Kagan Must Answer the Question About DOMA

This week the Senate looks to approve or filibuster Elena Kagan as another notoriously radical Obama appointment.  Again, going against the will of the people who want a conservative as the next Supreme Court justice, Obama nominates a radical ideologue.  If we have any more like Kagan, our constitutional rights, as laid out by our Founding Fathers based on years of experience, will be in serious peril.

This is why it is imperative that she be stopped.  We still do not know her position on the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), as she cleverly skirted around it.  DOMA has been challenged by the not-to-be-forgotten Martha Coakley, and it looks like it may go all the way to the Supreme Court.  We seriously need to know Kagan's stance on these issues, and needs to be called back to answer a few more questions.

Phyllis Schlafly of Eagle Forum writes a brilliant piece on this, with oodles of fantastic references.  One of my favorites is the reference she makes to the devious (a la Obamacare) Obama administration as in it for the "long march", referring to the Mao dynasty in such a way that is chilling.

Anyway, be sure to get on that phone, fax or email to the Senators (Grassfire's contact list)

Kagan Must Answer the Question About DOMA
by Phyllis Schlafly, July 16, 2010

If Elena Kagan is confirmed for the Supreme Court, it will not matter that Martha Coakley failed to win her bid to fill out Ted Kennedy's Senate seat. Kagan's 30-plus years as one of nine votes on the Supreme Court is far more important than Scott Brown's three years as one of 100 votes in the Senate.

A litigation time bomb set by Martha Coakley — who remains state attorney general despite losing her Senate race — exploded last week in a Massachusetts courtroom. Federal Judge Joseph Tauro, who received his lifetime appointment from Richard Nixon in 1972, upheld Coakley's position in a lawsuit she filed a year ago against the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).

Responding to written questions by Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Kagan answered "Yes" when asked whether she had "reviewed briefs" and/or "participated in some discussions" concerning the lawsuit that resulted in last week's anti-marriage decision. Kagan should be called back to answer more questions about her role in that case.

What position did she take on the DOMA case that resulted in overturning that law, and why didn't she defend it more aggressively? Would she recuse herself when this case, or a similar marriage case, reaches the Supreme Court?

The one-man, one-woman definition of marriage is enshrined in the laws of 45 states, and has been upheld by popular vote in 31 states from Maine to Hawaii. The 1996 federal law attacked by Martha Coakley applies this same definition to the 1,138 federal laws that refer to marriage.

It was only six months ago that the charismatic Republican Scott Brown defeated the dour feminist Martha Coakley for the U.S. Senate seat that had been held by the Kennedy family for 58 years. It was a humiliating repudiation of liberalism in its Massachusetts homeland.

Scott Brown's election meant that Democrats lost their filibuster-proof 60-vote Senate majority for the remainder of Obama's presidential term. Pundits predicted that meant the end of Obamacare, cap and trade, card check, comprehensive immigration reform, and the rest of the "hope and change" agenda.

But the Obama-Pelosi liberals are here for the "long march," and they quickly regrouped their forces. Using unprecedented parliamentary chicanery to bypass Senate rules, they managed to get another | version of Obamacare to the President for his signature at the end of March.

As soon the ink was dry but before congressmen had actually read the over-2,000-page bill, Democrats tried to pretend the debate was over because Obamacare is now the "law of the land." But polls continue to show that 60 percent of Americans oppose Obamacare, including 52 percent who "strongly favor repeal."

Missouri just became the 21st state to sue on behalf of its citizens for a ruling that Obamacare's central provision — the mandate on individuals to buy health insurance — is unconstitutional.

Judge Tauro's written | opinion has already been criticized as illogical, even by liberals who support same-sex marriage. But liberal legal scholars are already hard at work on developing a better rationale because they are so deeply invested in getting rid of DOMA.

As Justice Scalia wrote about an earlier case, the new DOMA decision is "the product of a law-profession culture, that has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda." Kagan on the Supreme Court would permanently entrench what Scalia called the "law profession's anti-anti-homosexual culture," by reading it into the U.S. Constitution.

Elena Kagan has been called Obama in a skirt. Her youth was steeped in the notoriously radical politics of the Upper West Side of New York City, absorbing "progressive" views that are reflected in the theses she wrote at Princeton and Oxford. If confirmed, she would be the 6th Justice on the current Supreme Court who was born in New York or New Jersey and the 9th who attended Harvard or Yale law schools.

The American people were hoping the next Supreme Court justice would be conservative. According to a Fox News poll in April, 52 percent said they wanted President Obama to nominate "someone who is more of a conservative" and only 29 percent wanted "someone who is more of a liberal."

