Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Elena Kagan Hunted with Antonin Scalia; and Antonin Scalia Lobbied for Elena Kagan.
With the notice being paid to the late Associate Justice's sportin' life:
Scalia and Kagan have a history shooting stuff together.
Justice Kagan and Justice Scalia Are Hunting Buddies—Really
"I shot myself a deer," Elena Kagan said of a recent big game hunting trip with the conservative justice in Wyoming.
by GARANCE FRANKE-RUTA
The Atlantic, JUN 30, 2013
Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan bagged herself a deer on a hunting trip to Wyoming with Justice Antonin Scalia last fall. You heard that right: Despite finding themselves on opposite sides of major court decisions, the liberal Obama-appointee and the conservative Reagan-appointee have become hunting buddies since Kagan was confirmed in 2010 as the fourth woman in history to sit on the highest court in the land.
"I shoot birds with him, fairly -- you know, two or three times a year now," Justice Kagan said during a wide-ranging and delightful Aspen Ideas Festival conversation with Jeffrey Rosen, president of the National Constitution Center, on Saturday. "And then he um, at the end of last year we had been bird shooting four or five times. I'll tell you how that came to be. But before I do, before I -- he said to me, 'It's time for big game hunting.' And we actually went out to Wyoming this past fall to shoot deer and antelope. Uh, and we did."
"You're getting some hisses from the audience. I hope you were a better shot than Dick Cheney," Rosen interjected as a smattering of hisses emerged from around the room at the mention of hunting in Wyoming.
"I shot myself a deer," Kagan continued. "The way this started, I'll tell the story. You know the NRA has become quite a presence in judicial confirmations, and that means when you go around from office to office, from chamber to chamber, I met with about 80 senators individually and quite a lot of them, both Republicans and Democrats, ask you about your views on the Second Amendment. But because you don't say anything about your views on anything, when they ask you well, they'll try to figure out what your views on the Second Amendment are likely to be and they'll say, 'Well, have you ever held a gun? Have you ever gone hunting? Do you know anybody who's gone hunting?' And you know me, Jeff, I grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and this was not something we really did, you know.
CONTINUED...
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/06/justice-kagan-and-justice-scalia-are-hunting-buddies-really/277401/
Scalia knew her, even before she got to be somebody.
Scalia once lobbied Obama advisor to have Elena Kagan nominated to the Supreme Court
BY CNN WIRE, FEBRUARY 15, 2016
When the shocking news of Justice Antonin Scalia’s passing hit Saturday night, my mind raced back to a White House Correspondents Association dinner seven years ago, when we were seated together.
We bantered about my hometown of Chicago, where he had taught law before ascending to the bench. He opined on wine and music and generally lived up to his reputation as a man who told and enjoyed a good story.
And then our conversation took an unexpected turn.
Justice David Souter, Scalia’s longtime colleague on the court, had just announced his retirement, creating a vacancy for President Obama to fill. Scalia figured that as senior adviser to the new president, I might have some influence on the decision — or at least enough to pass along a message.
“I have no illusions that your man will nominate someone who shares my orientation,” said Scalia, then in his 23rd year as the court’s leading and most provocative conservative voice. “But I hope he sends us someone smart.”
A little taken aback that he was engaging me on the subject, I searched for the right answer, and lamely offered one that signaled my slight discomfort with the topic. “I’m sure he will, Justice Scalia.”
He wasn’t done. Leaning forward, as if to share a confidential thought, he tried again.
“Let me put a finer point on it,” the justice said, in a lower, purposeful tone of voice, his eyes fixed on mine. “I hope he sends us Elena Kagan.”
CONTINUED...
http://wtkr.com/2016/02/15/scalia-once-lobbied-obama-advisor-to-have-elena-kagan-nominated-to-the-supreme-court
BY CNN WIRE, FEBRUARY 15, 2016
When the shocking news of Justice Antonin Scalia’s passing hit Saturday night, my mind raced back to a White House Correspondents Association dinner seven years ago, when we were seated together.
We bantered about my hometown of Chicago, where he had taught law before ascending to the bench. He opined on wine and music and generally lived up to his reputation as a man who told and enjoyed a good story.
And then our conversation took an unexpected turn.
Justice David Souter, Scalia’s longtime colleague on the court, had just announced his retirement, creating a vacancy for President Obama to fill. Scalia figured that as senior adviser to the new president, I might have some influence on the decision — or at least enough to pass along a message.
