Senate Judiciary Committee

(cross posted to the People For Blog)

Mat Staver of the ironically named Liberty Counsel has a new video up where he takes credit for the shameful filibuster of Goodwin Liu. That clears up so much.

Was it Mat Staver who "exposed" the "extremism" of this extremely qualified nominee? Was it Mat Staver who convinced every Republican senator but one to ignore Liu's testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, his detailed written submissions, and his many articles, all of which disproved the lies being told about him? Was it Mat Staver whose keen legal arguments completely discredited conservative legal figures like Ken Starr, Clint Bolick, Richard Painter, and John Yoo, all of whom were part of the vast network of support Liu received from the nation's legal community across the ideological spectrum?

Yeah, right.

No, it was naked partisan politics at its worst and not Mat Staver that sank Goodwin Liu's nomination.

But the video does raise an interesting question: If Staver knows so much about Goodwin Liu, why does he repeatedly call him "Godwin"? Don't you think he would know the man's name after all of his exhaustive research and outreach to senators?

Alaska Governor Sean Parnell nominated Don Haase, a former candidate for the state House of Representatives, to serve on the state's Judicial Council, the board which nominates candidates for open judgeship positions.

During his confirmation hearing, it was discovered that Hasse was formerly the president of the Eagle Forum's state affiliate ... and that he thinks people should prosecuted for having sex outside of marriage: 

Gov. Sean Parnell's appointee for the panel that nominates state judges testified Wednesday that he would like to see Alaskans prosecuted for having sex outside of marriage.

The candidate, Don Haase of Valdez, also admitted under questioning by members of the Senate Judiciary Committee that his official resume failed to disclose his leadership role in Eagle Forum Alaska, which advocates for social conservative issues. He most recently was president of the organization, but resigned when he learned of his nomination, he said.

Haase, picked by Parnell for one of three public seats on the Alaska Judicial Council, said that he wouldn't let his personal beliefs influence which candidates he'd approve for judgeships.

The Senate battle over the confirmation of judicial nominees reflected the epitome of Republican obstructionism, with nominees who won significant if not unanimous support from the Judiciary Committee failing to receive up-or-down votes on their confirmation. Of the 38 pending judicial nominees the Senate was only able to confirm 19 of them before adjourning for the year, exacerbating the country’s judicial vacancy crisis that is growing so badly that even GOP-appointed judges have called on Senate Republicans to end the blockade.

Mario Diaz, the Policy Director for Legal Issues at Concerned Women for America, believes though that Republicans should oppose Obama’s judicial nominees just like starving children should avoid eating “poisoned apples.” He resurrects the same tired arguments used to oppose the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan when he takes direct aim at Goodwin Liu, suggesting that he should not be appointed to the Ninth Circuit Court because he views the Constitution as a living document and “has no judicial experience and almost no legal experience.” Diaz writes:

The liberal cry for more judges has reached an all-time high. Their media cohorts have been banging the drums with the numbers game and the judicial emergency cry in perfect sync. They have become masters of smokescreens and shadows while ignoring the essence.

The nomination of judges is about substance.

If children are starving and you give them poisoned apples, have you really helped them? Hardly! Oh sure, you can say they have more than they had before, but they can’t eat it. It would kill them.

In the same way, assuming you can successfully argue that the country is “starving” for judges (others might argue that what we need are fewer lawsuits, not more judges), President Obama seems to think that by nominating extreme liberal political operatives like Goodwin Liu he is somehow meeting that need. But like the poisoned apples, such nominees would pervert justice, not promote it. And we must be willing to go to great lengths to oppose them.

Aside from the fact that Liu has no judicial experience and almost no legal experience, his view of the role of a judge and the Constitution cannot be more warped. He has made clear he sees the Constitution as a living, breathing document that changes with the times and that judges get to decide what those changes are.

In a 2008 Stanford Law Review article, he argued that judges should use “socially situated modes of reasoning that appeal ... to the culturally and historically contingent meanings of particular social goods in our own society” and that they should “determine, at the moment of decision, whether our collective values on a given issue have converged to a degree that they can be persuasively crystallized and credibly absorbed into legal doctrine.” He was apparently arguing for a new constitutional right to welfare.

