Former President Bill Clinton tried to persuade Florida Democratic Rep. Kendrick Meek to drop out of his U.S. Senate race and support Gov. Charlie Crist's independent candidacy in hopes of thwarting a victory by Republican Marco Rubio.
People familiar with the matter said the former president and other top national Democrats worry a win by the charismatic Mr. Rubio, a 39-year-old Cuban-American, would make him a political phenomenon capable of boosting the GOP's chances with Hispanic voters. These people said the conversation occurred during Mr. Clinton's Florida visit on Oct. 19. Mr. Meek wavered for several days—suggesting to some that he could leave the race—but decided against it.
"They had a conversation about the fact that the prospects of him winning had passed him by and that the only way the Republican would be defeated is to jump on board with Crist," said a Florida Democrat familiar with the discussion.
The conversation was reported Thursday evening by Politico.
Meek campaign spokesman Adam Sharon said he didn't know if Mr. Clinton asked Mr. Meek to drop out of the race. "They talked, they've been talking about this race all the time," Mr. Sharon said.
But in a written statement, Meek campaign manager Abe Dyk said Mr. Meek "was never dropping out of this race, is never dropping out of this race, and will never drop out of this race."
Clinton spokesman Matt McKenna confirmed the conversation took place.
Three people familiar with the discussion said Mr. Meek came very close to dropping out. The talk with Mr. Clinton occurred after days of shuttle diplomacy by Clinton counselor Doug Band, who acted as an intermediary between the Crist and Meek camps. The people familiar with the matter said the White House, which has publicly backed Mr. Meek, was aware of the discussion but was not involved. A White House official did not respond to requests for comment late Thursday.
The news of Mr. Clinton's intervention comes as the race appears to be a two-way affair between Messrs. Rubio and Crist, with Mr. Meek dropping far behind. A Quinnipiac poll this week showed Mr. Meek backed by 15% of respondents, while 42% supported Mr. Rubio and 35% backed Mr. Crist.
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele accused Mr. Clinton of wronging black voters in his attempts to coax Mr. Meek out of the race. Mr. Meek, a Miami congressman, is African-American. The intervention would send a "chilling signal to all voters, but especially African Americans," said Mr. Steele, who is black.
Mr. McKenna declined to comment on Mr. Steele's statement. The former president and Mr. Meek are close friends.
Mr. Crist has been trying to build a coalition of Democrats and independent voters, and some Democratic strategists have argued that Mr. Meek's base could put Mr. Crist over the top.
Other Democrats argue Mr. Meek should remain in the race because he may turn out a higher black vote—which would help Democratic gubernatorial candidate Alex Sink, locked in a tight battle with GOP businessman Rick Scott.
Crist campaign spokesman Danny Kanner called the report "accurate." He said Mr. Crist was focused on "uniting common-sense Democrats, independents, and Republicans behind his campaign because he is the one candidate who can defeat" Mr. Rubio." (source)
Typical of Hollywood elites, Rob Reiner sees things like principles and ethics as constructs to be packaged, manipulated, and focus group tested for mass consumption.
Everything is for sell, you see.
No one can have a genuine love and care for America because Rob doesn't see any reason to love America. He can act like he does, but he's not in love with America. Watch how he defines a multi-million membership of Americans who are in love with their country and want to do something to preserve it:
Now watch as we see the titular head of the Democrat Party actually sell fear and hate:
The whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks today released a trove of classified reports that it said documented at least 109,000 deaths in the Iraq war, more than the United States previously has acknowledged, as well as what it described as cases of torture and other abuses by Iraqi and coalition forces.
"The reports detail 109,032 deaths in Iraq, comprised of 66,081 'civilians'; 23,984 'enemy' (those labeled as insurgents); 15,196 'host nation' (Iraqi government forces) and 3,771 'friendly' (coalition forces)," WikiLeaks said in a statement regarding the documents' release. "The majority of the deaths (66,000, over 60 percent) of these are civilian deaths. That is 31 civilians dying every day during the six-year period."
The new documents covered 2004 through 2009, WikiLeaks said, with the exception of May 2004 and March 2009.
