Kagan’s Just the Latest Radical Obama Lawyer

Kagan’s Just the Latest Radical Obama Lawyer
Robert Knight
Tuesday, May 11, 2010

President Obama went back to the radical bullpen for his second Supreme Court nominee. Solicitor General Elena Kagan, former dean of Harvard Law School, is a legal activist who tried to boot recruiters off Harvard’s campus because of the military’s homosexuality policy.

Some observers thought D.C. Circuit Judge Merrick Garland might get the nod, since he drew favorable comment as a “reasonable” choice to succeed John Paul Stevens. But President Obama is not into “reasonable.” As a student of agitator/activist Saul Alinsky, he prefers to be “in your face.”

While Kagan did some outreach to the conservative Federalist Society at Harvard, she also carries some baggage: no judicial experience, a pro-homosexual agenda and, yes, a mysterious “sexual orientation.” The liberal media are going to have a tough time selling her as a “mainstream” nominee. As Solicitor General, she has worked to undermine the military ban and also the Defense of Marriage Act, which is why the Human Rights Campaign, the largest gay pressure group, issued a press release hailing her nomination. Marriage defender Maggie Gallagher bluntly wrote on May 10, “A vote for Kagan is a vote for Gay Marriage.”

Mr. Obama’s legal appointees to the courts and federal agencies comprise radicals who support an unlimited federal government, a “living Constitution,” racial and sexual entitlement, contempt for American security and the elevation of foreign opinion over that of American lawmakers. Miss Kagan fits right in.

Here are some of the lawyers that Mr. Obama has appointed:

Goodwin Liu to the Ninth Circuit. In March, 42 of California's 58 district attorneys signed a letter urging the Senate Judiciary Committee to reject Liu, a UC Berkeley law professor, stating, “his views on criminal law, capital punishment, and the role of the federal courts in second-guessing state decisions are fully aligned with the judges who have made the Ninth Circuit the extreme outlier that it presently is.” Outlier is the polite word for “joke.”

In a book Liu co-authored, Keeping Faith with the Constitution, he wrote that “evolving norms and traditions of our society” should be the key to interpreting the Constitution. He also joined a brief arguing that the equal protection clause contains a “right” to same-sex marriage. During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on April 16, Liu cheerfully insisted that his radical writings provide no clue as to how he’d rule as a judge. Huh?

Eric Holder, Attorney General. Mr. Holder wants to bring terrorists to trial in civilian courts, has called America a “nation of cowards” for not being obsessed with race, and allowed the Justice Department to drop counts against New Black Panther Party members charged with voter intimidation in Philadelphia in 2008.

David Ogden, Deputy Attorney General (confirmed March 12, 2009; resigned Dec. 2, 2009). Mr. Ogden not only defended child pornography during the Clinton years (Knox v. United States, 1993), but represented hard-core porn producers, plus Playboy and Penthouse. He also likened peaceful pro-life abortion protesters to mobsters by arguing for penalties under the RICO organized crime statute (Sheidler v. National Organization for Women, 2003).

Cass Sunstein, Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. Sunstein has written that animals have the right to sue, that the government owns our vital organs, that marriage laws should be abolished, and that the Second Amendment doesn’t apply to individuals.

Harold Koh, State Department legal advisor. A self-described “transnationalist,” Mr. Koh sided with European elites over Texas lawmakers (Lawrence v. Texas, 2003), and sued his fellow Yalie, John Yoo, over interrogation memoranda during the Bush Administration. In 2002, Koh urged the Senate Foreign Relations committee to approve the CEDAW treaty, which President Carter signed in 1980 but the Senate never ratified because CEDAW is a cauldron of radical feminism and collectivism.

Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Justice, U.S. Supreme Court. From 1980 until 1992, Sotomayor served on the board of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund. The New York Times described her as “a top policy maker on the board” at a time when the fund filed briefs in six cases on behalf of “abortion rights.” In Ohio v. Akron Center (1990), the fund wrote that it “opposes any efforts to overturn or in any way restrict the rights recognized in Roe v. Wade,” which would mean opposing bans on partial birth abortion and taking minors across state lines for abortions without parental knowledge. Sotomayor, who famously asserted privilege as a “wise Latina,” has shown a fondness for racial preferences, and she joined the Court’s minority against the Mojave Desert veterans memorial cross (April 28).

Dawn Johnsen, appointed to Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel. Johnsen was skipped in the 15 recess appointees made on March 27. An ACLU staff counsel and legal director for the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL), she equated having a baby with slavery in an amicus brief in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services (1989).

Chai Feldblum, Equal Employment Opportunity Commissioner. A lesbian activist at Georgetown Law Center, she said she can’t think of an instance in which religious freedom trumps “gay rights.” Feldblum helped draft the Employment Non Discrimination Act (ENDA), which would impose the homosexual political agenda on every workplace with 15 or more employees. She signed a manifesto calling for legalizing multiple-partner relationships, a position she retracted at her Senate hearing.

Thomas Perrelli, Associate Attorney General. Perrelli was the lawyer for Michael Schiavo, who had his brain-damaged wife Terri taken off life support against the wishes of her brother and parents. As the No. 3 Justice Department official, Perrelli approved dropping charges in May 2009 against three New Black Panther Party members who had been charged with intimidating voters in Philadelphia in 2008.

David Hamilton, Judge, Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Hamilton is the U.S. District judge who enjoined the Indiana House in 2005 from allowing a pastor to mention the name of Jesus in an opening prayer, but in another case said it was fine to cite Allah.