Liu is such a political operative that he actually testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee against the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, attacking him viciously. He was also an outspoken opponent of Chief Justice Roberts’ nomination. They were, of course, too far to the right for him. Can you imagine, they actually said they will take the Constitution only for what it says?

…

And he is not alone. President Obama has been consistent in nominating radicals (see David Hamilton, Louis Butler, Edward Chen, and Robert Chatigny).

So the liberal elite and their media can keep playing their sad tune about judges. It doesn’t really matter how hungry you are if a person keeps giving you poisoned apples. In fact, can you even trust when they offer one that looks okay?

According to Diaz, Justices Roberts and Alito are model justices who “take the Constitution only for what it says.” Of course, Roberts and Alito have been exposed for their pro-corporate agenda, as Jeffrey Toobin of The New Yorker writes, “the rule in the current Supreme Court” is that if “there is a human being on one side of the ‘v.’ and a corporation on the other, the corporation wins.” A New York Times analysis found that the Roberts Court is far more sympathetic to corporations than even the conservative Rehnquist Court. As Arlen Specter recently claimed, “Chief Roberts promised to just ‘call balls and strikes,’ and then he moved the bases.”

Diaz’s misguided praise for Roberts and Alito is only matched in its absurdity to his opposing Liu, the Associate Dean of the Berkeley School of Law, on the grounds that he “has no judicial experience.” If Diaz believes that Republicans should block Liu’s confirmation to the Ninth Circuit because Liu is not a judge, then by the same logic he should have opposed confirming Roberts to the DC Circuit since he never served as a judge prior to his nomination.

He also badly misconstrues Goodwin Liu’s legal experience. Liu served as a clerk for Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg and a DC Circuit court judge, in addition to working as an appellate litigator. As Associate Dean of the Berkeley School of Law, Liu has received wide praise from both progressive and conservative legal scholars, and conservatives John Yoo and Ken Starr said “Goodwin is an outstanding nominee.” While Diaz believes that Liu’s criticism of Roberts and Alito disqualifies him from serving, The New York Times notes that “Liu’s warnings that the two men would be extremely conservative justices have turned out to be completely on target,” while Liu’s “views fall within the mainstream of legal scholarship and American politics.”

Diaz goes on to distort Liu’s legal writings, maintaining that he argued “for a new constitutional right to welfare.” The Alliance for Justice makes clear that Liu has ardently opposed an expansive role for the judicial branch:

[Liu] has argued for a model of judicial restraint, concluding that courts should not interpret the Constitution to create affirmative welfare rights, whether to education, health care, or minimal levels of subsistence. Liu has explained that “such rights cannot be reasoned into existence by courts on their own” and has explained that his understanding of the judicial role “does not license courts to declare rights to entirely new benefits or programs not yet in existence.”

Only a right wing hypocrite like Diaz could falsely represent Justices Roberts and Alito as archetypes of judicial restraint and claim that Obama’s urgently-needed judicial nominees as “radicals.” Diaz is forced to levy ridiculous and bogus arguments against Liu in order to backup his wildly inaccurate case opposing Obama’s nominees, however, Senate Republicans have largely followed his lead in their willingness “to go to great lengths to oppose them.”

Mike McManus runs an organization called Marriage Savers, which he co-founded with his wife Harriet.

As the name suggests, the organization's mission is to "increase the success of marriage, reduce divorce rates, and provide a better environment for children to thrive."  And as that sort of mission would suggest, the organization is endorsed by Religious Right leaders like Tony Perkins, Don Wildmon, Mike Huckabee, Richard Land, and Robert George.

Which makes this new column by McManus rather remarkable, because people on the Right generally don't give any credence to the claims raised about Clarence Thomas, much less cite Thomas as evidence of the dangers of addiction to pornography: 

"He was obsessed with porn," commented Lillian McEwen of Clarence Thomas about the years he was Chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. "He would talk about what he had seen in magazines and films."

She should know, having had a torrid affair with him from 1981-86. "He was always actively watching the women he worked with to see if they could be potential partners. It was a hobby of his," she told The Washington Post.