A review of the documents by Iraq Body Count, an advocacy group that long has monitored civilian casualties in the war, found 15,000 previously unknown civilian deaths, according to WikiLeaks -- a detail first reported in The Guardian newspaper, one of a handful of international news organizations that got an advance look at the documents.
The U.S. military long has maintained that it does not keep an official death tally, but earlier this month following a Freedom of Information Act request, the Pentagon said some 77,000 Iraqis had been killed from 2004 to mid-2008 -- a shorter period than that covered by WikiLeaks.
Besides the different time periods, the New York Times, which also saw the WikiLeaks documents early, noted that "some deaths are reported more than once, and some reports have inconsistent casualty figures."
Al Jazeera, which also got an advance look at the documents, reported a total of 285,000 war casualties on its Arabic-language website, a number that included both dead and wounded. It also reported that the documents said 681 Iraqi civilians were killed at U.S. checkpoints, 180,000 Iraqis were arrested during the war and 15,000 Iraqis were buried without being identified.
The massive leak of 391,832 documents at 5 p.m. ET today, which WikiLeaks billed as "the largest classified military leak in history," followed WikiLeaks' similar but smaller release on the war in Afghanistan.
The new release was anticipated by the Pentagon, which has warned that publicizing the information could endanger U.S. troops. (source)
LAS VEGAS -- Some voters in Boulder City complained on Monday that their ballot had been cast before they went to the polls, raising questions about Clark County's electronic voting machines.
Voter Joyce Ferrara said when they went to vote for Republican Sharron Angle, her Democratic opponent, Sen. Harry Reid's name was already checked.
Ferrara said she wasn't alone in her voting experience. She said her husband and several others voting at the same time all had the same thing happen.
"Something's not right," Ferrara said. "One person that's a fluke. Two, that's strange. But several within a five minute period of time -- that's wrong."
Clark County Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax said there is no voter fraud, although the issues do come up because the touch-screens are sensitive. For that reason, a person may not want to have their fingers linger too long on the screen after they make a selection at any time.
"Especially in a community with elderly citizens (they have) difficulty in (casting their) ballot," Lomax said. "Team leaders said there were complaints (and the) race filled in."
At any time, voters can go back on the screen and review their selections. They are also allowed to make changes and encouraged to double-check their ballot on screen and on paper before it is cast.
Lomax said voters need to have faith in the system.
"This election, I think, more than ever," he said. "The two sides are very fractured and each side is suspicious and we're caught in the middle." (source)
WOONSOCKET, R.I. – President Barack Obama attacked Republicans with gusto Monday as he plunged into a final week of midterm election campaigning, but his party's prognosis remained darkened by the feeble economy and his itinerary was designed largely to minimize losses.
Nor was his greeting totally friendly in Rhode Island where Obama has pointedly declined to endorse his party's candidate for governor.
Obama can "take his endorsement and shove it," declared Democrat Frank Caprio, battling Republican-turned-independent Lincoln Chafee in a gubernatorial race rated tight in the polls. Chafee endorsed Obama during the 2008 campaign for the White House.
In a little more than five hours in the state, Obama was booked for a factory tour and for a pair of fundraisers that party officials said would bring in $500,000.
He said Republicans had driven the economy into a ditch and then stood by and criticized while Democrats pulled it out. Now that progress has been made, he said, "we can't have special interests sitting shotgun. We gotta have middle class families up in front. We don't mind the Republicans joining us. They can come for the ride, but they gotta sit in back."
Democrats relied on more than the president's time to boost their chances in the final days of the campaign. There was the matter of federal funds, too, in the form of hundreds of millions in grants announced during the day to provide high speed rail service in California, between Chicago and Iowa, and elsewhere. Administration officials left it to Democratic lawmakers to make the announcements, and they did, stressing the job-creating potential of the expansions.
Eight days before the election, the principal uncertainty concerned the size and scope of anticipated Democratic losses in the House, the Senate, governor's races and state legislatures.
An Associated Press-GfK Poll showed that perhaps one-third of all voters have yet to firmly settle on their choices. But that wasn't encouraging for the Democrats, either. Some 45 percent of them prefer the Republican candidate for the House, and 38 percent like the Democrat.
The president arrived as official figures showed more than 6.5 million ballots already have been cast in the 25 states where early voting is permitted or where absentees have been counted, underscoring the importance of get-out-the-vote programs that now begin long before Election Day.
