Surely President Obama does not support the U.S. Department of Justice's outrageous decision to drop prosecution of the most blatant example of voter intimidation likely ever caught on video, the New Black Panther case in Philadelphia in 2008. Obama needs to tell Attorney General Eric Holder to reverse the decision before this thing explodes into a scandal of epic proportions. More important, Obama should make clear to Holder and to America that he expects the Justice Department to prosecute all federal voter intimidation cases to the fullest extent of the law without regard to anything but the evidence at hand.
The evidence at hand in Philadelphia includes video of two thuggish African-American men dressed in military fatigues. As one wielded a baton in a menacing manner, they hurled racial slurs at white voters who understandably were scared away from the polling place. The Justice Department under President George W. Bush filed criminal charges against the two men. After Obama took office, default judgments resulted when the defendants failed to show for their trials. But Holder's Justice Department later dropped the charges following a plea deal in which one of the men agreed not to carry a weapon near the Philadelphia polling place until 2012. Both men are now free to intimidate voters again.
J. Christian Adams, one of the top Justice Department lawyers involved in the case, resigned to protest political interference he claims derailed prosecution of what he called "the clearest case of voter intimidation that I've seen since I've been practicing law." Adams has since claimed that Associate Attorney General Thomas Perrelli, an Obama political appointee, overruled a unanimous recommendation for continued prosecution by Adams and other attorneys involved. On Tuesday, Adams told the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights that Justice Department officials "over and over and over" showed "hostility" to prosecution of voter intimidation cases involving "black defendants and white victims." Former Justice Department colleagues are now coming forward to corroborate Adams' claims and to counter the department's charge that he "distorted facts."
This case must be made right as quickly as possible and with no room for further doubts about the integrity of Justice Department voter intimidation prosecutions. To that end, Obama should order Holder to let Perrelli and others in the department testify before the Commission on the Civil Rights and turn over all documents the commission has requested. Anything less at this point risks undermining five decades of distinguished federal voting rights enforcement that is among the enduring legacies of Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/08/2010 00:00 ||
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Surely President Obama does not support the U.S. Department of Justice's outrageous decision to drop prosecution of the most blatant example of voter intimidation likely ever caught on video, the New Black Panther case in Philadelphia in 20
He doesn't? Then how he's going to win the next elections?
#2
Gee, maybe ya think Barak Obama attended for 20 some years a Marxist, hate filled racist "church" because he is a Marxist, hate filled racist?
Posted by: ed ||
07/08/2010 9:09 Comments ||
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#3
This case must be made right as quickly as possible and with no room for further doubts about the integrity of Justice Department voter intimidation prosecutions.
#5
I am glad I wasn't at that polling spot cause I was as pissed off as a Wayans brother in "White Chicks" when his handbags got lifted when I listened to his vid about killing white babies
Next moment I would have been tackling that SOB and beating him with his own stick, next I'd be dragged away in cuffs. I am not the quiet white girl sterotype. It would have ended badly for him AND me!!
Posted by: Ford Maude Elle ||
07/08/2010 23:58 Comments ||
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One day before King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz met with Saudi students in the city of Toronto, Canada, a number of Saudi scholarship students gathered in the lobby of the hotel that the Saudi delegation was staying in. At the time, my attention was drawn to an elder Saudi gentleman who was dressed in traditional Saudi attire; he had a long white beard and was sitting next to a young girl who was wearing a veil. At first glance I thought that this man may have been in Canada to receive medical treatment, however one of the Saudi Arabian [newspaper] editors who was accompanying the Saudi delegation asked him what he was doing there. The man answered that he was accompanying his daughter who had received a scholarship to study abroad from the King Abdullah Foreign Scholarship Program, and that he had decided to chaperone his daughter as she did not have anybody to chaperone her.
I recalled this man's story -- who after all of these years had left his home and country behind in order to ensure that his daughter received a scholarship and education abroad -- whilst I was reading an article written by one of the supporters of [Islamic] fundamentalism and fundamentalists. The writer of this article was calling for an academic study to monitor the impact that scholarship students have on Saudi society following their return, fearing the impact of westernization on Saudi society from the return of around 150,000 scholarship students!
Instead of this writer and those like him calling for impartial academic studies to monitor the impact on Saudi Arabia of those returning from Afghanistan and other hotbeds of extremism, not just now, but over the past 20 years or more, and how their ideology has infiltrated society and left us with this number of terrorists who have put themselves and innocent people into peril, this writer is today calling for an academic study into the impact of those [students] returning from abroad where they have acquired useful knowledge!
