Every Single One: The Politicized Hiring of Eric Holder’s Voting Section
Michelle McLeod: Ms. McLeod has overcome substantial adversity in her personal life, and her story is an admirable one in many respects. But her liberal bona fides are equally genuine, and likely represent the primary reason why she was hired into the Voting Section under Eric Holder’s regime. Ms. McLeod came straight to the Justice Department after her graduation from law school at the University of Maryland, where she worked as a research assistant to Professor Sherrilyn Ifill, a radical academic whose writings and media appearances on voting rights and race issues take her well out of the mainstream.
Ms. McLeod also worked in the law school’s Post-Conviction Appellate Advocacy Clinic, assisting convicted felons with their direct appeals and habeas corpus challenges. As an undergraduate at East Carolina University, she interned for the SEIU Local’s New York Civic Participation Project, where she wrote articles favorable to labor unions. She also interned for the National Employment Law Project, drafting pro-union articles and other publications relating to workers’ rights. She is now one of the Voting Section’s points of contact for redistricting in Mississippi.
Catherine Meza. Ms. Meza, who contributed $450 to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign before getting hired by the Voting Section, has a rich history of liberal advocacy. During law school at Berkeley, she interned for (i) the NAACP LDF, where she worked on voting rights and “economic justice” issues, (ii) Bay Area Legal Aid, (iii) the ACLU of Northern California, (iv) the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF), (v) Centro Legal de la Raza, and (vi) the East Bay Community Law Center Workers’ Rights Clinic. She also worked as a legislative intern for Democratic Rep. (now Sen.) Robert Menendez of New Jersey as part of a fellowship with the liberal National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. On her resume, Meza proudly proclaims her membership in the American Constitution Society and her role as an Advisory Board Member of the Thelton Henderson Center for Social Justice. Talk about filling the whole bingo card! Meanwhile, while working a brief stint at the Fried Frank law firm after law graduation, she assisted on a pro bono case seeking to preserve the confidentiality of ID cards issued to illegal aliens by the city of New Haven, Connecticut, an effort to help illegal aliens avoid being prosecuted for violating federal law. She also helped draft a report for the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination in which she suggested that the U.S. “government’s programs and policies continue to perpetuate segregation and concentrate poverty in communities of color.”
Kelli Reynolds: Ms. Reynolds arrived in the Voting Section having worked for several years as the Senior Redistricting Counsel and Assistant General Counsel at the NAACP. While there, she managed the organization’s National Redistricting Project, no doubt working closely with many of her now-colleagues in the Voting Section. She also boasts on her resume of her membership in the American Trial Lawyers Association (or, as that plaintiffs’ lawyers group now likes to euphemistically refer to itself, the “American Association for Justice”).
Elise Shore. Ms. Shore came to the Voting Section by way of the “Southern Coalition for Social Justice,” where she worked as a legal consultant focusing on “voting rights, immigrant rights, and other civil rights and social justice issues.” The far left-wing positions of this group are nicely summarized on its website. Ms. Shore also made a $1,000 contribution to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.
Before joining the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, she worked for more than two years as a Regional Counsel for MALDEF. There, she was an outspoken critic of Georgia’s voter ID law and well as its proof of citizenship requirements for voter registration (which, incidentally, have been found to be non-discriminatory by a federal court) and described how heartened she was that the Civil Rights Division had objected to the registration law under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. But her joy must have been fleeting: the Division later capitulated and withdrew its objection after Georgia filed a federal declaratory judgment action. It will be interesting to see if Shore can put her politics to the side in her role as the Voting Section’s point of contact for all redistricting submissions in the state of Florida.
Jaye Sitton: Ms. Sitton first joined the Civil Rights Division during the Clinton administration, but left immediately before President Bush took office in order to become an international human rights lawyer. (This desire not to serve in a Republican administration seems to be a recurring theme among many of the individuals hired into the career ranks of the Division during the Clinton years.) Before recently returning to work as an attorney the Voting Section, she volunteered to work in North Carolina for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign.
Sitton is a member of the “Intersex Society of North America,” an organization “devoted to systemic change to end shame, secrecy, and unwanted genital surgeries for people born with an anatomy that someone decided is not standard for male or female.” She also taught a course on “sexuality, sexual orientation, gender, and the law” at the College of William and Mary Law School, and wrote a law review article titled “(De)Constructing Sex: Transgenderism, Intersexuality, Gender Identity and the Law” for the William and Mary Law Journal.
