The STL Tea Party* Lynch Mob vs the FBI

Lynch Mob: a mob that kills a person for some presumed offense without legal authority

OK, so maybe they're not trying to kill anybody, but the St. Louis Tea Party is certainly trying to pervert the local justice system by using political pressure, harrassment, and name-calling to try to distort legal proceedings. Despite the fact that they have never taken the time to address questions raised about their version of the altercation outside of Russ Carnahan's townhall, the local tea party is absolutely certain that SEIU members involved should be tried for a felony hate crime. They furthermore are certain that this is a conspiracy that reaches all the way up to President Obama. Due to this unquestioning conviction, they have alleged without any evidence whatsoever that local prosecutors are engaged in a massive coverup, and have been doing everything in their power to ruin the names and reputations of several people who work in the St. Louis County Government.

The latest example of their lynch mob mentality was going to the St. Louis County Government Building to demand that County Counselor Patricia Reddington raise the charges against the two SEIU members to a felony hate crime. As pointed out in their own comments, this actually has nothing to do with Reddington, but she makes a convenient political target for the mob. But more importantly, the tea party, as usual, deliberatly leaves out the fact that the person who allegedly used the n-word was also a black man. As pointed out at Media Matters, the definition of "hate crime" includes the fact that the attack was motivated by "prejudice against someone's race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, sexual orientation or physical or mental disability." In other words, it's ridiculous to claim that McCowan committed a hate crime (even if you believe that he used the word, which he denies), since it would imply that he's prejudiced against himself!

Furthermore, also pointed out by Media Matters, check out what the FBI has to say about hate crimes, as it's warning employees to be cautious about extenuating circumstances:

2. Misleading Facts — Agencies must be alert to misleading facts. For example, the offender used an epithet to refer to the victim’s race, but the offender and victim were of the same race.

In other words, the FBI warns their agents not be mislead by people like the tea party lynch mob. But of course, that won't stop the same people who were certain that Iraq had WMDs and who are certain that climate change is a hoax from continuing to try to destroy anyone if it helps their political ideology.

*For the record, I'm not saying that everyone who has ever participated in a tea party rally acts like a lynch mob. Rather, I'm referring to the opportunist local leaders like Dana Loesch, Bill Hennessy, Carl Bearden, and Jim Hoft who are willing to cynically distort the court system for cheap political points.