The Supreme Court issued seven decisions this morning. Unfortunately, none of them are the Second Amendment incorporation case we've all been waiting for, McDonald v. City of Chicago or the First Amendment religion and schools case Christian Legal Society v. Martinez (Hastings) Those will be issued Monday at 10AM Eastern, and all signs point to Alito writing McDonald so warm up the skull.

The Court did get around to the Washington referendum case. This is the one where the petitioning groups sued to prevent Washington from disclosing their names under the state's Public Records Act, claiming that forced disclosure would burden their First Amendment speech rights. For background, see this post and poll from last fall.

Today the Court holds 8-1 that, generally, disclosure of the names of petition signers does not impermissibly burden rights protected by the First Amendment. The State's interest in preserving integrity of the petition process, preventing fraud, promoting transparency, a providing accountability outweigh the "modest burdens" of having one's name known for signing a referendum petition.

However, the Court notes that the only issue properly raised in the case so far is the facial First Amendment challenge to public disclosure of referendum petitions. The petitioners in this case also claimed that Washington cannot disclose their petitions because signers would be subjected to threats, harassment, and reprisals for signing. That claim was never decided by the district court originally and, therefore, not decided on appeal. The case now goes back on that issue.

The Chief Justice wrote the majority opinion (PDF). There are several concurring opinions, which I haven't had a chance to comb through yet. Justice Thomas dissented, stating that public disclosure of petitions would chill citizen participation in the referendum process.

Later: I just want to point out how radical Justice Thomas' solution here is. As we discussed last fall (top link, above), I think the states -- and their citizens -- should be able to decide how much or how little disclosure is appropriate. Some states presently do not allow disclosure of petitions. Some, like Washington, do. In fact, Washington's disclosure law was itself created by voter initiative, rather than the state legislature. Justice Thomas would disallow that and prevent all states from adopting disclosure laws.

Update: My own views most closely track with Justice Scalia:

In my view this is not a matter for judicial interest-balancing. Our NationÂ’s longstanding traditions of legislating and voting in public refute the claim that the First Amendment accords a right to anonymity in the perform-ance of an act with governmental effect...

When a Washington voter signs a referendum petition subject to the PRA, he is acting as a legislator. The Washington Constitution vests “[t]he legislative authority” of the State in the legislature, but “the people reserve to themselves the power . . . to approve or reject at the polls any act, item, section, or part of any bill, act, or law passed by the legislature.”...

Plaintiffs point to no precedent from this Court holding that legislating is protected by the First Amendment.3 Nor do they identify historical evidence demonstrating that “the freedom of speech” the First Amendment codified encompassed a right to legislate without public disclosure.This should come as no surprise; the exercise of lawmaking power in the United States has traditionally been public....

Legislating was not the only governmental act that waspublic in America. Voting was public until 1888 when theStates began to adopt the Australian secret ballot. See Burson v. Freeman, 504 U. S. 191, 203 (1992) (plurality opinion). We have acknowledged the existence of a First Amendment interest in voting, see, e.g., Burdick v. Taku-shi, 504 U. S. 428 (1992), but we have never said that it includes the right to vote anonymously. The history ofvoting in the United States completely undermines that claim.

The long history of public legislating and voting contradicts plaintiffs’ claim that disclosure of petition signatures having legislative effect violates the First Amendment. As I said in McIntyre, “[w]here the meaning of a constitutional text (such as ‘the freedom of speech’) is unclear, the widespread and long-accepted practices of the American people are the best indication of what fundamental beliefs it was intended to enshrine.” 514 U. S., at 378 (dissenting opinion). Just as the century-old practice of States’ prohibiting anonymous electioneering was sufficient for me to reject the First Amendment claim to anonymity in McIntyre, the many-centuries-old practices of public legislating and voting are sufficient for me to reject plaintiffs’ claim.

Between Thomas and Scalia, I know which way I'd go. I strongly recommend Scalia's concurring opinion. He wouldn't even allow the harassment claim to go back to the district court.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 07:10 AM | Comments (56)
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Thuuuuursdy. Bleargh.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:05 AM | Comments (161)
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After bad US housing news sent stocks into an early swoon, DAGGER marshaled his various cybernetic forces and drove the Dow up to a tiny gain for the day to close at 10,298.44. The S&P 500 likewise moved up off the morning lows to close about three points lower at 1,092.04. (Did anyone else notice that freaky spike around 2:30PM EDT? DAGGER must have sneezed or something.) Generally speaking it was a big fat meh of a day.

Break out the umbrellas, boys and girls. A hard rain's gonna fall.

more...

Posted by: Monty at 03:16 AM | Comments (55)
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Happy Hump Day all.

Today's Epic 3-Day Wimbledon Match

On Tuesday afternoon John Isner and Nicolas Mahut started a first round match but had to stop after three hours due to darkness. They restarted this morning and after 7 hours! of play are still tied at 59-59 in the fifth set and had to stop again because of darkness. Apparently Wimbledon doesn't allow tie-breakers on the final set so they'll keep playing until someone wins. Which means they'll be back out there tomorrow starting the 11th hour of their epic match.