Democrats have invested heavily in such efforts and are counting on them to help tip close races their way in states like Nevada, where Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid faces tea party-backed challenger Sharron Angle. Republicans are counting on campaign enthusiasm — polls agree their voters are more eager to cast ballots than Democrats — as well as their own get-out-the-vote efforts.
Even Democrats concede Republicans are poised for significant gains in Congress, and GOP officials are particularly optimistic about their chances for taking control of the House.
Based on opinion polls and the private assessments of strategists in both parties, it appears Republicans have effectively secured about two dozen of the 40 seats they need to win control of the House.
That leaves dozens of seats where races are competitive in the House and a half-dozen or so in the Senate. Republicans also look for statehouse gains.
Obama's choice of Rhode Island for his one-day trip was partially to raise money for Democratic House candidates elsewhere in the country. Officials said the $500,000 would be split between Providence Mayor David Cicilline, who is running for the House, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
The state has two House seats, one held by Democratic Rep. James Langevin, an incumbent in no apparent difficulty; the other being vacated by Democratic Rep. Patrick Kennedy. There, Cicilline is running against Republican John Loughlin in a heavily Democratic state.
The state's unemployment is measured at 11.5 percent, the fourth highest in the country. In his first stop, the president visited a company that makes buckles and straps for outdoor and travel gear, saying he and the Democrats in Congress have cut small business taxes 16 times in 20 months. Republicans "talk a good game" when it comes to tax cuts, he said, but in fact they opposed several bills he labored to get passed.
"It's not enough to just play politics," he said. "You can't focus on the next election. You've got to focus on the next generation."
Caprio called Obama's rebuff "Washington insider politics at its worst." Rhode Island's congressional delegation expressed disapproval about Caprio's remarks, but the executive director of the Democratic Governors Association said the president's decision was disappointing.
"Frank Caprio has spent his career fighting for the values of the Democratic Party. He deserves the full support of our party and its leaders," said executive director Nathan Daschle.
If anything, the White House made it clearer that Caprio will not get Obama's endorsement. "Out of respect for his friend Lincoln Chafee, the president decided not to get involved in this race," said White House spokesman Bill Burton. It was the first time the White House had cited Chafee as the reason for Obama's non-endorsement of a Democrat.
White House aides also arranged for Obama to tour a factory as part of a campaign-long effort to showcase efforts by his administration and the Democratic-controlled Congress to assist small businesses. In a conference call to reporters on Sunday night, they said American Cord & Webbing had been able to hire back all of the employees laid off last year and was planning on hiring more. They said the company won approval from the Small Business Administration last month for a loan to make possible an expansion of the facility.
Coast to coast, the multimillion-dollar ad war continued unabated.
The Republican Senate campaign committee announced it would put $3 million into a final-week fleet of ads designed to help Carly Fiorina defeat Sen. Barbara Boxer in a California race that is close in the polls.
Democrats hastened to Reid's side in Nevada. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., became the latest lawmaker to send out an urgent e-mail fundraising appeal for the top Democrat.
It said the same wealthy Texans who attacked his Vietnam War record during the 2004 presidential campaign were now aiming at Reid. "These guys will say anything and spend anything to get what they want," Kerry wrote.
Obama was returning to the White House for a few days before resuming campaigning at week's end. His itinerary then will include Bridgeport, Conn., where party officials are hoping he can mobilize African-Americans whose votes are needed in races for the Senate and governor, as well as a re-election bid by Democratic Rep. Jim Himes.
Obama also will campaign in Pennsylvania, where polls show Rep. Joe Sestak in a close race with Republican Pat Toomey — for a Senate seat that Democrats currently hold. Similarly, there are numerous Democratic-held House seats in the state that Obama is working to hold.
Later stops are in Ohio, where Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland is struggling to win a new term against Republican challenger John Kasich, and the president's home state of Illinois, where polls show both a Senate seat and the governor's office are in danger of falling to the Republicans. (source)
When Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) gave her inaugural address as speaker of the House in 2007, she vowed there would be “no new deficit spending.” Since that day, the national debt has increased by $5 trillion, according to the U.S. Treasury Department.
