Justice Kagan and Justice Scalia Are Hunting Buddies—Really

[xchrom]

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/06/justice-kagan-and-justice-scalia-are-hunting-buddies-really/277401/



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.

[MADem]

1. Kagan should be careful, just in case Big Tone has any of those "Cheney" tendencies. nt

[KamaAina]

55. Maybe she could channel Cheney instead

[MADem]

64. Oops, I slipped on a wet rock! Darn the bad luck...hope they can get all that stuff outta yer face,

pal...!

[WovenGems]

2. Careful now

One does not go hunting with a very old overweight gent unless one wants to be as scared as the bunnies are.

[pipoman]

3. If she grew up on Manhattan's West Side

and had not gone hunting while growing up, I find it refreshing that she has an open enough mind to go in the first place, and be unapologetic about enjoying hunting..I like her even more now than before..

[MotherPetrie]

4. Anyone who gets off on killing animals is fucking disgusting.

[Rod Walker]

6. So don't hunt. Problem solved.

[MotherPetrie]

8. I don't. I think hunters are disgusting.

[datasuspect]

11. there, there

all better now?

bless your heart.

[MotherPetrie]

17. How original.

[datasuspect]

19. about as original as your anti-hunter bigotry is

[galileoreloaded]

41. her food comes from the Star Trek replicator! nt

[Rod Walker]

49. You have every right to think that.

And hunters have every right to hunt.

Isn't choice great?

[MicaelS]

50. Plenty of Native Americans in Alaska still rely

On subsistence hunting to eat. Plus it is part of their religion. You don't like that, tough.

http://www.akhistorycourse.org/articles/article.php?artID=355

[11 Bravo]

52. I hunt and my family eats what I kill. If that disgusts you ... tough.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

7. I doubt she's deriving sexual excitation from hunting.

[MotherPetrie]

9. I dont.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

15. Does that thought give you an emotional charge?

[MotherPetrie]

20. Nope. No guns involved.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

27. You can't get an emotional charge from something unless there is a gun involved?

weird

[premium]

14. Do you eat meat? Chicken?

Where do you think that meat in the store comes from?
I plan on buying a hunting rifle and hunt my own food, meat's getting too expensive in the market and I won't apologize for it.

[Nye Bevan]

38. So John Kerry is "fucking disgusting"?

COLUMBUS, Ohio, Oct. 21 - Clad in camouflage clothing, a 12-gauge double-barreled shotgun under his arm, Senator John Kerry and three fellow hunters emerged from an eastern Ohio cornfield Thursday morning with four dead geese and an image his aides hope will help shore up his macho bona fides among rural voters.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/22/politics/campaign/22kerry.html?_r=0

[premium]

42. I guess Bill Clinton is also

Or Bill Richardson.

[Paladin]

47. John Kerry was trashed unmercifully in the DU Gungeon for this.

Interesting to see all the support for hunting on this thread, considering that the majority of our Gun Enthusiasts have no interest in hunting, going so far as to characterize it as distasteful, and ridiculing hunters as "Fudds." Pertinent NRA Talking Point: "The Second Amendment has nothing to do with hunting."

[MicaelS]

54. They're is a great deal of difference between gun owners..

Saying negative things about hunting, and people like yourself who leave no stone unturned to bash gun owners, and gun ownership.

If WE call come of them "Fudds", it is because they think Gun Ownership begins and ends with Hunting, and as long as they have their Hunting guns they don't care about anything else. They are too naive or trusting to realize that if Gun Prohibitionists get all other forms of Gun Ownership banned, they sure as fuck aren't going to leave Hunting alone. I don't care what rhetoric the Gun Prohibitionists spout about "not wanting to take your Hunting guns away". The hunter hate in this thread, and every other hunting thread that comes up, is proof of that.

I don't ridicule Hunters or Hunting, and don't find it distasteful. I just don't participate in it, because I am not an outdoors type person.

For someone from Central Texas you would seem to understand that, but I guess not.

