Yesterday the top Judiciary Republican, Jeff Sessions (AL), called Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan dangerous saying, "Be careful about it, because I'm afraid that we have a dangerous, progressive, political-type nominee."
The idea of her actually being dangerous may be foreign to most but to say her political and judicial views are dangerous is quite true.
Let me give you an example:
One of my prayers concerning the Elena Kagan hearings has been, "If she is confirmed to the Court, restrain her activist voice and influence from swaying the Court against defending the preborn."
Last week Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee delayed a vote on Kagan and submitted a questionnaire that dealt with her involvement on the Healthcare takeover that was signed into law in March. The point of the questions was to establish whether or not Kagan would recuse herself from any court case challenging Healthcare that might find its way to the Supreme Court. If it could be established that she had been involved or privy in any way to any legal challenges on the front end, it would be unethical for her to sit as Judge in those cases on the back end. In essence, she'd have to sit out on those cases.
Yesterday the Senate Judiciary Committee voted in favor of Elena Kagan 13-6. You can watch each of the Senator's closing remarks and check the current vote commitment HERE. Expect a full vote on the Senate floor to confirm her before August recess.
In April, the Supreme Court closed its front doors permanently because independent consultants told them it was a security risk. Everyone must now enter the Court either on the "LEFT" or the "RIGHT." YOU CAN NO LONGER ENTER THE COURT UNDER THE WORDS "EQUAL JUSTICE UNDER LAW." I can't help but think right now that it is a prophetic picture.
Tomorrow the Senate Judiciary Committee will cast its votes for Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan.
Yesterday we were picking up on some buzz about a possible press conference by Senator Sessions regarding Elena Kagan. That press conference doesn't appear to have happened presumably because of a vote on the Senate floor. This came on the heels of the news media reporting a statement from Sen. Sessions that a filibuster on Kagan was not off the table. Sen. Sessions DID meet with the AUL yesterday to review a report they prepared regarding Kagan's involvement with manipulating ACOG's statements on Partial-Birth Abortion while she served the Clinton administration. The research is startling in light of the testimony provided during her hearings two weeks ago.
On June 30, 2010, Bound4LIFE director Matt Lockett and I walked into prime guest seating at the Elena Kagan Supreme Court confirmation hearings. My senator had granted us special seats which let us bypass the public section and essentially sit in the front. Ahead of us were only two rows of staffers and employees. Later we learned that the way I was sitting, my Life Band was positioned in CSPAN shots directly over Kagan’s head for the better part of two hours, while she was being questioned about partial-birth abortion and her alleged deception to the American College of Gynecologists (AGOG) and the American Medical Association (AMA).
I sat in a meeting about this time last year and listened as a well-meaning Senate staffer chastised a room full of conservative leaders over what he considered to be a lack of concern for the confirmation of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. It was painful to sit still as his words scraped across the room. I, myself, found my own defenses rising to meet this man’s challenge to what he perceived as apathy on my part.
Good news concerning the Supreme Court:
President Obama may get liberal Elena Kagan on the Supreme Court, but conservative swing-voter Anthony Kennedy says he's not going anywhere anytime soon.
Justice Kennedy, who turns 74 this month, has told relatives and friends he plans to stay on the high court for at least three more years - through the end of Obama's first term, sources said.
That means Kennedy will be around to provide a fifth vote for the court's conservative bloc through the 2012 presidential election. If Obama loses, Kennedy could retire and expect a Republican President to choose a conservative justice.
Kennedy, appointed by President Ronald Reagan, has been on the court 22 years. He has become a bit of a political nemesis at the White House for his increasing tendency to side with the court's four rock-ribbed conservative justices.
(...)
With the retirement of fellow Californian and Stanford graduate Sandra Day O'Connor in 2006, Kennedy has inherited O'Connor's mantle as the court's swing vote.
His voting pattern suggests he's actually become a far more reliable vote for the conservatives.
[source - NYDailyNews]
Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy holds a special place in the hearts of our staff. We have spent literally hundreds of hours praying for this man and his family!
I can tell you from a personal standpoint that I believe God has and continues to move on this man's heart! And I pray he will continue to open his heart to the plight of the unborn.
A C-SPAN poll reveals that 81% of Americans have no idea who Elena Kagan is. Why should they care?
