DOJ, Voting Laws, & The Left In Full Moral Outrage

EJ Dionne, writing at the Washington Post, is outraged that anyone is paying any attention to either DOJ whistleblower J. Christian Adams or the Dept. of Justice's decision to drop charges in the case of the New Black Panthers. He is in equaly incoherent rage that anyone is paying any attention to Fox News. Eugene Robinson has likewise written the same in his most recent op-ed at the Washington Post, tossing in a charge of racism for even raising the issue that the DOJ may be racist in its application of the law:

After the Shirley Sherrod episode, there's no longer any need to mince words: A cynical right-wing propaganda machine is peddling the poisonous fiction that when African Americans or other minorities reach positions of power, they seek some kind of revenge against whites.

A few of the purveyors of this bigoted nonsense might actually believe it. Most of them, however, are merely seeking political gain by inviting white voters to question the motives and good faith of the nation's first African American president. This is really about tearing Barack Obama down. . . .

Then there is Bob Herbert at the NYT, as well as their resident drama queen, Frank Rich - and do see see this ridiculous piece by Brian Stetler. Each one of those pieces, and I dare say hundereds of others throughout the nation this past week, hits precisely the same talking points. They are:

- Fox is racist propagana machine which no other media outlet should follow

- Fox played a central role in getting Shirley Sherrod fired (all studiously ignoring that Fox News Channel never mentioned Sherrod's name prior to her being fired)

- The DOJ's refusal to prosecute the New Black Panthers for voter intimidation is not merely meaningless, but to even ask that the matter be investigated is racist

- J. Christian Adams was once a poll watcher for the Bush administration and thus he has no legitimacy.

This is damage control by the left because the race card is losing its legitimacy. They want to make the charges of reverse racism at the DOJ go the way of Rev. Jeremiah Wright during the election campaign - just fade away. It is a blatant attempt to stifle any discussion of the issues raised by Mr. Adams. The fact that they can work in an ad hominem attack against Fox News is, to them, just an added bennie.

Let's review the charges that have been raised against the Obama DOJ, taking not that they go far beyond just the New Black Panther matter.

1. The DOJ's prosecution of the New Black Panther case was dismissed after a judgment of guilt had been entered. There was no apparent reason for this dismissal.

1A. The DOJ has flatly refused to honor lawful subpoenas to answer questions before the Civil Rights Commission investigating whether the dismissal was based on racial preference.

1B. In addition, the DOJ has transferred the key witness who was handling the New Black Panther case, Christopher Coates, to South Carolina, outside the reach of the subpoena power of the Civil Rights Commission.

2. A very serious charge has been leveled that the DOJ, again on grounds of race, is refusing to enforce Secion 8 of the Voting Rights Act - that part of the motor voter law that requires states to periodically update their voting roles by purging the rolls of the deceased, felons, and others ineligible to vote.

2A. J. Christian Adams has testified under oath that by Deputy Assistant Attorney General Julie Fernandes that "We're not interested in those kind of cases. What do they have to do with helping increase minority access and turnout? We want to increase access to the ballot, not limit it." The only possible way this could increase access to the ballot would be to invite vote fraud.

2B. In March, 2009, the the Obama DOJ dropped a case filed in 2006 against Missouri, for that state's refusal to clean up its voting rolls. The suit alleged that over 33% of Missouri counties had more registered voters than residents of voting age. The state had done nothing to clean up the voting rolls when the suit was dismissed.

3. According to Abigail Thernstrom, there is also reason to be concerned that the Obama DOJ is going to improperly use its powers under the Voting Rights Act to force race conscious drawing of political districts following the 2010 Census.

4. The DOJ is apparently stonewalling implementation of the MOVE act designed to insure that the votes of our soldiers deployed outside of their home states are counted. In the 2008 election, 17,000 military votes went uncounted. According to Eric Eversole in today's Washington Times, because of the DOJ's refusal to enforce the Move act, military voters will again face widespread disenfranchisement in the 2010 election. (H/T Instapundit)

There is more than ample cause to be concerned that Obama's Dept. of Justice is acting unlawfully by deliberate and racially unequal application of the Voting Rights Act. Indeed, the charges made above go directly to the sanctity of the ballot box - and thus to the very foundation of legitimacy of our form of government.