We hope the Senators realize that their vote on Elena Kagan is crucial because she could be the deciding vote on the constitutionality of both DOMA and Obamacare. Despite all her non-answers to softball questions in the hearing, there is no question about how she will vote.

Abe Lincoln warned us that "if the policy of the Government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, ... the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their Government into the hands of that eminent tribunal."

Further reading:
Elena Kagan Should Be Rejected 7-10-2010
Obama Steers the Court Left 5-14-2010

Read more pieces by Phyllis Schlafly here

ELENA KAGAN SHOULD BE REJECTED

Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country.

That was an old typing practice sentence that I remember well, and is very apropos today. In light of this week's close call regarding upholding our 2nd Amendment rights, keeping the Supreme Court clean of judicial activists could not be more crital.

The ever lovely and brilliant Phyllis Schlafly of Eagle Forum has written an excellent dissertation on the reasons why Elena Kagan is not fit to wear the robes of a Supreme Court justice from the great Townhall.com.

It is so important to voice your opinion to the Senators about to make an all important decision about her. Here are their numbers on page 1, page 2, and page 3.

Elena Kagan Should Be Rejected
by Phyllis Schlafly, June 30, 2010

Barack Obama revealed his goal for the Supreme Court when he complained on Chicago radio station WBEZ-FM in 2001 that the Earl Warren Court wasn't "radical" enough because "it didn't break free from the essential constraints placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution" in order to allow "redistribution of wealth." Now that Obama is president, he has the power to nominate Supreme Court justices who will "break free" from the Constitution and join him in "fundamentally transforming" America.

That's the essence of his choice of Elena Kagan as his second Supreme Court nominee. She never was a judge, and her paper trail is short. But it's long enough to prove that she is a clear and present danger to the Constitution.

When Kagan was dean of Harvard Law School, she presented a guest speaker who is known as the most activist judge in the world: Judge Aharon Barak, formerly president of the Israeli Supreme Court. The polar opposite of the U.S. Constitution, which states that "all legislative powers" are vested in the elected legislative body, Barak has written that a judge should "make" and "create" law, assume "a role in the legislative process," and give statutes "new meaning that suits new social needs."

Barak wrote that a judge "is subject to no authority" except himself, and he "must sometimes depart the confines of his legal system and channel into it fundamental values not yet found in it." Channel? Does he mean he channels in a trance, as Hillary Clinton supposedly channeled discourse with the long deceased Eleanor Roosevelt?

Despite Barak's weirdo writings, or maybe because of them, Kagan called him her "judicial hero." Judge Robert Bork, a man careful with his words, says that Kagan's praise of Barak is "disqualifying in and of itself."

Bork said that Barak "establishes a world record for judicial hubris." Bork wrote that Barak embraces a judicial philosophy that "there is no area of Israeli life that the court may not govern."

During Kagan's confirmation hearing for solicitor general, Sen. Arlen Specter asked her views on using foreign or international law or decisions to interpret our Constitution and laws. She wrote in reply that she approves using "reasonable foreign law arguments."

Au contraire. The U.S. Constitution states that our judges "shall be bound" by "the Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof."

Federal law requires all educational institutions receiving federal funds to present an educational program on the U.S. Constitution on every Constitution Day, September 17. Kagan thumbed her nose at Constitution Day 2007 by hiring a transnationalist to the Harvard faculty, Noah Feldman, and featuring him for two days of speeches.

Transnationalists are lawyers who advocate integrating foreign and international law into the interpretation of the U.S. Constitution and laws. In his Harvard Constitution Day address, Feldman urged the "use of international legal materials in constitutional decision-making ... to help actually decide cases," and opined that "international tribunals' rulings must be treated as law."

Kagan's hero is also a transnationalist. In his book "The Judge in a Democracy," he sharply criticizes the U.S. Supreme Court for failing to cite foreign law, and he praises Canada, Australia and Germany for their "enlightened democratic legal systems."

Kagan is particularly inappropriate because this anti-military woman would replace the only veteran on the court, John Paul Stevens. As Harvard Law School dean, Kagan signed a brief asking the Supreme Court to overturn or rewrite the Solomon Amendment, which she called "profoundly wrong."

That popular federal law denies federal funds to colleges that bar military recruiters from the campus. The Supreme Court unanimously rejected Kagan's argument, which proves what an extremist she is.

Kagan demonstrated her feminist extremism when she served as the lead White House strategist advising President Bill Clinton to veto the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. Ten years later, substantially the same act was passed by Congress, signed by President George W. Bush and upheld by the Supreme Court.

