St. Louis CofCC Blog

Anything that depends on Al Sharpton is so transparently doomed to fail. Today, the House Judiciary Committee held hearings on the Jena One scandal.

Some of the highlights from USA Today:

Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Tex., the ranking member on the committee, said he welcomed the hearings and praised witnesses for seeking “healing solutions.”

“What we do not need is stoking racial resentment,” Smith said.

That’s contradictory. These witnesses are “stoking racial resentment.” This is indicative of how useless the Republican Party and “mainstream” conservatism is on race. Notice that, along with Lamar Smith’s dunderhead treatment of the issue, most conservative talk radio hosts have barely mentioned Jena. Rush Limbaugh is too busy talking about himself, and Sean Hannity is too busy glowing over the failed reconstruction of Iraq. Michael Savage has talked about it some, while Mark Levin seems to be the national host who has actually devoted a lot of time to the issue in the way it should be dealt with.

Richard Cohen, president of the Montgomery, Ala.-based Southern Poverty Law Center, told the panel that hate was behind the incidents in Jena, but that local authorities had mishandled the case. He said the filing of criminal charges against the black teenagers was not an appropriate response.

Since we know that the gang assault against Justin Barker on the part of the so-called Jena 6 Thugs had nothing to do with the noose “incident” three months prior (and the two events only became linked when a liberal Texas preacher/troublemaker by the name of Alan Beany Baby rode cowboy into town0, what Cohen is saying here is that he and his “center” approve of black violence against whites.

Also, why is someone named Cohen cavorting with Al Sharpton on the same side of an issue? Does anybody remember anything anymore? I know this medium has a big audience at this “Center,” and someone there might want to show your President this link.

“Shame on you,” Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, said to Justice Department officials, directing most of her fury at Washington, the first black person to hold the position of the U.S. attorney for the area.

“Washington” being (black) Donald Washington, U.S. Attorney for western Louisiana. The reason that black Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee are mad at him because he, as a black man and a Federal prosecutor, has dispelled many of the myths of the civil rights industry over the Jena One scandal. For instance, he discovered that racial hate was not a motive for the white students hanging the nooses, and that the nooses were not a motivation for the Jena 6 Thugs assaulting Mr. Barker.

Following that exchange, Conyers pointed out he had invited the local district attorney, Reed Walters, to testify, but he declined. At that, some in the audience yelled out, “subpoena him!”

I was hoping that he would show up and give them all what for. Maybe he had other things to do, or maybe he knew that these “hearings” would be nothing more than a chance for the left to spout off its distorted version of reality, and that there would be no chance at substantive response, as they indeed turned out to be. I mean, if the ranking Republican on that committee is essentially agreeing with the kook left, then this thing wasn’t worth canceling a root canal to attend.

Rev. Al Sharpton, who helped organize the protest march, was among the witnesses and said the different way the white and black students were treated by authorities was a cause for concern.

He complained about a system “set up where you are too young to be charged with a bias crime, but you’re the same age and can be charged as an adult for attempted murder …”

The civil rights activist was late to the hearing because of airline delays in New York. Before Sharpton arrived, Rep. Howard Coble, R-N.C., tossed a barb at the activist in what he called a personal statement: “If I were compiling a list of witnesses to encourage the diminishing of racial disharmony, I don’t know that Mr. Sharpton would make the cut.”

In an aside after his arrival, Sharpton told the panel: “I note Mr. Coble’s welcoming of my presence.”

Why isn’t Rep. Howard Coble (R-NC) the ranking Republican on this committee?

Since the Jena case began attracting national attention, there have been a number of other nooses found in high-profile incidents around the country — in a black Coast Guard cadet’s bag, on a Maryland college campus, and, last week, on the office door of a black professor at Columbia University in New York.

We’ll eventually find out that both of these were hoaxes.

Related: What Really Happened in Jena? By Jared Taylor

UPDATE 5:15 PM:  Al Sharpton, apparently misinterpreting something that U.S. Attorney Donald Washington said about his decision not to file Federal charges against the white students based on the fact that they were not yet 18 years old (or maybe Sharpton himself is being deliberately deceitful, not wanting to admit that there was no racial hate involved in the nooses, and if he admits that, that neuters his contention that there are racial double-standards in Jena), told reporters after the hearings that he was all worried that this sends a message that campaigns of organized hate will give all their dirty work (i.e. nooses, swastikas, graffiti, etc) to underage individuals, so that the adults can avoid Federal and state hate crime charges.

The irony of that is that it wasn’t that long ago that the U.S. Supreme Court, in all its wisdom, decided that executing people under 18 was unconstitutional.  Fears expounded by some (including this blogmeister) after this decision were that violent drug gangs would farm out their murderous “dirty work” to those “bangaz” under 18, to avoid the possibility of any gang members getting the death penalty.  So far, those fears have been justified.