The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Rant Alert: Elena Kagan Should Be Given A Broom And Instructed To Do Something Useful

Posted on | May 10, 2010 | 60 Comments

by Smitty

Stacy may be setting up a google bomb based upon Elena Kagan’s after-hours interests. $3.50 and my interest in the sexuality of others (modulo my wife) will get you a beverage at Starbucks. I wouldn’t even afford Kagan the notice of an Uncle Jimbo cheap shot.

This Newsmax article understates the source of my irritation nicely:

Kagan’s opposition to treating military recruiters the same way corporate and legal recruiters were treated is emerging as one of the most controversial aspects of her background.

Military recruiters are not recruiting for just any old outfit. They’re recruiting for the people who support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign AND DOMESTIC.

The First Amendment is a beautiful thing. While hating the military that preserves the country is as sensible as, oh, your body hating its immune system, one can respect genuine pacifists like the Amish. Also gently ignore the godforsaken ignoramus who would systematically denigrate the military. Proverbs 25:21-22 applies:

If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he be thirsty, give him water to drink:
For thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head, and the LORD shall reward thee.

Make no mistake: I consider all of these modern liberal “Have you deconstructed the Constitution today?” knobs as sufferable, but inimical to the long term survival of the country.

Why?

Their behavior pattern over the last century seems to indicate that nothing less than the gradual destruction of the Constitution will suffice.

The Supreme Court’s deference to Congress has been nothing short of an abdication of the responsibility to keep the Federal Government “federal”. The Volokh link above notes:

The Supreme Court is supposed to defer to Congress and uphold any law it enacts so long as the justices can imagine a possible reason why Congress might have enacted a law. If the Supreme Court does anything else, it is “judicial activism.”

As far as I’m concerned, the national debt is roughly the cost of judicial inactivism in the case of entitlements. Welfare state, judicial activism, welfare state, judicial activism. . .history is invariant, but FDR is fortunate there was no Internet to gather a Tea Party to tell him where and how far he could shove his anti-Federal, Socialist ideas.

Elena Kagan will contribute to the reversal of this situation? How, exactly? She seems to hate the existence of the very warriors who will physically defend the Constitution, in the same way a Supreme Court Justice purportedly defends the document in the theoretical realm. She loves the Federalist Society, but they are not her people. Warriors? Does she even consider them fully human?

It’s a screaming insult and a slap in the face of anyone who’s ever served the country to elevate Elena Kagan, to reward the woman, for her conduct at Hahvuhd. Irrespective of whether a court of law would find the action criminal, this blog is willing to shout that the court of public opinion finds the action a (professionally) shootin’ offense. Elena should shoot off her mouth somewhere else than the bench of the Supreme Court.

Am I sounding too calm for you?

BHO might as well nominate Joan Baez, or even Hanoi Jane, as this Helena Kagan person. I predict that the lady is going to sit in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, offer the usual Progressive Taqiyya concerning her views, and then set about making JP Stevens look a right wing reactionary.

McConnell hasn’t ruled out the filibuster. I submit that a strong, positive, Constitutional signal needs to be sent to the judiciary that denigrating the Constitution and its defenders will not be rewarded with a lifetime appointment.

Get bent, lady.

Update:Ilya splits a fine hair:

In sum, Kagan’s support of a ban on military recruiters is legitimately subject to severe criticism. Senators should certainly question her about it. But I don’t see any reason to believe that it reflects a general hostility towards the armed forces.

In addition to zooming in to look at the fine detail of a point, which lawyers do so well, it’s wise to step back and ask the common-sense question: what has all this got us?

Elena seems mired in the intellectual tradition of those that are wrecking the country. Progressivism wrecks us by inches.

Update II: Senator Sessions is onboard.

Category: Progressivism, Supreme Court

Comments

60 Responses to “Rant Alert: Elena Kagan Should Be Given A Broom And Instructed To Do Something Useful”

  1. McGehee
    May 12th, 2010 @ 1:35 pm

    I associate sweeping with hockey

    Actually it’s curling — but Kagan doesn’t have enough hair for curlers.

  2. McGehee
    May 12th, 2010 @ 8:35 am

    I associate sweeping with hockey

    Actually it’s curling — but Kagan doesn’t have enough hair for curlers.

  3. peter rees
    May 12th, 2010 @ 9:08 pm

    Fuck! That Kagen takes Butt-Ugly to a whole new fucking level!

  4. peter rees
    May 12th, 2010 @ 4:08 pm

    Fuck! That Kagen takes Butt-Ugly to a whole new fucking level!

  5. Trebling My Doubts On Elena Kagan : The Other McCain
    May 12th, 2010 @ 5:55 pm

    […] […]

  6. Who Is Elena Kagan? « The Camp Of The Saints
    May 12th, 2010 @ 9:12 pm

    […] her actions at Harvard in the ROTC matter, I’m with Smitty 100% [see here (love the post title 1E, but, then again, I would), here, and here].  Some tough questions have […]

  7. Jerinne Duval
    May 13th, 2010 @ 5:33 pm

    The source of your “irritation” (Newsmax) is rhetorical quicksand:

    “Kagan’s opposition to treating military recruiters the same way corporate and legal recruiters were treated is emerging as one of the most controversial aspects of her background.”

