[FlashCube]

First, to Mike's initial point, as someone who spends his days in the justice system, I'd agree that it is questionable to assume that anyone does time for this --unless they found a rock of cocaine on them.

Second, since the Tea Party folks have carried serious arms unmolested in public rallies, even near the President, what is the evidence that they would be prosecuted more harshly?

They were not blocking a polling place and threatening anyone. If you go look at the cases to which you refer, you will see that the police confirmed that no laws were broken.

---------- Post added 07-05-10 at 09:44 PM ----------

...just to continue the hypothetical condition: what color would the skin of these tea party members be? What sort of weapon would they be carrying?

As I mentioned before, the civil rights laws are often interpreted by many as being asymmetrical, intended to shield minorities from hate groups and political exclusionary tactics.

There are black tea party members. Furthermore, Justice Thomas' wife is one. If you ever encountered any of the mentioned militant groups you would have a different out look regardless of whether it is the Black Panthers, Klan, Neo-Nazis etc. whether its a Senator Byrd, David Duke, Farakhan, or Jeremiah Wright its the same hate and filth.

Edit: The Persians have their on brand of it:

http://www.wctv.tv/home/headlines/97807989.html

---

Last edited by FlashCube; 07-05-2010 at 09:45 PM.

[GeneV]

They were not blocking a polling place and threatening anyone. If you go look at the cases to which you refer, you will see that the police confirmed that no laws were broken.

---------- Post added 07-05-10 at 09:44 PM ----------



There are black tea party members. Furthermore, Justice Thomas' wife is one. If you ever encountered any of the mentioned militant groups you would have a different out look regardless of whether it is the Black Panthers, Klan, Neo-Nazis etc. whether its a Senator Byrd, David Duke, Farakhan, or Jeremiah Wright its the same hate and filth.

Regardless of whether the Black Panther group received leniency, the question remains, though, whether there is any precedent to indicate that Tea Party members would have been treated any differently. I haven't seen any situations in which that they have received harsher treatment by the law.

[FlashCube]

Regardless of whether the Black Panther group received leniency, the question remains, though, whether there is any precedent to indicate that Tea Party members would have been treated any differently. I haven't seen any situations in which that they have received harsher treatment by the law.

The press has been flipping out every day for the past 1.5 years over the Tea Party stuff. The hardly cover the Acorn incidents or Black P. stuff. They barely give any notice when idiots like Jeremiah Wrong give seminars like the ones he has been giving this summer. The clown actually made a statements like" white folk will never be your brother." "This will never be your country because white folk done took it." If that were coming from the Tea Party, even if it was a little back woods preacher with a congregation of eleven, it would be all over the PMSNBC and CNN etc.

[Nesster]

...you can console yourself that the press obviously sees the Tea Party as a realistic political force, on its own or in connection with primaries and elections... whereas the other groups mentioned won't be popular or mainstream any time soon, and will be waco fringe forever.

I guess this does indicate the press provides a service, one of filtering by impact and legitimacy, on local, state, or country wide influence and importance. Mostly the fringe-fringe is ignored, as is the poor nut job standing on the corner preach/ranting.

Whether the press does this out of its own sense of craft, or mainly because there's more money covering the Tea Party than the New Black P party is another thing.

[GeneV]

The press has been flipping out every day for the past 1.5 years over the Tea Party stuff. The hardly cover the Acorn incidents or Black P. stuff. They barely give any notice when idiots like Jeremiah Wrong give seminars like the ones he has been giving this summer. The clown actually made a statements like" white folk will never be your brother." "This will never be your country because white folk done took it." If that were coming from the Tea Party, even if it was a little back woods preacher with a congregation of eleven, it would be all over the PMSNBC and CNN etc.

Nesster has it right on this one. The Tea Party is a force right now and therefore it is covered. It elects candidates--especially in the Republican Primary. The Black Panthers are yesterday's news as a political force. Acorn is a never-was, and many of the issues surrounding that organization were actually distorted by a media that jumped all over the prostitute story.

I believe that attention is what the Tea Party wants, by the way. It still has nothing to do with whether they would be treated any differently if they engaged in misconduct at the polls.

The question I have is where is Jesse Jackson and the Irreverant Al Sharpeton in all of this? I mean they always want to protect us from racism don't they? Are are they just in it when it benefits them and keeps them in the spotlight?

Hot Air Video: The nice young man Eric Holder let off the hook

Check out the video in the link.

Why shouldn't the DoJ have dropped the charges against this poor African American upstanding citizen.

[YT]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMG9vXFtTRE[/YT]

[jeffkrol]

Sorry George....