The left's desire to push this aside using the race card is scandalous. All of this is deserving of a thorough investigation. There is no doubt that allegations of this type of conduct by the DOJ during the Bush years would have seen the MSM clear cutting entire old growth forests to get enough paper to handle the avalanche of outraged opinion pieces and supposedly objective news articles decrying the DOJ. And indeed, on charges of "politicization," the left spent months destroying the carreer of Bush AG Alberto Gonzalez. "Politicization" is a meaningless charge. Racism in the unequal application of our voting laws is not.
To add an addendum, there has been much back and forth of late on the right regarding whether or not the right should be pursuing the New Black Panther matter. Abigail Thernstrom of the Civil Rights Commission believes that the matter is too small to warrant much attention and that conservatives are blowing it out of proportion. Andrew McCarthy and Peter Kirsanow strongly disagree. Interestingly, Paul Mirengoff of Powerline has concluded that the dismissal itself of the New Black Panther case may have been justified, though he takes no position on whether the dismissal itself was motivated by improper considerations of race. Scott Johnson of Powerline argues that it is the motivation that makes this a serious issue, and Hans Von Spakovsky, a voting rights expert, disagrees strongly with Paul's conclusion. It makes for fascinating reading. I include the links below:

Abigail Thernstrom - The New Black Panther Case: A Conservative Dissent

Andrew McCarthy - The Case Against the New Black Panthers (responding to Thernstrom)

Abigail Thernstrom - Yes, the Black Panther Case Is Small Potatoes (reply to McCarthy)

Peter Kirsanow - A Response to Thernstrom on the New Black Panther Case (H/T Instapundit)

Scott Johnson (Powerline) - The New Black Panther Party Case: Just Blow It

Paul Mirengoff (Powerline) - The New Black Panther Party Case: My Final(?) Look

Hans A. von Spakovsky - Dissenting with Paul Mirengoff: New Black Panther Case Should Not Have Been Dismissed

Paul Mirengoff (Powerline) - The New Black Panther Party Case: A Reply to Hans von Spakovsky

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Our Class/Race/Gender Warrior In Chief

At the WSJ, Democratic pollsters Patrick Caddell and Douglas Shoen take stock of Obama's performance after eighteen months, concluding the obvious - that Obama has been the most divisive President in living memory. This from their commentary in the WSJ:

. . . Mr. Obama has divided America on the basis of race, class and partisanship. Moreover, his cynical approach to governance has encouraged his allies to pursue a similar strategy of racially divisive politics on his behalf.

. . . By dividing America, Mr. Obama has brought our government to the brink of a crisis of legitimacy, compromising our ability to address our most important policy issues.

We say this with a heavy heart. Both of us share the president's stated vision of what America can and should be. The struggle for equal rights has animated both of our lives. Both of us were forged politically during the crucible of the civil rights movement. Having worked in the South during the civil rights movement, and on behalf of the ground-breaking elections of African-American mayors such as David Dinkins, Harold Washington and Emanuel Cleaver, we were deeply moved by Mr. Obama's election.

The first hint that as president Mr. Obama would be willing to interject race into the political dialogue came last July, when he jumped to conclusions about the confrontation between Harvard Prof. Henry Louis "Skip" Gates and the Cambridge police.

During a press conference, the president said that the "Cambridge police acted stupidly," and he went on to link the arrest with the "long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately."

In truth, the Gates incident appears to have had nothing to do with race—a Cambridge review committee that investigated the incident ruled on June 30 that there was fault on both sides.

Sen. Jon Kyl (R., Ariz.) has said the president told him in a closed-door meeting that he would not move to secure the border with Mexico unless and until Congress reached a breakthrough on comprehensive immigration reform. That's another indication Mr. Obama is willing to continue to play politics with hot-button issues.

Add in the lawsuit against the Arizona immigration law and it's clear the Obama administration is willing to run the risk of dividing the American people along racial and ethnic lines to mobilize its supporters—particularly Hispanic voters, whose backing it needs in the fall midterm elections and beyond.