Sharyn Tejani: Ms. Tejani is another activist who has come to the Voting Section to masquerade as a career civil servant. She also first joined the Civil Rights Division during the Clinton administration but left within two months of President Bush taking office. Her resume boasts of her work defending affirmative-action programs, i.e., racial quotas, during that earlier stint of employment. She recently returned, however, after having worked as a Senior Policy Counsel for the National Partnership for Women and Families, a left-wing organization that advocates greater abortion rights and is deeply involved in judicial nomination battles in favor of liberal candidates and in opposition to conservative candidates. Prior to that, Tejani served for more than three years as an advisor to one of the Democratic commissioners on the EEOC, and for three additional years as the Legal Director of the Feminist Majority Foundation. In her writings, she has advocated for the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would require equal pay for men and women even when there are legitimate work- and experience-related reasons for those pay disparities. She also wrote an article for Ms. Magazine sharply criticizing any efforts by the Commission on Opportunity in Athletics to modify Title IX regulations to stop the discrimination that has occurred against men’s sport programs.
Justin Weinstein-Tull: Mr. Weinstein-Tull, a $250 contributor to President Obama’s 2008 campaign, was hired into the Voting Section following a clerkship for Judge Sidney Thomas, one of the most liberal judges on the Ninth Circuit. One can see why Judge Thomas was eager to have him in chambers. Indeed, Mr. Weinstein-Tull interned with the ACLU of Southern California, worked as a research associate at the liberal Urban Institute, and served as a fellow at the Congressional Hunger Center.
He also wrote a law review article for the University of Virginia Law Review in which he criticized the Supreme Court’s decision in Gonzales v. Carhart – affirming the constitutionality of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 — as a setback to a woman’s right to choose abortion. Mr. Weinstein-Tull will now be one of the Voting Section’s points of contact for redistricting submissions from the state of North Carolina.
Elizabeth Westfall: Last, but certainly not least, is Ms. Westfall. According to the Federal Election Commission website, she contributed nearly $7,000 to Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential election campaign, contributed another $4,400 to Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign, contributed $2,000 to Wesley Clark’s presidential campaign in 2004, contributed $3,000 to John Kerry’s presidential campaign and compliance fund in 2004, contributed $500 to former Senate Democratic Majority Leader Tom Daschle’s PAC in 2004, and contributed $2,000 to Hillary Clinton’s U.S. Senate campaign in 2000.
In addition to this incredible funding of Democratic candidates, Westfall worked for six years at the far-left Advancement Project, directing its Voter Protection Program and managing its litigation and advocacy activities. She also previously served as a staff attorney at the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights in its Fair Housing Group, and worked on the Hill as a legislative assistant to then-Congressman Bill Richardson (D-NM).
On Westfall’s self-drafted Harvard alumni biography, she notes that she has testified before the U.S. Congress about supposed “barriers” to voter registration, “unwarranted” purging of the voter rolls, and voter caging. While those subjects may sound benign, in fact, the Advancement Project and the Lawyers Committee claim that common-sense reforms like voter ID or requiring proof of citizenship are “barriers” to voting and registration and that removing voters who have moved or otherwise become ineligible to vote is “unwarranted purging.”
“Vote caging,” an imaginary crime the Left dreamed up several years ago, faults any efforts by private parties to challenge the eligibility of voters when first-class mail sent to their registration addresses is returned by the U.S. Postal Service as undeliverable because they no longer live there. This despite the fact that federal law specifically authorizes election officials to use the USPS for that very purpose. Just the kind of neutral, detached attorney a state wants reviewing its redistricting submissions and applying the heavy hand of the federal government in voting rights enforcement actions. California’s redistricting submission will be in the hands of Ms. Westfall.
These 16 new attorneys, liberal partisans one and all, now join the career civil service ranks of an already heavily politicized Voting Section in the Civil Rights Division. Supervision, meanwhile, comes from Deputy Assistant Attorney General Julie Fernandes, whose public pronouncements about her refusal to apply the voting rights laws in an even-handed and race-neutral format are now infamous. The likelihood of the federal voting-rights laws being enforced in a fair and neutral fashion by this group of radicals is incredibly slim. Eric Holder clearly recognizes, as Ronald Reagan astutely observed, that “personnel is policy,” and Holder and his staff are doing everything in their power to ensure that the policies and legal positions advanced by the Civil Rights Division bureaucracy are in line with those of the Obama administration.
