Every Single One: The Politicized Hiring of Eric Holder’s Special Litigation Section
Tiffany Austin: Ms. Austin is a new line attorney who joined the Section from private practice in Ohio. She did, however, spend time in Washington during law school, clerking for “Bread for the City,” a liberal civil rights organization that describes itself as the “front line agency serving Washington’s poor.” The recipient of an NAACP scholarship, she also served on the Executive Board of the Black Law Students Association at Notre Dame Law School.
The Justice Department conspicuously redacted a number of the other professional affiliations from her resume in its FOIA response, so there was likely some type of politically embarrassing information on Ms. Austin that DOJ did not want made public.
Deena Fox: Before arriving in the Section, Ms. Fox worked as a Fellow at the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law. Prior to that, she worked for the Children’s Rights Clinic at Legal Aid, clerked for the Public Defender’s Service for the District of Columbia, interned at the New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, and was a Fellow at the New York City Urban Fellows Program. During law school, she served as editor-in-chief of a journal entitled Review of Law & Social Change, and volunteered for the New York State Bar Association’s Special Committee on the Civil Rights Agenda.
Winsome Gayle: Ms. Gayle is a financial thoroughbred for the Democratic Party. FEC records reveal that she contributed nearly $5,600 to Obama in the 2008 campaign, and gave another $200 in 2009 to a very liberal (and ultimately unsuccessful) congressional Democratic candidate in Kansas, Raj Goyle. She worked as a staff attorney at the Public Defender’s Service for the District of Columbia, interned at the ACLU in New York, and clerked for a liberal federal judge in Florida appointed by President Clinton.
How radical is Ms. Gayle? After arriving in the Civil Rights Division, she spoke on a panel at American University Law School during which she openly criticized the prosecution of drug crimes! She claimed that “the enforcement of the drug laws tend to encourage racial profiling.”
The fact that a current Justice employee would make such comments in a public forum is not only disturbing, but it shows just how extreme the Civil Rights Division has become. Incidentally, she applied for a judgeship in the District of Columbia in 2010 but was fortunately passed over. Although her resume does evidence the kind of “putting empathy above the law” that this president prefers.
During law school, Ms. Gayle was a member of the Harvard Civil Liberties Union, Harvard Law School Lambda, the Harvard Black Law Students Association, and the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review. In fact, she continues to be the head of the Washington chapter of the Harvard Gay and Lesbian Caucus. She also wrote her undergraduate thesis on “Consensual Sodomy Laws: The Place of Morality in Law Where Justice is Concerned.”
Emily Gunston: Ms. Gunston arrived at Justice after working for nearly 10 years as a public defender in Contra Costa County, California. While a law student at Berkeley, she also interned at the Homeless Action Center. One can almost hear the hiring committee: “Check, and check.”
Anika Gzifa: Ms. Gzifa also fits right in with the new crop of attorneys. Prior to joining the Civil Rights Division, she advocated for the release of Guantanamo Bay detainee Omar Khadr, claiming that he was nothing more than a poor soldier. Khadr is a Canadian citizen who was taken into military custody during hostilities in Afghanistan and assigned to Gitmo, classified as an enemy combatant, and charged with murder, attempted murder, conspiracy, providing material support for terrorism, and spying. He is slated to be tried before a military commission. Ms. Gzifa signed on to a letter sent to President Obama pleading Khadr’s innocence and urging his release. The administration was apparently unmoved, as was the D.C. Circuit and the Supreme Court, both of which have denied Mr. Khadr’s request for relief.
Ms. Gzifa penned her plea on behalf of Khadr while working as a supervisory attorney at the Children’s Law Center in Washington. She affiliated with that organization right out of law school, where she was a member of the Prison Legal Assistance Project and an editor of the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review.