Anita Hill made similar charges in the 1991 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing about Thomas's nomination to be a Justice to the Supreme Court: "He spoke about acts that he had seen in pornographic films involving such matters as women having sex with animals and films showing group sex or rape scenes. He talked about pornographic materials depicting individuals with large penises or large breasts involved in various sex acts." He was also constantly asking Hill out, which she refused.

Thomas stoutly denied the charges: "If I used that kind of grotesque language with one person, it would seem to me that there would be traces of it throughout the employees who worked closely with me."

No doubt, McEwen could have provided corroborating testimony, which would might have torpedoed his nomination. She now regrets having remaining silent and has written a book. Twice married and twice divorced, she had a career as a prosecutor, a Senate Judiciary Committee lawyer, administrative law judge, and a law professor and is now retired, declaring, "I have nothing to be afraid of."

What matters about the Thomas story is that it shows the power of porn addiction, that led him to take dangerous risks, even as a very visible EEOC Chairman.

For the last twenty years, the standard Religious Right line has been that Anita Hill was lying as part of an Democrat-orchestrated smear campaign against Thomas, so it is pretty amazing to see someone like McManus suddenly citing Thomas' behavior as proof of the dangers of pornography.

As the questioning in Elena Kagan's confirmation hearing finally gets underway, right-wing groups are busy releasing statements and reports claiming she is everything from a "clear and present danger to the Constitution" to a sign of the end times.

The Judicial Crisis Network's first day write-up is particularly confusing, as they seem convinced that Kagan is trying to "disguise herself as the next John Roberts" 

The Senate Judiciary Committee just concluded the first day of Elena Kagan's hearings to replace Justice Stevens on the Supreme Court. Our summary of Day 1: She may not be a Constitutionalist, but she sure plays one on TV.

As we expected, Kagan followed in Justice Sotomayor's footsteps and disguised herself as the next John Roberts, and Democratic Senators did their best to help her hide from her record of extreme activism on abortion, 2nd Amendment rights, and the scope of government power. According to Kagan, "what the Supreme Court does is to safeguard the rule of law, through a commitment to even-handedness, principle, and restraint." In the immortal words of The Who, "Don't get fooled again."

Seeing as it was John Roberts who "disguised" himself as a umpire who would just call balls and strikes and then, once confirmed, revealed himself to be a blatant judicial activist, that is a pretty ironic criticism for JCN to level.

But at least the JCN's complaints are at least coherent, unlike those of Gordon Klingenschmitt:

Chaplain Klingenschmitt has contracted with a team of investigative journalists including Brian Camenker, Amy Contrada and Peter LaBarbera to investigate and report breaking news about Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan.

While serving as Dean of Harvard Law School, Kagan's administration demanded and forced Blue-Cross, Blue-Shield to cover sex-change operations as an "equal right" paid benefit, harming gender-confused students, as confirmed in 2006 and 2008 by Harvard Crimson newspaper articles.

Kagan also offered sympathetic ear to lesbian group Lambda's Transgender Task Force demand to force all women to share public bathrooms and locker-rooms with cross-dressing men, which is now part of Harvard's dormitory policy, according to the report.

"This is further proof Elena Kagan cannot be trusted to impartially rule on Obamacare or bathroom bills like ENDA, since she believes sin is a Constitutional right," said Chaplain Klingenschmitt, "but rights come from God, who never grants the right to sin."

Because if anything is going to clarify these confirmation hearings, is a report written by a bunch of militantly anti-gay activists like Klingenschmitt, Camenker, and LaBarbera ... and now that is exactly what we have:

Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan is committed to the radical campaign pushing acceptance of homosexuality and transgenderism as “civil rights." Her unprecedented activism supporting that view as Dean of Harvard Law School (2003-2009) calls into question her ability to judge fairly and impartially on same-sex “marriage” and other homosexuality- or transgender-related issues that may come before the nation’s highest court.

Kagan’s record while Dean of Harvard Law School (HLS) demonstrates her agreement with the goals of the radical GLBT (gay lesbian bisexual transgender) movement and her solidarity with those activists. Working hand in hand with students to expel military recruiters in protest over the Armed Forces’ ban on homosexuals (a “moral injustice of the first order,” she wrote) is only the most obvious example of Kagan’s passionate dedication to this controversial and immoral agenda.

