After seeing what an ass she made out of herself in front of the SCOTUS, I cannot say that I am too surprised. This whole thing is like an F5 Obama Teleprompter Malfunction.

From Red State via ASPF:

The White House today posted on its website a video allowing Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan to speak “in her own words” about her personal history and perspective.

In the interview, conducted by a White House staffer who produces videos for the administration, Kagan discusses her childhood, parents and professional career. At one point she jokes that people get confused between her job as solicitor general arguing cases before the Supreme Court and the attorney general, who puts “the labels on the cigarette packages.”

While the White House seems to believe the American people deserve to hear from Kagan, it has not made her available to reporters. That prompted some consternation at today’s White House briefing.

As most folks involved with the VRWC will happily tell you, this is a totally-expected and unsurprising gambit in the administration’s ongoing move to turn the media’s 2008 infatuation with the President into whole-scale neutering.

She might want to study up on the difference between donations and expenditures before she starts making jokes about other people getting confused.

• 

• Tweet

You know, when you nominate someone for a lifetime appointment, such as a Supreme Court justice, you would hope that the person would have at least some experience in arguing cases before that same court. Along with some knowledge of the actual case being argued.

Apparently, that is not the case with Kagan:

From Real Clear Politics: (Hat Tip: Hot Air via The Mark Levin Show)

The transcript:

ORAL ARGUMENT OF ELENA KAGAN

ON BEHALF OF THE APPELLEE GENERAL KAGAN: Mr. Chief Justice and may it please the Court:

I have three very quick points to make about the government position. The first is that this issue has a long history. For over 100 years Congress has made a judgment that corporations must be subject to special rules when they participate in elections and this Court has never questioned that judgment.

Number two -

JUSTICE SCALIA: Wait, wait, wait, wait. We never questioned it, but we never approved it, either. And we gave some really weird interpretations to the Taft-Hartley Act in order to avoid confronting the question.

GENERAL KAGAN: I will repeat what I said, Justice Scalia: For 100 years this Court, faced with many opportunities to do so, left standing the legislation that is at issue in this case — first the contribution limits, then the expenditure limits that came in by way of Taft-Hartley — and then of course in Austin specifically approved those limits.

JUSTICE SCALIA: I don’t understand what you are saying. I mean, we are not a self — self-starting institution here. We only disapprove of something when somebody asks us to. And if there was no occasion for us to approve or disapprove, it proves nothing whatever that we didn’t disapprove it.

GENERAL KAGAN: Well, you are not a self-starting institution. But many litigants brought many cases to you in 1907 and onwards and in each case this Court turns down, declined the opportunity, to invalidate or otherwise interfere with this legislation.

JUSTICE KENNEDY: But that judgment was validated by Buckley’s contribution-expenditure line. And you’re correct if you look at contributions, but this is an expenditure case. And I think that it doesn’t clarify the situation to say that for100 years — to suggest that for 100 years we would have allowed expenditure limitations, which in order to work at all have to have a speaker-based distinction, exemption from media, content-based distinction, time-based distinction. We’ve never allowed that.

As Ed Morrisey points out:

In fact, the crux of the case was the issue of limiting expenditures as an expression of political speech, not contributions. Kagan started off her argument by misconstruing the issue and then offering a factually incorrect reading of precedent. Both Scalia and Kennedy objected to it before Kagan even had time to get the argument completed, although as the transcript notes, she didn’t pay much attention to them.

Obama administration incompetence at it’s best on full display. Obama just nominated his feminine side to be the next SCOTUS justice.

• 

• Tweet

America’s Favorite Judge, Andrew P. Napolitano weighs on on the constitutionality of MengleCare and think that the Supreme Court will probably strike it down.

From NewsMax:

President Barack Obama is one of the worst presidents ever in terms of respecting constitutional limitations on government, and the states suing the federal government over healthcare reform “have a pretty strong case” and are likely to prevail, according to author and judicial analyst Andrew P. Napolitano.

In an exclusive interview with Newsmax.TV’s Ashley Martella, Napolitano says the president’s healthcare reforms amount to “commandeering” the state legislatures for federal purposes, which the Supreme Court has forbidden as unconstitutional.

“The Constitution does not authorize the Congress to regulate the state governments,” Napolitano says. “Nevertheless, in this piece of legislation, the Congress has told the state governments that they must modify their regulation of certain areas of healthcare, they must surrender their regulation of other areas of healthcare, and they must spend state taxpayer-generated dollars in a way that the Congress wants it done.

“That’s called commandeering the legislature,” he says. “That’s the Congress taking away the discretion of the legislature with respect to regulation, and spending taxpayer dollars. That’s prohibited in a couple of Supreme Court cases. So on that argument, the attorneys general have a pretty strong case and I think they will prevail.”

Napolitano, author of his just-released “Lies the Government Told You: Myth, Power, and Deception in American History” and a Fox News senior judicial analyst, is the youngest Superior Court judge ever to attain lifetime tenure in the state of New Jersey. He served on the bench from 1987 to 1995.

Napolitano tells Newsmax that the longstanding precedent of state regulation of the healthcare industry makes the new federal regulations that much more problematic.

