The Lessons of Sessions
By Meanwhile, some more on the man who will be the Republican point man on judicial nominations:
Figures recalled one occasion in which the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division sent them instructions to investigate a case that Sessions had tried to close: “We had a very spirited discussion regarding how the Hodge case should then be handled; in the course of that argument, Mr. Sessions threw the file on a table, and remarked, ‘I wish I could decline on all of them.'”
All of them, according to Figures, meant civil rights cases generally. As he explained at one point: “[T]he statement, the manner in which it was delivered, the impression on his face, the manner in which his face blushed, I believe it represented a hostility to investigating and pursuing those types of matters.”
Figures said that Sessions had called him “boy” on a number of occasions, and had cautioned him to be careful what he said to “white folks. “Mr. Sessions admonished me to ‘be careful what you say to white folks,'” Figures testified. “Had Mr. Sessions merely urged me to be careful what I said to ‘folks,’ that admonition would have been quite reasonable. But that was not the language that he used.”
I’m sure that Republican “efforts” to obtain a statistically measurable percentage of the black vote will continue to be a roaring success.