tagged w/ Kagan
-
Washington — For most of the last two decades, Supreme Court conservatives led by Justice Antonin Scalia dominated the debates during oral arguments. They greeted advocates for liberal causes with sharp and sometimes caustic questions, putting them on the defensive from the opening minute. Read More>>>>>http://anewsfuse.blogspot.com/2010/12/sotomayor-kagan-shift-supreme-court.htmlWashington — For most of the last two decades, Supreme Court conservatives led... more
-
-
Washington (CNN) -- The Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday approved the nomination of Solicitor General Elena Kagan to become the nation's fourth female Supreme Court justice, setting up a final confirmation vote by the Senate.
The committee vote broke down mostly along partisan lines, with one Republican joining the panel's Democrats in sending the nomination to the full Senate on a 13-6 vote.
Democrats repeatedly characterized Kagan as a strong legal thinker who would be a fair judge, while Republicans slammed her as an inexperienced activist who would be unable to divorce her legal judgments from her political opinions.
Members on both sides expressed frustration with a confirmation hearing process many observers say increasingly yields few clear answers about a nominee's judicial philosophy.
"There is no question about Elena Kagan's qualifications," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California. "In my view, there is no good reason to deny her appointment." She is clearly among nation's "top legal minds."
"Her grasp of each area of the law and her ability to reason within it" has surpassed "several other recent nominees," Feinstein said.
Kagan has demonstrated a "keen intellect," "judicial modesty," and respect for legal precedent, said Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wisconsin. "I'm confident she will make a superb Supreme Court justice."
Not so, said Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa. Kagan has "extremely limited experience" as a practicing attorney, he said. Her record "has not been (one) of impartiality." She has "far left ideological beliefs" and is likely to use an "outcome-based approach" to cases.
Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Arizona, called Kagan's June testimony "disingenuous" and "deceptive." Her "policy preferences will influence her legal judgments" if confirmed, he predicted.
Among other things, the committee's Republicans highlighted Kagan's role in limiting military recruiters at Harvard Law School because of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy, which bars openly gay and lesbian soldiers from military service. Several Republicans have said Kagan, who was the law school dean, sought to treat the military as second-class by denying recruiters access to the campus Office of Career Services.
Kagan has argued she provided an "equally effective substitute" by requiring military recruiters to use a veterans service office.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, broke with other GOP committee members by voting for Kagan's nomination. Graham -- also the lone committee Republican to back Justice Sonia Sotomayor's nomination last year -- said he had "100 reasons" to oppose Kagan's nomination on philosophical grounds. But, he argued, elections have consequences, and senators should be deferential to presidential nominating decisions.
Kagan, he argued, is sufficiently qualified, has a good character, and is capable of acting as a judge as opposed to a politician.
Noting the controversy over Kagan's role in Harvard's military recruiting controversy, Graham said he would oppose her nomination if he believed she has "animosity in her heart" for members of the armed services. But "I believe she is ... very patriotic," he said.
Graham said he is hopeful that Democrats will follow his lead the next time a Republican president makes a high court nomination. If a liberal such as Kagan can be confirmed, he said, "I hope Judge (Robert) Bork can be a conservatives' hero" and be confirmed as well.
The full Senate vote is expected to vote on Kagan's nomination before departing for its August recess.
If approved, Kagan will fill the seat of retiring Justice John Paul Stevens and become the 112th person to join the high court.Washington (CNN) -- The Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday approved the nomination... more
-
-
Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan didn’t miss a beat when Sen. Jeff Sessions (R- Ala.) demanded to know her position on “don’t ask, don’t tell” Tuesday morning during day two of her confirmation hearing.
Kagan said she felt the ban "was unjust. I believed it then and I believe it now."
Sessions confronted Kagan during the hearing with a string of questions on the ban on military recruiting at Harvard when she was the dean of the law school because she believed the "don't ask don't tell" policy violated the school's anti-discrimination policy.Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan didn’t miss a beat when Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-... more
-
-
Is Elena Kagan a Lesbian? Media Ignores Four Harvard Students Outting Supreme Court Nominee, CBS News Muzzled by White House
May 10, 2010
Christian Newswire
As far back as 2006 and 2007, four different Harvard Law Students confirmed that Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan was a Lesbian. Why is the Obama Administration now suddenly ashamed of Kagan’s homosexual orientation?
Click to see VIDEO Four Harvard Students Out Obama’s Supreme Court Nominee…http://ctpatriot1970.wordpress.com/2010/05/10/video-elena-kagan-a-lesbian-four-harvard-students-out-supreme-court-nominee/Is Elena Kagan a Lesbian? Media Ignores Four Harvard Students Outting Supreme Court... more
-
-
The Wall Street Journal’s decision to run a 17-year-old photograph of Elena Kagan playing softball on its front page wasn’t in any way meant as innuendo about the Supreme Court nominee’s sexual orientation, a spokesman for the paper told Politico.com’s Ben Smith. But some gay people think otherwise.