[Paladin]

63. Give it a rest.

I've been a gun owner for better than 50 years, and I killed my first Central Texas deer in 1963. And it's not gun owners or hunters I have a problem with, it's pro-gun activists. I think it's pretty obvious which camp you're situated in, and you're keeping some really poor company.

[snooper2]

40. you talking about full on orgasm, or just a little rise?

[Brickbat]

5. Powerful people spending their free time together?

Huh.

[MotherPetrie]

10. And killing animals.

[Brickbat]

12. Hunting doesn't bother me.

[MotherPetrie]

13. Too bad.

[Brickbat]

16. So sad.

[MotherPetrie]

22. Enjoying living, breathing, sentient creatures is much sadder.

[premium]

25. I do enjoy living, breathing animals,

and I enjoy cooked meat, you can do both you know.

[MotherPetrie]

28. I meant to type enjoying KILLING living breathing sentient creatures is disgusting--

the two concepts are so mutually exclusive to me that I failed on the first try. But I see many have no problem with it. Enjoying killing, I mean.

[premium]

33. Thank you,

I will enjoy the hunt and I'll enjoy eating the meat, it's a whole lot healthier than the meat you buy at the store.
You don't like it? Too bad.

[lumberjack_jeff]

48. Funny that you have a carnivore for an avatar.

I'm sure its dinner leapt into the can voluntarily.

[11 Bravo]

53. jeff ... for the WIN!

[premium]

23. Me neither,

matter of fact, meat's gotten so expensive, I'm going back to hunting my own food, much less expensive and healthier.

[Brickbat]

26. Same here.

[premium]

18. They're hunting animals for food.

Venison is delicious as are game birds.

[MotherPetrie]

24. They are doing it because they enjoy killing animals. They aren't hunting to live.

[premium]

29. You don't know that.

I can't see Justice Kagan killing deer, or any animal just for the enjoyment of it.
When I was growing up, I enjoyed the hunt, I also enjoyed eating the meat and I make no apologies for it.
You don't want to hunt, fine, don't, nobody's forcing you to, but millions of poor families rely on those animals for food.

[cali]

58. no, millions of poor families do not rely on hunting for food.

hell, I live in the Northeast Kingdom which is poor and very rural and where hunting is practically deified, but even here the vast majority of poor families don't depend on hunting for food. Perhaps thousands of families in this country depend on hunting for food, but that's about it.

And I am not anti-hunting.

[Brickbat]

30. Deer are tasty. Surely there is a middle ground between OMG SLAUGHTER and the noble image of a poor

hunter putting meat on a desperate family's table.

[cpwm17]

34. They are thrill killers

One's viewpoint and participation in recreational hunting is a data point in determining someone's moral character. Not surprisingly hunters very often have viewpoints inconsistent with liberal values.

[datasuspect]

21. try eating an animal that is still alive

it's not as tasty.

[graham4anything]

31. I think it shows a clear unbias in Judge Kagan, to want to learn about something could ruled on

It reminds me of how Cory Booker acts and how Bob Graham has done hundreds of different jobs for one day each to see how
things work and are run.

And come down the road a piece, when the 2nd will be reinterpreted, Kagan can't be yelled at for not knowning.

Kagan is groovy! (and I am adult enough to say so, even though I myself don't like guns/bullets).

[premium]

36. The Justice's are going rule on hunting?

You keep saying the 2A will be reinterpreted soon and yet, the only states that are passing new laws are states that are traditionally pro gun control, meanwhile, IL is for all intents and purposes, now a shall issue state, plus other states are loosening their gun laws, but, I guess if thinking that the SC is going to reinterpret the 2A is what gets you through the day, good for you.

[Brickbat]

32. I apologize for helping devolve this thread into an argument about hunting, when, to me, the issue

should be our awareness of how powerful people spend their time together. I couldn't resist the low-hanging fruit -- or, if you will, the fish in the barrel.

[xchrom]

35. my 2 cents -- not about hunting.

i don't per se believe in conspiracies.

but i do believe that rich, powerful people socialize, live in community with each other.

they attend each others weddings, funerals, graduations, etc...

and it's easy to reach consensus or agreement in such situations -- there doesn't need to be a back room -- just a conversation at the kids graduation party.

