The present wingnut outcry about the administration’s use of pre-emption to work against Arizona’s discriminatory use of law enforcement should be the subject of cartoonists. In the administration from Hell – though that’s not fair to Hell, where reputedly you only get punished for actual sins – the attempt to bring Federal Law to override state laws was an attempt to weaken individual rights to bring suit against pharmaceutical firms that did them harm.

As Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan begins her second week of confirmation hearings, Mother Jones’ Stephanie Mencimer wonders why the anti-abortion protesters have been uncharacteristically subdued this time around. Normally, they live for these hearings. For hardcore anti-choice activists, a Supreme Court confirmation is like Christmas, Mardi Gras, and the World Cup all rolled into one.

The Kagan hearings made it seem like robots, not human beings, make the best Supreme Court justices.

Somewhere between Yalie Sam Alito’s confirmation in 2006 and Harvard Dean and Solicitor General Elena Kagan’s nomination in 2010, an Ivy League degree went from a credential to a liability. Now with Kagan set to be confirmed, there has been the odd objection that too many Ivy Leaguers will be on the high court.

Elena Kagan’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings kicked off on Monday. Her nomination has been met by glum resignation on the left and indifference on the right, as Adam Serwer notes in the American Prospect. Kagan is hoping to replace the Supreme Court’s most prominent liberal, Justice John Paul Stevens, who stepped down earlier this week. Progressives are counting on Kagan to shore up the pro-choice faction on the court.

Scarecrow, commenting on emptywheel’s post on the Kagan hearings, has shown us the way to deal with juggernauts of all kinds. Problems of mythic proportions demand commensurate responses, right? Since it’s the power of perverted narratives that has gotten us into this Waste Land, simply by recognizing and reclaiming that power, we can get the Hell out of *here.*

Let me get this straight. Democrats, in general, believe in gun control. Then the Supreme Court rules that state and local governments can’t pass gun control laws – which is a huge setback. And Democrats are supposed to feel good about this because it takes the issue off the table in November?

Hearing the continuous rant about the Mainstream of political thought in the U.S. that the right wing is spewing during the lead-up to demonization of the latest Supreme Court nomination from a president elected by that mainstream is diverting. It would seem that ideology demands from the wingers that they declare any rational thought as extremism, and any political position that would pull the country out of the miseries they have inflicted is dangerous and subversive.

In a Sharply Divided 5-4 Ruling, Justices Say ‘No’ to Christian Student Group’s Demand That It Be Recognized and Funded by Public, Taxpayer-Funded Law School Despite Group’s Refusal to Admit Gays and Non-Christian Believers in Defiance of the School’s Anti-Discrimination Policy

diary of her role in siegelman case