Charles Hart: Mr. Hart comes to the Special Litigation after representing unions at a private law firm in New York. Prior to his time there, he represented criminal defendants at the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem. He also served as the coordinator for the Capital Research Project in North Carolina, where he performed research on death penalty cases in the state. During law school, he interned at the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, the NYU Juvenile Rights Clinic, and the Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana. And he was an editor of the Review of Law and Social Change journal. His resume just screams balance and neutrality, doesn’t it?
Vincent Herman: Mr. Herman worked as a staff attorney at the Children’s Law Center and the Juvenile Law Center before moving to the Civil Rights Division. While a law student, he clerked for the Public Defender’s Service for the District of Columbia and served as an advocate at the Juvenile Rights Advocacy Project. He also previously worked as a coordinator of the AIDS Face-to-Face Program for HIV/AIDS Services at Catholic Charities of the East Bay in Oakland, Calif.
Michelle Jones: Another activist Democrat, Ms. Jones contributed at least $750 to President Obama’s campaign during the 2008 election cycle. She was also a volunteer for the Election Protection Project, which is sponsored by the NAACP, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, People for the American Way, and the National Bar Association. Ms. Jones also joined with a multitude of left-wing organizations in 2009 to organize a conference at Howard University Law School on “Reaffirming the Role of School Integration in K-12 Public Education Policy.”
Curiously, the Justice Department redacted her other activities from the resume it released, but you get the picture.
When in the course of human events the citizens of a nation become aware that Justice and Redress are not forth coming from their government officials, it becomes necessary that the citizens take up the responsibility of correcting the malfeasance of those officials.
Can this correction be accomplished short of simply hanging the officials?
That, sir, is a far more valid question in these times than I ever thought I may have reason to consider.
Mr. von Spakovsky rants against the Special Litigation Section of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, pointing out in considerable detail how so many of the staff attorneys have so-called liberal histories. His reasoning is that any person that has worked for an organization that advocates for civil rights or human rights is somehow anti-American or even pro-terrorist. I’ve always thought it was good thing to have people to fight for our civil liberties and promote human rights. Apparently, in conservative-land, there is something wrong with supporting our legal and constitutional rights as laid out in the Bill of Rights, various amendments, the Civil Rights Acts, Americans with Disabilities Act, and any other federal law that protects citizens under our Constitution. So, I guess if “liberals” tend to believe in and support these rights more than conservatives, it would make perfect sense that the “Civil Rights” Division of DOJ would tend to have attorneys who have an interest in and experience with civil rights issues. So I’m guessing that such people with that orientation may tend to be more to the left on the political scale. Ironically, Mr. Von Spakovsky accuses this administration of exactly what the Bush administration actually did in the Civil Rights Division starting in 2002. That was to improperly and illegally hire attorneys based on their conservative orientation and reject those that seemed to have a left of center orientation, as laid out in a DOJ’s Inspection General report in 2008. See: http://www.justice.gov/oig/special/s0901/final.pdf
Although I am not familiar with most of the attorneys mentioned, I am quite familiar with one: Aaron Zisser. Although Mr. von Spakovsky got most of his credentials correct, he errored in his speculation that Mr. Zisser is a member of the American Constitution Society, simply because his Human Rights First blog on Guantanamo (he was there for one week monitoring the trial) was picked up by ACS and posted on their site. Mr. Zisser wasn’t writing for ACS, but for HRF, his employer at the time. The article also conveniently left out the fact that Mr. Zisser, following his graduation with honors from Georgetown Law, completed a federal district court clerkship with a George Bush Sr. appointee. (Are law clerks who work for GOP-appointed judges all right-wingers? Apparently not.)
Additionally, although Mr. Zisser is one of the lawyers of record on the case regarding blocking of access to a clinic in D.C., a legitimate case to which he was assigned, Mr. Zisser has almost exclusively been working on cases regarding the de-institutionalization of people with mental and intellectual and developmental disabilities, so as to improve their quality of life (which also saves state money).
