Every Single One: The Politicized Hiring of Eric Holder’s Disability Rights Section
Anne Raish: Ms. Raish has given generously to Democratic congressional candidates, including an extremely liberal (and ultimately unsuccessful) nominee named Benjamin Konop who ran for Congress from Toledo, Ohio. Before arriving in the Section, she won the New York State Bar Association president’s Pro Bono Service Award for her work on behalf of disabled individuals. Teaming up with Disability Advocates, Inc., the Urban Justice Center, and the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, she prevailed against New York state’s refusal to provide mentally disabled adult home residents with community-based supportive housing.
The Justice Department redacted a number of activities from her resume. One has to wonder what was so politically embarrassing.
Regan Rush: Prior to her arrival in the Section, Ms. Rush worked as a supervisory attorney at the Mental Health Advocacy Project, a noble program that provides specialized services for people identified as having mental health or developmental disabilities. Before that, however, she clerked for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, where she focused primarily on opposing deportation of illegal aliens. She also clerked for Bay Area Legal Aid and interned for Prisoner Legal Services in San Francisco.
She really let her political activist streak shine during the Bush administration: she co-authored a public letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee opposing the nomination of U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on the theory he had personally formulated policies that led to torture and mistreatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. Years earlier, as an undergraduate at Indiana University, she founded the “Student Coalition,” which was an activist organization claiming that the university — one of the most the liberal institutions in the country, and one then headed by uber-liberal Miles Brand — treated its minority and women professors in a racist way.
Elizabeth Savage: Ms. Savage, a veteran of the Carter and Clinton administrations, is a long-time partisan contributor to Democratic candidates. She donated thousands of dollars to Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, and Al Gore for their presidential campaigns as well as to many unsuccessful marginal Democratic candidates.
Emblematic of these campaigns was her 2008 support for hard-left candidate Judy Feder against moderate Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA). In 1997 she contributed to civil rights militant Ralph Neas for his campaign for Congress. For those unfamiliar with Neas, he was instrumental in leading the scorched-earth political campaign that defeated Robert Bork‘s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Ms. Savage previously served as a political appointee in the Civil Rights Division during the Clinton administration and as a political appointee during the Carter White House. Now she has been permitted into the career civil service ranks at the Justice Department.
Brandy Wagstaff: Ms. Wagstaff was hired into the Section as part of Attorney General Holder’s Honors Program following her graduation from law school and clerkship with a liberal magistrate judge in Washington. She proudly references her membership in the liberal American Constitution Society on her resume, which no doubt eased her entry into the Division. Before entering law school, she worked as a paralegal in the Division’s Appellate Section, where she was initially hired during the Clinton administration.
Jana Erickson: Ms. Erickson was hired into the Section after spending nearly a decade in the General Counsel’s Office at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Anyone who has had the unfortunate experience of dealing with that office understands full well that finding a mainstream thinker there is like discovering aquatic life in the Dead Sea. Prior to her time at HUD, she worked as a staff attorney in the Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Education — another bastion of liberalism — and as a consultant at Programs for Accessible Living in North Carolina.
This people should have the same rights like other people. It’s very important for their normal life.
Thank you. I am autistic and a Tea Party Patriot. I have notice that most autistic people are Liberals and have brought the lies that the liberals sell. Democrats have the WORST civil rights record. After all it was the Republicans that brought about American with Disabilities Act and reassured us that the check was in the mail. The left is full of Fabian Socialist which believe that the disabled should be killed off. I was chewed out the other day by an autistic author who writes books about living with autism. All a person with disabilities wants is the same rights and privileges normal people have. After all the Declaration of Independence didn’t state that the man had to be of sound mind and body to have the right of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Again, as in other places and sites, msamericanpatriot makes statements that she refuses to and in fact can’t substantiate. She uses the phrase, “the check is in the mail.” So is she indicating that the rest of society owes her a living simply because she claims to have autism?
Msamericanpatriot should study her law and history a bit more before running off at the mouth. She claims that all individuals with disabilities want are the same rights and opportunities as everyone else. We, I am a member of the community of individuals with disabilities, already have the same rights as anyone else. I rather suspect that msamericantpatriot wants an increase in her SSI check rather than to have to go out and get a job.
I think you and she are on the same page. “The check is in the mail,” might be understood very literally by someone with autism, that’s just my guess, since autistic folks are not really given to sarcasm. I think that was supposed to be a compliment to the Republican Party. Anyway, I’d tend to interpret her post more charitably given the condition she has.
Just my two cents.
Dana, you need to google other posts of hers from other sites. No charity should be given to a woman (41) who spews hatred the way she does. If she actually has autism, which is a stretch, she does great harm to other individuals with autism and the greater cause of individuals with disabilities in general. Her “literal” interpretations of comments from others is not the issue. What is at issue is the vitriol and poor logic with which she attempts to dispatch those who take issue with her posts.
Yes, that may be true. Didn’t mean to offend.
That decision regarding the Kindle was amazing in its willingness to penalize sighted people for daring to try new technology that blind people couldn’t have. We’re all Harrison Bergeron now.
