Obama Will Appoint Elena Kagan to Supreme Court

[thundley4]

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama will nominate Solicitor General Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court, positioning the court to have three female justices for the first time, NBC News reported late Sunday.

Kagan, 50, served as the Dean of Harvard Law School from 2003 to 2009. She was widely viewed as a front-runner when Obama was considering candidates for a Supreme Court opening last year, but the president ultimately chose Sonia Sotomayor for the job.

A source close to the selection process told The Associated Press that a central element in Obama's choice was Kagan's reputation for bringing together people of competing views and earning their respect.

Kagan came to the fore as a candidate who had worked closely with all three branches of government, a legal mind with both a sense of modesty and sense of humor. The source spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss factors that led to Kagan's impending nomination.

However, some liberal critics have said that Kagan's views on executive power and the treatment of terrorist detainees are too conservative.
MSNBC

This is the person, that barred Military recruiting from Harvard because of her opposition to DADT.

[Tess Anderson]

Never tried a case, a pacifist and a lesbian, but Hahvud is qualification enough, it seems. Ugh.

[JohnnyReb]

Her qualifications: The ugly, butch, bitch has seen the Obumblers grades.

[Lord Undies]

Justice It's Pat.   Yeah.  This sh*t is getting out of control. 

Time to see the birth certificate or get out.

[thundley4]

Justice It's Pat.   Yeah.  This sh*t is getting out of control. 

Time to see the birth certificate or get out.

I had to check to make sure that wasn't a picture of Chasity Bono before she became Chaz Bono.

[Alpha Mare]

This'll come back to bite her.

Elena Kagan: Confirmation Hearings 'Vapid and Hollow Charade'
Kagan, On Short List for Supreme Court, Wrote in 1995 that Nominees Need to be Pressed Harder

In 1995, after spending time as a staff lawyer on the judiciary committee during the nomination of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Kagan made clear her frustrations: "When the Senate ceases to engage nominees in meaningful discussion of legal issues, the confirmation process takes on an air of vacuity and farce."

Kagan's bottom line, written before the confirmation hearings of Justice Samuel Alito or Chief Justice John Roberts, is that the Senate needs to focus on substantive issues and "promote public understanding of what the nominee believes the Court should do and how she would affect its conduct."

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Supreme_Court/elena-kagan-supreme-court-confirmation-hearings-vapid-hollow/story?id=10578169&page=2

I agree. I want to hear her understanding of the Constitution.

[JohnnyReb]

This'll come back to bite her. http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Supreme_Court/elena-kagan-supreme-court-confirmation-hearings-vapid-hollow/story?id=10578169&page=2

I agree. I want to hear her understanding of the Constitution.

To liberals...it's toilet paper.

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

    Beginning in 2004, Kagan changed established Harvard policy and barred recruiters from the school’s career center. The Pentagon responded by invoking the Solomon Amendment, a 1994 law that explicitly requires universities that receive federal funding to allow military representatives at least as much access to campus as any other group. With Harvard’s $400 million in annual grants on the line, Kagan was forced to surrender.

    But she kept fighting. Kagan and the university filed an amicus brief arguing that Harvard’s policy did not amount to discrimination against the military. The university, claimed the brief, does “not single out military recruiters for disfavored treatment: Military recruiters are subject to exactly the same terms and conditions of access as every other employer.”

    Kagan has since claimed she was merely representing Harvard’s institutional view on the matter. Yet the brief includes a footnote that she signed in her capacity as a professor, not as dean.

    Either way, the Supreme Court was not impressed. Not only did the justices dismiss Kagan’s arguments, not a single liberal on the court offered a word of support. Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer and John Paul Stevens (the man Kagan would replace), all agreed with the majority decision written by Chief Justice Roberts.

http://dailycaller.com/2010/05/10/elena-kagan%E2%80%99s-most-notable-foray-into-public-life-was-kicking-military-recruiters-off-of-harvard%E2%80%99s-campus/

She wouldn't be allowed on this forum.

[Alpha Mare]

She was on Goldman Sachs Advisory Board.

[The Village Idiot]

Her real name is Patton Oswalt



Throws on earrings and a pearl necklace and people think he's a female "legal scholar who has written no legal opinions"

[thundley4]

She was on Goldman Sachs Advisory Board.

I just read that on another blog.  Curious how many of Lord Zero's appointments have ties to those evil big bankers and WallStreet businesses.

[Ralph Wiggum]

That's a woman?

[The Village Idiot]

That's a woman?

lol.

I say its Patton Oswalt in drag... my report:

http://tyrannysentinel.blogspot.com/2010/05/patton-oswalt-nominated-for-scotus.html

[debk]

Obama certainly has a thing for mean lookin' females!

She's scary looking. 

[zeitgeist]

Patrick Kennedy in drag?

[Celtic Rose]

Patrick Kennedy in drag?

