The Obama ascendency, the president's acolytes have been keen on telling us, is the dawn of a new post-partisan era. But a development that undercuts that fiction -- the Obama Justice Department's recent move to scuttle non-partisan local elections in Kinston, North Carolina, on the basis of racial and partisan considerations -- has escaped the interest of the mainstream media.
Both the Washington Times (in a Tuesday front-pager) and NewsBusters sister site CNSNews.com have reported the story, but a Nexis search today yielded no stories from print outlets such as the Washington Post, New York Times, USA Today, or Los Angeles Times. Broadcast news programs on ABC, CBS, and NBC have also failed to touch the story. Fox News Channel's "Fox & Friends" briefly discussed the story shortly before 7:00 a.m. EDT on the October 21 edition with Wall Street Journal columnist John Fund.
A search for news stories about the controversy on Google News this morning yielded only 14 hits, most of them from conservative organizations or blogs.
Below is an excerpt from CNSNews.com reporter Adam Brickley's October 21 story:
The U.S. Department of Justice is refusing to allow the town of Kinston, N.C., to hold nonpartisan local elections on the grounds that African Americans cannot win election without being listed as Democrats on the ballot.
In a letter sent Saturday by to Kinston City Attorney James P. Cauley III, the Justice Department stated: “Removing the partisan cue in municipal elections will, in all likelihood, eliminate the single factor that allows black candidates to be elected to office.”
The department Tuesday also refused to answer questions from CNSNews.com about the letter.
Kinston voters last year approved changing city council elections to a nonpartisan basis, similar to thousands of other towns in the U.S. – without mention of party affiliation.
The letter, written by Acting Assistant Attorney General Loretta King, flatly asserts that the decision was made on the assumption that the town’s citizens use race as the primary consideration in voting.
“In Kinston elections,” King wrote, “voters base their choice more on the race of a candidate rather than his or her political affiliation, and without either the appeal to party loyalty or the ability to vote a straight ticket, the limited remaining support from white voters for a black Democratic candidate will diminish even more.”
—Ken Shepherd is Managing Editor of NewsBusters
Editor at Large
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There you go again, Ken.
October 22, 2009 - 11:04 ET by ThisnThatThere you go again, Ken. "Fox & Friends discussed it". How do you now expect it to be reported by anyone else? Won't they get arrested by the DOJ if they are perceived as reporting something Fox News has reported?
__________
"mmm, mmm, mm. Barrack-Hussain-Øbama↓." - The liberals coolaid drinking song
Color me stupid or something ...
October 22, 2009 - 11:21 ET by SentryDanColor me stupid or something but isn't the obama DOJ being racist here or stereotyping? Because the local officials decided that the "D" or "R" isn't need, the DOJ has to step in and say that black voters wouldn't know who to vote for because the letter wasn't behind the person's name. What if the black voters didn't want to vote for the democrat? I guess the obama administration is saying that the black voter is too stupid to know who is or isn't a democrat. The black voters need to be aware of just who (the obama administration) isn't looking out for them.
Remember folks, Freedom isn't Free. It was bought with the blood and sacrifice of the men and women who are serving and who have served in the U.S. Armed Forces.
For those who fought for it, Freedom has a flavor that the protected will never know.
Also remember folks, that the way to SUPPORT THE TROOPS is to support their mission. Anyone who says that they support the troops but don't support their mission is lying about supporting the troops. And if you want to know, yes I do have a dog in the fight, he is a United States Marine.
The real reason
October 22, 2009 - 11:24 ET by MichelleCThe real reason the Obama DOJ is interfering is they're afraid the black population in Kinston will end up voting for the Repblican candidates when all they have to go on are the platforms of the candidates and not the "D" or the "R"
Republicans believe every day is the 4th of July. Democrats believe every day is April 15th ~ Ronald Reagan
Shooting themselves in the foot
October 22, 2009 - 11:35 ET by KC MulvilleIf a policy prevents someone from voting for a candidate they want, that's an injustice. But where does it say that the election commission must allow race as a voting consideration?
