and look how well that turned out

... his daddy bought his parchment at Yale.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Bush#Early_life_and_education

President Obama is a Harvard grad.

His undergrad grades weren't good enough for the U. of Texas, so Harvard took in the grandson of a former senator and son of a Congressman.

Sounds like a meteoric rise for this turd from the Arkansas branch of the BFEE.

and has built his career/ money support and credentials to run for president in 2020

You need to read up on him he worries me more than Cruz.
I would suggest reading the Atlantic article on him, he's like someone's real Manchurian candidate.

to see what he sez about himself and Firefox threw up a ton of warnings about how the site was not secure.

Is it being hacked? Is he an alien plant readying us for the takeover?

Never forget "To Serve Mankind"

I even reinstalled it to no avail. Then I run my antivirus and malwarebytes but my computer is clean. I'd love to know what the issue is since I like being able to use all browsers.

to a frat. That would go a long way in explaining why these law firms were interested in him at least for a little while.

That's the power of a federal clerkship, especially at the Court of Appeals level. Nothing more. You can punch your own ticket more or less anywhere if you get a clerkship like that.

The very short stays at a couple of top-shelf firms are very odd, though.

Amazing how this klown could spend all that time at Harvard and not learn a goddam thing. I met some assholes at HLS, but never anyone stupid or even close to it.

groups.

But a C of A clerkship is extremely precious coin that has no peer when looking for a legal job. Only thing better is a SCOTUS clerkship. Both are also a way to fast-track into legal academia.

lawyers.

and gave it all up to be an infantry platoon leader.

Did he have an awakening that the law wasn't for him, or did the law realize that he was too much of an arrogant asshole for even the law?

I checked my files on them when they were representing Christie in the George Washington Bridge scandal and questions were raised about a possible conflict of interest.

Beyond that, however, what Cotton's series of jobs suggests to me is that he may have been being groomed right out of law school for a leading role in right-wing politics. In that case, the jumps from clerking to one law firm to another and then to the infantry would have been a carefully arranged agenda to position him to become what he is now -- the youngest member of the Senate at the age of 37 and a rising GOP star.

This is not a conspiracy theory. It's simply what the right does. They have the funds and the high-level connections to advance their own people at an age when young liberals are still struggling to earn a living and repay their student loans. You can see it in the case of James O'Keefe and his pals, who were alumni of the network of well-funded right-wing campus newspapers and were then subsidized in making their smear videos against the left.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibson,_Dunn_%26_Crutcher

The firm's best-known attorneys and alumni include former United States Solicitors General Theodore Olson and Ken Starr, Eugene Scalia, and Miguel Estrada. . . .

The firm is representing Chevron in its long-running, $27 billion environmental dispute in Ecuador. ... The firm is defending Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. in the landmark $11 billion employment discrimination class action Dukes v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. ... The firm is representing the Dole Food Company in a multi-billion dollar toxic tort suit in Nicaragua involving allegations of farmworker sterility stemming from Dole's use of certain pesticides. ... Current partner Theodore Olson served as lead counsel for George W. Bush in Bush v. Gore, which secured Bush's election as President of the United States.

it, and for greater visibility? think this information is important.

Maybe someone with greater visibility can compile the information from this thread in general and start a new one.

Many new associates find big law is not for them (long hours, as in 85-100 hours easy per week and boring work, doc review mostly), but they want to stay long enough for that big salary to pay their student loans and set themselves up with a purchased house or apartment (at least a big portion of it).

They then get a job as in house corporate counsel for some corporation and have a regular 9-5 schedule or open their own firm.

What's a little more unusual is going from big law into a non legal career and position, but that happens too.

The time to look into is his time at the smaller firm. Chances are he was doing more regular lawyer work there and not just doc review. Either he was terrible at being a lawyer or decided he hated it or both.

position, since he has shown in his legislative career that he has NO understanding of the constitution.

what he is talking about Constitutionally. He doesnt seem to know much about anything quite frankly.

I mentioned all of this in a tongue and cheek section on my show tonight.

