Douglas Olson’s Washington Report

In a Racial Box

The unrepentant, in-your-face lawbreaking of Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) has nationalized the racial woes that Democrats were already facing at the state level in New York. The party appeared fully prepared to lose the governorship, and suffer collateral damage in the legislature, rather than offend Negroes by allowing a serious primary candidate to run against disastrous accidental Gov. David Paterson (D), whose approval rating recently fell to 27 percent. Only after it was leaked that Barack Obama himself wanted Paterson out was anyone willing to whisper a word of opposition to the current black ruler, and there is still no credible Democratic challenger, although former Rep. Rick Lazio (R) has declared for the seat.

Now, with Rangel’s recent admission that for years he concealed more than $600,000 in assets, he is poised to become the poster boy for a new “culture of corruption” campaign — this time run by the GOP. Rangel has been under investigation for more than a year by the House ethics committee for failure to pay taxes, abuse of rent-controlled properties in Harlem, promising political favors in exchange for a City College institution he created with an earmark and named after himself, and still more depredations. In a recent, unsuccessful GOP attempt to dethrone him, two “Blue Dog” Mississippi Democrats — Travis Childers and Gene Taylor — voted with Republicans in a desperate attempt to save their seats in conservative-leaning districts. Those who sided with the crook can expect to see opponents use that vote against them in the next campaign.

Despite low-key complaints by Democratic House members who fear this scandal may cost them their jobs in 2010, Speaker Nancy Pelosi won’t force Rangel to step down as the powerful chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, thereby deepening her party’s peril as he continues to stink and shine like a mackerel in the moonlight. But it’s not entirely her fault. There’s little question she would jettison him as quickly as she did Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) last year, but for the unanimous and openly defiant opposition of the Congressional Black Caucus. She desperately needs those 41 CBC votes to get anything done in the House; without them, she does not have a majority.

When you lie down with dogs . . . .

The Dangers of Free Speech

Freshman Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT), who defeated RINO Christopher Shays last year, has run afoul of the Sensitivity Police for “tweeting” about another House member: “Minority colleague just said he’s glad his dad is dead so he wont see consumer finance reform. Sheesh.”

After catching grief for allegedly slandering a “protected class,” Himes whined: “Realized when I referred to ‘minority colleague’ some thought I meant ethnic minority. In fact, I meant Republican. Gotta watch the DC-speak!”

Yes, we all do. Big Bro is watching you!

The Department of Injustice

Negroes and white Democrats are so stupid, according to Attorney General Eric Holder’s Justice Department, that they can’t be trusted to vote “correctly” unless there is a “D” on the ballot to guide them in making their “X.”

Last November, at the same time the two-thirds-black town turned out to give Obama a solid majority, residents of Kinston, NC, voted to eliminate partisan elections for mayor and city council. Only nine of the state’s 551 local jurisdictions still hold partisan contests.

But Loretta King, acting head of the Justice Department’s civil rights division, refused to allow that decision to be honored because its “effect will be strictly racial.” Departmental review is required by the Voting Rights Act of all electoral changes in North Carolina, but not in most non-Southern states.

King declared that it is only the party designation on ballots that “results in enough white cross-over to allow the black community to elect a candidate of choice.” Therefore, “Removing the partisan cue in municipal elections will, in all likelihood, remove the single factor that allows black candidates to be elected to office.”

The proudly racist King is also the person responsible for dropping voter intimidation charges against three New Black Panther Party goons who were recorded blocking access to the polls and threatening both whites and Republican blacks last November in Philadelphia. Charges were dropped over the objections of career prosecutors, and after summary judgment had been awarded against the Negroes in this only documented case of racial voter intimidation during the lifetime of most Americans.

Only the Kinston City Council has standing to take this explosive issue to court, and it voted four to one against that action after receiving the decision. William Barker, the dissenting council member, was against the change, but declared, “It bothers me, even though I’m on the winning side now, that you have a small group, an outside group, coming in and saying, ‘Your vote doesn’t count.’”

Holder’s minions also refused to approve Georgia’s plan for verifying the citizenship of its voters. Although the Help America Vote Act supposedly requires states to verify the identities of those who cast ballots, Obama’s feds say the Georgia program has a “discriminatory effect” on minority voters.

Useful Idiots

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has finally achieved a long-term dream — Congress has passed his resolution calling for a posthumous pardon for Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight champion. According to the bill, Johnson’s “racially motivated conviction in 1913 . . . diminished [his] athletic, cultural, and historic significance . . . and unduly tarnished his reputation.” Johnson was jailed for violating the federal Mann Act — transporting a (white) woman across state lines for “immoral purposes.” After being convicted, he fled the country, but later returned through a bargain in which he served just ten months in prison.

Incredibly, this legislation was not a Congressional Black Caucus effort. The bill has been introduced in every Congress since 2004 by two honky lickspittles — McCain in the Senate and Rep. Peter King (R-NY) in the House. McCain had never been able to attract many co-sponsors except the always racially shaky Sam Brownback (R-KS), who, thankfully, is departing the Senate next year. The only others joining him this year were Harry Reid (D-NV) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT), which should have tipped anyone off that something was wrong. King generally had almost all members of the CBC backing his version; this year, only eight Negroes signed on before passage — Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL), Carolyn Kilpatrick (D-MI), Gwen Moore (D-WI), Bobby Rush (D-IL), Al Green (D-TX), Gregory Meeks (D-NY), Charlie Rangel (D-NY), and Edolphus Towns (D-NY).

McCain and King sent a letter to the White House this month, citing their congressional resolution and requesting that Obama formally pardon his “brother.”