# Adams has admitted that he does not have first-hand knowledge of the events, conversations, and decisions that he is citing to advance his accusations;
# The Bush administration’s Justice Department — not the Obama administration — made the decision not to pursue criminal charges against members of the New Black Panther Party for alleged voter intimidation at a polling center in Philadelphia in 2008;
# The Obama administration successfully obtained default judgment against Samir Shabazz, a member of the New Black Panther Party carrying a nightstick outside the Philadelphia polling center on Election Day 2008;
# The Bush administration DOJ chose not to pursue similar charges against members of the Minutemen, one of whom allegedly carried a weapon while harassing Hispanic voters in Arizona in 2006;
# No voters have come forward to claim that they were intimidated from voting on account of the New Black Panthers standing outside the polling center in 2008;

So, no matter how many times J. Christian Adams declares that the Obama administration refuses to protect the rights of white people — and no matter how many times Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh repeat it — it’s not true.

Bush DOJ decided New Black Panthers no major case | Cynthia Tucker

Then why did Holder let them walk away from a default judgement?

By JOHN FUND

President Obama's Justice Department continues to stonewall inquiries about why it dropped a voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party.

The episode—which Bartle Bull, a former civil rights lawyer and publisher of the left-wing Village Voice, calls "the most blatant form of voter intimidation I've ever seen"—began on Election Day 2008. Mr. Bull and others witnessed two Black Panthers in paramilitary garb at a polling place near downtown Philadelphia. (Some of this behavior is on YouTube.)

One of them, they say, brandished a nightstick at the entrance and pointed it at voters and both made racial threats. Mr. Bull says he heard one yell "You are about to be ruled by the black man, cracker!"

In the first week of January, the Justice Department filed a civil lawsuit against the New Black Panther Party and three of its members, saying they violated the 1965 Voting Rights Act by scaring voters with the weapon, uniforms and racial slurs. In March, Mr. Bull submitted an affidavit at Justice's request to support its lawsuit.

When none of the defendants filed any response to the complaint or appeared in federal district court in Philadelphia to answer the suit, it appeared almost certain Justice would have prevailed by default. Instead, the department in May suddenly allowed the party and two of the three defendants to walk away. Against the third defendant, Minister King Samir Shabazz, it sought only an injunction barring him from displaying a weapon within 100 feet of a Philadelphia polling place for the next three years—action that's already illegal under existing law.

There was outrage over the decision among Congressional Republicans, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, and in the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division—especially after it was learned one of the defendants who walked was Jerry Jackson, a member of Philadelphia's 14th Ward Democratic Committee and a credentialed poll watcher for the Democratic Party last Election Day.

John Fund: Black Panther Voter Intimidation Case Dropped - WSJ.com

[jeffkrol]

Then why did Holder let them walk away from a default judgement?



John Fund: Black Panther Voter Intimidation Case Dropped - WSJ.com

Maybe they want to even the score?????

In May 15 testimony before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Thomas Perez, assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, refuted the charge that the decision was a political one, testifying that the decision not to pursue charges amounted to "career people disagreeing with career people," which Perez said "happens very often."

To illustrate his point, Perez highlighted the Department of Justice's decision in 2006 not to pursue charges against members of the Minutemen for allegedly intimidating Hispanic voters in Pima, Arizona -- with one member of the group allegedly carrying a gun:

In another case, in Arizona, the complaint was received by a national civil rights organization regarding events in Pima, Arizona in the 2006 election when three well-known anti-immigrant advocates affiliated with the Minutemen, one of whom was carrying a gun, allegedly intimidated Latino voters at a polling place by approaching several persons, filming them, and advocating and printing voting materials in Spanish.

In that instance, the Department declined to bring any action for alleged voter intimidation, notwithstanding the requests of the complaining parties.

J. Christian Adams -- a political activist hired to the Justice Department in 2005, reportedly by a Bush appointee who was found to have politicized hiring at the DOJ -- was working in the Justice Department when the decision was made not to pursue charges against the Minutemen, yet he has not accounted for this decision while leveling unsubstantiated charges that the Obama administration acted "in lawless hostility toward equal enforcement of the law."

Media Matters for America
AND since nobody complained (IN the Bush/Obama case) the case has even less validity......

From a November 8, 2006, Austin American-Statesman article:

In Arizona, Roy Warden, an anti-immigration activist with the Minutemen, and a handful of supporters staked out a Tucson precinct and questioned Hispanic voters at the polls to determine whether they spoke English.

