Today’s Investors Business Daily has an absolute must-read editorial on how Attorney General eric holder, aided and abetted by the race hustler crowd (led – if that’s the correct word – by al sharpton) has facilitated a race war on the police.
In fairness to IBD, I won’t post the entire editorial below. But in fairness to you I will post the first half…with this link, so you can read it all:
The latest casualties in Eric Holder’s anti-cop race war are two Ferguson, Mo., officers shot at a protest rally. The ambush follows the attorney general smearing the entire Ferguson police force as racist.
‘Acknowledgment nine months ago would have kept that from happening!” one protester shouted, referring to the August police shooting of Michael Brown.
“It’s time for the (people) to finally fight back against these racist ass pigs!” another protester tweeted.
Just hours earlier, Ferguson’s police chief stepped down in response to Holder’s 100-page report claiming Ferguson police engaged in systemic racism against local blacks.
“Nothing in this travesty of a report proves that, and the fact that Justice produced a report so buffoonish, so replete with conclusions unsupported by facts, so lacking in basic methodological rigor, is an embarrassment,” blasted U.S. Commission on Civil Rights member Peter Kirsanow, who is black.
But “the report has accomplished its objective,” Kirsanow added. “It’s smeared police officers across the country, giving the administration excuse to exert greater control over local police departments.”
It’s also enlarged the target on their backs. Holder excused anti-cop violence that broke out after the Brown shooting, suggesting it was justified by his overall findings.
“Members of the community may not have been responding only to a single isolated confrontation, but also to a pervasive, corrosive and deeply unfortunate lack of trust – attributable to … abuses, unreasonable searches and seizures, and excessive and dangerous use of force … against African Americans,” he said, only encouraging more violence against cops.
If this is not enough to convince you, IBD also published an editorial on March 6th, right after the DOJ report was issued, which included the following:
Holder’s own department statistics show that African Americans, on average, violate speeding and other traffic laws at much greater rates than whites.
The Justice Department’s research arm, the National Institute of Justice, explains that differences in traffic stops can simply be attributed to “differences in offending.”
Duh. For another example, “Seat-belt usage is chronically lower among blacks,” the NIJ says in a 2013 study. “If a law enforcement agency aggressively enforces violations, police will stop more black drivers.”
It adds that three out of every four black drivers say “police had a legitimate reason for stopping them.”
The institute cites two major studies on police profiling, one conducted in Savannah, Ga., and another in Cincinnati. Neither “support the perception that a high level of discrimination occurs prior to a traffic stop.”
Perhaps the attorney general should read his own research before making wild accusations of racism based on specious data.
Holder also complains black motorists were more likely than whites to receive multiple citations from Ferguson police, proof in his mind that cops “enforce the law more harshly against black people than others.”
But federal data compiled by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration show that blacks violate traffic laws at higher rates than whites in every offense, including driving with an invalid license.
Translation: Ferguson, Missouri is 2/3 Black, which means that “parity” is not 50%, it is 67%. And holders own Justice Department shows that Black people, in aggregate, are much more likely to engage in driving infractions than Whites, which raises it much higher than 67% (Question: If the data came from an arm of the Department Of Justice, which is headed by holder, does that make him a racist too?).
Any wonder why IBD is, and should be, skeptical of the report? Or the danger police officers in – any police officers, regardless of whether they have ever engaged in racist activity – have been put in because of what it says?
As you may be aware, Loretta Lynch, President Obama’s pick to succeed holder as Attorney General, will probably have her Senate confirmation vote next week
I am no fan of Ms. Lynch’s. During her confirmation hearings, she insulted the Senate committee, and the public, by refusing to answer questions about a raft of issues it is imperative we know her positions on. This led me to conclude that she either was incapable of providing straight answers to straight questions, or knew we would not like the answers she withheld. Either of those two would, in my mind, disqualify her for the office.
But, however much I do not want her, I acknowledge there to be a silver lining if she is confirmed by the Senate: it is that anything which gets eric holder out of office must be counted as a major plus.