Soon, high schools and colleges will have to abandon football and other sports in their traditional form, and make them accesible to parplegics, the blind, and the bed ridden. Maybe, in the future with these incompetents running the country, there will be nothing left except a virtual reality that is totally out of touch with reality if we allow these delusional meddlers to continue to destroy this nation. The rest of the world is laughing at the USA as we allow a bunch of incompetent fools to run this country with the number one fool and incompetent being our sitting POTUS, Barack Obama and his Legion of Parasites, Idiots, Criminals, Subversives, Traitors and Perverts.
I know of one high school here in my state that had a Down Syndrome player. He had to be downgrade to manager when he became too old.
So is msamericanpatriot implying that individuals with disabilities should be held to lower standards than others?
Again, bodey, don’t try to read between the lines with missamericanpatriot because there’s no double meaning. She says what she says and that is what she means. I don’t mean to speak for her, but double meanings, innuendos and sarcasm are just not part of the autistic world, whereas it is definitely part of ours.
Of course, if I am wrong missamericanpatriot, please tell me so.
I have seen it before where people with certain language difficulties don’t come across well online. While I’m not a psychiatrist or neurologist, I am a physician. Anyway, I’m just asking for your understanding. Thanks.
Yes, I remember reading about that. He had more of an honorary position (never played, but was a very enthusiastic bench-warmer) and the issue was that he could no longer suit up when he turned 19. The media made a big deal out of it, but the school had to follow the law. I think they were right. They did find another position for him, which was nice.
This is what happens when get a government run by Entitlment Minded Leeches who have never had a real job or have had to balance a checkbook in their entire lives, and this goes from Obama on down throughout his administration. This Entitlement-Minded, Victim-Minded group of leeches is a very clear look at the Federal Bureaucracy which is mostly made up of incompetent government workers who have never had a real job in their lives. This administration clearly points out why we need to abolish about 85 to 90 percent of the federal bureaucracy whose groups of parasistic leeches who work for the federal government have created every single problem this country now faces. There is not one single problem in the USA that the Federal Government’s Out of Control Bureaucracies and the Federal Government’s Outrageous Legislations and Regulations have not created. The Federal Government is not the answer to our problems, our Federal Government is our problem and it is steadily creating new problems every day one of these bureaucrats and legislators goes to work.
I hope these articles will be pulled together into a BOOK and await the new conservative administration and support them. Of course just like Bush, the new conservative President will be attacked for sacking the federal attorneys general. Bush did not sack all of them like Clinton did. Nor did he attempt to “salt the earth” of the justice department for generations to come with a bunch of liberal wack jobs like Obama and HOlder have done.
I will bet that the model of the justice department behavior is also being followed at the State department and throughout this administration. Obama is one of the most devious presidents in history.
This story deserves MUCH broader coverage but will likely not get it.
Good Job
You are focusing on DOJ hires but the same has been going on in all government departments. Pity the new president and administration in 2012 who after fumigating the White House will have the Herculean job to also clean house in so many departments to be able to get the country on its feet again.
Hope the “new hires” won’t get too comfortable in their jobs, as they will all be ushered out next year when the Obama administration gets shown the door.
Andy is right. Just thinking of all the committees and departments that have been infested with socialistic minded staff boggles the mind. It’s going to be like cleaning out the Augean Stables – so we must work at getting a true Herculean hero into the White House.
All seemingly radical, women’s rights, activists as well.
Where is the balance of male hirees?
Exactly. Eric Holder hates white males. I guess he couldn’t find any black males otherwise he would’ve.
Lib’s like Holder feel the need for a more masculine presence surrounding them which is why they hire women. Perfect example here – also Reno, Napolitano, et. al.
Does anyone else see the elephant in the room here? ALL 9 OF THESE NEW HIRES ARE FEMALE. So much for Eric Holder and his anti-discrimination, fairness and diversity mantra huh.. WHAT A FREAKIN’ A-HOLE ERIC HOLDER IS.
Just keep pushing the white man, Eric. Just keep pushing..
The Section Chief who would be involved in the hiring process is Allison Nichol. Pajamas Media previously covered her background here.
http://pajamasmedia.com/tatler/2011/06/01/how-do-you-get-a-175000-a-year-job-with-eric-holder/
The article quotes her internal hiring announcement:
“She is serving as the representative of the DOJ with the White House on the development and implementation of the President’s National Strategy on HIV/AIDS . . . has been a member of the Honors Attorney Hiring Committee for the past four years, and is an active participant in the Division’s GLBT Working Group as well as a former board member of DOJ Pride. . . .Outside her life in the Department, Allison is an accomplished writer. He short stories and poetry have been published in numerous journals and adapted for the stage, and she recently published her first novel. She lives in Washington D.C. with her partner of 20 years.”
You can read about her novel and more about her here:
http://www.intagliopub.com/Authors/Nichol.htm
It’s bad enough we have o’blah blah till 2012. Holder’s a f’n POS. Everything exactly the opposite of what the democratic party is supposed to stand for. BS>…
After 2012, there must be a clean sweep. There are some hangers on from Clinton. Geo. Bush did not replace many of Clinton’s office holders and administration staff.