President Obama Chooses Kagen For Supreme Court

America punishes creativity. Look at school budget cuts for a start.

There is no Constitutional requirement that a Supreme Court justice be a lawyer let alone a judge.

The oldest court of record in the US is Detroit's Recorders Court. In Michigan, most judges are elected. Governors appoint judges to fill vacancies. An extreme leftist was elected in the late 60s and, around that time, a rightwinger often described as a pig and hated by the Michigan Bar was appointed to that court by the governor . . . who was probably Romney.

A few years later, both men were hailed by the press, by the Bar, by the police and by everyone else as the most fair members of the Court.

Finally, who cares what she looks like. The tasteless, immature and tiresome use of quotation marks around the word woman in reference to Ms. Kagen have to stop.

If you want to inspire creativity in our education system you must break up the teachers unions.
America's teachers unions punish both the tax payer and the children. These unions kill creativity.

For those of you on Facebook: The Tell Dick Cheney To Shut Up group has an interesting post on the Kagan nomination.

And how long have you been a member of the union?

really, i never think that, i never say, gee i wisht those victoria secrets models were preforming my brain surgery

a few years ago health ontario was running commercials about health options available (after hour consultations, nurse practitioners, etc), one of the doctors they showed was this cool hipster dude, and i remember thinking, nope, i want my doctor to look like he never went to a party the entire time he was in university, i wanted the lonely guy who was stuck in his dorm studying all the time

The dumbmasses consider Obama to be a cool hipster dude...

i didn't see that myself, he was young and black, end of story as far i could tell, it was gonna be the chick (and her last name killed her chances) or the black guy last time, bush had left too bad a taste in folks mouths and mc cain was not the guy to win the last time around (too old, to translucent, he looked like the jelly fish guy in the first x-men movie)

there are a couple of european politicians who seem hip but mostly because the bang woman other than their wives (funny it worked for the two hip US guys i can think of too, bill and jack)

Funny and true observation

Obama is young! I feel rather awful that there have only been two Baby Boomer presidents. I feel I am too young to be older than the president.

Same here, but that's life.

I guess you missed all of the magazine covers, bathing suit spread and talk shows.
Obama was marketed as if he was a hip, cool dude... they got the dude part right.

Kegel could easily be marketed as a hip, cool dude.

calling someone hip doesn't make them hip

he always looked like a bit of a nerd to me

Obama is the third baby boomer. We'll probably see a couple more before the gen X'ers get there.

As expected, the right is going all out to smear Kagen, although the charges are baseless. One leader said she must be attacked regardless of her qualifications if only to delay the Dem agenda. A writer for Human Events referred to her appearance as "grotesque."


Right-Wing Machine Attacks Kagan

Immediately after President Obama announced Solicitor General Elena Kagan as his nominee to replace Justice John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court, the right-wing attack machine kicked into high gear. In the few short days since the announcement, the far right has tried to smear Kagan -- much as it did to Sonia Sotomayor -- with sexist, personal attacks, and misinformation about her background, professional history, ideology, and judicial philosophy. Hate radio host Rush Limbaugh said that "we don't need to go too deep in analyzing the babe...I guess she can change her mind. She's a woman." Michael Savage called Kagan a "radical leftist red-diaper doper baby" who is "out of touch...with mainstream America." Late last month, before Kagan's nomination, top GOP strategist Curt Levey revealed the right's strategic motives. He urged Republicans to vigorously contest whomever Obama nominated -- regardless of qualification -- in order to delay confirmation and "eat up precious time Democrats need to round out their agenda." "Even if it's a nominee that we can't seriously stop, we can accomplish several things, and so a hard fight is worthwhile," Levey said, adding, "There's broader goals such as just distracting Obama from other items on his agenda." Yet at the same time, others on the right recognize the divisive strategy's key flaw. "I don't think it's good for the Court. ... I don't think it serves the country well," said former Whitewater prosecutor Ken Starr, who famously led the impeachment of President Clinton. Nevertheless, the right-wing attack campaign continues.