The real scandal, however, is the utter disregard by the so-called “mainstream media” and DOJ Inspector General’s Office of the blatant politicization of the hiring process in the Obama Civil Rights Division. I previously wrote about the absurdity of the attacks on Bush civil rights officials who were unfairly pilloried for supposedly hiring on the basis of political affiliation. I pointed out how the IG’s Office and the former Civil Rights Division attorney who spearheaded the Office of Professional Responsibility’s joint review glibly ignored all evidence that did not fit their biased narrative. A blind eye was turned towards the numerous liberal attorneys who were hired and promoted in the Voting Section during the Bush years.
Now, though, with the Obama Civil Rights Division virtually devoid of conservative hires, the press has gone silent and DOJ’s internal watchdogs have expressed nothing but indifference. This is particularly ironic given that almost all of these hires previously worked at organizations labeled as “liberal” by the joint OIG/OPR report attacking the Bush administration. So by the OIG/OPR’s own prior standards, the Obama administration has hired individuals exclusively from only one side of the political aisle. Once again, the one-way ratchet.
No apology will be forthcoming to the Bush Justice Department officials who were subjected to outrageous and unwarranted attacks, of course. But at least the public record is being fleshed out. Perhaps the Inspector General’s Office will redeem itself as a credible organization in its new probe of the Voting Section’s activities over the last 20 years. Whatever happens inside DOJ, though, at least the public is now aware that the almost daily rhetoric about neutrality that emanate from Eric Holder and his civil rights chief, Thomas Perez, is belied by their hiring decisions.
From the racially motivated dismissal of the New Black Panther Party lawsuit, to the partisan Section 5 objection to the change to nonpartisan elections in Kinston, N.C., on the offensive and patronizing grounds that blacks are not smart enough to know who to vote for without a party label next to the candidate’s name, to the baseless objection to Georgia’s citizenship verification requirements (later withdrawn by the Voting Section in the face of a federal lawsuit), to the dilatory and inept efforts to protect the voting rights of active military personnel, to the complete and total paucity of enforcement of Section 8 of the NVRA (requiring that voting rolls be purged of dead and ineligible voters), Eric Holder’s tenure has been distinguished by weighty evidence of partisan and ideological decision-making.
It seems that enforcement activity is governed predominantly by political, not legal, factors. And with the new radical ideologues in the Voting Section, it is difficult to imagine the situation improving any time soon. Americans deserve much better from their Department of Justice.
This is stunning! The hypocrisy of Eric Holder knows no bounds. It’s hard to see how the media can ignore this in light of the relentless attacks it hurled at the Bush Administration. Then again, I won’t hold my breath waiting to see this story covered in the Washington Post. Even so, great piece of research, Hans. Kudos to Pajamas Media for uncovering this politicization by the Holder DOJ!!
Don’t worry, the LSM will continue to ignore this
The fact that such overt partisans are responsible for the review of redistricting submissions throughout the country is really quite scary. Just the appearance of impropriety is enough to severely undermine the public’s confidence in their work. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but it’s still very disappointing that Eric Holder would allow (let alone encourage) this kind of thing to occur in his Department. A sad day for the Department of Justice.
Eric Holder is not a hypocrite; he is a revanchist racist.
Nice to see that someone knows the Italian word and concept of “Revanche’”. I believe it was written on the wall in a Sherlock Holmes mystery that I read decades ago.
Holder is not only a “revanchist”, but a “reparations racist”. His favorite movie is one called “I Hate White People.”
His mentor for this was one of the fathers of the “black reparations” movement, Harvard law professor Charles Ogltree, who was possibly one of Obama’s teachers.
As for what to do about him, elementary my dear Buzzzsawmonkey:
Our “revanche’” will be Nov. 6, 2012.
Can you or the authors of these articles name one person with 3-5 years of experience litigating civil rights cases who applied for a job in the Civil Rights Division in the last two years and did not get selected … just one… conservative, or otherwise? The fact you seem to be missing is that experience in the relevant field – affirmative civil rights litigation – makes a person qualified, and it seems to me that administration has hired a series of qualified candidates. Unfortunately, I don’t know many conservatives who dedicate their careers to litigating cases on behalf of clients who have been discrimination against, and that is what a career Civil Rights Division attorney is expected to do.
riiiight…the government never hired anyone who needed OJT. and those who defended in civil rights suits couldn’t possibly possess the requisite knowledge/experience.