“I have no illusions that your man will nominate someone who shares my orientation,” said Scalia, then in his 23rd year as the court’s leading and most provocative conservative voice. “But I hope he sends us someone smart.”
A little taken aback that he was engaging me on the subject, I searched for the right answer, and lamely offered one that signaled my slight discomfort with the topic. “I’m sure he will, Justice Scalia.”
He wasn’t done. Leaning forward, as if to share a confidential thought, he tried again.
“Let me put a finer point on it,” the justice said, in a lower, purposeful tone of voice, his eyes fixed on mine. “I hope he sends us Elena Kagan.”
CONTINUED...
http://wtkr.com/2016/02/15/scalia-once-lobbied-obama-advisor-to-have-elena-kagan-nominated-to-the-supreme-court
I wonder how Scalia felt about keeping Gov. Don Siegelman in the pen? Rove Just Us lobbied to keep him there, too.
Unlike the Big Time "movers and shakers," Gov. Don Siegelman must not be one of The Aspens.
54 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
Welcome Justice Kagan:
Shared experiences build camaraderie and strengthen bonds.
I don't need to remind you about the Army saying:
"The best way to predict the future is to make it happen."
Blood sport is a shared experience that builds a special bond among participants. In the movie "Patton," George C. Scott captured "The Talk" where the general gets the point across of kill or be killed. In our more uh genteel time, "Downton Abbey" hints at the special bonding where the swells get dollied up and greased back to ride out and chase down a little red fox on horseback with beagles and what not.
[font size="1"]President Kill by Carl Oxley III. [/font size]
Kill. Kill. Kill.
Personally, and I believe you, too, may believe this, based on what I've read you post, yortsed snacilbuper: Human beings shouldn't kill any other human beings unless they can restore them back to life again.
by Jacob Gershman
Wall Street Journal, Dec 17, 2014
They may be ideological foes on the bench, but this week, in the chilly late-autumn wilderness of north Mississippi, Justices Elena Kagan and Antonin Scalia were simply hunting buddies.
Following their visit to University of Mississippi School of Law, the duo on Tuesday ventured north to a popular hunting spot, accompanied by retired U.S. Judge Charles Pickering (pictured on the left) and Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann.
“She shot some quail, and she shot some ducks,” Judge Pickering told Law Blog, reached by phone on Wednesday. “We had a great hunt.” After Justice Kagan broke off from the group, he and Judge Scalia continued on with the hunt, he said.
SNIP...
During her Senate confirmation process in 2010, she explained, she met with a Western senator who asked if she had ever hunted or fired a gun, according to an Associated Press report. She replied no, but then made a promise. Reports the AP:
Kagan said she was “feeling a little punchy at the time” and told the senator she’d like to accompany him on a hunting trip.
The response from the senator was a “look of total horror” at the prospect of taking her along on one, she said.
Kagan, appointed in 2010 by President Barack Obama, promised to ask Scalia — an avid hunter — to take her hunting if she won confirmation. After joining the court, she recounted the story to Scalia. Thus began the hunting outings by the ideological opposites.
“I said this is the single promise I made” during her confirmation process, she said. “He thought it was hilarious.”
Her hunting partners have since warmed to the idea. After the latest outing, Judge Pickering reported back to his wife that Justice Kagan was “delightful.”
CONTINUED...
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2014/12/17/justices-scalia-and-kagan-duck-washington-for-hunting-getaway/
It was at Wayne State University in 2007: He explained how Scalia's father was a founder of the group supporting Mussolini in the USA. Pappantonio details the merger of Big Money and Big Power:
RFK Jr added that almost all the current GOP and about 2/3 of Democrats are corrupt. At the time, I thought he was about right. Today, things have gotten toward the 7/8.
RFK Jr. also pegged ABCNNBCBSFoxNoiseNutwork for what they are, quislings. Among other things, he called George W Bush "that sonofabitch" and said the guy was a crook, turning over the government to the lobbyists and gangsters who've emptied our Treasury, polluted our water, land, air and children, and used humanity as cannon fodder and slave labor.
It's a big circus and we're all in it
your hobby is killing animals ? 
