Handle this right, and she can be "Borked"

Kagan: Constitution as Charter of “Positive Liberties”


According to this Wall Street Journal article, during her service as a law clerk to Justice Thurgood Marshall in 1987, Elena Kagan took the position that the Constitution confers so-called “positive” rights to governmental aid, not just “negative” liberties protected against governmental interference or penalty.

Specifically, with respect to one certiorari petition she expressed her “worry that a majority of this court will agree with Judge Posner that ‘the Constitution is a charter of negative rather than positive liberties.’” And with respect to another, she discussed a lower-court ruling that, relying on “evolving standards of decency,” held that the 14th Amendment (in her words) “imposes [some] affirmative obligations on state officials,” and she opined that “the holding is correct.” (By “correct,” she evidently was referring to her best understanding of how the Constitution should be interpreted, not to the Court’s then-prevailing case law.)

The project of re-interpreting the Constitution to confer a broad array of as-yet unrecognized “positive” rights (rather than leaving such matters to the processes of representative government) has long been a part of the Left’s agenda.

http://www.nationalreview.com/bench-memo.../ed-whelan

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424...77444.html

No no no! It's all about negative liberty!

Kagen is not the hill I want Republicans, Conservatives or Tea Partiers to die on.

(05-19-2010 08:46 AM)Lord Stanley Wrote:  Kagen is not the hill I want Republicans, Conservatives or Tea Partiers to die on.

I would have agreed with you a week or two ago. But the more that is revealed about her the more and more obvious it is becoming that she is 100% incompetent and should have no place on the bench (at any level, let alone the SCOTUS). While I doubt this is a fight the GOP can win (especially with the Dem-Lites that are still in office) it should be a priority to bring to light just how absurd her positions really are.

(05-19-2010 08:52 AM)moe24 Wrote:  

(05-19-2010 08:46 AM)Lord Stanley Wrote:  Kagen is not the hill I want Republicans, Conservatives or Tea Partiers to die on.

I would have agreed with you a week or two ago. But the more that is revealed about her the more and more obvious it is becoming that she is 100% incompetent and should have no place on the bench (at any level, let alone the SCOTUS). While I doubt this is a fight the GOP can win (especially with the Dem-Lites that are still in office) it should be a priority to bring to light just how absurd her positions really are.

Gee, what's the rush guys? Going to have hearings BEFORE they get all the paperwork reviewed? Sounds like there is something in there somewhere that could be a can of worms.

WASHINGTON — The Senate Judiciary Committee chairman says his panel will hold confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan starting June 28.

Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont said Wednesday the schedule should allow the hearings to be completed before senators go home for a weeklong break in early July.

That would put the Senate on track to meet President Barack Obama's timetable of voting on Kagan's confirmation before the Senate's August recess.

Democrats have more than enough votes to confirm Kagan, Obama's choice to succeed retiring Justice John Paul Stevens. Republicans have so far shown little inclination to block the move.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senators are plowing through reams of files detailing Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan's background and record as they search for clues to what kind of justice she would be.

Kagan, President Barack Obama's pick to succeed retiring Justice John Paul Stevens, was to return to Capitol Hill on Wednesday for one-on-one meetings with the senators who will vote on her confirmation.

The White House on Tuesday sent the Senate Judiciary Committee thousands of pages of Kagan's speeches and writings, including her work as solicitor general and her articles as an undergraduate staff writer on Princeton University's campus newspaper.

The papers were a response to a questionnaire sent to Kagan by the judiciary panel, which will hold hearings on her confirmation. They were released as the White House tried to paint a fuller picture of Obama's nominee, whose thin record of legal writings has left Republicans and even some Democrats suspicious of her views.

Obama's team arranged a conference call for reporters Wednesday with former Clinton administration aides to discuss Kagan's "character and qualifications" for the Supreme Court.

Kagan's work as a domestic policy adviser and associate White House counsel to former President Bill Clinton has raised doubts among lawmakers in both parties.

Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., wrote Tuesday to Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the Judiciary Committee chairman, and Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the committee's top Republican, urging them to fully question Kagan to make sure she supports abortion rights, in light of her backing as a Clinton aide for a ban on most late-term abortions.

Slaughter, the co-chair of the House Pro-Choice Caucus, called a 1997 memo Kagan co-wrote on the matter "troubling." The document urged Clinton to back a ban on all abortions of viable fetuses except when the physical health of the mother was at risk.

Kagan's responses to the Judiciary Committee questionnaire include documents that could shed light on her views and legal approach. But GOP senators want to know more about Kagan's service during the Clinton years.

Some 160,000 pages from her time as a domestic policy adviser and associate White House counsel are expected to be released in the coming weeks by the Clinton presidential library in Little Rock, Ark.

Without those documents, senators say they have few clues about what Kagan's judicial style would be, given her limited courtroom experience. Kagan, 50, stepped aside Monday from her job as solicitor general, in which she represented the Obama administration before the Supreme Court.


http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/t...12089.html

It never ceases to amaze me ... just about every time a nominee is named for a Supreme Court justice spot, they are shredded for being an extremist or crackpot or wingnut or whatever. Started with Clarence Thomas but Ito, Roberts, Sotomayer, etc. all of them were painted with a wide spectrum of very ugly colors.

It's all white noise to me. No matter who is nominated, I'll here the same thing: "they are an extreme [liberal/conservative] who lacks [some sort of] experience. President [fill in the blank] is trying to stack the court and the result will be [doomsday scenario]."

(05-19-2010 10:11 AM)BGSUalum1987 Wrote:  It never ceases to amaze me ... just about every time a nominee is named for a Supreme Court justice spot, they are shredded for being an extremist or crackpot or wingnut or whatever. Started with Clarence Thomas but Ito, Roberts, Sotomayer, etc. all of them were painted with a wide spectrum of very ugly colors.

They made Ito a USSC justice? WTF? Great, the guy that resided over OJ's "innocence" will now be sitting on the highest court in the land.

Sorry, Alito, Ito, whatever. It's hard to pay attention when the stupidity runs so deep.

(05-19-2010 10:11 AM)BGSUalum1987 Wrote:  It never ceases to amaze me ... just about every time a nominee is named for a Supreme Court justice spot, they are shredded for being an extremist or crackpot or wingnut or whatever. Started with Clarence Thomas but Ito, Roberts, Sotomayer, etc. all of them were painted with a wide spectrum of very ugly colors.

It's all white noise to me. No matter who is nominated, I'll here the same thing: "they are an extreme [liberal/conservative] who lacks [some sort of] experience. President [fill in the blank] is trying to stack the court and the result will be [doomsday scenario]."

To be honest this is the first nominee in a long time I have felt this way about (going back 20+ years).

(05-19-2010 07:30 AM)WMD Owl Wrote:  Handle this right, and she can be "Borked"

Kagan: Constitution as Charter of “Positive Liberties”


According to this Wall Street Journal article, during her service as a law clerk to Justice Thurgood Marshall in 1987, Elena Kagan took the position that the Constitution confers so-called “positive” rights to governmental aid, not just “negative” liberties protected against governmental interference or penalty.

Specifically, with respect to one certiorari petition she expressed her “worry that a majority of this court will agree with Judge Posner that ‘the Constitution is a charter of negative rather than positive liberties.’” And with respect to another, she discussed a lower-court ruling that, relying on “evolving standards of decency,” held that the 14th Amendment (in her words) “imposes [some] affirmative obligations on state officials,” and she opined that “the holding is correct.” (By “correct,” she evidently was referring to her best understanding of how the Constitution should be interpreted, not to the Court’s then-prevailing case law.)