[Brickbat]

37. Exactly -- political factions, at this level, are much more like professional sports teams. They're

all bluster on the field, and when the uniforms come off, they're at the same parties, dating the same people, having fun and living in their own bubble.

[premium]

39. Just like cops,

usually the only people they hang with off duty are other cops, although I was one of the few exceptions, when I was off duty, I stayed away from other cops, I made sure to separate my off duty life from my on duty life.

[joeglow3]

44. People tend to hang out with those they relate to

I am an accountant and you will find a LOT of accountants at many functions I attend. These are people who spent 5 years together in college, work next to each other 2,600 hours a year for 10+ years, etc. I promise you, there is not some grand accountant's conspiracy that we are getting ready to unleash on the world.

[dragonlady]

46. Does this apply to Justice Ginsburg too?

She has attended operas with Scalia for a long time--they even appeared as extras in an opera together, as I recall reading. It didn't stop her from writing a barnburner dissent in the voting rights case and voting against him most of the time. The U.S. Supreme Court has a history of trying to be collegial, but they decide their cases as they see fit, knowing their opinions will be picked apart in law schools for eternity. This seems a bit better than the Wisconsin Supreme Court, where one justice puts his hands around the neck of a colleague to strangle her and calls another justice a bitch and threatens to destroy her.

[KoKo]

43. What next? An African Safari for Private Kills? Or how about the Exclusive

Private Gaming Sanctuaries all over the US and world where you can go and kill trapped and specially selected exotic wildlife for sport.

And Kagan has gone four or five times bird shooting last year.

Who dresses the bird and game? And, do their "private chefs" prepare the Feasts?

These are ELITES doing this for sport and for the "thrill of the kill."

[NCarolinawoman]

57. They probably get driven to the precise place for the Convenient kill.

Doubt that they do any trekking around. They both look horribly out of shape.

After someone drives them, they probably take a few steps out of the car, and someone points out their target. They then make their kill. Later, maybe they will get something stuffed to look at as a souvenir of their "bold" adventure.

[forestpath]

45. They're both disgusting gun humpers.

[Poll_Blind]

51. --> From 4/4/12 on DU: Kagan Takes Up Hunting with Fellow Justice Scalia

http://www.myfoxdfw.com/dpps/news/kagan-takes-up-hunting-with-fellow-justice-scalia-dpgonc-20120404-kh_19031801

(NewsCore) - US Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan surprised a Wisconsin audience this week with news that she has recently taken to hunting with her ideological opposite, fellow justice Antonin Scalia.

"He's made a huntress out of me," Kagan revealed at a Marquette law school panel in Milwaukee on Tuesday.

The liberal justice revealed she and her ideological foe had shot quail and pheasant together and planned to hunt bigger game in the future.

"He insists I'm going to shoot myself an antelope," the New York City native said, adding that she had come to view hunting as "really good fun."

Ha! That's great, isn't it? Two people from ideologically opposite ends of the spectrum, coming together to unnecessarily kill a third, completely unrelated thing.



PB

[GoneFishin]

59. Hmmm. "coming together to unnecessarily kill a third". Just for fun, too. Creepy.

"Two people from ideologically opposite ends of the spectrum, coming together to unnecessarily kill a third, completely unrelated thing. "

[rusty fender]

56. I hate hunting, but...

I have 4 cats and 3 dogs. They are carnivores--no changing that fact. I do not eat meat, fish, or fowl.

However, the question I have about this hunting trip is: Who hosted them? A CEO whose company's dealings may come before the SC at some point? Did one of Dick Cheney's friends host them?

[NCarolinawoman]

60. There does seem to be a Wyoming connection.

Makes you wonder.

[rusty fender]

61. Yup

I have a the gut feeling that neither Scalia nor Kagan paid, out of their own pockets, for this hunting trip.

Absolute corruption corrupts absolutely!

[ileus]

62. Pretty neat knowing she's a hunter

and enjoys shooting sports...

good on her breaking stereotypes