I believe the cornerstone of American justice is that it is supposed to be ‘blind’ to race, creed, religion, etc. Law isn’t weighted to ideologies. Until now at least. But in the end, I believe, this isn’t about justice for blacks, gays, lesbians, transgenders, illegal aliens, et al, it’s primary goal is to break down and defeat our Constitution, republic, and free market economic system. Attacks on the Constitution are war against the Constitution. According to the laws of war, combatants not clearly uniformed as the opposition are considered spies. During war, spies get captured and shot. How many speeches from this radical left declaring war on this country’s way of life must we tolerate before we take action against these enemies of our Constitution?
@Trevor I don’t think he is a hypocrit. To be a hypocrit one must have been known to be, or made claims of being moral. It is clear from his past actions that Eric Holder has never been accused of being moral. The question is how do the Democrats justify installing some one like Eric Holder as the chief law officer in the land?
This “expose” is ridiculous. These new hirees were hired by career attorneys within the DOJ, not political appointees. The author of the article is just trying to draw a false equivalency because he himself purposefully injected partisanship into the hiring decisions and enforrcement decision of the Civil Rights Division.
http://www.truthaboutfraud.org/pdf/06-11-07%20Former%20Voting%20Section%20Staff%20Letter.pdf
And von Spasovsky provides ABSOLUTELY NO EVIDENCE that the DOJ has hired any unqualified attorneys, turned down any qualified conservative applicant or injected partisan politics into the enforecement of the law. (By contrast, the OIG for the DOJ determined that political appointees like SB. Schlozman injected themselves into the hiring process, prevented career section chiefs from reviewing applicant resumes, rejected qualified “liberal” applicants and and hiring only “real Americans” [Shlozman's words, not mine])
http://www.justice.gov/oig/special/s0901/final.pdf
Moreoevr, the author’s methodology for determining whether someone is “far left” is highly subjective and flawed.
http://mediamatters.org/blog/201108240010
Maligning the author is an effective way to avoid discussing to topic. Since there are now 12 articles in this series, would you care to discuss the 66% of them that weren’t written by Hans A. von Spakovsky?
Maybe you can attempt to justify the actions of the DoJ and the current administration across all fronts and not limit yourself to “civil rights”. Perhaps you can dig up reasons why people should ignore the other 8 articles too.
Possibly, if you try hard enough, you can dig into the backgrounds of the people that wrote the paper and articles that you linked too? I wonder if they are spotless and non-political. What do you think?
…for instance, using http://www.mediamatters.org as a neutral source of reporting facts is laughable. Here, let me try . . .
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/222414/media-matters-were-not-political/byron-york
One of the people responsible for these illegal actions is voting section boss Chris Herren. His role in this partisan hiring should be investigated. Complaints to the Office of Special Counsel should be made by the public. If Herren isn’t guilty as charged for this disgrace, it will fall on his bosses. Nobody should escape the terrible sweep of justice here. If the inspector general doesn’t do something about it, it will be up to the People to right these wrongs (through Congress). Every day it seems we have new reasons to vote out these gangsters next year. This article provides today’s item.
With all the voter fraud, do you think we can vote these yokels out of office?
“True the Vote” is an organization, an arm of the Tea Party, that is working against the massive fraud.
Thank you Pajamas Media for your persistence in exposing this story.
All well and good but can they — and every other Obama appointee still around in 2013 — be readily fired when saner heads prevail in Washington?
If not, perhaps the House should look into some legislation.
Thank you PJM for making sure this information is available to the people footing the bill. On a more cynical note, I thought Democrats were supposed to be the party of diversity, I don’t see much diverse thought likely to come from this group. Anyone in this group likely to champion the radical idea that current voting laws should be enforced?
The Dems have been steadily and stealthily infiltrated by extremist/Commie/Marxist radicals. Our country is in deep sh*t.
No they haven’t. They have always been this way. They ae the party of dicators and peons; king and subject; lord and serf; master and slave. They just have a great talent for repackaging themselves with pretty sounding words when the times call for it (i.e. when the unwashed masses catch on to the cut of their jib – again).
