, claiming lack of evidence — even though the evidence of voter intimidation was captured on videotape! (The Obama appointees did allow the court to enter a toothless injunction against the third of the three defendants, which did nothing more than instruct him not to engage in such criminal acts again. But the defendants have paid no penalty for their crimes).

While bending over backwards to protect black hate-criminals who menaced voters in violation of the Voting Rights Act, the Administration has insisted that others found innocent of hate crimes in state court should be prosecuted all over again in federal court, relying on a loophole in Constitutional protections against double jeopardy. The recently passed federal hate-crimes bill, which Obama has pledged to sign, broadens the federal hate crimes law to the point where it punishes the same conduct already prohibited by state criminal laws and hate-crimes laws, allowing federal prosecutors to bring charges all over again after a jury has found that the defendant is not guilty of hate crimes.

As law professor Gail Heriot, a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, notes in the Philadelphia Inquirer, advocates of the federal hate crimes law have insisted that even in state cases where the evidence of a hate crime was very weak, leading to acquittals, federal reprosecution is warranted. For example, “Some have even called for federal prosecution of the Duke University lacrosse team members–despite strong evidence of their innocence.” Amazingly, even though DNA evidence proved the Duke Lacrosse players did not commit any rape (much less the racially-motivated rape they were accused of), and the North Carolina attorney general has admitted that they were innocent, there are still those who wish they had been prosecuted in federal court.

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights voted 6-to-2 to oppose the federal hate-crimes bill. The Commission called the bill a “menace to civil liberties” because “its most important effect will be to allow federal authorities to re-prosecute a broad category of defendants who have already been acquitted by state juries.” Thus, it will erode protections against double jeopardy.

But Congress chose to heed instead the 2 dissenting Commissioners, such as Michael Yaki, who has argued that the bill was necessary to allow people found not guilty of a hate crime in state court to be reprosecuted all over again in federal court. In his July 6 San Francisco Chronicle website commentary “Why We Need the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Bill,” Yaki points to the example of Joseph Silva and George Silva, who were found guilty of a crime in California state court, but not guilty of committing it for racial reasons, as an example of people who need to be reprosecuted for hate crimes in federal court. In fact, the Silvas are already being reprosecuted by the Obama Justice Department in federal court under the existing, narrow federal hate-crimes law, which only reaches the minority of hate crimes that affect federally-protected activities. The new hate-crimes law eliminates the longstanding requirement that hate crimes affect federally protected activities before federal prosecutors have jurisdiction to reprosecute them, making most state hate-crimes federal hate-crimes as well. (The Obama Justice Department “strenuously resisted efforts to tighten the bill’s language” to eliminate unjustified prosecutions).

A desire to get around constitutional double-jeopardy protections was also voiced by many backers of the bill, like the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and MALDEF, which pointed to a state jury’s acquittal of Pennsylvania teenagers accused of a hate crime against an illegal alien as a reason for passing the federal hate-crimes bill.

While seeking to erode the constitutional rights of American citizens, the Obama Administration has given foreign terrorists rights that they are not entitled to under the Constitution, such as giving enemy combatants captured in Afghanistan Miranda warnings even though that is not legally required. Terrorists captured overseas by U.S. troops are not entitled by the U.S. Constitution to Miranda warnings. Nor are Miranda warnings required by Afghan law, international law, or treaties like the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Even the liberal Washington Post, which has not endorsed a Republican for President since 1952, has criticized Obama’s foreign policy, admitting that Obama has shown “willful disregard of political oppression” by left-wing dictators. Meanwhile, he has attacked friendly governments in places like Honduras, the Wall Street Journal notes. All too often, Obama has behaved like a friend to our enemies, and an enemy to our friends.

Many supporters of the federal hate-crimes bill want to allow those found innocent to be reprosecuted in federal court. As one supporter put it, “the federal hate crimes bill serves as a vital safety valve in case a state hate-crimes prosecution fails.” The claim that the justice system has “failed” when a jury returns a not-guilty verdict is truly scary and contrary to the constitutional presumption of innocence and the right to trial by jury.