It would be much more useful and effective if elements such as this call for studies that will tell us how to benefit from the return of scholarship students, and how to create jobs for them, and how they can contribute to the development of society, as well as studies to ensure that we maintain the scholarship program for the next 10 years or more, or studies that show how we can legally and linguistically prepare scholarship students before they leave to study abroad so that they can avoid any harsh experiences, and so that we can help them to avoid mistakes. As for calling for a study to monitor the impact of their return on society, this is nothing more than an attempt to admonish and distort the concept of scholarship.
What is beautiful and important is that educational scholarships have touched most families in Saudi Arabia, and this is something that will continue to have a large impact on Saudi citizens -- both men and women -- and on the country itself. There are those who have travelled abroad with their children to ensure that they do not miss out on this educational opportunity, such as the man that I saw in Canada and many others, because they believe that "knowledge raises our houses without foundations" as the [Arab poet] Ahmed Shawqi said, God rest his soul. As for those who are trying to be clever, it is clear that they are seeking to strengthen backwardness under the pretext of preserving customs and traditions and protecting society. This is a notion that has been repeated often, as unfortunately they always focus on the empty half of the glass.
Therefore, King Abdullah's foreign scholarship program remains a landmark in the history of Saudi Arabia, especially after such scholarship stopped for a long period of time. Therefore, this program deserves our thanks and appreciation and our commendation for its continuance, rather than attempting to derail this.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/08/2010 00:00 ||
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Arabia
Saudi Arabia-They Want to Strengthen Backwardness
Of course. Educating Slaves is never good (For the Masters)
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
07/08/2010 10:58 Comments ||
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A full-fledged disintegration of the eurozone would trigger the worst economic crisis in modern history, devastate every country in Europe including Germany, and inflict a deflationary shock on the US. There would be no winners, warns the Dutch bank ING in a new report "Quantifying the Unthinkable".
#3
But the prospect isn't "full-fledged disintegration", just getting rid of the EMU members that never had any business joining in the first place. A hard-currency, fiscally-responsible, smaller EMU focused on Germany and northern continental Europe would do fine, and we'd all be better off as a result.
#4
Notice all the talk throughout the article about how it would affect the US.
They will ask for money sooner or later. Just like a pan-handling bum sidling up to you on the sidewalk, you can see them coming a mile away.
#5
A smart way of dealing with this situation is to "parallel the Euro" with national currencies. The easiest way to do this is to print a vast amount of Euros that have individual countries identifier on them in large print.
For example a "German Euro" would have a big "GER" on it.
The number of German Euros printed was based on Germany's solvency and relative wealth. Germans could exchange their ordinary Euros for German Euros 1 for 1. But the trick is that they can *only* be spent in Germany.
If Euros left Germany, they would have to be converted, at whatever exchange rate, for the Euros of that other country, likely worth less than German Euros. And conversion could only be done through an official source.
Once the core nations would be back on their feet, their Euros could be permitted to exchange. For example, GER and FRA(nce) Euros could be spent in either country, once France had equivalent economic stability to Germany.
Insolvent nations, like Greece, would be confronted with an inflating Euro currency, forcing a restoration of economic sanity on them. It would temporarily cut them off from the rest of Europe, except at a premium price, and they could only return once they got their house in order.
From that point, in the future, any country that misbehaved financially would have its Euros "lettered" until they got their house back in order.
#2
Detroit hairdresser works all her life to someday fulfill her dream of having her own salon. She finally has enough of an established clientele and reputation to strike out on her own. A suitable place becomes available to her. She goes to the bank to get a loan to get herself set up in business but hears:
I am sorry, we have met our quota of loans to black people. We can't give you a loan. Maybe if you know a white person we can give a loan to, we can lend to you.
This is institutionalizing racism. Life is not "fair". To attempt to legislate and regulate "fairness" is dumb. We work all our lives in many cases to get an "unfair" advantage over our peers by working harder, learning more, becoming more competent than the person next to us. Then to be denied a chance because "we have enough people of your color" is just plain wrong.
#3
Especially because quite possibley double "minority" candidates (ie: a minority not caucasian and female) will get preference.
After all, according to the census all caucasians are lumped under "white." Meanwhile, there are many categories on the census for anyone hailing from darker extraction. It is going to be completely stacked in non-whites favor.
Posted by: Ford Maude Elle ||
07/08/2010 18:58 Comments ||
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How much ya want to bet that Asians don't get counted as a "minority" either?
#5
If that is the case, then the logical conclusion is...its a game of shoots and ladders.
losers going up, meanwhile hardworking Asians and Caucasians going down.