On Wednesday I got to sit in on Elena Kagan's hearings to pray. Susan Tyrrell, on of the writers here at Moral Outcry, was able to get guest seating from her Senator. We were supposed to be in an observation booth, but were offered special seating when we got there directly behind Kagan. It was a great place to pray and resist the kind of ideology that Kagan represents. What has become clear to the pro-life community is that she is an activist figure to the core that is unfit for the Supreme Court. She has no prior judicial experience, so we have no evidence to believe that she will suddenly become impartial on the bench and abandon her extreme political activism.
Yes - I have another Kagan blog post for you. No - I don't know when they will stop. (I kid)
Here is Kagan, once again, struggling to give a straight answer to an important question. Why is it important? Because her answer would give us a glimpse into her jurisprudence. Of course, that is if she would just answer the question!
Remember yesterday's blog post entitled Kagan's Abortion Distortion? It dealt with a well manufactured memo which just happen to be a bold face lie. The purpose of the deceitful memo was to sway the opinion of the Supreme Court toward preserving partial-birth abortion.
Well, yesterday during the Kagan confirmation hearings Sen. Jeff Sessions asked her about that memo. Her response, while well rehearsed, was shady at best.
via Human Events:
Kagan was asked by Senator Jeff Sessions about a memo from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG). That memo stated, [A] select panel convened by ACOG could identify no circumstances under which [the partial-birth] procedure would be the only option to save the life or preserve the health of the woman. Kagan notated next to this sentence, This, of course, would be disaster.
When asked about it, first she tried to deny that she had written it; she would admit only that it is my handwriting. Later she acknowledged that she was in fact responsible for the comment.
Then she obfuscated with wild philosophic and legal gyrations that would put a stripper to shame: President Clinton had strong views on this issue and what he thought was that this procedure should be banned, in all cases except where the procedure was necessary to save the life or to prevent serious health consequences to the woman and those were always his principles. And we tried over the course of the period of time when this statute was being considered, actually twice, to get him absolutely the best medical evidence on this subject possible.
I don't know how to say this any clearer... Elena Kagan is the worst possible nominee for the Supreme Court and here's why.
via NRO:
When President Obama promised in his inaugural address to “restore science to its rightful place,” he never explained what that rightful place would be. Documents recently released in connection with the Supreme Court nomination of Solicitor General Elena Kagan suggest an answer: wherever it can best be used to skew political debate and judicial outcomes.
The documents involved date from the Clinton White House. They show Miss Kagan’s willingness to manipulate medical science to fit the Democratic party’s political agenda on the hot-button issue of abortion. As such, they reflect poorly on both the author and the president who nominated her to the Supreme Court.
There is no better example of this distortion of science than the language the United States Supreme Court cited in striking down Nebraska’s ban on partial-birth abortion in 2000
Kagan's ideology is dangerous and "liberal".
The majority of American's DO NOT want someone like Kagan on the court. Of course, being as American's are smart, we also knew President Obama was going to nominate exactly what we didn't want:
A majority of Americans expect President Obama to appoint a liberal to the Supreme Court, but only one in four want that to happen, according to a new national poll.
A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Wednesday indicates that 61 percent of the public expect the president to nominate a liberal to replace John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, 21 percent said the president will name a moderate and 16 percent predicted that Obama will nominate a conservative.
But only a quarter of those questioned said the president should nominate a liberal, with 37 percent saying they want Obama to name a moderate and 36 percent pulling for a conservative candidate.
Interpretation: Anything but a "liberal" judicial activist.
A tipping point in my thinking lately has been the egregious parading of ungodliness being demonstrated on a national level in recent months. Bound4LIFE is a pro-life ministry, so this isn’t the venue to discuss everything that exists, but, frankly, the life issues are enough in themselves to set the fear of God in my heart for this nation. While we have been dancing with darkness since Roe v. Wade was decided, sparking another mass holocaust of our world history within our borders, it’s undeniable from the facts that since the election of President Obama, abortion access and funding has increased. If you want to see an entire timeline from his election until March of this year, you can look here.
Of course, one of the great concerns among pro-life people before the presidential election was the potential for the new president to appoint Supreme Court justices. While presidential terms last 4-8 years, Supreme Court appointments are for life. Since Roe v. Wade was a Supreme Court decision, we know that the earthly hands that control abortion rest on the Court.