As the Washington Post reported last week, two top White House strategists, speaking on condition of anonymity, have indicated that "the White House plans to use the immigration debate to punish the GOP and aggressively seek the Latino vote in 2012."

On an issue that has gotten much less attention, but is potentially just as divisive, the Justice Department has pointedly refused to prosecute three members of the New Black Panther Party for voter intimidation at the polls on Election Day 2008.

It is the job of the Department of Justice to protect all American voters from voter discrimination and voter intimidation—whether committed by the far right, the far left, or the New Black Panthers. It is unacceptable for the Department of Justice to continue to stonewall on this issue.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, Mr. Obama's campaign emphasized repeatedly that his minister, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, was being unfairly stereotyped because of racially incendiary sound bites that allegedly did not reflect the totality of his views. In the Gates incident and others, Mr. Obama has resorted to similar forms of stereotyping.

Even the former head of the Civil Rights Commission, Mary Frances Berry, acknowledged that the Obama administration has taken to polarizing America around the issue of race as a means of diverting attention away from other issues, saying: "the charge of racism is proving to be an effective strategy for Democrats. . . . Having one's opponent rebut charges of racism is far better than discussing joblessness."

The president had a unique opportunity to focus on overarching issues of importance to whites and blacks. He has failed to address the critical challenges. He has not used his bully pulpit to emphasize the importance of racial unity and the common interest of poor whites and blacks who need training, job opportunities, and the possibility of realizing the American Dream. He hasn't done enough to address youth unemployment—which in the white community is 23.2% and in the black community is 39.9%.

Mr. Obama has also cynically divided the country on class lines. He has taken to playing the populist card time and time again. He bashes Wall Street and insurance companies whenever convenient to advance his programs, yet he has been eager to accept campaign contributions and negotiate with these very same banks and corporations behind closed doors in order to advance his political agenda.

Finally, President Obama also exacerbated partisan division, and he has made it clear that he intends to demonize the Republicans and former President George W. Bush in the fall campaign. In April, the Democratic National Committee released a video in which the president directly addressed his divide-and-conquer campaign strategy, with an appeal to: "young people, African-Americans, Latinos, and women who powered our victory in 2008 [to] stand together once again."

President Obama's divisive approach to governance has weakened us as a people and paralyzed our political culture. Meanwhile, the Republican leadership has failed to put forth an agenda that is more positive, unifying or inclusive. We are stronger when we debate issues and purpose, and we are all weaker when we divide by race and class. We will pay a price for this type of politics.

With all due respect to Mssrs. Caddell and Shoen, this outcome was wholly predictable two years ago. See Standing At The Crossroads - Identity Politics, Multiculturalism & The Melting Pot.

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The DOJ & Suborning Vote Fraud

Former career DOJ attorney J Christian Adams has made several damning indictments of the Obama DOJ in the past several days - that the New Black Panther case was dropped on racial grounds, that reverse racism pervades the DOJ's Voting Rights section, and that one or more members of the DOJ has testified falsely to Congress. But as serious as those charges are, they pale in comparison to his latest charge made in sworn testimony before the Civil Rights Commission - that the DOJ is deliberately refusing to pursue cases requiring states to update and verify their voting rolls. In essence, this is aiding and abetting - if not suborning - vote fraud. This from John Fund at the WSJ:

. . . Mr. Adams leveled an even more explosive charge beyond the Panther case. He testified that last year Deputy Assistant Attorney General Julie Fernandes made a jaw-dropping announcement to attorneys in Justice's Voting Rights section. She said she would not support any enforcement of a key section of the federal "Motor Voter" law -- Section 8, which requires states to periodically purge their voter rolls of dead people, felons, illegal voters and those who have moved out of state.

According to Mr. Adams, Justice lawyers were told by Ms. Fernandes: "We're not interested in those kind of cases. What do they have to do with helping increase minority access and turnout? We want to increase access to the ballot, not limit it."

If true, Ms. Fernandes was endorsing a policy of ignoring federal law and encouraging potential voter fraud. Ms. Fernandes was unavailable for comment yesterday, but the Justice Department has issued a statement accusing Mr. Adams of "distorting facts" in general and having a political agenda.