I also know that Mr. Zisser is a man of extremely high integrity who believes strongly in following the law. Unlike Mr. von Spakovsky’s extremely partisan orientation where he attempts to demonize anyone of opposing opinion, Mr. Zisser is well-known to have a thoughtful and reasoned approach in dealing with matters of great importance. He takes his work very seriously. He cares a great deal about protecting the rights of those who have little or no power in our society. Something that our Founding Fathers understood as they wrote the Bill of Rights. I suspect that his many colleagues that you have listed are of the same mind. I find it abit shameful that von Spakovsky twists facts to suit his agenda. But then, it probably pays really well.
“Progressive Guy” has got it right.
Here’ s my question to the person who compiled the resumes of the Special Litigation dept. of the Civil Rights Division:
WHY WAS IT OKAY FOR THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION TO BOTH REJECT APPLICANTS THEY PERCEIVED AS TOO “LIBERAL,” INCLUDING INTERNS, AND STACK THEIR HIRES WITH EXTREME CONSERVATIVES (FROM A PARTICULAR CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY, BY THE WAY) BUT NOT OKAY WHEN THE HOLDER JUSTICE DEPARTMENT APPEARS TO BE SIMPLY CORRECTING THE PRIOR DISCRIMINATION PRACTICED BY THE BUSH CLAN?
Why is it okay for Bush to have done this to an extreme?? But NOT okay to correct that?? And did anyone notice that one of the objectionable hires of the current administration served in Iraq?
And WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO STOP THE POLARIZING THAT IS GOING ON IN THIS NATION?? We are ONE nation, INDIVISIBLE, with liberty and justice FOR ALL? YOU are contributing terribly to a divided nation, with liberty and justice for some.
That’s all.
This artcle is only a small piece of the unjust hiring practices of the Civil Rights Division as a whole. The Special Litigation Section has been a target since the 2002 OIG report. It’s sad that these are written facts and the people that are suffering is the staff. They removed the last Section Chief who was extremely tough but was a brilliant attorney and replaced her with a dud and that’s being polite. Jonathan is a neighbor of Tom Perez and so are many others listed above. Last I checked, nepotism was a prohibited personnel practice. There is a saying currently used in the Division about the new hires. They are called “FOTS” = Friends of Tom’s. Jonathan Smith, Mary Bohan and Christy Lopez are all Tom’s neighbors. Both Shelly Jackson and Christy Lopez left the Section not just because of the change in admistration but they were unable to keep up with the speed of the newly appointed Section Chief and refused to work with her. It is ironic how they came back to the Section under Tom as Deputies and not line attorneys as they orignally left the Section. They are also considered FOTS. Recently the Division allowed a Deputy Luis Saucedo to work out of Los Angeles and pay him to fly back and forth, while under exteme budget constraints just so he can be close to his family. The things this group is getting a way with far exceed anything that was done under the former administration. The Special Ligiation Section lost two of the hardest working attorneys that every step foot in the Section. The Chief was pushed out and then her prinicipal deputy reluctlantly moved on to a promotion to SES. She loved the work in the Section and Division and had given her life to the work that the promotion didn’t matter but with all the new promotions, the FOT additions to the management team, caused constant and extreme conflict. The Section is also allowing two part-time attorneys to share a deputy position, which was done just to provide them with the title of management. Speaking of unfair personnel practices, the Section recently made two individuals federal employees under and unknown honors program and never posted the position to allow others to have the opportunity to apply. They hired the individuals under a Departmental hiring freeze. So, OIG where are you now?
Don’t worry, mind-numbed little lefty children; they won’t have those jobs long. When the faculty lounge communist is returned to Chicago and a legitimate government is restored in the ’12 elections, we’ll hunt ALL the lefties down and fire or prosecute them. We’ve learned a bit since GWB left all Bill Clinton’s stay-behind agents in place; won’t make the mistake again and give you traitors another Valerie Plame.
ART:
“Don’t worry, mind-numbed little lefty children; they won’t have those jobs long. When the faculty lounge communist is returned to Chicago and a legitimate government is restored in the ’12 elections, we’ll hunt ALL the lefties down and fire or prosecute them. We’ve learned a bit since GWB left all Bill Clinton’s stay-behind agents in place; won’t make the mistake again and give you traitors another Valerie Plame.”
