Kagan Under Obligation To Open Up

In 2005, when Barack Obama was a senator and Harriet Miers was nominated by then-President Bush, Obama put out this statement:



"Harriet Miers has had a distinguished career as a lawyer, but since her experience does not include serving as a judge, we have yet to know her views on many of the critical constitutional issues facing our country today. In the coming weeks, we'll need as much information and forthright testimony from Ms. Miers as possible so that the U.S. Senate can make an educated and informed decision on her nomination to the Supreme Court."



Obama was not saying that lack of judicial experience is necessarily a disqualifying factor, as some Republicans are now hinting. He was merely saying that we needed to know more about Miers.



What little we do know about Kagan suggests an expansive a view of executive power as well as other cherished conservative and neoconservative positions that would shift the court too far to the right. But as Obama's statement shows, Kagan's lack of judicial experience in and of itself should lead us to see Kagan as a risky choice.



http://voices.washingtonpost.com/plum-line/2010/05/flashback_obama_said_harriet_m.html
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Obama Administration 'Firmly Opposed' to Pot Legalization: Here's Why

Has everybody seen this? -



http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/05/this-is-your-war-on-drugs/56380/
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Kagan Under Obligation To Open Up

Obama's most ardent supporters claim that he's a 'centrist'. They say that he always has been & that those Democratic voters who voted for him because they believed him to be a populist weren't listening (forget the fact that Obama ran an aggressive progressive campaign, and to the left of Hillary). And, they say, conservatives who insist Obama's a liberal are either stup!d or so far right and unpolitically savvy, they don't even belong svcking up space and time on political discussion threads.



To those who thought that during the 2008 campaign, Obama was a moderate and wasn't trying to deceive anyone, what did you think he meant when you heard him saying during the campaign that people had to stay involved after the election, that they couldn't just vote for him, go away for four years and expect that he would do what they had hoped. He said that there were powerful interests working against what the people wanted, and if We The People wanted Obama to do our bidding, we would have to MAKE HIM DO IT.



What did you think he was talking about? Did you think he was trying to deceive the liberals and progressives into believing that he was one of them?
About Elena Kagan
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Kagan Under Obligation To Open Up

During her time as a White House deputy domestic policy adviser, Kagan urged Clinton to take centrist stances in several battles over issues like abortion and family leave when other administration officials or allies were pressing for a more aggressively liberal approach, according to documents at the Clinton Presidential Library.



The documents underscore concerns among some liberal activists that Kagan was an advocate of the policy triangulation of the Clinton White House and is not be a reliably liberal vote on the court.



A 1998 memo shows that Kagan was among advisers encouraging Clinton to deny Medicare funding for abortions in cases where a woman's health was at risk – in part to avoid a messy battle with Republicans.



At the time, Medicare rules covered abortion only where the mother’s life was in danger, and women’s groups & the Department of Health and Human Services wanted to expand the coverage.



Some of the cases involved women who had been raped in mental institutions.



http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0510/37119.html#ixzz0nkdxpCRQ
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Elena Kagan And The Persuasion Factor

Randall Kennedy, one of the surrogates who has been unleashed to sell this nomination, shot the 'persuasion factor' all to heII when he wrote on HP:



==First, it is mistaken to suggest, as some have, that the Dean of Harvard Law School is responsible for all that happens or does not happen with respect to hiring. The Dean is the single most influential member of the faculty. One does not get hired at the law school without the Dean's blessing. At the same time, the Dean does not have the power on her own to hire someone to the faculty. To be hired, a candidate must receive at least a majority, usually a super-majority, of votes. The Dean can seek to persuade, but the Dean at Harvard Law School cannot force professors to move when it comes to faculty hiring, traditionally the most contentious arena of struggle at a famously contentious institution.==



There goes the argument that she'd cobble together majority coalitions on the US Supreme Court.



So far every Obama surrogate that's come out to tout Kagan seems to undermine Obama's reasons for having nominated her.



