‘Every Single One’ Fallout: Justice Dept. in Turmoil From PJMedia Series
The testimony was accompanied by a 70-page report, which primarily attacked Assistant Attorney General Brad Schlozman — the position now held by Thomas Perez. Six months later, on January 22, 2009, Spakovsky eviscerated the report and defended Schlozman in the Weekly Standard (the report had not been made public until the week prior, on January 13).
The result of all of this investigation: Schlozman resigned. Kyle Sampson resigned. Monica Goodling resigned. (She was later reprimanded by the Virginia State Bar following the report. Four years later. Strange.)
However, and most telling: none were prosecuted. Further investigation concluded that there was not sufficient evidence of law being violated by anyone involved.
Glenn Fine was still IG until January 2011: his earlier concern about the “serious problems and misconduct” inherent in politicized hiring — which resulted in several unnecessary resignations — had faded when Eric Holder took over the Department under his watch. Fine’s enforcement was blatantly uneven, and overlaps with our second concern: a significant number of Americans are neither protected by our civil rights laws nor by the appointed Department watchman.
Where’s Our Pulitzer?
A fourth concern, unrelated to the law yet perhaps as relevant to the American citizen, is the hypocrisy with which this “no exceptions” political litmus test has been examined by left-leaning media outlets and establishments.
The most notable findings by the press resided in the work of the Boston Globe’s Charlie Savage: Due in no small part to his investigation of Bush DOJ hiring practices, Savage was the recipient of a 2007 Pulitzer!
Savage submitted a series of eight articles to the Pulitzer committee; the series resulted in his win. One of the eight articles, published on July 23, 2006, was titled: “Civil Rights Hiring Shifted in Bush Era: Conservative leanings stressed.” From the piece:
The Bush administration is quietly remaking the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, filling the permanent ranks with lawyers who have strong conservative credentials but little experience in civil rights, according to job application materials obtained by the Globe.
The documents show that only 42 percent of the lawyers hired since 2003, after the administration changed the rules to give political appointees more influence in the hiring process, have civil rights experience. In the two years before the change, 77 percent of those who were hired had civil rights backgrounds.
…
The profile of the lawyers being hired has since changed dramatically, according to the resumes of successful applicants to the voting rights, employment litigation, and appellate sections. Under the Freedom of Information Act, the Globe obtained the resumes among hundreds of pages of hiring data from 2001 to 2006.
Hires with traditional civil rights backgrounds — either civil rights litigators or members of civil rights groups — have plunged. Only 19 of the 45 lawyers hired since 2003 in those three sections were experienced in civil rights law, and of those, nine gained their experience either by defending employers against discrimination lawsuits or by fighting against race-conscious policies.
Meanwhile, conservative credentials have risen sharply. Since 2003 the three sections have hired 11 lawyers who said they were members of the conservative Federalist Society. Seven hires in the three sections are listed as members of the Republican National Lawyers Association, including two who volunteered for Bush-Cheney campaigns.
Several new hires worked for prominent conservatives, including former Whitewater prosecutor Kenneth Starr, former attorney general Edwin Meese, Mississippi Senator Trent Lott, and Judge Charles Pickering. And six listed Christian organizations that promote socially conservative views.
The changes in those three sections are echoed to varying degrees throughout the Civil Rights Division, according to current and former staffers.
Note that Savage only announced results for three sections. Our investigation took ten of the eleven sections into account.
And note his statistics: 42 percent from 77 percent, 19 out of 45. These differ in severity from our one statistic: 113 to 0. His data, later found to be part of a package of evidence found to be not worth prosecuting — and indeed representing an example of politically blind hiring rather than the opposite — helped him win a Pulitzer.
Another comparison between Savage’s work and ours deserves your attention: how was Savage able to gather the data for his Pulitzer-winning investigation? It doesn’t appear that he had to work terribly hard.
Presented with a Freedom of Information Act request, the Bush DOJ turned over the resumes plus hundreds of pages of hiring data to the Boston Globe within a few weeks, significantly ahead of the statutory FOIA deadline. The Bush DOJ redacted absolutely nothing, except the hires’ contact information.
During the Obama administration, FOIAs have proven to be notoriously — criminally? — hard to extract if the filer appears to be ideologically opposed to the administration. (But not so for fellow leftist travelers — PJMedia covered this very topic. Also see an interview with Adams on this.) Unlike Savage, PJMedia had to fight an almost year-long legal battle with the Most Transparent Administration in History to obtain the Civil Rights Division resumes of attorneys hired under Eric Holder:
In spring of 2010, PJ Media requested the exact same information from the DOJ that Charlie Savage requested in 2006 — except for hires made in the Obama DOJ. Recall the Bush administration turned over all the resumes of attorneys as fast as they could, and well before the statutory FOIA deadline.
