Obama Will Not Secure the Borders, Plays Politics Instead

On June 18, 2010, Arizona Republican Senator Jon Kyl told the audience at a North Tempe Tea Party town hall meeting that during a private, one-on-one meeting with President Obama in the Oval Office, the President told him, regarding securing the southern border with Mexico, “The problem is, . . . if we secure the border, then you all won’t have any reason to support ‘comprehensive immigration reform.’” [Audible gasps were heard throughout the audience.] Sen. Kyl continued, “In other words, they’re holding it hostage. They don’t want to secure the border unless and until it is combined with ‘comprehensive immigration reform.’”

If only the liberals thought the illegals would become Republicans, we'd have a border fence within a year.

Obama and Benito Mussolini

Is Obama, Mussolini?

Strong arming $20 Billion from private enterprise. Clearly un-Constitutional. Judge, jury, and executioner in one shot. He fires the GM CEO. With the help of a leftist judge, Obama ignores contract law and strong arms bondholders. Obamacare. Porkulus.

We've got one shot at saving our Republic on November 2, 2010. Otherwise the greatness America as founded, will die.

Worst President in history. First American Dictator.

Great GOP Ad

This is a great ad.  Really drives home the point how much Obama sucks. This is what happens when you vote for liberals.

Where's the Leadership?

Is it just me or do we have a personal injury attorney pretending to President?

No leadership. No accountability. Just blame, threats, bigger government, and more taxes.

He flat out lied when he said we are running out of places to drill.  We have plenty of land and closer to shore (non deep) drilling left untapped.

This is what happens when you elect liberals, especially those unqualified for the job.

Obama Administration Trying Game Unemployment Numbers

Obama administration is looking to game the unemployment numbers by turning the 411,000 census workers to permanent government jobs.  Wonder where the private sector jobs will come from in order to support 411,000 more deadbeats?

snip - Federal hiring rules quietly eased and adjusted by the Obama Administration over the past year will further enable the administration to place those temporary workers, according to the White House source. For example, the Obama Administration has cut back the number of forms job seekers must fill out, ended the practice of a skills and knowledge essay, allowed the hiring process to take place with only the use of a résumé and writing samples, and, perhaps most important, eased hiring rules based on the "most qualified" requirement, so that less experienced prospective employees might be hired over better qualified or more experienced competitors.


H/T: American Spectator

http://spectator.org/archives/2010/06/14/obama-jobs/

Ain't Hope and Change wonderful?

Gulf Oil Spill Makes Obama Whine

Obama explains that his opponents would have fought him if he had pre-emptively cracked down on BP. From JustOneMinute:

In an interview with POLITICO, the president said: “I think it’s fair to say, if six months ago, before this spill had happened, I had gone up to Congress and I had said we need to crack down a lot harder on oil companies and we need to spend more money on technology to respond in case of a catastrophic spill, there are folks up there, who will not be named, who would have said this is classic, big-government overregulation and wasteful spending.”

Wow. Of course,others would have criticized the President for taking his eye off of the vital effort to reform healthcare. And speaking of which, if the goal of Obama's Presidency is to avoid criticism and confrontation (rather than, for example, advancing policies in which he believes), why didn't he just drop the push for healthcare reform?

The First Emoter also adopted an old Frank Rich talking point:

The president also implied that anti-big government types such as tea party activists were being hypocritical on the issue.

“Some of the same folks who have been hollering and saying ‘do something’ are the same folks who, just two or three months ago, were suggesting that government needs to stop doing so much,” Obama said. “Some of the same people who are saying the president needs to show leadership and solve this problem are some of the same folks who, just a few months ago, were saying this guy is trying to engineer a takeover of our society through the federal government that is going to restrict our freedoms.”

Let's see - BP is drilling on Federally leased site in a Gulf which borders five states and several other countries. I see an Federal role there that is a bit different from the Feds bailing out the guy down the street who over-extended himself when he bought a house, or taking over health care, but maybe that is just me.

From Red State:

Hmmmm. Notice a pattern?

Seems like our Commander-in-Chief feels that it’s not necessary to engage another being in conversation, because with his superior intellect, he’s able to discern what they’re going to say, without their having said it!
And then he blames them for what he thinks they would have said!

My Star Trek days were long ago, but even Spock had to come into physical contact with the party on the other end of the Vulcan mind-meld, if I recall correctly.