But it is a view widely shared among supporters of the hate-crimes bill. Syndicated columnist Jacob Sullum pointed out in 1998 that Janet Reno, Clinton’s Attorney General, backed the bill as a way of providing a federal “forum” for prosecution if prosecutors fail to obtain a conviction “in the state court.”

Supporters of the hate crimes bill also see it as a way to prosecute people even in cases where the evidence is so weak that state prosecutors have decided not to prosecute. Attorney General Eric Holder has pushed for the hate crimes bill as a way to prosecute people whom state prosecutors refuse to prosecute because of a lack of evidence. To justify broadening federal hate-crimes law, he cited three examples where state prosecutors refused to prosecute, citing a lack of evidence. In each, a federal jury acquitted the accused, finding them not guilty.

Advocates of a broader federal hate-crimes law have pointed to the Duke lacrosse case as an example of where federal prosecutors should have stepped in and prosecuted the accused players — even though the state prosecution in that case was dropped because the defendants were actually innocent, as North Carolina’s attorney general conceded, and were falsely accused of rape by a woman with a history of violence (including trying to run over someone with her car) and making false accusations.

Given the politically-charged nature of many hate-crimes trials, Kimberly Potter of New York University was probably right when she told Congress back in 1998 that if the federal hate crimes bill is enacted, “the acquittal of defendants in state court will frequently trigger demands for federal prosecution.”

Obama is also guilty of double standards in health-care. He’s trying to push through an ill-conceived health-care overhaul at home which will give preferential treatment to illegal aliens by qualifying them for federal health-care coverage, while exempting them from proposed taxes that would apply only to citizens.

One of Obama’s own advisers says his health-care plan will harm people with insurance while raising their taxes. CNN says Obamacare will take away 5 freedoms. It will also destroy many affordable health-care plans while breaking Obama’s campaign promises.

Commission Asks Justice Department Why Pro-Obama Thugs Got Away With Menacing White Voters

by Hans Bader on June 22, 2009 · 1 comment

in Bailout Watch, Culture, Economy, Features, Legal, Personal Liberty, Politics as Usual, Stimulus to Nowhere, Zeitgeist

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights is demanding to know why the “Obama Justice Department took the unusual action last month of dismissing a default judgment against the New Black Panther Party in connection with a case of voter intimidation on Election Day on November 4, 2008. Members of the NBPP were caught on film blocking access to the polls and physically and verbally intimidating voters, even going so far as to wield a nightstick in front of voters and poll watchers. The Justice Department’s lawyers gathered evidence, obtained the affidavit of former civil rights advocate Bartle Bull, and filed a complaint. When the defendants did not respond and the court invited the Justice Department to file a default judgment, the case was inexplicably withdrawn.”

By dismissing the case, political appointees in the Obama Justice Department blocked action against a racist, anti-semitic hate group whose members included an Obama poll-watcher and city democratic official, who used racial epithets and physical intimidation to drive white voters away from a polling place in Philadelphia last year.

Even as it engages in costly, unauthorized, illegal auto bailouts, and a monumentally-costly stimulus package that will shrink the economy “in the long run,” the Obama Administration is abdicating core federal responsibilities like enforcing the voting-rights laws.

The Obama Justice Department has also rubberstamped unconstitutional legislation, failed to protect the voting rights of American servicemen, and been deafeningly silent about a liberal black political boss in Mississippi who prevented voters from casting ballots and engaged in vote fraud.

Today, the Supreme Court permitted more local governments to “bail out” of the “preclearance” provisions of the Voting Rights Act, which the Obama Justice Department is using to block states from requiring proof of citizenship to vote, and to force race-based redistricting. (The Obama Justice Department recently blocked Georgia’s attempts to prevent illegal alien voting by requiring voter ID).