But there is some evidence backing up Mr. Adams. Last year, Justice abandoned a case it had pursued for three years against Missouri for failing to clean up its rolls. When filed in 2005, one-third of Missouri counties had more registered voters than voting-age residents. What's more, Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan, a Democrat who this year is her party's candidate for a vacant U.S. Senate seat, contended that her office had no obligation to ensure individual counties were complying with the federal law mandating a cleanup of their voter rolls.

The case made slow but steady progress through the courts for more than three years, amid little or no evidence of progress in cleaning up Missouri's voter rolls. Despite this, Obama Justice saw fit to dismiss the case in March 2009. Curiously, only a month earlier, Ms. Carnahan had announced her Senate candidacy. Missouri has a long and documented history of voter fraud in Democratic-leaning cities such as St. Louis and Kansas City. Ms. Carnahan may now stand to benefit from voter fraud facilitated by the improperly kept voter rolls that she herself allowed to continue.

Mr. Adams' allegations would seem to call for the senior management of Justice to be compelled to testify under oath to U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. But Justice is making none of its officials available and is refusing to enforce subpoenas issued by the commission. The more this story develops, the more it appears Justice is engaged in a massive coverup of its politicization of voting rights cases.

On a related note, as to our modern "early voting" practices, see this from Tom Blumer at Bizzy Blog.

The bedrock foundation of our nation is the sanctity of the ballot box. If our citizens come to perceive that fraud pervades their vote, then people will begin to feel that their vote does not count and that they are being ruled by people who have gotten their seat by criminal means. When that happens, democracy ends and blood in the streets begins. The left is playing a dangerous game indeed.

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One Illegal Immigrant Person, One Vote

A little over a year ago, a six member majority of the Supreme Court upheld an Indiana state law requiring voters present a photo i.d. when voting. The court reasoned, rightly, that nothing is more central to a democracy than fair elections devoid of fraud. Once the voting system becomes corrupt, we no longer live in a functioning democracy. Yet the left seems hell bent on insuring that the system is corrupted.

The left has, for years, fought against any sort of identification system to protect the validity of our democratic system. We have Obama enlisting ACORN to take part in the 2010 Census which will determine the number of representatives to which each state will be entitled. We have Obama pulling responsibility for the Census Bureau and putting it directly under Obama's Chief of Staff. It was only a few days ago that Obama's DOJ took the unprecedented step of dropping charges of voter intimidation against three New Black Panther thugs who clearly engaged in precisely that - it was on YouTube for crying out loud. And now the latest, giving the finger to the Supreme Court and their decision mentioned above, Obama's DOJ has rejected Georgia's plan to verify that those who cast ballots are American citizens entitled to vote.

Georgia recently passed a law requiring voters to prove, by documentation or social security number, that when they vote, they are in fact entitled to vote. But because Georgia is still under a Court order dating back to the Voting Rights Act of 1965 for a history of systemic racism, feds must approve of any change to the state's election laws. It matters not that Georgia voted heavilly for Obama in the last election, apparently. And now, Obama's civil rights division has rejected this law, reasoning that making a person prove that they are entitled to cast a vote places "erroneous burdens on the right to register to vote" and disproportionately effects blacks and hispanic voters.

This is just amazing. Secretary of State Karen Handel stated the obvious when she opined that the DOJ's decision "opens the floodgates for non-citizens to vote in the state." No kidding. Read the story here.

Redstate adds the entire statement from the Georgia Sec. of State:

DOJ has thrown open the door for activist organizations such as ACORN to register non-citizens to vote in Georgia’s elections, and the state has no ability to verify an applicant’s citizenship status or whether the individual even exists. DOJ completely disregarded Georgia’s obvious and direct interest in preventing non-citizens from voting, instead siding with the ACLU and MALDEF. Clearly, politics took priority over common sense and good public policy.

This is a travesty. Once something approaching a majority comes to believe that their vote no longer counts because the system is corrupt, then the only way to effect change comes by the gun. That is something the left should ponder as they pull out all stops to make of our country a banana republic with a rigged electoral system that acts as a rubber stamp for their candidates.

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