"After years of historic deficits, this 110th Congress will commit itself to a higher standard: Pay as you go, no new deficit spending,” Pelosi said in her speech from the speaker’s podium. “Our new America will provide unlimited opportunity for future generations, not burden them with mountains of debt."
Pelosi has served as speaker in the 110th and 111th Congresses.
At the close of business on Jan. 4, 2007, Pelosi’s first day as speaker, the national debt was $8,670,596,242,973.04 (8.67 trillion), according to the Bureau of the Public Debt, a division of the U.S. Treasury Department. At the close of business on Oct. 22, it stood at $13,667,983,325,978.31 (13.67 trillion), an increase of 4,997,387,083,005.27 (or approximately $5 trillion).
Pelosi, the 60th speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, has added more to the national debt than the first 57 House speakers combined.
The $4.997-trillion increase in the national debt since she took the gavel is more debt than the federal government amassed from the speakership of Rep. Frederick Muhlenberg of Pennsylvania, who became the first speaker of the House on April 1, 1789, to the start of the speakership of Rep. Newt Gingrich of Georgia, the 58th speaker, who took up the gavel on Jan. 4, 1995.
The national debt first topped $5 trillion on Feb. 23, 1996, more than a year into Gingrich’s speakership.
Gingrich served as speaker in the 104th and 105th Congresses, officially taking the office on Jan. 4, 1995 and leaving office on Jan. 3, 1999. During that period, according to the Treasury Department, the national debt increased $812.4 billion dollars ($812,423,595,162.98), rising from $4.8 trillion ($4,801,793,426,032.89) to $5.6 trillion ($5,614,217,021,195.87).
Rep. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), the 59th speaker, who presided over the 106th, 107th, 108th and 109th Congresses (serving as speaker from Jan. 6, 1999 to Jan. 3, 2007), enjoys the distinction of having increased the debt more than any other speaker except Pelosi. During Hastert’s time, the national debt increased $3.1 trillion ($3,061,785,703,851.74).
Thus far (the 111th Congress will not be done until the end of the year), Pelosi has increased the debt by an average of $2.5 trillion for each Congress she has led as speaker. Hastert increased the debt by an average of about $785 billion per Congress, while Gingrich increased the debt by an average of $406 billion per Congress.
Under the U.S. Constitution, the federal government cannot spend any money that has not been approved by congressional appropriations; and, by congressional precedent, appropriations bills originate in the House.
"No money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law," says Article 1, Section 9, Clause 7 of the Constitution.
“By precedent, appropriations originate in the House, with the Senate following suit,” says the House Rules Committee in an explanation of the appropriations process.
Annual federal expenditures have increased by about $730 billion in the Pelosi era, while annual deficits have increased almost 8 fold. In fiscal 2007, when Pelosi became speaker, the federal government spent $2.73 trillion and ran an annual deficit of $162.8 billion, according to the Treasury Department. In fiscal 2009, the federal government spent $3.52 trillion and ran an annual deficit of $1.4157 trillion. In fiscal 2010, the federal government spent $3.46 trillion and ran an annual deficit of $1.2941 trillion.
“The 2010 deficit was equal to 8.9 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), CBO estimates, down from 10.0 percent in 2009 (based on the most current estimate of GDP),” the Congressional Budget Office said in its October Monthly Budget Review. “The 2010 deficit was the second-highest shortfall—and 2009 the highest—since 1945, relative to the size of the economy.” (source)
On Election Day 2008, Maruse Heath, the leader of Philadelphia's New Black Panther Party, stood in front of a neighborhood polling place, dressed in a paramilitary uniform.
Within hours, an amateur video showing Heath, slapping a black nightstick and exchanging words with the videographer, had aired on TV and ricocheted across the nation.
Among those who saw the footage was J. Christian Adams, who was in his office in the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division in Washington.
"I thought, 'This is wrong, this is not supposed to happen in this country,' " Adams said. "There are armed men in front of a polling place, and I need to find out if they violated the law, because in my mind there's a good chance that they did."
The clash between the black nationalist and the white lawyer has mushroomed into a fierce debate over the government's enforcement of civil rights laws, a dispute that will be aired next week when the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights unveils findings from a year-long investigation.
Two months after Election Day, Adams and his supervisors in the George W. Bush administration filed a voter-intimidation lawsuit against Heath and his colleagues, even though no voters had complained. The Obama administration months later dismissed most of the case, even though the Panthers had not contested the charges.
