RUSH: Elena Kagan. Very interesting out there. This story in the New York Times: ‘Want to Talk to Kagan’s Family? Permission Denied — White Houses traditionally put a muzzle on their Supreme 
Court nominees, to keep them from saying anything that might jeopardize Senate confirmation. But the Obama White House has taken it one step further. It is limiting, if not blocking, access to the nominee’s family. The New York Times received permission on Tuesday from Hunter College High School in Manhattan, Elena Kagan’s alma mater, to observe a constitutional law class there taught by her brother Irving. We thought it would be intriguing to watch the give and take between Mr. Kagan, who is known as a passionate and interactive educator, and his students on his first day back after witnessing his sister’s nomination in Washington.
‘Mr. Kagan, who is also a Hunter alumnus, did not have a problem with the idea, a school spokeswoman said, but she added that all media requests now had to be given final approval by the White House. The times were tentatively set: there was either an 8:52 a.m. class or a 9:36 a.m. class on Wednesday. ‘I thought it would have been great,’ said the spokeswoman, Meredith Halpern. But when presented with the idea by The Times, the White House balked. Joshua Earnest, a White House spokesman, said that the administration was ‘uncomfortable with the idea at this time.’ The White House called Hunter, and Ms. Halpern said later Tuesday it could not permit the class observation. A formal proposal has been submitted to the White House, which the administration requested. They asked that it outline the intent and goal of the article in significant detail. …
‘[T]wo days after the article appeared, when contacted again by the same reporter from The Times, Ms. Katz-James said: ‘I’m sorry. I’m not able to talk to you.’ She was asked if the White House had directed her not to talk to the press. ‘Nope,’ she said, and hung up the phone.’ Now, this is kind of curious. Elena Kagan has a brother that teaches constitutional law in high school, and the New York Times thought it would be really cool to go in there and see this guy interacting with his class first day back after his sister gets a big nomination. If you think back, ladies and gentlemen, the White House made it plain as day that Sonia Sotomayor came from a wonderfully diverse family. The mother, place in the Bronx, I mean they literally walked us through Sotomayor’s childhood. They introduced us to Sotomayor’s family members.
But now with Kagan, none of that? The White House wants none of that? It’s a little curious to me, folks. Why? What could possibly go wrong here? The brother of Elena Kagan teaching socials… Uh, uh, uh, uh, teaching, uh, uh, uh, constitutional law. Yeah. (interruption) Don’t get in me off on this softball distraction. I don’t know if he plays softball or not. What does it matter? You’re not gonna bait me on this, you people. You can try all you want. Your host is not going to be tricked this way. I’m smarter than that. But what could possibly go wrong by having the country see her family? No, she’s never been married, never had kids, just like Souter had never been married at age 50 was still living with his mother, all right? I don’t know about the brother. I don’t think about the brother.
We’re not going to know anything about the brother because they won’t let the New York Times in there now to see the brother teach constitutional law or socialism or whatever he teaches. That’s what Kagan is, is a socialist. Her senior thesis is all you need to see. I mean, it’s passionate about socialism. Passionate. I mean, this woman is on fire for socialism in her thesis. Now, another thing here. You know, sexual orientation. It really doesn’t interest me. I don’t know what the problem is. I know that the liberals are trying to act like we have a problem with it, but we’re not taking the bait. They’re trying to make the big deal out of it. But I did read her college thesis, and it is clear this babe is hot for socialism. She is… In fact, if you don’t want to read it… It was tough to get it, by the way. If you don’t want to read the whole thing, read the conclusion.
This, I think, is her one true love is socialism, her life partner, her soul mate. Socialism. That’s my conclusion from having read this. She’s all about social justice. Her passion isn’t for the law. It’s to equality of outcome as defined and determined by central government planners, and when I say 
‘passion,’ I mean heavy breathing passion. I mean hot and bothered passion. Cold, cold sweat kind of passion. This woman, this is her life partner. This is where all of her love goes is to socialism. I don’t care if she wants to spend her social time with male socialists or female socialists, I just know she prefers socialists over free market capitalists, which means her political orientation must be explored by the Senate.
