The DOJ Puts Race Above Safety, Again |

With the Department of Justice’s latest adventure in agitating race relations , involving New York’s fire department, Attorney General Eric Holder appears to have thrown out any pretense of serving and protecting the public. By now, most of us are at least somewhat familiar the racial controversies surrounding the DOJ. Some of the more widely covered ( and by widely covered I mean some mainstream networks mentioned them in passing instead of ignoring them completely) include:

Philadelphia Black Panther Case- The Department of Justice swooped in and dropped charges after several members of the New Black Panther Party had been convicted of voter intimidation. They had been caught on tape welding weapons and harassing people who were trying to enter the voting area.
Arizona Scandal- Documents surfaced showing that the agency had been secretly working with ACLU to prevent Arizona from enforcing its tough immigration law. And by tough, I mean exactly the same as the national law. Coincidentally, Eric Holder has no interest in enforcing that either.
All of the employees who refused to work on the Ike Brown case are not only still employed, several have been promoted (Eventually prosecuted by whistle-blower Christopher Coates, Brown was convicted of: cancelling ballots cast by white voters, stuffing the ballot box, forcing “assistance” for white voters inside the voting booth, sending employees out to fill in absentee ballots instead of voters, threatening 174 white voters warning them that he would challenge them if they tried to vote, and publicizing the names of 174 to further intimidate them). Mark Kapplehoff, who didn’t want to prosecute for fear of upsetting groups like the NAACP,was appointed Acting Chief of Staff for the Civil Rights Division. Loretta King, who forbid those working under her from asking applicants of the voting division to prosecute cases in a racially neutral manner, was promoted to Acting Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights. She later ordered the dismissal of the Black Panthers case and is currently involved in a host of racial scandals.
Former prosecutor J. Christian Adams came forward and testified that the Department of Justice, including high-ranking Obama political appointees such as Julie Fernandes, was intentionally ignoring cases involving minority to defendants and white victims. Initially, his charges were dubbed “fantasies” by the agency’s defenders. However, his former boss Christopher Coates came forward to reinforce his claims. Although the testimony of the two showed a system of racial bias by the department involving a large number of cases, no one was fired as a result.
During a Congressional hearing on the alleged abuses of the Department of Justice, Eric Holder said that he didn’t concern himself with seriously prosecuting those cases because “my people” had suffered injustices in the past. His statements seemed to say that since the discrimination by whites in the past was greater, crimes committed by minorities now aren’t of any real concern.

The latest jaw-dropping move by the Department of Justice involves the Fire Department of New York. Like all fire departments, applicants must study and pass an exam in order to be eligible for duty. The test is multiple-choice and open-book (So, let’s face it, studying is optional). Over 90% of all black and Hispanic applicants passed the exam, but this still wasn’t good enough for the race-obsessed DOJ ( Even the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission considers a test that is passed by 80% of minorities to be “fair”). On February 28, Assistant Attorney General of the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice Thomas E. Perez submitted an order for damages for any applicant who scored 25 out of 85 and was rejected for employment. Not only does he want them hired immediately, he expects taxpayers to pay them retroactively for time lost and the seniority they would have earned if they had been hired. The lead attorney on this case is none other than the aforementioned Loretta King. She complained that if black firefighters were not surrounded by more members of their own race they would not be able to further their “sense of fairness in the place of their employment.” Normally, this is the point where a judge would throw the case out, especially since no one is alleging any actual instances of discrimination. But the lunatic presiding over the case, Judge Garaufis, believes that the $20 million spent by the department to recruit minority firefighters isn’t enough. He still says the test eliminates to many minority applicants and the fire department needs to do more to encourage diversity. He also took it upon himself to throw out the test results, which ironically enough, has left many minority applicants who have passed the test in a state of uncertainty as to whether or not they will have jobs.

It was bad enough when the Department of Justice was refusing to prosecute crimes in a racially neutral manner, but now they are endangering the safety of millions of New Yorkers. Peoples lives are at stake here. This is certainly not the place for government imposed racial quotas. We’re not talking about some job filing papers at a community center. We’re talking about a position where poor job performance could kill someone. If anything the exams aren’t difficult enough. Any test that is passed by 90% of applicants is probably too easy, particularly when it’s multiple-choice and open-book! And while I am baffled by the logic of Judge Garaufis and the DOJ, I am even more concerned about the larger implications of this case. For one thing, why is the Department of Justice putting its nose in the hiring practices of a city agency? No laws have been broken and no one has even been accused of an instance of discrimination, so how did they come to be involved in this at all? Don’t they have other things to investigate? Things that are actually part of their job description like enforcing immigration and stopping voter fraud? Secondly, where in the world did this judge find justification to intervene? There is nothing illegal or unconstitutional about this case and no one has had their civil rights violated. It doesn’t matter if he thinks the test is fair or he would rather see things done differently, he has no authority to make that call. Our courts are only allowed to interject themselves into public policy when a law or procedure is at odds with the Constitution, conflicts with another law passed by higher authority (federal or state), or is clearly intended to discriminate against a particular group. This case involves none of those things. It is an insult to both the city of New York and taxpayers nationwide that our Department of Justice and our court system is being openly abused for political purposes. If you want to be an activist for “racial justice” then, by all means, join an advocacy group. But you cannot accept an appointment to a position funded with tax money and decide to pursue your own personal agenda and ignore the actual responsibilities of your job. We must demand more of our public officials and those who have authority over them. Which brings me to my final point, at what point is the media going to ask the President to get control of his Attorney General?

The Attorney General and, therefore, the Department of Justice as a whole “serves at the pleasure of the President.” He is appointed by the President. He takes his orders from the President and can be fired by the President. This idea that the Department of Justice somehow operates independently of the White House is nonsense. Attorney General is an appointed cabinet position. He is there to assist the President and see to it that the President’s wishes are carried out in the Department of Justice. I can’t make it any clearer than that. The White House has been pushing the notion that the President’s many Czars and appointees keep making controversial decisions without his knowledge or permission, but this is plainly untrue! In fact, since these men and women are not elected into office the President is the only one who can control them. Do you really think they are acting without the approval of the one man who can have them fired? I seriously doubt it, but if they are, it’s time that President Obama step in. We, as voters, certainly can’t hold them accountable so the President must. It is his duty and obligation to see to it that these officials are upholding the laws of the land. President Truman fired his Attorney General and President Obama ought to do the same. It is a shame that we don’t have enough journalists who are willing to hold the President’s feet to the fire. This case, like so many others, is being ignored by most of the media. If we want the Department of Justice to feel pressure on this case, we are going to have to apply it ourselves. I encourage you to contact major media outlets and ask them why they have been ignoring this story (links listed below). I also suggest that you contact Republican leaders in Congress and ask them to turn up the heat on investigations into the Department of Justice. Even if we can’t get Eric Holder fired perhaps, with some additional pressure, we can get him to at least pretend that he’s interested in doing his job for the next two years. And, with any luck, 2012 will bring a new President and a pink slip for all of the jokers at the DOJ.

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