Feldman has just published a long New York Times magazine article in which he worries about how the Supreme Court will rule on lawsuits over Obamacare, Obama's takeover of big corporations and the cronyism in stimulus spending. Feldman hopes the Kagan appointment means that "the moment has arrived for progressive constitutional thought" to take over the courts.

The left is counting on Kagan to play a major role in getting the Supreme Court to uphold Obama's transformation of our exceptional private enterprise system to a socialist economy. The New Republic magazine is salivating at the prospect that Kagan will reassert the discredited doctrine of the "living Constitution."

A Rasmussen poll reports that 42 percent of Americans oppose Kagan's confirmation, and only 35 percent favor her. Are senators listening?

Read more Phyllis Schlafly here.

The Socialist Judge: Elena Kagan and the Teachable Moment

"We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America"! How naïve was America when Barack Hussein Obama shouted those words on the brink of his election. What an education we have had in the past tumultuous 18 months, with a new transformation occurring on an almost daily basis. It has been quite a ride, reminding me of the Disneyland Tea Cup ride where I watched my little boy lose his cookies. As disturbing as this ride as been, you have to admit -- this is the ONE statement Obama has made truthfully.

In the early months of his regime, one was apprehensive to call his actions out for what they were, but with every move he and his team have taken, there is no mistake he is on a path to transform our democracy into his supreme socialist state. The most current horrifying transformation taking place today is taking place in the form of a lifetime appointment to the third branch of our government, the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court is where this transformation to socialism in eminent. If properly placed, the Supreme Court is the last and final bastion to change, and ultimately replace, our Constitution. The buck stops there. Once placed, there is no election, no votes, no repeal to stop the transformation for decades, if ever.

Slowly, but (thank God) surely, the beliefs and views of Obama's latest nightmare appointment are being revealed. The question is -- do the few remaining elected conservatives in our congress have the stones to stand up against this powerful takeover. You can't get more socialistic than Elena Kagan, and in fact she is a clone of Barack Hussein Obama. So, if you approve of what Obama has been doing as president, you will love this woman. (h/t Hot Air)

We can stop this, America, by letting our senators know how we feel about her appointment. If socialism is to be stopped, it starts with us -- the American People. As Mr. Lord says, this is, without a doubt, a blessed teachable moment.

Jeffrey Lord has his own ideas, and writes a brilliant piece in the American Spectator. He carefully lays out this socialist takeover step by gruesome step:


The Socialist Judge: Elena Kagan and the Teachable Moment
by Jeffrey Lord, May 12, 2010

"In our own times, a coherent socialist movement is nowhere to be found in the United States. Americans are more likely to speak of a golden past than of a golden future, of capitalism's glories than of socialism's greatness."
-- Elena Kagan, Obama nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court

"This is a great opportunity to find out what's in this woman's mind."
-- Rush Limbaugh

The teachable moment on socialism is here.

Courtesy of Barack Obama and Elena Kagan..

The issue -- the issue -- of this confirmation hearing for a Supreme Court Justice should be not Ms. Kagan, but socialism. Socialism, the philosophy she professed such admiration for in her 1981 Princeton thesis titled "To the Final Conflict: Socialism in New York City, 1900-1933."

"The Final Conflict." Think of that.

Why focus on an undergraduate college paper written almost thirty years ago?

Because we are in the middle of a massively controversial presidency led by a man who has exhibited every intention of "transforming" America in the socialist image -- leading the country away from its capitalist heritage. This Supreme Court nomination does not, after all, come in a vacuum. Since taking office, the Obama administration has taken control of everything from car companies to financial institutions to banks to your health care.

And no, the obvious intent of Princeton's Sean Wilentz, her thesis adviser and himself a notable progressive, is not missed. In saying in the New York Times that "to study something is not to endorse it" Wilentz telegraphs that is exactly what Kagan -- and he himself -- thought then and now of socialism. They liked it. They like it still. A lot. It helps to understand when reading this particular bit of fantasy that the American Prospect has described Wilentz as "a distinguished historian active in Democratic politics." His defense of Kagan is the plain attempt to engage in a little storytelling with a considerable partisan design -- to convince the unwary that Kagan is not what her words and actions demonstrate she in fact is.

Around America, whether it is the struggles of California or New York, or abroad in Greece, the chickens of socialism are coming home to roost. And Solicitor General Kagan -- by all accounts just peachy as a person -- is an on the record believer in the philosophy that is behind all of this.

Socialism.

There is precedent for a fight of this nature.

In 1993, with Democrats in control of the Congress and the media wrapping the new President Clinton in the standard media gauze of affection and let's-all-work-together, something happened. Something important.