Could it be that these so-called friends of Kagan's aren't really supportive of her nomination to the Supreme Court but have been put on the spot?
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The Media Jabs Are Unfair, Kagan Will Fight for Equality on the Court

Apparently concern over Kagan's record on diversity hiring as dean at Harvard Law School extends to her hiring as solicitor general, too.



Since she began as solicitor general in March 2009, she has hired no blacks.



Here's the administration's quote defending her record -



==Justice Department spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler added that Kagan's hiring record as solicitor general "reflects a strong commitment to hiring qualified candidates of all races and genders." According to the department, Kagan's hires since March 2009 have included one white man, three white women, one Asian man and one Indian man.==



That's the definition for remedying the lack of diversity in government by the Obama administration. Adding an Asian man, an Indian man, and more white people (more of the same).



http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/11/AR2010051103390.html
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The Media Jabs Are Unfair, Kagan Will Fight for Equality on the Court

Yes, that's true.



So?



Do you think that all those who question this nomination are Bush supporters, Republicans?
About Elena Kagan
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The Media Jabs Are Unfair, Kagan Will Fight for Equality on the Court

I'm not so much interested in "feelings", but rather information, facts and thought.



But I'll bite.



What have you learned that makes you feel much better about Kagan as an associate justice to the US Supreme Court.
About Elena Kagan
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The Media Jabs Are Unfair, Kagan Will Fight for Equality on the Court

Kagan helped shield Saudis from 9/11 lawsuits



“I find this reprehensible,” said (lawyer) Kristen Breitweiser, another family member whose husband was killed in the 9/11 attacks, said at the time. “One would have hoped that the Obama administration would have taken a different stance than the Bush administration, and you wonder what message this sends to victims of terrorism around the world.”



http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0511/kagan-helped-shield-saudis-911-lawsuits/



The media's "jabs", as Randall Kennedy refers to the story about Kagan's abysmal record on diversity, aren't jabs at all. The media has bowed to Obama and with great reluctance limits the coverage of this nomination to a conflict between Democrats and Republicans when it's the Democratic Party that is in conflict over Kagan's nomination.
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The Media Jabs Are Unfair, Kagan Will Fight for Equality on the Court

What about Democrats' (liberals' and progressives') qualms about her?



Consider that throughout the past 16 months, Republicans' "as usual" complaints aren't substantive and once the real story comes to light, Obama prevails and overrides those objecting (and with much more problematic complaints) from the base of the Democratic Party.



Would you consider that this is kabuki theater, all choreographed to lend the impression that Obama and the DLC-controlled Democratic Party are really in cahoots with Republicans, and that Republicans are merely putting in an appearance by objecting for the benefit of their own base?
About Elena Kagan
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Lawrence Lessig Calls Glenn Greenwald's Critique Of Elena Kagan 'Absurd'

As far as the republic being beyond repair, I wrote about that in the closing days of the Bush administration, and the elephant in the room that nobody's talking about: The inherent weakness or fatal flaw in the Constitution and how Bush and Cheney exploited it. Once that happened, that was it for the republic.
About Elena Kagan
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Lawrence Lessig Calls Glenn Greenwald's Critique Of Elena Kagan 'Absurd'

I believe the "republic" is beyond repair and am beginning to think that the only alternative for those who value democracy, human rights, and people over dollars, is to leave.

==============================



I think that is a reasonable assessment after the events of the past decade and Americans' passive response to being fleeced and having their Constitutional rights and protections wiped out.



But where would you go?



I think what we're experiencing may be the end-stage or critical mass for human civilization world-wide. What you and I think would be a rational response to the calamities taking place, for instance a great push for clean sustainable energy development in light of the out-of-control gulf oil gushing disaster, has instead the US leadership calling for more drilling and they're not in any particular rush to take over BP's inept and tardy efforts to stop the gushing.



It is the response I'd anticipate from crazy people in denial, or those who know the end is near and are trying to get to higher ground (amass great money/resources) in an effort to be among the few who survive it all.
About Elena Kagan
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