I know it’s shocking that two black guys were allowed to don Black Panther costumes and stand around in front of a polling station in Philadelphia on election day in 2008, but it didn’t constitute a violation of anybody’s rights, let alone signal a systematic imposition on white people’s inherent right to vote. It was just two neighborhood knuckleheads pretending to belong to the Black Panthers. They didn’t even do anything except stand there looking ridiculous. The video, which went viral on Fox News shows voters, including a defenseless white women and an elderly man, walking right past them into the polling station without even taken any special notice. You know why? Because it’s a big city with a lot of goofy people in it who do goofy things, wear strange outfits, and stand around doing nothing and bothering nobody. When the Department of Justice dismissed the case against these two buffoons, suddenly the right started accusing the negro in charge of the DOJ of not giving a crap about the voting rights of white people. To no one sane’s surprise, the Justice Department’s Office of Personnel Responsibility (OPR) has concluded that it was perfectly reasonable to treat the case with the contempt which it deserved. But who will save the white women?
The OPR’s findings were released in a letter Tuesday to Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Tex.) that was signed by department attorney Robin Ashton…
…In a statement, Smith, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee and is expected to hold hearings on whether the department is politicized, said the review — which was limited to the actions of attorneys in the case — “did not address the Civil Rights Division’s misguided policy of using racial considerations when determining whether to enforce voting rights laws. The Division should protect the voting rights of all Americans, regardless of race, gender, religion or political affiliation.”
Let me translate this for you. Someone at the DOJ made the mistake of saying something along the lines of “why are we trying to protect the voting rights of white people? This case is so stupid,” when they should have just said, “This case is so stupid.” What happened is that two knuckleheads played dress-up on election day and the right tried to turn into something on the level of the Germans invading Poland.
Here’s some plain English that maybe even wingnuts can understand.
After reviewing thousands of pages of internal e-mails and notes and conducting 44 interviews with department staff members, the OPR reported that “department attorneys did not commit professional misconduct or exercise poor judgment” and that the voter-intimidation case against the Panthers was dismissed on “a good faith assessment of the law” and “not influenced by the race of the defendant.
I can’t wait for Lamar Smith’s hearings. He should call the two dipshit faux-Panthers to the witness table so they can explain how they happened to wake up that day without anything better to do than pretend to belong to the Black Panther party.
the BUSH DOJ declined the case. this is a FACT
not, conjecture, but FACT.
Not exactly:
Basically this is all because one of the two faux-Panthers had a billy club with him. The other guy was a certified poll watcher and the police let him stay.
And here is why I call them faux-panthers:
sort of o/t, but my favorite new black panthers story is Fuck Whitey’s Christmas. A few friends have this cover framed.
The NBPP is not exactly popular with the original black panthers.
As stupid as it all is when looking at it in our rear view mirrors, the whole kerfuffle served its purpose at the time. It validated the desired meme that Obama and all his militant black friends were coming after whitey. First, with their billy clubs at polling stations. And soon to follow they would come for the white man’s guns. This was just a sign of the first wave of oppression that Obama was going to unleash on the poor old defenseless white folk. This video was talked about quite a bit around my area because of the fact it played round the clock on FOX, which is blaring on every TV in every place you go and it symbolized the deep seated fear that a lot of white people had about “Obama’s hidden agenda”.
No one will notice this DOJ finding but we scant few on the left who will use it as another example of the stupidity level of the right. And this DOJ finding will only bounce around in the echo chamber of the blogosphere, never to be acknowledged by the media in the very areas of the country where it caused such fear and apprehension.
The mighty right-wing wurlitzer is truly a sight to behold. It was hitting on all cylinders, wasn’t it?
We should have exchange programs for people in rural and exurban areas. They can come live in a big city for three months and learn how unscary it really is.
Most of the people who I know that cling to their fear have no interest in exiting their enclaves of comfy, white middle class safety.
Too many of “those people” running around in the big cities for their tastes. And you hear all those weird, scary foreign languages, too. That language thing is an actual complaint I have heard from more than one person.
Oh, and there are too many liberals in those big cities.
what exactly constitutes a “Black Panther costume”?
watch the video.
When I followed the link to the video I watched it and then was presented with a much more desirable video of Black Panthers. Check it out. And let’s just forget about this stupid incident in Fox “News” history.
Cute cute.