OK, In a Nutshell, Someone Tell Me What the Federalist Society is.

[maxrandb]

[wli]

1. a group of fascist lawyers

They're trying to take over high court appointments and displace the ABA in order to lend legitimacy to their deliberate misinterpretations of the Constitution.

[wtbymark]

2. you should be concerned if he's a member of the Fellowship

that would be harder to find out, but very possible.

[displacedtexan]

3. "Traditional Values" Cabal

Read my current blog post (link is under the burning Bush below). I posted a quote from the Federalist Society's website and a link to the site.

Ted Olson heads the DC chapter... the one Roberts DOESN'T RECALL joining.

[TWiley]

4. I believe it refers to the "Federalist papers"

that are rarely referred to under normal conditions. There is a movement in the South that is called the "Neo-Confederate" movement, and these documents seem to be very important to their views. They used to be an obviously racist organization, but they seem to be trying to change that image lately. At one time, a website called "palmetto.org" seemed to be one of their largest spokesmen.

Check out http://www.tolerance.org/maps/hate/state.jsp?S=SC&m=3 to see how popular this movement is becoming throughout the bible belt.

[maxrandb]

5. Thanks. Went to the Federalist Society Web-site

Talk about taking us back to the "serfdom" of the 19th century.

Pretty scary stuff if you are an American that actually has to work for a living. It seems to me that if this attitude ever reaches majority, we can say goodbye to:

- Workplace Safety Rules
- Child Labor Laws
- Voting Rights
- Civil Rights
- Environmental Protection
- Woman's Rights

and that's just for a start!!

All I can say is that if the above is what a "majority" of Americans vote for, then "fuck America, it's already dead".

[TWiley]

23. Lou Reed would say:

stick a fork in er ass and turn er over. She's done.

If you get to know a bit of their lingo and philosophy, you can see their shit everywhere.

Say hello to a Christian sponsored version of Mouselini's corporatism and kiss your freedoms goodbye.

[fryguy]

6. college republicans who went to law school

and are now conservative lawyers who want judicial activism for issues they support - i.e. things that better the lives of rich white guys - and instead of calling it "activism" they phrase it as strict Constitutional interpretation because clearly a bunch of rich white guys in the 1780s were prescient enough to know exactly how the country should be run some 200 years later.....

[maxrandb]

13. B-E-A-utiful

Love your poignant and dead on description.

"things that better the lives of rich white guys - and instead of calling it "activism" they phrase it as strict Constitutional interpretation because clearly a bunch of rich white guys in the 1780s were prescient enough to know exactly how the country should be run some 200 years later"

That is really what it is all about, isn't it?

Pundits and the MSM roll that "strict constructionist" stuff off their tongues so easliy, you'd swear their tongues are lubed with "santorum".

What I always want to ask is,

- "if we had strict constructionist, would woman have the right to vote"?

- "if we had strict constructionist, would blacks and other slaves still only count as 1/5th a person"?

- "if we had strict constructionist, would 10 year old children still be allowed to work in the coal mines of West virginia?

- "if we had strict constructionist, would we have Social Security"?

- "if we had strict constructionist, would we still have segregated schools?"

- "if we had strict constructionist, would we still have separate drinking fountains for blakcs and whites"?

I really want to know. I wish someone would ask these very obvious questions, instead of simply parrorting "strict constructionist" out of their republican kool-aid lubricated throats.

[RPM]

7. conservative / fascist lawyer & future lawyer circle jerk

they like to get together and complain how liberal their professors are and how they would never make it in the real world.

while in law school, they were the most useless bunch of twits going.

[oneighty]

8. A local lawyer

defending a friend of mine sat at the table in our kitchen drinking coffee discussing the case. In small talk I asked if he was a member of the Federalists. "Yes" he says.

Soon the conversation turned to his family business. He remarked he will be glad when his wealthy grandmother dies so he can quit lawyering.

She died last week. I hope he is happy. Asshole.

180

[Radio_Lady]

9. OT: Love your picture, maxrandb -- must scope out how to get mine smaller

because on my monitor, it's way too big. Any suggestions? Maybe I have to re-size it and then repost it.

[maxrandb]

15. Yes

I had to re-size it and then post it.

By the way, it's a picture of the "late, great, Keith Moon", drummer for The Who. Some say he may have been the greatest drummer ever.

Anyway, it's not a picture of me, but I sometimes get that look on my face when this mis-administration does something idiotic, stupid, evil, decrepit, and vile.

[Radio_Lady]

21. Not familiar with Keith Moon. I just assumed it was you! Sorry --

he's cute, 'though, and the expression says a lot.

I'm getting my husband, a software engineer (or used to be)to re-size it. He likes working with the Paint program. I've done it a little bit, but it's too tedious for me.

Enjoy the day!

[AnnInLa]

10. Quoting from David Brock's "Blinded by the Right" :

"Though we conservatives derided him as a moderate, by ceding legal policy and judicial picks to a network of right-wing lawyers, George Bush (Senior) did much to preserve the dominion of the conservative movement in the 1990s. The right would soon lose control of the executive branch, but the movement would hold sway through control of the nation's top courts. This conunter-revolution in the law, which aimed to roll back decades of liberal jurisprudence in areas such as civil rights, property rights, due process rights and reproductive freedom, was led by members of the Federalist Society, a group of conservative lawyers and academics....Two law students had founded the Fed. Society in the early 1080s; Bush judge-picker Lee Liberman at Yale, and Spencer Abraham at Harvard, both of whom had been frustrated that ideas like separation of powers, strict constructionism, and states' rights were getting short shrift from their more liberal-minded professors. Society affiliates quickly sprang up on campuses around the country.

