Black Panthers Are Safe at Polls in Philadelphia

Over the past few hours, CNN, Fox News, The Philadelphia Bulletin and The Washington Times have all reported that the cases against the New Black Panther Party members who showed up as "poll watchers" at a Philadelphia precinct last November have been dismissed or reduced to near-nothingness by the Obama/Holder Justice Department. The Panthers had shown up at the precinct with the usual poll watcher tools--a police nightstick, some chains, and paramilitary uniforms.

The federal action against the Panthers charged "coercion, threats and intimidation, racial threats and insults, menacing and intimidating gestures, and movements directed at voters and potential voters, and deploying uniformed and armed members at the entrance to a polling location." All of this had been caught on film and audio, and played on TV and in print media nationwide. Even Obama expressed outrage. Among the defendants was Jerry Jackson, an elected member of Philadelphia's 14th ward Democratic Committee and a credentialed poll watcher. The defendants refused to appear before the court, and a default judgment was taken against them. All that was left to be done was for the Justice Department lawyers to file the proposed judgment, including penalties and sanctions for the defendants' failure to appear.

Incredibly, by May 5 of this year Justice Department superiors ordered that the professional career lawyers on the case who had been pursuing the matter through two administrations now back off. They ordered the lawyers not to include in the final papers the affidavit of Bartle Bull. Bull was a civil rights activist in the South and later a member of Robert Kennedy's presidential election committee. He was also on the scene in Philadelphia as a certified poll watcher. He said in the affidavit "In my opinion, the men created an intimidating presence at the entrance to a poll. In all my experience in politics, in civil rights litigation and in my efforts in the 1960s to secure the right to vote in Mississippi, I have never encountered or heard of another instance in the United States where armed and uniformed men blocked the entrance to a polling location."

Nevertheless, on May 15, the Department reversed its earlier position while the judgment was still pending before the U. S. District Judge and filed a notice of voluntary dismissal against Malik Zulu Shabazz and Mr. Jackson.

For those of you not familiar with Mr. Shabazz, he was mentored by Khalid Abdul Muhammad of The Nation of Islam ("Black Muslims"). Muhammad's rhetoric was so vile that even Louis Farrakhan couldn't take it anymore. On Jews, Shabazz has this to say: "Kill every goddamn Zionist in Israel! Goddamn little babies, goddamn old ladies! Blow up Zionist supermarkets!" In response to an olive branch extended to him by a gay rights activist, Shabazz had this to say (I have left it in its original all capitals form so you can get a feel for this gentle poll-watcher): "LEAVE ME ALONE SICK LITTLE FAGGOT. THAT'S WHY WE HAD A STANDING ROOM ONLY 800 PLUS CROWD AT THE MASONIC TEMPLE LAST THURSDAY, MEETING ON HOW TO RUN DEVILS LIKE YOU OUTTA HERE . . . WE ARE BUILDING A BLACK POWER ARMY RIGHT IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD, SINCE YOU LIKE PANTHER GEAR, (IN A FREAKY SICKO SADO MASOCHIST-SATANIC WAY), I WILL SPARE YOU A PAIR OF BLACK STEEL TOE BOOTS UP YOUR ASS. I FEAR YOU WILL ENJOY THAT. YOU WILL GET CRUSHED, LITTLE DEVIL, IN SELF-DEFENSE." Nice, huh? I guess Shabazz felt he needed to bring his civility to Philadelphia on election day. Side note: Shabazz is a member of the District of Columbia Bar.

After Holder's new people dismissed against Shabazz and Jackson, he allowed the proceedings to go forward as to defendant King Samir Shabazz, but limited the penalty to requiring only that he not "display a weapon within 100 feet of any open polling location on any election day in the city of Philadelphia until November 15, 2012." That'll teach him! He won't be free to scare people away from the polling precincts until nearly Christmas of 2012.

All of the hard work, proof and witness statements made literally at great risk to themselves have gone down the drain. The new day of Obama Justice has dawned. Eric Holder has proven that he will guide his department down the primrose path of racial preferences and tolerance for thuggish unlawful behavior as long as it is performed by those oppressed minorities of which he has so often spoken. Your exam question for the day is: "What would Supreme Court nominee Sotomayor have to say about the decision of the Justice Department?" DISCUSS.

Note: Thanks to John Keats for getting my blood stirred up, again, by pointing out the Washington Times article to me.

Additional note: I suffered some sort of major computer glitch which made my original post badly garbled. I know several of you posted responses which were deleted after I removed the original post. Please post again, I want to hear from all of you.