In Their Own Words: Obama and Biden Strike Out with the Elena Kagan Pick

Because I gamed the system one time by using the Internet organs of the Democratic Party to vent about Obamacare, I became attached to the receiving end of their email propaganda pipeline (a pipeline spewing more dangerous stuff than crude oil). So, from time to time I get emails from President Barack Obama and his loose/foul mouth side kick, Vice-President Joe Biden. Naturally, the deployment of these "communications" coincide with some pending lurch to the left, such as the shoving of Obamacare down Americans' collective throat or the proposed reform of Wall Street (by adding command and control mechanisms through "the broadest rewrite of the rules governing Wall Street since the Great Depression").

But the upside of getting these email communications is they they provide first hand unfiltered and timely access to the the words and reasoning of the most radical US Administration since FDR. First, I wish to highlight some things that President Obama wrote in his email and said in his 4:18 minute Organizing America (for Obama) sponsored video announcement about his choice of Elena Kagan for the Supreme Court.

Her work as Solicitor General has allowed me to see firsthand just why Elena is particularly well-suited to the Court: She has not only a keen understanding of the law, but also one that is rooted in a deep awareness of its impact on people's lives. Last year, she made that clear -- choosing the Citizens United case as her first to argue before the Supreme Court, defending bipartisan campaign finance reform against special interests seeking to spend unlimited money to influence our elections.
(emphasis added)

Strike One: Kagan is an enemy of 1st Amendment (Free Speech) and that demonstrates to Obama why she "is particularly well-suited to the Court". So, Obama is against free speech if it involves political speech (especially speech against Democrats, no doubt).

Now, I look forward to the prospect of Elena taking her seat alongside Justice Ginsberg and Justice Sotomayor. For the first time, our nation's highest court would include three women, ensuring a Court that would be more inclusive, more representative, more reflective of us as a people than ever before.
(emphasis added)

Strike Two: So Kagan was picked because of her sex as much as the content of her character or of her perceived jurisprudence. The Court, which is not a representative but rather a judicial body, should not need to be made up of people from all genders, ethnicities, and walks of life (how could 9 people possibly be representative of the mosaic which is America?). How can having three women on the court, even assuming true the rumors that Kagan is gay, "be more inclusive, more representative, more reflective of [America in determining matters of Constitutional law], than ever before?"

Vice-President Joe Biden added this in his email with the subject line, "A reason to smile":

She helped us confirm Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and even then, it wasn't hard to picture a day when we'd be helping Elena prepare for confirmation hearings of her own...Since that time, I've followed her career, and today, I believe Elena Kagan is an inspired choice for the Supreme Court.

Strike Three: Biden conjures up a Heavenly Mandate here. There was just something about Kagan way back when "she helped us confirm Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg". Joe pegged her for the Court back then. It is her destiny. It is as if God revealed this to him. Why, she is an inspired choice. The implication is that she is the Anointed One for the Supreme Court, just as Obama is for President. Joe, this is America, not China.....at least not yet!

Thus, in their own words the President and Vice President demonstrate that the Obama Administration has struck out in terms of their rationale for picking Elena Kagan for Supreme Court and thus Ms. Kagan should not be confirmed by the Senate.

Wonk Room Pulls the Race Card

Oh, the irony. Sonai Sotomayor is in a woman's only elite group called the Belizean Grove. But instead of concerning with a future member of the Supreme Court doing and saying things along racial and gender identity lines that would be verboten for a white male. There is complete media silence on this, akin to the media's aversion to discussion of Obama's racist pastor friend/mentor Jeremiah Wright. Liberals groups rally around Sonia for SCOTUS, while both reveling in the latina identity politics and ignoring the inherent reverse-bias aspects of her statements and behaviors.

Instead, Wonk Room worries about a journalist who reported on the bad effects of sanctuary city policies. Using the tired old guilt-by-association ploy, they lambaste a journalist for daring to accept an award from the CIS, or Center for Immigration Studies, which they call an 'anti-immigration hate group.'

CIS is definitely NOT an ‘anti-immigration hate group’: They are against illegal immigration and for legal immigration so long as it is reasonably controlled, as position many if not most Americans hold. Here is a welcoming speech Mark Krikorian gave to newly minted naturalized citizens - immigrants. It was a welcome and a tribute from a Grandson of immigrants in the 'melting pot' tradition of Teddy Roosevelt.

Wonk Room sours politics and does it a disservice by phony ad hominems against this group. Nowhere in their article is their any substance to their name-calling.

Obama Nominates Judge Sotomayor for SCOTUS

Obama's SCOTUS nomination is a Hispanic pick, a liberal who won't shift court balance as one court liberal (Souter) is replaced by another.

The New Republic shared concerns about Sotomayor pre-nomination - "not that smart":

The most consistent concern was that Sotomayor, although an able lawyer, was "not that smart and kind of a bully on the bench," as one former Second Circuit clerk for another judge put it. "She has an inflated opinion of herself, and is domineering during oral arguments, but her questions aren't penetrating and don't get to the heart of the issue."