PJM’s request was ignored. Then on October 13, 2010, the request was renewed by certified mail. Still, no response as required by law.
So on January 18, 2011, the case of PJ Media v. United States Department of Justice was filed in the United States District Court in D.C.
We finally received materials on May 13, 2011. But not everything – it included redactions and some material was missing. The FOIA was not fully complied with until July.
Has Charlie Savage, so terribly concerned with violations of the Civil Service Reform Act while George W. Bush was president, shown any interest in the hiring practices of the Eric Holder Civil Rights Division? Actually, he has — and he reported on it in a manner that only a delusional observer or one tasked with defending the DOJ from prosecution might.
On December 31, 2010, Christian Adams offered Savage some advice on this front:
Savage could bolster his credibility by making the same inquiries of this Justice Department as he did to the Bush DOJ. For starters, he could examine the preposterous hiring practices in the Civil Rights Division since Obama’s inauguration. The more time that passes without an inquiry from Savage and the New York Times, the more partisan his badgering of the Bush DOJ appears.
There are an astounding number of undercover programs taking political stands. I lost track of the number of fake Nazis pretending to be alienated Republicans.
In one the case, they invented a 10-year-old son who shot his white supremacist dad. (Both individuals were fiction.)
If ONE VOTE has ever been swayed by these programs, whether in state houses or local elections, then those agents need to face criminal charges for interfering with civil processes. I’m sure the ACLU will jump on that… right….
“Jeff Hall”. Had to google it.
Baobo: Ok. I’m lost. You are saying that Jeff Hall and his son, and so his murder are all fake? What evidence convinces you of that?
The complete lack of basic data that these people (including supposed family) even exist. No Intellius data, Social Security death records, no registry of deeds records, no appearance in local police logs (they were amazingly well-behaved for trashy psychopaths), news photos appear posed and Photo-shopped, statements sound very scripted.
One can’t prove such a negative without traveling cross-country, but from any computer screen there is no proof the story was real. The FBI has an outrageous habit of abusing the news media this way.
golden fail award for the jeff hall conspiracy. aside from the 80 bazillion web hits, i also saw extensive videos of him and his family from different date ranges. But you might still want to check his birth certifcate as well
You googled “Jeff Hall” and got web hits…. and you think that’s evidence the story is real? The videos serve my point, that they are bad actors. Google “tooth fairy” and you’ll notice more stories with video.
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While the documentation exists to prove biased hiring, there will be a problem getting rid of them in that they are in civil servant positions. Until that happens the next AG may well have to open an Office for Leftist Grievances. I suggest Point Barrow, Alaska where they can write briefs to each other to be mailed to Washington for “further action”. The office would have no travel budget and no ability to initiate independent action.
@canuck – see end of article – they hired these bozos knowing they didn’t have the funding – which was cut. No funding, no jobs. When we retake the government, it shouldn’t be too difficult to drain this particular swamp!
My hope is that one of Sarah Palin’s first acts as President will be to ask for the resignation of everyone hired since Jan 20, 2009.
It has just struck me that what they are doing is eerily akin to South Africa’s apartheid system, except in reverse, of course.
The cornerstone of that peculiar institution was the unfair and unequal application of justice in the courts – no action, regardless of its inattention to basic human values, taken by the state’s goons was cause for concern because the prosecutors were hand-picked based on their willingness to subjugate those values to an ideology.
Think about it!
WOW! I mean really…wow! You guys write a 5 page article about a 100 or so lawyers at the Justice Department? Well, let’s focus on the real bias, shall we: BUSH/CHENEY. Two major wars, millions of civilians dead, TRILLIONS made by Cheney, the Koch Brothers, Bush’s oil buddies, and Chynna Phillips. A Guantanamo Bay concentration camp, a “Patriot Act” that has robbed everyone of their most basic civil rights. And let’s not forget the HUGE corporate bailouts and the economic depression. I can’t even but a mocha latte lowfat as frequently as I used to.
BUSH/CHENEY. Two major wars: approved and funded by both parties, continued by the current President, and a third war on his watch.
millions of civilians dead: not hardly
TRILLIONS made by Cheney: not hardly
the Koch Brothers, Bush’s oil buddies: I see, so its not OK to be a rich Conservative and support your causes, but it’s OK to be a rich Democrat and support Democrat causes, George Soros being the prime example.
A Guantanamo Bay concentration camp: no, a POW camp, as should be in a time of war.
a “Patriot Act” that has robbed everyone of their most basic civil rights: I agree on this one, but let’s not forget the Obama administration’s hiring of countless czars, to form a shadow government as a vehicle to get around Constitutionally sanctioned government. Fire ALL the czars.
