Armed Black Panthers in the Capitol, 50 years on
BY CHUCK MCFADDEN POSTED 04.26.2017
It’s largely forgotten now, but 50 years ago, it created a national sensation. It even caused the National Rifle Association and Ronald Reagan to back a gun-control bill authored by a Republican.
Tuesday is the 50th anniversary of the May 2, 1967 “invasion” of the state Capitol by two dozen gun-toting Black Panthers. Carrying rifles, pistols and shotguns, and wearing dark glasses, leather jackets and berets, they marched up the front steps and into the Capitol to demonstrate their opposition to an anti-gun bill by Oakland Republican Don Mulford (1915-2000).
Will someone author a book about Black Folks and The Think Tank Culture? Ed Meese and Blackwell co-authored a defense of the Thomas family. Ginni Thomas is introduced as Clarence’s “help-meet” Biblical title. I suspect most Black Conservatives are invited into the back rooms of The Think Tanks and introduced to TANK THINK that Ed Meese developed while working for Army Intelligence. Ed…
IS BIG WHITE BROTHER
Here is Big Ed talking about Huey Newton who would call Clarence Thomas ‘Uncle Tom’
John Presco
In his opinion, Thomas called for the court to revisit rulings on cases that had affirmed the right to privacy, including access to contraceptives and LGBTQ rights.
Chicago mayor curses out Clarence Thomas at Pride parade | The Hill
Interviews – Edwin Meese | News War | FRONTLINE | PBS
… Who are the Black Panthers, and why were they of such interest to law enforcement back in the late ’60s?
The Black Panthers was what we would call today a criminal gang that was formed by Huey Newton. Now, interestingly enough, I knew Huey Newton before he formed the Black Panthers. He was a student of mine when I was a teacher, instructor at Oakland City College back in the very early 1960s. I was teaching law, criminal law, for police officers and people who wanted to be police officers, and one of the students in my class was Huey Newton.
He later wrote in his book that he was taking these law enforcement courses because he said he wanted “to know as much as the pigs knew.” That’s why he was taking this course. So I was somewhat surprised, because he was an excellent student and very well-mannered type of person, to [learn] some years later, in the latter part of the ’60s when he formed the Black Panthers.
This was, as I say, essentially a criminal gang. They carried firearms openly; they intimidated people. He himself shot and killed a police officer during that time, the late ’60s, early ’70s. So it was a serious threat to public safety in Alameda County and in Northern California.
A criminal gang, not a political protest group?
I think they were involved in various protests, but essentially they were a criminal organization and committed crimes. As I say, he himself killed a police officer. …
So today when … you see the footage of them — you know, “The revolution has come” — how serious was that?
Well, I’d say it was very serious for its time. You had a number of criminal gangs like that around the country. You had the SDS, so-called Students for a Democratic Society. They had their violence-prone group, the Weathermen. You had the Black Liberation Army. You had the Symbionese Liberation Army in Alameda County and in Northern California which killed a number of people. They were involved in a shootout with the Los Angeles police at one time; they kidnapped Patty Hearst.
“There have been very few prosecutions of leaks, and it’s amazing to me that the one prosecution we’ve had in recent years of leaks had to do with a case where no crime has been committed.”
So the Black Panthers were one of the earlier groups like that that posed a real threat, and in their time, they were as serious as terrorist groups would be today.
Ex-US attorney lays out ‘potential charge against Donald Trump for manslaughter’ (msn.com)
Former U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade said on Wednesday that former President Donald Trump could face manslaughter charges for his delay in calling off a mob of rioters on Jan. 6, 2021.
During a panel discussion on MSNBC, McQuade asserted that Trump and his associates could not rely on free speech arguments to protect them from criminal charges.
Clarence and Ginni Thomas embody integrity in public service | Voice (christianpost.com)
Author Adam B. Coleman | 07-11-2022 – 77 WABC (wabcradio.com)
Why I — and other black Americans — signed that letter denouncing attacks on Justice Thomas
By
July 13, 2022 7:41pm
MORE ON:CLARENCE THOMAS
- Black leaders condemn ‘racist’ Clarence Thomas attacks by ‘white progressives’
- The week in whoppers: Samantha Bee’s incitement, the NYT’s blatant bias and more
- What my school’s Clarence Thomas cancel campaign teaches us about campus intolerance
- Glenn Greenwald slams CNN’s Rex Chapman for ‘racist’ attack on Clarence Thomas
On July 13, RealClearPolitics published an open letter from Brown University professor Glenn Loury and the founder of The Woodson Center, Robert Woodson Sr., denouncing as racist, ugly and wholly immoral the recent attacks aimed at Justice Clarence Thomas following the Supreme Court’s overturning Roe v. Wade. The letter included the signatures of many notable black Americans. I signed it as well. Here’s why.
My decision was not to defend Clarence Thomas’ political positions or court rulings. I signed the letter to defend a human being who had his complexion weaponized against him for behaving in a manner that political agitators believe is unbecoming for a black man.
One’s view of Thomas’ rulings, on Roe or anything else, should not come into play here. If you believe people should not be singled out for their race, you need to be consistent, even if that forces you occasionally to defend people whom you have labeled as your ideological foes.
Fact is, we’ve become comfortable living with the cancer of partisanship to the point of denying that we are increasingly becoming sicker by the day. We’re enamored with proving how our side is the side of righteousness and the opposition practices devilish behavior, or in the context of race, our side is the side of righteous inclusion, and the opposition practices racial animosity through political subversion.
However, none of this means anything without being consistent in your behavior, not just your rhetoric. Yet those targeting Thomas put political ideology over their supposed commitment to treating everyone fairly, despite his or her race.
