Kagan Hearings Surpass World Cup For Most Boring TV Event

Via-Townhall

Ann Coulter

The two main points being made by Democrats in support of Elena Kagan's nomination to the Supreme Court merely serve to remind us that Democrats are inveterate liars.

First, it has been repeatedly observed how wonderful it is that Ms. Kagan is "someone who's an intellectual heavyweight who's going to give Roberts a run for the money" -- as Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., put it.

Whew! Good thing the Democrats got that Hispanic nominee out of the way, so they could appoint somebody with intellectual heft! Hey! What happened to the "wise Latina"? At least now you know what liberals really think of you, Sonia.

Second, liberals are raving about Kagan's "skill at building a consensus ... reaching out and building coalitions" -- as Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said last week.

It's as if they're talking about a governing majority in the Senate. Next thing you know, liberals will be complaining about a "do nothing" Supreme Court.

On MSNBC's "Hardball" back in May, Sen. Klobuchar said: "We want to get some things done on this court."

Get some things done? Amy Klobuchar is not considered a lunatic, but this was a crazy, giveaway moment. (Durbin is not considered a lunatic, just a hack.)

The Supreme Court is not supposed to be "getting things done." Durbin's and Klobuchar's statements reveal a massive misunderstanding of the role of the court.

Congress, as the people's elected representatives, is supposed to "get things done." If they don't, that usually means the people don't want those things done. It's not the court's job to say: "Hey, Congress, you forgot to enact this! Don't worry, we'll take care of it."

But liberals see the Supreme Court as their backup legislature, giving them all the laws Democrats can't pass themselves because they'd be voted out of office if they did.

Can't get Americans to approve of abortion? Get the Supreme Court to do it! Can't get Americans to ban the death penalty? Get the Supreme Court to do it! Can't get Americans to release criminals? Get the Supreme Court to do it!

Usually Democrats denounce the idea that they want an activist judiciary as a vicious, right-wing lie. But now they're complaining that the court's not activist enough -- and they need Kagan up there to "get some things done"!

Despite the herculean efforts of liberals to redefine "judicial activism" as "overturning laws," the two acts are completely unrelated.

It would be like redefining "terrorist" to mean "airline passenger." Some airline passengers are terrorists and some aren't -- indeed, some battle the terrorists. The two have nothing to do with each other, although, sometimes, both notions come together and you get an airline passenger who's a terrorist -- and blows up the plane.

It makes as much sense to say, "Republicans say they're against 'judicial activism,' but conservative justices strike down laws more than liberals do!" as it does to say, "Republicans claim they're against terrorism, but they fly more than Democrats do!"

Different things.

As former Chief Justice William Rehnquist described the proper role of judicial review in a constitutional democracy, the courts have the last word "as to whether a law passed by the legislature conforms to the Constitution."

It would be every bit as "activist" for the Supreme Court to refuse to strike down a law that violated the Constitution -- e.g., Chicago's anti-gun laws or Congress' restriction of free speech via the campaign finance laws -- as it is for the court to strike down laws that do not violate the Constitution.

We know that laws restricting speech and the right to bear arms violate the Constitution because it says so. The very first two items in the Bill of Rights prohibit the government from infringing on -- I quote -- "the freedom of speech" and "the right of the people to keep and bear arms." You can look it up yourself.

If Congress passed a law banning books critical of the Supreme Court and the court refused to strike down that law, that would be "judicial activism."

Historically, judicial activists have preferred to strike down laws that are perfectly acceptable under the Constitution than to let unconstitutional laws stand. Constitutionally permissible laws include laws against abortion and laws providing for the death penalty.

We know that laws prohibiting abortion do not violate the Constitution because neither abortion, nor its synonyms, nor anything vaguely resembling abortion, is mentioned -- much less granted protected status -- by the Constitution.

And we know that laws providing for the death penalty are permitted by the Constitution because it goes on and on about capital crimes. The Fifth Amendment, for example, says:

-- "No person shall be held to answer for any capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury";

-- "nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb";

-- "nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law."

States are free to ban the death penalty on their own, but the Constitution requires only three things for the imposition of a death sentence: a grand jury indictment, no double jeopardy, and a hearing. The End. Love, the Founding Fathers.

And yet, the Supreme Court banned the death penalty -- even with those three safeguards -- as "unconstitutional" from 1972-1976.

Several justices -- including Kagan's mentor, Justice Thurgood Marshall -- continually voted to ban the death penalty, despite the fact that the Constitution clearly, repeatedly, unquestionably provides for capital punishment.

