Today in Washington, D.C. - June 29, 2010 - While Democrat Operative Kagan Gets Senate Attention; The Dems’ ‘Scheme & Deem’ Budget Ploy Has House on Edge

In the House, Republicans are riled up over a Democrat's Scheme & Deem’ Budget Ploy Which Will Also be the Taxpayer's "Worst Nightmare" Big Spending with no accountability. House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) called out House Democrats for trying to circumvent their cancellation of this year’s budget by ‘deeming’ a non-existent budget as having passed – without actually writing a real one – so they can continue spending money we don’t have on failing ‘stimulus’ policies. Boehner, who has run a small business, also addressed Vice President Biden’s recent encounter with a small business owner who asked about having his taxes lowered. Biden called a small business owner a "smartass."

I guess Biden has been in his imperial leader's shadow long enough that he is showing his real feeling for Americans business owners. While the comment could of been"deemed" good natured fun in Congress, Biden display of anger in front of other witnesses indicates that Biden later half-heartedly apology was just an actto cover his tracks. And as for the deemed budget, maybe the American taxpayers should notify Congress that they "deem their taxes paid" next year for the for the non-existent 2011 budget. Better yet, it is time to vote these elitist arrogant democrats out of office!

Today, the Senate is expected to vote on cloture on the motion to proceed to H.R. 5297, the Small Business Lending Fund Act (It was postponed yesterday). Yesterday, the Senate voted 80-0 to confirm Gary Scott Feinerman to be District Judge for the Northern District of Illinois.

The Senate Judiciary Committee resumed hearings on the nomination of Elena Kagan of Massachusetts to be Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. Today’s session features the first round of questioning from senators and may continue into the second round. A key issue senators are looking for insight from her on is how they should get an idea of what kind of justice she might be. Speaking on the floor yesterday, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said, “Since Ms. Kagan hasn’t had the judicial or private practice experience common to most modern-day nominees, it’s all the more important that we look more closely at the kind of experience she has had. A review of that experience reveals a woman who has spent much of her adult life not steeped in the practice of the law but in the art of politics. To be more specific, when we look at Elena Kagan’s resume, what we find is a woman who has spent much of her adult life working to advance the goals of the Democratic Party.”

Kagan actually agreed with Sen. McConnell’s point at her hearing this morning. Sen. Herb Kohl (D-WI) told Kagan yesterday, “We have less evidence about what sort of judge you will be than on any nominee in recent memory. Your judicial philosophy is almost invisible to us.” So today, Sen. Kohl followed up by asking Kagan how exactly senators should understand what kind of justice she might be. Kagan responded, “I think you can look to my whole life for indications of what kind of a judge or justice I would be.”

So what has Kagan done for most of her life? She’s had a long career as a political operative. Sen. McConnell summarized her record: “As a young woman in college, she spent one summer working 14-hours a day for a liberal Democrat candidate for U.S. Senate. And when her candidate lost, Ms. Kagan wrote that she believed the ‘world had gone mad, that liberalism was dead.’ . . . . What else do we find in Ms. Kagan’s resume? Well, she volunteered for the Dukakis presidential campaign, working as an opposition researcher to defend the then governor of Massachusetts from attacks, and to look for ways to attack the Republican opposition. And as an aide to President Clinton, Ms. Kagan did not serve mostly as an attorney, as she put it, but as a policy advocate, frequently looking for ways to advantage Democrats over Republicans.”

Throughout her career, Kagan advocated for liberals and Democrats. Watching the defeat of the candidate she worked for in 1980, noted liberal Elizabeth Holtzman, Kagan hoped a “more leftist left will once again come to the fore.” Later, working for the Dukakis campaign, she was, “a self-described flunky,” according to the Los Angeles Times. While she worked in the Clinton White House, the AP writes “she suggested transforming what was supposed to be a routine literacy event at a Maryland school into a chance to score points against the Republican Congress.”

And because Kagan has not been a judge, we have not yet seen whether she has the ability to set aside her personal proclivities and views and decide cases based on the law. The Democrat Judiciary Committee chairman Pat Leahy once said, “No one should vote for somebody that’s going to be a political apparatchik for either the Democratic Party or the Republican Party.” Indeed, and as Sen. McConnell said yesterday, “If there’s one thing we can all agree on, it’s that politics should end at the courtroom door.”

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