The Great Destroyer: Barack Obama's War on the Republic (18 page)
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Authors: David Limbaugh
BOOK: The Great Destroyer: Barack Obama's War on the Republic
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“A NATION OF COWARDS ON RACE”
In light of all the painful racial crises our nation has experienced, color-blindness has become a deeply rooted American value. As famously proclaimed by Martin Luther King Jr. in his iconic “I Have a Dream” speech, we should be judged on the content of our character, not the color of our skin. The broadest swath of the American people agrees on this simple, fundamental principle; unfortunately, our president’s statements, appointments, and policies testify that he belongs to the small, radical fringe that does not.
Obama has obviously harbored deeply rooted racial baggage in his life. He admitted as much in his book
Dreams from My Father
, writing, “I ceased to advertise my mother’s race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites.” And of course, for twenty years Obama attended a church pastored by the racist Reverend Jeremiah Wright, who preached the militant, racially centered creed of Black Liberation Theology.
Dreams from My Father
, writing, “I ceased to advertise my mother’s race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites.” And of course, for twenty years Obama attended a church pastored by the racist Reverend Jeremiah Wright, who preached the militant, racially centered creed of Black Liberation Theology.
In 2012, the late Andrew Breitbart’s websites released video clips showing Obama’s connection to racist academic Derrick Bell, the first black Harvard Law School professor. It turns out Obama, while a Harvard Law student, strongly supported and warmly embraced Bell after the professor initiated a high-profile campaign to pressure Harvard into hiring a black female law professor. As explained by author and economist Thomas Sowell, who was interviewed about the incident at the time, Bell wasn’t referring only to black skin color, but a black woman who also
thought
black. That is, Bell wasn’t merely insisting that Harvard’s hiring be based on race, but on ideology. Sowell also revealed that Bell, who had an “ideological intolerance” and a “totalitarian mindset,” launched a despicable attack against a young black professor who objected to Bell’s agenda.
122
thought
black. That is, Bell wasn’t merely insisting that Harvard’s hiring be based on race, but on ideology. Sowell also revealed that Bell, who had an “ideological intolerance” and a “totalitarian mindset,” launched a despicable attack against a young black professor who objected to Bell’s agenda.
122
Calling Derrick Bell “the Jeremiah Wright of academia,” Joel Pollak of
Breitbart.com
explained that Bell was the originator of critical race theory, “which holds that the civil rights movement was a sham and that white supremacy is the order and it must be overthrown.”
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Bell, who argued that “racism is an integral, permanent and indestructible component of this society,”
124
was indeed a racial militant extraordinaire, which is why it’s unsettling to see video of future President Barack Obama urging Harvard students to “open up your hearts and your minds to the words of Professor Derrick Bell.”
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Breitbart.com
explained that Bell was the originator of critical race theory, “which holds that the civil rights movement was a sham and that white supremacy is the order and it must be overthrown.”
123
Bell, who argued that “racism is an integral, permanent and indestructible component of this society,”
124
was indeed a racial militant extraordinaire, which is why it’s unsettling to see video of future President Barack Obama urging Harvard students to “open up your hearts and your minds to the words of Professor Derrick Bell.”
125
Some might dismiss these signals as old attitudes that Obama has since outgrown. But if Obama is now committed to race-blindness, it’s strange that his administration is shot through with high-ranking officials who obviously oppose him on that score.
For example, Obama’s nominee for assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, Thomas Perez, is a strong proponent of racial preferences in admissions to schools that train healthcare professionals. He has advocated that medical schools drop standards for black applicants, arguing they are more likely to work in “underserved” communities than whites.
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Similarly, in August 2009 the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights expressed concern that Obama’s healthcare legislation included racially discriminatory provisions such as according minority students preferential treatment for scholarships and favoring medical schools deemed more likely to send graduates to underserved areas.
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Similarly, in August 2009 the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights expressed concern that Obama’s healthcare legislation included racially discriminatory provisions such as according minority students preferential treatment for scholarships and favoring medical schools deemed more likely to send graduates to underserved areas.
127
Obama’s former Green Jobs czar, Van Jones, was decidedly radical, including on race issues. In September 2009 he declared, “You’ve never seen a Columbine done by a black child. Never. They always say, ‘we can’t believe it happened here. We can’t believe it was these suburban white kids.’ It’s only them. Now a black kid might shoot another black kid. He’s not going to shoot up the whole school.” Military analyst Ralph Peters responded, “It’s symptomatic of the extreme leftward lurch of this administration. It’s the farthest left administration we’ve ever had in American history. Obama makes FDR look like Barry Goldwater.”
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Van Jones’ bizarre declarations became well known, leading to his resignation. What is less well-known is that the same month Jones spit out his racial analysis of Columbine, Obama’s “diversity czar” (the FCC’s Chief Diversity Officer), Mark Lloyd, was caught on video saying, “There are few things, I think, more frightening in the American mind than dark-skinned black men.” A few years earlier Lloyd had complained that whites owned and controlled 98 percent of all federal broadcast licenses and urged white media executives to “step down” so that “more people of color, gays,” and “other people” “can have power.” Lloyd also panned the First Amendment, saying the freedoms it guarantees are “too often an exaggeration…. The purpose of free speech is warped to protect global corporations and block rules that would promote democratic governance.”