Not even two years into his presidency, Obama is on his second Court nominee. Sonia Sotomayor was his first, and was also opposed by pro-life groups. But before he nominated Sotomayor, though, he made another nomination a few weeks into his presidency: he nominated Elena Kagan to be Solicitor General. Some speculated this was to help her credibility to later be a Supreme Court nominee since Solicitor General, sometimes called the “10th Justice” since she argues before the Court, is an appropriate prerequisite to the Court, especially since Kagan has no actual judicial experience.
Your history teacher probably annoyed you saying “those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it. It’s a true statement, though, especially for us as we watch the destruction of millions to abortion. And today my horror rose as I read that Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan was a part of the very cloning practices I wrote about only last week.
As the Clinton library has released papers about Kagan, the ties between her to the very horrors of the death industry about which I just wrote grows stronger. According to Americans United for Life (AUL), “However, as the memo explains, Kagan’s ‘ban’ on cloning only banned the use of cloning aimed at the live-birth of a baby, not at cloning that takes human life.” That sounds nice enough, but if you recall, the distinction, if you recall, is as AUL says:
“The cloning of human embryos creates living human beings in the earliest stage of development. “Using them for research” means they will be “disaggregated” and killed as part of the research. By endorsing such practices, Kagan demonstrated her disrespect for unborn human life.” (Source)
Excellent question.
It seems that the epic summer battle so many on the left and right were gearing up for has, well, been a bust. This is most likely due to the fact that Kagan has no judicial record and thus nothing to really discuss or debate over.
Life News reports:
Alaska voters this August will have the opportunity to vote on a pro-life ballot measure that would allow parents to know when their minor daughters are considering an abortion. If enacted, the law would reduce teen abortions by protecting parental rights to help their children find better alternatives.
The Alaska Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld a trial court’s finding that petitions for a parental notification initiative do not contain confusing and misleading language and are therefore valid.
The decision means that the parental notification measure will go on the ballot for voter approval during the August 24 primary despite opposition from Planned Parenthood.
What does this have to do with state elections? Everything.
The Senate Judiciary Committee will begin confirmation hearings June 28 for Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan, the panel's chairman announced Wednesday.
In a recently disclosed memo, Elena Kagan urged President Clinton in 1997 to support a ban on partial birth abortions. Hearing or reading the press talk about this could make one thing Kagan's stance on abortion is pliable and that she is swilling to negotiate and compromise. I, however, believe nothing could be further from the truth.
Here are a few links that will give you a better understanding of what's going on:
This morning at 10AM President Obama will announce Elena Kagan to replace John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court. Stevens just celebrated his 90th birthday last month. Kagan just turned 50 and, if confirmed, will be the youngest person currently serving on the Court.
The buzz on the Hill is that President Obama could announce his nomination for the Supreme Court as early as Monday. And the person heavily favored for the empty seat is Solicitor General Elena Kagan.
For those of you following the Supreme Court vetting process, I have some news for you.
Late last week, President Obama interviewed federal judges Merrick Garland and Sidney Thomas as well as Solicitor General Elena Kagan. However, I am hearing that federal judge Diane Wood is on top of Obama's short list.
The Supreme Court is closing it's doors... well, the front doors, at least.
WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court is closing its iconic front entrance beneath the words "Equal Justice Under Law."
Beginning Tuesday, visitors no longer will ascend the wide marble steps to enter the 75-year-old building. Instead, they will be directed to a central screening facility to the side of and beneath the central steps that was built to improve the court's security as part of a $122 million renovation.
Two justices, Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, called the change unfortunate and unjustified.
You see a lot of folks while praying in front of the Supreme Court day after day. It's an odd mix of people in business suits speed walking to their next meeting; the staffer meandering around on her cell phone while complaining about the boss, tourists running and posing like Rocky on the Court steps; even a Supreme Court Justice. Once Justice Kennedy quietly came out front to look at some new security pylons installed on the sidewalk.
President Obama is not making much sense with the whole "no litmus test on abortion" spill he's giving. This nonsensical approach to nominating a replacement for the Supreme Court is giving White House press secretary Robert Gibbs a hard time explaining where the President stands.
Yesterday, during a press briefing, Gibbs stumbled all over himself when pressed on this issue:
“The President just said when asked about the issue of abortion that he wants somebody who’s interpreting our Constitution in a way that takes into account individual rights, and that includes women’s rights. Isn’t it artifice to say that this is not a litmus test?” asked one reporter, to which question Gibbs responded simply: “No.”
The reporter continued to press the issue, asking, “So he’d be open, for example, to choosing somebody who didn’t believe in a woman’s right to choose?”