Armed with a 9mm Glock automatic strapped to his side, Warden said he planned to photograph Hispanic voters entering polls in an effort to identify illegal immigrants and felons. The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund reported the incident to the FBI.

White people w/ Glocks repub white President.. OK Black people w/ a stick.. Dem black pres NOT OK....
I made it easy for you to understand..........

Both the FBI and the Arizona U.S. Attorney's Office declined to comment about the reports.

http://mediamatters.org/print/blog/201007010023
Once again..........

But Limbaugh's race-baiting on the issue wasn't finished there. He contrasted the supposed dismissal of the New Black Panther case -- even though Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, Thomas Perez, testified that the "maximum penalty" was actually obtained against one of the defendants -- with the hypothetical failure to prosecute similar cases against white defendants under the Bush administration:

In 2006, during Adams' time in the Justice Department, the Bush DOJ decided not to pursue charges in a nearly identical situation against white members of the Minutemen who were allegedly intimidating Hispanic voters in Arizona.

And this information is not exactly buried. Perez referred to it in the testimony he gave before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights in which he discussed the decision not to seek additional charges in the New Black Panther Party case:Neither Limbaugh nor Adams -- who was reportedly hired by a Bush appointee who politicized the Justice Department -- accounted for this discrepancy while flinging accusations about racial motivations in dropping the charges against some of the New Black Panther defendants.

http://mediamatters.org/blog/201007010055
More cr@p from the Bush era.........
No comment George?

[GeneV]

Maybe they want to even the score?????

In 2006, during Adams' time in the Justice Department, the Bush DOJ decided not to pursue charges in a nearly identical situation against white members of the Minutemen who were allegedly intimidating Hispanic voters in Arizona.

More cr@p from the Bush era.........

As I said in my initial comment, the government has been ridiculously easy on these militias from both sides. There is no indication that they are easier on the Panthers than the others.

Rightly or wrongly, I wonder if the Branch Davidian conflagration and similar encounters with armed militias have them a little "gun-shy."

[jeffkrol]

Come on no comments on the "minuteman" incident...????
Glock vs "stick"...............
Selective reasoning and cultural amnesia......
Anyways I agree w/ GeneV...

[gokenin]

The "minuteman" should have been prosecuted if in fact there was a violation of the local law, however in the article that you cite the district attorney says that they were more than the 75 feet from the polling area as required by law. I do not know the law in regard to distance from a polling place in Philadelphia but if they were within their legal rights to be where they were then the same policy should have appplied to the panthers as was applied to the minutemen.

If this is the polling place than they sure aren't 75 feet away.
[YT]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neGbKHyGuHU[/YT]

[GeneV]

The "minuteman" should have been prosecuted if in fact there was a violation of the local law, however in the article that you cite the district attorney says that they were more than the 75 feet from the polling area as required by law. I do not know the law in regard to distance from a polling place in Philadelphia but if they were within their legal rights to be where they were then the same policy should have appplied to the panthers as was applied to the minutemen.

On the ther hand, did the feds even sue for an injunction against the minutemen compelling them to stay 100 feet away, as the did with the (alleged) Panthers? The feds don't prosecute local crimes, so the decision of the Justice Department and the Arizona elections official quoted about the 75 feet would be two separate laws and two separate systems. The same federal voting rights statute would have applied.

In one other article one of the "Panthers" claimed, rightly or wrongly, he was entitled to be 10 feet from the polls. The 100 foot injunction puts him further away than he claims he should be.

[gokenin]

On the ther hand, did the feds even sue for an injunction against the minutemen compelling them to stay 100 feet away, as the did with the (alleged) Panthers? The feds don't prosecute local crimes, so the decision of the Justice Department and the Arizona elections official quoted about the 75 feet would be two separate laws and two separate systems. The same federal voting rights statute would have applied.

In one other article one of the "Panthers" claimed, rightly or wrongly, he was entitled to be 10 feet from the polls. The 100 foot injunction puts him further away than he claims he should be.

I have never heard of a law that allows anyone within 10 feet of a polling place but then I am not saying that I know every rule across that country when it comes to how far someone has to be from a person placing his/her vote. I can not imagine that any place would allow you within such a small amount of space however. I dont know if the federal rules require 100 feet if that is the case that should have been applied but if the law allows 75 feet as it does with the minutemen then they should be allowed within 75 feet, as for the firearms if they are allowed by law again to carry them then they are not violating the law is it in poor taste and intimidating yes it is but legally they may be within their rights. SHould the black panthers be within the legal limits of the law in Philadelphia then they should not be prosecuted for the law but even if they were in their "legal" rights it was still a stupid thing to do.