Kagan botches Oral argument in Supreme Court Appearance

[calfoxwc]

She isn't "very very smart", nor prepared. She has an agenda, and the facts will not get in her way.

 

She isn't qualified to be on the Supreme Court.

 

My guess is, she's a gay anti-military pro-abortion anti-capitalist old radical friend of Obamao's

 

who would make decisions based on what HE TELLS her to do...

 

she's a pitiful nominee. The first time in 40 years a SC member would have

 

NO JUDGE EXPERIENCE.

 

It'd be funny if it weren't so pitiful.

 

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/201...ed_lawsuit.html

 

May 10, 2010

Kagan Botches Oral Argument In Supreme Court Appearance At Citizens United Lawsuit

 

Hot Air explains how Solicitor General Elena Kagan muffed her argument in front of the Supreme Court on the Citizens United v. FEC case: In fact, the crux of the case was the issue of limiting expenditures as an expression of political speech, not contributions. Kagan started off her argument by misconstruing the issue and then offering a factually incorrect reading of precedent. Both Scalia and Kennedy objected to it before Kagan even had time to get the argument completed, although as the transcript notes, she didn’t pay much attention to them.

 

Transcript below:

 

ORAL ARGUMENT OF ELENA KAGAN

 

ON BEHALF OF THE APPELLEE GENERAL KAGAN: Mr. Chief Justice and may it please the Court:

 

I have three very quick points to make about the government position. The first is that this issue has a long history. For over 100 years Congress has made a judgment that corporations must be subject to special rules when they participate in elections and this Court has never questioned that judgment.

 

Number two -

 

JUSTICE SCALIA: Wait, wait, wait, wait. We never questioned it, but we never approved it, either. And we gave some really weird interpretations to the Taft-Hartley Act in order to avoid confronting the question.

 

GENERAL KAGAN: I will repeat what I said, Justice Scalia: For 100 years this Court, faced with many opportunities to do so, left standing the legislation that is at issue in this case — first the contribution limits, then the expenditure limits that came in by way of Taft-Hartley — and then of course in Austin specifically approved those limits.

 

JUSTICE SCALIA: I don’t understand what you are saying. I mean, we are not a self — self-starting institution here. We only disapprove of something when somebody asks us to. And if there was no occasion for us to approve or disapprove, it proves nothing whatever that we didn’t disapprove it.

 

GENERAL KAGAN: Well, you are not a self-starting institution. But many litigants brought many cases to you in 1907 and onwards and in each case this Court turns down, declined the opportunity, to invalidate or otherwise interfere with this legislation.

 

JUSTICE KENNEDY: But that judgment was validated by Buckley’s contribution-expenditure line. And you’re correct if you look at contributions, but this is an expenditure case. And I think that it doesn’t clarify the situation to say that for100 years — to suggest that for 100 years we would have allowed expenditure limitations, which in order to work at all have to have a speaker-based distinction, exemption from media, content-based distinction, time-based distinction. We’ve never allowed that.

 

 

 

[Mr. T]

She has never been a judge, never had any experience as a judge. But she teaches law and has never practiced law.

 

 

LOL!

 

 

Idealistically she is just another Obama clone.

 

 

So if you needed some advice, wouldn't you want to seek out someone who has the wisdom and experience in that area?

 

 

[Chicopee John]

At least she's not Protestant.

[heckofajobbrownie]

Yes, this is fun. Here are Republican Senators talking about two women nominated for the Supreme Court, neither of whom had any experience as a judge. You'll be amazed to find out they thought it was fine in one case - even a benefit! - but somehow not in the other.

 

 

Senator DeMint on Harriet Miers: “Ms. Miers would bring a wealth of personal experience to the Supreme Court. I expect she will show that she has the intelligence, fairness, and open-mindedness needed to serve on the Court.”

 

Senator DeMint on Elena Kagan: “I’m concerned that she has no judicial experience to give Americans confidence that she will be impartial in her decisions.”

 

 

Senator Cornyn on Harriet Miers: I mean, one reason I felt so strongly about Harriet Miers's qualifications is I thought she would fill some very important gaps in the Supreme Court. Because right now you have people who've been federal judges, circuit judges most of their lives, or academicians. And what you see is a lack of grounding in reality and common sense that I think would be very beneficial.

 

Senator Cornyn on Elena Kagan: Ms. Kagan is likewise a surprising choice because she lacks judicial experience. Most Americans believe that prior judicial experience is a necessary credential for a Supreme Court Justice.

 

 

Senator McConnell on Harriet Miers: “Ms. Miers has an exemplary record of service to our country. She will bring to the Court a lifetime of experience in various levels of government, and at the highest levels of the legal profession. She is a woman of tremendous ability and very sound judgment. …She is well qualified to join the nation’s highest court. … She will make a fine addition to the Supreme Court, and I look forward to her confirmation.”