Art is whistling Dixie. His ideas are anti-Constitutional or extra-Constitutional. “Legitimate government?” A worn-out Republican war cry. Bush over Gore was legitimate? Hunt down the “lefties” and prosecute them. How utterly childish! Due process for Republicans only, right? Being a “leftist” is illegal? What hogwash and a despicable threat. Traitors? How the heck do you think you are? I suppose you have some Second Amendment solutions you what to try out, right? Art’s position is so disappointing. I suspect it is a parody. You are speaking like an un-schooled kid. Cesspool Charlie in the locker room. Get real, buddy boy!
These is happening across the Federal bureaucracy. The EPA will be dominated by radicals for the next generation no matter how many republicans get elected. Phony case settlement techniques with judicial enforcement are used to make Congress irrelevant.
Not if those Republicans have the balls to re-task EPA with a much, much narrower and well defined purpose (with budget to match), or disband it.
Let me see if I understand this charge of “far-left.” Far-left means outside the constitution-juridical order, rejection of republican values of free speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly; rejection of the Constitution.
I don’t see any of this in the short, descriptive biographies of the new people hired at Justice. Liberal organizations and liberal activism do not qualify as “far-left.” Liberals are not leftists to begin with, except in the febrile imaginations of “witch-hunters.”
Defining Liberal activism and Liberal politics as “far-left” is a symptom of perilous political and social polarization griping the nation. It implies a breakdown of our consensus-based two-party system.
In the world of real politics, the dollar amounts contributed by the appointees is considered “chump-change.” The commitments and memberships of the appointees are standard fare, “rosewater do-good-ism.” I don’t see totalitarians on the march to the personnel office of the Justice Department. I don’t see memberships in the Revolutionary Communist Party, Revolutionary Youth Movements I & II, SDS Weathermen, Black Panthers (old or new), anarchist direct action advocates, etc.
I think the article is based on false assumptions of who is a loyal American. If there ever was a warn out approach to understanding our national politics, this article is an example.
This is not an era of the ascendancy of the “far-left.” There is Liberalism and styles of Leftism but no awakening of “far-leftism.”
Sounds like an argument entirely based on semantics to me.
Perhaps if you could share example from the ranks of politician and perhaps the media whom you do consider to be “far-leftists” and for balance, “witch-hunters,” we could all be enlightened?
Holder’s boss might be a good place to start, but I’ll leave that to you.
Your argument is one that would work in a college debate class, but in the real world, it’s far wiser to see the handwriting on the wall and beware of losing rights and freedom and protect both.
Perhaps when these power-hungry, intolerant liberal types come to cart you away to a “re-education” camp, you’ll believe. But by then of course, it will be too late. Warnings always come in pleasant, seemingly rational voices with smiles and promises for a “better world.” The reality is that power corrupts and absolute corrupts absolutely no matter one’s localized politics, and the ultimate victim is always the citizen and freedom.
That’s how it was done in 1930′s Germany when Hitler won only 33% of the vote in a national election, but within the year was an absolute dictator over the German people and started his march toward a world war and the Holocaust It’s wise to always keep history in your rear-view mirror and remain ever wary of all who promise Utopia.
Lawrence is indicative of what passes for intellect in socialist circles, Godless anti American traitorcrats have a difficult time, operating as they must under the aegis of brain damage as a prerequisite for membership. Truly sick losers, in Texas we exile them to Austin.
Thank you PJM for doing this great series. You deserve an award. It is really quite scary the power this new group of renegades has. Plus, the hypocrisy these articles are exposing of the Left’s tired attacks on the prior administration is outstanding. It is also hilarious to read the defenses by some posters who claim that the individuals being hired are all within the mainstream. It really underscores how out of touch they are with reality and what an alternative universe they live in.
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.