You can’t play this game, Mr. President. It’s not fair, but worse, it’s not presidential. (Imagine FDR before Yalta: “What’s the point of meeting with Stalin? I know he’s going to want Eastern Europe.”)(Imagine Ronaldus Maximus in Berlin: “I suppose I could ask Mikhail to tear down this wall, but I bet I know what he’d say!)

And your speculation deflects attention from the actions you did take with respect to the MMS, namely appointing Liz Birnbaum to head the agency: an Ivy League environmental lawyer who wouldn’t know an oil well if she were to fall bass-ackwards into one. How are you going to blame the Republicans for that boo-boo?

From Patterico:

It’s everyone’s fault except Obama’s. He even blamed the media for focusing on his lack of passion because it makes “good TV.”

Expecting government to do its job in cleaning up the BP Oil Spill is not a justification for Obama’s massive deficits; his takeover of the banks, the car industry, and healthcare; or his repeated bailouts, pork, and stimulus projects. Except to Obama.

Senate Votes Away Constitution and Gives Unchecked Power to EPA

The rogue democrat Senate voted yesterday to give an unconstitutional power grab to the EPA. Get ready for the massive jobs losses, high energy costs, and brownouts. More liberty lost. Ain't socialism/marxism wonderful?

Freedom Action urges Senators to vote Yes on Thursday on S.J. Res. 26, Senator Lisa Murkowski’s Resolution of Disapproval of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Endangerment Finding. Senate passage of the Murkowski Resolution will be the first step in stopping EPA from using the Clean Air Act to regulate the economy into stagnation. This is a key vote that will have a major impact on Americans’ future living standards.

Senators who vote No on the Murkowski Resolution are voting for a regulatory train wreck that will result in much higher energy prices, less money in consumers’ pockets to spend on other things, and lost jobs in manufacturing industries that will lose competitiveness from higher energy costs. It is therefore critically important for the Senate to pass the Murkowski Resolution on Thursday and begin the process of taking back Congress’s authority from an out-of-control EPA.

It was defeated 47-53.

The EPA is packed with Obama's unelected marxists. Now they get to make laws concerning CO2. A gas people exhale and plants use for photosynthesis. This sets up Al Gore to become a billionaire over phony science.

We are getting ever so close to the abyss, and past the point of no return. Don't you just love democrats?

The worst Republican is better that any democrat any day of the week. Our society may collapse.

Obama's $400 Million Dollar Stimulus for Terrorists

America is broke, but Obama has found a way to gives $400 million dollars in aid to Hamas. Wonder how much of it will turn into weapons? Obama is the worst President in history. Loser.

From CNN:

The United States will contribute $400 million in development aid to the Palestinian territories and work with Israel to loosen its embargo on Gaza, President Barack Obama said Wednesday.

Obama's announcement came after White House talks with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. The money will be used to build housing, schools, water and health care systems in both the Palestinian Authority-controlled West Bank and Gaza, which is ruled by the Palestinian Islamic movement Hamas.

Obama called the situation in Gaza "unsustainable," and said the United States would work with its European allies, Egypt and Israel to find a "new conceptual framework" for the Israeli blockade of Gaza.

"We agree Israelis have right to prevent arms from coming into Gaza," Obama said. But he said "new mechanisms" were needed to allow more goods to reach the territory - and he repeated that the long-term solution was a permanent deal creating "a Palestinian state side-by-side with an Israel that is secure."

Who Exactly is in the White House

The Wall Street Journal's Dorothy Rabinowitz nails it with her editorial today. President Obama pretended successfully to 'of the people' during the campaign. Clearly now we know he is not of the people. He is not of America. He is not for America. He is for himself and his ideology. Period.

From Ms. Rabinowitz's editorial:

The deepening notes of disenchantment with Barack Obama now issuing from commentators across the political spectrum were predictable. So, too, were the charges from some of the president's earliest enthusiasts about his failure to reflect a powerful sense of urgency about the oil spill.

There should have been nothing puzzling about his response to anyone who has paid even modest critical attention to Mr. Obama's pronouncements. For it was clear from the first that this president—single-minded, ever-visible, confident in his program for a reformed America saved from darkness by his arrival—was wanting in certain qualities citizens have until now taken for granted in their presidents. Namely, a tone and presence that said: This is the Americans' leader, a man of them, for them, the nation's voice and champion. Mr. Obama wasn't lacking in concern about the oil spill. What he lacked was that voice—and for good reason.

