Yesterday, went looking around at other web sites and visited the Federalist site...When you look at the attorneys on this site and match the names together with the Republican Attorney Ass. web site..there are many of the same people and then when you match the names at the AG office, well again the match is there but if you dig deeper, names all over this administration match!

Your right, no surprise but alarming!

I wrote "subpoenas", though I think it's more accurate to say "requests".

a commenter at think progress asked...

Indeed, the Federalist Society is a conservative organization. However, the fact that some of the U.S. attorneys have elected to become members of the organization is not indicative of anything other than their conservative beliefs.

What else would you expect from a conservative administration? Liberal members?

I cannot agree with those who are basically moralizing conservative and conservatism as something bad or evil, for I believe that corruption knows no political persuasion. Indeed, I would hope that this site would be equally zealous in its pursuit of wrongdoing if this were a liberal administration.

The Bush Administration has also shown an overwhelming preference for NEO CONS and Christianists.
Code "Please" as in "Oh, Pleeeease!"

However, the fact that some of the U.S. attorneys have elected to become members of the organization is not indicative of anything other than their conservative beliefs.

Would it change your mind any if you knew that FS membership was a column on the USAtty ratings sheets compiled by grunts Sampson and Goodling? Which it was...

I believe one of the basic tenets of Constitutional law promoted by the Federalist Society is the notion of the unitary executive, which brings with it the idea that the UE is the sole arbiter of Federal law so whatever the UE does is by definition lawful, and presumably of course anyone working for the UE would also fall into this category. There are at least 2 members of the SCOTUS who likely subscribe to this notion.

With reference to the post by profmarcus, I think being identified with the ACLU is different, because of how it's perceived. Most people even know that the ACLU has defended groups and people at both ends of the political spectrum.

But the Federalist Society? That's pretty secretive. We even had a Supreme Court nominee last year say he didn't remember being a member even though he was on list of members.

I'd just like those people to be upfront with us.

ah, memories...

MR. LIEBERMAN: Yes, well, that's the sort of blinkered, philistine pig ignorance I've come to expect from you non-creative garbage. You sit there on your loathsome, spotty behinds squeezing blackheads, not caring a tinker's cuss for the struggling jurist. You excrement! You whining, hypocritical toadies, with your RNC Blackberries and your Tom DeLay Scottish golf junkets and your bleeding secret Society handshakes! You wouldn't let ME join, would you, you blackballing bastards! Well, I wouldn't become a Federalist now if you went down on your lousy, stinking knees and begged me!

DOJ AGENT SAMPSON: Well, we're sorry you feel like that, but we, um, did... want... a *compliant* USA. Nice though this "Bill of Rights" thing sounds. Huh huh.

MR. LIEBERMAN: Oh, SOD the bleeding Bill!!!

(He dashes forward and kneels in front of them.)

That's not important, but if one of you could put in a word for me, I'd love to be a Federalist. The Society opens doors. I mean, um, I-- I was a bit on edge just now, but-- but if I was a Federalist, I'd just sit at the back and not get in anyone's way.

DOJ AGENT GOODLING: Thank you.

MR. LIEBERMAN: I've got a second-hand Skull & Bones lapel-pin....

DOJ AGENT SAMPSON: Thank you.

(Mr. Lieberman hurries to the door but stops...)

MR. LIEBERMAN: I nearly got in at Regent...

DOJ AGENT GOODLING: THANK you...

[Security Code 'bent', as in "Get..."]

I hate to toot my own horn, but you know the old saying. And besides, the follow is so relevant to this discussion.
I typed the following out the other day from a book by Eric Hoffer, that warm and fuzzy writer that Dwight Eisenhower was enamored with and that Ronald Reagan awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Yeah, that guy. This is from "True Believer".
Intensity of conviction is not the main factor which compels a movement to spread its faith to the four corners of the earth: “Religions of great intensity often confine themselves to contemning, destroying, or at best pitying what they see in themselves.”Nor is the impulse to proselytize an expression of an overabundance of power which as Bacon has it “is like a great flood, that will be sure to overflow.”

The missionary zeal seems rather an expression of some deep misgiving, some pressing feeling of insufficiency at the center. Proselytizing is more a passionate search for something not yet found than a desire to bestow upon the world something we already have. It is a search for a final and irrefutable demonstration that our absolute truth is indeed the one and only truth.