Kagan’s celebration and active promotion of the radical homosexualist and transgender worldview has profound implications. As a Supreme Court Justice, she could be expected to overturn traditional law and understandings of family, marriage, military order, and even our God-given sex (what transgender radicals call “gender identity or expression”). She is a most dangerous nominee who must be opposed by all who care about religious freedom, the preservation of marriage and traditional values.

There should be grave concern over Kagan’s issues advocacy concerning “sexual orientation.” Even before her nomination to the Court, her enthusiastic and committed pro-homosexuality activism at Harvard (including her recruitment to the faculty of radical “gay” activist scholars like former ACLU lawyer William Rubenstein and elevation of radical out lesbian Professor Janet Halley) was highly significant for the nation. Now, it is imperative that Senators and the U.S. public gain an accurate understanding of the radical, pro-homosexual environment that was Kagan’s home at Harvard – and the GLBT legal agenda that Kagan herself helped foster as Dean.

But that is actually quite reasonable compared to this statement from Tim LaHaye and Craig Parshall claiming that Kagan "presents a danger as old as the book of Genesis" and that her confirmation could be a sign of the End Times:

First, if she becomes a Supreme Court justice, she could be the all-important fifth vote in favor of interpreting our Constitution, not according to the vision of our Founding Fathers, but from an international law standpoint, a concept that would have seemed treasonous to our Founders. Three justices on the Court have already relied on foreign law in their opinions: Justices Kennedy, Breyer and Ginsburg. Recently-installed justice Sotomayor has praised Ruth Bader Ginsberg's penchant for international law, so we can assume she will be a legal globalist as well. Five justices create a majority and with Kagan on board they could begin radically steering us away from view of the Constitution that honors our Judeo-Christian heritage and founding.

Second, if this happens, it will usher America into a new age of global law. With Elena Kagan on the Supreme Court, international legal standards could well be imposed on Americans by the High Court's legal globalists, even without the Senate approving a specific international treaty. In our new novel, Edge of Apocalypse, we show how this trend might create a modern-day legal nightmare for conscientious Christians. We need only to turn to Genesis chapter 11 to see how God opposed the ancient attempt at global unification: the Lord declared the tragic result that would follow if a centralized group of fallen men were to consolidate an unlimited, unrestrained power over the planet.

Keep your eyes on the Supreme Court's view of global law. It could be one of the most telling 'signs of the times.'

Today, the Senate Judiciary Committee released the list of witnesses who will testify during Elena Kagan's confirmation hearing next week - here is the list of "Minority Witnesses" who will oppose her confirmation: 

- Robert Alt, Senior Fellow and Deputy Director, Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, The Heritage Foundation
- Lt. Gen. William “Jerry” Boykin, US Army (ret.)
- Capt. Pete Hegseth, Army National Guard
- Commissioner Peter Kirsanow, Benesch
- David Kopel, Esq., Independence Institute
- Colonel Thomas N. Moe, USAF (ret.)
- David Norcross, Esq., Blank Rome
- William J. Olson, Esq., William J. Olson, P.C.
- Tony Perkins, Family Research Council
- Steven Presser, Raoul Berger Professor of Legal History, Northwestern University School of Law
- Ronald Rotunda, The Doy & Dee Henley Chair and Distinguished Professor of Jurisprudence, Chapman University School of Law
- Ed Whelan, President, Ethics and Public Policy Center
- Dr. Charmaine Yoest, Americans United for Life
- Capt. Flagg Youngblood, USAF

Most of the witness are to be expected, but some -like Tony Perkins and Charmaine Yoest - are rather surprising.

And then there is Jerry Boykin.  Really? That guy is completely off the rails.

He's the one who was forced to retire after declaring that we were engaged in a spiritual war with Islam that "will only be defeated if we come against them in the name of Jesus," saying that knows we will eventually win because our God is bigger than theirs.

Since then, Boykin has become a fixture on the fringe right-wing circuit, teaming up with the likes of  "Christocrat" Rick Scarborough and Dominionist Janet Porter and even sharing the stage with professional anti-gay activists like Peter LaBarbera.