Posted by: Ford Maude Elle ||
07/08/2010 20:25 Comments ||
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#6
Oops, its been a minute since I played. I meant Chutes and Ladders.
Posted by: Ford Maude Elle ||
07/08/2010 20:26 Comments ||
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#7
This has had no coverage by the news media and has large implications.
Yawn. That's an earth shaker. What's new? The MSM is radical left just like Bummer. Both are failures. The MSM is more interested in Lindsay Lohan's latest drunk escapade and court appearance or where Lebron James is going to end up.
In the New York Post, John Podhoretz blames President Obama and voters for dire times in this country that cast a grim light on the birthday festivities. The first seems correct, for a number of reasons. But the electorate has a few things in its favor that look to a happier end.
People voted for Obama for a number of reasons, not all of them bad.
It was not wrong to want a minority president. It was not wrong after eight years to want to change parties: The system is built to swing between center-right and left-center; and parties and movements get worn-out and stale.
It was not wrong to think in the financial crash of September '08 that the Republican Party was unfit to hold power: People who blame Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. and President George W. Bush for their problems should recall that before the crash McCain had been leading, and it was the fractious, bizarre and chaotic response of the Republican Congress, played out in two weeks of cross-factional brawling, that turned the country against all things GOP.
The Berlin speech was inane, but the "One America" speech touched the hearts of good people. The vote may have been a mistaken one (in the view of some people extremely mistaken), but it was not without reasons that might have seemed telling to sane and intelligent men.
Obama won, and it soon became clear he was left, not left-center, and that the "One America" that he wanted was one wholly run by his side. Reaction came fast.
Rick Santelli's rant on Feb. 15 was the Paul Revere's ride of the Internet, and within days tea parties were everywhere, run not by Republicans, who still seemed to be in the fetal position, but by unaligned voters who had given Obama their trust and his victory, and were in the process of taking them back.
Tea Party supporters walked into a fusillade of press opposition, in which they were mocked, ridiculed and harangued by "reporters," compared to the Ku Klux Klan and domestic terrorists, and even maligned by members of Congress, who made up stories about racial slurs. In fact, their rallies were peaceful and largely good-humored (at least much more so than anti-war rallies), and the only (two) occasions of violence were perpetrated on Tea Party members by liberals who were angry at them.
With no funds, no organization (except for the Internet) and no leaders to speak of, they pulled off astonishing feats. They put the fear of God into wavering Democrats, and turned passage of health care from a "slam dunk" into the mother of all Phyrric victories.
They took down Creigh Deeds, D-Va., Gov. Jon Corzine, D-N.J., and Kennedy heiress Martha Coakley, D-Mass., and gave Republicans footholds in very blue precincts. They fought the press to a standstill, and even defeated it: After health care was rammed through with bribes, threats and payoffs, the papers of record ran breathless odes to Obama's colossal accomplishment.
No one was buying, and within days they were forced to print stories about why this achievement was doing him no good at all. In November 2008, Obama won purple and red states and won independents by substantial margins; in November 2009 (and January 2010) he lost purple and blue states as independents had fled. He hasn't been stopped, but he's been checked severely.
This is a sign of the health of the country. The Tea Party worked by the book through the system, exercising its rights of free speech and assembly. The electorate voted. The system is working. Obama is failing. The country is fine.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/08/2010 00:00 ||
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"Stupidity is not a crime. Nevertheless, it's a capital offense"
#2
"...it was the fractious, bizarre and chaotic response of the Republican Congress, played out in two weeks of cross-factional brawling, that turned the country against all things GOP."
As the radiomen used to say in my Navy days...Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?!?!? IIRC, the party that had majorities in both houses from 2006 onward was the one symbolized by the Jackass.
Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) ||
07/08/2010 13:40 Comments ||
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the party that had majorities in both houses from 2006 onward was the one symbolized by the Jackass. Posted by Ricky bin Ricardo
But, but, but all of Barry's current problems were inherited from the Bush administration.
Every now and then you hear calls from critics of Islam for Islam to reform itselffor mosques and madrassas to teach against the Islamic doctrines that inspire terrorists. A dramatic example of this demand occurs in the film Fitna when Geert Wilders invites Muslims to tear the offending pages out of the Koran. In one scene you can hear the sound of tearing pages in the background.
If thy page offend thee, pluck it out? The only trouble with this sort of recommendation is that it assumes that there is enough positive material in the Koran and other foundational documents to form the basics for a reformation. But is there?
