Former Vice President Dick Cheney said Monday he supports gays being able to marry but believes states, not the federal government, should make the decision.

"I think, you know, freedom means freedom for everyone," Cheney said in a speech at the National Press Club. "I think people ought to be free to enter into any kind of union they wish, any kind of arrangement they wish."

"Red Faction: Guerrilla delivers on its promise of destruction, and offers an experience unlike anything else out there." - 9 out of 10 - Game of the Month
-    Game Informer (US)

"Guerrilla is the best summer blockbuster of this generation, filled to the brim with gaming superlatives." - 93%
-    Xbox World 360 (UK)

"A true Gem" - 9 out of 10 - Editors Choice
-    Official PlayStation Magazine (Australia)

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy said Tuesday that federal judge Sonia Sotomayor told him she'd follow the law as a Supreme Court justice and not necessarily base her rulings on her life experiences.

"Ultimately and completely, a judge has to follow the law no matter what their upbringing has been," the Vermont Democrat quoted President Barack Obama's Supreme Court nominee in a private meeting the two had on Capitol Hill.

Leahy had asked Sotomayor, 54, what she meant when she said in 2001 that her decisions as a "wise Latina" would be better than those of a white male. Prominent Republicans have cited the 2001 remark to call her a racist.

Leahy said the judge told him: "Of course one's life experience shapes who you are, but ... as a judge, you follow the law."

Leahy called the criticism against Sotomayor "among the most vicious attacks that have been received by anybody," and lamented that as a nominee she's unable to directly answer them.

So he asked the judge whether he could repeat publicly what she told him privately about how her personal experiences -- she is the New York-born daughter of Puerto Rican parents who was reared in a Bronx housing project and went on to Princeton and Yale on her way to the highest echelons of the legal profession -- would shape her rulings.

Leahy quoted Sotomayor as saying, "There's not one law for one race or another; there's not one law for one color or another; there's not one for rich and one for poor; there's only one law."

I predict this still will not be enough for some of Sotomayor's detractors.

I think he has to realize that flying to New York is self-indulgent. Go down to the corner bar and have a drink, a shot and a beer. It does not matter where you go with your wife, is that it's with your wife. That's really the point... I would make the argument, the simpler the date, the more normal it is.

The hot target at the moment: levying a tax on health benefits provided through employers, which currently aren't subject to taxation.

Why it looks likely: It's a cash cow. The deduction on health benefits is worth more than $200 billion annually. Baucus does not want to eliminate the deduction, but he has floated a cap that would tax plans worth more than a certain amount. Liberal and conservative academics support the change. And congressional Republicans have advocated eliminating the tax-free status of employer insurance, giving the idea bipartisan credibility (although the GOP would want to return all the money to individuals in the form of tax credits).

...As a candidate, Obama ran against the idea of taxing health benefits. It could also endanger his pledge not to raise taxes on individuals earning less than $200,000 annuually. Still, White House aides have sent signals that Obama would not veto a bill that changed the tax treatment of health benefits.    Link

Possible implications as far certifying Franken:

Pawlenty is under far less pressure to certify Democrat Al Franken as the winner in the Minnesota Senate race if the state Supreme Court rejects the election appeal of former Sen. Norm Coleman...

...Pawlenty can refuse to sign the election certificate for Franken -- if Coleman wants to take the legal fight federal -- and continue to raise his national profile by arguing (in his low key, inoffensive way) on a variety of televisions outlets that he is simply trying to ensure no legitimate votes are left uncounted, a GREAT issue for him in the eyes of GOP base voters.

That remains just as true today. So, if Coleman decides he wants to take the case to the federal level if he were to lose at the state court level, there's now a significantly higher likelihood that Pawlenty would be receptive to such a move.

But, not really.

"I do not believe and have never seen any evidence to confirm that [Hussein] was involved in 9/11. We had that reporting for a while, [but] eventually it turned out not to be true," Cheney conceded.

But Hussein was "somebody who provided sanctuary and safe harbor and resources to terrorists. ... [It] is, without question, a fact."

Feinstein said she would ask Sotomayor about the "wise Latina" comment, which she said had been "made into something egregious." She said she also wants to discuss important constitutional topics including abortion, a hot-button issue on which Sotomayor's views are not known .

"I'll ask her how she views the constitutional right to privacy," Feinstein said, adding that she "might" inquire about Sotomayor's position on the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that established a woman's right to end her pregnancy.

"BE IT ENACTED by the Senate and house of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That all non citizen Indians born within the territorial limits of the United States be, and they are hereby, declared to be citizens of the United States: Provided That the granting of such citizenship shall not in any manner impair or otherwise affect the right of any Indian to tribal or other property. (Approved June 2, 1924)"

The administration took a tragic situation and turned it into an expensive mess to pay a political debt. It wasted billions of dollars over many months delaying GM's filing and then implicitly put itself on the hook for many billions more. The financial, political and social echoes of that decision will be with us for a long time. In short, they blew it.

SANTIAGO, Chile --  Two suitcases carried by a woman who was about to fly to from Chile to Spain were virtually made of cocaine, police said.

Detective Leandro Morales at the Santiago airport said the drug "was not hidden in the luggage. This time the suitcases were the drug."

The suitcases were made of a substance combining cocaine with resin and glass fiber, Morales told The Associated Press.

A "chemical process" could be used to separate out the drug, Morales said, adding that the suitcases were heavier than their contents.