Those qualities to be expected in a president were never about rhetoric; Mr. Obama had proved himself a dab hand at that on the campaign trail. They were a matter of identification with the nation and to all that binds its people together in pride and allegiance. These are feelings held deep in American hearts, unvoiced mostly, but unmistakably there and not only on the Fourth of July.

A great part of America now understands that this president's sense of identification lies elsewhere, and is in profound ways unlike theirs. He is hard put to sound convincingly like the leader of the nation, because he is, at heart and by instinct, the voice mainly of his ideological class. He is the alien in the White House, a matter having nothing to do with delusions about his birthplace cherished by the demented fringe...

They are attitudes to be found everywhere, but never before in a president of the United States. Mr. Obama may not hold all, or the more extreme, of these views. But there can be no doubt by now of the influences that have shaped him. They account for his grand apology tour through the capitals of Europe and to the Muslim world, during which he decried America's moral failures—her arrogance, insensitivity. They were the words of a man to whom reasons for American guilt came naturally. Americans were shocked by this behavior in their newly elected president. But he was telling them something from those lecterns in foreign lands—something about his distant relation to the country he was about to lead.

Guiliani Rates Obama's Gulf Oil Response

fHere is Rudy Guiliani rating Obama's oil spill leadership.  Best part is when Rudy talks about the "crimes" BP has committed according to the Obama administration.  Guiliani basically says that if the BP organization has committed crimes, why is Obama letting them handle the leak?  Ah, logic the domain of conservatism.

Could Blago Trial Bring Down Obama?

Dare to dream, fellow patriots. Sestak, Iran, Afghanistan, Turkey, Israel, gulf oil spill...Blago could be the final nail in the coffin. The American Spectator is already speculating that Obama could be so damaged after the 2010 elections that even Democrats will call for his resignation in 2014.

From the Politico:

The Blagojevich defense team contends the president can clear up inconsistencies in a portion of the case offered by prosecutors that deals with interactions a labor union official is reported to have had with Obama, Jarrett and Blagojevich during several days in early November 2008.

Defense lawyers say Obama sent a labor union official to make the case for Jarrett with Blagojevich. But Blagojevich himself offered the most exonerating assessment of Obama’s role, according to the prosecutors’ account.

“Blagojevich said he knows that the President-elect wants Senate Candidate 1 for the Senate seat, but ‘they’re not willing to give me anything except appreciation. F[—-] them,’” reads the juiciest passage in the original complaint against Blagojevich.

But there are at least a couple of angles that could arm Obama’s political opponents if they are explored in depth during the trial: Convicted Chicago political fixer Tony Rezko — a onetime Obama supporter — could testify, thrusting his name back into the headlines.

In addition, any holes in the White House story, as laid out in a memo developed by incoming White House Counsel Greg Craig in December 2008, could tarnish the image the president has sought to build as a proponent of transparency.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0610/38015.html#ixzz0piNIwEyc

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal Shows Leadership Obama Lacks

President Obama couldn't suck enough. We are officially leaderless in Washington D.C. Thank God for people like Bobby Jindal.

From NECN:

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) said the state will not waiting for federal approval to begin building sand barriers to protect the coastline from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Oil has pushed at least 12 miles into Louisiana's marshes, with two major pelican rookeries awash in crude.

Gov. Jindal was critical of the amount of boom his state received to ward off the oil seeping toward the coastline. But his major gripe comes at the expense of the Army Corps of Engineers, who have yet to give the go-ahead for the building of sand booms to protect the Louisiana wetlands. He used photographic evidence of oil breaking through hard booms, soft booms and another layer of protection, before being finally being corralled by a sand boom built by the National Guard.

"It is so much better for us. We don't want oil on one inch of Louisiana's coastline, but we'd much rather fight this oil off of a hard coast, off of an island, off of an island, off of a sandy beach on our coastal islands, rather than having to fight it inside in these wetlands," Gov. Jindal said, making the case for sand booms.

The governor said he has been forced to protect Louisiana without the approval of the Army Corps of Engineers, which is weighing the ecological impact of the construction of more sand booms.

"We are not waiting for them. We are going to build it," Jindal said.

"We can either fight battle -- we can fight this oil -- on the Barrier Islands 15 to 20 miles off of our coast, or we can face it in thousands of miles of fragmented wetlands," Gov. Jindal said, clearing favoring the first option. "Every day we're not given approval on this emergency permit to create more of these sand booms is another day when that choice is made for us, as more and more miles of our shore are hit by oil."

The oil spill, which has lasted 33 days since the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, has yet to be stopped by British Petroleum at the source. The situation is dire for Gulf coast states.

