IG Report: Bush DOJ Stacked Honors Program With Young GOPers

[babylonsister]

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/06/todays_must_read_355.php


The first in a series of inspector general reports investigating the politicization of the Justice Department is expected today, and the Washington Post has a sneak peek.

The report to be released today by DOJ Inspector General Glenn Fine will, according to the Post, chronicle how young conservative law students were favored hires in stocking the DOJ's prestigious -- and heretofore non-partisan -- Honors Program.

Under former Attorney General John Ashcroft, oversight for the Honors Program, which had traditionally been the responsibility of senior career officials, fell under the purview of Ashcroft's key political advisers.

The honors program, which each year places about 150 law school graduates with top credentials in a rotation of Justice jobs, historically had operated under the control of senior career officials. Shifting control of the program to Ashcroft's advisers prompted charges of partisanship from law professors and former government lawyers who had worked under Democratic administrations.

Critics complained that the honors program favored conservative applicants, and turned down highly qualified prospects because of left-leaning affiliations:

One Harvard Law School graduate said that when he applied for the honors program a few years ago he was warned by professors and fellow students to remove any liberal affiliations from his résumé.

Concerned Justice employees also raised alarms last year by sending a letter to lawmakers who had been examining whether political considerations led to the dismissal of nine U.S. attorneys.

more...

[TooBigaTent]

1. Does anyone think that the Dems, IF they take over the reins of power, will do anything

to undo the harm and destruction that the pukes have created?

I would love to see the weapons the Bushistas have gathered for themselves used against them for the next four years. With extreme prejudice.

But "our" pols do not have the courage to actually fight them. So, they will cave, (maybe) complain about the abuse, and give up the power WE give them.

[Peace Patriot]

4. Well, I do think that's a problem--we get a choice between fairness and fascism.

Not much of a choice. The choice USED TO BE between fairness on an un-level playing field (where the rich have the advantage, but the poor have a chance--i.e., Republicanism (in the Old Republic)--and fairness on the more level playing field of the "New Deal" (workers rights, education, help for the poor, the sick and the elderly, development of "the commons," government mitigation of predatory capitalism, etc. - the Democratic Party program prior to the Reagan-Clinton-Bush era).

Now we have a choice between a vertical playing field where the poor are simply dumped into the abyss and the rich have their own playground (global corporate predation)--the new multinational Nazi party--and that old un-level playing field where the rich have the advantage and the poor have a chance (Obama's "win/win" corporate P.R. thing).

I have to laugh when they call Bushitism "conservative." It's very radical--nearly as radical as Hitler was. And when you factor in the Saudis (Bush/U.S. financiers, who stone 'bad' women to death), and people like rightwing billionaire Howard Ahmanson (who gave one million dollars to the extremist 'christian' Chalcedon foundation, which touts the death penalty for homosexuals, and, oh, incidentally, is also the initial funder and major investor in ES&S, one of three electronic voting corporations, along with Diebold, who are now 'counting' all our votes with 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code, and virtually no audit/recount controls), and the Bushites' pals in Colombia (who chainsaw union leaders and throw their body parts into mass graves), and the TOTAL PICTURE of Bushitism--torturing thousands of prisoners, slaughtering one million innocent people to get their oil, spying on all of us, ripping up habeas corpus and other "quaint" provisions of the Constitution, etc. etc., how far are we from having a "choice" between an un-level playing field on which the poor at least get to live, if miserably, and outright Hitlerism, in which select groups get incinerated for the benefit of the rich?

I'm talking about the American poor, now--not unworthy-of-mention Iraqis. Us. And what kind of "choice" is that?

Something's wrong with this picture. And it is this: When your choices are narrowed to a choice between torture and death, on the one hand, and a near vertical, but not quite 90 degree tilted playing field, on the other, can you really be said to have a "choice"?

[alcibiades_mystery]

2. These people would politicize the audience of a beach volleyball game if they could

That they stacked the DOJ with their sub-standard little apparatchiks is not at all surprising to anyone. The fucking ax should drop on many of these no-talent sycophants once their ridiculous sinecures are exposed to the light of day in January.

[Peace Patriot]

3. Affirmative action for Bushites! And, boy, do they need it! The stupid rich need

preferential treatment and lots and lots of government welfare to get anywhere in this world. In a fair and democratic system, intelligence, talent, creativity and character naturally rise to the top and gain positions of influence and power. It takes fascism for the stupid rich to rise, and then everything goes to hell--as it has. The stupid, preferred, welfare-rich assholes have run the country right into the ground.

[babylonsister]

5. And it's going to take a lot of digging to get us out of that hole. nt