The project of re-interpreting the Constitution to confer a broad array of as-yet unrecognized “positive” rights (rather than leaving such matters to the processes of representative government) has long been a part of the Left’s agenda.

http://www.nationalreview.com/bench-memo.../ed-whelan

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424...77444.html

You guys are getting REALLY desperate.

(05-19-2010 11:34 AM)RobertN Wrote:  

(05-19-2010 07:30 AM)WMD Owl Wrote:  Handle this right, and she can be "Borked"

Kagan: Constitution as Charter of “Positive Liberties”


According to this Wall Street Journal article, during her service as a law clerk to Justice Thurgood Marshall in 1987, Elena Kagan took the position that the Constitution confers so-called “positive” rights to governmental aid, not just “negative” liberties protected against governmental interference or penalty.

Specifically, with respect to one certiorari petition she expressed her “worry that a majority of this court will agree with Judge Posner that ‘the Constitution is a charter of negative rather than positive liberties.’” And with respect to another, she discussed a lower-court ruling that, relying on “evolving standards of decency,” held that the 14th Amendment (in her words) “imposes [some] affirmative obligations on state officials,” and she opined that “the holding is correct.” (By “correct,” she evidently was referring to her best understanding of how the Constitution should be interpreted, not to the Court’s then-prevailing case law.)

The project of re-interpreting the Constitution to confer a broad array of as-yet unrecognized “positive” rights (rather than leaving such matters to the processes of representative government) has long been a part of the Left’s agenda.

http://www.nationalreview.com/bench-memo.../ed-whelan

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424...77444.html

You guys are getting REALLY desperate.

Is that your way of saying the article went WAY over your head?

(05-19-2010 09:37 AM)WMD Owl Wrote:  

(05-19-2010 08:52 AM)moe24 Wrote:  

(05-19-2010 08:46 AM)Lord Stanley Wrote:  Kagen is not the hill I want Republicans, Conservatives or Tea Partiers to die on.

I would have agreed with you a week or two ago. But the more that is revealed about her the more and more obvious it is becoming that she is 100% incompetent and should have no place on the bench (at any level, let alone the SCOTUS). While I doubt this is a fight the GOP can win (especially with the Dem-Lites that are still in office) it should be a priority to bring to light just how absurd her positions really are.

Gee, what's the rush guys? Going to have hearings BEFORE they get all the paperwork reviewed? Sounds like there is something in there somewhere that could be a can of worms.

WASHINGTON — The Senate Judiciary Committee chairman says his panel will hold confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan starting June 28.

Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont said Wednesday the schedule should allow the hearings to be completed before senators go home for a weeklong break in early July.

That would put the Senate on track to meet President Barack Obama's timetable of voting on Kagan's confirmation before the Senate's August recess.

Democrats have more than enough votes to confirm Kagan, Obama's choice to succeed retiring Justice John Paul Stevens. Republicans have so far shown little inclination to block the move.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senators are plowing through reams of files detailing Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan's background and record as they search for clues to what kind of justice she would be.

Kagan, President Barack Obama's pick to succeed retiring Justice John Paul Stevens, was to return to Capitol Hill on Wednesday for one-on-one meetings with the senators who will vote on her confirmation.

The White House on Tuesday sent the Senate Judiciary Committee thousands of pages of Kagan's speeches and writings, including her work as solicitor general and her articles as an undergraduate staff writer on Princeton University's campus newspaper.

The papers were a response to a questionnaire sent to Kagan by the judiciary panel, which will hold hearings on her confirmation. They were released as the White House tried to paint a fuller picture of Obama's nominee, whose thin record of legal writings has left Republicans and even some Democrats suspicious of her views.

Obama's team arranged a conference call for reporters Wednesday with former Clinton administration aides to discuss Kagan's "character and qualifications" for the Supreme Court.

Kagan's work as a domestic policy adviser and associate White House counsel to former President Bill Clinton has raised doubts among lawmakers in both parties.

Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., wrote Tuesday to Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the Judiciary Committee chairman, and Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the committee's top Republican, urging them to fully question Kagan to make sure she supports abortion rights, in light of her backing as a Clinton aide for a ban on most late-term abortions.

Slaughter, the co-chair of the House Pro-Choice Caucus, called a 1997 memo Kagan co-wrote on the matter "troubling." The document urged Clinton to back a ban on all abortions of viable fetuses except when the physical health of the mother was at risk.

Kagan's responses to the Judiciary Committee questionnaire include documents that could shed light on her views and legal approach. But GOP senators want to know more about Kagan's service during the Clinton years.

Some 160,000 pages from her time as a domestic policy adviser and associate White House counsel are expected to be released in the coming weeks by the Clinton presidential library in Little Rock, Ark.

Without those documents, senators say they have few clues about what Kagan's judicial style would be, given her limited courtroom experience. Kagan, 50, stepped aside Monday from her job as solicitor general, in which she represented the Obama administration before the Supreme Court.


http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/t...12089.html

Desperation.

(05-19-2010 11:10 AM)moe24 Wrote:  

(05-19-2010 10:11 AM)BGSUalum1987 Wrote:  It never ceases to amaze me ... just about every time a nominee is named for a Supreme Court justice spot, they are shredded for being an extremist or crackpot or wingnut or whatever. Started with Clarence Thomas but Ito, Roberts, Sotomayer, etc. all of them were painted with a wide spectrum of very ugly colors.

It's all white noise to me. No matter who is nominated, I'll here the same thing: "they are an extreme [liberal/conservative] who lacks [some sort of] experience. President [fill in the blank] is trying to stack the court and the result will be [doomsday scenario]."

To be honest this is the first nominee in a long time I have felt this way about (going back 20+ years).

So Harriet Miers didn't make you feel this way? I think this says everything we need to know about you.

(05-19-2010 11:49 AM)RobertN Wrote:  

(05-19-2010 11:10 AM)moe24 Wrote:  

(05-19-2010 10:11 AM)BGSUalum1987 Wrote:  It never ceases to amaze me ... just about every time a nominee is named for a Supreme Court justice spot, they are shredded for being an extremist or crackpot or wingnut or whatever. Started with Clarence Thomas but Ito, Roberts, Sotomayer, etc. all of them were painted with a wide spectrum of very ugly colors.

It's all white noise to me. No matter who is nominated, I'll here the same thing: "they are an extreme [liberal/conservative] who lacks [some sort of] experience. President [fill in the blank] is trying to stack the court and the result will be [doomsday scenario]."

To be honest this is the first nominee in a long time I have felt this way about (going back 20+ years).

So Harriet Miers didn't make you feel this way? I think this says everything we need to know about you.

Her nomination was rescinded.

Your turn, chodes.

(05-19-2010 11:36 AM)moe24 Wrote:  

(05-19-2010 11:34 AM)RobertN Wrote:  

(05-19-2010 07:30 AM)WMD Owl Wrote:  Handle this right, and she can be "Borked"

Kagan: Constitution as Charter of “Positive Liberties”


According to this Wall Street Journal article, during her service as a law clerk to Justice Thurgood Marshall in 1987, Elena Kagan took the position that the Constitution confers so-called “positive” rights to governmental aid, not just “negative” liberties protected against governmental interference or penalty.

Specifically, with respect to one certiorari petition she expressed her “worry that a majority of this court will agree with Judge Posner that ‘the Constitution is a charter of negative rather than positive liberties.’” And with respect to another, she discussed a lower-court ruling that, relying on “evolving standards of decency,” held that the 14th Amendment (in her words) “imposes [some] affirmative obligations on state officials,” and she opined that “the holding is correct.” (By “correct,” she evidently was referring to her best understanding of how the Constitution should be interpreted, not to the Court’s then-prevailing case law.)