HUGE corporate bailouts: Let’s not forget almost a trillion taxpayer dollars funneled to Democrat constituencies by the Obama administration via the stimulus. I have to wonder how much of that will end up being donated back to Obama’s re-election campaign. Corruption the Chicago way.
#6 was making a funny
It’s impossible to distinguish between parody and actual leftists anymore.
Leftists have always been parodies of thoughtful humans! Everything they say, write and text should be taken with a boulder of salt.
Wow! Look at all DOJ’s hired gunslingers suddenly popping up in disguise to comment at PJM, fearing that their rice bowl and cushy Federal retirement are under threat.
Even with the NYT trying to run interference by twisting PJM’s FOIA material, this won’t fly. Too much of the American public remains uncorrupted by Chicago/leftist/ACORN indoctrination to just pass over this series in silence.
If not tar and feathers, at least some nice long Federal sentences for Holder’s crooked crew.
Lovelyearth was engaging in parody. I understand that the difference can be subtle with today’s liberals, but even they forget to be hyperbolic on a single word or phrase sometimes. Only comedy can explain perfect liberalism.
troll
Your still focused on Bush? Right. Lets just ignore all the criminal activity of the Obama administration.
But why stop with Bush? Lets go back even further and focus on T. Roosevelt. I am sure lots of things happened then as well. So. Obama and his group get a free pass from you because of the deeds of others?
If you are prosecuting a criminal, do you focus on the acts of others and say that this one gets a pass because someone else committed a crime?
No,your just trying to draw attention away from the serious illegal actions Of Obama and his merry gang. Won’t work.
You notice with Lovely Earth, Bush/Cheney are solely responsible for the war, not islamists. The things hate can do to an already revaged mind !!
It is the subversion of the institutions of government by those willing to use them to promote their agenda that is so dangerous. They then can impose their tyranny under color of law, which in reality is lawlessness. This is the way totalitarians seize control of governments
LE,
I’m not sure how to break this to you (are you sitting down?), but Bush and Cheney are no longer in office. In fact, they haven’t held office since January 2009. What’s the date today? September 26, 2011? OK, got that?
I hope this helps. If not, try upping the dosage on your meds.
Even the ACLU has a non-trivial number of libertarians among the leftists. The claim that only leftists care about civil rights is not credible.
Ensuring civil rights is an “inherently liberal mission.” A classically liberal mission that the vast majority of conservatives embrace. The problem is that today’s leftists are so seldom classical liberals. They do not concern themselves with the even-handed enforcement of civil rights law; they concern themselves only with enhancing the rights of favored groups and ignoring violations of the rights of the non-favored.
In addition to the libertarians in organizations like the ACLU, there are any number of qualified civil rights attorneys in organizations like Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) and Mark Levin’s Landmark Legal Foundation, to name just two. So, this nonsense that qualified attorneys with civil rights experience can only be found in leftist organizations won’t wash.
Just wondering – Isn’t there a fine distinction between political *affiliation* and political *belief*? I thought the purpose of forbidding a political litmus test was to prevent party cronyism. In a job interview, a DOJ official might simply ask “Why do you want to work for the Civil Rights Division?” If the candidate gave the appropriate leftist response (anything other than “to ensure the law is applied equally), he or should would be in. “Wrong” responses would simply be “inconsistent with the CRD’s guiding philosophy” or something. That’s a lot different from asking someone which political party they belong to. And strictly speaking, there’s nothing wrong with it.
That said, it also illustrates why this PJM series is important. DOJ isn’t breaking any regulations (in letter if not in spirit), so no major news organization will be interested. And of course, most major news organizations will be in sympathy with the DOJ’s interpretation of “equal protection.” It’s up to independent media such as PJM to expose the leftist bias – which, although not strictly illegal is nevertheless harmful.
DOJ isn’t breaking any regulations (in letter if not in spirit), so no major news organization will be interested.
That’s pretty wrong. You should really read the whole article: : employing a political litmus test during the applicant screening process is illegal under the Civil Service Reform Act.
“DOJ isn’t breaking any regulations”? Hmmm. Mr. Steinberg indicates that folks in Justice could face legal troubles.
I did read the article and I think it contains a few legal holes. All I’m saying is, I think it would be difficult to prove DoJ’s hiring practices violated the law – though trying to do so in court would be an extremely useful and possibly entertaining exercise.
My impression (correct or not, anybody?) is that the majority of experienced civil rights lawyers are flaming liberals. If the DoJ asks a potential hiree, “Are you a flaming liberal?” and then EITHER hires OR rejects them based an affirmative response, then DoJ is guilty of applying a political litmus test. Why would DoJ hire them? Liberals hire other liberals. Why would they reject them? Conservative president pressuring DoJ to hire more conservative lawyers. Neither scenario depicts fair and impartial hiring. Unless you think conservative civil rights lawyers need their own affirmative action program.