The pattern is clear. Mr. Obama is front-loading the government with radicals who would be very much at home with Saul Alinsky, if not in style, then in political substance.

Elena Kagan’s willingness to work with a few conservatives has earned her some respect as a pragmatist. But it’s a good bet that she’d become a fire-breathing leftist when safely seated – for life.
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Obama Steers the Court Sharp Left
Phyllis Schlafly
Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Barack Obama has thumbed his nose at veterans and many other Americans by trying to replace Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens with the liberal Elena Kagan. She is mainly noteworthy for excluding military recruiters from Harvard Law School.

This nomination illustrates how far Obama has fallen from his lofty rhetoric about ending insider politics. Kagan, a campaign donor to Obama, has never decided a single case.

Obama's selection further exposes his reckless liberal agenda even though polls show that Americans are waking up to his deceptions. A Gallup poll released last week showed that 42 percent of Americans want a new Supreme Court justice who will move the Court in the conservative direction, while only 27 percent want a new justice who will make it more liberal.

Obama chose to appease the 27 percent. So he replaces the last military veteran on the Court, leaving it without anyone who made the sacrifice of serving our nation in war.

The liberal double standard is undeniable. Liberals who insisted that Clarence Thomas was too inexperienced to be on the Supreme Court now defend a nominee who has written little, litigated even less and not decided a single case.

Instead, Obama tries to force on Americans someone whose background shows she is more interested in remaking the law than in applying it impartially. A baseball umpire would be a better selection -- and probably fairer, too.

Thirty-one senators voted against Kagan's confirmation as solicitor general about a year ago, finding her too inexperienced for even that less important job. Several said that they would consider voting against her if nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court.

There is much for senators to ask Kagan about. When she played an insider role in the Clinton administration, she reportedly supported taxpayer-funded abortion.

Senators who pretend to be pro-life, such as Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, will be voting for 40 more years of Roe v. Wade and abortion on demand if they vote in favor of Elena Kagan. Now age 50, Kagan could serve for 40 years on the Supreme Court.

Millions of pro-life young people voted for Obama in 2008. The man they supported is now doing everything he can to impose more abortion on our nation.

After watching Bart Stupak cave in on the pro-abortion health care bill, and then announce his resignation a few weeks later, no American is likely to be fooled by the misleading rhetoric of the abortion lobby. Students for Life and its president, Kristan Hawkins, have already posted a petition at iopposekagan.com to oppose confirmation of Kagan.

Charmaine Yoest, president of Americans United for Life, notes that "Elena Kagan has strong ties to abortion-advocacy organizations and expressed admiration for activist judges who have worked to advance social policy rather than to impartially interpret the law." Obama claimed he would not use a litmus test to pick a justice who supports abortion, but he has done precisely that.

Senators should demand to see the documents written and emails sent by Kagan while she was promoting the liberal agenda from within the Clinton administration during the 1990s. Full disclosure is proper before giving someone a position that could last 10 times longer than a president's term.

Testimony is also necessary about how Kagan excluded military recruiters from Harvard Law School, where she was appointed dean despite having published almost nothing scholarly. Kagan even joined a brief submitted to the Supreme Court that attempted to obtain a constitutional right for schools to exclude military recruiters.

In Rumsfeld v. FAIR, the Supreme Court rejected her argument by a stunning 8-0 vote, demonstrating how out-of-touch is her judicial philosophy. But Harvard University continues to ban ROTC to this day.

In Kagan's prior hearing before the Judiciary Committee, she declared her support for using foreign law to interpret the U.S. Constitution. That is unacceptable for any U.S. judge -- no foreign law should be allowed to change our Constitution.

As Obama's solicitor general, Kagan's first argument before the Court, in Citizens United v. FEC, was pathetic. Objective observers panned her performance, and the Court rejected her arguments.

In a more recent appearance, she muddled the case and began asking questions of the justices. Chief Justice Roberts had to correct her, saying, "Usually, we have the questions the other way."

We hope Republican senators will conduct a thorough interrogation of Kagan and not give her the kid-glove treatment they regrettably gave Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Too much is at stake.
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Public Advocate Citizen's Alert:

Supreme Court Nominee Kagan Supporter of Homosexual Agenda

Dear Public Advocate supporter,

In an effort to appease his homosexual base ahead of the midterm elections, President Obama has nominated one of the most radical allies of the homosexual lobby to sit on the Supreme Court.

Solicitor General Elena Kagan has a long record of being an extreme champion of the radical homosexual agenda.

As Dean of Harvard Law School, Elena Kagan banned military recruiters on campus because of her strident opposition to Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.

You see, Elena Kagan believes the radical homosexual agenda is more important than making sure we have the strongest and most cohesive military possible.

But that isn’t even the worst example of the lengths the Obama administration will go to placate their radical homosexual base with the nomination of Elena Kagan.

CBS News recently published a report that Elena Kagan was actually a homosexual.

Responding to pressure by the homosexual lobby, the Obama administration furiously lobbied CBS to remove the blog post.

In an act of supreme cowardice, CBS caved in to the demands of the Obama Administration and the radical homosexual lobby and removed the “offending” post.

The Obama Administration will go to great lengths to hide from you who Elena Kagan really is.

But you and I know that her act of banning U.S. military recruiters from Harvard’s Law School over her opposition to Don’t Ask Don’t Tell allows us to see the real Elena Kagan.

Sincerely,

Eugene Delgaudio
President, Public Advocate