While it is not often remembered, before there was a Weekly Standard, Bill Kristol in his inimitable style calmly lit the bonfire that signaled the launch of the historic 1994 election of a GOP Congress. He began by rejecting outright the intention of Congressional Republicans to respond to the introduction of HillaryCare -- the health care debate of the day -- by agreeing to the premise and tinkering and bickering around the edges. Serving as chair of a group called the Project for the Republican Future, Kristol wrote a memo that wound up shaking the political foundations of the day. Kristol's startling recommendation: "kill" the bill. Don't bicker about the details. Don't fiddle at the margins. Just plain kill the bill outright and stand on conservative principles.

The reaction so startled, so clearly drew a bright line between conservatives and liberals, that in fact the decades-long somnolent establishment Republicans woke up. Prodded hourly by the rebellious Newt Gingrich, the case for opposing HillaryCare was made. And as a result the first Republican Congress since 1952 -- 42 years earlier -- was elected in the "Gingrich Revolution."

Now comes President Obama's nomination of his Solicitor General, former Harvard Law School Dean Kagan, as a replacement for Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens.

With the nomination barely 24-hours old, Senate Republicans are already doing their standard head-nodding "we'll have to look at Elena's record" blah-blah-blah. She's nice. She's swell. And, chime in her supporters helpfully, she's a moderate. What a gal.

And in proceeding along those lines, the Senate GOP and the conservative movement are missing entirely what might be called a Kristol-clear opportunity.

The nomination of Elena Kagan is not about that nice Kagan woman. It is about her well and crisply stated views about "socialism's greatness." Views that, based on the actual record of the Obama presidency, this administration shares.

So. Got that? We have a Supreme Court nominee who believes in "socialism's greatness."

Socialism, then, is a highly relevant -- the highly relevant -- issue of this confirmation of an Obama nominated Supreme Court Justice.

This nomination fight must be about exactly what Ms. Kagan was thinking when she spent a lot of ink writing about "socialism's greatness." And how that thinking will affect her conduct on the bench.

Will she be confirmed? Maybe. Even probably. But her confirmation is quite beside the point. The notion that this President of the United States is a committed socialist is decidedly not beside the point. And as a symbol of the Obama administration Elena Kagan is a gift from the political MasterCard.

Priceless.

Why?

What needs to be discussed and debated, confirmed or rejected in this Supreme Court nomination is not Elena Kagan -- but socialism itself.

This hearing and the debate that swirls around it should be one very slow-motion educational moment about every socialist thought, movement and result, from the Haymarket Riot of May 4, 1886 (which gave rise to the socialist and Communist celebration of "May Day"), to the policies of the National Socialist Party (the Nazis) of Germany, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (the USSR) and countries such as the Democratic People's Republic of North Korea (ruled by the socialist "Korean Worker's Party"). How did major American cities like Los Angeles, Detroit and New Orleans get into such deep trouble that everything from bankruptcy to a hurricane pushes them to the brink? What about socialism can be found in the policies of states like California, New York, and Michigan -- all three which are ravaged by high unemployment and, yes, the looming shadow of bankruptcy?

Witnesses should be called to testify about the socialism Ms. Kagan praised. What kind of witnesses? Who, exactly? Why, some of the most prominent socialist advocates on the American scene today.

• Reverend Jeremiah Wright -- the now-retired pastor of the Trinity United Church of Christ, in whose pews President Obama sat for 20 years is well on the record in favor of socialism presented as "Black Liberation Theology"

• Bill Ayers -- the famous Weatherman whom Sean Hannity calls "the unrepentant terrorist" describes himself as "a radical, Leftist, small 'c' communist," as reported by Stanley Kurtz in this article in the Wall Street Journal. Come up to the Hill, Bill. (Can we leave the bombs behind on this round?)

• Van Jones -- the self-described Communist who served as the Obama administration's "Green Jobs Czar" until his very verbose video history was unearthed by Glenn Beck. Van -- your old colleague needs a little backup here. Come back and chat. We've missed your pearls of wisdom!

• Carol Browner -- the "global warming czar" of the Obama Administration. Ms. Browner, as Sean Hannity has yet again reported, was one of fourteen leaders of an outfit called the "Commission for a Sustainable World Society," an arm of the Socialist International.

So Carol, how about shedding some light on your buds? Come on now, don't be shy.

• U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders -- Mr. Sanders, who votes with the Senate Democrats, is a proud -- and the only open -- socialist member of the United States Senate. Representing Vermont, his fellow Vermont Senator being Senate Judiciary Chairman and Democrat Patrick Leahy. Senator -- you are never shy. Your Vermont friend runs the show -- have him give you some time to educate the rest of us.