Apparently, the NYTimes has come on board in an attempt to discredit Darrell Issa, the Congressman whose committee is doggedly pursuing the Justice Dep’t/Eric Holder over Fast and Furious/Gunrunner and pursuing the Obama administration’s overstepping of authority in other areas.
Really, America, these people need to be stopped
There is such a thing as political appointees and when you win elections, you get to appoint them; that’s why you try to win elections, a concept too often lost on Republican officeholders. We really shouldn’t expect anything else from the faculty lounge communist but to hire people like himself; he did, after all, win.
What we have a right to expect and in which we have been sorely disappointed, ia for Republicans elected to governorships and the Presidency to fire every living soul they have an arguable legal right to fire and replace them with loyal, competent Republicans or leave the position open. Since a Republican couldn’t fill all the appointee positions with loyal, competent Republicans if his life depended on it, leaving the positions vacant and abolishing the bulk of them would be a good start on reducing government. Democrats need lots of patronage positions to reward their friends and punish their enemies, Republicans don’t and don’t really have an adequate pool of potential appointees anyways since, unlike so many Democrats, the typical Republican doesn’t want to be a government employee when s/he grows up.
Republicans have proven themselves quite able to have programs that resonate with the res publica and get themselves elected. They have been far less able to actually run a government once elected. Generally, they apply a thin veneer of Republicans and Republican connected appointees and leave all the Democrats and congenital ‘crats in place. They then wonder why they’re leaked, thwarted, and sabotaged for the whole of their term. My state’s government and Republican politicians were tortured throughout the Bush Administration by holdover Democrats in USDOJ and the regulatory agencies that control much of the land and water here. GWB never lifted a finger because, typical Republican, he had to be nice and had been boxed in with the USDOJ for late and ham-fisted attempts to dismiss US Attornies that should have been dismissed as his hand came off The Bible when he was sworn in for his first term. In short, the Evil Party does indeed know how to run a government and make it do things the Evil Party wants done, unfortunately, the Stupid Party keeps all the Democrats around so they get to do their thing even when Republicans are nominally in power.
The flaw in your post, Art, is that these new Obama DOJ hires being written about are not political appointees. They are career civil servants. These are not supposed to be political patronage positions. Ironically, when the Bush DOJ hired a handful of conservatives (not antyhing like the radicals this administration has been bringing on board), they were savaged. That double standard should be another source of outrage here.
Dunno, I’d have to see an org chart, but I doubt that either litigator level attornies or deputy chief/chief level employees have full merits system protection. They may not be as clearly “serve at the pleasure” as a true political appointee or a US Attorney, but they aren’t the same as a lowly GS-11. In most governments, almost all attornies are essentially political appointees though most of them might as well be merit system employees since they’re so hard to get rid of.
Of course the double standard is there so you just fire them and move on. The outcry won’t last any longer than any other root canal. Because of the way we Republicans choose our candidates, we just don’t have many people who can stand any controversy and at the slightest upset, they fold like a cheap suit. Been there, done that, got the cheap tee shirt.
Eric Holder is a craven and devious guy who is using the power of appointment at Justice to effect his boss’ view of the “fundamental transformation” America so desperately needs.
From attempts to shut down the Arizona law to excusing the NBP party case, Holder is supporting the ideological agenda, in which he is way more interested than he is in upholding US law.
Others in this administration, individuals like Harold Koh, Cass Sunstein, the sycophant Lisa Jackson at EPA, Genachowski at the FCC, are on board for the agenda.
This is way beyond simple cronyism and Washington politics as usual.
He’s doing what you CAN do when you win elections; putting the people he wants in the jobs where he controls the hiring. And, frankly, it doesn’t matter what level of government you’re talking about from local up to federal, merit system rules only apply to Republicans and Democrats can get away with political hires and litmus tests from clerk and janitor on up. Republicans don’t even thoroughly vett our own appointments and then leave Democrat holdovers all over the government.
