Posted on 07/02/2012 4:06:09 AM PDT by Kaslin
When the House voted last Thursday to find Attorney General Eric Holder in criminal contempt of Congress, members of the Congressional Black Caucus walked out.
Why is the Black Caucus trying to make this about race?
It’s about Holder’s refusal to turn over Justice Department documents requested by the House Oversight and Government Committee in its investigation of the “Fast and Furious” operation.
“Fast and Furious” was a “gun-walking” operation conducted by the Justice Department’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF). ATF would allow known smugglers to purchase arms from dealers in Arizona with the idea that they would trace them to their destination to operatives in drug cartels in Mexico.
Before the vote, Black Caucus chairman Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO) appeared on CNN calling the House contempt vote “....silly and detrimental to one human being.” On MSNBC he told Al Sharpton, “This is partisanship at its most base level.”
Sure, it’s an election year. And if you had to stretch to appreciate the complaint against Holder being made by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif), chairman of the House committee doing the investigation, you might buy Cleaver’s claim that this is just Republican political grandstanding.
But you don’t have to stretch to appreciate the case against Holder.
It seems pretty clear that “Fast and Furious” was a botched operation. The ATF lost track of some two thousand weapons that disappeared into the hands of criminals in Mexico. In December 2010, weapons traced to this operation were found on smugglers who murdered U.S. Border Agent Brian Terry. Others were tied to the murder of at least 200 Mexican citizens.
The investigation into these ATF activities began with inquiries by ranking Senate Judiciary Committee member Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) after Agent Terry’s murder.
The Justice Department, in a letter to Senator Grassley, initially denied the existence of gun-walking operations. But this picture changed when ATF whistleblowers brought facts to the contrary to light. Subsequently, Justice withdrew its letter, saying its denial of the existence of these operations was mistaken.
Inconsistencies in Holder’s testimony before the House committee produced further reasons for suspicion. And then Holder’s stonewalling for months, refusing to produce the documentation that the House committee requested.
Whether there is a fire here remains to be seen. But there is plenty of smoke.
Yet Cleaver calls the House vote holding Holder in contempt “silly?” The chairman of the Black Caucus should have the opposite reaction if only for concern for his own community. Illegal drugs smuggled into the US from Mexico cause havoc among black youth. According to the Center for American Progress, there have been more than 25.4 million drug convictions in the US since 1980, and one third of them were black.
To grasp what’s really motivating Cleaver, I apply what I call the “A Time to Kill” test.
In the 1996 film “A Time to Kill”, a black man in a town in Mississippi hires a white lawyer to defend him after he kills two white racists who raped and mutilated his daughter. When the lawyer makes his closing argument to the jury, he asks them to close their eyes. He describes the atrocities that were done to the girl and concludes by saying “now imagine she’s white.” His black defendant is acquitted.
So close your eyes. Consider the details about “Fast and Furious” and then picture that the Attorney General is not Eric Holder but John Ashcroft (first Attorney General of President G.W. Bush) and that the murdered border agent, Brian Terry, is black.
Would Emanuel Cleaver now call this contempt vote “silly?” Would the Black Caucus have walked out?
For the Black Caucus this is about racial politics.
Fortunately for us, for Darrell Issa (who happens to represent my home district in California) this is about shedding light on what might be broken in ATF operations.
It’s simple, the black folks there are racist. That is why they play the race card../that is their world view, it does not need to be based in reality to them, they don’t want one of their own to be smeared with the truth. That is a dangerous precedent..back lies, promote hatred in the name of this man is black he cannot be wrong...What will they do do when obamma mamba jamma lenin khomeini defies the constitution more and more if re elected. In that line of reason if the devil showed up in a skin of different color they would back him even if he was saying he wants everyones soul, all that oppose him would be racist....makes me sick..low life sob’s, scum bags..
anything in the name of winning their view point, lie, deceive, and with FAF kill..there is no limit with these folks..
Because it is all they have.
They use it all the time when the facts are against them.
They have just about used it up.
Those elitist black folk have to keep thier jobs. Generous Funding comes from thier brothers who are in high places, those benjamins have to keep flowing and the criminal enterprise must survive so we may sprinkle some good cheer on our less fortunate make them believe in hope and change and make sure they get out the vote for the black man.
LLS
Good movie. Better book. (Grisham's only really good one, IMO.)
The problem for me was that this appeal made absolutely no difference. I find it difficult to imagine that it would to anybody.
Does any semi-decent human being really give a rat's ass about the respective races of two child rapists and the pre-pubescent child they attack?
It is an excellent book. I have read the book, watched the movie in the theater when it came out and then bought the video and watched it. I only do that when a book and movie is really good
The CBC always...ALWAYS applies a black/white lens to anything situation. It is an embarrassment... They walked out on a family whose sone was murdered...and hundreds of Mexican families as well.
They have always circled the wagons around race...and will do so as long as they are given the air time.
The very term, "black caucus" is racial by definition.
Imagine a "White Male Only Caucus" and the uproar that it would create.
It is as racial as only blacks have the permission of the word lords, to use the word nigger without any fear of being called a racist.
I was in a bar last week and there were five black guys calling each other niggas, so I joined in and they weren't happy about my use of their precious word.
Did I mention that I was openly carrying a 357?
Since I wasn't drinking alcohol, it was legal, but probably not the smartest thing I've ever done.
It may not have been smart, but it was certainly a demonstration -
you’re only going to be physically assaulted by racists when it appears that you can’t defend yourself.
That's because that is all their politics has left to offer anymore -- stake everything on a high-enough black turnout in November, to cover the stolen votes and the money-house votes and the Obama-phone votes and the cemetery votes, and then claim vindication in an Obama second term.
To a white person looking at all this, it may look like there is no end to the Black Caucus's truculence and racism. But in fact, they've come to the end of their rope. They bet the house on Barack Obama, and now they're watching it all go up in smoke.
“Why is the Black Caucus trying to make this about race?”.
Denial and above the law logic.
Black people (black Americans that is) can’t be held accountable. They don’t have what it takes to be accountable for their actions. /s
F&F went precisely as planned -- until Terry died -- and the whistleblowers stepped forward.
Stopped reading at that point...
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