The Other McCain

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

Shameless Insincerity

Posted on | November 21, 2011 | 16 Comments

by Smitty

The stench of everything coming out of the Beltway is rancid. One case in a thousand points of mold is Elena Kagan, via American Power: Douglas also links IBD:

Should a justice who participated in ObamaCare’s creation recuse herself from the court’s review of that law? Of course. But then a nominee who lies in confirmation hearings shouldn’t be on the court anyway.
If Justice Elena Kagan were a person of character, she would sit out the Supreme Court’s hearing of the challenge to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
But during her confirmation hearings in June of last year, she indicated she would not. And since this Monday, when the court announced it would take the case, she has done nothing to suggest she will recuse herself after all. Nor has the court made any statement about her recusal, a convention it usually follows when a justice takes himself or herself off a case.

and:

Nearly lost in this is the possibility that Kagan lied during her confirmation. She told the Senate Judiciary Committee that she had not been asked about the legal issues of ObamaCare nor had she offered any views on them. The emails, however, seem to tell a different story. Two exclamation points plainly show that in her legal opinion, ObamaCare was constitutional.

Also under fire, per CNSNews, is the Worst Attorney General in American History:

Senate Republican leaders sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder on Friday expressing their view that testimony he gave in the Senate Judiciary Committee last week on the Justice Department’s handling of then-Solicitor General Elena Kagan’s involvement in litigation arising from the administration’s health care legislation was “belied by the facts.”
The senators also urged Holder to comply with requests that have been submitted to the Justice Department by Congress seeking information about Kagan’s involvement in the matter and expressed their view that Kagan’s activities as solicitor general may have triggered two different provisions of a federal law that governs when a Supreme Court justice must recuse from a case.

From all appearances, pretty much everyone appointed by BHO is a shameless, amoral, ideological hack of mediocre skill at best. In the case of ObamaCare, there doesn’t seem to be any obvious way to get enough lift under that pig to make it fly. The discussion, I’m guessing, will revolve around how to reject ObamaCare narrowly enough that the ground remains un-laid for the next obvious step: realizing that the SCOTUS under FDR beclowned itself by not rejecting the New Deal. Progressives have cherished 10th Amendment violations to protect, you see. Commie morons.

Step back though, and let’s consider a post-Progressive era. For surely this noise cannot continue. How in the world do we restore faith and transparency in our institutions after BHO, Holder, and Kagan? We’ve got a collection of people in higher office that don’t seem to understand anything, anything at all, except power. What do we do about that?

Is voting these clowns out, on its own, enough? Or do they leave enough residue of abuse, enough tradition of disregard, even rejection, of the Enlightenment principles that inform our founding documents that this administration completes the ‘mission kill’ of our Constitution by Progressivism?

That’s a hard thought, coming as it does in a context of economic ruin. However, as with calling Social Security a Ponzi scheme, the sooner we face fact that the effect of Progressivism has been an Article V amendment of the Constitution via ‘settled law’, the sooner we can set about unwinding the evil the Progressives wrought.

Update: linked at The Daley Gator.

Category: Democrats, Progressivism

Comments

16 Responses to “Shameless Insincerity”

  1. Anonymous
    November 21st, 2011 @ 6:13 pm

    I suspect that this country’s divisions are too great, too diametrically opposed to be resolved within it’s institutions.
    Our government’s actions over the last century, the Progressive’s lust for control of Man and the characteristics of Mankind have led the nation too far from it’s foundational moorings for us to simply retrace our steps.

  2. Doug Hagin
    November 21st, 2011 @ 6:45 pm

    Smitty, we are at a crossroads, and, if we do not change our direction, we may lose all chances of ever restoring the nation envisioned by the founders. Got you linked at The DaleyGator

    http://thedaleygator.wordpress.com/2011/11/21/shameless-amoral-ideological-hack-of-mediocre-skill-at-best/

  3. Edward
    November 21st, 2011 @ 6:48 pm

    *shrug* a third of the country (Democrats) have no connection to reality.  Another third (independents) can’t be bothered with actually paying attention to what is going on in government and the last third (Republicans) are preoccupied with show games rather than anything of substance.

    Is anything worthwhile supposed to come out of this?