Ms. Kagan served on an advisory board for Goldman Sachs back in the day. From 2010:
Elena Kagan's Goldman Sachs "Connection"
by Charles Cooper
CBS News, May 10, 2010
Paul Campos may be right to worry that Elena Kagan's track record doesn't suggest much about her judicial philosophy. And Senate inquisitors may unearth issues that some find will troubling during Kagan's upcoming Supreme Court confirmation hearings. But we're not even there yet and already the knives are coming out - but not from the right. It's the left that's going after the White House's nominee.
Serving as a very capable kvetcher-in-chief, Salon's Glenn Greenwald, has assembled a bill of particulars that sum up the some of the doubts heard from the left about Kagan's suitability to replace Justice John Paul Stevens. (Greenwald has a more in-depth critique of Kagan here.
I don't have any personal passion for or against Kagan's nomination, but frankly, some of the complaints are, at best, borderline.
Let's focus on the most explosive and, I think, the most ludicrous: Her supposed "connection" to Goldman Sachs. Greenwald links to Digby, who links to USA Today -gotta love those links - which notes that Kagan received $10,000 in 2008 for serving as a member of the Research Advisory Council of the Goldman Sachs Global Markets Institute. Well, as the noted constitutional scholar and former New Jersey Nets forward Derrick Coleman was wont to exclaim on occasion, whoop-de-damn-do. Fact is that the "Digby" post offers nothing in the way of evidence that points to a nefarious connection. Read a little further, though, and you'll find the author's real point: "I think Supreme Court confirmation battles are ideologically instructive for the nation and are one of the few times when it's possible for people to speak at length about their philosophical worldview. Liberals have to stop running from this. Allowing the other side to define us is killing us."
There you have it. This is really about politics and dissatisfaction with the Obama administration. Some on the lib-left would like the White House to tack far harder in their direction and they are not pleased at his political instinct to move toward the middle. That's an argument they can have, though now it looks as if Kagan will get caught in the cross-fire.
CONTINUED...
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/elena-kagans-goldman-sachs-connection/
by Charles Cooper
CBS News, May 10, 2010
Paul Campos may be right to worry that Elena Kagan's track record doesn't suggest much about her judicial philosophy. And Senate inquisitors may unearth issues that some find will troubling during Kagan's upcoming Supreme Court confirmation hearings. But we're not even there yet and already the knives are coming out - but not from the right. It's the left that's going after the White House's nominee.
Serving as a very capable kvetcher-in-chief, Salon's Glenn Greenwald, has assembled a bill of particulars that sum up the some of the doubts heard from the left about Kagan's suitability to replace Justice John Paul Stevens. (Greenwald has a more in-depth critique of Kagan here.
I don't have any personal passion for or against Kagan's nomination, but frankly, some of the complaints are, at best, borderline.
Let's focus on the most explosive and, I think, the most ludicrous: Her supposed "connection" to Goldman Sachs. Greenwald links to Digby, who links to USA Today -gotta love those links - which notes that Kagan received $10,000 in 2008 for serving as a member of the Research Advisory Council of the Goldman Sachs Global Markets Institute. Well, as the noted constitutional scholar and former New Jersey Nets forward Derrick Coleman was wont to exclaim on occasion, whoop-de-damn-do. Fact is that the "Digby" post offers nothing in the way of evidence that points to a nefarious connection. Read a little further, though, and you'll find the author's real point: "I think Supreme Court confirmation battles are ideologically instructive for the nation and are one of the few times when it's possible for people to speak at length about their philosophical worldview. Liberals have to stop running from this. Allowing the other side to define us is killing us."
There you have it. This is really about politics and dissatisfaction with the Obama administration. Some on the lib-left would like the White House to tack far harder in their direction and they are not pleased at his political instinct to move toward the middle. That's an argument they can have, though now it looks as if Kagan will get caught in the cross-fire.
CONTINUED...
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/elena-kagans-goldman-sachs-connection/
Despite all its criminality we've learned about since 2010, it's OK. Which just happen to be the late Justice Scalia's views on Goldman Sachs. Coincidentally, I'm sure.
Funny how Corporate McPravda doesn't pick up on this story.
Take Scalia's second vote on SCROTUS, Clarence Thomas:
Justice Thomas reported a wealth of gifts
In the last six years he has accepted free items valued at $42,200, the most on the high court.
by Richard A. Serrano and David G. Savage
The Los Angeles Times, December 31, 2004
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has accepted tens of thousands of dollars worth of gifts since joining the high court, including $1,200 worth of tires, valuable historical items and a $5,000 personal check to help pay a relative's education expenses.
