WHAT IS THE RIGHT POLITICAL LITMUS TEST?

JUST WHAT IS THE LIBERAL LITMUS TEST?

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GOOD MORNING FLINT!
BY Terry Bankert 6/25/08
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** REFLECTIONS: It should offend everyone that we do not have neutral professional in the U.S. Department of Justice...... Prosecutorial ACTIVISM ....is much worse that ACTIVISM from the judiciary.[trb] ***

“When it comes to the hiring of nonpartisan career attorneys, our system of justice should not be corrupted by partisan politics,” said Representative John Conyers Jr., the Michigan Democrat who is chairman of the Judiciary Committee. “It appears the politicization at Justice was so pervasive that even interns had to pass a partisan litmus test.”[n]

NO JUSTICE IN THIS JUSTICE DEPARTMENT..IN HIRING AND FIRING... Justice Department officials blocked liberals and people with Democratic Party ties from a highly selective program that funneled young lawyers into government jobs, according to an internal investigation released Tuesday.[c] Investigators are also looking into whether those firings were prompted by partisan political reasons, whether former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and his aides misled Congress, and whether civil-rights and voting-rights cases were politicized. Those studies could be issued soon, according to lawyers following the issues.[s] Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, now under investigation for allegedly politicizing the Justice Department, ousted a top lawyer for failing to adopt the administration's position on torture and then promised him a position as a U.S. attorney to placate him, highly placed sources tell ABC News. [A2]

ITS OKAY TO BREAK THE LAW TO KEEP THEM LEFTISTS OUT The report, prepared by the Justice Department’s own inspector general and its ethics office, portrays a clumsy effort by senior Justice Department screeners to weed out candidates for career positions whom they considered “leftists,” using Internet search engines to look for incriminating information or evidence of possible liberal bias. [n]

IDEOLOGICAL!, WE WANT JUSTICE LAWYERS BRED OUR WAY... Justice Department officials illegally used "political or ideological" factors in elite recruiting programs in recent years, tapping law-school graduates with conservative credentials over more qualified candidates with liberal-sounding résumés, an internal report found Tuesday.[S] Scores of highly credentialed young lawyers and law students were denied interviews for coveted positions at the Justice Department because of an illegal screening process that took political and ideological views and affiliations into account rather than merit, Justice Department investigators concluded in a report released Tuesday.[l] Both Justice Department policy and federal law prohibit discrimination in hiring for career positions on the basis of political affiliations.[c] The Democratic-controlled Congress has been engaged in battle for months with the White House over information about the dismissal of the attorneys and the prosecution of Siegelman. [c2] Current and former White House aides have refused to testify, citing executive privilege.[c2]

INSPECTOR GENERAL IS NOW A WHISTLE BLOWER Esther Slater McDonald, a political appointee at the Justice Department, "wrote disparaging statements about the candidates' liberal and Democratic Party affiliations on the applications she reviewed and ... she voted to deselect candidates on that basis," said the report by Inspector General Glenn Fine. McDonald, who has left the department, refused to be interviewed for the investigation.[c]

GOOGLE YOUR OWN NAME, HIGH SCHOOL POSTING CAN COST YOU YOUR ADULT JOB... The report, prepared by the Justice Department's own inspector general and its ethics office, tells how senior department screeners weeded out candidates for career positions whom they considered "leftists," using Internet search engines to look for incriminating information or evidence of possible liberal bias.[s]

NEW LAWYER SET UP TO TAKE THE FALL Much of the report's focus is on a 2003 law school graduate, Esther Slater McDonald, who was hired as a counsel to acting Associate Atty. Gen. William Mercer in June 2006 after being recommended by former Gonzales aide Goodling. Despite her inexperience, McDonald was named to the three-person committee that decided which applicants recommended by department sections would get interviews for the highly competitive intern and honors jobs. [l]

WHAT DO CLINTON, PARENTHOOD AND MYSPACE HAVE IN COMMON?...NO JOB... One rejected candidate from Harvard Law School worked for Planned Parenthood. Another wrote opinion pieces critical of the USA Patriot Act and the nomination of Samuel Alito Jr. to the Supreme Court. A third applicant worked for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and posted an unflattering cartoon of President Bush on his MySpace page.[s]

BUSH DID NOT WANT THE BEST AND THE BRIGHTEST..ONLY THE CONSERVATIVE BRAIN WASHED(ASSUMING THERE IS ONE) AND COMPLIANT Other students or graduates brushed aside include a University of Alabama law graduate, ranked sixth in the class, who had written a paper on the detention of foreigners under the USA Patriot Act; a Yale Law School graduate who was fluent in Arabic; and a Georgetown law student who had worked for Sen. John F. Kerry's presidential campaign.[l]

ONLY JONES (WHITE BREAD)UNIVERSITY LIKE, ALMA MATTER NEED APPLY Another applicant, a student at the top of his class at Harvard who was fluent in Arabic, was relegated to the “questionable” pile because he was a member of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a group that advocates civil liberties. And another rejected candidate said in his essay that he was “personally conflicted” about the National Security Agency’s program of wiretapping without warrants. [n]

CAREER PROSECUTOR POLITICALIZED The report, the first official investigation to document politicization of the Justice Department during the Bush administration, is an offshoot of the larger investigation of Justice Department politics triggered by the furor over the firing of nine U.S. attorneys.[c] Justice Department officials illegally used “political or ideological” factors in elite recruiting programs in recent years, tapping law school graduates with Federalist Society membership or other conservative credentials over more qualified candidates with liberal-sounding résumés, an internal report found Tuesday. [n]