And after asking Kagan about her socialist orientation and how it impacts her legal philosophy, if you read this, it might be a very polite thing to excuse her every hour to go take a cold shower after she’s discussing socialism. You ought to read this, folks. Now, there’s a paper trail, turns out there is a paper trail. Byron York happened to come up with this notion. The left and the White House have been saying, ‘There’s no paper trail. She hasn’t really written anything.’ Ah, ah, ah, ah! ”We’re talking about tens of thousands of pages,’ says Susan Cooper, spokeswoman for the National Archives and Records Administration. ‘It’s a massive job.’ Cooper is discussing the work of processing papers from Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan’s two years, 1995 and 1996, in the Clinton White House Counsel’s Office.
‘During that time, Kagan, like any overworked staff lawyer, handled a wide variety of issues and wrote or contributed to thousands of memos, e-mails and other documents. Those papers, boxes and boxes of them, are at the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, under the supervision of the archives.’ As Byron writes, ‘You’ve probably heard a lot of talk about Kagan not having a paper trail. It’s not true. In fact, she has a long paper trail. The only question is whether the senators who vote on her confirmation will be allowed to see it. There have already been some stories — articles like ‘Memos Reveal Elena Kagan’s Centrist Side’ — based on documents from Kagan’s White House service, but those are from her time, 1997 to 1999, on the White House Domestic Policy Council.
‘Cooper says those papers have already been processed by government archivists and many, although not necessarily all, of them have been posted on the Internet. But what Cooper calls the ‘bulk of the (Kagan-related) records that we have’ come from Kagan’s time in the counsel’s office’ in the Clinton administration. ‘They have not yet been processed and are not yet open. And, of course, they are likely to cover issues that would be useful to senators seeking to learn more about Kagan’s legal thinking.’ Now, we do know that she believes in the First Amendment being regulated by the government. We have discussed this. She thinks that free speech needs to be regulated based on its impact. Yes, based on its ‘impact.’
Wesley Pruden today in the Washington Times: ‘Once upon a time we could count on lawyers and law school professors to defend the First Amendment, the most important 46 words in the Constitution. Those 46 words make everything else possible. Shut up the people and the government can shut down every other freedom. The genius of the Founding Fathers was their ability to write the Constitution in the plain English that everybody could understand. Lawyers, who can employ entire boring paragraphs to say ‘good morning’ … would inflict damage later. A good lawyer, or even a bad one, can put loopholes in any proposal. To wit, Elena Kagan’s explanation of the First Amendment. It’s perfectly OK, she wrote in the University of Chicago Law Review, for the government to restrict free speech as long as it means well and calls it something else.
‘The word ‘restrictions’ sounds bad, like a leather restraint, but Mzz Kagan’s ‘redistribution of speech’ can sound benign, like free cheese. Who doesn’t like cheese? She argued that the government can employ Orwellian restrictions on speech if it thinks such speech might ‘harm’ others, either by direct action or inciting someone else to take direct action.’ Now, as I said yesterday, this is all I need to know. I am in the free speech business. That’s all I care about. I don’t care about anything else. I already know that she is a passionate socialist. Her thesis was a crying, ‘Oh, my God, what’s happening to socialism?’ She was all worried about the decline of socialism.
Now she’s gotta be delirious. It has made one hell of a comeback. Now, it’s on display as an utter failure in Europe, but under this regime says, ‘Hey, socialism, communism? It’s always been the best. It’s just it’s never been the right people in charge of it, but now we’re here. We’re the ones you’ve been waiting for. We are the right people to make socialism the best thing that there is — and if that works, then we’re going to move on down the road to communism, ’cause that’s who we are. Now, from the acknowledgments (this is Diana Schneider, the editrix of the Limbaugh Letter) in Kagan’s senior thesis: ‘Finally, I’d like to thank my brother Marc, whose involvement in radical causes led me to explore the history of American radicalism in the hope of clarifying my own political views.’
Now, I don’t know if that’s the same brother, ’cause the brother that’s being referred to in the New York Times is named ‘Irving.’ So I don’t know if this is Irving Marc Kagan or Marc Irving Kagan. I don’t know if it’s the same guy. If it’s the same bro, no wonder the White House doesn’t want the New York Times in there. The New York Times won’t be bothered by the radicalism. It’s who might read what the New York Times reported about the guy’s radicalism. So he’s teaching constitutional law, and we know that radical liberals and socialists don’t like the Constitution as written. So who knows what he’s teaching his students in this high school class. But that’s her acknowledgement to her brother Marc, ‘whose involvement in radical causes led me to explore the history of American radicalism in the hope of clarifying my own political ideas.’