Continuing from Friday's post on giving bloggers the the Gift of Traffic this holiday weekend, here's the latest.

• Avedon Carol of Sideshow has picked up the Traffic theme and found some great links to some of the better versions of some Traffic Songs.

"The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys" [Update: Live version, Pt.1 and Pt.2.]

Live Winwood: "Dear Mr. Fantasy".

... more here.

• Larry Johnson at No Quarter on Glasgow Burning, Run for Your Lives . The right-wing blogs and CNN are all London, all Glasgow all the time. It's like Dear Mr. Fanstasy, give us a terror attack so we can tell the world we're right to be in Iraq. Mahablog thinks so too.

More...

Scott Lemeiux and Jon Zasloff comment on the "academic Broderitis" of Cass Sunstein (something I alluded to yesterday). Zasloff writes:

Sunstein suggested last year that John Roberts would be the quintessential legal craftsman, and thus a judicial minimalist. Conservative to be sure, but carefully so. And what has happened this year? Roberts marching in lockstep with Scalia, Thomas, and the other radicals. You might think that this has given Sunstein second thoughts. But no.

In The New Republic, he acknowledges

It turns out that with stunning regularity, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito are indeed voting the same way as their conservative colleagues." But he insists that there is a divide, because Roberts and Alito do so on narrower grounds. . . . Here, in a nutshell, is the division between the Court's conservative minimalists and its visionaries," Sunstein proclaimed.

This is really grasping at straws. Does Sunstein really think that the next time taxpayers sue over a legislative appropriation, Alito and Roberts will gravely uphold standing, saying that they are bound by the precedent? If so, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell him. . . . Remarkably, . . . Sunstein still won't acknowledge what is going on. Call it the academic equivalent of Broder-itis: you're so above-it-all that you can't see what is happening.

Yep.

Omar Khadr, the young Canadian Gitmo detainee whose charges were dismissed in early June because the judge ruled he had not been properly designated an enemy combatant, will not have his charges reinstated.

A military panel had declared Khadr an "enemy combatant" but Brownback said that did not meet the strict definition of the law that authorized the tribunals.

He said the distinction was critical because international law requires other types of trial for captives who are considered "lawful enemy combatants."

"The term 'unlawful' is not excess baggage, and it is not mere semantics, it is a critical predicate to jurisdiction," Brownback wrote in the ruling.

Canadian news has this in depth profile of the Khadr family. In 2005, the Toronto Star reported Omar's alleged torture while at Guantanamo.

When I was in law school, a discussion of the Equal Protection Clause dedicated great deal of focus on footnote 4 in U.S. v. Carolene Products:

There may be narrower scope for operation of the presumption of constitutionality when legislation appears on its face to be within a specific prohibition of the Constitution, such as those of the first ten Amendments, which are deemed equally specific when held to be embraced within the Fourteenth. [cites omitted] It is unnecessary to consider now whether legislation which restricts those political processes which can ordinarily be expected to bring about repeal of undesirable legislation, is to be subjected to more exacting judicial scrutiny under the general prohibitions of the Fourteenth Amendment than are most other types of legislation. . . . Nor need we enquire whether similar considerations enter into the review of statutes directed at particular religious,[cites mitted] or national, [cites omitted], or racial minorities. [cites omitted]; whether prejudice against discrete and insular minorities may be a special condition, which tends seriously to curtail the operation of those political processes ordinarily to be relied upon to protect minorities, and which may call for a correspondingly more searching judicial inquiry. . . .

(Emphasis supplied.) More.

The death toll keeps rising in Iraq. Among the details in today's article about Saturday's raid on Baghdad's Shiite Sadr City slum, is this news:

....two American soldiers are accused of killing three Iraqis in separate incidents, then planting weapons on the victims' remains, the military said in a statement. Fellow soldiers reported the alleged crimes, which took place between April and this month near Iskandariyah, 30 miles south of Baghdad, it said.

The U.S. military on Saturday identified the soldiers as Staff Sgt. Michael A. Hensley from Candler, N.C., and Spc. Jorge G. Sandoval from Laredo, Texas.

More....

Many states now have laws allowing medical use of marijuana. New Mexico's law, passed a few months ago, has a new twist. It is the first law that requires the state to produce its own pot.

The law, effective Sunday, not only protects medical marijuana users from prosecution _ as 11 other states do _ but requires New Mexico to oversee a production and distribution system for the drug.

"The long-term goal is that the patients will have a safe, secure supply that doesn't mean drug dealers, that doesn't mean growing their own," said Reena Szczepanski, director of Drug Policy Alliance New Mexico.

