Bump and Update: The Court did not issue an opinion today in D.C. v. Heller. Scotus Blog says the Court announced all remaining decisions will released tomorrow at 10:00 am ET.

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Original Post

Awaiting the Supreme Court's Second Amendment Decision

Will today be the day the Supreme Court issues its long-awaited opinion in D.C. v. Heller, deciding the constitutionality of D.C.'s handgun ban and settling the question of whether the Second Amendment conveys an individual right to bear arms?

Several court watchers think so. Concurring Opinions believes it will be authored by Justice Anton Scalia, who has yet to write an opinion in the March sitting cases. Heller is also the only case remaining among the March sitting cases. [Hat tip Instapundit.][More...]

Via Scotus Blog: The Supreme Court decided Kennedy v. Louisiana today, holding that "the death penalty for child rape is unconstitutional if the defendants' acts were not intended to cause death." The decision was 5-4.

The Court has released the opinion in Kennedy v. Louisiana (07-343), on whether the Eighth Amendment prohibits states from imposing the death penalty for child rape, and, if not, whether Louisiana’s statute fails to narrow the class of offenders eligible for the death penalty. The ruling below, which upheld the state law, is reversed and remanded.

Justice Kennedy wrote the opinion. Justice Alito dissented, joined by the Chief Justice and Justices Scalia and Thomas. We will provide a link to the decision as soon as it is available.

The opinion is available here. The Court categorically says the death penalty is forbidden for crimes that do not result in death. [More..]

TSA at work:

For my friend Margaret, a savvy government lawyer and nursing mom, the decision to travel overseas wasn’t one she made lightly, but she figured she could handle the logistics. Boy was she wrong. The trip got off to a bad start, she says, when “the all male screeners at Dulles spent about 20 minutes examining and testing the [breast] pump for bomb residue and once they finally figured out its general purpose, grew very uncomfortable.”

If it has wires, it must be a bomb.

Via The Swamp at the Chicago Tribune:

A Democratic source with knowledge of the situation said Obama instructed members of his national finance committee during a conference call today to help Clinton with some of the $10 million she owes to vendors.

The former first lady, who exited the Democratic contest on June 7, ended May with $22.5 million in debt, more than half of it from personal loans to her campaign.

I wonder if he used the word "some" as a limiter and if so, why? Why not just ask them to help her with the $10 million she owes to vendors?

It seems to me she will be raising more than that amount for him during the general election campaign from her donors who maxed out to her. Why wouldn't he ask the same of his big donors?

Again, this is only about the amount she owes to third parties. Hillary is not asking anyone to reimburse her for the $10 million she loaned her campaign which she has said she views as her personal investment.

Listen to this:

“I think he’s deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own world view, his own confused theology."

Is this a rational observer commenting upon Rev. James Dobson? No, it is Rev. Dr. Dobson commenting upon Barack Obama.

Just days after Senator Barack Obama met quietly with religious leaders, including the son of the Rev. Billy Graham, another of the evangelical movement’s most prominent names, James C. Dobson, has sharply attacked Mr. Obama, accusing him of having “a fruitcake interpretation of the Constitution” and twisting the meaning of both the Old and New Testaments.

This is surely not the first time that Rev. Dobson and "fruitcake" have appeared in the same sentence. [more ...]

You'd think military prosecutors would want to get it right the second time.

The Army is trying [Army Sgt. William] Kreutzer for the second time on capital murder, attempted murder and other charges stemming from an October 1995 shooting spree in which Kreutzer opened fire on a brigade of soldiers as they prepared for an early morning run. ... Kreutzer was sentenced to death at a court-martial in 1996, but he won a new trial after military appeals courts ruled in 2004 and 2005 that his first lawyers were incompetent.

Kreutzer's new lawyers have no experience defending the death phase of a trial. They've asked the court "to appoint qualified lawyers or make the case non-capital." Prosecutors responded that the lawyers are good enough. Are they inviting a repeat performance of the first appeal? [more ...]