As the newly minted right-wing lawyers moved to Washington, the society's monthly lunches at a restaurant in D.C.'s Chinatown became a hotbed of political organizing, networking and ritualistic denunciations of the "imperial" liberal judiciary and its rulings. In its literature, the society called for "reordering priorities in the legal system to place a premium on individual liberty, traditional values, and the rule of law." Describing the relationship between the Fed. Society and the GOP, Repub lawyer and special prosecutor Lawrence Walsh, whose Iran-contra convictions of Regan officials for lying and obstructing justice were overturned by Federalist Society judges, likened the group to the "the Communist front groups of the 40s and 50s, whose members were committed to the Communist cause, and subject to Communist direction, but were not members of the Comunist party."

I could easily pick out society members and sympathizers around town, they were the ones wearing fat silk ties with small silhouettes of James Madison on them. In addition to Boyden Gray and Lee Liberman, those affiliated with the society included two Supreme Court Justices, William Rehnquist and Antonin Scalia, and their clerks; at least 4 judges and many of their clerks from the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals---Robert Bork, Laurence Silberman, David Sentelle, and Kenneth Starr, Edwin Meese, Senator Orrin Hatch, Ted Olson. Richard Scaife and other high-dollar individual donors---including Gray, Starr and Olson, who formed the James Madison Club---backed the organization financially. Having failed to elevate Bork, with the Clarence Thomas nomination the society again maneuvered to place another of its own onto the high court, where he would provide a decisive fifth vote for the conservative bloc."

((Yall really have it read this book...it's an eye-opener.))

[MelissaB]

12. Thanks for the quote.

Hubby just read two of Brock's books and keeps telling me to get started. He is now re-reading the Republican Noise machine.

:kick:ing a great thread.

[maxrandb]

16. OT-But I Read Brock's "Republican Noise Machine"

and it scared the hell out of me.

He really lays it all out, how the Repukes have hijacked the media. It made me angry, but it also made me frustrated. By the time I finished it, I felt it would be almost a hopeless endeavor to get back my country.

That's why I say, "when this whole thing shakes out, and Dems are again in power, we will need to deal with Faux, Limbaugh, Hannity, O'Reily, Boortz, Scaife, Murdoch, Coulter, Goldberg, Savage, and all the other little "chicken-hearted, chicken-hawks" on local AM Radio.

I'm not sure how we do it, but I do know this. The world, and the United States did not excuse the Nazi propagandist because they were "just entertainers".

I thought this country had a law against the spreading of propaganda.

[AnnInLa]

17. The Noise Machine is my next "read"

Glad to know it's worth a re-read. I find Brock's work fascinating and easy to understand...I was fortunate enough to hear him speak, then meet him, at the Conf for Media Reform in April.

[TWiley]

24. Now that is a real impressive list of a-holes.

Maybe it qualifies as the a-list of a-holes. Thank you for your illuminating post. I will have to check out the book

[jzodda]

11. Lawyers Society

Conservative attorneys. Not always conservative in the political sense (I know lawyers who are pro choice, fairly socially liberal who are members)

They are conservative in the judicial sense. This means a few things. First it means they do not belive the US Constitution is a document that changes to fit the times. They want Judges to contrue its provisions strictly and literally.

They also take precedant very seriously. Rulings from courts that have come before should be weighed very heavily before even thinking of overturning a ruling. So they give an important nod to history

And lastly they take a hard line against judicial activism. For example they would rather a judge send a case back down, or rule that for a change to be made the legislature would have to take the issue up rather then the judge changing the rule himself from the bench.

In a nutshell thats who they are. Now as a practical matter the society is made up mostly of republican corporate lawyers.

[alfredo]

14. The original Federalist were

against adding the Bill of Rights to the Constitution.

[AnnInLa]

18. Good point....how apt.

[alfredo]

19. Let's face it, the Republicans don't seem to like our constitution.

they are always trying to amend it for one reason or another. I remember when the Repigs got control after the contract on America, over 147 proposed amendments to the constitution were proposed. Reagan did his best to weaken the 4-5-6th amendment.

[lastliberalintexas]

20. Well, the current ones are against the BoR remaining there

:shrug:


They've never cared for civil liberties, I'd say the current crop is even more interested in pushing their pro-corporate agenda, though. The first poster nailed is most succinctly, given the political theorist's definition of fascism.

[librechik]

22. group devoted to the "actual" Constitution (no Bill of Rights)

and determined to remove those Rights from their preferred version of the document by "legal" means.

[Lefty48197]

25. A cabal of right wing conspirators

Their goal is to train right wing lawyers on how to promote the right wing agenda, and then work to get them appointed to a bench. Any bench. Anywhere.
The Federalist Society has a list of "dependable" right wing judges that Republicans across the country refer to when trying to get a right winger onto a bench.

[Lefty48197]

26. Was "Nutshell" and Federalist Society a pun?

If so, then it was a pretty good one!

Here's some links:

http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/hijakjustice.html

http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=3149

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2000/0003.landay.html