Clearly,, what Comrade Holder is setting up to do is lay the groundwork not only for massive vote fraud in the millions, but persecuting, prosecuting and silencing all those who try to report on it. And in this, our leftist media will gladly endorse him.
Be ready for a constitutional crisis, and possibly a civil war, in 2012, when the GOP Congress refuses to recognize the re-election of Obama. And when the USSC overturns his election 5-4, the unrest that will occur will make that of 1967-68 pale in comparison. The unrest will quickly descend into all out civil war.
Since some of these lawyers are involved in approving the redistricting that the Republicans will do, after their big win in the last election, you can be sure that this Justice Department is going to do everything in its power to hamper that effort.
why am I not surprised at any thing this regime does. any one with an ounce of live brain cells in their skulls should have known long ago the entire regime is CORRUPT and they all should be in a federal prison or better yet a Ga. chain gang cutting right of way and digging ditche’s like they used to do,
Looks like the faculty of almost any university law school, public or private, in the US.
I want to thank you Pajamas Media – exposing corruption at every level.
Holder and the DOJ are witnessing the noose tightening slowly on their betrayal … their plans will not succeed; they are mocking our Constitution and getting drunk on their own power at our expense. Throw the bums out !!!!!
“Looks like the faculty of almost any university law school, public or private, in the US.”
That’s funny right there!!! Gotta laugh at something eh?!
Anyone who finds this surprising has really not been paying attention. Either that or the haze from their latest drug of choice has not yet worn off.
Holder and the rest of the coven at the Department of Treachery should spend the rest of their natural lives in Gitmo, with their terrorist co-horts. No phones, no computers, no way to contact anyone in the real, rational world.
These people are truly dangerous to the country and to every single citizen. It’s time for them to go. I respectfully suggest to Congress that they do something about this in short order. Pitchfork and torch sales are going to occur before long and unless they want the rabble to storm the castle, they’d better get their houses in order.
Just the view for flyover country.
It appears to me that the next Republican President is going to have to undertake a massive house cleaning at DOJ. These new lawyers can be accurately labelled subversives. It is obvious from their resumes, that they have no allegiance to the Constitution, and the oath they will be required to swear to it, will have no meaning for them. Since job #1 at DOJ is to protect and defend the rights spelled out in that document, for ALL Americans, these lawyers are unqualified to serve.
These new lawyers can be accurately labelled subversives
They are clearly in violation of their oaths of office. That rises beyond subversion. None of them are fit to live in a free society. None.
Yes, and this is exactly why we cannot afford to elect a “moderate” Republican in 2012.
This is one of many places where GW failed. He did NOT clean house when he took office. He even continued one of Clinton’s cabinet appointees – Leon Panetta.
We need to hunt these subversives out and remove them from the federal payroll.
It appears to me that the next Republican President is going to have to undertake a massive house cleaning at DOJ.
You say this as if the problem is confined to the DOJ. I have a lot of trouble believing that practices of this kind are confined to a single department of the federal government. It would seem much more likely that it is rampant across all departments. We simply don’t know as much about the other departments because we don’t have a Hans Spakovsky or Christian Adams from those departments.
Of course my suspecting widespread subversion doesn’t make it true. But it bears investigation lest we clean up only the DOJ after the next Republican president is elected and overlook equally radical subversives in other departments.
wow. you people are insane. this is so awesome to read. i wanted to know more about right-wing crackpots, so i came on here to read up about you. oh my god, it’s a goldmine! you people are so awesomely nuts!
@wow, it appears that you are the one that is nuts if you cannot at least acknowledge the corruption that is rampant in the Obama regime.
Then again, sticking your collective (pun intended) heads in the sand is what libs do best.
Thanks, PjM, for your valuable investigating and reporting.
This packing of the Justice Dept looks like 2012 is going to look like 2008 on steroids, as Houston was one example of voter fraud on a big scale. Unfortunately, by the time anyone investigated, it was too late to do anything. How many other large cities did the same thing?
To those of us who read “Dupes”, based on the Verona Papers, which revealed the Kremlin’s funding of the Communist Party in the US, know the ACLU was their legal arm of destruction aimed at traditional moral values. If you research the lawsuits that destroyed public prayer, every one was represented by the ACLU. They are still pursuing their destruction of capitalism and freedom, as they have continually filed suits to force the Boy Scouts to allow homosexual counselors. Gov. Perry wrote a book about the scouts, with proceeds to fund their continuing efforts to keep all sex out of the scouts. It’s no surprise that the ACLU is after Perry, and that they filed a lawsuit to stop the prayer service last Saturday. The local TV news, all local newspapers, and talking heads referred to the service as ‘controversial’. There is no tolerance for traditional values. Yet, as Hayek’s “The Fatal Conceit” shows, civilization as we know it is based on traditional moral principles, going back thousands of years.