The state Department of Health must issue rules by Oct. 1 for the licensing of marijuana producers and in-state, secured facilities, and for developing a distribution system.

The other states with medical marijuana laws:

Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington. Maryland's law doesn't protect patients from arrest, but it keeps defendants out of jail if they can convince judges they needed marijuana for medical reasons.

J covered the startling SCOTUS reversal on granting cert in the DC Gitmo detainee cases earlier and here, Orin Kerr predicts reversal:

What's remarkable about this isn't that the Supreme Court agreed to hear them, but how: the Court denied cert at first back in April, with several Justices writing opinions in the cert denial, and then granted a petition for rehearing. This is extremely unusual, and it is probably a pretty good sign that a reversal is likely.

As I argued earlier this year, Kerr believes Boumediene is in conflict (Kerr uses the professorial description of "tension") with Rasul:

Lowell Feld writes up Senator Jim Webb's blogger conference call today:

Sen. Webb started off by talking about how he shared the "disappointment" of many regarding "the way the appropriations supplemental was handled by our party." He had hoped that his amendment, which would require that soldiers can't be redeployed unless they've been home at least that long, would have been attached to the supplemental. That would have cut right to the "inviolable bottom line" regarding how our troops are being used. The logic on that was "unassailable and clear," so if the President had vetoed it, everyone would have understood what he was doing. . . .

I think the questions to be asked about this statement are obvious. Feld reports the following questions:

How close did Karl Rove come to getting indicted in PlameGate? As they say, "this close." Check out today's re-issued opinion (pdf) in the Judith Miller - Matthew Cooper D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals subpoena case containing new un-redactions: the name of Karl Rove.

Now unredacted:

"Regarding Cooper, the special counsel has demonstrated that his testimony is essential to charging decisions regarding White House adviser Karl Rove."

Then on page 39:

"Thus, given the compelling showing of need and exhaustion, plus the sharply tilted balance between harm and news value, the special counsel may overcome the reporters’ qualified privilege, even if his only purpose—at least at this stage of his investigation—is to shore up perjury charges against leading suspects such as Libby and Rove."

The unredaction there is the last two words: "and Rove."

There's more goodies, including those about Armitage, Libby and Cheney. The pdf is searchable, type in your favorite name. The unredactions are in italics.

[Hat tip to TL reader and diarist Scribe.]

Here's a little song you can all join in on....

Everyone knows that blog traffic goes down substantially for political blogs on weekends. It declines more so on holiday weekends, like the one beginning today with the 4th of July just around the corner.

So, please, give the gift of traffic. It's free. All you have to do is visit your favorite blogs so they register your presence.

Just about every blog has a blogroll. Check out some of the blogs on them. If you're online and blogging, try to link more this weekend.

I'll start, and I'll be updating and occasionally bumping this post over the next few days.

• The Talking Dog has an interview with Gaillard Hunt, counsel for Pakistani National Saifullah Paracha, currently at Guantanamo Bay, where he may become our first non-suicide death if his heart problems continue to go untreated.

• Avedon Carol at Sideshow on the failure of the immigration bill.

• Law Prof Doug Berman at Sentencing Law and Policy evaluates the Supreme Court's term from a sentencing perspective.

• For humor, visit TBogg and Wonkette and Jesus' General (who today rips Tom Tancredo on immigration.)

• The crew at Firedoglake has several great posts scheduled for the weekend. Start with For Life, For Jane.

More...

Scotus Blog reports that in a change not seen since 1968, the Supreme Court has reversed course in two Guantanamo cases. Months ago it denied the detainees' Petitions for Writ of Certiorari, refusing to accept their cases.

Today, by a ruling of at least 5 to 4, which is required for such a change, the Court reversed itself and said it will hear the appeals.

The Court's order is reprinted below:

E.J. Dionne, in a "closing the barn door after the horse has gotten out" column, argues that the Senate should:

Just say no. The Senate's Democratic majority -- joined by all Republicans who purport to be moderate -- must tell President Bush that this will be their answer to any controversial nominee to the Supreme Court or the appellate courts. The Senate should refuse even to hold hearings on Bush's next Supreme Court choice, should a vacancy occur, unless the president reaches agreement with the Senate majority on a mutually acceptable list of nominees.

With all due respect to Dionne, that is a fine sentiment and I agree with it, but it does not undo the damage done. When "idiot liberals" like me were urging filibusters of Roberts, and especially, Sam Alito (who unlike Roberts, was not a stealth candidate, anyone who wanted to could see what he would do), we were told to be "realistic" and that Democrats needed to "keep their powder dry." Indeed, the entire fight over the "nuclear option" was made a bad joke by the capitulation of Senate Democrats on Alito.