The confirmation hearing for Elena Kagan began yesterday. I have written a couple of posts on her and my belief that she should not be confirmed. Here is one. And the Second.
You are welcome to read those posts again as they are pretty revealing, but if you do not want to you here is a quick overview of what I wrote.
- Never been a judge at any level, never a trial lawyer at any level until appointed as Solicitor General
- Has shown Character and Integrity issues…example being her whitewashing of the plagiarism scandal at Harvard law
- Banned military recruiters from Harvard and then tried to defend her decision to the supreme court, an argument that was unanimously rejected by the court
- Worked for activist judges and has made statements supporting an activist judicial
- Extremely liberal…believes in “affirmative and compassionate government” (welfare state, activist judiciary)
- Statements show disdain for the religious right
- Does not believe in the Second amendment
- Believes it is ok for government to ban political pamphlets
The confirmation hearing is really just an opportunity for Kagan to deny everything she believes in. Happens with every liberal nomination. (Keep in mind that Sotomayor just ruled with the minority against the protection of your Second Amendment rights in McDonald v. Chicago…can we impeach) If Democrats were taking their duties seriously they would have granted enough time for the Committee to go over all of her documents. It is a travesty if you think about it. Even the Clinton Library, which has provided a majority of the documents, says that not enough time was given. 46,000 documents were provided 3 weeks ago, but the majority of the 170,000 documents provided have been since then. Adding to that, they were almost all provided on Friday afternoons. If you think that was on accident then I have some awesome ocean front property I would love to sell you. It’s in Arizona. There are also documents that are being withheld. Among the noticeable ones are documents from Kagan’s work on the sexual harassment suit against her former Boss, Clinton.
If anything, the first day of the hearing apparently revealed liberals for who they really are. They spent their opening statements bashing conservative Judges and their rulings. In the midst of their mocking of conservatives’ view that a judge should just call balls and strikes, Senator Feinstein actually said she was shocked that the Supreme Court upheld the 2nd Amendment in the very recent Chicago case. Senator Sessions made an excellent opening statement
“Ms. Kagan has less real legal experience of any nominee in at least fifty years. It’s not just that she has never been a judge. She has barely practiced law, and not with the intensity and duration from which real understanding occurs. Ms. Kagan has never tried a case before a jury. She argued her first appellate case just nine months ago. While academia certainly has value, there is no substitute for being in the harness of the law, handling real cases over a period of years…
What Ms. Kagan’s public record does reveal, however, is a more extensive background in policy and politics, mixed with law. Ms. Kagan’s college thesis on socialism in New York seems to bemoan socialism’s demise there. In her master’s thesis, she affirmed the activist tendencies of the Earl Warren Court, but complained that they could have done a better job of justifying their activism…
During her White House years, the nominee was the central figure in the Clinton-Gore effort to restrict gun rights-and, as the dramatic 5-4 decision today in McDonald shows, the personal right of every American to own a gun hangs by a single vote…
Ms. Kagan was also the point person for the Clinton Administration’s efforts to block Congressional restrictions on partial-birth abortions. Indeed, documents show she was perhaps the key person who convinced President Clinton to change his mind, from supporting to opposing legislation that would have banned that horrible procedure…
During her time as Dean of Harvard, Ms. Kagan reversed Harvard’s existing policy and kicked the military out of the recruiting office in violation of federal law. Her actions punished the military and demeaned our soldiers as they were courageously fighting two wars overseas…
In her first appellate argument, Ms. Kagan told the Court that the speech and press guarantees in the First Amendment would allow the federal government to ban the publication of pamphlets discussing political issues before an election. I would remind my colleagues that the American Revolution was-in no small part-spurred on by just such a political pamphlet, Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense.” To suggest that the government now has the power to suppress that kind of speech is breathtaking.
Also as Solicitor General, Ms. Kagan approved the filing of a brief before the Supreme Court asking that it strike down provisions of the Legal Arizona Worker’s Act, which suspends or revokes business licenses of corporations which knowingly hiring illegal immigrants, even though Federal law expressly prohibits such hiring. She did this even after the liberal 9th Circuit had upheld the law…
She clerked for Judge Mikva and Justice Marshall, each a well-known liberal activist judge. And she has called Israeli Judge Aharon Barak-who has been described as the most activist judge in the world-her hero. These judges don’t deny activism; they advocate it. And they openly oppose the idea of a judge as a neutral umpire…
In the wake of one of the largest expansions of government power in history, many Americans are worried about Washington’s disregard for limits on its power…Even today, President Obama advocates a judicial philosophy that calls on judges to base their decisions on empathy and their “broader vision of what America should be.” He suggests that his nominee shares that view…Americans want a judge that will be a check on government overreach, not a rubber stamp.”
Very excellent indeed I would say. He also brought up the issue of Sharia Law as detailed in this Town Hall article. That is a real serious issue that needs to be taken into consideration especially because Kagan made the following statement.
“There are some circumstances in which it may be proper for judges to consider foreign law sources in ruling on constitutional questions”
It even gets more interesting you realize that she led an effort “to change the first-year curricula to mandate the study of international law while maintaining constitutional law as an elective course”. Of course, at Harvard, a constitutional law course might be writing course, not one where you actually have to read the document.
Hope this provides you enough ammo to address any undecided souls you may come across. Be sure to join Heritage Action and get your email to the Judiciary Committee before they make their decision.
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