According to Moorthy Muthuswamy, an expert on political Islam, 61 percent of the Koran talks ill of unbelievers or calls for their violent conquest and subjugation, but only 2.6 percent talks about the overall good of humanity. Hmmm. Seems as though that would amount to an awful lot of offending pages.
Its a similar story when you turn to the sira, the biographies of Muhammad. Take the earliest of these, the one written by Ibn Ishaq. Of the 130 short chapters which detail the life of Muhammad after his arrival in Medina, over 70 are about raids, battles, and assassinations or else they are about preparations for raids and battles, division of spoils, odes upon battles, names of those who fought, etc. According to a content analysis done by Bill Warner of the Center for the Study of Political Islam, at least 75% of the sira is about jihad. These are inconvenient facts for those who hope Islam can be reformed. No matter how reform-minded you may be, it is difficult to come up with a symbolic interpretation of the Korans numerous calls to make war on unbelievers, since that was literally what Muhammad did.
Posted by: ed ||
07/08/2010 09:20 ||
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Just when you thought Barack Obama's toadying to Islam could not get any worse, now comes this: The President directed the new administrator of NASA, retired Marine Major General Charles Bolden, as "perhaps [his] foremost" charge to "find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage more dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science...and math and engineering."
This comment came in an interview the NASA chief conducted with al-Jazeera while touring the Middle East to mark the first anniversary of Mr. Obama's much-ballyhooed Cairo paean to Muslims. Bolden elaborated, "It is a matter of trying to reach out and get the best of all worlds, if you will, and there is much to be gained by drawing in the contributions that are possible from the Muslim (nations)."
In an address to the American University in Cairo, Bolden added that Mr. Obama has "asked NASA to change...by reaching out to 'nontraditional' partners and strengthening our cooperation in the Middle East, North Africa, Southeast Asia and in particular in Muslim-majority nations." He declared that "NASA is not only a space exploration agency, but also an Earth improvement agency."
Now, when one thinks of the "contributions" to our space program that are possible from Muslim nations, the one that comes to mind is the literal kind - recycled petrodollars - since their "contributions to science, math and engineering" for several hundreds of years have been, to put it charitably, underwhelming.
As it happens, the NASA Administrator made it pretty clear in his remarks to al-Jazeera that the U.S. space program is not going anywhere without foreign help. That will soon be literally true since, with the retirement of the last space shuttle this Fall, we will be entirely dependent on Russian launchers to put people into space.
Such a state of affairs will persist unless and until experimental American rockets being developed by private American concerns pan out. Or the Chinese offer us a ride.
Unfortunately, the prospect of America's space program relying - like a fading superpower version of A Streetcar Named Desire's Blanche DuBois - on the "kindness of strangers" is the inevitable result of programmatic decisions being taken by the Obama administration.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/08/2010 00:00 ||
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Posted by: ed ||
07/08/2010 0:55 Comments ||
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The Iranian Ambassador to the UN had just finished giving a speech, and walked out into the lobby where he met President Bush.
They shook hands, and as they walked the Iranian said, "You know, I have just one question about what I have seen in America."
President Bush said, "Well, anything I can do to help you, I will."
The Iranian whispered "My son watches this show 'Star Trek' and in it there is Chekhov who is Russian, Scotty who is Scottish, and Sulu who is Japanese, but no Muslims.
My son is very upset and doesn't understand why there aren't any Muslims on Star Trek."
President Bush laughed, leaned toward the Iranian ambassador, and whispered back, "It's because it takes place in the future."
#3
Just think, if NASA had real leaders and if we had real leaders in the government who really wanted the US to advance in space, what could have been accomplished with that $800 billion stimulus.
The death spiral of the Islamic Republic seems to be gathering momentum. That big fire at a major oil well I told you about last week continues unabated, with big flames and clouds of noxious black smoke pouring out. And these are the people who offered to clean up the much larger catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico.
But mere physical disaster is trivial compared to the events that are taking place in Iran. In the past week, the regime has been confronted with two direct challenges: a strike in the grand bazaar of Tehran, and the very public battle between conflicting elements of the regime for control over the Free University.
The strike in the bazaar-- protesting a dramatic 70% increase in their taxes -- was taken very seriously by the regime, because the supreme leader and his cronies know that if the merchants turned against them it could prove fatal. Khamenei capitulated within a few hours, just as he had two years ago when the bazaar shut down for an entire week. This sudden about-face from the supreme leader did not bring order to the countrys markets; the strike continues, which is big news indeed. Lots more at site
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
07/08/2010 12:10 ||
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Ledeen's opinion is always worth reading even if I find he is a bit more optimistic than I on Iran.