Interviews and government documents reviewed by The Washington Post show that the case tapped into deep divisions within the Justice Department that persist today over whether the agency should focus on protecting historically oppressed minorities or enforce laws without regard to race.
The dispute over the Panthers, and the Justice Department's handling of it, was politicized from the start, documents and interviews show. On Election Day, the issue was driven by Republican poll watchers and officials and a conservative Web site.
At the department, Adams and his colleagues pushed a case that other career lawyers concluded had major evidentiary weaknesses. After the Obama administration took over, high-level political appointees relayed their thoughts on the case in a stream of internal e-mails in the days leading to the dismissal.
That decision to pull back the lawsuit caused conflicts so heated that trial team members at times threw memos in anger or cursed at supervisors.
The dismissals triggered outrage from conservatives and congressional Republicans, two internal Justice Department inquiries and the investigation by the conservative-controlled civil rights commission. The debate has thrust Eric H. Holder Jr., the nation's first African American attorney general and long the target of Republican attacks, into an unwelcome spotlight.
In recent months, Adams and a Justice Department colleague have said the case was dismissed because the department is reluctant to pursue cases against minorities accused of violating the voting rights of whites. Three other Justice Department lawyers, in recent interviews, gave the same description of the department's culture, which department officials strongly deny.
"The department makes enforcement decisions based on the merits, not the race, gender or ethnicity of any party involved," spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler said. "We are committed to comprehensive and vigorous enforcement of the federal laws that prohibit voter intimidation, as our record reflects."
A 'non-incident'
On Election Day, Jerry Jackson arrived first at Guild House West, an assisted-living center in north Philadelphia that served as a polling place in the overwhelmingly Democratic ward. As a certified Democratic poll watcher who lives in the neighborhood, he had worked several elections at the red brick building with a circular drive in front.
Jackson was soon joined by Heath, both decked out in the uniform of the New Black Panther Party: black berets, jackets, shirts, pants and boots.
The two, regulars around the neighborhood, also protest often near City Hall. They have been shown in videos and quoted in news reports using incendiary rhetoric, telling African Americans to rise up against their "slave masters" and condemning whites as "crackers."
But neighbors said they view Jackson and Heath - who declined to comment - as annoyances rather than threats.
Jackson, 54, and Heath, 39, have criminal histories that between them include convictions for drug possession, robbery and simple assault, according to court records. Their local New Black Panther Party is part of a small, radical black nationalist organization with members in a handful of cities. It is not connected to the Black Panther Party of the 1960s.
That morning, the men stood a few feet apart on a narrow sidewalk in front of the polling place, forcing voters to walk between them.
Some in the neighborhood didn't see a problem. James "Jimmy" Whitmire, 74, who voted in the Guild House recreation room, said he saw nothing "that was destructive . . . nothing offensive." Three other residents who voted that day said in interviews that they agreed.
About 10 a.m., a complaint from an unknown caller went to the local Republican Party headquarters. The message was relayed to Chris Hill, a GOP poll watcher, who hurried over with two lawyers volunteering for the party.
As he walked up the driveway to the polling place, Hill said in an interview, Heath called out: "What are you doing here, cracker?"
Hill ignored him and walked between the two men. Jackson brushed his shoulder, Hill said.
Inside, a black poll worker said that although the Panthers had made no direct threats, he didn't feel safe going outside, according to Hill, who then called police. (The worker, a registered Democrat hired that day to work the polls for the GOP, later told the civil rights commission that he did not feel threatened.)
Others from the Republican Party showed up that day, including Stephen Morse, a videographer and recent University of Pennsylvania graduate. Morse pulled out a video camera and focused on Heath.
Less than 15 minutes later, Philadelphia police arrived. A one-page police report says officers allowed Jackson to stay because he was a poll watcher but asked Heath to leave.
"That's why you're going to be ruled by a black man, now!" Heath shouted as he departed, according to witnesses. They said he also called Obama a "tool of the white man."
Morse raced back to the GOP headquarters. "This footage is golden," he recalled thinking. But Hill stayed put. A Republican official, he said, alerted him that Fox News was sending a reporter.
