amy31416
04-10-2010, 07:18 AM
She's starting to look like a front runner, and so I've been reading up a bit on her. She is allegedly "conservative" (whatever that means anymore.)
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/04/elena-kagan-supreme-court-just.html?wprss=44
Elena Kagan, Supreme Court justice? Everything you need to know
Elena Kagan is one of the country's top constitutional and administrative law scholars. After years of working as a professor, Kagan became the Harvard Law School dean in 2003. She is the first woman to hold the office of solicitor general in the Justice Department, often referred to informally as the "10th justice." The solicitor general argues for the government in front of the Supreme Court.
Kagan has a distinguished resume that includes stints as a professor of constitutional and administrative law at both Harvard and Chicago and four years in the Clinton administration.
New Yorker legal reporter Jeffrey Toobin predicted in March that Kagan would be the next Supreme Court justice. SCOTUSblog's Tom Goldstein agrees.
So what could we expect from Justice Kagan? Salon's Glenn Greenwald argues that Kagan would move the court to the right:
When President Obama chose Sonia Sotomayor to replace David Souter, that had very little effect on the ideological balance of the Court, because Sotomayor was highly likely to vote the way Souter did in most cases. By stark contrast, replacing Stevens with Kagan (or, far less likely, with Sunstein) would shift the Court substantially to the Right on a litany of key issues.
Greenwald points to the bipartisan warmth towards Kagan as a sign that she's far more centrist than Stevens.
The conservative Weekly Standard, however, argued in 2009 that Kagan has "radical roots" -- based on her undergraduate thesis, "To the Final Conflict: Socialism in New York City, 1900-1933."
"Her political sympathies (at the time) seem quite clear -- and radical," Michael Goldfarb concluded. And Ed Whelan at the National Review wrote disapprovingly in May on Kagan's positions on the military.
Above the Law says the most interesting thing about Kagan as a potential Supreme Court justice is her support for shareholders who want to sue companies.
And the left-wing watchdog Media Matters points out that the media praised Kagan for her intellect during the Sonia Sotomayor confirmation battle -- and wonders whether they will forget that praise in the midst of another partisan fight.
But, from her thesis, this article: http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/05/elena_kagan_radical.asp
cites some radical leftist-leanings
"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. Conformity overrides dissent; the desire to conserve has overwhelmed the urge to alter. Such a state of affairs cries out for explanation. Why, in a society by no means perfect, has a radical party never attained the status of a major political force? Why, in particular, did the socialist movement never become an alternative to the nation's established parties?"(pp. 127)
"Through its own internal feuding, then, the SP exhausted itself forever and further reduced labor radicalism in New York to the position of marginality and insignificance from which it has never recovered. The story is a sad but also a chastening one for those who, more than half a century after socialism's decline, still wish to change America. Radicals have often succumbed to the devastating bane of sectarianism; it is easier, after all, to fight one's fellows than it is to battle an entrenched and powerful foe. Yet if the history of Local New York shows anything, it is that American radicals cannot afford to become their own worst enemies. In unity lies their only hope." (pp. 129-130)
But, she is also vehemently against military recruiting on college campuses: http://bench.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZmRiYmMzNzZjZmQ1N2IzMTg2ZWQzODkwNDU1N2EzY2U=
Which I agree with, for the most part.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/photo/2010/04/09/PH2010040902564.jpg
However, she looks like Chastity/Charles Bono.
Any thoughts on her as a nominee? If Obama selects her, the GOP will have a hard time arguing against it, I think.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/04/elena-kagan-supreme-court-just.html?wprss=44
Elena Kagan, Supreme Court justice? Everything you need to know
Elena Kagan is one of the country's top constitutional and administrative law scholars. After years of working as a professor, Kagan became the Harvard Law School dean in 2003. She is the first woman to hold the office of solicitor general in the Justice Department, often referred to informally as the "10th justice." The solicitor general argues for the government in front of the Supreme Court.
Kagan has a distinguished resume that includes stints as a professor of constitutional and administrative law at both Harvard and Chicago and four years in the Clinton administration.
New Yorker legal reporter Jeffrey Toobin predicted in March that Kagan would be the next Supreme Court justice. SCOTUSblog's Tom Goldstein agrees.
So what could we expect from Justice Kagan? Salon's Glenn Greenwald argues that Kagan would move the court to the right:
When President Obama chose Sonia Sotomayor to replace David Souter, that had very little effect on the ideological balance of the Court, because Sotomayor was highly likely to vote the way Souter did in most cases. By stark contrast, replacing Stevens with Kagan (or, far less likely, with Sunstein) would shift the Court substantially to the Right on a litany of key issues.
Greenwald points to the bipartisan warmth towards Kagan as a sign that she's far more centrist than Stevens.
The conservative Weekly Standard, however, argued in 2009 that Kagan has "radical roots" -- based on her undergraduate thesis, "To the Final Conflict: Socialism in New York City, 1900-1933."
"Her political sympathies (at the time) seem quite clear -- and radical," Michael Goldfarb concluded. And Ed Whelan at the National Review wrote disapprovingly in May on Kagan's positions on the military.
Above the Law says the most interesting thing about Kagan as a potential Supreme Court justice is her support for shareholders who want to sue companies.
And the left-wing watchdog Media Matters points out that the media praised Kagan for her intellect during the Sonia Sotomayor confirmation battle -- and wonders whether they will forget that praise in the midst of another partisan fight.
But, from her thesis, this article: http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/05/elena_kagan_radical.asp
cites some radical leftist-leanings
"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. Conformity overrides dissent; the desire to conserve has overwhelmed the urge to alter. Such a state of affairs cries out for explanation. Why, in a society by no means perfect, has a radical party never attained the status of a major political force? Why, in particular, did the socialist movement never become an alternative to the nation's established parties?"(pp. 127)
"Through its own internal feuding, then, the SP exhausted itself forever and further reduced labor radicalism in New York to the position of marginality and insignificance from which it has never recovered. The story is a sad but also a chastening one for those who, more than half a century after socialism's decline, still wish to change America. Radicals have often succumbed to the devastating bane of sectarianism; it is easier, after all, to fight one's fellows than it is to battle an entrenched and powerful foe. Yet if the history of Local New York shows anything, it is that American radicals cannot afford to become their own worst enemies. In unity lies their only hope." (pp. 129-130)
But, she is also vehemently against military recruiting on college campuses: http://bench.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZmRiYmMzNzZjZmQ1N2IzMTg2ZWQzODkwNDU1N2EzY2U=
Which I agree with, for the most part.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/photo/2010/04/09/PH2010040902564.jpg
However, she looks like Chastity/Charles Bono.
Any thoughts on her as a nominee? If Obama selects her, the GOP will have a hard time arguing against it, I think.