The proselytizing fanatic strengthens his own faith by converting others. The creed whose legitimacy is most easily challenged is likely to develop the strongest proselytizing impulse. It is doubtful whether a movement which does not profess some preposterous and patently irrational dogma can be possessed of that zealous drive which “must either win men or destroy the world.”

It is also plausible that those movements with the greatest inner contradiction between profession and practice — that is to say with a strong feeling of guilt — are likely to be the most fervent in imposing their faith on others. The more unworkable communism proves in Russia, and the more its leaders are compelled to compromise and adulterate the original creed, the more brazen and arrogant will be their attack on a non-believing world.

The slaveholders of the South became the more aggressive in spreading their way of life the more it became patent that their position was untenable in a modern world. If free enterprise becomes a proselytizing holy cause, it will be a sign that its workability and advantages have ceased to be self evident.

The passion for proselytizing and the passion for world dominion are both perhaps symptoms of some serious deficiency at the center. It is probably as true as a band of apostles or conquistadors as it is of a band of fugitives setting out for a distant land that they escape from an untenable situation at home. And how often indeed do the three meet, mingle and exchange their parts.

click on my link to see the whole post

code word not *gangrene* but I think it should be added as one.

There is a huge difference between the ACLU or the ABA and the Federalist Society. The Federalist society is dedicated to imposing a specific, insanely stupid view of the law (original intent) on the rest of us. The ABA is used to rate lawyers for higher office and does so impartially.

Totally and utterly OT, but I just noticed that Ann Coulter is running ads on TPM. How nice. I assume every time some interested person clicks her ad, TPM makes a little money. Hmm...

Mark F.
It's not just Anne Coulter, there are plenty of other right wing sites like that showing up here. I'm not doing it for TPM, I'm doing it for the pure self satisfaction of doing it, and of course, just plain curiosity to keep it honest, although glad to help out when I can.

Codeword: much

These people aren't just fascist. They've got the missionary zeal of the Stalinists.
A dangerous combination, though.

Codeword: garden as in the garden of Eden is where they thought they were at.

A True Howler

Vice President's Remarks at the Federalist Society's National Convention, November 17, 2006

[snip]

No modern organization has been so effective in promoting respect for the separation of powers, federalism, and the topic of this conference, limited government.

The Federalist Society stands firm, as well, for the principle that courts exist to exercise not the will of men but the judgment of law.

Federal judges are appointed for life and serve outside the democratic process.

Therefore they have a duty to pursue no agenda or platform -- and to leave politics to those who run for office and answer to the people.

As a great American put it, judges are to be "servants of the law, not the other way around." And those are the words of Chief Justice John Roberts, one of the many superb nominees chosen by President George W. Bush. (Applause.)

...But only two or three of the 93 USAs, all chosen by Bush, are actually members...

That can't be true. Off the top of my head I can thing of, oh, 6 USAs that are FS members. Now, I can see they might want to drop their membership shortly before getting appointed or just not mention their membership or whatever but I'd guess that most of the current USAs have been members at some point. Odd all around.

"It's been apparent that Federalist Society membership was all but a prerequisite to work in the Bush Justice Department."

This is like saying:

"It's been apparent that Communist Party membership was all but a prerequisite to work in the Soviet Ministry of Justice."

All totalitarian (or would-be totalitarian) enterprises are essentially run using the same handbook.

Still the two questions remain (1) why is membership in the Federalist Society listed at all in the column head on the chart? (2) why are so few USA's identified as members?

We've all been speculating about (1) presumably being a plus in whatever rating scheme because of its radical leanings. That being the case, it would follow that no USA was kept on board or dismissed on that basis. Ceertainly not based on this chart.

Jeffersonrollsinhisgrave is on target re: Fed.Soc. aims

A good overview is wikipedia..
Neocons want to put this country back to the '50's..and many of the judges both Bush's picked, are members thus share the same idealism.
Read up on it, then decide.
the Society is a key player in this Admin.
btw...Nimbus, in a related TMP comment section, provies this info. abuot Sampson's lawyer:
"Berenson, like John Yoo and some other lawyers advising the president, was a member of the Federalist Society and had clerked for U.S. Appeals Court Judge Lawrence H. Silberman. This is the edited transcript of an interview conducted on July 14, 2005.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/torture/interviews/berenson.html

I heard this guy interviewed on BBC radio and he's scary."
end Ninbus quote

Jillian, great post. Uzbekistan or Kyrgystan get my vote, cw: "pain."