I just think it would be easier to prove politicized firing – and politicized job assignments, duty stations, promotions raises, and so forth. Hit them there, and hit them on selective enforcement of voting and other regulations.
Ironically, you’re using the very arguments employed by the segregationists in the sixties to defend the actions of those whose charter it is to guard against their return.
Conservatives love civil rights, as we love all things that are noble and pure. What we hate is those who use something good to promote something that is fundamentally bad, such as the exclusion of certain classes of people from protection under the law. Such an act is the definition of perversion, and is worse than simple wrong-doing.
The next admin needs to close the Civil Rights Division. The current staff can be transferred to a new division for on-site investigation of foreign laws in, say, Sierra Leone. Then create a brand-new Civil Liberties Division with all-new staff. Clean house.
You can get rid of every single one via one of two perfectly legal techniques. First would be a budget cut to the (In)Justice Department forcing layoffs. As civil service is first in, last out or alternately last in, first out, you can force them all out via budget cuts. Second and more likely – and you touched on it in your comment – is a simple reorg of the department. Write the job descriptions correctly and you can do a thorough housecleaning in short order. Cheers -
Fine, we KNOW this is going on in the Justice Department. What can Congress do to STOP IT? Is Congress doing ANYTHING to address this lawlessness in the Justice Department?
With the Federal Government selling weapons to Drug Cartels and criminals and refusing to prosecute “black” criminals who threaten white voters, and DOJ fighting states’ (AZ)attempts to enforce immigration laws – WTF are our Republican Congressmen and Senators doing to HALT THE LAWLESSNESS in the DOJ?
When the public perceives that the government is capricious in it’s enforcement of the law, as in immigration with certain groups perceived as favored anarchy begins to set in. Why should I obey any laws if others don’t have to?
“Jacoby’s reporting is notable for two reasons: First, according to Christian Adams, Main Justice has previously published an article claiming Adams was “associated with the improper hiring” of the Bush DOJ. Adams contacted her, explaining he was nowhere named in the 2008 inspector general report, and insisted she retract the line. She did.
Now, she publishes the exact same falsehood again!”
Sounds like a slam-dunk slander case to me.
Nice thought Rob. In the meantime, note David’s portion that deals with who buys much of her advertising.
As I recall, the original story was about resume data only. Would it be hard to look up (a) party affiliation, and (b) political contributions (via Opensecrets.com, perhaps).
Gee, you might try reading the whole series. The political contributions of these political hires are included for anyone who cares to be enlightened before commenting.
p.s. — on getting that other data, you might want to ask for volunteers, and just give them the list of names. I’m sure there are some enthusiastic public-spirited readers who would do it for nothing or for just a named thanks.
Amazing series. Interview records probably show same 100% bias. The Holder crew has been so successful that the fed justice system
Amazing series. Interview records probably show same 100% bias. The Holder crew has been so successful that the fed justice system will be tilted left for a generation. Fed jobs feed academic law jobs so law schools will get even more radical.
If I had to guess, they didn’t actually ask applicants about politics. They didn’t need to. They just needed to hire the applicant from the “right” NGOs. That information is right on the resume. When they claim that only leftists are interested in civil rights, what that really means is that they only recruit from “civil rights” organizations such as the SPLC and NAACP and such. NRA attorneys need not apply.
Even if it were possible that the DOJ’s hiring of ALL leftist lawyers was purely accidental, wouldn’t disparate impact be considered? If standards for hiring firemen or policeman are lowered because of disparate impact of testing on minorities, couldn’t that also be considered in the hiring practices for the DOJ? Conservative, non-partisan, and libertarian lawyers are being disparately impacted by the hiring procedures at the DOJ.
Snork, yes. The NGO’s are leftist credentialing mills just as a college degree is a generalized one.
I appreciate the important work that went into this report and I plowed through it. But the language/writing is so dense that most ordinary people i.e. not lawyers or academics are unlikely to read it. Please find an editor who knows how to write in “real people” language.
But the language/writing is so dense that most ordinary people i.e. not lawyers or academics are unlikely to read it.
Some of us are not even lawyers, and can read it just fine. Admittedly, it’s beyond the capacity of a bumper sticker or soundbite, because the subjects are complex. Nevertheless, they’re not beyond the capabilities of a citizen with an interest in democratic government. If it’s beyond your reading comprehension skills, perhaps a few English classes at your community college would assist you in achieving enlightenment.
Please find an editor who knows how to write in “real people” language.
Perhaps you can interest the publishers of your favorite comic book to take on the task.
Why are there so many departments of “civil rights” anyway? It is ludicrous! We need to remove the cancer from our government at the ballot box if it is not too late!