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In May 2009, amidst debate over Obama’s nomination of Sonia Sotomayor as a Supreme Court justice, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs pointedly admonished “anybody involved in this debate to be exceedingly careful with the way in which they’ve decided to describe different aspects of this impending confirmation.” The remark was a clear insinuation that Sotomayor’s critics were motivated by racism. And in fact, race
had
entered the discussion—but only because Obama’s nominee herself viewed the legal system through the prism of race and group identity, once having said that a “wise Latina woman” like herself should be more capable of adjudicating certain kinds of cases than a white male.
130
had
entered the discussion—but only because Obama’s nominee herself viewed the legal system through the prism of race and group identity, once having said that a “wise Latina woman” like herself should be more capable of adjudicating certain kinds of cases than a white male.
130
Contradicting candidate Obama’s post-racial appeals, the Obama administration has zealously promoted race-based policies and preferences—under the euphemism of “diversity”—inside and outside the government. The Obama administration used federal “stimulus” funds for such politically correct projects as purchasing manuals for every Omaha public school teacher, administrator, and staff instructing them on how to become more culturally sensitive.
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And according to
The Hill,
the Obama Agriculture Department has implemented numerous diversity initiatives and even hired a consulting firm to advise on diversity issues.
132
Department Secretary Tom Vilsack said the agency would also adopt most of the recommendations from a two-year study that examined USDA’s alleged history of discrimination and its alleged civil rights failings, which is all in line with the administration’s goal of bringing “transformational change” to a department that has been guilty of “egregious cases of discrimination.” One recommendation was that the USDA’s rural development department should be made more accessible to women and that a “chief diversity officer” should be appointed in each of the agency’s state offices.
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And according to
The Hill,
the Obama Agriculture Department has implemented numerous diversity initiatives and even hired a consulting firm to advise on diversity issues.
132
Department Secretary Tom Vilsack said the agency would also adopt most of the recommendations from a two-year study that examined USDA’s alleged history of discrimination and its alleged civil rights failings, which is all in line with the administration’s goal of bringing “transformational change” to a department that has been guilty of “egregious cases of discrimination.” One recommendation was that the USDA’s rural development department should be made more accessible to women and that a “chief diversity officer” should be appointed in each of the agency’s state offices.
133
But spreading “diversity” through just one department is not nearly ambitious enough for Obama. In August 2011, he issued an executive order called “Establishing a Coordinated Government-Wide Initiative to Promote Diversity and Inclusion in the Federal Workforce.” The order calls for all agencies in the federal government to “develop and issue” a “diversity and inclusion strategic plan.” Though vague, the order reflects the administration’s obsession with race and the inclusion of race-based factors for employment. While these types of initiatives are often billed as efforts to prevent discrimination, they promote it by their very terms, compelling government agencies to factor in race and ethnicity in their employment decisions rather than to factor them out, encouraging them to discriminate rather than to aspire toward a policy of nondiscrimination.
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Not content with making the entire federal government subject to its race-conscious “diversity” initiatives, the administration does what it can to impose them on the private sphere as well. For example, an Inspector General report on the government’s takeover of GM and Chrysler contained a little-known finding: “Dealerships were retained because they were recently appointed, were key wholesale parts dealers or were minority-or-woman owned dealerships.” This seems to mean that in order to meet the Obama administration’s unilaterally imposed race-and gender-based strictures, the big auto companies were forced to close potentially stronger dealerships because their owners were the wrong race or the wrong sex.
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In July 2011, Attorney General Eric Holder gave banks a good dose of diversity, ordering them to relax their mortgage underwriting standards and approve loans for minorities with poor credit as part of a new crackdown on discrimination, according to
Investors Business Daily.
Prosecutions, said
IBD
, had “already generated $20 million in loan set-asides and other subsidies from banks that have settled out of court rather than battle the federal government and risk being branded as racist.” A Department of Justice spokeswoman admitted that another sixty banks were under investigation.
136
It’s hard to imagine more striking proof that the administration learned nothing from the nation’s housing and financial crisis.
Investors Business Daily.
Prosecutions, said
IBD
, had “already generated $20 million in loan set-asides and other subsidies from banks that have settled out of court rather than battle the federal government and risk being branded as racist.” A Department of Justice spokeswoman admitted that another sixty banks were under investigation.
136
It’s hard to imagine more striking proof that the administration learned nothing from the nation’s housing and financial crisis.