Obama Justice Department Protects Racist, Anti-Semitic Hate Group and Anti-White Voting Rights Violators

by Hans Bader on June 2, 2009

in Legal, Personal Liberty, Politics as Usual, Sanctimony

Members of the New Black Panther Party, one of whom was an Obama campaign poll watcher and local democratic official, used nightsticks and racial epithets captured on videotape to drive voters away from the polls in a Philadelphia precinct. But the Obama Administration killed a successful lawsuit against these criminals, dismissing it after career Justice Department lawyers had already obtained victory in the case, as a former Justice Department lawyer, the Philadelphia Bulletin, and a newspaper editorial note. (The New Black Panther Party, which attacks what it refers to as “bloodsucking Jews,” is recognized as a racist, antisemitic hate group even by liberal civil-rights groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center).

“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.” But Obama’s political appointees at the Justice Department overruled them, dropping the case after victory was already assured because “the court had already entered a default judgment against the” Black Panthers. Thanks to that outrageous decision, the only result of the case was a meaningless injunction telling one of the three defendants not to commit such crimes again (and telling him not to commit such crimes only until 2012, and not barring him from committing such crimes in his home city, but rather barring such crimes only in Philadelphia).

As the Washington Times notes,

“The Voting Rights Act is very clear. It prohibits any ‘attempt to intimidate, threaten or coerce’ any voter or those aiding voters. The explanation for moving to dismiss the case is shocking. According to the Department of Justice: ‘These same Defendants have made no appearance and have filed no pleadings with the Court. Nor have they otherwise raised any other defenses to this action. Therefore, the United States has the right … to dismiss voluntarily this action against the Defendants.’ In other words, because the defendants haven’t tried to defend themselves, the Justice Department won’t punish them. By that logic, if a murderer doesn’t respond to the charges, he should be let free. That’s crazy. The Obama Justice Department did take one action against one of the four defendants: It forbade him from again ‘displaying a weapon within 100 feet of any open polling location’ in Philadelphia. Given that it already was illegal to display a weapon at a polling place and that he was not even enjoined from carrying a weapon at polling places outside of Philadelphia, it is hard to see what this order accomplished. We asked the Justice Department if it was unable to provide any explanation for dropping the case. Justice press aide Alejandro Miyar merely said: ‘That is correct.’ Multiple times we asked both the department and the White House to comment on charges that the dismissals represented political bias. We received no substantive response. Hans Von Spakovsky, a legal scholar at the Heritage Foundation and a former commissioner at the Federal Election Commission, tells us, ‘In my experience, I have never heard of the department refusing to take a default judgment… . If a Republican administration had done this, it would be front-page news and every civil rights group in the country would be screaming about it.’ Consider that the behavior of the defendants was so bad that witness Bartle Bull, a former Robert F. Kennedy organizer who did extensive legal work on behalf of black voters in Mississippi, testified it was “the most blatant form of voter discrimination I have encountered in my life.’ Eric Eversole, a former litigation attorney with the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, told us: ‘It is truly unprecedented for the Voting Section to voluntarily dismiss a case of such blatant intimidation. The video speaks for itself.’ We couldn’t agree more. After the 2000 Presidential election, Democrats complained about voter intimidation in Florida by pointing to a police car that had been two miles away from a polling place. The police didn’t do anything to anyone, but their presence was deemed sufficient to vaguely intimidate people en route to the polls. In this case, the New Black Panther Party actually blocked access to a poll. Unlike the Florida incident, this case involving the New Black Panthers screams out for tough justice. Instead, the Obama administration looks the other way. This all but invites racial violence at future elections.”

In 2008, Obama disingenuously complained about the supposed “politicization” of the Justice Department under Bush. But Obama has politicized the Justice Department far more than Bush was accused of doing. Obama’s Justice Department has given a green light to unconstitutional bills pushed by liberal Congressmen that even liberal Justice Department attorneys have conceded are unconstitutional. It has been deafeningly silent about blatant voter fraud and voter intimidation committed by black officials, chronicled in a ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. And it did little to prevent violations of the voting rights of overseas soldiers and sailors that may have tipped election results in the Minnesota Senate race and New York special Congressional election.