In fact, Boykin is also on the Board of Rick Joyner's Oak Initiative which I wrote about just earlier today, along with Porter, Lou Sheldon, and Cindy Jacobs.

This is who Senate Republican want to bring it in testify against Kagan?  The mind reels.

• Apparently Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell got "'many good ideas" from his official state visit to Focus on the Family headquarters in Colorado.
• Someone should ask Gov. Bob McDonnell if Pat Robertson will be attending his "thank you retreat".
• The Senate Judiciary Committee voted out Robert Chatigny’s nomination today - Concerned Women for America responded by saying "Senators Should Reject Obama's 'Empathy for Sadists' Judge".
• Speaking of CWA, they are very upset about President Obama's salty language.
• For all their screaming and yelling, Religious Right groups don't appear to have generated much opposition to repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell.
• Bryan Fischer bravely attacks the National Association of Evangelicals for supporting immigration reform while conveniently failing to attack right-wing leaders like Mat Staver, Richard Land, and Ken Blackwell, who also support it.
• Finally, the quote of the day from Michael Pakaluk explaining why he doesn't want the children of gay couples attending Catholic school with his children: "The third reason is that it seemed a real danger that the boy being raised by the same-sex couple would bring to school something obscene or pornographic, or refer to such things in conversation, as they go along with the same-sex lifestyle, which--as not being related to procreation-- is inherently eroticized and pornographic. He might expose other children to such things, as he might easily have encountered them in his household."

A collection of early responses from the Right to the news that President Obama intends to nominate Elena Kagan to a seat on the Supreme Court (I will continue to update this post throughout the day as more statements are released).

Catholic Families for America:

Today Catholic Families for America, one of the largest groups of lay Catholics in the country, announced its opposition to the nomination of Solicitor General Elena Kagan to the U.S. Supreme Court, citing "grave concerns" about her promotion of same-sex "marriage" and abortion, as well as a "dangerous internationalism" that has become fashionable among leftist jurists.

To galvanize citizens' concerns, particularly those of Catholic voters, CFA has initiated a nationwide petition that it will forward to the Senate Judiciary Committee. The petition can be signed.

"By nominating Miss Kagan to the Supreme Court, the president continues to demonstrate a brass-knuckles, Chicago-mobster mentality toward unifying our nation," said Dr. Kevin Roberts, executive director of CFA. "Naming someone who has been so actively hostile to traditional marriage and to the unborn lays bare the president's pro-abortion, anti-family agenda, in spite of what he says to the contrary."

Americans United for Life: 

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. Americans United for Life will oppose President Obama's attempt to reshape the Court as an activist, pro-abortion institution through which unelected judges will work to impose an out-of-the-mainstream social agenda upon the American people."

Ed Whelan:

2. Kagan may well have less experience relevant to the work of being a justice than any justice in the last five decades or more. In addition to zero judicial experience, she has only a few years of real-world legal experience. Further, notwithstanding all her years in academia, she has only a scant record of legal scholarship. Kagan flunks her own “threshold” test of the minimal qualifications needed for a Supreme Court nominee.

3. There is a striking mismatch between the White House’s populist rhetoric about seeking a justice with a “keen understanding of how the law affects the daily lives of the American people” and the reality of the Kagan pick. Kagan is the consummate Obama insider, and her meteoric rise over the last 15 years—from obscure academic and Clinton White House staffer to Harvard law school dean to Supreme Court nominee—would seem to reflect what writer Christopher Caldwell describes as the “intermarriage of financial and executive branch elites [that] could only have happened in the Clinton years” and that has fostered the dominant financial-political oligarchy in America. In this regard, Kagan’s paid role as a Goldman Sachs adviser is the perfect marker of her status in the oligarchy—and of her unfathomable remoteness from ordinary Americans.

4. Kagan’s record thus manages to replicate the primary supposed defect of the judicial monastery—isolation from the real-world lives of ordinary Americans—without conferring the broader benefits of judicial experience.

Bill Kristol:

For me, the key obstacle to Elena Kagan's confirmation is ... [h]er hostility to the U.S. military.