  4. DaveO
    November 21st, 2011 @ 7:26 pm

    The article gets at least point wrong. Justice Kagan IS a person of character. Just not of such a nature as we’ve been taught to expect. In fairness, none of the members of the SCOTUS are brahmin.

    It’s up to Chief Justice Roberts, and C-Span to show the moral disengenuousness of Kagan and the rest of the Progressive 5.

  5. Joe
    November 21st, 2011 @ 8:00 pm

    Sadly that is true.  They don’t care what you do or think, they will just say Clarence Thomas is worse (he isn’t, it is not comparable, but it doesn’t matter–what are you going to do about it?  Impeach her?). 

  6. Joe
    November 21st, 2011 @ 8:02 pm

    The rub DaveO is “Progressive Five” which the majority number has a first letter that matches a certain old anglo saxon word, which describes the situation we are in. 

  7. Joe
    November 21st, 2011 @ 8:03 pm

    All our hopes rest with Anthony Kennedy.  Even if Kagan recused herself, that would still be the case.  A four four tie does not overrule legislation.  To be declared unconstitutional requires a clear majority. 

  8. Anonymous
    November 21st, 2011 @ 8:18 pm

    “How in the world do we restore faith and transparency in our institutions after BHO, Holder, and Kagan?”

    Honest answer? I do not know. Remember that chaos is a strategy, too. The Progressives use that to destabilize the status quo and have a mission to undermine the American structural apparatus. They want to work “from the ground up and from the inside out” (h/t to Glenn Beck) to discredit what currently is. So, even if they cannot takeover the reins of governance acutely, they will work to undermine all institutions to institute “change.”

    The pessimist in me sees failure in the American populace to adequately purge these Statists. I’d say there’s considerable evidence of our ceaseless lurch Left even as we think we occasionally swing Right as a consequence of the political pendulum. The fact is we have NOT swung right in decades if not generations.

    The ornery cuss in me, however, refuses to give them the satisfaction of a pleasant transition whatever inevitability I might discern. I will not go quietly even if I believe history will be repeated, again, and it’s realized that we simply will not keep our Republic.

    In short I’ll be a defiant pessimist. The Progressives, however, will continue to win even as they lose unless and until America wakes up to the subversion within. Is that a sliver of optimism? I just don’t know.

  9. Anonymous
    November 21st, 2011 @ 8:31 pm

    1859.

  10. Anonymous
    November 21st, 2011 @ 9:07 pm

    I make it 50/50.

  11. Finrod Felagund
    November 21st, 2011 @ 9:26 pm

    Well-said, Smitty.  You’ve been on quite the tear lately.

  12. Adjoran
    November 21st, 2011 @ 11:26 pm

    True, and besides there is no mechanism besides impeachment which can force Justices to recuse themselves. 

    Kennedy, by all accounts, is a proud man and very proud of his record on the Court.  If he were wavering, he may just remember the public embarrassment the current Executive put upon a defenseless group of Justices at the SOTU.  What goes around, Barry . . .

  13. Adjoran
    November 22nd, 2011 @ 12:12 am

    The bottom line is the reminder that the argument there “is no difference” between even the weakest Republican and any Democratic President is nonsense.  Elections do matter, and the federal bench is the best example.  All five potential votes to overturn were appointed by Republicans and all four votes to uphold were named by Democrats.

    You can talk all the trash you want about John McCain, but you would have to be a complete moron to believe that even on his worst day he wouldn’t name better judges than the radical leftists put on the Court by Obama.

    Not only that, but there are roughly 50 new federal court vacancies a year, and we are behind on filling them, so the next President will have hundreds of lifetime appointments to give out.  We haven’t even mentioned the appointments to agencies like FCC and NLRB, the US Attorneys, control over foreign policy, control of regulations.

    “No difference”?   Right.

  14. Anonymous
    November 22nd, 2011 @ 1:15 am

    I think many of us have a more permanent solution to appointments to Departments and agencies.

  15. Bob Belvedere
    November 22nd, 2011 @ 10:14 am

    I’m coming to the sad conclusion that violence will not be avoided if we do not give-up and give-in – and that is something many of us will never do.

  16. Bob Belvedere
    November 22nd, 2011 @ 10:16 am

    Pray…pray hard.