Scary!  They really do have the same nose!

[DumbAss Tanker]

I suppose it could have been worse.  The kind of 'Diversity' I'd like to see on the court would be somebody other than Yale or Harvard alum, though.

[Zathras]

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgOIEGz7o_s[/youtube]

[cavegal]

The previous post's on this pick, "No Feeling The Love!!!"   Anyone he picks will be a nightmare!

[BlueStateSaint]

Here's something on her . . .

Kagan Whitewash

Jewish World Review May 5, 2010

By Evan Gahr

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | United States Solicitor General Elena Kagan, who President Barack Obama interviewed April 30 to replace Justice John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court, is widely considered a blank slate.

But is she?

True, Kagan, a former Harvard Law School dean, would be the first person without judicial experience appointed to the Supreme Court since William Rehnquist in 1972, doesn't have much of a paper trail.

Her views on most of the hot button issues she would likely decide on the Supreme Court--race relations, abortion and federalism, are mostly impossible to discern.

But Kagan does have an identifiable, though overlooked, track record on one matter and it's a telling one. As Dean of Harvard Law School in 2004 and 2005 she treated two liberal law professors with kid gloves when they were busted for plagiarism. Her chicanery was so blatant that even a leftist academic said she should be fired for her "whitewash."

This one could get interesting.

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0510/kagan_blemish_gahr.php3

[Chris]

Kagan waded into the DOMA case, amending a brief that offered “responsible procreation” as a reason for DOMA to instead explicitly reject procreation and child wellbeing as a reason for defining marriage as one man and one woman — undermining the law she claims to be defending. We’ve seen this tactic in state litigation before: Attorneys general pretend to defend the marriage law but sabotage the case by explicitly rejecting procreation as a reason for marriage. (See Jerry Brown in California.)

If you doubt my reading of Kagan’s record, see the Human Rights Campaign’s press release, which specifically cites her support for “marriage equality” in cases before the Supreme Court as a reason for voting for her.

HRC and Maggie Gallagher agree: A vote for Elena Kagan is a vote for finding a constitutional right to gay marriage that will overturn marriage laws in every state.

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=N2FkYTcxNTczMTdiY2Y0ZDc5NDRkMjNlMmUxM2ZlMTE=
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/%20http:/legalinsurrection.blogspot.com/2010/05/supreme-irony-kagan-nomination-ends-gay.html

[Chris]

Sounds like another Sotomayor nomination.

Though Ms. Kagan has not written extensively on the role of a judge, the little she has written is troubling. In a law review article, she expressed agreement with the idea that the Court primarily exists to look out for the “despised and disadvantaged.” The problem with this view—which sounds remarkably similar to President Obama’s frequent appeals to judges ruling on grounds other than law–is that it allows judges to favor whichever particular client they view as “despised and disadvantaged.” The judiciary is not to favor any one particular group, but to secure justice equally for all through impartial application of the Constitution and laws. Senators should vigorously question Ms. Kagan about such statements to determine whether she is truly committed to the rule of law. Nothing less should be expected from anyone appointed to a life-tenured position as one of the final arbiters of justice in our country.

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NjhkNmNmYWFkNWUzOTc3YjhiMDA0MzExZDNiZDllNzE=r

[Chris]

An article in Saturday’s New York Times on Elena Kagan’s lack of judicial experience included this paragraph:

Except for Chief Justice Roberts’s judicial experience, he and Ms. Kagan have had strikingly similar careers. Both attended Harvard Law School, served on the law review there, worked as law clerks for prominent appeals court judges and Supreme Court justices, were lawyers in the White House counsel’s office and in leading Washington law firms, and argued important cases in the Supreme Court.

The passage strains to obscure another fundamental difference between the careers of Roberts and Kagan.

Roberts practiced law for some 22 years, both in private practice and in government.  In the course of arguing 39 cases in the Supreme Court and many more in the federal courts of appeals, he earned a reputation as quite possibly the best appellate advocate in the country.

Kagan, by contrast, has been a legal academic for almost the entirety of her career.  Before she became Solicitor General just a year ago, she had never argued any case anywhere.  Her real-world experience in legal practice had consisted of roughly two years as a junior associate two decades ago (1989-1991), a summer as special counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee, and a short stint in the White House counsel’s office (1995-1996).

http://bench.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MjlhZDAwNTQzN2ZiNTA5Yjk5MmZiZWQ0YjFhNjc5ZGE=

[Chris]

SG Kagan’s Subversion of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” Law
Kagan’s Pragmatism? No, Cheap Moral Posturing
Tom Goldstein on Elena Kagan’s Recusal Obligations
Emily Bazelon’s Feeble Defense of Elena Kagan

[JohnnyReb]

Her lezbianism indicates to me that her mind don't work right...or to put that in better redneck slang, "She ain't wrapped to tight."