A couple days ago on another thread, I asserted that the Democrats use race as a shield. They want to take advantage of race for political purposes. I say this is a perfect example of that.
This isn't just laughably illogical. It's plain injustice. And by any logic, it invites injustice in return. Because there is no way you can use race to one party's advantage without justifying others to use it against them. If you tell blacks that your Democratic candidate will promote black interests, why can't Republicans tell whites that this same candidate won't promote white interests? (Whatever the hell a "white interest" is, but I digress.)
That's the essence of shooting yourself in the foot. You can't say that the candidate's race is important for blacks, but that whites aren't allowed to make the same judgment, because that would be "discrimination."
Georgia Too
October 22, 2009 - 11:36 ET by slickwillie2001A related and little-reported outrage from last week:
DOJ Approves Non-Citizens' Right to Vote: http://jammiewearingfool.blogspot.com
"The U.S. Department of Justice has for the second time rejected Georgia's system of using Social Security numbers and driver's license data to check whether prospective voters are citizens. The Justice Department first rejected Georgia's request for preclearance for the checks in May. The state asked the department in August to reconsider that rejection."
This is another one of those leftovers from the Voting Rights Act of 1965; the Justice Department in effect controls voting law in Southern states. President George W. Bush failed us in not doing away with this unconstitutional leftover of the sixties.
This is very revealing as it
October 22, 2009 - 16:12 ET by Dan The Man 2This is very revealing as it is the Justice department saying this. Is not the JD responsible for making sure there are no illeglas in the USA?
Meanwhile Democrats push
October 22, 2009 - 11:40 ET by mattmMeanwhile Democrats push non-partisan elections, IRV, and any other election laws and processes that they think will give them a better chance to win.
If Nonpartisan elections hurt Democrats in Kinston, abolish them, if nonpartisan elections help Democrats in St. Paul - implement them.
Dems don't care what the voters want, they only care about the power they can get from the voters. This proves it.
"A search for news stories
October 22, 2009 - 11:41 ET by celator"A search for news stories about the controversy on Google News this morning yielded only 14 hits"
I know it's not an apples to apples comparison, because of the timeline and topics, but just for tickles and giggles I googled "democrats attack Palin", and came up with 3,100,000 hits.
Nah, they aren't afraid of her. No sirree.
No citizen's right to life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, or property is safe as long as Obama is President of the United States.
Heaven forbid the Public
October 22, 2009 - 12:18 ET by stratmanHeaven forbid the Public actually having to learn about the candidates' policy positions!
Oh well, there's always that perenial chestnut of voting by name recognition alone.
Institutionalized Racism is Back!
October 22, 2009 - 12:40 ET by freecitizenIf they had said black voters would not vote for a white candidate unless he had a D next to his name would that be racist? This may be true, but you sure as hell don't make race-based policy based on it.
Liberal: remove all that's Right, and this is what's Left.
Why don't they require racial labels instead of party?
October 22, 2009 - 15:43 ET by CO2MakerCut out the middle man.
This is actually a very revealing thing the DoJ has done. It says, in effect, that they do not expect residents of Kinston to be able to tell candidates apart without a label. They all look alike on the ballot. Can't tell one from the other. But individuality and, um, campaign platforms aren't important. Race is.
Race
October 22, 2009 - 18:31 ET by matthewdeanCO2:
Race is apparently ALL there is these days.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was long, long overdue. It resolved many instances of unfair practices committed against minorities.
The Civil Rights Act did NOT rectify, and what's more, can never rectify, or atone for, very evil things done against people of color in the past.
It does appear to me however, based on what I am seeing these days, that a very large number of said minorities will not be satisfied until we regress as a society back to the days of slavery, with one very important difference.
Apparently the only circumstance that will satisfy certain members of minority groups will be the complete role reversal of those times.
Sad.
