President Obama signed the anti-tobacco bill today. He mentioned his own struggle with smoking.

But he didn't say how his own struggle was coming since he moved into the White House. And aides were no more forthcoming.

Press Secretary Robert Gibbs says Obama "struggles with it every day." An aide says they still pack Nicorette for him. [More...]

Four men who stole three cell phones and two assault rifles have been sentenced under Sharia law in Somalia. Each will have their right hand and left leg (probably above the foot) amputated in public.

Amnesty International is protesting the sentence.

"We are appealing to Al-Shabab not to carry out these cruel, inhuman and degrading punishments," said Tawanda Hondora, Amnesty International's Africa Deputy Director. "These sentences were ordered by a sham Al-Shabab court with no due process or guarantees of fairness."

The four young men were not represented by lawyers or allowed to appeal the sentence. The sentence was not immediately carried out because it was so hot outside there was fear the men would bleed to death.

War on Drug news: The U.S. has declared poppy seeds to be narcotics. In a recent raid in Afghanistan, the U.S. trumpeted its success. The raid took place in the Marja district of Helmand province:

.... U.S. forces, after a four-day military offensive, proudly announced the biggest-ever drug bust in Afghanistan: more than 101 tons of “narcotics,” whose seizure “severely disrupted one of the key militant and criminal operations and narcotics hubs in southern Afghanistan,” according to U.S. military spokesperson Col. Greg Julian.

What he failed to highlight was that more than 80 percent of it — 82.5 tons — was bagel topping, although most of this cache was probably destined for planting, rather than eating. “We cannot really say that poppyseeds are narcotics,” acknowledged a U.S. official, speaking on background. “They are potential narcotics.”

[More...]

Via Lambert and Kevin Drum, imagine this being written at some progressive blogs:

President Barack Obama is morphing into George W. Bush, as administration attorneys repeatedly adopt the executive-authority and national-security rationales that their Republican predecessors preferred.

In courtroom battles and freedom-of-information fights from Washington, D.C., to California, Obama's legal arguments repeatedly mirror Bush's: White House turf is to be protected, secrets must be retained and dire warnings are wielded as weapons.

The DFHs at McClatchey, once the progressives' favorite news syndicate service.

Speaking for me only

His plea agreement did not call for cooperation against Blagojevich.

Kelly is not accused of any involvement in the burgeoning political corruption case that has resulted in Rezko's conviction for influence-peddling and charges against Blagojevich that include scheming to sell or trade the U.S. Senate seat left vacant by Barack Obama's election as president....His plea agreement did not call for cooperation on his part in the Blagojevich investigation -- something that might have gotten him a break.

Another nice job by Chicago criminal defense attorney (and TalkLeft pal) Mike Monico.

In a 8 to 1 decision (pdf), the Supreme Court allows the Voting Rights Act to survive....barely.

The justices, voting 8-1, chose not to decide the constitutionality of a provision requiring that officials in eight states and parts of eight others get Justice Department clearance before making changes. The court instead said a small Texas utility district and other governmental bodies could seek an exemption. Justice Clarence Thomas issued a partial dissent.

Perhaps one of the main ways to read the Court’s ruling, then, is that it it a warning to Congress that it needs to reconsider Section 5, and shore it up, if it can, with a new formula for coverage, and provide some assurance that it will no longer single out some states to bear Section 5’s obligations in ways that the Court suggested were now unequal.

[More...]

First Monday of the Summer. Sportswise, it is more interesting than one would have thought, with the final round of the US Open at Bethpage Black to be played today. Wimbledon starts today, but it has been deflated somewhat by Rafa Nadal's withdrawal. Next month you have the Tour de France, the British Open and of course, baseball and the Boys of Summer.

Politically and policywise, the two big stories this summer will be health care reform and the Sotomayor confirmation process.

What will you be paying attention to this summer? Besides your tans of course.

This is an Open Thread.

Paul Krugman writes:

[N]obody can now say with a straight face that the U.S. health care system is O.K. And if surveys like the New York Times/CBS News poll released last weekend are any indication, voters are ready for major change. The question now is whether we will nonetheless fail to get that change, because a handful of Democratic senators are still determined to party like it’s 1993.

. . . Yet it remains all too possible that health care reform will fail, as it has so many times before. . . . The real risk is that health care reform will be undermined by “centrist” Democratic senators . . . Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska initially declared that the public option — which, remember, has overwhelming popular support — was a “deal-breaker.” . . . Mr. Nelson softened his stand after reform advocates began a public campaign targeting him for his position on the public option.

(Emphasis supplied.) It's great that Ben Nelson "softened." But there is only one way for the public option to survive -- reform groups need to tell the President that he will be remembered as the guy who killed health care - not Ben Nelson or Kent Conrad. He needs to call them out when the time comes. Believe me, nobody remembers that Moynihan killed health care reform in 1994. Hell, Hillary announced her first Senate campaign at his farm in New York.

Speaking for me only

Via Newsweek: One of their reporters in Iran has been taken from his home by security officers.

Among the dozens of people arrested overnight in Tehran was NEWSWEEK reporter Maziar Bahari, who has covered Iran for the magazine for over a decade. Bahari was home asleep at 7 a.m. when several security officers showed up at his Tehran apartment. According to his mother, who lives with the 41-year-old reporter and documentary filmmaker, the men did not identify themselves. They seized Bahari's laptop and several videotapes. Assuring her that he would be their guest, they then left with Bahari. He has not been heard from since.

Reporters Without Borders says more than 20 Iranian journalists and bloggers have been detained since last week's elections.

I was with my girls all day. So it was a Happy Fathers' Day for me. Hope it was the same for you.

This is an Open Thread.

Brandi Carlile is still looking for a promise she can keep. Speaking of Sen. John Ensign:

He was a member of Promise Keepers, a men's Christian group that espoused devotion to family and marriage.

This is an open thread.

Language evolves, as does the United States Constitution, which after all in physical form is just an assemblage of words. Linguists and English teachers have identified a complex set of rules to govern language just as judges have divined constitutional rules that govern your rights. The rules of English, like judicial precedent, sometimes reach a nonsensical endpoint. At those times you just have to stop pretending there are rules.

The British government, as custodian of the Queen's English, has decided that children shouldn't learn "I before E except after C" because, even if you account for neighbor and weigh with an additional rhyme, you're left with sufficient and weird. Here's the argument in support of teaching the rule even if it's incomplete:

[S]upporters say the ditty has value because it is one of the few language rules that most people remember.

The lesson we should learn: If judges crafted rules of law in easy to remember rhymes, Americans would be more likely to understand their Constitution. [there's one more amusing fact ...]