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About six minutes in to the speech Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jeff Sessions, an Alabama Republican, focuses on a center for Islamic studies founded at Harvard during Elena Kagan’s tenure as the Dean of Harvard Law. An excerpt:
Around the same time that Dean Kagan was
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Politico is reporting that House Dems have reached a deal with the National Rifle Association on legislation that would force groups and businesses to disclose top donors if they chose to run ads or send out mass mailing in the final months before an election. The legislation is in response to the Supreme Court decision in Citizens …
Arlen Specter has survived a lot of things: a brain tumor, two bouts with Hodgkin’s lymphoma and five squeaker elections for the U.S. Senate. But in an anti-establishment year where the far right hates the moderates and the far left hates the moderates, Specter – whose voting record over the past 30 years is almost perfectly down the …
Official White House Photo by Pete Souza
–It’s primary day in Arkansas, Kentucky, Oregon and Pennsylvania. Contests between Lincoln and Halter, Paul and Grayson, and Specter and Sestak, as well as a special election between Critz and Burns in PA-12 are widely seen as yardsticks by which to measure this cycle’s anti-establishment …
Official White House Photo by Pete Souza
–With all eyes turning to Tuesday’s primaries, a Halter-Lincoln runoff looks likely in Arkansas, Rand Paul is crushing in Kentucky, and the Sestak-Specter contest is shaping up to be a squeaker.
—Nate Silver looks at how anti-establishment candidates may fare in general elections, …
Ever want to be a Supreme Court Justice? Aside from getting a President to nominate you, all you have to do is answer this little questionnaire and let a few senators ask you questions about it.
Official White House Photo by Pete Souza
–Some initial reactions to the Kerry-Lieberman energy and climate bill here and here. Brad Johnson has a useful side-by-side comparison with the House bill. Our colleague Bryan Walsh looks at the big picture.
–The politics are a different beast from health care or financial reform. As …
Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson
–Afghan President Hamid Karzai is in Washington today for meetings with President Obama. Our colleague Tony Karon writes it will be a tense debate over when and how to strike a deal with the Taliban. Marc Ambinder describes the optics: “two parents who tolerate each other and cannot …
…the White House:
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During Elena Kagan’s Senate confirmation hearing, the American public will get a sneak peak of a particularly contentious case that may reach the Supreme Court – the constitutionality of the new health reform law. Several Republican senators have already indicated they plan to ask Kagan about her view of the law’s mandate that …
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—John Dickerson examines Obama’s argument that Kagan, like Sotomayor, understands the everyman and brings empathy to court. It well may be her (and his) judicial philosophy, but it’s not something well-grounded in Kagan’s credentials or life story. But the purpose of the empathy narrative …
Updated, see below.
Jay has a bit of RNC chair Michael Steele’s skeptical response to Kagan’s Supreme Court nomination, but there’s another facet in the full statement. He implicitly criticizes Kagan for her relationship with Thurgood Marshall, for whom she clerked early in her career (emphasis mine):
Given Kagan’s opposition to
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Clearly, President Obama’s choice of Solicitor General Elena Kagan for the Supreme Court came as no surprise to many. Reactions flooded my inbox before Obama was even done speaking. Here are some excerpts – in order that I received them – of statements reacting to Kagan’s nomination. Some interesting highlights: Mitch McConnell …