The project of re-interpreting the Constitution to confer a broad array of as-yet unrecognized “positive” rights (rather than leaving such matters to the processes of representative government) has long been a part of the Left’s agenda.

http://www.nationalreview.com/bench-memo.../ed-whelan

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424...77444.html

You guys are getting REALLY desperate.

Is that your way of saying the article went WAY over your head?

No. It is my way of saying that desperation is setting in. You righties are getting REALLY desperate.

(05-19-2010 11:34 AM)RobertN Wrote:  You guys are getting REALLY desperate.

Yes we are. This woman is what, 50 years old? She could screw up the country for the next 40 years, give or take. At least Obama will be history in 2012.

(05-19-2010 12:27 PM)Rebel Wrote:  

(05-19-2010 11:49 AM)RobertN Wrote:  

(05-19-2010 11:10 AM)moe24 Wrote:  

(05-19-2010 10:11 AM)BGSUalum1987 Wrote:  It never ceases to amaze me ... just about every time a nominee is named for a Supreme Court justice spot, they are shredded for being an extremist or crackpot or wingnut or whatever. Started with Clarence Thomas but Ito, Roberts, Sotomayer, etc. all of them were painted with a wide spectrum of very ugly colors.

It's all white noise to me. No matter who is nominated, I'll here the same thing: "they are an extreme [liberal/conservative] who lacks [some sort of] experience. President [fill in the blank] is trying to stack the court and the result will be [doomsday scenario]."

To be honest this is the first nominee in a long time I have felt this way about (going back 20+ years).

So Harriet Miers didn't make you feel this way? I think this says everything we need to know about you.

Her nomination was rescinded.

Your turn, chodes.

Rebs, he said "nominee" going back 20+ years. That would include Miers. She was a "nominee". She rescinded AFTER she was a "nominee".

(05-19-2010 12:52 PM)smn1256 Wrote:  

(05-19-2010 11:34 AM)RobertN Wrote:  You guys are getting REALLY desperate.

Yes we are. This woman is what, 50 years old? She could screw up the country for the next 40 years, give or take. At least Obama will be history in 2012.

To be honest I'm not that concerned about Kagen. Anyone Obama nominates is going to be a lefty. It won't change the balance of the court overall. If this nomination had the ability to do that, I would be more worked up about it.

(05-19-2010 11:49 AM)RobertN Wrote:  

(05-19-2010 11:10 AM)moe24 Wrote:  

(05-19-2010 10:11 AM)BGSUalum1987 Wrote:  It never ceases to amaze me ... just about every time a nominee is named for a Supreme Court justice spot, they are shredded for being an extremist or crackpot or wingnut or whatever. Started with Clarence Thomas but Ito, Roberts, Sotomayer, etc. all of them were painted with a wide spectrum of very ugly colors.

It's all white noise to me. No matter who is nominated, I'll here the same thing: "they are an extreme [liberal/conservative] who lacks [some sort of] experience. President [fill in the blank] is trying to stack the court and the result will be [doomsday scenario]."

To be honest this is the first nominee in a long time I have felt this way about (going back 20+ years).

So Harriet Miers didn't make you feel this way? I think this says everything we need to know about you.

Her nomination was rescinded over social issues before the legitimate concerns over her qualifications came to light. But nice try.

(05-19-2010 10:11 AM)BGSUalum1987 Wrote:  It never ceases to amaze me ... just about every time a nominee is named for a Supreme Court justice spot, they are shredded for being an extremist or crackpot or wingnut or whatever. Started with Clarence Thomas but Ito, Roberts, Sotomayer, etc. all of them were painted with a wide spectrum of very ugly colors.

It's all white noise to me. No matter who is nominated, I'll here the same thing: "they are an extreme [liberal/conservative] who lacks [some sort of] experience. President [fill in the blank] is trying to stack the court and the result will be [doomsday scenario]."

Actually it started with Robert Bork in 1987 and it was led by Ted Kennedy and now V.P. Joe Biden. Any headaches Biden now gets from this process is rightfully deserved.