-By Warner Todd Huston
In a closed-door meeting with Congressional Democrats at the Capitol, President Obama again promised that his administration would look for ways to examine the criminal justice system in the aftermath of the verdict in the George Zimmerman trial.
Obama visited with Congressional Democrats in a cloistered meeting on July 31, ostensibly to continue his umpteenth pivot to jobs and the economy, but Politico notes that Representative Elijah Cummings (D, MD) brought up the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman case and again urged the President to do more to address the incident.
Obama told Democrats that he is still looking for ways to use the Department of Justice to address the issue instead of trying to pass legislation.
In the immediate aftermath of Zimmerman’s not guilty verdict, several African American Democrats and other top Democrat leaders called for the federal government to act.
Illinois Democrat Representative Bobby Rush of Chicago even wore a hoodie on the floor of the House of Representatives in memory of Trayvon Martin.
On July 15, Attorney General Eric Holder’s office hinted that it would act saying in a statement, “Experienced federal prosecutors will determine whether the evidence reveals a prosecutable violation of any of the limited federal criminal civil rights statutes within our jurisdiction.”
Since mid July, however, no further action has emerged from either the White House or the Department of Justice on the matter.
Since July, Politico reports, “Two Democrats–Rep. Danny Davis (D-Ill.) and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), recently launched the Congressional Caucus on Black Men and Boys, and the group hosted Martin’s father, Tracy Martin, at a forum last week.”
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, MrConservative.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, Wizbang.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
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