Hostility? Isn't that harsh? Kagan has professed at times her admiration for those who serve in the military, even as she tried to bar military recruiters from Harvard Law School. But how does one square her professed admiration with her actions--embracing an attempt to overturn the Solomon Amendment that was rejected 8-0 by the Supreme Court--and her words?

Priests for Life:

"Supreme Court Justices are not supposed to shape public policy, and their nomination and confirmation should be based on their qualifications, not their views on specific issues.

"But there are certain issues so central to the very nature and purpose of government that one's position on those issues is tantamount to a qualification for the job. The very purpose of government is the protection of human rights, starting with life. No court can legitimize an act of violence, such as abortion, or take away human rights. Anyone who fails to affirm that does not belong in any public office, much less the US Supreme Court."

Ed Meese:

First and foremost, any nominee to a lifetime appointment to the United States Supreme Court must demonstrate a thorough fidelity to apply the Constitution as it was written, rather than as they would like to re-write it. Given Solicitor General Kagan’s complete lack of judicial experience, and, for that matter, very limited litigation experience, Senators must not be rushed in their deliberative process. Because they have no prior judicial opinions to look to, Senators must conduct a more searching inquiry to determine if Kagan will decide cases based upon what is required by the Constitution as it is actually written, or whether she will rule based upon her own policy preferences.

Though Ms. Kagan has not written extensively on the role of a judge, the little she has written is troubling. In a law review article, she expressed agreement with the idea that the Court primarily exists to look out for the “despised and disadvantaged.” The problem with this view—which sounds remarkably similar to President Obama’s frequent appeals to judges ruling on grounds other than law—is that it allows judges to favor whichever particular client they view as “despised and disadvantaged.” The judiciary is not to favor any one particular group, but to secure justice equally for all through impartial application of the Constitution and laws. Senators should vigorously question Ms. Kagan about such statements to determine whether she is truly committed to the rule of law. Nothing less should be expected from anyone appointed to a life-tenured position as one of the final arbiters of justice in our country.

Chuck Norris:

It's that "unknown" Elena Kagan who has gun owners particularly concerned at the moment, not only because she's Obama's favored choice but because evidence for her beliefs on gun control is extremely scarce.

David McIntosh, co-founder of the Federalist Society:

I'm deeply disappointed that President Obama has chosen to nominate an individual who has demonstrated a lack of adherence to the limits of the Constitution and a desire to utilize the court system to enact her beliefs of social engineering. Solicitor General Kagan has been nominated with no judicial experience, a mere two years of private law practice, and only a year as Solicitor General of the United States. She is one of the most inexperienced nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court in recent memory.

Susan B. Anthony List:

"Elena Kagan has no judicial record from which to determine her position on Roe v. Wade, but she has publicly criticized the 1991 Supreme Court ruling to allow the Department of Health and Human Services to restrict funding from groups that performed or promoted abortion, and has also criticized crisis pregnancy centers. Additionally, President Obama has said he prefers a Supreme Court nominee who would take a special interest in 'women's rights'--a barely masked euphemism for abortion rights. Through the judicial confirmation process the American people must know where Elena Kagan stands on the abortion issue, and it is the responsibility of the U.S. Senate to find out.

"Ms. Kagan's publicly demonstrated prejudices do not lend themselves well to blind justice. Susan B. Anthony and her early feminist compatriots fought for a human rights standard sustained only through blind justice--and they knew that one group is never served by undermining the rights of another. Women will never be served by ignoring the rights of unborn children. When evidence of personal preference appears in any Supreme Court nominee's judgment, it should give all women pause."

Judicial Crisis Network:

Solicitor General Elena Kagan is out of step with main street Americans, her limited record is outside the mainstream of American legal thought, and she lacks any substantial qualifications to sit on the Supreme Court.

Elena Kagan has no prior experience that qualifies her for the Supreme Court.

...

Ultimately, it is difficult to see how Kagan’s extreme left wing views and lack of relevant experience qualify her for a seat on the Supreme Court.

Gary Bauer:

"Sadly, President Obama, while saying repeatedly that he wants to bring people together, does something to tear people apart by choosing another liberal activist and long-time abortion advocate to have long-term power over the fabric of American life. Equally troubling at this time of terrorist activity and international unrest is the fact that while she was dean of the Harvard Law school, Kagan opposed military recruiting. Our Armed Forces who protect and defend our freedom deserve better.