BUSH’S BRAIN TO GET LOBOTOMY! The House Judiciary Committee served a subpoena on former top Bush aide Karl Rove on Thursday to compel his testimony concerning allegations that the Department of Justice had dismissed U.S. attorneys based on party affiliation.[c2]

BUSH ADMINISTRATION ROTTEN TO THE CORE It found two of three members of a screening committee considered political views and experience when choosing new lawyers for the Justice Department Honors Program and Summer Law Intern Program.[c] The report found that McDonald and Michael Elston, the chief of staff to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, engaged in misconduct, an administrative violation. The third member of the screening committee, career lawyer Dan Fridman, was cleared of any involvement in the politicization of the process.[c] Elston was interviewed by the investigators, who asked him about the role of former Justice Department official Monica Goodling in politicizing the selection process.[c]

THIS MICHAEL SAYS NO WACKOS TO APPLY...HERE..TRY THE WHITE HOUSE IN 2008 The report also notes that Michael Elston, former deputy chief of staff to the deputy attorney general, told a member of the search committee to weed out "Wackos" and "Wack Jobs." [a]

FROM THE LOWEST TO HIGHEST RINGS OF POWER ACCOUNTABILITY IS AT HAND. The committee ordered Rove to appear July 10 to testify on claims that he was a key player in pressing the Justice Department to dismiss some U.S. attorneys and to prosecute Democrats.[c2]

ROVE WILL NOT VOLUNTARILY HONOR A SUBPOENA TO TESTIFY, CONGRESS DOES NOT HAVE ENOUGH AUTHORITY GIVEN CARLS.... STATUS It had authorized the subpoena earlier but delivered it Thursday after Rove's attorney said he would not appear voluntarily, Chairman John Conyers, D-Michigan, said in a written statement.[c2] "It is unfortunate that Mr. Rove has failed to cooperate with our requests," Conyers said. "Although he does not seem the least bit hesitant to discuss these very issues weekly on cable television and in the print news media, Mr. Rove and his attorney have apparently concluded that a public hearing room would not be appropriate. Unfortunately, I have no choice today but to compel his testimony on these very important matters."[c2] "Today's report confirms that the Bush administration was engaged in a deliberate effort to inject partisan politics into the administration of justice," said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. The honors and summer intern programs, he said, "were made into a recruitment firm for conservatives, rewarding ideology with career advancement."[l]

LYERS IN THE RANKS Elston told investigators he could not recall Goodling telling him to select lawyers who appeared to share Attorney GeneralAlberto Gonzales' philosophy. Goodling testified before a House panel last year that she had told Elston he should identify such candidates.[c] Goodling directed Elston to lead the selection committee in 2006. She and Elston have both left the Justice Department. She refused to be interviewed for the inspector general's report.[c]

OOPPSEY DAISY..BETTER CHANGE THE POLICY.. As a result of the controversy, the hiring process was changed in 2007 to insulate hiring decisions from political considerations.[c] Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who replaced Gonzales last year, said Tuesday that using politics in hiring career lawyers was "impermissible and unacceptable" and that the department had taken steps to fix the problems. The report recommended further tightening of internal policies, which Mukasey said he would welcome.[s]

IT IS AGAINST LAW AND POLICY.... Both Justice Department policy and federal law prohibit discrimination in hiring for career positions on the basis of political affiliations.[c] The report did not find clear evidence that an earlier screening committee took political considerations into account. It says data from 2002 shows a disparity in the hiring of liberal and conservative candidates, but there were no complaints about the committee's work from 2003 to 2006, when Goodling put Elston in charge of the process.[c]

A REVIEW UNDERWAY RE: OUR CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICAN , IN BRED WHITE BREAD, NON-JUSTICE DEPARTMENT The report Tuesday is the first of perhaps several to be issued as the broad-ranging investigation into the role partisan politics has played in the Justice Department during the Bush [c] administration.[c]

JUST AS LONG AS THEY SPELL HIS NAME RIGHT Goodling is expected to be a central figure in later inspector general reports examining efforts to increase the influence of conservatives in the department.[c]

JOINERS... The Justice Department Office of Professional Responsibility, a separate watchdog office that monitors prosecutorial conduct, joined in the inspector general's investigation. [c]

GOOD PEOPLE ON THE INSIDE STARTED THIS REVIEW Allegations about improper hiring practices in the programs surfaced in an anonymous April 2007 letter sent to Congress signed by "A Group of Concerned Department of Justice Employees." The claim prompted the internal review. [a]

–END Posted here by Terry Bankert ... 06/25/08
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—where did this stuff come from---
[c] CNN http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/06/24/justice.investigation/
[c2] CNN http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/05/22/rove.conyers/index.html
[s] SEATTLE TIMES http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2008015893_justice25.html
[l] LA Times http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-justice25-2008jun25,0,1683417.story
[TRB] Comments of Terry Bankert to include CAP headlines. http://attorneybankert.com/
[n] The New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/25/washington/25justice.html?hp
[a] ABC NEWS http://www.abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/DOJ/story?id=5234656&page=1
[a2] ABC NEWS http://www.abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=5202405&page=1

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