That's how liberals "get some things done." That's judicial activism.

What a Sack of Sacrosanct

Via-Townhall

Ann Coulter

In The New York Times' profile on the family of Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan, her aunt was quoted as saying: "There was thinking, always thinking" at the family's dinner table. "Nothing was sacrosanct."

Really? Nothing was sacrosanct? Because in my experience, on a scale of 1-to-infinity, the range of acceptable opinion among New York liberals goes from 1-to-1.001.

How would the following remarks fare at a dinner table on the Upper West Side where "nothing was sacrosanct": Hey, maybe that Joe McCarthy was onto something. What would prayer in the schools really hurt? How do we know gays are born that way? Is it possible that union demands have gone too far? Does it make sense to have three recycling bins in these microscopic Manhattan apartments? Say, has anyone read Charles Murray's latest book?

Those comments, considered "conversation starters" in most of the country, would get you banned from polite society in New York. Also, unless you want the whole room slowly backing away from you, also avoid: May I smoke? I heard it on Fox News and Merry Christmas!

Even members of survivalist Christian cults in Idaho at least know people who hold opposing views. New York liberals don't.

As Kagan herself described it, on the Upper West Side of New York where she grew up, "Nobody ever admitted to voting Republican." So, I guess you could say being a Democrat was "sacrosanct."

Even within the teeny-tiny range of approved liberal opinion in New York, disagreement will get you banned from the premises.

When, as dean of the Harvard Law School, Kagan disagreed with the Bill Clinton policy of "Don't ask, don't tell" for gays in the military, she open-mindedly banned military recruiters from the law school, denouncing Clinton's policy as "discriminatory," "deeply wrong," "unwise and unjust."

From this, I conclude that having gays serving openly in the military is "sacrosanct" for liberals.

Having gays NOT serve in the military is a position held by lots of people in other parts of the country, but I do not recall any Christian colleges banning military recruiters because the schools believed "Don't ask, don't tell" went too far the other way.

Not only is every weird, shared delusion of the New York liberal deemed sacrosanct, but what ought to be sacrosanct -- off the top of my head, human life -- isn't.

As Stan Evans says, whatever liberals disapprove of, they want banned (smoking, guns, practicing Christianity, ROTC, the Pledge of Allegiance) and whatever they approve of, they make mandatory (abortion-on-demand, gay marriage, pornography, condom distribution in public schools, screenings of "An Inconvenient Truth").

When liberals say, "nothing is sacrosanct," they mean "nothing other Americans consider sacrosanct is sacrosanct." They demonstrate their open-mindedness by ridiculing other people's dogma, but will not brook the most trifling criticism of their own dogmas.

Thus, for example, liberals sneer at the bluenoses and philistines of the "religious right" for objecting to taxpayer-funding of a crucifix submerged in a jar of urine, but would have you banned from public life for putting Matthew Shepard in a jar of urine, with or without taxpayer funding.

These famously broad-minded New Yorkers -- "thinking, always thinking" -- actually booed Mayor Rudy Giuliani when he showed up at the opera after pulling city funding from a museum exhibit that included a painting of the Virgin Mary plastered with close-up pornographic photos of women's vulvas.

(The New York Times fair-mindedly refused to ever mention the vulvas, instead suggesting that the mayor's objection was to the cow dung used in the composition.)

Has a decision to fund or not fund "art" ever gotten a politician in any other part of the country booed in public? And how might the Times refer to citizens booing a mayor who had withdrawn taxpayer funding for a painting of Rosa Parks covered in pornography?

If New York liberals insist on bragging about their intellectual bravado in believing "nothing is sacrosanct," it would really help if they could stop being the most easily offended, P.C., group-think, thin-skinned weanies in the entire universe and maybe ease up on the college "hate speech" codes, politically correct firings, and bans on military recruiters.

With that in mind, here are some questions it would be fun to ask a New York liberal like Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan at her hearings next week:

-- Roughly one-third of Americans are Evangelical Christians. Do you personally know any Evangelical Christians? Name two.

-- In 1972, Richard Nixon was elected president with more than 60 percent of the vote, winning every state except Massachusetts and the District of Columbia. How many people do you know who voted for Nixon?

-- Appropriate or inappropriate: Schools passing out condoms to seventh-graders? Schools passing out cigarettes to seventh-graders?

-- Who is a greater threat to America, Sarah Palin or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?