The DoJ is offering early retirement and buyout packages? I see the strategy here. Hire only “progressive” lawyers (proglodytes), and try to get rid of older, more conservative ones with early retirement and buyouts. Thus, you have a DoJ crammed with proglodytes for the foreseeable future, with serious consequences for the idea of “justice” in this country.
Does the name, “Alinsky”, come up in their applications?
Thank you. Thank you for uncoving this abuse at the higest levels within the DOJ. I am deeply concerned that the destruction of this country by MSM, leftest, and the Obama administration can not be turned around. God bless you and all the staff.
My background is public employment relations at the state level. That work intersects a lot with both state and federal EEO/Civil Rights types and since unions so love to claim discrimination as a part of any discipline or dismissal grievance, you have to have a working knowlege of the Civil Rights game, and I do mean game. I’m not a lawyer or a civil rights expert, but I know enough to have kept my name off of any verdicts, judgements, or consent decrees over a twenty-odd year career.
The first problem here is the notion of political affiliation in a merit system postion. I’ve hired lots of lawyers and labor relations practitioners in merit system positions and most state laws are pretty much identical to the federal system. It is illegal for me to impose a PARTISAN litmus test. If I insist that a hire be a Republican it is illegal, pure and simple. If I carefully examine an applicant’s resume and interview answers to determine that the applicant’s personal beliefs might be more coincident with the employer’s interests than with the unions’, I have a perfect right, even a duty to do that and hire the person who would represent the employer’s interests dedicatedly. It would be very foolish of me as a Republican policy level manager to hire or allow to be hired somebody whose general inclination was that the union was right and the employer wrong a priori.
Frankly, you aren’t going to find a whole lot of Republicans or conservatives with a background in “civil rights law” or “civil rights advocacy.” That is work almost exclusively reserved to starry-eyed idealists fresh out of law school or living on money gg/grandaddy made in the rum and slaves trade back before they figured out how to perfect man in New England. If you find a Republican or a conservative with civil rights law experience, it likely was earned as an AAG in a Republican government or in a private firm representing a party accused of discrimination. Sorry, that ain’t the person a Democrat AG is looking for in ANY job. Sure, he can’t legally ask the applicant if s/he’s a Republican, but he can do the next best thing and find out which side of the issues the applicant would be on. Sorry, I’ve never seen an EEO or Civil Rights/Human Rights Office that wasn’t a advocacy office for those claiming discrimination. The only difference between such offices under Republicans from under Democrats is that there may, just may, be a little objectivity under the Republican and at least some of the staff might be competent rather than simply tokens and patronage hires. And, yes, it is easy for Democrats to make patronage hires in merit system positions and they do it extensively, right down to the clerk and janitor level. But we all know Democrats are good people and good people don’t do bad things, so nobody notices when Democrats make patronage hires in merit system postions. They REALLY notice when Republicans make merit hires in jobs that Democrats think should be Democrat patronage, however.
In vestigations such as this are pretty much like peeing your pants in a dark suit; it gives you a warm feeling and nobody notices. Republican congressmen asking questions or even holding hearings will be dismissed as mere partisanship and any former employees will simply be dismissed as “disgruntled former employees.” Stop and think about how many times you’ve seen that phrase used about a “whistleblower.” I once gave myself a warm feeling for ratting off a Democrat Administration for some outright corruption, even got a couple of articles critical of the Administration in a Democrat house organ newspaper – and made myself practically unemployable for several years thereafter. The rule is that when you do stuff like that,the Democrats hate you and since the Democrat hate makes you controversial, the Republicans are afraid to have you around. There’s a reason working ‘crats learn to just keep their heads down and their mouths shut.
Somewhere on the “to do” list for when we restore a legitimate government is to take these sorts of positions and take them OUT of the merit system. Frankly, I think all government lawyers should be political appointees who serve at the pleasure with perhaps a few of them in ministerial positions guaranteed “for cause” removal during a set term. Then all we have to do is convince those Republicans who are so compelled to be “nice,” that they need to fire every political appointee in the government immediately upon their hand coming off The Bible.
@artchance “…or living on money gg/grandaddy made in the rum and slaves trade back before they figured out how to perfect man in New England.” good one – gotta clean the coffee out of my nose now – thanks for the early mornin’ laugh!
Unfortunately, so long as biased, prejudicial laws exist to be enforced, nobody can be too surprised at bias in their enforcement. Illuminating this may inadvertently be the most valuable aspect of this story — though it’s also a great deal like beating your head against a wall.