    This is typical Newsmax nonsense.

    Harvard Law School and Kagan held military recruiters to the SAME standard (in accordance with the Solomon Act) to which discriminatory private recruiters were held, i.e. “If you want to ignore our law school’s antidiscrimination policies then don’t use our placement office or career fair to recruit our students. Set up a tent across the street or elsewhere on campus.” (Quotes not Kagan’s.)

    Andrew Sorkin: “All she did was follow the law at the time. When the 3rd Circuit court said the law is you don’t have to allow the recruitment on campus, she didn’t, and when the Supreme Court said you do, she did,” said Sorkin, now a lawyer in Chicago.”

    (Actually Harvard allowed recruiters to operate through the student VA organization; recruiters weren’t kicked off campus during this period, though right-wingers say they were.)

    The military’s response was to challenge the circuit court’s opinion, get a favorable ruling for preferential treatment from the Supremes, and then to promptly threaten not only law schools but entire universities with a cutoff of all federal funds not just from the Defense Department but from virtually the entire federal government, jeopardizing important research done by schools and government departments that had nothing to do with Donald Rumsfelds pissing match with law schools. Too bad the DoD hasn’t conducted as effective an intimidation of Al Quaida as it has of American universities.

    If you like the DoD acting as judge, jury and executioner with sweeping banana republic powers over American higher education, then you probably don’t like people who applied the law fairly in opposition — like Kagan.

    “While the country was at war fighting to promote democracy abroad, the Defense Department was telling law schools at home that dissent would cost their universities money promised for research into everything from AIDS to rocket science. When one law school asked for a clarification of the military’s interpretation of the statute, the government said that such a request for clarification constituted a refusal to comply with the law and was grounds for cutting off federal funds. Heavy-handed indeed.”
    –Kent Greenfield, Professor, Boston College Law School

    Even if your argument weren’t based on a Newsmax lie, its premise would still be intellectual lint.

  8. Jerinne Duval
    May 13th, 2010 @ 12:33 pm

    The source of your “irritation” (Newsmax) is rhetorical quicksand:

    “Kagan’s opposition to treating military recruiters the same way corporate and legal recruiters were treated is emerging as one of the most controversial aspects of her background.”

    This is typical Newsmax nonsense.

    Harvard Law School and Kagan held military recruiters to the SAME standard (in accordance with the Solomon Act) to which discriminatory private recruiters were held, i.e. “If you want to ignore our law school’s antidiscrimination policies then don’t use our placement office or career fair to recruit our students. Set up a tent across the street or elsewhere on campus.” (Quotes not Kagan’s.)

    Andrew Sorkin: “All she did was follow the law at the time. When the 3rd Circuit court said the law is you don’t have to allow the recruitment on campus, she didn’t, and when the Supreme Court said you do, she did,” said Sorkin, now a lawyer in Chicago.”

    (Actually Harvard allowed recruiters to operate through the student VA organization; recruiters weren’t kicked off campus during this period, though right-wingers say they were.)

    The military’s response was to challenge the circuit court’s opinion, get a favorable ruling for preferential treatment from the Supremes, and then to promptly threaten not only law schools but entire universities with a cutoff of all federal funds not just from the Defense Department but from virtually the entire federal government, jeopardizing important research done by schools and government departments that had nothing to do with Donald Rumsfelds pissing match with law schools. Too bad the DoD hasn’t conducted as effective an intimidation of Al Quaida as it has of American universities.

    If you like the DoD acting as judge, jury and executioner with sweeping banana republic powers over American higher education, then you probably don’t like people who applied the law fairly in opposition — like Kagan.

    “While the country was at war fighting to promote democracy abroad, the Defense Department was telling law schools at home that dissent would cost their universities money promised for research into everything from AIDS to rocket science. When one law school asked for a clarification of the military’s interpretation of the statute, the government said that such a request for clarification constituted a refusal to comply with the law and was grounds for cutting off federal funds. Heavy-handed indeed.”
    –Kent Greenfield, Professor, Boston College Law School

    Even if your argument weren’t based on a Newsmax lie, its premise would still be intellectual lint.

  9. Crooked America » Blog Archive » Elena Kagan Crook On The Bench?
    May 18th, 2010 @ 11:35 am

    […] The First Amendment is a beautiful thing. While hating the military that preserves the country is as sensible as, oh, your body hating its immune system, one can respect genuine pacifists like the Amish. Also gently ignore the godforsaken ignoramus who would systematically denigrate the military.”—–theothermccain.com […]

  10. So What If Elena Kagan is a Lesbian! :: The Lonely Conservative
    July 7th, 2010 @ 12:07 pm

    […] Her contempt for the military. Military recruiters are not recruiting for just any old outfit. They’re recruiting for the […]