The expansion of race preferences in school admissions is a key goal of the Left, and this administration has worked hard to further it as well. In March 2010, the Obama administration filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, supporting the University of Texas’ use of racial preferences in undergraduate admissions. In the brief, the administration advocated preferences not just at the university level but also from kindergarten through high school: “In view of the importance of diversity in educational institutions, the United States, through the Departments of Education and Justice, supports the efforts of school systems and post-secondary educational institutions that wish to develop admissions policies that endeavor to achieve the educational benefits of diversity in accordance with [the Supreme Court’s 2003 decision upholding the use of preferences by the University of Michigan law school].”
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The administration, even in its presentation of budget proposals, couches its marketing materials in terms of identity politics—what the plan will do for specific minorities and other groups, as if it strives to end once and for all the notion of
e pluribus unum
and the very idea of the melting pot. Its byword, instead, should be “balkanization.” The administration’s list of “fact sheets” for the 2012 budget included, among other items: Expanding Opportunities for the LGBT Community, Expanding Opportunities for Latino Families, Fighting the HIV/AIDS Epidemic and Supporting People Living with HIV/AIDS, Helping Women and Girls Win the Future, Standing with Indian Country, Winning the Future for African-American Families, Winning the Future for Asian-American and Pacific Islander Families, and Winning the Future for People with Disabilities.
138
e pluribus unum
and the very idea of the melting pot. Its byword, instead, should be “balkanization.” The administration’s list of “fact sheets” for the 2012 budget included, among other items: Expanding Opportunities for the LGBT Community, Expanding Opportunities for Latino Families, Fighting the HIV/AIDS Epidemic and Supporting People Living with HIV/AIDS, Helping Women and Girls Win the Future, Standing with Indian Country, Winning the Future for African-American Families, Winning the Future for Asian-American and Pacific Islander Families, and Winning the Future for People with Disabilities.
138
Eventually, Obama began to describe his legislation in terms of the benefits it would provide for blacks. The administration described an unemployment benefits renewal and tax bill as “a major win for African-American families.” The White House sent out an email outlining the specific ways the bill would benefit black families, which was not only interesting for its racial focus, but also as an illustration that Obama had no answer other than extending government benefits to reverse the devastating effects of his economic and regulatory policies on black families. There was no eye to growth and no incentives, only more income and wealth redistribution to perpetuate and deepen the dependency cycle. Despite his enormous transfer payments and other leftist policies, 15.8 percent of adult African-Americans were unemployed in December 2010, more than twice the rate of whites and also dwarfing the national average of 9.8 percent. Obama’s email bragged that 2.2 million African-American families would benefit from the expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit in the bill, while the unemployment extension, it said, would benefit 1.1 million African-Americans.
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OBAMA’S DEPARTMENT OF INJUSTICE139
If Obama really wanted to run a post-racial administration, it’s hard to explain why he would appoint Eric Holder as his attorney general. This, after all, is a man who, just a month into Obama’s presidency, publicly denounced the American people as a “nation of cowards” on racial issues—even though at the time we had a black president, a black attorney general, and black men leading both political parties. As multiple former Justice Department employees have testified, under Holder’s direction, the DOJ has become the government’s premier employer of racial militants. It’s hard to believe this has escaped Obama’s notice, and it certainly hasn’t shaken his complete confidence in his attorney general.
A few months after Holder called Americans cowards, the DOJ dismissed voter intimidation charges against New Black Panther Party members, even though the government had already won a default judgment against the defendants a month earlier when they had failed even to appear in court.
140
It was later revealed that in March 2007 then-candidate Barack Obama, during a campaign stop in Selma, Alabama, had shared a podium with members of the New Black Panther Party, received a personal greeting from the wife of Panther chief Malik Zulu Shabazz, and walked next to Panther members in a civil rights march.
141
Notably, Malik Zulu Shabazz, who was one of the Panthers who marched near Obama, was also one of the party members charged in the voter intimidation case that the DOJ dismissed. As Andrew McCarthy wrote at National Review Online, “This is a shocking story, and a breathtaking indictment of the mainstream media which went out of its way to avoid vetting Obama as a candidate—and to make sure anyone who tried to do due diligence got no sunshine. A candidate who chose to appear in the company, of say, the KKK, would have provoked relentlessly hostile media coverage, and, in short order, have been marginalized as disqualified to hold responsible elective office.”
142
140
It was later revealed that in March 2007 then-candidate Barack Obama, during a campaign stop in Selma, Alabama, had shared a podium with members of the New Black Panther Party, received a personal greeting from the wife of Panther chief Malik Zulu Shabazz, and walked next to Panther members in a civil rights march.
141
Notably, Malik Zulu Shabazz, who was one of the Panthers who marched near Obama, was also one of the party members charged in the voter intimidation case that the DOJ dismissed. As Andrew McCarthy wrote at National Review Online, “This is a shocking story, and a breathtaking indictment of the mainstream media which went out of its way to avoid vetting Obama as a candidate—and to make sure anyone who tried to do due diligence got no sunshine. A candidate who chose to appear in the company, of say, the KKK, would have provoked relentlessly hostile media coverage, and, in short order, have been marginalized as disqualified to hold responsible elective office.”
142
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