Our country has been comandeered by Marxists.. Who are you going to call to report acts of treason, the DOJ? Good luck with that. Eric Holder is a closet “Black Panther”. He hates whites and especially white males. Look at nine of his recent new hires.. See any white males here?: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/every-single-one-the-politicized-hiring-of-eric-holders-disability-rights-section/?singlepage=true
Frankly, you aren’t going to find a whole lot of Republicans or conservatives with a background in “civil rights law” or “civil rights advocacy.” That is work almost exclusively reserved to starry-eyed idealists fresh out of law school or living on money gg/grandaddy made in the rum and slaves trade back before they figured out how to perfect man in New England.
Not exactly true, Art. For all the Marxist, tear down the system types on one side of a civil rights lawsuit, there is always someone sitting on the other side as well.
If one were to take a resume’ and peruse the cases…and one was inclined to pay attention to which “side” they were on politically speaking, here’s a general rule of thumb:
1)Prosecutor in criminal cases, defense attorney in corporate cases….on one side of the fence.
2)Defense attorney in criminal cases, plaintiff’s attorney in civil matters…on the other side of the fence.
I have tried dozens of civil rights matters. In one year I tried 7 federal civil jury trial matters….all dealing with civil rights. That does not include my other caseload matters.
You won’t find someone with that heavy trial experience very easily. The amount of work it takes to file a federak pre-trial memorandum is a significant amount of work. To do it seven times and get through verdict and post-trial motions, it might be hard to find someone else who has done it.
Yet, as I read the accounts from PJM, I would not be considered. I opposed the Marxists and beat them regularly. But I was on the “wrong” side.
What would be as interesting to me, if not moreso, would be the resume’s that were thrown out, attorneys not interviewed, not selected….because they didn’t have the right “attitude”….which will be slandered as not the right “aptitude”.
In that instance, the final damning proof would not just rest on who was hired…as much as who was passed over completely.
My point was that the lawyers styled as or self-identified as “civil rights lawyers” are a self-selected, usually very liberal if not out-right communist lot of idealists. There are lots of attorneys who do lots of civil rights work, sometimes even as plaintiffs attorneys, such as you describe yourself, but you don’t either self-describe nor would you be characterized by Democrats as a “civil rights lawyer.”
Since I retired from the State, I’ve done quite a few rights arbitrations and even one high-stakes interest arbitration on behalf of unions. Hey, have gun, will travel, but I assure you that almost nobody, and certainly no Democrat would characterize me as a union advocate.
What ought to happen is to simply abolish these stupid “human rights” and “civil rights” offices at all levels of government, but it is simply politically impossible. One of the things I hate most in public sector labor relations is that practically every labor agreement has these elaborate but horrendously vague non-discrimination clauses, which, of course, are subject to the grievance and arbitration processes giving all the scammers and malcontents two bites at the apple. Even the union guys don’t like them and will admit that you don’t have to and shouldn’t contract to obey the law. But if you dare suggest that they come out of the agreement the union immediately issues a screaming press release about how the eeeeeevul employer wants the right to discriminate against the employees. Like the scorpion and the frog; it is in their character.
There are lots of attorneys who do lots of civil rights work, sometimes even as plaintiffs attorneys, such as you describe yourself, but you don’t either self-describe nor would you be characterized by Democrats as a “civil rights lawyer.”
Sorry, Art. My bad. I was NEVER a “plaintiff’s attorney”. (the federal bench required ALL those who had first chair experience and ability… to take on pro bono cases when assigned or lose their status I did indeed have to accept those). I represented defendants accused of violating rights for the most part.
I was approached (quite often, actually) to represent folks who were being mistreated by the “state” to file a civil complaint.
I don’t care what Democrats call someone who has tried more cases to verdict on the issues involving federal civil rights than they have…the definition of that person speaks for itself.
In fact, having handled ADA, FMLA, sexual harassment, Section 1983, wrongful arrest and detention, police brutality, disparate impact, hiring, firing, and election law allegations, I have seen pretty much all of it.
And allow me to tell you, overwhelmingly…it was a sad spectacle.
Sorry, you and I seem to be talking past each other but we’re on the same side here. Even though I’ve done and can in good conscience do some union work – they are right sometimes – NO Democrat would consider me a union representative. Since I’ve spent most of my career representing the employer, the union guys and their Democrat friends would instinctively hate me. If you’re not somebody who long and loudly proclaims themselves to be a “civil rights lawyer,” to the Ds and the poverty pimps, you’re not a civil rights lawyer even if you can practice civil rights law better than the starry-eyed little punks could ever dream of.
I’m torn about this whole thing. As I said above, I hired a lot of merit system employees in a labor relations office; I sure as Hell wasn’t going to hire anybody who dreamed he saw Joe Hill last night, live as he could be. That said, I hired lots who had spent some time as union stewards or as union reps but who’d grown up and left. The union side is actually the best place to learn practical labor relations work. The only trouble with people coming over to the employer from the union is they need pretty close supervision for awhile. They know the game, sorta, already and they try to turn everything they knew on the union side 180 degrees, and that doesn’t make them a good employer rep, it usually just makes them anti-union. Since the union is already going to hate them and have a price on their head for having gone over to the employer, they don’t need to make it worse by uselessly antagonizing them.