"Obama has become the 'Divider in Chief,' choosing racial identity politics, socialist economics and extreme liberal activists who would tear the fabric of American society. Whether you look at his appointments or his policies, Obama goes out of his way to repudiate the values and desires of the American people.

"This is an opportunity for Republicans to represent the values of millions of Americans who are counting on them to defend the rule of law. Republicans in the Senate need to use every tool available to determine the nominee's views on such pivotal issues as whether terrorists deserve the same rights as Americans, whether the U.S. Constitution has hidden code in it supporting radical social change, and whether the Constitution requires that the public square be purged of Judeo-Christian values.

Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel:

Judges should interpret, not make the law. The Senate should press hard to question Elena Kagan on her judicial philosophy. The public deserves to know whether Kagan will use her transnational law philosophy as a lens through which she views the Constitution. And the public needs to know whether her personal views will trump the Constitution, as they appeared to do when she banned military recruiters from campus.

American Center for Law and Justice:

This is the beginning of an important, deliberative process in which the American people deserve to know where Elena Kagan stands on the Constitution and the rule of law,” said Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel of the ACLJ. “The fact that Elena Kagan has no previous judicial experience underscores the importance of closely examining her judicial philosophy - will she abide by the Constitution, or will she take an activist view? With the Senate’s constitutional role of providing ‘advice and consent’ regarding nominees, we call on the Senate Judiciary Committee to provide full and thorough hearings and ask the tough questions about how Kagan views the role of Justices, the Constitution, and the rule of law. While no nominee should express legal opinions concerning specific issues, the American people deserve to know whether this nominee – which could serve for many decades – embraces the philosophy of judicial activism.

American Life League:

"Clearly, Kagan has demonstrated a record of interpreting the law in the light of homosexual, pro-abortion activism.

"What's at stake here is the core constitutional question that passionately divides the country – does our Constitution seek human rights for all human beings or merely some human beings? Kagan's answers to her 2009 confirmation hearings provide clear insight into her future judicial philosophy.

"Will President Obama's nomination of Solicitor General Kagan be another example of his continued disregard for human rights in favor of advancing his favorite pet political agenda – abortion on demand courtesy of the American tax dollar?

"With the nomination of 50-year-old Kagan, will President Obama assure his long-lasting assault on the most fundamental human right of personhood?

"As President Obama races against the election clock, he has worked to undermine many of the American values and principles that make this nation the greatest on Earth.

Life Issues Institute:

"Mr. Obama has once again made it clear that he strictly follows a pro-abortion litmus test for anyone he nominates to the Supreme Court," said Bradley Mattes, executive director of Life Issues Institute. "We should not be surprised that his legacy will be the intentional killing of our nation's most vulnerable citizens--unborn babies. This nomination is a tragedy for America's women and their unborn children."

Concerned Women for America:

“In her disdain for the military, Elena Kagan considers her own views and opinions as more important than obeying the law and equipping the country with the best fighting force in the world. We need justices who put national security over the feelings or demands of special interest groups.

“We urge the US Senate to oppose the nomination of Elena Kagan. We want a justice who will defend the Constitution, support our families and uphold the right to life and traditional marriage.”

Operation Rescue:

Elena Kagan's support for abortion and her predisposition for judicial activism makes her a poor selection. We need a justice that will uphold the Constitution, not rewrite it though judicial activism. It is clear that as long as Obama is president, we cannot expect anything other than the nomination of radical liberal pro-aborts, even though those with that political philosophy and agenda are opposed by the majority of the American people.

Family Research Council:

"Elena Kagan's lack of legal experience will be discussed by both sides of the aisle but her record of liberal activism should not be overlooked.

"As the Harvard Law School Dean, Elena Kagan tried to bar the military from recruiting on her law school's campus during the height of the Iraq War based on her opposition to the federal law restricting homosexuals in the military. She fought the issue all the way to the Supreme Court which ruled unanimously against her, an extraordinary rebuke to her legal and substantive reasoning.