Just wanted to mention that Anthony Herman, former senior partner and head of the pro-bono committee of Covington & Burling ( Holders law firm and the largest legal aid resource for GITMO detainees ), has been appointed General Counsel of the Federal Election Commission. If it works at the DOJ why not the FEC?
I stopped doing business with Covington & Burling because of Eric Holder. The partner that I used billed at $700 per hour. The return on investment was awful and then add in Holder … just the excuse I needed.
I’m sure all these left wing radical appointments to the voting section of DOJ are set and ready to go for the 2012 election. How convenient considering Obama is expected to have a very difficult time winning reelection. With these left wing activists lawyers at Eric Holder’s disposal, any and all voting irregularities that end up in in favor of Obama will *never* be investigated, while all voting irregularities in favor of his opponent certainly will be. And if there aren’t any voting irregularities in favor of Obama’s opponent, these overzealous left wing radical lawyers in DOJ’s voting section can just make up irregularities and throw out as many votes for Obama’s opponent as is required. After all, when you’ve got left wing ideologues filling civil career DOJ positions, there’s no one left to investigate the investigators.
“High crimes and misdemeanors is a phrase from Section 4 of Article Two of the United States Constitution: “The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”
“High” in the legal parlance of the 18th century means “against the State”. A high crime is one which seeks the overthrow of the country, which gives aid or comfort to its enemies, or which injures the country to the profit of an individual or group. In democracies and similar societies it also includes crimes which attempt to alter the outcome of elections.”
It’s pretty apparent that Holder and friends are using every aspect of the machinery of government to effect the boss’ “fundamental transformation” of America.
And one of their prime strategies is to use the department of justice in service to promoting illegal voters and illegal voting practices.
When will the ax fall on this subversive’s head ?
He seems to keep getting away with stuff, from the outrageous dropping of the voter intimidation case against the new black panthers to deniability of knowledge and planning in fast & furious.
What, Billy Clinton’s favored bag-man indulging in partisan folderol?
No surprise there. The guy is crookeder than a dog’s hind leg.
it is hard to say
How much are they paying these people?
Wow. Just WOW. PJM hits another one out of the park!
But will anything be done about this?
This is absolutely despicable.
To paraphrase Livy, we have reached that “dark modern day when we can neither endure our vices nor face the remedies needed to cure them”. This situation is indeed undendurable if we wish to retain any semblance of a free republic. The remedies needed to cure our Republic of its statist/totalitarian ills will require a sacrifice such as we have not seen for generations.
The worse thing is that this same plan is playing itself out over every single growing bureaucratic office under the executive branch. You think Clinton left W a hornet’s nest just wait until the next conservative president takes a seat in the oval office.
WHAT CAN BE DONE? I’m glad the lawsuit was won but the next step should be getting something done. This country is being run the way Chavez runs Venezuela.
What can be done? Not much if they are political appointees…for obvious reasons. But if they are civil service employees and were hired in violation of federal hiring statutes…then someone with standing (applied for the same job and were not hired) could sue the government. Happens quite often by the way.
PJM should FOIA OPM’s files on each of the job openings that were filled by these subversives. If there are irregularities, then the person not hired should be encouraged to sue.
It would be interesting to pull that string.
Question:”How do you know Eric Holder is lying?”
Answer: ” His lips are moving.”
I think the article misses the point, to an extent. You speak of outrage when the Bush administration hired *some* conservatives for these positions. That’s because conservatives are by definition “extremists” who should never be considered for *any* position in government. Reasonable people (most very very liberal by any objective standards) are “mainstream” as far as Holder is concerned, so there shouldn’t be any objections to his hiring them in droves. It all comes down to what I refer to as “framing the pitch.” This is a baseball term, referring to the catcher’s practice of holding his glove awaiting the pitch from the pitcher. If he does a good job, the umpire is looking at the catcher’s glove and not Home Plate, and as a result if the pitch hits the glove the umpire calls it a strike, even if the pitch isn’t over the plate. Same thing here…if you don’t look at things objectively, Holder has managed to move the *center* of ideology further left, and I’m sure he would take that statement as a compliment.