What the next Republican President needs to commit to doing is a thorough re-organization of the federal goverment with a whole lot of hoopla about efficiency and waste and duplicated efforts etc. I think eliminating departments, that fondest dream of the small government sorts, is an existential battle that will take too long and by the time you’re fully engaged in beating back the court challenges it is election time and the Democrats are running on putting back everything you took out. If you reorganize and collapse functions in the related functional groups, you can eliminate huge amounts of patronage management. W/o the patronage management, you reduce the opportunities and motivation to use federal agencies as money laundries to funnel money in grants and contracts to Democrat front groups and Democrat controlled companies. Trouble is, you have to actually know something about government to understand and do this stuff and most on the Right would rather argue philosophy and practice for the next circular firing squad.
Trouble is, you have to actually know something about government to understand and do this stuff and most on the Right would rather argue philosophy and practice for the next circular firing squad.
You were doing fine (well, ok anyway), until we got to the “most on the Right” generalization.
Many of the bureaucratic creations this country now has the privilege of laboring under are relatively recent creations, like the department of education that wasn’t hatched until that wunnerful, wunnerful president, Jimmy Carter.
Without some kind of sweeping clean up, underpinned by principle and an entire new philosophy of the role of the federal government (the one envisioned at this country’s founding by smart and principled human beings who understood how the Republic could come to be destroyed) this place is toast anyway, some Jabba The Hutt Behemoth that will galumph on until it can no longer move.
Don’t dismiss little Eric’s moves as just government as usual. That’s offensive.
We have no statesmen and women anymore.
I don’t dismiss Holder or any of the junta; they are an existential threat to the America envisioned by the Founders, or what’s left of it. What I’m saying is that they’re doing what they can do; they’re not doing any fundamental restructuring or wildly violating laws. I think some laws are violated by some things they do but they’re arcane “inside baseball” stuff that Joe Sixpack wouldn’t care about so you can’t raise much political ire towards them.
If you ran on an agenda of doing away with, say, EPA and DOE, you’d have the Devil’s own time getting elected because the Left would be highly motivated and the squishy middle would be afraid abolishing a federal department would hurt the children or scare Granny, so at best you might win only narrowly and have a very difficult time governing at all and certainly have a tough time with something as controversial as abolishing full departments.
So, you do things incrementally the way Democrats usually do. First you reorganize then you streamline, then you consolidate, then you integrate some functions and before long the department only exists on paper.
And I stand by what I said about Republicans being generally disinterested in the workings of government. You couldn’t staff even a small state government with loyal competent Republicans in the appointed positions and you’d never get more than a thin veneer on the federal government in its current org chart.
Unexpectedly!
Think of what the next president and the new senate will have in store for them. When Bush’s AG Gonzalez attempted to fire, if I remember correctly, 9 “alleged” incompetent federal prosecutors his was stonewalled, investigated and chastised for his actions–and forced to resign in disgrace. And Clinton went in and fired, I believe it was 93, or all of the federal prosecutors natin wide and not a peep from the Congress. You would have thought the EEOC or Department of Labor would have come to their defense. What you have now are the fringe groups that are pro-government and what that means is control, more taxes, less services and fewer jobs.
Yet you find nary a token conservative among the Holder/Obama hires. Meanwhile, the press has gone suddenly silent. Where is the outrage now?
The lapdogs have been paid off
Eric Holder is a hard core racist and an absolute disgrace to the law enforcement community…
He has shown his ability to betray the public trust, time and time and time again..
I believe that “Fast & Furious” was the brainchild of Eric Holder… and for that he should swing from the end of a rope
The entire Obama administration reflects his Progressive beliefs
Every progressive believs that Socialism will work this time because their involved
My apologies for referring to the “president” and “work” in the same sentence
My vote for the name on his boss is the AA Downgrade Express
Currently there is a long list of vacancies in senior economic and regulatory positions, about a dozen vacancies, since Republicans won enough Senate seats to prevent confirmations.
The appointees the White House has named have been frozen in legislative limbo. The Nobel laureate Peter A. Diamond withdrew his nomination for a seat on the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors.
