To conservatives, "civil rights" is nothing more than a two-word phrase designed to scare the living crap out of scared white people. The latest evidence: they have spent nearly two hundred thousand dollars of public money investigating the so-called New Black Panther Party "voter intimidation" incident on election day 2008. I put "voter intimidation" in scare quotes because despite Fox's visuals of "Scary Black Men"TM no voters have said they were intimidated.
The conservative-controlled U.S. Commission on Civil Rights says it has spent $173,653 investigating an incident involving voter intimidation by members of the New Black Panther Party -- a case in which no voters have alleged they were intimidated.
That's according to data provided by the Commission on Civil Rights in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by TPMMuckraker. As of Sept. 30, the obligations for the project stood at $173,653, up from $141,357 as of Aug. 2.
TPM's Ryan Reilly reports the total price tag is likely much, much higher. The commissions budget for 2010 alone was nearly $10 million, and just about all their public communications have focused on this fake example of "Scary Black Men"TM supposedly stopping Freedom Loving Americans from casting ballots.
The only GOP dissent on the commission comes from conservative Abigail Thernstrom:
Abigail Thernstrom has been the one Republican dissenter from her colleagues' focus on the New Black Panther Party case. She has said that her colleagues have been driven by fantasies of using the issue to topple Holder and the Obama administration.
Kudos to Thernstrom. She's a principled conservative unafraid to call out right-wingers when they cross the line into race-baiting propaganda. If only there were more like her on the right we'd all be better off. Instead, the bulk of the right has turned into a pack of howling hypocrites, screaming bloody murder about government waste but eager to pour public money into a "civil rights" investigation designed to frighten white people into voting for Sharron "Second Amendment remedies" Angle.