Within two hours, Morse's video had been uploaded to ElectionJournal.org, a conservative Web site, and Fox played it in newscasts. CNN posted the video online.
Calls poured into the Philadelphia district attorney's office reporting voter intimidation at Guild House. But staff members realized they were from cable news viewers as far away as Florida.
No call had come from a registered voter in Philadelphia. The office would deem the day's event a "non-incident.''
Deepening a divide
In Washington that day, word of the racially charged dispute reached the voting section of Justice's Civil Rights Division, a unit already divided over issues of race and enforcement.
The complaint went to Christopher Coates, the section's chief. A respected voting expert, Coates had been hired at Justice during the Clinton administration after a stint with the American Civil Liberties Union. He also came up in an internal watchdog report criticizing politicized hiring at the division during the Bush administration. The report referred to him as "a true member of the team."
Since the division was created in 1957, most of its cases have been filed on behalf of minorities. But there has not always been agreement about that approach.
Civil rights officials from the Bush administration have said that enforcement should be race-neutral. But some officials from the Obama administration, which took office vowing to reinvigorate civil rights enforcement, thought the agency should focus primarily on cases filed on behalf of minorities.
"The Voting Rights Act was passed because people like Bull Connor were hitting people like John Lewis, not the other way around," said one Justice Department official not authorized to speak publicly, referring to the white Alabama police commissioner who cracked down on civil rights protesters such as Lewis, now a Democratic congressman from Georgia.
Before the New Black Panther controversy, another case had inflamed those passions. Ike Brown, an African American political boss in rural Mississippi, was accused by the Justice Department in 2005 of discriminating against the county's white minority. It was the first time the 1965 Voting Rights Act was used against minorities and to protect whites.
Coates and Adams later told the civil rights commission that the decision to bring the Brown case caused bitter divisions in the voting section and opposition from civil rights groups.
Three Justice Department lawyers, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they feared retaliation from their supervisors, described the same tensions, among career lawyers as well as political appointees. Employees who worked on the Brown case were harassed by colleagues, they said, and some department lawyers anonymously went on legal blogs "absolutely tearing apart anybody who was involved in that case," said one lawyer.
"There are career people who feel strongly that it is not the voting section's job to protect white voters," the lawyer said. "The environment is that you better toe the line of traditional civil rights ideas or you better keep quiet about it, because you will not advance, you will not receive awards and you will be ostracized."
The 2008 Election Day video of the Panthers triggered a similar reaction, said a second lawyer. "People were dismissing it, saying it's not a big deal. They said we shouldn't be pursuing that case."
But Coates thought differently; he dispatched two Justice Department lawyers, who interviewed Hill, the Republican poll watcher.
Asked whether any voters were intimidated, Hill said he told the lawyers he had seen three people leave the polling place when they saw the chaos out front. Hill did not have their names and did not know whether they came back to vote.
"We're not going to let this stand," one of the lawyers told him.
An unpopular case
Adams, 42, was assigned as the lead lawyer. A voting section lawyer since 2005, he would later resign over the Obama administration's handling of the case, publicizing his views in conservative media. Administration supporters call him a conservative activist; other Justice Department lawyers say his views, while conservative, did not influence his work.
Adams scrambled to make the case, documents show. In a December 2008 e-mail to a recipient whose name was redacted, he laid out what he felt he needed: "Under the statute, a black poll watcher for you being abused or insulted is critical, and thus far, I don't have one."
A criminal investigation was dropped. But on Dec. 22, Adams, Coates and another lawyer recommended a civil lawsuit under a Voting Rights Act section banning the intimidation or attempted intimidation of voters or those "aiding" voters.
"It is shocking to think that a U.S. citizen might have to run a gauntlet of billy clubs in order to vote," they wrote in an internal memo. Although Adams has called the case a "slam dunk," lawyers acknowledged in the memo that less than 10 lawsuits had been filed under this section of the law and no plaintiff had ever won.
On Jan. 7, 2009, less than two weeks before Obama took office, the Justice Department filed a lawsuit seeking a permanent injunction against Heath, Jackson, Malik Shabazz, the party's national chairman and the party, banning them from standing in front of U.S. polling places with a weapon or wearing the party uniform.