Republicans have said they are not opposing a particular nominee but rather any nominee, whoever it may be. ANY NOMINEE!
Senate Republicans on Thursday blocked a final vote on President Obama’s choice for a federal appeals court opening, marking the first successful Republican filibuster of an Obama administration judicial nominee. The Republican Party blocked Goodwin Liu’s nomination to the Court of Appeals. The 52-to-43 vote left the Senate 8 votes short of the 60 needed to end debate on the nomination. Mr. Liu had come under fire from Republicans for tough comments he made in opposition to the nomination of Samuel A. Alito Jr. to the Supreme Court. They also portrayed his legal philosophy as extreme and activist.
Republicans have been frustrated by Democratic opposition to Bush administration court choices and Democrats are frustrated by Republican opposition to court choices. Republicans said Goodwin Liu’s writings and testimony showed him to be out of the mainstream.
It seems each Party tries to frustrate the other in this game. What I find interesting is the Republican ideological opposition to ALL Democratic appointees. There is an important difference between opposition based on political opinion and economic interests and an ideological opposition.
The noted New School political philosopher Hannah Arendt states, “ideology differs from a political opinion in that it claims to possess either the key to history, or the solution for all the ‘riddles of the universe,’or the “intimate knowledge” of the hidden universal laws which are suppose to rule nature and man.” Ideology, Arendt argues, with its certainty, is the pattern of thought characteristic of totalitarianism, while “common sense,” with its element of doubt and opinion, characterizes a truly free political realm.
Today’s Republican Party is awash in hard-edged political ideology with its “certainty” and “intimate knowledge” of history.
In 2011-2012, Republicans could be re-branded the “Christian Republican Party.” The center core of Protestant faith has migrated from “Liberal Protestantism” to an entrepreneurial-style, evangelist and fundamentalist faith, which votes heavily on the Republican Row. It was once believed that such sects originated mainly among the religiously neglected poor. Clearly, this is now no longer the case. It has been argued by social scientists that insecurity, differential status and anxiety characterize these religious movements. The effects of the Great Recession and the affects of geographic relocation and workplace displacement have contributed to a sense of anxiety and anomie among the American middle-class.
Historian of sectarian religion have characterized the psychological appeal of fundamentalist religious sects in a way that might as appropriately be applied to extremist politics.
A direct connection between the social roots of political and religious extremism has been observed in a number of countries. It was observed by the American sociologist S. M. Lipset, as early as the 1960s that, “the point here is that rigid fundamentalism and dogmatism are linked to the same underlying characteristics, attitudes, and predispositions which find another outlet in allegiance to extremist political movements.”
Many western democracies have “Christian Democratic Parties,” the US, because it is “exceptional,” has a “Christian Republican Party.”
The rise of the “nouveau fundamentalist Protestant elite” to high leadership positions in the Republican Party needs to be understood as a serious step toward a profound redefinition of church and state in America. The ascendancy of hard-core chronic “know-nothing-ism” and “anti-intellectualism,” so eloquently written about by Columbia historian Richard Hofstadter, and sectarian belief systems, is undoubtedly “exceptional” for a modern mass political party with governmental responsibilities. While it is argued that Europe is experiencing a “crisis of faith,” the United States is experiencing a revivalism parallel with the Second Great Awakening of the 1800s.
The decline of mainstream Methodists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists and Episcopalians as forces affecting the direction of the Republican Party, has been statistically significant, and the rise of “Other Protestants,” and sects, has marked a realignment of voting patterns and political commitment.
The ideological and religious “certainty” of the “Christian Republican Party” is certainly troubling and its oppositional behavior has drifted into a political space characterized by a predisposition to political extremism.
The article,”Every Single One: The Politicized Hiring of Eric Holder’s Special Litigation Section” is Republican ideological bluster or window dressing for obstructionism and pure partisan politics.