Gibbs attempted to avoid the question, saying, “I think we’re playing the Washington game again. If I say this, then I don’t –“
“We’re in Washington,” shot back the reporter.
This morning President Obama spoke briefly about meeting the timeline for a Supreme Court nominee so that the confirmation process can move forward during the summer months. After his statements he took one question from the press.
Last week, Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman signed the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act into law, banning abortions at and after 20 weeks.
The pro-abortion community went into an uproar, declaring that there is no research to back up the claim that a "fetus" can even feel pain:
"There is certainly no solid scientific evidence establishing that a fetus can perceive pain at these earlier stages, so any court decisions to uphold such broader laws could only do so by disregarding the importance of good scientific evidence," said Caitlin Borgmann, a law professor at The City University of New York.
This, of course, is not true.
In 1973, when Roe was decided, it was believed that the nervous systems of even newborn babies were too immature to feel pain -- so doctors generally did not provide anesthesia to infants before surgery. But 25 years ago, a young doctor at Oxford University named Kanwaljeet Anand noticed that babies coming to his neonatal intensive care unit from surgery suffered a massive stress response -- indicating they had been through extreme pain. His research into this phenomenon shifted medical opinion, and today even the most premature newborns are given anesthesia to alleviate pain during surgery.
Anand -- now a professor at the University of Arkansas and a pediatrician at the Arkansas Children's Hospital -- continued his research into infant pain, which has led him to conclude that fetuses can feel pain at 20 weeks, and possibly as early as 17 weeks when a portion of the brain called the "subplate zone" is formed. Indeed, according to a New York Times Magazine story on Anand's research, a fetus's "immature physiology may well make it more sensitive to pain, not less: The body's mechanisms for inhibiting pain and making it more bearable do not become active until after birth."
Many of you have heard about the legal challenges that the Health Care Bill is facing from all around the country. Last Thursday we posted about some comments made by Justice Breyer in a House Appropriations Subcommittee hearing with Congress where he alluded that the Health Care Bill might possibly be heard by the Supreme Court in the near future (You can see that here). This news bears repeating because Breyer's reasoning for those statements is most enlightening. The context of his statements has gripped me all over again why it's so important to have sustained prayer for the Court and its shift to defend the life of the pre-born. Not to mention our liberty.
Will the massive Health Care overhaul make it's way to the Supreme Court? According to The Washington Post, Justice Breyer seems to think so:
Justice Stephen Breyer is predicting the Supreme Court will one day pass judgment on this year's health care overhaul.
Breyer told a congressional panel Thursday that the massive health care law, like most major federal legislation, is a good candidate for high court review.
Breyer said the court's relatively light caseload in recent years will soon be a thing of the past.
This only serves to confirm how important the Supreme Court battle this summer is going to be. Remember, whoever is appointed to the Court will shape public policy for decades to come.
We have already introduced you to Leah Ward Sears one of names on a short list of possible replacements for Justice Stevens.
Today, John Gizzi over at Human Events says U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Merrick Garland is the front runner for the Supreme Court:
Less than a week after Justice John Paul Stevens announced that he will retire from the Supreme Court this summer, the great guessing game among the Chattering Class in the media and on the Washington cocktail circuit began.
“Who will succeed Stevens?” people in the know and out of it chorused over the weekend. No one, of course, yet knows whom Barack Obama will select to fill the second vacancy on the High Court of his presidency. But by Monday, the guessing game had come down to a “ Big Three” : U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan, and U.S. Court of Appeals Judges Merrick Garland (D.C.) and Diane Wood (Chicago).
For now, the odds favor the 57-year-old Garland, Harvard Law graduate and former Clinton Administration official. Considered a liberal, although not as far left as Stevens, Garland nonetheless has offended few Republicans. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R.-Utah), a past Judiciary Committee chairman, speaks highly of Garland and is considered likely to back him if he’s nominated. Prominent in both national legal circles and on the Washington social scene, Garland first gained notice for doing much of the legal work after the Oklahoma City bombings in 1995.
Dubbing Garland “a kind of Democratic version of Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr.,” The New York Times concluded that he would be Obama’s “safest choice” if the President wants to avoid a confirmation battle with Senate Republicans in an election year.
National Right to Life attorney Mary Spaulding Balch told LifeNews.com that the bill could make its way to the Supreme Court to alter national abortion law further and set a wide-ranging precedent.