“It’s clearly an allusion to her being gay. It’s just too easy a punch line,” says Cathy Renna, a former spokesperson for GLAAD and now the principal for Renna Communications. “The question from a journalistic perspective is whether it’s a descriptive representation of who she might be as a judge. Have you seen a picture of Clarence Thomas bowling?”
The topic of the unmarried Kagan’s sexual orientation has been the subject of many conversations and several news reports since she was first suggested as a possible nominee. The White House has dismissed the rumors, however, calling them “false charges.”
Any suggestion that the WSJ was referring to those rumors with its choice of the softball photo is also false, the paper’s spokesperson Ashley Huston told Politico’s Smith. “If you turn the photo upside down, reverse the pixilation, and simultaneously listen to Abbey Road backwards, while reading Roland Barthes, you will indeed find a very subtle image,” she said.The Wall Street Journal’s decision to run a 17-year-old photograph of Elena... more
-
-
According to grist.org Ms Kagan has a good track record in regards to the environment. I hope she continue with her views and the president Barack Obama is adding to our Supreme Court a judge that will help us pass the laws that will save our environment.
http://www.grist.org/article/2010-05-10-elena-kagan-supreme-court-environmental-record
Here's the dirt on Earth-hating Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan: On more than one occasion she was so consumed by her work that she accidentally left her car running overnight, a longtime "friend" told the New York Times.
But it's worth looking beyond this personal eco-foul to examine Kagan's broader record on environmental and climate issues.
It's immediately clear that she's no fire-breathing environmental crusader in the Robert F. Kennedy Jr. mold. Those looking for such a justice are bound to be disappointed. Kagan hasn't written or said much at all about climate change or the government's role in regulating clean air and water or protecting land and species. This fits with a broader critique from the left that she hasn't left a record on anything that reveals her judicial philosophy.
But if actions mean more than words, Kagan's nomination could be good news for the environmental movement. Kagan's signature green accomplishments came during her six years as dean of Harvard Law School, from 2003 to 2009, where she led the creation of an Environmental Law Program and an Environmental Law and Policy Clinic.
"The fact that she was interested in building an environmental law program when none existed, I think, speaks volumes," said Jody Freeman, an environmental policy and regulation scholar whom Kagan lured from UCLA to Harvard, one of the most high-profile hires of Kagan's tenure.
"Harvard, when she became dean, was pretty much seen as a kind of a backwater" on environmental law, said John Leshy, an environmental law scholar at the University of California Hastings College of the Law. "There was a lot of student interest on environmental issues, but the faculty and the curriculum didn't really reflect that. [The program] came from nowhere and became a respected program. I give her a lot of credit for that."
The clinic put law students to work on current cases, including a challenge against two coal-fired power plants by the Kansas secretary of health and environment. It was the first time a state had opposed a fossil-fuel project on the grounds of carbon dioxide emissions. Kagan indicated her support for the work in a letter in the summer 2008 Harvard Law Bulletin (PDF), one of her few public statements on climate issues.According to grist.org Ms Kagan has a good track record in regards to the environment.... more
-
-
President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan is perfect in every way – perfect that is if you think the role of the highest judicial body in the United States is to ban free speech, indefinitely detain Americans without trial, resurrect command and control socialism, while urinating on everything the Constitution stands for.
We already discovered Kagan’s penchant for treating Americans as guilty until proven innocent, or in fact just plain guilty without even the chance to be proven innocent, when she was quoted as saying, “That someone suspected of helping finance Al Qaeda should be subject to battlefield law — indefinite detention without a trial — even if he were captured in a place like the Philippines rather than a physical battle zone.”
So under that definition, if you send money to a charity later linked with some nebulous terrorist group then you are financing Al-Qaeda and could be thrown in Gitmo or some other CIA black site never to be seen again. And this is the woman being forwarded to sit on a body that is supposed to safeguard civil liberties? That would be like hiring Charles Manson to coach the high school basketball team.
But it gets worse. Now we learn that Kagan thinks certain expressions of free speech should be ‘disappeared’ if the government deems them to be offensive. On the surface that’s any opinion on racial, sexuality or gender issues, but since criticizing Obama is now deemed racist, where will it all end?
In a 1993 University of Chicago Law review article, Kagan wrote, “I take it as a given that we live in a society marred by racial and gender inequality, that certain forms of speech perpetuate and promote this inequality, and that the uncoerced disappearance of such speech would be cause for great elation.” (emphasis mine).
“In a 1996 paper, “Private Speech, Public Purpose: The Role of Governmental Motive in First Amendment Doctrine,” Kagan argued it may be proper to suppress speech because it is offensive to society or to the government,” reports World Net Daily.
(more @ link, and try not to let the right leaning nature of the site deter you it is factual)President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan is perfect in every way... more
-
-
Kagan appears to have beaten out other front-runners for the job, including federal appellate judges Merrick Garland and Diane Wood.
Seen as a more moderate choice on Obama's short list, Kagan has already survived a Senate confirmation process for her current job.
A formal announcement is widely expected by Monday or TuesdayKagan appears to have beaten out other front-runners for the job, including federal... more
-