 

Senator McConnell on Elena Kagan: “She’s the least qualified in terms of judicial experience in 38 years. Now some would argue that maybe we need to have people who don’t have judicial experience. I saw a survey indicating that about 70 percent of the American people think that judicial experience is a good idea for somebody who is going to be on the Supreme Court.”

[heckofajobbrownie]

Ken Starr, on the attacks on Kagan, repeated dutifully by the dopes in here: "Well it may be good politics but I don’t think it’s good for the Court. We have been through a generation of very divisive politics which I think is not serving the Court well and therefore I don’t think it serves the country well. But far be it from me to question the tactics of folks who are elected by their constituents to carry a particular voice. I just wish for the sake of the country that there are less rancor and acrimony. Elections have consequences. President Obama has chosen someone who is very qualified."[/b]

[DieHardBrownsFan]

Someone who has never been a Judge is well qualified? ROFLMAO.

[Chicopee John]

Someone who has never been a Judge is well qualified? ROFLMAO.

 

 

Just for the record, I believe it was commonplace for Supreme Court Justices NOT to be judges. I believe it has become standard - relatively recently (40 years) - for justices to come from the bench.

 

I'm not going to get too hung up on that.

 

[heckofajobbrownie]

You guys should probably know something before you go down this line of attack: the last Supreme Court Justice who had no prior judicial experience was William Rehnquist. Of course, he went on to to become Chief Justice.

 

And who nominated this person with no judicial experience? Ronald Reagan.

 

Oops.

[heckofajobbrownie]

Sorry to interrupt the feces throwing with some actual facts.

 

As John points out, there have been lots of Supreme Court Justices that didn't have judicial experience. It's hardly rare. You just don't know anything about it, and repeat what you're told.

 

And here you have clear examples of Republican hypocrisy, where Senators are just fine with the idea when Bush tried to appoint someone with no judicial experience -- they even see it as a positive -- but are suddenly concerned when Obama does the same thing, and with a woman who is clearly more accomplished than Harriet Miers was, and risen much higher in the legal profession than Harriet Miers did.

 

So why the two standards? Anyone?

[Mr. T]

Since we still live in a free country, so to speak. Why is it that if someone wants to look into the past of a nominee they are being reveled to as being a hater and are being scorned.

 

 

 

All I here is she is qualified. Qualified for what? Where is her resume? What has she accomplished?

 

 

 

From what I'm reading she hasn't accomplished squat. Nothing more than a few thousand other college profs have already have done.

 

 

Those who can do, and those who cant teach.

[heckofajobbrownie]

Anyone else want to take a guess? T is obviously floundering and can't read her resume, even though it's available to everyone else. He thinks she's no different than a school teacher, but he's not that bright. So let's set him aside fro a second.

 

Anyone else want to take a guess why it was okay for Bush's nominee to have no judicial experience, and why none of you guys said shit when Harriet Miers was nominated, but now it's a huge concern of yours?

 

 

[Mr. T]

Kagan: A judge who despises the law?

 

Harvard Law School is a breeding ground for the sort of anti-rule-of-law, progressive-activist judges most feared and despised by those who bemoan a runaway court trampling over the democratic process.

 

Ms. Kagan seems to have been preparing for a modern-day nomination hearing since elementary school. She has spoken nothing of consequence or controversy during her career, was granted tenure over objections that she had not sufficiently published, and can take cover for objectionable stances as solicitor general by remarking that she merely advocated on behalf of the president. She has no paper trail, no legacy of judicial opinions and no record of note by which to form a precise opinion of her judicial temperament.

 

She is a "stealth" candidate - a nominee with so little evidence of character, one way or the other, as to prove unimpeachable.

 

Every crumb will thus be scrutinized for clues as to the "real" Elena Kagan. And the most scrumptious crumbs certainly will involve her "hostility" to the military while governing Harvard Law. Ms. Kagan was at the forefront of the crusade to banish military recruiters from universities as a protest of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy. She frequently expressed her moral "abhorrence" of the "military's policy," refused to enforce a federal law requiring schools that receive federal grants to allow recruiters access to campus and eventually joined a legal brief to have the law overturned.

 

Never mind that "don't ask, don't tell" is a federal law (the military does not make laws) passed by the Clinton administration and a Democratic Congress (Ms. Kagan worked in the Clinton White House) and that Ms. Kagan continues to esteem highly many of the authors of that policy (reserving her "abhorrence" for young recruiters simply following orders). Rather, focus on her unlawful disobedience of a federal statute, her resort to the courts only as an afterthought and her ultimate decision to relent her tempest-in-a-teapot rebellion only when the Supreme Court (which she hopes to join) unanimously rejected her legal objection to the law in an 8-0 opinion.