Unfortunately, your screed is the kind of tripe leftwing professors give As for, or should that be “for which,” Hell, English is a dead language anyway. The Republican Party isn’t a religious party, that is just lefty meme; it is a party that embraces religious toleration, unlike the Democrat Party. Consequently, most of the time most religious, or at least Christian religious, people vote Republican. The Republican Party is about a strong national defense, a strong economy with a sound dollar, and functional families that support themselves rather than burdening society. Doesn’t seem too much to ask – unless you’re a Democrat.
Lawrence;
In your diatribe you now refer to the Christian Republican Party
I would suggest the Godless Democratic Party is as accurate
“Godless” isn’t the worst part of it… The “NAMBLA” party is more like it. *shiver*
So we now have the anti American ACLU running our justice dept. No wonder Holder would not release this info.
Scary thought: How does one police the top dog who is supposed to be the ‘authority’ on policing everyone else?
We in trouble ya’ll!
Scary thought: How does one police the top dog who is supposed to be the ‘authority’ on policing everyone else?
We’ve got a SPAMMER.
We need a ‘report’ abuse button. OY!
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What did you expect from Dan Holder!
The Obama-Holder DOJ is a intertwined nest of vipers; in fact, the whole Obama administrtion is.
Mr. von Spakovsky rants against the Special Litigation Section of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, pointing out in considerable detail how so many of the staff attorneys have so-called liberal histories. His reasoning is that any person that has worked for an organization that advocates for civil rights or human rights is somehow anti-American or even pro-terrorist. I’ve always thought it was good thing to have people to fight for our civil liberties and promote human rights. Apparently, in conservative-land, there is something wrong with supporting our legal and constitutional rights as laid out in the Bill of Rights, various amendments, the Civil Rights Acts, Americans with Disabilities Act, and any other federal law that protects citizens under our Constitution. So, I guess if “liberals” tend to believe in and support these rights more than conservatives, it would make perfect sense that the “Civil Rights” Division of DOJ would tend to have attorneys who have an interest in and experience with civil rights issues. So I’m guessing that such people with that orientation may tend to be more to the left on the political scale. Ironically, Mr. Von Spakovsky accuses this administration of exactly what the Bush administration actually did in the Civil Rights Division starting in 2002. That was to improperly and illegally hire attorneys based on their conservative orientation and reject those that seemed to have a left of center orientation, as laid out in a DOJ’s Inspection General report in 2008. See: http://www.justice.gov/oig/special/s0901/final.pdf
Although I am not familiar with most of the attorneys mentioned, I am quite familiar with one: Aaron Zisser. Although Mr. von Spakovsky got most of his credentials correct, he errored in his speculation that Mr. Zisser is a member of the American Constitution Society, simply because his Human Rights First blog on Guantanamo (he was there for one week monitoring the trial) was picked up by ACS and posted on their site. Mr. Zisser wasn’t writing for ACS, but for HRF, his employer at the time. The article also conveniently left out the fact that Mr. Zisser, following his graduation with honors from Georgetown Law, completed a federal district court clerkship with a George Bush Sr. appointee. (Are law clerks who work for GOP-appointed judges all right-wingers? Apparently not.)
Additionally, although Mr. Zisser is one of the lawyers of record on the case regarding blocking of access to a clinic in D.C., a legitimate case to which he was assigned, Mr. Zisser has almost exclusively been working on cases regarding the de-institutionalization of people with mental and intellectual and developmental disabilities, so as to improve their quality of life (which also saves state money).
I also know that Mr. Zisser is a man of extremely high integrity who believes strongly in following the law. Unlike Mr. von Spakovsky’s extremely partisan orientation where he attempts to demonize anyone of opposing opinion, Mr. Zisser is well-known to have a thoughtful and reasoned approach in dealing with matters of great importance. He takes his work very seriously. He cares a great deal about protecting the rights of those who have little or no power in our society. Something that our Founding Fathers understood as they wrote the Bill of Rights. I suspect that his many colleagues that you have listed are of the same mind. I find it abit shameful that von Spakovsky twists facts to suit his agenda. But then, it probably pays really well.