I am almost physically ill at what you report. The underpinnings of our justice system have been compromised by Obama and Holder.
The sad thing is that most people have no idea about what’s been going on. I tell some of my less informed friends about Gunwalker and they say, oh, really. My left leaning friends just roll their eyes and maintain pubbies are just ginning up a scandal prior to elections. I can deal with people who haven’t heard about this stuff; my leftist friends who have heard something but dismiss the matter saying “politics,” they’re the ones I want to slap upside the head, shake them, and somehow make them understand that their liberties are being put at risk by the people they support.
PJ Media deserves our heartfelt thanks for this series. Exposing the criminal activity in the Obama administration will not be done by main stream media. They are only his mouth peaces.
If this exposer of the hiring practices of the thugs in DOJ does not instigate an investigation then nothing will. Loretta King and the others involved in this criminal activity need jail time. They have corrupted the very name of the department they work in.
It is clear that equal opportunity is non-existence at the DOJ under Holder. The DOJ should be called the InJustice Dept. Holder, King, Perez and others need to be fired and prosecuted. We don’t need criminals in the Justice Dept.
The sooner this administration can be kicked out of Washington the healther our country will be.
A few comments back, a poster said he couldn’t understand what he was reading due to the way it was written. I must admit I didn’t read all of the sections in this series, not because I couldn’t understand what was being written but because it started to turn my stomach. Different names, same resumes. How could someone not say it was political. Also as stated before, how hard is it to look at one of these resumes and say yea or nay as to how they think? Those doing the hiring don’t have to ask if the applicant is liberal, all that is needed is a quick read of the resume and a quick background check. I’m sure a background check is mandatory anyway. What they have done in the past is how they will be in the future.
( Besides, aren’t liberals like animals? Don’t they sniff each others butts to see if they are the right kind?) Only joking but I’m sure those resumes come with letters of recommendations. Then there is what we used to call the “good old boy” network as in yeah, I know him nice kid, liberal as all get out, fit right in.
“quis custodiet ipsos custodes?”
“But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao
You ain’t going to make it with anyone anyhow…”
“But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao
You ain’t going to make it with anyone anyhow…”
Don’t lift the resident’s wallet, you might be surprised! Or not.
There is an even bigger admission in your quote from Main Justice’s article than the one you chose to highlight:
“[T]he historical mission of the Civil Rights Division — ensuring full voting, housing and other rights for minorities who have faced documented discrimination — is inherently a liberal mission.”
Protecting the rights of minorities may be a Liberal mission, but it should not be the mission of the Civil Rights Division. Our government is charged with protecting the rights of everyone–not just minorities!
Now they are trying to cover it by offering early retirement/buyouts.
Am I to understand that the lawyers who have been hired within the last two and a half years are eligible for early retirement? And what kind of employment contracts do these birds have that would entitle them to “buyouts” instead of layoffs due to cutbacks? Just how well are their nests feathered?
113 to 0 is a blowout in a basketball game, and impossible in soccer- making both as boring as heck just the same. What happened to the notion of a “level playing field”? With results as lopsided as this, any hope for ‘justice’ may have gone out of the window. Little good can come from a game where one side is always guaranteed victory.
Civil Rights weren’t all that prominent and hadn’t etched themselves into the public’s collective conscious until pictures of fire-hoses and police dogs used against protesters made it to the tube (television tube for the younger set). Since then, we’ve made much progress in protecting civil rights, so much so, that the need for an expensive, agenda-driven department (such as this series exposes) may be overkill. I mean, I doubt we’ll be seeing scenes of protesters on bridges being blasted by fire hoses and attacked by dogs anytime soon.
Well, unless you change the characters in the play and put the hoses and dogs in the hands of Eric Holder and put folks like conservative lawyers, businessmen (mostly white with a smattering of blacks), etc. on the bridge where they haven’t gathered to protest, but merely seek to conduct themselves and live their lives unmolested, then I can see the need for a Civil Rights department with an extreme and biased agenda.
Imagine arriving at a place with ‘justice’ in the name, application in hand, the latest in fire-suppression equipment manned and ready at the top of the stairs, only to find someone’s thumb has been on the scales the last fifty years? Hope you brought the Milkbone cookies.
Bill Maher and Real Time Liberal Racism
“I thought when we elected a black President, we were going to get a black President. . . . I want a real black president. I want him in a meeting . . . where he lifts up his shirt where you can see the gun in his pants [and says] ’We’ve got a ‘mother@!#$%ing problem here.’ Shoot somebody in the foot.”