Although the Panthers later denied intimidating voters, they said nothing about the lawsuit. On April 2, the court clerk in Philadelphia entered a "default" against the defendants for failure to respond. The Justice Department had one month to file a motion for a final judgement. A ruling on that motion would have ended the case.
Instead, the department on May 15 dismissed the charges against Jackson, Malik Shabazz and the party without citing a reason. It sought to narrow the injunction against Heath to polling places in Philadelphia through the 2012 elections. That was granted three days later.
Legal experts have called the department's reversal exceedingly rare, especially because the defendants had not contested the charges.
Coates and Adams say the case was narrowed because of opposition to filing voting-rights actions against minorities and pressure from civil rights groups, but have not cited evidence.
Justice Department officials have repeatedly said the reversal stemmed from a legal review and insufficient evidence. Documents show that two career lawyers asked to review the case before it was dropped said the evidence against the party and its chairman was weak, though they recommended that the government proceed against all four defendants.
Officials have denied any political considerations and said the final decision was made by Loretta King, a 30-year career lawyer designated by Obama as acting head of civil rights.
Asked at a civil rights commission hearing in May whether any of the department's political leadership was "involved in" the decision to dismiss the Panthers case, assistant attorney general for civil rights Thomas E. Perez said no.
"This is a case about career people disagreeing with career people,'' said Perez, who was not in the department at the time. He also said that political appointees are regularly briefed on civil rights cases and, whenever there is a potentially controversial decision, "we obviously communicate that up the chain."
Justice Department records turned over in a lawsuit to the conservative group Judicial Watch show a flurry of e-mails between the Civil Rights Division and the office of Associate Attorney General Thomas Perelli, a political appointee who supervises the division.
"Where are we on the Black Panther case?" read the subject line of a Perelli e-mail to his deputy the day before the case was dropped. Perelli, the department's No. 3 official, wrote that he was enclosing the "current thoughts" of the deputy attorney general's office, the No. 2 official.
Perelli's staff brought the matter to Holder's attention before the department dropped the charges, other documents show. Holder did not make the decision, officials say.
In the months after the case ended, tensions persisted. A new supervisor, Julie Fernandes, arrived to oversee the voting section, and Coates testified that she told attorneys at a September 2009 lunch that the Obama administration was interested in filing cases - under a key voting rights section - only on behalf of minorities.
"Everyone in the room understood exactly what she meant," Coates said. "No more cases like the Ike Brown or New Black Panther Party cases."
Fernandes declined to comment through a department spokeswoman.
A few months later, Coates requested a transfer to the U.S. attorney's office in South Carolina. When colleagues scheduled a farewell lunch, one attorney who attended said Coates vented his frustrations, criticizing the department for failing to enforce the law "on a non-racial basis.''
Justice Department officials say they treat everyone equally. Holder, in a speech last year to the Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs said the department's "commitment to Equal Protection - and to full participation in our nation's elections - will not waiver. Never."
That was one month after the end of the New Black Panther Party case. (source)
(USC) -- Don't try wearing a Bush hat or sweatshirt at an Obama rally.
Duane Hammond says it's what got him fired. Hammond is a union stagehand who was part of the crew that built the platform for the Obama event on campus.
He came to work early this morning wearing clothing that says "George H. W. Bush". Hammond's son is in the Navy, currently serving on the aircraft carrier U.S.S. George H. W. Bush.
Hammond says he was not trying to make a political statement. He says he got the sweatshirt and hat during a visit to the aircraft carrier on Family Day. The back of his sweatshirt has a large drawing of the ship.
He says he wore it to show how proud he is of his son.
That didn't go over well with his union supervisor. Hammond says he was told to take off the sweatshirt, or he would have to go home.
He refused. They told him he was fired from the job. (source)
Just your average Zen Baptist, admitting upfront to being a (mostly) reconstructed hillbilly.
If you can't understand the attitude or perspective I come from, it's safe to say that we're from different realities.
If you can't start off the conversation with a respectful question about how/why I came to the particular perspective I did, and then find some way that you can relate to it, then I don't have any time to entertain your issues.
Give respect, get respect.
Hear Together: Roanoke Outside Foundation
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Joe Shields - Brooklyn Bridge
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Joe Shields - Brooklyn Bridge
Website - http://twoshacks.com.
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