AP and LA Times join government against the people in New Black Panther voter intimidation case

.
Government doesn't need protecting, ordinary people do. The press claims that without them, democracy might not exist, a moot point since they've joined with government against the people.

Explosive testimony was delivered against the Obama Dept. of Justice Friday, 9/24 by a man named Christopher Coates. The AP invites readers to believe Mr. Coates is a Bush-era stooge. They omit that he was hired by Bill Clinton and and previously worked for the ACLU:

• AP: "Coates, who ran the Voting Section under President George W. Bush,

testified in front of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, which is looking into the department's handling of voting rights accusations against the New Black Panther Party in Philadelphia."...With its description, AP's version frames the issue as everyday partisan politics rather than a serious civil rights case.

• Many people will accept this version and never know the truth.

Even the Washington Post clearly lets the reader know that Coates is anything but a political hack:

• "But Coates has a pedigree different from that of many conservatives. He was hired at Justice

• during the Clinton administration in 1996 and

• had worked for the American Civil Liberties Union."...

Next, the LA Times. Their article also invites you to think Coates is a partisan hack, omits that he was hired by Clinton and worked for the ACLU:

• LA Times: "Coates was promoted to voting chief during the end of the Bush administration. He said he felt "closely supervised" by his superiors after the beginning of the Obama administration."...

What kind of person would you be to

• go to the trouble of citing a man's promotion within a department as related to a political party,

but missing the bigger fact that he was hired by a different political party and previously worked at the ACLU? What kind of person would go to this trouble?

The LA Times also suggests the case is a stretch to begin with as it took place in a mostly black neighborhood:

• LA Times: "accusing the men of attempting to intimidate white voters even though the polling place was in a primarily African American neighborhood"...

Powerline points out quality journalism of Politico's opening paragraphs on the case:

• Politico: "A Justice Department prosecutor defied his superiors by testifying at a U.S. Civil Rights Commission hearing Friday, where he leveled an explosive allegation: top officials in the department gutted a voter intimidation case against a fringe African American militant group because the suspects were black and their alleged victims were white.

The prosecutor, Christopher Coates, also said the downgrading of the case against the New Black Panther Party was evidence of a Justice Department culture which discouraged “race neutral” enforcement of civil rights laws, frowned on prosecuting minority perpetrators and folded under pressure from black and Latino rights groups. After President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder took office, the culture intensified, Coates told the panel, ultimately

• leading to his departure as chief of the voting rights section early this year."...

From Politico on Coates' background:

• "Coates’s charges may carry greater weight because he worked decades ago as an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, has won
  

awards from civil rights groups and

• lacks the partisan GOP resume of the department’s harshest opponents. "...and

"Commission Chairman Gerald Reynolds said Coates “appears here at great personal risk to himself. I’d like to thank Mr. Coates for his courage in appearing today.”"...

• (That this case is suggested to be political at all is a reason Tea Party and independent voters have emerged. We will get to the 'post racial' America billionaires and big media erroneously said would be here with Obama's election. ed)

From the Washington Post, Coates has been given whistleblower protection:

• "Coates, former head of the voting section that brought the case, testified in defiance of his supervisor's instructions and

• has been granted whistleblower protection.

(continuing): Coates criticized what he called the "gutting" of the New Black Panthers case for "irrational reasons," saying the decision was part of "deep-seated" opposition among the department's leaders to filing voting-rights cases against minorities and cases that protect whites.

• "I had people who told me point-blank that [they] didn't come to the voting rights section to sue African American people," said Coates, who transferred to the U.S. attorney's office in South Carolina in January. "When you are paid by the taxpayer, that is totally indefensible.""

Reference: (Headlines frame the issue: 2 refer to him as an "Ex, or Former Justice official", others frame him a person in the present, describing him as a "Justice official" or "Prosecutor")

• 9/24, Washington Post, "Bias led to 'gutting' of New Black Panther case, Justice official says" by Markon and Thompson
  

• 9/24, AP, "Ex-DOJ official blasts voting rights enforcement," by J. Holland

• 9/24, LA Times, "Former Justice official says 'race neutral' voting enforcement discouraged," by J. Steffen, Tribune Washington Bureau

• 9/24, Politico, "Prosecutor alleges Department of Justice bias," by Josh Gerstein

via Powerline



photo at Philadelphia polling place, November 4, 2008.

• Headline from NY Times, 11/4/08, "Obama Elected President as Racial Barrier Falls," by Adam Nagourney:

"a breakthrough that would have seemed unthinkable even two years ago."...(NY Times)
.


A young Obama fan overwhelmed with emotion, 10/3/08 in Abington, Pa., getty

.