Four years ago, the question was:

Why Is Paul Minor Being Prosecuted?

The latest installment of Raw Story's "ongoing probe of political prosecutions by Bush appointed US Attorneys" focuses on Minor's role as a large contributor to the Democratic Party, made possible by the fees he earned in the settlement of states' litigation against the tobacco industry to recover smoking-related health care costs.

Republicans, meanwhile, who had previously enjoyed generous donations from the tobacco industry, were left with little for their campaign coffers.

[more ...]

Hillary Clinton returned to the Senate today. She's back to her day job, promising to roll up her sleeves, get to work, and yes, help Barack Obama become President.

Two hundred journalists, interns and others awaited her arrival at the carriage entrance outside the Senate chamber yesterday. A Senate official tried to keep order among the cameras, boom microphones and shotgun-wielding cops: "I need media credentials out! I need a space for her!"

...."Heads up!" somebody called out. The interns erupted in a cheer as soon as the leg of Clinton's turquoise pantsuit appeared though the doorway of her Lincoln Town Car.

The cheers continued at a private Senate luncheon. [More...]

The issue before District Judge John Bates can be framed in simple terms: Does the Constitution empower the president to block enforcement of congressional subpoenas that command the testimony of senior presidential advisers concerning the firings of U.S. Attorneys? Judge Bates said yesterday:

"Whether I rule for the executive branch or I rule for the legislative branch, I'm going to disrupt the balance [of powers.]"

Not really. Ruling on the question will disrupt the status quo -- an impasse -- but the balance of powers has already been disrupted by a president who considers himself above the law. Judge Bates has an opportunity to restore the proper balance: each branch acting as a check against abuses of power by the other branches. [more ...]

Via ThinkProgress:

Unfortunately, the FISA compromise bill establishes a process where the likely outcome is immunity to the telecommunications carriers who participated in the President’s warrantless wiretapping program. Sen. Reid remains opposed to retroactive immunity, which undermines efforts to hold the Bush Administration accountable for violating the law. Thus, he will cosponsor the amendment offered by Senators Dodd and Feingold to strip out the immunity provision, and support their efforts to strip immunity on the floor.

Reid will put forward the legislation but it seems he will vote against cloture.

Since 2005, I've been following the case of Australian Schapelle Corby, sentenced to 20 years in an Indonesian hellhole of a prison for allegedly smuggling 10 pounds of pot into Bali in a boogie board on a vacation, despite some evidence the pot was planted, possibly by a ring of airline baggage handlers, although that theory has since been discredited.

Her story will be told in Ganja Queen, airing on HBO on Monday, June 30.

Ganja Queen is the harrowing story of Schapelle Corby, a young Australian woman who is accused of international drug trafficking after ten pounds of marijuana are found in one of her bags while on holiday in Bali. Proclaiming her innocence, she finds herself locked in a life-and-death courtroom battle. The film is a chilling reminder of the risks all travelers take when visiting countries with vastly different criminal justice systems and cultural mores.

On Friday, Schappelle was taken from the prison to an Indonesian hospital where she is on a suicide watch. Her last appeal was denied in March. [More...]

The Denver National Convention Committee (DNCC) announced today that the August convention in Denver will be simulcast in Spanish:

In keeping with its commitment to make the 2008 Democratic National Convention the most accessible and technologically-savvy event of its kind, the Democratic National Convention Committee (DNCC) announced today that Comcast Corporation will produce simultaneous, online streaming coverage of the Convention in Spanish at DemConvention.com and make available a broad range of Convention content through its signature On Demand service.

...From the Comcast Media Center, based in the Denver metro area, Comcast will provide live, gavel-to-gavel Spanish-language interpretation of all Convention activities from the Pepsi Center to be streamed online at DemConvention.com from August 25-28. This marks the first time a national political Convention has been completely simulcast in Spanish and made available to a worldwide audience.

Spanish is the primary language of 35 million Americans. World-wide, there are more than 300 million people who speak Spanish.