“The Supreme Court has ruled that in areas of human behavior that are not delegated to the Congress in the Constitution, and that have been traditionally regulated by the states, the Congress can’t simply move in there,” Napolitano says. “And the states for 230 years have had near exclusive regulation over the delivery of healthcare. The states license hospitals. The states license medications. The states license healthcare providers whether they’re doctors, nurses, or pharmacists. The feds have had nothing to do with it.

“The Congress can’t simply wake up one day and decide that it wants to regulate this. I predict that the Supreme Court will invalidate major portions of what the president just signed into law…”

To say the least.

• 

• Tweet

Just when you think it cannot get any better, along comes two more good pieces of news. One small, one huge.

From Pipe Line News: (Hat Tip: Free Conservatives)

January 21, 2010 – San Francisco, CA – PipeLineNews.org – In a remarkably powerful way the U.S. Supreme Court has struck a huge and far reaching blow in support of the First Amendment, overturning significant aspects of previous “campaign finance reform” legislation, declaring it unconstitutional.

The 5-4 Decision written by justice Kennedy struck down a key provision in McCain Feingold, the onerous legislation passed during GW Bush’s first term, which many on the right considered unconstitutional at the time as well as the 1990 Austin decision.

The specific case deals with a campaign documentary generated by the non-profit Citizens United which was critical of then candidate Hillary Clinton.

Fearful that the campaign piece might be violative of McCain Feingold, Citizens sought declaratory and injunctive relief to avoid potential criminal and civil penalties.

The DC District Court decided against the plaintiff and from there it was appealed to the SCOTUS which today ruled in favor of Citizens, overturning the District Court decision.

While it is disquieting that the ruling was only 5-4, a win is still a win. Since the chances of Obama being re-elected to second term and naming more Wise Latinas and other Assorted Marxists to the court are about as good as Michael Moore running the Boston Marathon in record time,

The other piece is of less consequence, but no less satisfying.

From The Washington Post: (Hat Tip: Free Conservatives)

Air America, the talk-radio network that helped boost the careers of liberals Al Franken and Rachel Maddow, said Thursday it was going out of business.

In a statement to employees of the New York-based network, Air America’s chairman, Charlie Kireker, wrote: “It is with the greatest regret, on behalf of our Board, that we must announce that Air America Media is ceasing its live programming operations as of this afternoon, and that the Company will file soon under Chapter 7 of the Bankruptcy Code to carry out an orderly winding-down of the business.

“The very difficult economic environment has had a significant impact on Air America’s business. This past year has seen a ‘perfect storm’ in the media industry generally. . . . In this climate, our painstaking search for new investors has come close several times right up into this week, but ultimately fell short of success.”

Ummmm…a “difficult economic environment”? It sure does not seem to be affecting the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity or Mark Levin et al. Then again, they do not have to pay for radio stations to carry their shows because of zero advertising and audience. Nor did they have to steal ten of thousands of dollars from needy New York children and the elderly in order to operate. (Someone needs to put Franken under oath and have him explain where all of that loot went to)

From their statement: (Hat Tip: Michelle Malkin)

It is with the greatest regret, on behalf of our Board, that we must announce that Air America Media is ceasing its live programming operations as of this afternoon, and that the Company will file soon under Chapter 7 of the Bankruptcy Code to carry out an orderly winding-down of the business.

The very difficult economic environment has had a significant impact on Air America’s business. This past year has seen a “perfect storm” in the media industry generally. National and local advertising revenues have fallen drastically, causing many media companies nationwide to fold or seek bankruptcy protection. From large to small, recent bankruptcies like Citadel Broadcasting and closures like that of the industry’s long-time trade publication Radio and Records have signaled that these are very difficult and rapidly changing times.

Those companies that remain are facing audience fragmentation as a result of new media technologies, are often saddled with crushing debt, and have generally found it difficult to obtain operating or investment capital from traditional sources of funding. In this climate, our painstaking search for new investors has come close several times right up into this week, but ultimately fell short of success.

With radio industry ad revenues down for 10 consecutive quarters, and reportedly off 21% in 2009, signs of improvement have consisted of hoping things will be less bad. And though Internet/new media revenues are projected to grow, our expanding online efforts face the same monetization and profitability challenges in the short term confronting the Web operations of most media companies

When Air America Radio launched in April, 2004 with already-known personalities like Al Franken and then-unknown future stars like Rachel Maddow, it was the only full-time progressive voice in the mainstream broadcast media world. At a critical time in our nation’s history — when dissent on issues such as the Iraq war were often denounced as “un-American” — Air America and its talented team helped millions of Americans remember the importance of compelling discussion about the most pivotal events and decisions of our generation.

Through some 100 radio outlets nationwide, Air America helped build a new sense of purpose and determination among American progressives. With this revival, the progressive movement made major gains in the 2006 mid-term elections and, more recently, in the election of President Barack Obama and a strongly Democratic Congress.

And a small amount of noise pollution has removed from the environment. That is the type of “green” I can support.

Mr. President, what about those job, jobs, jobs? Unemployment just went up. Again.

• 

• Tweet