Saturday, November 19, 2016

Doesn’t Sound Like A Racist: Jeff Sessions Desegregated Schools, Got Death Penalty For KKK Head


From the Weekly Standard:
Now that Jeff Sessions is Donald Trump’s pick for attorney general, you’re going to hear a lot of people dig up old accusations that Sessions is a racist. In fact, CNN did so last night. However, between the nature of the accusations and Sessions’s actual record of desegregating schools and taking on the Klan in Alabama, it strains credulity to believe that he is a racist. 
These accusations all center around the bruising judicial nomination process Sessions went through in 1986. Ronald Reagan had tapped Sessions to serve on the federal bench and the Senate judiciary committee ultimately rejected him after they heard testimony that he had supposedly called the ACLU and NAACP “un-American” and “communist-inspired,” as well as made racist remarks. 
The accusations came from Thomas Figures, a black assistant U.S. attorney who worked for Sessions who said Sessions called him “boy” and had made a joke about how he thought the KKK was “O.K. until [he] found out they smoked pot.” Another prosecutor, J. Gerald Hebert, said Sessions had called a white lawyer “a disgrace to his race” for representing black clients.
AND THEN THERE'S THIS:

ARLEN SPECTER SAYS, HIS VOTE AGAINST SESSIONS "REMAINS ONE OF MY BIGGEST REGRETS"
The left is going to make attacking Jeff Sessions the cornerstone of its early resistance to Donald Trump. Elizabeth Warren, a possible presidential contender in 2020, sounded the call almost immediately, asserting a moral imperative to block Sessions’ confirmation. 
The alleged moral imperative is based on stale and, in some cases, disputed claims of mildly racist comments that were alleged 30 years ago when Sessions was denied confirmation for a federal judgeship. Warren stated: 
Thirty years ago, a different Republican Senate rejected Senator Sessions’ nomination to a federal judgeship. In doing so, that Senate affirmed that there can be no compromise with racism; no negotiation with hate. Today, a new Republican Senate must decide whether self-interest and political cowardice will prevent them from once again doing what is right. 
But did the Senate get it right 30 years ago? Arlen Specter, who cast the deciding vote against Sessions, later concluded it did not. Specter, who has never big on confessing error, called his vote a “mistake” that “remains one of my biggest regrets.”

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

With all due respect to the GSB commenters on Friday: this one must be fought. At some point the Democrats are going to have to be forced to put up or shut up. The time to stick the race card up their ass is right now.

Backing down because some guy said, some time ago, that Sessions said...blah, blah, blah...just ain't gonna cut it anymore. If the Republicans in the Senate back down on this, and they might (McCain, Graham) at least the weak links will have been exposed.

The people who supported Trump are in NO mood for this sort of spinelessness. First and foremost Sessions IS a good choice, thoroughly qualified. Folding early plays right into the hands of assholes like Warren. Let her cry and bitch all she wants but beat her. Beat her now. People will get tired of listening to her screeches, don't give her any tailwinds.

Pastorius said...

Having learned more about Sessions history - which I posted a bit of here - I agree with you.

I shot off my mouth yesterday without knowing what I was talking about. You may have noticed, I do that.

Always On Watch said...

I've decided this: if the mainstream media is condemning someone, then that someone is probably the person that we need.

BTW, Wikipedia is part of the mainstream media.

Anonymous said...

It is a phenomenon that we all experience to some degree because of conditioning. When I was listening yesterday I had to cringe like a dog because I know the attacks (on Sessions) are coming. And there will be more until...it stops working.

It strikes me that we have no better time than now to stomp on political correctness. To rid that cancer from the national discourse. I believe, I truly do, that if we act in this moment we will succeed. If not, we should just give it up.

I came around to Trump because I believe that he is the fighter we need. If he can't, or won't, make headway against this opposition I doubt anyone will. Not in my lifetime.

Pastorius said...

That is a very good point.

Thanks.

I think I need to start thinking of it that way. It's now or never, and we gotta get behind Trump because he's the one who will do it.

Always On Watch said...

Pasto,
I look at it this way: we must not allow the Left's dog whistles to control us.

Trump is America's last chance to remain anything like the republic she was created to be.