The news of the bazaar is really interesting, however, it is more of an anti tax thing (tea party??) than an anti mullah thing.
This is the first I have heard about the fire at a Persian oil well. When I looked up this on the internet, it seems the fire was mostly stopped on July 7.
Posted by: lord garth ||
07/08/2010 17:44 Comments ||
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Ledeen alluded to corruption in the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC); Mousavi said it outright.
Given that the IRGC controls a large share of the Iranian economy by owning corporations( a share larger than the mullahs, btw) and the Iranian love of making a quick-buck however-whenever, I'm not surprised.
When I was a student, in the 1970s, the world was coming to an end. The adults told me so. They said the population explosion was unstoppable, mass famine was imminent, a cancer epidemic caused by chemicals in the environment was beginning, the Sahara desert was advancing by a mile a year, the ice age was retuning, oil was running out, air pollution was choking us and nuclear winter would finish us off. There did not seem to be much point in planning for the future. I remember a fantasy I had - that I would make my way to the Hebrides, off the west coast of Scotland, and live off the land so I could survive these holocausts at least till the cancer got me.
I am not making this up. By the time I was 21 years old I realized that nobody had ever said anything optimistic to me - in a lecture, a television program or even a conversation in a bar - about the future of the planet and its people, at least not that I could recall. Doom was certain.
The next two decades were just as bad: acid rain was going to devastate forests, the loss of the ozone layer was going to fry us, gender-bending chemicals were going to decimate sperm counts, swine flu, bird flu and Ebola virus were going to wipe us all out. In 1992, the United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro opened its agenda for the twenty-first century with the words `Humanity stands at a defining moment in history. We are confronted with a perpetuation of disparities between and within nations, a worsening of poverty, hunger, ill health and illiteracy, and the continuing deterioration of the ecosystems on which we depend for our well-being.'
By then I had begun to notice that this terrible future was not all that bad. In fact every single one of the dooms I had been threatened with had proved either false or exaggerated.... Go read it all.
Posted by: Mike ||
07/08/2010 10:31 ||
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He's hit the Mother Lode, PANIC SELLS,
Whether it be Newspapers, TV, or print media.
That's the NEWS.
A screaming panic daily, and why I quit watching and don't liten to the PPS (Professional Panic Sellers.)
I have this mental image , Ruth Buzzy (Laugh In) looking at a paper and saying OOoooh in a scared/shocked soft voice.
THAT'S WHAT THEY WANT.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
07/08/2010 10:56 Comments ||
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There are only 2 possible ways the world can end, called the Lesser and the Greater Ends. The Lesser is when you die. The Greater End is when I die.
Ever notice how everyone talks about the Mayan calender - wheels within wheels and all. Why is it these great gear sayers didn't have a wheelbarrow among them?
#4
As I recall, the 70's really were pretty awful. I wouldn't say we're all doomed but with the current state of the economy I would say that a lot of us sure are screwed.
First the New Madrid Earthquakes in 1811-12 left a lasting impression on everybody, once the word got out.
Then the eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815 created "The Year Without a Summer" in 1816, wiping out crops.
Then finally, the Great Meteor Storm of 1833 (Leonids), just scared the crap out of everybody, looking like every star in the sky was falling all at once. Some individual meteors as bright as the full Moon.
#7
Indeed Moose. The 20th century was noteworthy for its lack of major natural disasters. It was also noteworthy for how stable the world's climate was, despite what you hear to the contrary.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Surely President Obama does not support the U.S. Department of Justice's outrageous decision to drop prosecution of the most blatant example of voter intimidation likely ever caught on video, the New Black Panther case in Philadelphia in 2008. Obama needs to tell Attorney General Eric Holder to reverse the decision before this thing explodes into a scandal of epic proportions. More important, Obama should make clear to Holder and to America that he expects the Justice Department to prosecute all federal voter intimidation cases to the fullest extent of the law without regard to anything but the evidence at hand.
When I was a student, in the 1970s, the world was coming to an end. The adults told me so. They said the population explosion was unstoppable, mass famine was imminent, a cancer epidemic caused by chemicals in the environment was beginning, the Sahara desert was advancing by a mile a year, the ice age was retuning, oil was running out, air pollution was choking us and nuclear winter would finish us off. There did not seem to be much point in planning for the future. I remember a fantasy I had - that I would make my way to the Hebrides, off the west coast of Scotland, and live off the land so I could survive these holocausts at least till the cancer got me.