• U.S. Representative Maxine Waters -- Ms. Waters has openly pined for the government to take over oil companies. To socialize them. Never a dull discussion to be had with Ms. Waters -- walk on over to the Senate, Congresswoman, and let 'er rip. We're all ears.

• Andy Stern -- the now resigned president of SEIU (the Service Employees International Union) famous for saying in the style of Karl Marx, "Workers of the world unite -- it's not just a slogan anymore. It's the way we're gonna have to do our work." Come back, Andy. Come back! Open up!

• Ron Bloom -- the Obama "manufacturing czar" and ex-SEIU aide on the record as believing "the free market is nonsense." OK Ron, make your case. Elena agrees -- come defend her.

• Bertha Lewis -- the ACORN CEO who addressed a meeting of the Young Democratic Socialists and said "I'm a socialist." Bertha, Bertha, Bertha. There will be more cameras here. Front row seat. We want to listen. Come on in!

• Mark Lloyd -- a disciple of Obama hero Saul Alinsky, the author of Rules for Radicals, Lloyd is a well-professed admirer of Venezuela socialist strongman Hugo Chavez. And an Obama appointee at the Federal Communications Commission. Hey -- things are stirring over at the FCC, Mark. Let's hear how you see the role of socialism on the Court in dealing with communications.

While we're at it, let's throw in a few celebrities. Let's listen to Sean Penn on the subject, he the admirer of Hugo Chavez. Michael Moore loves Fidel Castro's Cuba and professes his hatred of capitalism. Mike, babe, come be a witness for Elena Kagan.

Doubtless there are other potential witnesses who can testify as to just why someone of General Kagan's smarts would so fervently believe in "socialism's greatness." Yes, the White House would surely put up a fierce fight to keep its own appointees from being grilled by Senators -- thus illustrating the point that there is something to hide. They would do everything they possibly could to keep the topic of socialism as far removed from the Senate Judiciary Committee as possible. Which in turn sets up for Team Obama a classic "lose-lose" proposition. If socialism is so great, and the nominee is on the written record about this, then let's have the discussion. If the Obama White House and its allies refuse to have the discussion -- the question becomes: what's to hide?

But make no mistake. This is not about juicing the TV ratings for a Court confirmation.

If the United States Senate is about to vote for an avowed admirer of socialism for the job of Supreme Court Justice, the obvious question is: how does socialism deal with American concepts of law and the Constitution?

What about free speech? Already stories are appearing that Kagan "argued to the court in September that Congress has the constitutional right to forbid companies from engaging in political speech such as publishing pamphlets that advocate the election or defeat of a candidate for federal office." Socialism is, of course, famously hostile to corporations and the rights of private individuals, a hostility that comes out in Kagan's animus to free speech by corporations in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. This was the case, of course, for which President Obama famously scolded the Supreme Court as it sat before him during his State of the Union address.

Here are a few other issues to be aired in a discussion about a pro-socialist nominee to the Court:

• What about socialism's views of the role of corporations under the Constitution? Let's discuss.

• What about the limits of government in a socialist state?

• If the Constitution is simply a "living document" as liberals love to insist, not to be read as written, what about the real-life of socialism in practice around the world should be injected into any interpretation of the Constitution? If foreign law is something that should be taken into account by American judges, another liberal favorite, which of the laws of socialist states from North Korea to Communist China to the old Soviet Union should be adapted when making Supreme Court decisions?

• What is the nominee's view of capitalism?

• Should the Court be deciding how much money Americans are entitled to earn?

• Should the government run corporations and banks?

• What is the role of the FCC in regulating the Internet?

Unintentionally, President Obama has handed conservatives a golden opportunity to educate Americans on the hard cold facts of the age-old, always failed socialist agenda -- all neatly presented in the nomination of the very nice Elena Kagan.

A better teachable moment could not be had.

Will Senate Republicans understand the Obama White House gift to their cause? Are there actually members of the Republican Senate Caucus who will vote for a nominee who has so resolutely stated her support of socialism?

Is that you Lindsay Graham?

Can anyone in the Republican Senate Caucus say these four words?

Former Senator Bob Bennett.

The teachable moment for conservatives and all those tea partiers has arrived. At exactly the right time.

Thank you, Mr. President. Bless you for giving us Elena Kagan. Let the debate begin.


Jeffrey Lord is a former Reagan White House political director and author. He has worked on the nominations of seven Supreme Court nominees. He writes from Pennsylvania at jlpa1@aol.com.
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