The outrageous part came when Fox and Friends made references to the Black Panthers letting in all those fraudulent voters signed up by ACORN. Holy Crap!! They mentioned ACORNS signing up thousands of fraudulent voters and connected to these men standing outside a Philly polling place.
I agree that nobody should be standing outside a polling place tapping a nightstick. I don’t see a problem standing outside regardless of what you’re wearing as one man says in an interview.
Fox made a big deal about the hate speech from the nightstick guy taking excerpts from other events and implying that because he said racist hateful things at those things he needs to be prosecuted for voter intimidation.
My question is what exactly are the charges filed against the Black Panthers. Standing outside polling places isn’t in itself a crime of voter intimidation is it? With a night stick , maybe, but the police told him to leave and he did.
The term, blocking the entrance was used several times but we see people going in and out and have no reports of anyone being stopped ort even scared enough to not go in. Mountain out of a mole hill? Latest racial fire to be fanned. Reading the mountain of rightwing bloggs about this the connection is “do not prosecute blacks” What say you?
Standing near a polling place under particular circumstances has been cited as potential intimidation in the past. In a report on the 2000 presidential election, for instance, the US Civil Rights Commission cited instances of Florida police parking within sight of polling places and noted that “it appears that a number of voters perceived, at minimum, that they were negatively affected by the proximity of law enforcement officers to the precincts around Tallahassee.”
I have not familiarized myself with the facts of the particular matter cited by the OP and have no comment thereon.
So, if a couple of clowns in Klan robes, one of them carrying a night stick, stood outside of a polling place saying things like “You’d better get used to having a white president, colored boy,” to black voters entering and leaving, you wouldn’t regard that as harassment or intimidation.
Wasn’t it the Bush administration who dropped these charges? I think it was.
The GOP are going to get control of the house in November and there’s going to be a “scandal” like this complete with a congressional investigation every week. It’s going to be the Clintons all over again. Good job Obama hasn’t started any illegal wars since he took office or he could be in trouble.
You mean the similar to the shit that actually happened in the south?
The question is what constitutes actual intimidation. What breaks the law, rather than say, just being an asshole? I’ve already said that the nightstick was over the top and the police agreed. I might agree that continuous verbal assault to people entering the polling place would also be intimidation, but we really don’t have any evidence of that. A phrase or two exchanged between two people doesn’t cut it.
Then again, what if it’s more than two people? I don’t know what the laws are about any group gathering near a polling place. Shouldn’t the Panthers have the same rights as any other group , regradless of whether we agree?
The original charges were not brought against that individual but against the black panthers as a group. Why, what was the legal basis? What was the evidence? If the Klan wanted to openly support a candidate and didn’t break the law, I’m okay with that.
What shocked me was the extent of the stupidity on Fox and friends as they desperately tried to connect this to the tens of thousands of fraudulent voter registrations from ACORN {already debunked right?} and making the suggestion that these two men and a relatively minor incident was a front to allow fake ACORN voters to cast fraudulant votes.
Since this is all over the right wing blogs I just wanted to sort the facts from the BS.
Nope. The Bush administration filed charges, which have apparently been dropped after a plea negotiation during the current administration. Which you could have learned for yourself if you’d bothered to read the second linked article in the OP instead of taking a partisan cheapshot at Bush.
From the link:
The video of the event, photos and witness testimony presented an open-and-shut case ripe for DOJ prosecution. The Justice Department under President George W. Bush filed criminal charges against the three men. Holder’s Justice Department would later drop the charges in a plea deal in which the baton-brandishing thugs promised not to do it again in Philadelphia until 2012. They walked, free to intimidate elsewhere.*
What I’m reading is that the charges were brought under the Bush admin and dropped under Obama.
Part of the issue is that since charges were filed and the BP didn’t show for court the DOJ won by default, and then charges were dropped. Okay fine, what were the specific charges and what was the specific eviedence that there was a crime committed and that the BPs in general were guilty , rather than one ill advised asshole who had the bad judgemet to carry a weapon and shoot his mouth off.
It seems to me that it’s one more example of Fox and whomever, trying to create a connection that isn’t really there. But I’d like more info.
It seems more to me like lefties trying very hard to pretend that an incident of anti-white racism somehow didn’t really happen. Two men wearing paramilitary uniforms, one of them armed, showed up at a polling place and made harassing and intimidating remarks to numerous voters of a certain race. That’s what happened. There’s no serious doubt concerning this. Pretending that it didn’t happen is profoundly and contemptibly dishonest.
I’m having a tough time find legitimate news articles on this story. Lots of stuff from WND and the Washington Times. Some Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh.
The links in the OP are videos (which I can’t watch) and Investor’s Business Daily (which I can’t trust. They are the dudes that said that Stephen Hawking would be dead if he were British).
So, can someone hook me up with some actual factual reporting?
You mean like CBS News and the New York Times? Those paragons of journalistic virtue? Well, gosh, I guess if Obama’s lapdog media choose to ignore a story, then there must not be anything to it.
Any evidence that they made harassing and intimidating remarks to numerous voters. I’d say just standing there with a weapon is out of line and that was taken care of. There’s a difference between a couple of comments perhaps in response to someone, or verbally harassing voters who didn’t speak to them at all. If you have evidence that it happened as you say let’s see it.
Nobody is pretending it didn’t happen or that carrying a weapon is fine. The question is determining exactly how serious was it and what to do about it. The police came and got the guy with the weapon out of there. The plea bargin is that he or any member can’t do that again.
It’s a matter of where the lines are drawn and what the specifics of law require, not just for them but for all groups. Tea Partiers too.
My point is that people like you and J.S. Goddess will never admit that the facts really are facts, nor do you realize how silly it is to give such complete trust to Obama’s lapdog media.