"Rather than assist the left in creating a conservative bogeyman, here is a user-friendly defense of the Federalist Society: Again, the words are Orrin Hatch's. The Federalist Society stands for three propositions, he said: "that government's essential purpose is the preservation of freedom; that our Constitution embraces and requires separation of governmental powers; and that judges should interpret the law, not write it. For the vast majority of Americans, these are not controversial issues."
As Orrin Hatch concluded in his speech three years ago: The Federalist Society is "not quite the vast right-wing conspiracy hobgoblin some [Democrats] would have the American people believe." And it's nothing that a Republican White House should appear to repudiate.

Mr. Miranda, former counsel to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, is founder and chairman of the Third Branch Conference, a coalition of grassroots organizations following judicial issues. His column appears on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays."

This is a quote from P.O'Neil's reference. I'm not sure what his point is, but I know when Orin Hatch speaks up, and Bill Frist's former counsel defends it, its time to worry. These people are dead serious, NOT crazy, and willing to push the envelope. Be afraid. Be very, very afraid.

If anyone has any spare time on their hands for reading, pick up a copy of True Believer by Eric Hoffer.

One of Hoffer's stated aims in writing the book was to analyze how Nazi Germany came to be. Hoffer's analytical writing and concise writing is heady stuff, but you will be amazed at the parallels to what we have seen with the spate of "think tanks" and similar entities, like the Federalist Society, that exist today. It's all laid out in Hoffer's book.

..An American’s hatred for a fellow American (for Hoover or Roosevelt) is far more virulent than any antipathy he can work up against foreigners. It is of interest that the backward South shows more xenophobia than the rest of the country. Should Americans begin to hate foreigners wholeheartedly, it will be an indication that they have lost confidence in their way of life.

....

Fanatic Christianity puts its imprint upon the ancient world both by gaining adherents and by evoking in its pagan opponents a strange fervor and a new ruthlessness. Hitler imposed himself upon the world by promoting Nazism and by forcing the democracies to become zealous, intolerant and ruthless. Communist Russia shapes both its adherents and its opponents in its own image.

Thus, though hatred is a convenient instrument for mobilizing a community for defense, it does not, in the long run, come cheap. We pay for it by losing all of the values we set out to defend.

It is impeach or secede. There is no chance they are going to give this up. There has been too much thought and effort given over this effort. Instead of making gov't work for us, they botch justice, katrina, iraq, no child left behind, immigration, campaign finance reform, corporate welfare, lobbyist influence to the point of absurdity, there is NO WAY to finish this list!

WTF? Impeach the Deleter, I mean the Decider! This has gone WAY too far.

code: wind as in kamikaze

Jeffersonrollsinhisgrave and Jillian are on point. The majority of my former law school classmates and professors were members of the Federalist Society. Some held leadership positions within the national organization and eventually ended up at DoJ and other federal entities. Most were staunch strict constructionists with well-planned agendas, financial resources, and occasional "stare decisis" tattoos. Frankly, they scared me to death...and I'm a Republican from the South.

wls

or you could look up this one:
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/03/08/unitary_executive_or_autocracy.php

An excerpt:
The administration has offered as its blanket defense to the charge of law-breaking an updated version of Richard Nixon’s “When the president does it, that means it’s not illegal.” George W. Bush’s authority as commander in chief of the armed forces, they tell us, means that he can ignore any law he pleases if he finds some connection to national security. In the case of Jose Padilla, they argued that the president has the sole discretion to decide who is an “enemy combatant,” and if he so chooses he can have an American citizen seized in Chicago and thrown into prison for life with no trial. If he finds the FISA law inconvenient or outdated, he is under no obligation to come to the legislative branch to change the law; he can simply choose to ignore it. As Bush explained, “The FISA law was written in 1978. We’re having the discussion in 2006. It’s a different world.” Indeed.

Academic concept? Indeed.

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