SNIP...
He also took a free trip aboard a private jet to the exclusive Bohemian Grove club in Northern California -- arranged by a wealthy Texas real estate investor who helped run an advocacy group that filed briefs with the Supreme Court.
Those and other gifts were disclosed by Thomas under a 1978 federal ethics law that requires high-ranking government officials, including the nine Supreme Court justices, to file a report each year that lists gifts, money and other items they have received.
Thomas has reported accepting much more valuable gifts than his Supreme Court colleagues over the last six years, according to their disclosure forms on file at the court.
CONTINUED...
http://articles.latimes.com/2004/dec/31/nation/na-gifts31
Bet a used clay pigeon to a Remington double-naught sawed off that's just the tip of the iceberg, those gifts, huh?
Justice Scalia Spent His Final Hours With Members of an Ancient, Secretive Society of Elite Hunters
The mysterious International Order of St. Hubertus is steeped in the heritage of European nobility, the "royal hunt" — and war.
By Paula Young Lee / Salon February 26, 2016
When Justice Antonin Scalia died suddenly on Feb. 13, he was at the Cibolo Creek Ranch in Texas, hunting for pheasant and chukar. It has now been revealed that he was in the company of 35 members of an “exclusive fraternity for hunters called the International Order of St. Hubertus, an Austrian society that dates back to the 1600s.” According to the Washington Post, the owner of the ranch, John Poindexter, and Scalia’s traveling companion are both high-ranking members of the group.
It sounds like a terrific setup for a conspiracy theory. But how secret can a society be if it has offices and a website? Its existence is out in the open. The tricky part is pinning down the names of its members. Was Scalia one of their official numbers? Probably not, given that the Order is “under the Royal Protection of His Majesty Juan Carlos of Spain, the Grand Master Emeritus His Imperial and Royal Highness Archduke Andreas Salvator of Austria and our Grand Master … His Imperial and Royal Highness Istvan von Habsburg Lothringen, Archduke of Austria, Prince of Hungary.” In other words, the named ranking members are passionate about hunting to the point of folly. They also tend to be royal or, if American, officers in the military. I would not be surprised to learn that princes Charles, William and Harry are members. (Though Elizabeth I was renowned for her hunting skills, there don’t appear to be any women in this Order.)
There are reasons for both the high level of social privilege as well as the commitment of its members to an activity that many Americans find both anachronistic and offensive. The Order’s motto is “Deum Diligite Animalia Diligentes” or “Honoring God by Honoring His Creatures.” No less quaint to modern ears is the affirmation that the “a true knightly order in the historical tradition.” So what’s the history here? Let’s start with the name of the order itself. Hubert (or Hubertus) was a French saint and bishop of Lìege in the 700s who took his story from Saint Eustace, who began his life as a Roman soldier named Placidus. As described in the Golden Legend, 1275:
So on a day, as he was on hunting, he found a herd of harts, among whom he saw one more fair and greater than the other… And (the hart) spake to him, saying: Placidus, wherefore followest me hither? I am appeared to thee in this beast for the grace of thee. I am Jesu Christ.
In medieval illuminations, the hart of St. Eustace/St. Hubert appears with a crucifix suspended between its antlers, which have 10 prongs to represent each of the Ten Commandments. This is the origin of the much-mocked “holy hunter,” who combines reverence for God’s creations with a (seemingly contradictory) love of hunting wild creatures.
Crucially, until the 19th century, hunting in Europe was traditionally restricted to members of the nobility who had the express permission of the king to hunt his land. This could cause resentment among nobles as well as the peasantry. For example, Forest Law was the central conflict in “Robin Hood,” as the merry men, starving peasants all, were forbidden to hunt the King’s forest, and so they resorted to poaching. We have nothing today that resembles the theologically saturated performance that was the royal hunt, which involved hundreds of men, horses and dogs for a protracted activity that was ceremonial, symbolic and limited to ten quarry animals: Five noble beasts blessed by God, and five “black beasts (bete noirs)” who were creatures of the devil.
CONTINUED...
http://www.alternet.org/justice-scalia-spent-his-final-hours-members-ancient-secretive-society-elite-hunters
In a democracy, all people are equal under the law; not just the noble-born and rich dips.
so if they thought they bought her, they screwed up 