MD
"I may not agree with what your bumper sticker says, but I will defend to the death your right to stick it." (Unknown)
Making race mundane
October 22, 2009 - 19:21 ET by CO2MakerRace isn't mundane in the U.S. It's our Original Sin, and it [pardon the pun] colors almost every social interaction we make.
The trick is to make race and ethnic attributes secondary and banal to the point they become invisible. We have to sit in a room and NOT think of a person's color for 5 minutes. This is very hard for older people to do, because we have developed over 30, 40, 50 or more years many emotional and intellectual habits that acknowledge race.
Nowadays, when photographs of people are used in a publication for general consumption, someone is counting heads, counting M and F, old and young, evident racial characteristics and disabilities that can be photographed, etc. By doing this, we repeat a habit of paying attention to race, which is just like asking ourselves, "Is the 5 minutes up?"
But we're back to the problem that everything portrayed in the media is edited. Everything is weighed, nuanced, paced, dressed and combed and lighted for an effect. Live sports come as close as possible to not being calculated, but everything else is. And that includes how many people are shown, how good looking or not they are, how heavy or thin they are, etc.
The only way out of this is to make race mundane. And to do it for our children, because we are too old to not be aware of race.
Making Race mundane II
October 23, 2009 - 01:10 ET by matthewdeanCO2:
Unsure if you mean mundane in the sense of ordinary (so commonly seen that it really is'nt noticed, therefore not seen as different), or transitory (as in temporary).
Does'nt really matter, because to make the stamp of ethnicity or race transitory (temporary) as far as perception, it must first be made ordinary in our workaday world.
I don't think, based on experience, that this is likely to happen. To be brutally honest, based on personal experience, I do not believe it will ever happen.
While there has been a significant change in the media world as far as minority representation in programming on television, in the cinema, and especially in sports venues due to the outstanding athletic ability extant, there exists what to me is a diametrically opposed energy force.
This would be associations, groups, or clubs, formed solely by ethnic bonding.
Understand, I have no problem with such fraternities or sororities; until I am told in the workplace that I, as a White, Anglo-Saxon male, can neither start nor have a club, group, or gathering with the word "White" in it as far as the word relates to ethnicity, or am frowned upon by "higher-minded " individuals in our society if I even bring the subject up.
This type of situation does not engender any warm and fuzzy feelings on my part, because wrong is wrong.
Reverse discrimination, deserved or not, is still discrimination.
There are insurmountable odds, I fear, favoring both sides of the above statement.
And that basically ties to the crux of my belief that hoping the race situation will be nullified is essentially nirvana; a dream.
If all humans were tan, but some had brown hair, and the rest had blonde hair; rest assured, discrimination would somehow rear its' ugly head.
Unfortunately, a person will never go wrong betting against goodness and for vileness in the human race.
For the most part, our fellow beings show us that, every single day.
Sad.
MD
"I may not agree with what your bumper sticker says, but I will defend to the death your right to stick it." (Unknown)
DOJ says: "Put those D's and R's back!"
October 22, 2009 - 19:02 ET by ThisnThatWhen are they going to scold the MSM for leaving out the D's behind Dim names when the Dims are in trouble?
Any time now, I suspect.
__________
"mmm, mmm, mm. Barrack-Hussain-Øbama↓." - The liberals coolaid drinking song
ENOUGH!
October 22, 2009 - 20:44 ET by BondPlainBondThe overt racism of Acting Assistant Attorney General Loretta King is disgusting, vile, and reprehensible.
That the Obama Administration (Eric Holder) supported this overt act of racism is unconscionable!
In visiting the Kinston NC local paper, there are a few items of interest. Fox News will be there on Monday (Griff Jenkins for Sean Hannity) to do a report. Good. The comments of the local residents are below each article, a few of them very interesting.
Kinston Nonpartisan Issue Goes National
Kinston's Nonpartisan Issue Subject of Washington Times Article
Mayoral Candidates Share Their Views with the Public