EXPERIENCE HYPOCRISY: Kagan's experience equals, or even exceeds, the backgrounds of some of the Court's most respected justices, past and present. However, Republicans such as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (KY), Sen. Jim DeMint (SC), and John Cornyn (TX) have questioned Kagan's qualifications because she has never served as a judge. "I'm concerned that she has no judicial experience," DeMint said. Yet back in 2005, all three senators vigorously supported President Bush's Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers, who also had never sat on the bench. "Ms. Miers has great experience," McConnell said at the time. "She is well qualified to join the nation's highest court," he added. Before Kagan's nomination, Cornyn said she would be a "highly qualified" candidate to replace Stevens but this week he said he finds her nomination "surprising" because "she lacks judicial experience." When challenged on his double standard, he flip-flopped, saying that Miers, "like Ms. Kagan, has not been a judge. I don't think that should be a disqualifier." Indeed, many other GOP senators feel the same way. "I don't think that's a disqualification," Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) said, noting that "some of the greatest justices in history never sat in a court room." Even Miguel Estrada, who was nominated to a federal appeals court by President Bush but was never confirmed, said Kagan is "highly capable and should be confirmed."

MILITARY ATTACK HYPOCRISY: Although it has been thoroughly debunked, Republicans and conservative media have latched on to the false talking point that as Harvard Law School (HLS) dean, Kagan "banned" the military from recruiting on campus and that because of it, she is "hostile to the military." However, it has been well-documented that Kagan never booted, banned, or barred military recruiters from HLS. The criticism focuses on Kagan's opposition to the military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell (DADT) policy. Highlighting Kagan's statement from 2004 that "the military's recruitment policy is both unjust and unwise," the Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol went on the attack, saying "t is intellectually wrong and morally cowardly to call this the 'military's policy'" because "t is the policy of the U.S. Government, based on legislation passed in 1993 by (a Democratic) Congress, signed into law and implemented by the Clinton administration, legislation and implementation that are currently continued by a Democratic administration and a Democratic Congress." Others at the Weekly Standard quickly echoed Kristol's charge. However, as Media Matters' Jamison Foser noted, "The interesting thing about Kristol & Co. insisting that the military itself has nothing to do with the military's anti-gay policies is that they've been insisting for years that civilian policymakers should defer to the military when it comes to adjusting those policies." Moreover, Kristol has never attacked Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Adm. Mike Mullen for criticizing DADT. "We have in place a policy that forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens," Mullen told Congress earlier this year. "For me, personally, it comes down to integrity: Theirs as an individual, ours as an institution."

THE RIGHT-WING CRAZY: Outside the dishonest "experience" and "ban on the military" talking points, others on the right have resorted to outright personal attacks on Kagan. Fox News' Sean Hannity called Kagan a "radical," others in the conservative media are calling her a socialist. Radio talk show host Michael Savage said she had been part of the "New York City communist front" and the Republican National Committee attacked Kagan for saying the Constitution was "defective" as originally written (She was referring to the fact that the founding document codified slavery before the 13th Amendment). CNN conservative commentator Bay Buchanan said Obama had "dummied down" the Court with Kagan's nomination. Others in the right-wing media have targeted Kagan's physical appearance. "Has anyone seen Mike Myers and your new Supreme [Court nominee] in the same room at the same time?" conservative radio host Neal Boortz tweeted. HumanEvent.com's Jason Mattera compared Kagan to a football linebacker and Savage said that he finds Kagan's appearance "personally grotesque." One far-right group has wondered if Kagan is a lesbian, asserting that if she is, she would not be "qualified to sit on the Supreme Court." Even the mainstream media is dabbling in this rumor, finding speculation over Kagan's private life more news-worthy than asking how a nominee's sexual orientation is relevant to his or her qualifications.

-- americanprogressaction.org

so what? I dont think that anyone expects that Kagen will not get approved. The GOP is making the argument that Obama made a poor choice, the purpose of which is to defeat him the next time he needs votes at the polling place. If the GOP has a nonsense argument then it will work against them instead. This is how democracy works. There is nothing wrong with the GOP attacking this choice if they want to do it, think it is in their best interest to do so.

Assuming that the citizens of the U.S. have the brains to recognize this bull shyt. Most can tell you who won one of the dancing shows on T.V. but cant tell who thier congressmen are. We get the government we deserve.

ya gotta believe in something in this life. I choose to believe that people are more good than not good, and more smart than dumb. I have faith that the will of the people will most of the time be either right or be what we need at that moment. Sometimes we need pain to learn, sometimes we need to inflict pain upon ourselves by screwing up before we are ready to do the right thing.

Here is all you need to know about Elena Kagan.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elena_Kagan