Just who is J. Christian Adams?

WorldNetDaily and other Right-wing media outlets are all aflame over the testimony of J. Christian Adams, a former employee of the Department of Justice. In essence, Mr. Adams accuses the DoJ under Attorney General Eric Holder of refusing to investigate claims of civil rights abuses against whites.

I just want to take this opportunity to remind everyone of who J. Christian Adams is. According to MainJustice.com:

Adams was hired in 2005 by then-Civil Rights Division political appointee Bradley Schlozman, according to a person familiar with the situation. Schlozman was found in this joint investigation of the Justice Department’s Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility to have violated civil service rules by improperly taking political and ideological affiliations into account when making career attorney hires.

Before coming to the Justice Department, Adams volunteered with the National Republican Lawyers Association, an offshoot of the Republican National Committee that trains lawyers to fight on the front lines of often racially tinged battles over voting rights.

The report referenced by Main Justice was one of the more staggering indictments of the Bush-era Department of "Just Us."  (New York Times article on the report may be found here.)  It details (with emails and voicemail transcripts) Schlozman's iron grip on hiring in the Special Litigation, Employment Litigation, Voting, Criminal, and Appellate sections of the DoJ's Civil Rights Division:  It also documents Schlozman's forwarding of emails containing racist jokes.  We also find out that Schlozman only wanted "real americans (sic)," not "politburo (sic) members" who'd actually demonstrated some concern over civil rights, and that he actively recruited Federalist Society members.  (Not only did Schlozman innovate the use of one of Sarah Palin's favorite terms, he also apparently tried to start an anti-capitalization fad as well.)


So, guess who hired Adams?

NMC Discusses US Attorney Rumors

I expect most readers of this blog also read NMissCommentator, ably moderated by Oxford attorney Tom Freeland. But in case you don't, Tom has latched onto a website that keeps track of the various rumors surrounding the President's appointment of United States Attorneys for the Federal District Courts. The U.S. Attorney is the equivalent of the State District Attorney: he or she is the chief Federal prosecutor in the District, and also represents the Federal Government in civil suits. Mississippi is divided into a Northern and Southern District for this purpose.

NMC's post about the possible Mississippi nominees is here; a foll-up post is here.

As MainJustice reports:

Here are the names we’ve heard for the Northern District: Circuit Court Judge Thomas Gardner of Tupelo and Oxford attorney Christi McCoy. We’ve heard rumors - but can’t confirm — that McCoy may have hit some kind of snag in the vetting process. Through an aide, all Gardner would say is that he “has no way of confirming” any information about his potential candidacy. McCoy did not return a phone call seeking comment. We also heard Cindy Mitchell of Clarksdale mentioned for the post.

For the Southern District, the names we’ve heard are Kathy Nester, a Jackson attorney; Deborah McDonald, a lawyer in Natchez; and Dorsey Carson of Jackson. Mississippi bloggers have also mentioned Constance Slaughter-Harvey of Forest. Slaughter-Harvey is an old friend of Thompson and was the first black woman to graduate from the University of Mississippi law school.

So, I can't say you heard it here first, but you did hear it here.

Memo to Northside Sun: The DOJ Did Not Cause Segregation

It's fascinating to live in the South during the Post-Civil Rights Era. There are lots of complicated issues about how to turn rhetoric into reality. But the process is delayed by self-serving "leaders" on both sides of the racial divide.

I posted previously about the Jackson Advocate piece written by Rep. Jim Evans, in which two of the late Mayor's opponents were characterized in a stereotyped, derogatory way to suggest that they weren't independent-minded African-Americans but rather "slaves" picked by "the Capitol Street gang."

Now we have Wyatt Emmerich at the Northside Sun, re-writing history on route to endorsing Councilman Crisler. The Sun's editorial says, in part:

One of the great tragedies of Jackson and the Delta is that integration has failed. Whites go to private schools and blacks go to public schools. Sadly, this was partially caused by an ideological federal justice department that shut down successfully integrated neighborhood schools.

Puh-lease. Would this have been the Nixon Administration Justice Department? Yes, it was, in 1970.

Would this have been after the State of Mississippi's lawyers filibustered for so long that the US Supreme Court, in Alexander v. Holmes County Board of Education, said that the time for "deliberate speed" was over and the schools had to be integrated that January? Yep.

Would this have been 94 years after the 1876 debacle that destroyed Reconstruction and delayed racial healing in this country? Yes.

There was no "ideological" Justice Department, Mr. Emmerich. Only one that had to do something because the responsible officials did nothing -- or worse.

But at least the Sun had this to say about hopes for the future:

Mississippi has one great ace in the hole - the common Christian belief of both races.

Earth to Sun: not all Mississippians -- white or black -- are Christian. We can boast of a vibrant Jewish, Muslim, and Hindu presence in our community, not to mention Buddhists and those who doubt the spiritual realm altogether.

Maybe the Sun's editor should go back to promoting Esperanto as the universal language.