“The Good Ol’ Boys Roundup”: It’s Not Just The Cops—Racism Is A Problem For The Secret Service, Too
The track record of the U.S. Secret Service in protecting President Barack Obama has come under intense scrutiny in recent months due to several major security lapses, the most recent of which prompted the resignation in October of Secret Service Director Julia Pierson.
A recently released Department of Homeland Security report about that incident determined that a number of “performance, organizational, technical and other” factors contributed to the security breach.
What is not mentioned in that DHS report is another long-running issue within the Secret Service—one which, according to several experts, creates the conditions for a breakdown in agency morale that could ultimately compromise the security of President Obama. That threat is embodied in a long-running lawsuit filed by a group of African-American Secret Service agents who allege the agency’s culture is replete with racism.
In September, a man with a knife scaled a fence and ran into the White House, making it as far as the East Room—it was this incident that prompted the report by DHS, which oversees the Secret Service. That same month, however, in Atlanta, the media reported that an armed security contractor with an arrest record was somehow allowed to ride in the same elevator as President Obama.
Those incidents echo an even more serious security breach that played out in 2011, when a gunman with a semiautomatic rifle managed to fire some seven bullets into the White House while one of the president’s daughters was home and the other expected to return that same evening—yet it allegedly took the Secret Service four days to determine the shots had been unleashed on the president’s home.
“If the black Secret Service agents’ legal claims related to racism in the agency are true, then there is a threat to the president’s security because he is a black man,” says Matthew Fogg, a retired chief deputy U.S. Marshal who in 1998 won a multimillion-dollar jury verdict in a racial discrimination lawsuit filed against his agency. “If they are treating black people differently, then how can that not affect the president?”
Fogg also is party to one of two pending class-action discrimination cases filed by black federal agents against the U.S. Marshals Service. The mere fact that the most qualified agents are not getting promoted within an agency due to racial factors—as is alleged in both the the Secret Service and U.S. Marshals litigation—indicates, Fogg says, that race is an issue in the quality of protection being provided to individuals, including the president.
Attorney Ronald Tonkin, a former federal prosecutor who now represents federal agents in whistleblower and employment-discrimination cases, says regardless of which side prevails in the Secret Service litigation, both the accused and accusers “are affected” by the resulting tension and polarization.
“These agents are all professionals, but the question is whether their professionalism is dissipated by a perception that they are being treated badly,” said Tonkin, who also serves as associate counsel for the National Association of Federal Agents. “It does, in my experience, have an effect on agency morale, and that affects performance at some level.”
The black Secret Service agents’ litigation, certified as a class-action lawsuit last year, has been pending in federal court since 2000 due to numerous procedural delays. It alleges that black agents, as a group, have been systematically discriminated against in hiring, assignments, transfer, awards, promotions and discipline.
“The Secret Service has failed to protect its African-American special agents from racial discrimination in virtually every aspect of their employment,” the black agents’ pleadings in the case allege. “Discrimination against African-American agents in the Secret Service has become part of the fabric of the agency and has spanned several decades.”
A complaint filed by the 10 black agents who are named plaintiffs in the class-action suit points to an event held in southeastern Tennessee called the “Good Ol’ Boys Roundup,” which was made public in the mid-1990s via media reports but had been staged annually since 1980.
“The racist conduct that occurred at the Roundup included the posting of racist signs like ‘Nigger checkpoint,’ a simulated lynching of a black man from a tree, and a host of racist skits and songs,” the complaint alleges. “Officials at the Secret Service knew about this event, and at least 30 Secret Service agents were documented attending the event. … Many of the white special agents who attended the Roundup were promoted to high-ranking positions in the Secret Service, including three agents who became SAICs [special agents in charge] of field offices … and two agents who were promoted to the Senior Executive Service level.”
Reginald Moore, special agent in charge of the Secret Service’s Atlanta field office, and a party to the black agents’ class-action lawsuit, declined to comment on the case or any potential threat to the president due to the alleged racism within the agency. Likewise, Angela Burns-Ramirez, a former Secret Service special agent who has an individual racial-discrimination complaint pending in federal court against the agency, declined to comment on the advice of her attorney. A primary allegation in her lawsuit, which mirrors claims raised in the Secret Service class-action litigation, is that she “has been treated differently and subjected to different terms and conditions of her employment due to her race (African American).