"Although it will be a case of first impression, there are strong grounds to believe that five members of the current U.S. Supreme Court would give serious consideration to Nebraska’s assertion of a compelling state interest in preserving the life of an unborn child whom substantial medical evidence indicates is capable of feeling pain during an abortion," she said.
The Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act could see the same group of five members of the Supreme Court uphold it as constitutional and allow more abortions to be prohibited.
Balch says the genius of the measure is the scientific fact that unborn children can feel pain. I think we can be very hopeful in this new bill for two reasons. Firstly, if you remember it was Nebraska's partial-birth abortion ban that went to the Supreme Court in 2000. The ban was declared unconstitutional, but obviously the bill carried some weight for it to even be chosen by the justices for review. Then as National Right to Life attorney, Mary Spaulding Balch stated the bill is founded in scientific fact. We have seen time and time again that this nation is not easily moved by the moral basis for ending abortion, but I believe we could see bipartisan support because of the scientific research backing this bill.
ABC News reported earlier that another name is being floated as a potential replacement for the retiring Justice Stevens.
Former Georgia Supreme Court chief justice Leah Ward Sears is also on the short list, a senior White House official tells ABC News.
Sears, who will turn 55 in June, was the first female African-American chief justice in US history, and when nominated for the state supreme court by then-Gov. Zell Miller in 1992, she became the first woman and the youngest person to ever sit on the court.
Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, the court's oldest member and leader of its liberal bloc, is retiring. President Barack Obama now has his second high court opening to fill.
Stevens said Friday he will step down when the court finishes its work for the summer in late June or early July. He said he hopes his successor is confirmed "well in advance of the commencement of the court's next term."
The question is not so much a matter of if but when. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens has been hinting at the possibility of retiring for weeks, now. Stevens probable exit from the Court has been long rumored but according to the Washington Post he plans to leave either this year or next. Stevens said: "I will surely do it while he's still president," referring to President Obama...
If a woman is pregnant, then what is she pregnant with? It's not a riddle nor an enigma...
As I see it, you have limited choices:
The New Yorker asks the question this week, "What will the Supreme Court be like without its liberal leader?"
A Clay County legislator's plan to outlaw abortion in Florida has gained quick traction with the anti-abortion community but faces numerous obstacles, from skeptical House colleagues to the U.S. Supreme Court.
State Rep. Charles Van Zant, R-Keystone Heights and a Baptist minister, filed a bill this month that would make nearly all forms of abortion a first-degree felony for the provider, punishable by up to life in prison.
"I just felt like we're destroying a lot of Florida's children, and we need to stop," Van Zant said, "and I felt led by the Lord to do that."
Nebraska legislators are proposing a bill on abortion that, if passed, would be the strictest in the nation and would ban most abortions after 20 weeks into a pregnancy...
More reports are confirming the Obama administration is preparing for a potential Supreme Court vacancy in the next few months. Reports surfaced weeks ago that pro-abortion Justice John Paul Stevens was considering retiring and today, CNN said more recent reports indicate that as well.
CNN indicates the White house has begun "quiet preparations" for a high court vacant but cautions that top Obama officials have not named any names of potential Supreme Court retirements.
Executive Director of Bound4LIFE, Matt Lockett, talks about Supreme Court nominee Sotomayor.
That, I think is the kind of justice that I’m looking for — somebody who respects the law, doesn’t think that they should be making law ... but also has a sense of what’s happening in the real world and recognizes that one of the roles of the courts is to protect people who don’t have a voice.
Just as John was a sign to His generation, I believe that we are called to be a sign in our generation. We are to stand unshaken by the winds until we see the promise. We are to stand to minister and appeal to the Lord not to impress anyone with our appearance or wise and persuasive words. There will be a day when our lifestyle and our stand with LIFE tape on our mouths will be proven WISE!
I am writing to you today to let you know that we will be relocating our headquarters to the DC area at the beginning of next week. So far we’ve been splitting our time in each office, but this will be the final move for all staff and equipment.
In 2004, a small band of young people dared to believe that their prayers and fasting could shape history. On October 4th they gathered in front of the Supreme Court before the elections to pray for a pro-life President and a shift for the Judges to protect the unborn. It was opening day. What began to take shape seemed ridiculous, even silly, to others gathered there and passing by. Complete silence met angry yelling as 50 young people stood in prayer with a simple piece of red tape covering their mouths. The single word “LIFE” was put on display–it was God’s word.
"The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first."
- Thomas Jefferson