TNR's Rosen is now in damage control on that article, saying he supports Sotomayor's confirmation.

LA Times on Sotomayer's "Courts make policy", she was joking. Patterico commenter has this to add:

As a district court judge, she had a habit of apologizing to criminals during sentencing, telling one drug dealer that he was a “victim of the economic necessities of our society.” And she was soft on corruption in at least one case.

Judicial Confirmation Network - "indulge left-wing policy preferences"

President Obama has threatened to nominate liberal judicial activists who will indulge their left-wing policy preferences instead of neutrally applying the law. In selecting Judge Sonia Sotomayor as his Supreme Court nominee, President Obama has carried out his threat.
Judge Sotomayor will allow her feelings and personal politics to stand in the way of basic fairness. In a recent case, Ricci v. DeStefano, Sotomayor sided with a city that used racially discriminatory practices to deny promotions to firefighters. ....The poor quality of Sotomayor's decisions is reflected in her terrible record of reversals by the Supreme Court.

SCOTUSblog mentions The Ricci case, which has heightened importance, as Judge Sotomayor's own decision may get overruled by the Supreme Court next month. The Ricci mystery is - why didn't she explain herself in the case? (She made an unsigned decision.)

Rush calls Sotomayor as racist, referencing Sotomayor's statement, shared by Hot Air"

"Justice O’Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. I am not so sure Justice O’Connor is the author of that line since Professor Resnik attributes that line to Supreme Court Justice Coyle. I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, as Professor Martha Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life." - Judge Sotomayor

What this pick tells us? "Race and Gender Matter"; it's "a reminder of the power of identity politics." Or as Frum puts it - Can Sotomayor pass the Biden test?

Reason to Get Excited for McCain

All Republicans for the last two months have been looking for a reason to get excited about Senator John McCain. Like many Republicans, I want to know what my candidate stands for instead of simply voting against another socialist mascarading as a Democrat. Republicans have 2,000 reasons and counting to vote against Obama, but it looks like Republicans have reason number one to support Senator John McCain for President.

The United States Supreme Court today ruled in favor of the Second Amendment in the case of District of Columbia vs. Heller. In a controversial ruling, the Supreme Court voted 5-4 in favor of private citizens having the right to keep an bear arms. What this means is that four Supreme Court Justices want to rewrite parts of the US Constitution to fit their principles and desires. The five Justices who support the Constitution are: Chief Justice Roberts, Alito, Kennedy, Scalia, and Thomas. The four Justices who support taking away our right to bear arms are: Breyer, Ginsberg, Stevens, and Souter.

Senator John McCain believes in a strict construction philosphy of interpretting the Constitution. In other words, the Supreme Court and Federal Appellate Judges McCain will appoint as President would adhere to ruling on the cases according to the Constitution, not a liberal interpretation based on previous standing and court cases.

In other words, if just one Justice is replaced with a liberal, private gun owners may be forced to give up their guns. Think about how much crime would increase if that were to happen! The only individuals with any kind of weapons would be the criminals and we would all be at their mercy.

Under President McCain, if a Justice retires, the new Justice would be a person who would side with the 5 instead of the 4 on this case. That means a lot to Texans who are proud of their right to bear arms and the freedoms and individuals liberties that our Constitution is designed to protect.

Supreme Court Upholds Texas Sovereignty

Supreme Court sides with Texas, in a dispute where the World Court ruled in 2004 that the convictions of Medellin and 50 other Mexicans on death row around the United States violated the 1963 Vienna Convention, which provides that people arrested abroad should have access to their home country's consular officials. The Bush administration was seeking to get the courts to go along with this ruling.

Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority, said the international court decision cannot be forced upon the states. SCOTUSblog via Michelle Malkin says:

"The Supreme Court, in a sweeping rejection of claims of power in the presidency, ruled 6-3 on Tuesday that the President does not have the authority to order states to relax their criminal procedures to obey a ruling of the World Court. The decision came in the case of Medellin v. Texas (06-984). Neither a World Court decision requiring U.S. states to provide new review of criminal cases involving foreign nationals, nor a memo by President Bush seeking to enforce the World Court ruling, preempts state law restrictions on challenges to convictions, the Court said in a ruling written by Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr.

The decision, aside from its rebuff of presidential power, also treats the World Court ruling itself as not binding on U.S. states, when it contradicts those states’ criminal procedure rules. The international treaty at issue in this dispute — the Vienna Convention that gives foreign nationals accused of crime a right to meet with diplomats from their home country — is not enforceable as a matter of U.S. law, the Roberts opinion said. "

This is a good day for Texas and American sovereignty and for keeping American law unfettered by the internationalist busybodies.

PS. Those seeking an appeal for Medellin are asking for another chance for a brutal murderer (warning: graphic).

Quote of the Day: Chief Justice John Roberts

"The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race." - Chief Justice John Roberts