The fun part is that the media has ignored this, and ignored the differences in transparency between the two administrations. Though people on the left are beginning to get buyer’s remorse (see the article on Pajamas referencing the calls for Hillary to run against Obama in 2012) it’s almost as if they don’t want to know the extent of the disaster and the depth of the deception. After all, Hillary’s a liberal too, and it’s doubtful she’d have a much different approach to attorney hirings at the Justice Department. Knowing what we do of her past, they’d all pretty much have to recount episodes of cronyism with Hillary or Bill to get hired.
DWNicolas said- “it’s almost as if they don’t want to know the extent of the disaster and the depth of the deception.”-out of context here- but, saying people who are having doubts about Obama that voted for him in past-but, they will not have a choice -on the Democratside of things. And, most likely will
-unless strongly persuaded-probably vote for Obama again.
Yes-they are in denial now- but what would it take -if they haven’t already awakened?
As Julian Sanchez points out in post #36 and someone Anonymous observes in the thread under #1, there’s much outrage here but nothing actually outrageous. The career backgrounds the article painstakingly details are in no way radical, corrupt, or subversive. All we have here are a bunch of professional attorneys with training and experience in enforcing civil rights laws, which is after all their job. (The contrast with many of the Bush appointees, who covertly and sometimes overtly sought to undermine the very legislation and precedents they were supposed to uphold, does not work in the article’s favor.)
I realize I’m swimming against the tide of opinion here, of course, defying the articles of faith of many devotees of this site. But there are certain facts you really need to understand in order to put this in proper perspective.
Among them: the ACLU and the American Constitution Society are completely, solidly within the mainstream of American jurisprudence and constitutional interpretation, and have sterling reputations for defending the rights of ordinary people against abuses of power from any and all points on the political spectrum. The Federalist Society, by contrast, is not mainstream: it is a radical reactionary organization dedicated to an agenda that involves rolling back at least 75 years of hard-won legal progress in this country.
Also among them: amongst voting rights violations in this country, almost *all* of them involve figures in authority attempting to restrict access to the ballot by people who are, in fact, legitimate citizens entitled to vote. Cases in which people *not* entitled to vote do so fraudulently are vanishingly rare by comparison, and have not swung the results of any election in recent times.
These are not points of opinion; these are facts. I ask readers to consider that if your inclination is to reject these facts; if your views of how things should be find you rejecting the majority of legal scholars, judges, and working lawyers involved with Constitutional issues in this country; if your sympathies lie with the Federalist Society; if you think that most of the civil rights laws and precedents of the last three generations were steps in the wrong direction; then it is *you* who are out of step with mainstream America, not your opponents. And no offense, but if you honestly believe that today’s Democratic Party — limp, centrist, and compromising as it is — somehow represents a devious conspiracy by “communists” or “terrorists” to damage this country, then you might be just a little bit paranoid.
Spoken like a true socialist.
The thought that most of America is “left”, “center left”, or even “far left” is not backed up by any objective evidence or observations, let alone actual polling data. Since that’s not true, in a “politically neutral” hiring practice, it’s statistically impossible to have 100% come from the minority of people.
Additionally, why would you malign people who have a concern about people being in charge of elections that have aligned themselves with the only political party to come out openly against voter identification requirements? There are numerous instances of voter fraud in favor of the Democrat party and liberal candidates.
…and yet you “preach” to those that would like some explanation about why political affiliation is being used as a qualification, contrary to not only common sense but the law.
… and you call people that see socialism as a 100% failure-rate approach to government “paranoid”?
Shame on you, sir.
Screw all the financial nonsense going on in Congress. It’s going nowhere anyway. Start with impeaching all the bastards Obama appointed, then impeach big-ears himself. Clean out the corruption, and the economy will explode back to life.
JC on a Crutch! I wouldn’t spend 5 minutes in a room with any of these SOBs. Not only are they radicalized to the extent that they cannot be ‘saved’ in any sense of the word, they appear to have mostly very nasty views against us, the people of this country. We MUST work to ensure all branches of government are in our hands so we may proceed with the largest housecleaning ever undertaken in DC, and TAKE BACK OUR COUNTRY! This just makes me want to scream!!! thanks PJM and Hans AvS for kicking the rock off these truly dangerous TERRORISTS. yes, they are.