"It is clear the resources needed to protect our coast are still not here," Gov. Jindal said. "Oil sits and waits for cleanup, and every day that it waits for cleanup more of our marsh dies."

Obama's Watergate

What was Joe Sestak offered and when was it offered by the White House? This will not go away. If true, its a felony and if not true then Sestak, a former Navy officer, is lying. Congressman Darrell Issa, is pushing for an investigation. Attorney General Eric Holder and the White House have been stonewalling. Sestak must come clean.

Obama's Redistribution of Wealth

From Hot Air:

Paychecks from private business shrank to their smallest share of personal income in U.S. history during the first quarter of this year, a USA TODAY analysis of government data finds.

At the same time, government-provided benefits — from Social Security, unemployment insurance, food stamps and other programs — rose to a record high during the first three months of 2010.

Those records reflect a long-term trend accelerated by the recession and the federal stimulus program to counteract the downturn. The result is a major shift in the source of personal income from private wages to government programs.

The trend is not sustainable, says University of Michigan economist Donald Grimes. Reason: The federal government depends on private wages to generate income taxes to pay for its ever-more-expensive programs. Government-generated income is taxed at lower rates or not at all, he says. “This is really important,” Grimes says.

This comes before the federal health-insurance subsidies hit in 2014, too. That program provides federal welfare payments to families making less than $88,000 a year who buy their health insurance through the state-run individual exchanges. As more employers dump health-insurance coverage (and they will), more Americans will move into the dependent class despite making as much as 400% above the poverty level and better household income than 60% of their fellow Americans.

It’s more than just unsustainable. We were already on an unsustainable path before Barack Obama got elected President, with pending entitlement disasters in Medicare and Social Security threatening financial oblivion. In the past sixteen months, we’ve doubled down on disaster, and the accelerated redistribution of wealth through entitlements has us careening towards it at breakneck speed.

Terrorists Also Cross Arizona/Mexico Border

Terrorists from Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, etc., are learning Spanish and crossing the Arizona/Mexican border. Muslim prayer rugs, jihadist uniform patches are being found on the ground in Arizona. It is not just an illegal immigration issue, but a national security issue as well. Watch this video.

http://www.wsbtv.com/video/23438021/index.html

Republican Charles Djou Wins Congressional Seat in Obama's Hometown

Charles Djou, a Republican, won the Congressional seat in Chairman Obama's hometown in Hawaii. First time in 20 years a Republican holds the seat. Beating his two Democrat opponents by 8.6% and 11.6%.

From FOX News:

Republican Charles Djou topped Democrats Colleen Hanabusa and former Rep. Ed Case (D-HI) to succeed retired Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-HI) in Congress. Before Djou’s victory, Democrats had won 11 consecutive special elections. The stretch included a win last Tuesday by Rep. Mark Critz (D-PA) to succeed the late-Rep. Jack Murtha (D-PA). Many political handicappers expected Republican Tim Burns to win that contest and viewed the race as a barometer for how the political winds may blow this fall.

Djou secured 39.5 percent of the vote. Meantime, the two Democratic candidates, Hanabusa and Case combined to score nearly 60 percent of the vote. But that splintered the Democratic impact and allowed Djou to squeak through.

“Eighteen months ago, President Obama carried this district with seventy percent of the vote,” said Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX), the head of the National Republican Congressional Campaign Committee (NRCC). “Charles Djou’s victory not only changes the makeup of the House of Representatives, but it helps Republicans move one step closer toward winning back the majority in November.”

Let's Destroy America

A great speech on what liberals are doing to the United States:

I have a plan to destroy America
by Richard D. Lamm

I have a secret plan to destroy America. If you believe, as many do, that America is too smug, too white bread, too self-satisfied, too rich, let’s destroy America. It is not that hard to do. History shows that nations are more fragile than their citizens think. No nation in history has survived the ravages of time. Arnold Toynbee observed that all great civilizations rise and they all fall, and that “an autopsy of history would show that all great nations commit suicide.” Here is my plan:

1. We must first make America a bilingual-bicultural country. History shows, in my opinion, that no nation can survive the tension, conflict and antagonism of two competing languages and cultures. It is a blessing for an individual to be bilingual; it is a curse for a society to be bilingual. One scholar, Seymour Martin Lipset, put it this way: “The histories of bilingual and bicultural societies that do not assimilate are histories of turmoil, tension and tragedy. Canada, Belgium, Malaysia, Lebanon all face crises of national existence in which minorities press for autonomy, if not independence. Pakistan and Cyprus have divided. Nigeria suppressed an ethnic rebellion. France faces difficulties with its Basques, Bretons and Corsicans.”