“Despite being established in 1865, the first African-American female was not promoted to a GS-14 [supervisory] position until 2001,” Burns-Ramirez’ court pleadings state. “Only five African-American females hold a rank higher than GS-14 within the Secret Service.”
Brian Leary, a spokesman for the Secret Service, declined to discuss the black agents’ class-action lawsuit or the impact their allegations might be having on the agency. “We aren’t commenting due to the ongoing nature of the lawsuit,” he said.
Professor Richard Delgado, the John J. Sparkman Chair of Law at the University of Alabama School of Law, warns that it would be a mistake to discount the effect that racism can have on an institution and its ability to function effectively. Delgado is a leading scholar in the field of Critical Race Theory, which focuses on the ways in which racism is embedded historically in the nation’s laws and legal system.
When racist activity is claimed, “it creates a terrible environment for both sides of the color line,” Delgado explained.
“For the minority agents who feel discriminated against, they feel unappreciated and develop a defensive attitude at best,” Delgado added. “Many of their white colleagues see the minority agents as troublemakers scheming to get ahead, talking to lawyers.
“Both sides are certain they are right, and it’s a recipe for morale problems or worse. It can lead to inattention on the job or even small acts of sabotage designed to make someone look bad.”
Delgado said he would not want to be “a federal official with an agency in that state charged with looking after my back.”
The solution in such a case, he said, isn’t simply to ask people to set aside their animosities, because “that doesn’t work.”
“The best course is to arrange a lot of contact early in life, so that blacks, whites and Latinos get to know each other and see we’re all humans with a range of behaviors and character, some good and some bad,” Delgado stressed.
“And these agencies should be screening people early, before they are hired, to determine if they, regardless of color, have the right attitudes and ability to work well in diverse groups.”
By: Bill Conroy, The Daily Beast, December 6, 2014
“Clever Little Deceptions”: Behind The G.O.P.’s Misleading Shutdown Statements
Senator Mitch McConnell said yesterday that he would not shut down the government, over immigration or anything else, after he takes over as Majority Leader in January. On the same day, Speaker John Boehner refused to rule out a shutdown. Both were being deceptive, but Mr. McConnell, as usual, was a little more clever about it.
The House produced last year’s government shutdown when it insisted on attaching the repeal of various parts of the Affordable Care Act to spending bills necessary to keep the government open. That was a huge embarrassment for Mr. Boehner, making his caucus appear feral and ungovernable, and he has no desire to repeat it.
But his newly expanded Republican majority actually is a bit wilder than the outgoing one, and it is inflamed by President Obama’s plans to take executive action on immigration by sparing up to 5 million people from deportation. Some on the far right want to pass no spending bills if the president takes action; others, as National Review reported, want to shut down only specific departments, like Homeland Security (which includes Immigration and Customs Enforcement).
Mr. Boehner is playing his customary game of appearing provocative in public, to keep his most extreme members at bay, while trying to cut some kind of deal in private. But if he or his members think a shutdown of the Homeland Security department is going to work, they’re kidding themselves. During the last shutdown, most of the department stayed open, in part because many of its functions are considered essential and are funded by fees rather than Congressional appropriations. To have any real leverage, House Republicans would have to threaten to shut down more than that.
Mr. McConnell wants his chamber to appear reasonable and governable in contrast to the House, and likes to portray himself as the leader who averts shutdowns. But he’s the one who has already threatened to use spending bills to stop any environmental regulations that might restrict the burning of coal, which is the same as a shutdown threat.
His plans are evident in the exact wording of his statement yesterday: “We’ll not be shutting the government down or threatening to default on the national debt.” But if he can pin the shutdown on the president, then he can claim he wasn’t the one who closed the government’s doors. During the last shutdown, the spending bills never reached the president’s desk for a veto, because the House’s demands were rejected by the Senate, and everything was blamed on “Congressional gridlock.” With Republican control of both chambers, things will be different, and a shutdown remains very much on the table.
By: David Firestone, Taking Note,The Editorial Page Editors Blog; The New York Times, November 14, 2014
“Politics Of Fear, Getting Worse”: Scott Brown Combines ISIS, Ebola, And Border Security
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson was dismissive yesterday of an unfounded concern: Islamic State terrorists using the Ebola virus. In remarks to the Association of the United States Army, Johnson specifically said, “We’ve seen no specific credible intelligence that [ISIS] is attempting to use any sort of disease or virus to attack our homeland.”