"Ms. Kagan's incredibly hostile view of the military suggests she is out of touch with mainstream sensibilities and obedience to the rule of law. President Obama promised a nominee committed to the 'rule of law,' but, instead, he appears to have nominated a hard-left activist to the Supreme Court.

Traditional Values Coalition:

“President Obama’s pick of Elena Kagan demonstrates his willingness to subvert the Constitution for his personal agenda and impose his leftist ideology on our nation for the next 30 to 40 years,” continued Lafferty. “The Obama Administration has already saddled the next two generations of Americans with a mountain of debt, and the lifetime appointment of Elana Kagan to the Supreme Court will extend the radical Obama agenda over them.”

Elaine Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness:

“It is unfortunate that President Barack Obama has chosen to replace the only military veteran on the Supreme Court with a nominee whose only significant record indicates deliberate hostility and opposition to laws protecting the culture and best interests of the American military.”

Donnelly continued, “Senators considering this nomination should question Elena Kagan’s flawed logic and anti-military attitude that she expressed by signing an amicus brief challenging the Solomon Amendment in Rumsfeld v. Fair. It is significant that the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of that legislation, which protects equal access for military recruiters on college campuses, with a unanimous (8-0) vote. Even Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg did not agree with Kagan’s anti-military views.”

National Organization for Marriage:

Don’t be fooled, Pres. Obama today has nominated a radical justice who will vote to overturn Prop 8 in California, the federal Defense of Marriage Act and the laws protecting marriage in all 50 states.

NOM has reviewed her record, and today we told the press. “A vote for Elana Kagan will be a vote for imposing gay marriage on all 50 states.”

If you need any more proof that Senate Republicans' sole mission at the moment is to prevent anything from happening in their chamber of Congress, look no further than the fact that today the Senate had to seek cloture on the nomination Barbara Milano Keenan to fill a vacancy on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, resulting in a vote of 99-0.

That's right - not one Republican senator spoke against her qualifications, record, or views or voted to prevent her nomination from receiving an up-or-down vote on the Senate floor ... and yet still they filibustered, forcing Democrats to seek a cloture vote in order to move ahead, simply because they are committed to obstructing the governing process in every way possible.

Earlier today, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy took to the Senate floor to blast the Republicans' refusal to allow the Senate to move on even noncontroversial judicial nominations:

Last year’s total was the fewest judicial nominees confirmed in the first year of a Presidency in more than 50 years. Those 12 Federal circuit and district court confirmations were even below the 17 the Senate Republican majority allowed to be confirmed in the 1996 session. After that presidential election year, Chief Justice Rehnquist began criticizing the pace of judicial confirmations and the partisan Republican tactics.

Among the frustrations is that Senate Republicans have delayed and obstructed nominees chosen after consultation with Republican home state Senators. Despite President Obama’s efforts, Senate Republicans have treated his nominees much, much worse.

I noted when the Senate considered the nominations of Judge Christina Reiss of Vermont and Mr. Abdul Kallon of Alabama relatively promptly that they should serve as the model for Senate action. Sadly, they are the exception rather than the model. They show what the Senate could do, but does not. Time and again, noncontroversial nominees are delayed. When the Senate does finally consider them, they are confirmed overwhelmingly. Of the 15 Federal circuit and district court judges confirmed, twelve have been confirmed unanimously.

That is right. Republicans have only voted against three of President Obama's nominees to the Federal circuit and district courts. One of those, Judge Gerry Lynch of the Second Circuit, garnered only three negative votes and 94 votes in favor. Judge Andre Davis of Maryland was stalled for months and then confirmed with 72 votes in favor and only 16 against. Judge David Hamilton was filibustered in a failed effort to prevent an up-or-down vote.

The obstruction and delay is part of a partisan pattern. Even when they cannot say “no,” Republicans nonetheless demand that the Senate go slow. The practice is continuing. This is the 17th filibuster of President Obama's nominees. That does not count the many other nominees who were delayed or are being denied up-or-down votes by Senate Republicans refusing to agree to time agreements to consider even noncontroversial nominees.

Update: Keenan was confirmed by the same margin: 99-0. So why was the cloture vote even necessary when not one Republican voted against it or her confirmation?