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From The Mailbag

Dr. Tom Coburn questioned Elena Kagan about incorporating
foreign law into her decisions as Solicitor General. She did so as
Solicitor General, but tried to convince him she only did it because
some of the high court justices believed it was appropriate. But
even more frightening was Kagan's statement that she does not
believe our rights are inalienable...which means she believes our
rights are "gifts" from the State that can be taken away by law.

The smaller video is just under two minutes. View it first. It raises one question by Dr. Tom Coburn of Elena Kagan: do Americans have the "inalienable rights" described in the Declaration of Independence, and if faced with that issue on the high court, how would "citizen" Kagan view that issue? Did she personally believe the Declaration of Independence establishes that Americans have inalienable rights although they are not enumerated in the Constitution. Kagan admitted she would base her rulings only on what is in the Constitution, since that is the document she would be sworn to uphold. In other words, she would likely dismiss the notion that we have inalienable rights. If we do not, then in a socialist world, "rights" are gifts of the State, and thus, are retractable.

Coburn said he wanted America to know who Kagan really was because, he noted, she has a belief system much different than the rest of us. He noted she was doing a lot of dancing around on the issues to make sure her philosophy was not made clear by her answers to his questions. Coburn was wrong about one thing. He said he thought she was a liberal as opposed to a social progressive (communist) liberal. He was wrong. She is a social progressive. She was picked to replace a liberal. Sonia Sotomayor, Obama's first pick for the court, like Kagan, is also a social progressive who was picked to replace a liberal. Both are not qualified from judicial experience to sit on any court—even a local traffic court—let alone the court of last resorts in the United States. Every circuit court decision that was actually written by Sotomayor was overturned by the US Supreme Court. Sotomayor, like Kagan by this time next week, will be sitting on the highest court in the land reversing good law to help Obama overthrow the Constitution of the United States.

When he questioned Kagan about her use of foreign law, Kagan admitted that she used foreign law as an advocate for the White House before not only the high court, but the lower courts as well because, she said, the primary role of an advocate (Solicitor General) is to argue on behalf of her client, the government of the United States. Since the US Supreme Court, since 1937, has recast itself as the advocate of the government and not the unbiased arbitrator of the law itself, this is a very scary woman in very scary times. I think I said basically the same thing about Sotomayor when she was being vetted for confirmation. And she is proving to be the nightmare I expected. Kagan, who will easily be confirmed simply because the social progressives control enough votes in the Senate to make her confirmation a certainty, she will be like the sequel to a Nightmare on Elm Street. Her movie title, appropriately would be called Nightmare at 1 First Street NW, II. After admitted she would use foreign law to render decisions on the high court if it helped her position as the advocate for the government of the United States (not the job of a justice on the high court whose sole purpose is to determine if the law being weighed gels or clashes with the principles of the rule of law mandated by the Constitution), Coburn read this from the Constitution: "The judicial power shall extend to all cases in law and equity arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United States and treaties made..."

Coburn then added, waving his copy of the Constitution, "No where, no where in this Constitution does it give a judge, any judge, to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, any jurist on the Supreme Court or any other court, to reference foreign law in determining the interpretation of what our statutes or Constitution will be. So this is an area where we...start reaching beyond the Constitution. You said the determination will always be the law...Well, this is the Founding Document of what the law is. No where that I can find in this writing..." (the Constitution) "...or these guys writing..." (the Bible) "...says anything about using foreign law."

Kagan danced around the question by suggesting she wouldn't do that because, she said, she didn't "...think foreign law is appropriate as a precedent or a...basis of support in...ah, umm...a vast majority of legal questions." Since she could have told Coburn the truth and admitted she planned to make the Constitution stand on its head while she disrobed the rule of law and made it stand naked in the town square at high noon, she will still be confirmed. What Kagan says, or believes, doesn't count in this equation since Obama and Harry Reid have enough votes to confirm her nomination.