That’s good to hear, of course, but the fact that it was necessary for the DHS secretary to make these comments was itself rather striking.
As a friend reminded me yesterday, we’ve heard quite a bit about possible threats from ISIS terrorists; and we’ve heard plenty about the dangers of Ebola; but we’ve apparently entered a new phase in which ISIS may strike with Ebola.
And where is such talk coming from? Greg Sargent reported yesterday on the latest remarks from former Sen. Scott Brown (R), now running in New Hampshire after losing two years ago in Massachusetts. In this case, the Republican was asked whether he supports travel restrictions on countries in West Africa. Brown replied:
“We need a comprehensive approach and I think that should be part of it. I think it’s all connected. For example, we have people coming into our country by legal means bringing in diseases and other potential challenges. Yet we have a border that’s so porous that anyone can walk across it. I think it’s naive to think that people aren’t going to be walking through here who have those types of diseases and/or other types of intent, criminal or terrorist. And yet we do nothing to secure our border.”
Brown has dabbled in this before, but I think this was the most direct he’s been to date to tie together the disparate threads of terrorism, Ebola, and border security, all at the same time, all in the hopes of exploiting public anxiety to advance his personal ambitions. (North Carolina’s Thom Tillis recently pushed a similar tack, though he didn’t go for the full trifecta.)
The politics of fear isn’t pretty, and as Brown makes clear, it’s getting worse. The public can, however, take at least some comfort in the fact that the New England Republican doesn’t seem to have any idea what he’s talking about.
For example, Brown believes “that anyone can walk across” the border because “we do nothing to secure” it. For an issue the Republican claims to take seriously, he’s badly confused – border security is actually at an all-time high.
But the more amusing takeaway is the degree to which the right wants to connect every story to its unrelated goal. Want to improve the economy? Secure the border. Want to fight terrorism? Secure the border. Worried about public health? Secure the border. Worried about crime? Secure the border.
If you’ve got a problem, Republicans have a border that needs securing.
It’s reminiscent of the Bush/Cheney era, when just about every possible challenge – economy, energy policy, terrorism, health care – was met with a call to cut taxes.
Of course, the difference is, when it comes to immigration, Democrats are fully prepared to give Republicans the exact border-security measures the GOP wants as part of a comprehensive reform package. It’s a shame Republicans won’t consider a compromise.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, October 15, 2014
“Tom Cotton’s Whopper”: A Circular Right-Wing-Bloggers-To-Fox-News-To-Republican-Pols Collective Delusion
I’ve generally operated under the assumption that we’re living in an age where lies, even the most obvious and outrageous of them, need to be challenged or they become tomorrow’s “facts.” So I’m glad TNR’s Danny Vinik went to the Department of Homeland Security and asked about Rep. Duncan Hunter’s claim that Islamic State operatives have been found crossing the U.S.-Mexican border. Hunter says he was told that by unnamed border control agents. DHS says it’s “categorically false, and not supported by any credible intelligence or the facts on the ground.” That’s bureaucratese for “Hunter either made this stuff up or relied on uninformed Border Patrol gossip.”
But sometimes this stuff seems to just sponteneously spring up because it’s politically convenient. Greg Sargent went to some trouble to track down the sources for Tom Cotton’s rather audacious claim that IS is working with Mexican drug cartels to pose an imminent threat to Arkansas (yes, Arkansas), and found it was all sort of a circular right-wing-bloggers-to-Fox-News-to-Republican-pols collective delusion. But every time it’s repeated there’s a new “source.”
Now you can say this is just politics as usual. But let’s remember Tom Cotton is the subject of massive national GOP adulatory hype. If he wins in November, he’ll immediately be the subject of presidential speculation, if not for 2016 then soon down the road. As Charlie Pierce says, we have an obligation to “nip the career of young Tom Cotton in the bud before he does real damage to the country.” He’s already doing real damage to the truth when it comes to understanding actual terrorist threats.
By: Ed Kilgore, Contributing Writer, Washington Monthly Political Animal, October 8, 2014
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