 

Of course, at that time, she was a dean and not a judge. But she was the ultimate role model to her students, leading by example as the dean of a prestigious law school. Her blatant disregard for laws that she found personally displeasing and intellectual satisfaction with legal arguments dismissed by even the most sympathetic judges reflect poorly on the adequacy of her judicial temperament and capacity for unbiased rulings.

 

Source Here Washington Times

[heckofajobbrownie]

Run for the hills, T!!

 

Anyone want to say why it's okay for Reagan and Bush to appoint someone who hasn't had any judicial experience, but you lose your shit when Obama does the same thing?

 

Anyone?

[DieHardBrownsFan]

You guys should probably know something before you go down this line of attack: the last Supreme Court Justice who had no prior judicial experience was William Rehnquist. Of course, he went on to to become Chief Justice.

 

And who nominated this person with no judicial experience? Ronald Reagan.

 

Oops.

 

 

Thats irrelevant. I'm stating my opinion, not tying to get into a popularity contest. I believe that anyone who is appointed to the highest court in the land should have vast experience, regardless of what was done previously. To me vast experience means being a judge, preferably in a Federal Court.

[heckofajobbrownie]

Well, that doesn't make a lot of sense, unless you want to argue that all the justices who have served this country in the past, but didn't have any judicial experience, were all no good at their jobs.

 

You want to make that argument?

 

Doesn't this prove the opposite? That obviously experience as a judge - as opposed to experience in other jobs in our judicial system - isn't the only criteria that makes a good justice?

 

And the point is obviously relevant to all the Senators now making hypocritical arguments, and all the people in here who are making hypocritical arguments.

[DieHardBrownsFan]

Well, that doesn't make a lot of sense, unless you want to argue that all the justices who have served this country in the past, but didn't have any judicial experience, were all no good at their jobs.

 

You want to make that argument?

 

Doesn't this prove the opposite? That obviously experience as a judge - as opposed to experience in other jobs in our judicial system - isn't the only criteria that makes a good justice?

 

And the point is obviously relevant to all the Senators now making hypocritical arguments, and all the people in here who are making hypocritical arguments.

 

Well, IN MY OPINION Obammy is not qualified to be President.

[calfoxwc]

It is NOT JUST that they both had no judicial experience.

 

One, was excellently communicative, was a staunch originalist,

 

didn't have a history of special interests that would be above the law,

 

and was excellent in her understanding of the law.

 

That is the HISPANIC lady all you libs despised because she had no "experience", even

 

though OBAMAO had NO EXPERIENCE.

 

Now, this nasty lookin wench who thinks freedom of speech is "unConstitutional" if it has

 

a bad effect on society... ??? believes is special rights for gays and minorities, is a radical, anti-capitalist,

 

unreligous hateful freak of un-nature, American military hating beeach.

 

The first one was excellent, blue ribbon American.

 

The second one is a female? sleeztak who would bend the SC toward Obamao's socialist hip pocket.

 

I think Kagan is a vampire.

 

This is more fun. @@

[heckofajobbrownie]

Wow. That's disgusting even for you.

[Mr. T]

It must be pretty bad when the only defense the lefties have on Kagan is to call people names and say republicans are hypocritical.

 

 

 

The truth of the matter is she is not qualified and probably less qualified to make judgement based on its teachings.

 

 

 

But as we all know heck will continue to polish the brass on Obamao's sinking ship.

 

 

 

 

[heckofajobbrownie]

It's truly amazing how lost you guys are. You write about how she has no judicial experience as if that totally disqualifies her, and then when you realize lots of justices had no judicial experience either, including those nominated by Reagan and Bush and lots of other presidents, you freak out and flounder, rather than admitting your hypocrisy.

 

Then you ask what she's accomplished, when it's pretty obvious what she's accomplished, and the information about what she's accomplished is just about everywhere. You choose to ignore it.

 

And while everyone else sees her as a very moderate liberal choice, you nuts from the fringe see her as yet another America hater and value destroyer.

 

No new information or facts are allowed inside your bubble.

 

It's truly comical.

[heckofajobbrownie]

And I'm not the only one recognizing the hypocrisy. Here's the AP fact checking team:

 

WASHINGTON — So, Senator, how much does judicial experience matter when considering a Supreme Court nominee?

 

It depends on when you're asking.

 

Republicans now criticizing President Barack Obama's nominee, Solicitor General Elena Kagan, for her lack of judicial experience welcomed that same lack of credentials a few years ago, when a president of their own party nominated a non-judge for the high court.

 

In 2005, when then-President George W. Bush nominated Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, plenty of Republicans said they found it refreshing that Miers' experience amounted primarily to her time as a corporate lawyer and Bush aide.