2. I would then invent “multiculturalism” and encourage immigrants to maintain their own culture. I would make it an article of belief that all cultures are equal: that there are no cultural differences that are important. I would declare it an article of faith that the black and Hispanic dropout rate is only due to prejudice and discrimination by the majority. Every other explanation is out-of-bounds.

3. We can make the United States a “Hispanic Quebec” without much effort. The key is to celebrate diversity rather than unity. As Benjamin Schwarz said in the Atlantic Monthly recently, “The apparent success of our own multiethnic and multicultural experiment might have been achieved, not by tolerance, but by hegemony. Without the dominance that once dictated ethnocentrically, and what it meant to be an American, we are left with only tolerance and pluralism to hold us together.” I would encourage all immigrants to keep their own language and culture. I would replace the melting pot metaphor with a salad bowl metaphor. It is important to insure that we have various cultural sub-groups living in America reinforcing their differences, rather than Americans emphasizing their similarities.

4. Having done all this, I would make our fastest-growing demographic group the least educated. I would add a second underclass, unassimilated, undereducated and antagonistic to our population. I would have this second underclass have a 50 percent dropout rate from school.

5. I would then get the big foundations and big business to give these efforts lots of money. I would invest in ethnic identity, and I would establish the cult of victimology. I would get all minorities to think their lack of success was all the fault of the majority. I would start a grievance industry blaming all minority failure on the majority population.

6. I would establish dual citizenship and promote divided loyalties. I would “celebrate diversity.” “Diversity” is a wonderfully seductive word. It stresses differences rather than commonalities. Diverse people worldwide are mostly engaged in hating each other–that is, when they are not killing each other. A “diverse,” peaceful or stable society is against most historical precedent. People undervalue the unity it takes to keep a nation together, and we can take advantage of this myopia.

Look at the ancient Greeks. Dorf’s “World History” tells us: “The Greeks believed that they belonged to the same race; they possessed a common language and literature; and they worshiped the same gods. All Greece took part in the Olympic Games in honor of Zeus, and all Greeks venerated the shrine of Apollo at Delphi. A common enemy, Persia, threatened their liberty. Yet, all of these bonds together were not strong enough to overcome two factors … (local patriotism and geographical conditions that nurtured political divisions …)” If we can put the emphasis on the “pluribus,” instead of the “unum,” we can balkanize America as surely as Kosovo.

7. Then I would place all these subjects off-limits–make it taboo to talk about. I would find a word similar to “heretic” in the 16th century that stopped discussion and paralyzed thinking. Words like “racist”, “xenophobe” halt argument and conversation. Having made America a bilingual-bicultural country, having established multiculturalism, having the large foundations fund the doctrine of “victimology,” I would next make it impossible to enforce our immigration laws. I would develop a mantra –”because immigration has been good for America, it must always be good.” I would make every individual immigrant sympatric and ignore the cumulative impact.

8. Lastly, I would censor Victor Davis Hanson’s book “Mexifornia” –this book is dangerous; it exposes my plan to destroy America. So please, please–if you feel that America deserves to be destroyed–please, please–don’t buy this book! This guy is on to my plan.

“The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum.” –Noam Chomsky, American linguist and U.S. media and foreign policy critic.

Who is the Real Human Rights Violator

Gulags. Rouge organ harvesting. One child per family. Male baby favoritism. Etc. Etc.  Yet another Obama administration apologist was talking to the Chinese, apologizing for the Arizona immigration law.  This administration is filled with some of the biggest losers in world history.

From the AP:

The United States and China reported no major breakthroughs Friday after only their second round of talks about human rights since 2002…

Michael Posner, the assistant secretary of state, told reporters that another round will happen some time next year in Beijing…

Posner said in addition to talks on freedom of religion and expression, labor rights and rule of law, officials also discussed Chinese complaints about problems with U.S. human rights, which have included crime, poverty, homelessness and racial discrimination.

He said U.S. officials did not whitewash the American record and in fact raised on its own a new immigration law in Arizona that requires police to ask about a person’s immigration status if there is suspicion the person is in the country illegally.

Surprise. Surprise. Obamacare Over $1 Trillion

Congressional Budget Office estimates released Tuesday predict the health care overhaul will likely cost about $115 billion more in discretionary spending over ten years than the original cost projections.

