Adding to Jeralyn's post on the Iraq Supplemental, I want to discuss an issue Kid Oakland mentions:

Speaker Pelosi was most emphatic on this point, this bill will also define under law that the President does not have the authority by any Act of Congress to continue his chosen course of action unfettered in Iraq. . . . Speaker Pelosi emphasized that Congress must reassert itself and say, and I'm paraphrasing here, when Congress defines the limits of the authorization in Iraq, that is the law. The bill that Congress sends to the President, veto or not, goal language or not, will be an important first step in the process of putting Congressional limits on the President's authority in Iraq and, hence, ending this war.

I do not understand this point frankly. Is Pelosi saying by the mere act of passing this bill, whether the President vetoes it or not, the Iraq War is deauthorized? Because if she is, then she seems wrong to me. We have discussed this point before. Another point from Pelosi is disheartening:

Opening arguments are underway in the Phil Spector murder trial.

The LA Times is providing updates from the courtroom, blog-style.

You can watch the trial live on the internet (for a fee) at Court TV's extra.

There are nine women and three women on the jury. Testimony begins tomorrow.

Amnesty International has issued a report with alarming statistics on Native American women and rape.

The figures said more than one in three Native women would be raped in their lifetime, although that figure may in fact be substantially higher because of a traditional reluctance to report sex crimes.

"Native women are brutalized at an alarming rate, and the United States government, a purported champion of women's rights, is unfortunately contributing to the problem," said Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International USA.

Amnesty's press release is here.

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The Supreme Court today threw out three Texas death sentences.

The cases all stem from jury instructions that Texas hasn't used since 1991. Under those rules, courts have found that jurors were not allowed to give sufficient weight to factors that might cause them to impose a life sentence instead of death.

The cases were decided by a 5-4 majority, with Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Anthony Kennedy, David Souter and John Paul Stevens voting to overturn the sentences.

Via How Appealing:

Lyle Denniston has this post at "SCOTUSblog." You can access the opinion in Smith v. Texas, No. 05-11304, here and the oral argument transcript here. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy issued the majority opinion in a case that divided the U.S. Supreme Court 5-4.

The Court today also issued decisions in two other death penalty cases that were orally argued together (access the transcript here): Abdul-Kabir v. Quarterman, No. 05-11284 (opinion here) and Brewer v. Quarterman, No. 05-11287 (opinion here).

Think Progress reports that the House Judiciary Committee has voted to grant Monica Goodling immunity for her testimony about the firing of U.S. Attorneys.

On MSNBC yesterday, fired U.S. Attorney David Iglesias, in addition to saying he filed a Complaint with the Office of Special Counsel against Karl Rove and Alberto Gonzales (and Goodling) for violating the Hatch Act,

It’s is something I filed back on April 3 of this year…based on, you know, Special Counsel having powers to investigate where evidence goes. I actually filed a Hatch Act complaint against Gonzales, McNulty, Sampson and Goodling and they’re already getting documents from the Justice Department and possibly from the White House. […]

...I think Monica Goodling is holding the keys to the kingdom. I think if they get her to testify under oath with a transcript, and have her describe the process between the information flow between the White House counsel, White House and the Justice Department, I believe the picture becomes a lot clearer.

As to Rove,

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The House of Representatives will vote today on the compromise legislation to pull out of Iraq, as part of the Iraq funding bill.

I was on a blogger conference call with Speaker Nancy Pelosi yesterday. Here's what she had to say:

She is proud of the conference report. The President should either sign the bill and honor it or veto it.

The goal is for troops to be out of Iraq by March, 2008. If the Iraqi government is not meeting the benchmarks by July, 2007, redeployment would begin this July. If they meet the benchmarks, the redeployment would begin in October, 2007 and must be with a goal of completion in 180 days, by March, 2008.

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At 11:00 a.m. E.T., Rosie O'Donnell will announce she's leaving "The View".

(Clip available on TMZ at 11:15 a.m.)

I've never seen the show, and I don't really get what the fuss is all about with her, but she's been making the news a lot lately, so I thought I'd report it.

Update: Her contract was up and they couldn't agree on terms for the next year. Barbara Walters says she's sorry to see her go.

The U.S. is getting a new airline company. It brings new meaning to the term "no-frills." It's more like nickel and diming you to death. I won't be flying on it anytime soon.

Skybus, based in Columbus, Ohio, is charging extra for many items — $5 to check a bag, $10 for a preferred seat, $2 for a soft drink — and it aims to sell a lot of the stuff. Carrying food on board is not allowed, according to Skybus’s Web site, “unless you brought enough for the whole plane.”

The airline will sell tickets only through its Web site, avoiding the expense of maintaining a reservations call center or paying a sales commission to travel agents. Skybus is also outsourcing its maintenance, the staffing of ticket counters at airports and its baggage handling, all to keep costs low.

“Don’t call us,” the Web site explains. “We don’t have a phone number.”

The Supreme Court today heard oral argument in a case that will decide whether a passenger, as well as the driver, has been seized for 4th Amendment purposes during a traffic stop.

The question of whether a “reasonable” passenger would feel free to leave was significant because that perception is a principal part of the court’s test for whether a “seizure” has taken place within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures.

If a reasonable person would not feel constrained, then he or she has not been “seized” and has no basis for complaining that the police have violated the Fourth Amendment. The converse is also true: a person who reasonably feels detained by the police is entitled to challenge the validity of the police action and perhaps to keep illegally seized evidence out of court.

Thanks to Justice Souter for pointing this out:

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Via mcjoan, Harry Reid cracks wise on Cheney:

Mr. Reid said he was not going to engage in a tit-for-tat with the vice president. "I’m not going to get into a name-calling match with somebody who has a 9 percent approval rating," Mr. Reid said.

Heh.

Now that we know the Pentagon lied about the attack on Jessica Lynch and the death of Pat Tillman, who's going to be held accountable?

Now that we know Bush will veto the compromise Iraq funding legislation with a suggested timeline for leaving Iraq, what comes next -- other than a misguided attempt to blame Sen. Harry Reid.

We need to keep the pressure on. It's our only way out of Iraq.

As a foundational principle, there can be no official, government-established religion in the United States. All religions are free to compete for adherents without governmental preference, and all who are within the country's borders have the freedom to worship (or not) as they please. For that reason, the religion of Wicca is entitled to the same governmental respect as every other sincerely-practiced religion.

It should not have taken a lawsuit to motivate the Department of Veterans Affairs to approve the engraving of a Wiccan religious symbol, the pentacle, on veterans' tombstones.

There are 1,800 Wiccans in the armed forces, according to a Pentagon survey cited in the suit, and Wiccans have their faith mentioned in official handbooks for military chaplains and noted on their dog tags.

Veterans Affairs officials no doubt shared the same view as noted constitutional scholar George Bush, who said of Wicca in 1999, "I don’t think witchcraft is a religion." Apart from mistaking (and trivializing) Wicca as "witchcraft," Bush previewed the arrogance we came to know in the ensuing years of his presidency. Who is George Bush to decide what faiths or spiritual beliefs deserve recognition as a religion? More importantly, how could an officeholder with the slightest understanding of constitutional law believe that the government is entitled to prefer some established religions over others? He must have been getting his legal advice from Alberto Gonzales.