The implications in that now infamous spleen-venting were perfectly clear: Real African-Americans packed guns, had foul mouths, were prone to violence, and shoot people. The only racist insults missing are that they’re all lazy and on welfare.
Were Rick Perry or Rick Santorum to utter such slurs during a debate, with or without the mother@!#$%ing, they would be forced to end their candidacies for the Republican nomination for president before you could say mother@!#$%ing. However, the utterer wasn’t a conservative politician but a very liberal loser, Bill Maher and therefore it was perfectly okay and not because Maher wasn’t a politician but because he’s a lib.
You see, liberals aren’t racists, or so they would like us to think. In point of fact, virtually every social policy liberals have articulated, proposed, and passed over the last fifty years has been either race-based, designed to stir the racial or some other pot, or calculated to foster conditions, (unemployment and poverty for example), to exacerbate racial tensions.
The ultimate Democrat goal has been to create a dependency on government and a rock-solid black constituency despite have been the party that fought tooth and nail to defeat Civil Rights legislation in the fifties and sixties. They have largely succeeded and have paved the way for Barack Hussein Obama to carry those goals to fruition.
The chief accomplishment of the granddaddies of social manipulations–LBJ’s Great Society and his War on Poverty–was to substantially destroy once-strong African-American families yet Democrats escaped condemnation for that as well by skillfully employing smoke, mirrors, and an excellent if offensive offense that people like Bill Maher still use today.
It’s believed that the adage “The best defense is a good offense” originated with the 19th century Prussian military theorist, Carl von Clausewitz, but whatever its origins the line has become a staple of countless sports analysts as an observation on how best to win games. It assumes the defense isn’t as porous as that of this year’s Atlanta Falcons.
To be successfully employed in the political arena, the good offense strategy assumes the public won’t scratch beneath the veneer of attack rhetoric and discover all the talk is just a cover for lies and hypocrisy, as with tediously-constant liberal references to conservative racism to conceal liberal bigotry.
Maintaining the good offense while counting on viewers not to look behind the curtain of pretense, just previous to his bigoted description of blacks as gun-slinging hoods, Maher had hypocritically attacked Republicans and Bill O’Reilly . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=5571.)
Radical Racists: Obama, Holder, and the NBPP
It’s turning out that the president of the United States, the Attorney General of the United States, and the New Black Panther Party have much more in common than race. Call it recompense, call it reparations, that commonality is almost as ugly and damnable as any crimes committed by the Ku Klux Klan.
Barack Hussein Obama has undertaken prodigious efforts to appear the president of all the people regardless of race and an even greater effort to conceal his radical, racist past. Eric Himpton Holder has been more forthcoming in his racism and active discrimination toward white Americans without conceding his bigotry. The New Black Panther Party, founded on black racism and distinguished from the old Black Panthers only by the fact most have not yet been tried and convicted, is more brazenly ingenuous about its radical racism.
No matter Obama’s attempts to hide who and what he is, no matter Holder’s accidental admissions, if nothing else, Obama and Holder could learn a great deal about forthrightness from the NBPP. Their learning curve aside, recent and past revelations have now linked all of them.
After his election, Obama told America he has been running for the presidency since kindergarten. Toward that end, he campaigned in Selma, Alabama in March, 2007. Nothing wrong with that; he campaigned in 57 of America’s 58 states so Alabama most likely was one of them.
What is very wrong is that photos depicting him marching and speaking with NBPP National Chief Malik Zulu Shabazz and other members of the New Black Panther Party were quashed and hidden from the American public for four years by Obama’s mainstream media.
That oversight could readily be attributable to journalistic negligence–or to a covert attempt to portray their hero, their anointed one, as Everyman, a universal man who represented all of America, black, white, yellow and everyone in between, who didn’t have a racist bone in his body. . .
Not unsurprisingly, like those damning 2007 photos, that evidence of “reverse racism” has been suppressed by Obama’s media.
Obama’s appointment of fellow African-American Eric Holder as attorney general should have provided the clue that neither Obama nor his new appointee were on the same page as the majority of Americans.
Eric Holder’s background of facilitating Bill Clinton’s pardon of fugitive Marc Rich, defending the terrorist Ejército Popular Boricua, negotiating a settlement in the case of Chiquita Brands paying off terrorists, his firm’s representation of Guantanomo accused terrorists, etc., were a dead giveaway that Holder was closer to being a terrorist himself than qualified to be the attorney general of the United States.
Obama’s MSM deftly hid those pretty damned relevant details on Holder’s résumé. . . (Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=5645.)
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hi,
thanks man. There is an even bigger admission in your quote from Main Justice’s.