Top 10 Ways to Get Yourself Discriminated Against at the DOJ

(Image---What Not to Wear at the DOJ: Organic, eco-friendly, fair trade designer clothing from jonäno, eco chic collections.)

Every now and again I watch a TV show called Numbers. In the show I most recently watched, the math genius guy explained to the FBI agent guy that ripples in a river can prove (a) that a rower is working against the team, and (b) identify which rower it is.

The fictional FBI team used this theory to identify a lone terrorist and stop a nefarious plot to profit from selling arms to Bad People. (I know what you're thinking but no, it wasn't an oblique reference to Him or That; the lone terrorist was a greedy former member of the IRA posing as  Pakistani. Right, much, much more plausible than the Other.) In the show, the math genius guy and his brother the FBI guy argued principles about how things look based on your personal bias (they used a math theory for that, too).

It doesn't take a math genius or an FBI agent to figure out how things look for Esther Slater McDonald, and I don't think it matters which bias you are coming from: her bias and how she used it was illegal. She, and her co-conspirators are the blinders-on partisan Patriots so dedicated to their cause that they don't even realize they are rowing against the team---in this case, the ethics, more, culture, laws, people, way of life, and Constitution of the United States.

Who is Esther Slater McDonald? She was the counsel to Associate Attorney General Bill Mercer at the Department of Justice for thirteen months. While there, she did background checks on job applicants, among other tasks. However, unlike the typical check, she wasn't looking for criminal history. No, she was searching out political leanings---so she could discriminate against applicants and prevent anyone nearing left, liberal, Democrat, green, etc. from getting a job there.

It gets worse.

According to Carrie Johnson's Washington Post article about the findings published in the DOJ Office of the Inspector General's report (pdf)

In one instance, steering committee member Esther Slater McDonald deemed "unacceptable" an applicant who professed admiration for the environmental group Greenaction and passed over another with ties to the Poverty and Race Research Action Council, the report said.

The article goes on to say

Auditors also criticized Michael J. Elston, former chief of staff to the deputy attorney general, for failing to supervise McDonald and for weeding out candidates on his own based on "impermissible considerations."

I wonder what complicated math theory the DOJ used to identify which rowers were working against the team? Actually, more accurately, they were working against the federal law (Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act) and departmental policy

So, in light of these findings in the OIG's report, I've formulated the top ten ways to get yourself discriminated against at the DOJ so long as it is run by jackasses like this who are so committed to their cause, they can't even see that they are dragging the whole rowing team down and causing the skiff to lose the race:

10. Become involved in any anti-discrimination cause or organization. Bonus points if you write or publish in favor of anti-discrimination. Extra super bonus points if you work for or identify yourself as an advocate for equal rights. (I know, the irony. I could choke on it.)

9. Have any kind of affiliation with Planned Parenthood.

8. Be in any way, shape, or form vulnerable to the label Feminist.

7. Participate in an eco-friendly cause. Bonus points if you work against pollution.

6. Put the word 'left' in your Facebook profile. Bonus points if you add 'liberal,' too.

5. Write a law review article about the detention of individuals at Guantánamo, and appear to possibly be on the side of an opinion that might be contrary to the administration, but it's really a matter of interpretation because you don't say exactly.

4. Profess admiration for any environmental group. Bonus points if your tax return reveals deductions for donations to any nonprofit with Green in the name.

3. Demonstrate support for affirmative action. Bonus points if you work against racism and classism simultaneously while fighting poverty

2. Have someone on the Internet refer to you as an anarchist. (Subtract one point if you get called Communist instead.)

And the number one way to get yourself discriminated against at the Department of Justice, Office of Attorney General in the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA---land of the free (so long as you agree with the zealots in power) and home of the brave (easy to bully when you're in power)

1. In your application essay, include so-called "leftist commentary and buzz words like 'environmental justice' and 'social justice." (Source? An email that McDonald herself wrote.)

The investigation is ongoing. McDonald and the others no longer work for the DOJ. McDonald now works for Seyfarth Shaw in D.C., according to TPM. But do you think this leopard changed her spots and learned her lesson? I doubt it.

Maybe if we get a math genius to explain it to her...

Thanks to TPM and Carrie Johnson at the Washington Post for source information.

Julie, who has been called a Communist and a Socialist, believes in parenthood planning and choice, does not believe in -isms especially for race, can document many years of donating to environmental and green causes, and includes the word Liberal with a capital L in her Facebook profile also writes at Using My Words and Moms Speak Up. She does not work at the Department of Justice, and about that says, "Oh well, I hear their family-friendly policies and maternity leave are shit anyway."

Comments

[Glennia]

Damn! Now I know why they won't return my calls.

[Daisy]

Good thing I read this in the evening - I would have choked on my coffee if I'd read it in the morning! I'd never make it by these standards either: I'm a teacher and an NEA (National Education Association) member, the group that was called a "terrorist organization" by a recent Sec. of Education.

[Julie Pippert]

Daisy you RADICAL you. A teacher. We know all about people like you! ;)

Glennia, always a ridiculous explanation for everything.

[cynematic]

I will be glad when we've killed "Leftist-baiting" dead. I'm pretty confident nobody who slings the words "Communist" or "Socialist" as epithets around knows what they mean or can define them.

Although, I guess this means Republicans care nothing for social justice...?

Just when you think the Bush administration can go no lower. They underwhelm, once again.

[Lawyer Mama]

I'd never make it in either. Even before I started writing all my Liberal Propaganda on the Internet, I was a member of the ACLU and NOW. My law review note was a comparison of electronic surveillance laws in Britain and the U.S., pointing out all the problems with the lack of oversight over the FISC. And that was *before* 9/11! (-;

[LizP]

That was funny, scary but funny. Only 207 more days left.