For the past couple of years, Americans have been chastised for being unaware of their racism blind spots. The self-appointed arbiters of racial truths among our media point to isolated incidents they claim reflect broad racial problems. Whether we agree is not the point; it’s one’s consistency when racial mistreatment happens to someone whom you despise that matters.
It is supposedly unbecoming for a black person to avoid groupthink in favor of individualism and, the greatest sin of all, to vote for your personal interests instead of everyone else’s. This “undesirable” behavior earns you demonization as a traitorous Uncle Tom or a N – – – – r. You’ll be slapped with those labels for disagreeing with the rhetoric and strategies of those who prejudge us (in this case, expecting us to have left-leaning views) based on our race.
SEE ALSO
Black community leaders condemn ‘racist’ attacks on Justice Clarence Thomas
You’re an “Uncle Tom” for not wanting to live your life as a victim of supposed invisible oppressive systems. When you choose to reject racial animosity, you’re marked as a N – – – – r who ignorantly believes we don’t need to hate whites to uplift ourselves.
This letter needed to be written to help address inconsistencies on racism and to bring balance to a chronically imbalanced discussion. If we’re to be a truly “anti-racist” society, we should speak up just as loudly when someone we politically despise is racially abused. Doing what’s right has no political affiliation.
No one in or out of politics should have their identity questioned because they think differently than the majority of their ilk. You also cannot claim to be for a more racially fair society and then admonish those who find love across racial lines.
Clarence Thomas having a white wife doesn’t make him less black, just as Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson having a white husband doesn’t make her less black. If one day Justice Jackson were to issue a ruling and Republicans openly uttered racial slurs toward her, I’d be just as outraged and would sign a similar letter rebuking their behavior. This is called being consistent.76
What do you think? Post a comment.
The same progressives who claim to be allies of black Americans and warriors for social justice revel in displaying their hatred of a “misbehaving” black man. The treatment of Clarence Thomas has allowed many to see what I’ve been seeing for many years: Our progressive allies have been holding their hands behind their backs while concealing their dagger until we step out of line
Adam B. Coleman is the author of “Black Victim To Black Victor” and founder of Wrong Speak Publishing.
Clarence and Ginni Thomas embody integrity in public service
By Ken Blackwell and Edwin Meese III, Op-ed contributor| Monday, March 07, 2022
The militant Left is attacking the principled public service of Justice Clarence Thomas again; this time by targeting his wife Ginni in a malicious attempt to delegitimize Supreme Court decisions that are faithful to the original meaning of the Constitution.
The Left has targeted Clarence all his career. We all saw his promise when President Ronald Reagan appointed him as assistant secretary of education for civil rights in 1981, and then promoted him at the first opportunity, nominating him as chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in 1982.
The Reagan White House thought very highly of Clarence. And in the next administration, we were thrilled to see President George H.W. Bush nominating this brilliant and principled young leader to be a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in 1990, to occupy the seat left vacant by another exceptional jurist, Judge Robert Bork.
President Bush could not have done better when he later nominated Clarence to the U.S. Supreme Court. Justice Thomas has been the Rock of Gibraltar, steadfast in his principled commitment to originalism — the idea that the Constitution should be interpreted according to the original meaning of its words when the American people adopted them, and that judges must faithfully adhere to the text of written laws.
Yet in recent weeks, national publications have penned lengthy hit pieces on Ginni, who is not a public official. Ginni is outspoken in public life, but as a grassroots activist in the Republican Party and the conservative movement, not in the courtroom where her husband serves. She has often been erroneously described as operating a lobbying company, but has not been a registered lobbyist since her husband joined the court.
What does Ginni do? She brings leaders and groups together to collaborate and share information and explore ways to synchronize messaging for greater impact. Her focus is on coalition-building, and working in the public affairs space to maximize impact of messaging for clients and causes she believes in.
The situation might be different if Ginni was engaged in litigation, such as arguing before a court or having her name appear on legal briefs, but she does not touch the courtroom arena. No matter how strongly she feels about a matter, she steps back if it moves toward litigation, even before it reaches the Supreme Court. UnmuteAdvanced SettingsFullscreenPauseUp Next
One recent smear involved attacking Ginni for her leading role in the Impact Awards, celebrating leaders who put great effort into nonprofits and similar causes, often at great personal cost. This annual tradition fills a niche in the center-right movement, and it is astounding that anyone could find fault with it or spend time criticizing it.
Gone are the days when the family of a public official was considered off limits to most journalists. But what is really going on here is much more insidious. It is a new low of targeting the latter for destruction in an effort to bring down the former.
This is the Cancel Culture taken to a level that threatens our institutions of government. What began years ago as the politics of personal destruction has metastasized into attempts to delegitimize a distinguished and senior member of the best-functioning branch of the federal government, by smearing his wife.
Such demonization must end. Citizens will no longer want to participate in our constitutional republic if they conclude that doing so will incur years of relentless harassment targeting their spouses. And federal judges have lifetime appointments so they can rise above politics, and not be subject to a lifetime of political attacks. We must rise above this noxious miasma and frame these facts truthfully, starting with the Thomases.
That truth is this: Clarence and Ginni Thomas show how a top federal judge can have a patriotic spouse with a public career, where both can faithfully pursue their respective callings with honor and integrity. We should commend their example to our fellow citizens.
J. Kenneth Blackwell is Chairman of the Center For Election Integrity at the America First Policy Institute. He formerly served as Ohio Treasurer and Secretary of State.
Edwin Meese III was the 75th attorney general of the United States and is the Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow Emeritus at the Heritage Foundation. J. Kenneth Blackwell was U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Commission, and is an adviser to the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C.
Rosamond Press 