Is there anything the this Department of Justice is not either mishandling or in fact encouraging that is counter to moral and conservative principles?
This man needs impeachment proceedings held against him ASAP from Congress. hopefully that is in progress, if not get on the phone to start it going!
They are setting up to steal the election .We are in deep deep trouble unless God changes things and that is the change we can beleve in not Obama’s change.
PRAY AMERICA like we have never prayed before.
This just makes me sick…
“Tailgunner Joe” McCarthy was right.
Let’s see the big picture: how many total hires? And, did ANY hires have any conservative credentials?
Political scientists say the law is created when it is enforced not when it is legislated. But most of the costs to legislate the laws are born by low net worth taxpayers while it is only enforced for high net worth taxpayers. When I joined USMC in the Korean War I was told it was to protect the American way of life which was about freedom and justice but now days it’s not about justice anymore, i.e. because, low net worth folks don’t have access to the federal courts only high net worth people do. The fact General Holder is recruiting low net worth attorneys to enforce the law is a good thing To all of you dissenters out there it’s like your daddy said: “A hit dog will always holler.”
Look into the hiring of foreign doctors at the VA too.
let’s do that. you are so insane. it’s really incredible.
von spakovsky… seriously? you’re a hack, my friend. and a scoundrel. your tactics are dirty, and you have no spine. you’re weak, and you prey on those weaker than you. you attack hardworking people and pretend to be a man. it’s quite pitiful to watch actually. quite pitiful.
You forgot to accuse him of eating human baby livers with fava beans and Chianti. Are you drunk or just off your meds?
Well, this series is now in 12 parts. Would you like to discuss the 67% of them that were not written by this author yet say the same thing? No, you just want to throw stones at someone because you read some liberal talking points on your daily marching order websites.
Let independent thought begin and free yourself!
I appreciate the effort that went into identifying and tracking down all of this information. Based on the liberal reaction to alleged Bush-era hiring practices, it is relevant to the national conversation.
However, I am disappointed to see “Bay Area Legal Aid” listed as an example of far-left politics. Some of the work done by legal aid organizations aligns with traditional liberal talking points, that’s true, but legal aid offices do address problems of actual injustice. As a conservative attorney, I feel it is my duty to volunteer with my local legal aid organization (which is a private charity rather than a government-sponsored organization) to stop government harrassment of innocent citizens. As a Christian attorney, it is also my duty to volunteer and help people who are truly victimized by other citizens, victims whom the government is simply not helping.
Despite my commitment to our legal system, it is obvious that a lot of people are suffering and not getting the help they need without the intervention of private citizens. For example, I work to help victims of domestic violence get divorces from men who clearly do not deserve to be called “men” (“thugs” or “bruts” would be more appropriate). I am always horrified when I hear that protecting victims of domestic violence, whom the almighty government clearly cannot protect, is an example of leftism. Private citizens taking up the slack left by a failed government in the protection of fellow citizens is conservative through and through.
*brutes
Is anyone really surprized at all these lawyers being appointed, its just another step to destroy our country into either Socialism or Communism. Every thing Obama has done while in office has been the same steps that Hilter made in Germany, Don’t believe it, then check it out.
There is nothing surprising here. It will take time and effort to clean out all government departments after 2012. Having had this administration for four years will be like having rented a house to a marijuana grow-op which fills the walls with fungi and dramatically devalues the house.
These seem like some awfully watered down standards for “radical.” A tepid editorial written back in college? Donations to an anti-Prop8 campaign? Most of these folks just sound like (yawn) Democrats. How scandalous. Not seeing any evidence of actual hiring impropriety, unless it’s supposed to be inherently suspicious that lots of Democrats apply to work under a Democratic administration.
I forwarded this article to the State Reps in PA who recently introduced legislation that would require voter ID, as well as to those on my mailing list.
I would suggest everyone who reads this article do the same, as the MSM is complicit in covering up Vs covering the facts.
You can certainly see your enthusiasm in the work you write. The sector hopes for even more passionate writers like you who are not afraid to mention how they believe. Always follow your heart.
Well it looks like the Department of Justice needs to be put on the chopping block, along with the Department of Education and Department of Energy, when we throw the ObamaNation out on its ear in November 2012. Once that’s done, we can reform the DOJ and bring it back – sans the Civil Rights division.