I don't find much on Cooper & Kirk in my files -- but one thing that turns up is that the firm's Charles Cooper donated $1000 to the Republican National Lawyers Association on February 23, 2004. That's the group whose name comes up repeatedly in connection with GOP voter suppression tactics, and at some point around then Karl Rove addressed them to tell them what a good job they were doing.

Cotton got his law degree in June 2002 and joined the Army in January 2005 -- so this donation would have been either while he was at Cooper & Kirk or around the time he joined them. Either way, it seems quite possible that he was involved with the RNLA then.

In fact, I find some photos of him addressing an RNLA luncheon a year ago: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10153851017650618.1073741845.58343725617&type=3. And there's a mention of the event at http://www.rnla.org/Newsletter/ViewArticle.asp?ArticleID=436 which seems to be saying he was an RNLA member.

Another interesting point is that between graduating from Harvard College and starting at Harvard Law School, Cotton had a fellowship at the Claremont Institute and attended Claremont Graduate University.

Claremont is a well-known old-line conservative bastion. It has multiple ties to the Heritage Foundation. Howard Ahmanson -- the wealthy Dominionist funder -- was on their board of directors. And so forth.

And here I find something saying, "Representative Tom Cotton (R-AR) interned at Townhall.com, which was then a Heritage project, in 1997 while an undergraduate at Harvard. Inspired by Heritage, he spent a year at the Claremont Graduate School, before going to law school and joining the military after 9/11."
http://dailysignal.com/2013/01/28/why-you-want-to-be-a-heritage-intern-summer-internships/

So it's really starting to add up that Cotton was part of the Heritage nexus as early as his undergraduate years and has been steadily moved up the chain of command ever since.

I don't have time to dig into this as deeply right now as it deserves, but here are some tidbits. It's significant that Cooper is a Southerner, a traditionalist, and someone with roots in the Reagan administration -- since that fits the profile of the Heritage/Claremont nexus in general. It's also interesting that he was defending Prop. 8, which was Howard Ahmanson's baby. (See http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2008/11/03/the-man-behind-proposition-8.html)

And I should emphasize again that the important thing about these specific people and groups is not that they're conservative but that they have a history of developing long-term agendas to take power and grooming young conservatives to carry them out.


http://www.rnla.org/Newsletter/ViewArticle.asp?ArticleID=412

On February 7th, 2012, Charles Cooper, the Vice-Chair of the RNLA, spoke before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce regarding the recent recess appointments made by President Obama. At the hearing, Mr. Cooper explained that the President’s actions were an unprecedented attack on our country’s cherished system of checks and balances, and that the President exceeded his constitutional authority in making the appointments.

Charles Cooper, who currently works as a partner at the law firm of Cooper & Kirk, PLLC, has been a student of the constitution throughout his esteemed career. He served as Assistant Attorney General of the Office of Legal Counsel to the Department of Justice under President Reagan, and he subsequently was involved in several benchmark Supreme Court and Federal Court involving the constitutional separation of powers.


http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887323466204578382792759517454

The face of the argument against gay marriage in the Supreme Court on Tuesday will be a lawyer with a genteel Southern tone and a record of championing conservative causes, including preserving gun rights and limiting affirmative action and gay rights.

Charles J. Cooper will defend Proposition 8, the gay-marriage ban California voters passed in 2008. He is less well known than his opponent, Ted Olson, a fellow conservative who shocked both sides when he challenged Proposition 8 in 2009 on behalf of two same-sex couples, saying it violated the Constitution.

Mr. Cooper's low profile is partly by design, say people who have worked with the 61-year-old Alabama native, known as Chuck. He has avoided discussing this case in the media, and his argument is rooted in deeply conservative views of both the justice system and the historical definition of marriage, they say. Keeping with his practice since the case began, Mr. Cooper declined an interview with The Wall Street Journal. . . .

"Chuck is a traditionalist," said Kenneth Starr, who was independent counsel during the administration of Bill Clinton and is now president of Baylor University. Mr. Starr has been a friend of Mr. Cooper's since they worked together in the Ronald Reagan administration.

A big powerful nasty light!

When you run for office. I think his path has been all about the votes.

It is easier to get elected if you are or have been a lawyer. Being a veteran is also a plus.