 

That included Texas Sen. John Cornyn, who noted then that "40 percent of the men and women who have served as Supreme Court justices" had no judicial experience.

 

"One reason I felt so strongly about Harriet Miers' qualifications is I thought she would fill some very important gaps in the Supreme Court," Cornyn said in 2005. "Because right now you have people who've been federal judges, circuit judges most of their lives or academicians."

 

Now, with a Democrat in the White House, what Cornyn once considered refreshing in a high court nominee is in Kagan's case "surprising."

 

"Ms. Kagan is ... a surprising choice because she lacks judicial experience," Cornyn said Monday. "Most Americans believe that prior judicial experience is a necessary credential for a Supreme Court Justice."

 

A former Clinton administration aide and dean of the Harvard Law School, Kagan once was nominated for the federal bench, but her bid was stonewalled by a Republican Senate majority.

 

The top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, likewise found Miers' qualifications suitable five years ago: "It is not necessary that she have previous experience as a judge in order to serve on the Supreme Court," Sessions said. "It's perfectly acceptable to nominate outstanding lawyers to that position."

 

But on Monday, Sessions was seeing things differently. Kagan, he said, "warrants great scrutiny" because of her lack of time as a judge. "Ms. Kagan's lack of judicial experience and short time as solicitor general ... is troubling," he said.

 

And the list goes on. Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson of Texas thought Miers was a "wonderful choice" in 2005, but today she "has some concerns over Elena Kagan's lack of judicial experience."

Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., said Monday that Kagan's lack of judicial record raises questions – though he said in 2005 that he was not troubled by Miers' lack of judicial experience.

 

Another Republican, Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby, likewise didn't see Miers' lack of time on the bench as a holdup. On Monday, he said the same factor is a cause for further scrutiny of Kagan.

Despite those senators' praise, Miers ended up withdrawing her name under heavy criticism from conservatives who questioned her credentials on constitutional law and worried she wouldn't be a judicial conservative.

 

The last nominee to serve without judicial experience? The late Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who was nominated to the court by President Richard Nixon and served from 1972 to 2005, and is still lionized by conservatives.

[calfoxwc]

There you go again, arguing over part of posts that you can "refute", without

 

comprehensively dealing with the entire post.

 

Here, Heckleberry Jellybean, I'll post it again.

 

Try reading the whole thing, instead of taking a few words here and there out of context, like

 

you do with Steve all the freakin time:

 

**********

 

It is NOT JUST that they both had no judicial experience.

 

One, was excellently communicative, was a staunch originalist,

 

didn't have a history of special interests that would be above the law,

 

and was excellent in her understanding of the law.

 

That is the HISPANIC lady all you libs despised because she had no "experience", even

 

though OBAMAO had NO EXPERIENCE.

 

Now, this nasty lookin wench who thinks freedom of speech is "unConstitutional" if it has

 

a bad effect on society... ??? believes is special rights for gays and minorities, is a radical, anti-capitalist,

 

unreligous hateful freak of un-nature, American military hating beeach.

 

The first one was excellent, blue ribbon American.

 

The second one is a female? sleeztak who would bend the SC toward Obamao's socialist hip pocket.

 

I think Kagan is a vampire.

 

This is more fun. @@

[heckofajobbrownie]

Cal, as always, I hope you get out there and say this exact thing to as many people as possible, preferably the ones with cameras.

 

You're an important person whose views need to be heard.

[Mr. T]

The facts are that is the only argument for Kagan.

 

She is a horrible selection and you cant disprove that statement.

 

 

Your Obamao disinformation team can only fact check like a 12 year old girl with very little in talking points.

 

 

 

[calfoxwc]

Thank you for the kind, tongue-in-whatevercheek words, Heck.

 

But I explained that before, and yet again, you fail to understand what you read,

 

and you ignore what you can't refute.

 

But, at least you can fake having a heart that is in the right place, maybe.

 

Mzbeetlejuice can't even do that.

[Westside Steve]

Actually that's a good reason for all poiticos to mind what they argue.

Sooner or later the other side will drag out what you said when they want to do something you either praised or blasted.

 

Then of course the side that wants to do [whatever it is] will drag out the quotes of the senators who, up to that point, were painted as evil bastards,

And now they're living proof that the president is wise and omnipotent.

 

The old switcheroo.

 

WSS

[Westside Steve]

Ahhh the AP........

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/12/h...t_n_573702.html

WSS

[heckofajobbrownie]

So there was an AP article that I quoted, and now you found someone else quoting that article on the Huffington Post. That's your critique? Really?

 

How devastating.

[Icemann778]

omeone who has the wisdom and experience

[Chicopee John]

omeone who has the wisdom and experience

 

Not sure I understand, Ice.

 

Please elaborate.

 

PS Welcome to the board.