The additional spending — if approved over the years by Congress — would bring the total estimated cost of the overhaul to over $1 trillion.


The CBO released the estimates in response to a request from California Rep. Jerry Lewis, ranking Republican on the House Appropriations Committee. A spokeswoman for Lewis said the inquiry was filed before the House voted on the bill.

“[L]arge sums of discretionary spending in both the House and Senate versions of the health care reform bills have not yet been included in estimates by the CBO, rendering it impossible to make informed decisions regarding the outcome of this legislation,” Lewis wrote in a February letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, asking her to postpone votes until the discretionary spending analysis was complete.

The CBO estimated in March that the gross cost of the overhaul would be $940 billion over 10 years. The net cost was estimated at $788 billion over 10 years. But the group cautioned that it couldn’t make an estimate of the discretionary costs without more time and information.


Small wonder the Democrats rammed though the legislation, instead of waiting.


What about all those young people who just decide to pay the penalty instead of buying insurance.  Or how about those companies, some quite large, that just dump their employees on the government and pay the penalty.  Verizon and AT&T are thinking about doing just that.


How about the history of government overruns:


In 1965, the House Ways and Means Committee estimated that the hospital insurance program of Medicare - the federal health care program for the elderly and disabled - would cost $9 billion by 1990. The actual cost that year was $67 billion.

In 1967, the House Ways and Means Committee said the entire Medicare program would cost $12 billion in 1990. The actual cost in 1990 was $98 billion.

In 1987, Congress projected that Medicaid - the joint federal-state health care program for the poor - would make special relief payments to hospitals of less than $1 billion in 1992. Actual cost: $17 billion.

The list goes on. The 1993 cost of Medicare's home care benefit was projected in 1988 to be $4 billion, but ended up at $10 billion. The State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), which was created in 1997 and projected to cost $5 billion per year, has had to be supplemented with hundreds of millions of dollars annually by Congress.

Barely two weeks in office, Mr. Obama signed a $33 billion bill that will add 4 million mostly low-income children to the SCHIP program over the next 4 1/2 years.

Supreme Court Nominee Kagan and Obama Cut from Same Socialist Cloth

Obama and supreme court nominee Elena Kagan, are tied together in socialist ideology and the Chicago machine.

From NBC Chicago:

The current Solicitor General and soon-to-be Supreme Court Justice tried her best to woo Obama to a life in academia when the two worked at the University of Chicago, according to MSNBC's First Read.

Kagan joined the staff there in 1991 and won tenure in 1995. Obama was a part-time lecturer there between 1992 and 2004, when he was elected to the U.S. Senate, but according to reports she tried to convince him to pursue a tenure track.

Obama and Kagan share a deep Chicago connection. They both learned the ropes on the South Side, and rumor is they're both rabid White Sox fans, according to the Sun-Times.

Kagan clerked for legendary Chicago federal Appellate Judge Abner Mikva, who is one of Obama’s political mentors. She went on to have a brilliant scholarly career.

Kagan laid the groundwork for many of her political beliefs while at the University of Chicago, and perhaps provided fodder for Republicans to interrogate her.

Before winning tenure at the University of Chicago she published Confirmation Messes, Old and New a review of a book about the judicial confirmation process.

Kagan lamented the lack of "seriousness and substance" in confirmation hearings for Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. "When the Senate ceases to engage nominees in meaningful discussion of legal issues, the confirmation process takes on an air of vacuity and farce," she wrote in the University of Chicago Law Review in 1995.

Her college thesis suggest a socialist's in sheep's clothing:

Kagan spent her senior year conducting research for her thesis on the history of the socialist movement, which was titled “To the Final Conflict: Socialism in New York City, 1900–1933.” Her thesis has been criticized by her opponents for revealing sympathies with the Socialist Party and became a source of controversy when she was a potential nominee for Associate Justice David Souter’s seat on the Supreme Court last spring — a position which instead went to Sonia Sotomayor ’76 — and when she was nominated for her current position of solicitor general in January 2009.

“Americans are more likely to speak of a golden past than of a golden future, of capitalism’s glories than of socialism’s greatness,” she wrote in her thesis. “Conformity overrides dissent; the desire to conserve has overwhelmed the urge to alter. Such a state of affairs cries out for explanation.”

She called the story of the socialist movement’s demise “a sad but also a chastening one for those who, more than half a century after socialism’s decline, still wish to change America … In unity lies their only hope.”

 Sounds a lot like our community organizer in chief.  Eh?