Showing posts with label qualifications. Show all posts
Showing posts with label qualifications. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Rep. Ted Poe questions Kagan's judicial qualifications

The new Supreme Court pick, Elena Kagan, has never been a judge. She's never seen a courtroom from the bench. She's never had a judge's responsibilities. Elena Kagan has never instructed a jury or ruled on a point of law—any point of law. She's never tried a criminal case, a civil case, or even a traffic case. She has not decided even one constitutional issue.

We don't know whether or not she believes the Constitution is the foundation of American law or whether she thinks, like many, the Constitution constantly changes based upon the personal opinions of Supreme Court justices. But either way, Elena Kagan has never had to make a constitutional call in a court of law in the heat of a trial.

She has never admitted evidence or ruled out evidence or ruled on the chain of custody regarding evidence. She has never made even one decision regarding any rule of evidence. She has never ruled on the exclusionary rule, the Miranda doctrine, an unlawful search and seizure allegation, a due process claim, an equal protection violation or any constitutional issue.

She has never impaneled a jury. She has never instructed a jury on a reasonable doubt or sentenced a person to the penitentiary. She has never had to decide whether a witness was telling the truth or not. As a judge, she has never heard a plaintiff, a defendant, a victim, or a child testify as a witness. She has never made that all-important decision of deciding whether or not a person is guilty or not guilty of a crime.

She has never ruled on a life-or-death issue.

Elena Kagan has never made a judgment call from the bench—not a single one. Yet, as a Supreme Court justice, she would be second-guessing trial judges and trial lawyers who have been through the mud, blood and tears of actual trials in actual courts of law. How can she possibly be qualified to fill the post of a Supreme Court justice?

Sunday, May 16, 2010

A justice who can grind it out and then hand out free tampons...yeah, that's just what this supreme court needs

What to do when your nominee to the Supreme Court has no experience on the bench, filed an amicus brief that got blown out of the water, worked a skimpy two years in the private sector, treated members of the military as second-class citizens, and penned only a limited number of “scholarly” articles?

Naturally, you talk about all the free tampons she distributed while at Harvard. If only I were kidding. It turns out that Kagan’s résumé is so threadbare that Team Obama is floating a myriad of pathetic talking points to pad its candidate’s “qualifications.”

See for yourself.

1. The baller. Not only are we told that she’s “ambitious, restless, [and] intellectually acute,” but, as Politico noted, she “even shares the president’s love of a good, grinding pick-up basketball game.” Say what? She enjoys a “grinding pick-up basketball game”? Well now, that settles it then. Bust out the basketball trunks, throw on a jersey, and move yourself straight to the front of the line for a lifetime position on the most powerful court in the world! What could go wrong? As an aside, can you even imagine Kagan “grinding” on the court?

3. Feminine products. At Harvard, Kagan gained popularity by offering “free coffee outside classrooms and free tampons in the women’s restrooms.” Surely, these were exactly the type of qualities Thomas Jefferson sought when picking a justice.

9. Good news: Kagan ain’t deaf. Television legal analyst Lis Wiehl gushed that the Supreme Court nominee ran Harvard Law with “grace” and is an “avid listener.”