And if it's not over by Friday, I say they should switch to short swords and tridents. Of course tennis isn't really my game so no doubt I've completely botched some detail here. It's the game with racquets right?

And in other sports news the American soccer team defeated Algeria 1-0 in this morning's World Cup match. (Well 2-0 if you count the goals we actually scored - yep there was another blown referee call that cost the US a point) So amazingly the US has won its group for the first time since 1930 and now advances into the Round of 16. Next match will be against Ghana on Saturday at 2:30pm EST. Ghana is ranked lower than the US so there's a good chance we'll win that one as well.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:30 PM | Comments (689)
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Well, that was interesting.

I know a lot of folks here didn't think McChrystal should have lost his command and career over the Rolling Stone article and none of us like Obama. But McChrystal did throw his job away and in the end, Obama did the best thing to give us a chance for a good outcome in Afghanistan.

The Weekly Standard pulled up Gen. Petraeus' testimony from last week before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Here's part of what he said about the July '11 deadline.

"It's important that July 2011 be seen for what it is, the date when a process begins based on conditions, not the date when the U.S. heads for the exits," said Petraeus. "Moreover, my agreement with the president's decisions was based on projections of conditions in July 2011.

Note 'conditions', not dates.

Picking Petraeus for this command is a double edged sword for Obama. On one hand he's given himself the chance to say in the future, "I gave you the best guy and look, it's not working. Not even King David could win in Afghanistan. We're outta here".

On the other hand he's saying right now, with a lot of credibility, "I need to win this and I'm giving us the best shot with the one guy the majority of the nation will rally around".

Petraeus may well be a selfless patriot but he's not stupid enough to go into a setup.

Now, all good soldiers think they can do the mission and as CentCom commander he undoubtedly has a feeling of responsibility to the men and women in the fight, but Petraeus is more than a good soldier, he's a good inside the system fighter as well. He's not going to take on a hopeless cause. He has to honestly believe this war can be won and that Obama and the people he will have to work with can do it.

In some ways by picking the highest profile general in America, Obama is making Petraeus a partner in the war. Petraeus has laid it on the table that he will be back next year to report on whether or not the conditions are right to start withdrawing next year. Given who he is, what he's accomplish, Americans are going to believe him. If he says to Congress "No, conditions don't allow us to pull out", then Obama has to live with that.

Obama could have played through McChrystal saying that and pulled out anyway. He can't do that with Petraeus. Not after how he gets to that point.

I really thought Obama would suck up the story because keeping McChrystal was the easiest path to exiting in '11. Firing McChrystal means giving people a chance to say, 'give the new guy some more time'. But with Petraeus that pressure will be overwhelming. If he asks for it.

There won't be a change in strategy since McChrystal was running the local version of the Petraeus playbook and Petraeus was his boss but there may well be some changes in style and tactics. It will be interesting to see what becomes of McChyrstal's much criticized Rules of Engagement.

I don't know if those ROEs were coming from the White House but McChrystal accepted and defended them if they did. What will Petraeus do?

No matter what...good luck to the General, the men and women he now directly commands and yes, the President of the United States.

Added: CDR Salamander doesn't like the idea of Petraeus moving to direct command.

Posted by: DrewM at 11:37 AM | Comments (363)
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Still. Wow.

Will Eikenbery and Holbroke go as well? How about bringing Crocker out of retirement at the Bush center?

Picking Petraeus will enable Obama to say, "I'm in this to win it" it also eliminates any problem with confirmation by the Senate.

Petraeus is taking one for the team and by team I mean the country. This is a huge personal sacrifice and quite frankly a danger to his legacy. Winning Afghanistan is not a give, needless to say. If there was any doubt (and there wasn't), the man is a patriot. Godspeed to him.

I can't believe that McCrystal caused all of this over the chance to take a couple of shots at Joe "BFD" Biden, Jim Jones and Richard Holborke.

I have no love for Obama but McChrystal placed him in a no win situation.

First interesting thing to see when Petraeus gets in will be if he changes the ROEs.

*Technically, Obama says he accepted McChrystal's resignation. more...

Posted by: DrewM at 09:21 AM | Comments (440)
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Obama is going to make his McChrystal announcement at 1:30 so here's a little something to hold you over until then...

Eliot "Keep You Socks On" Spitzer is going to be hosting a show on CNN with Kathleen "Sure I'll Sell Myself To Be CNNs Favorite 'Conservative' Parker".

Slublog has an exclusive screen cap from the pilot, complete with graphics.

Meanwhile, Jim Treacher suggests we help CNN come up with a name for the show.

Posted by: DrewM at 09:07 AM | Comments (113)
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Pretty good.

This team has a serious problem with not getting it together until the 70th minute of a game.

Posted by: Ace at 08:02 AM | Comments (200)
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Instapundit is always pushing a theory (a pretty good one) that abstract codes about ethics wind up obscuring genuine bad behavior, as people wind up complying with the ethical code but violate common decency. An easy example is the media, whose ethics code requires them to (giggle) refuse to state their politics and political affiliation. Having done that, they are supposedly "clean" of bias. Which then enables them to do all sorts of biased reporting.

As true as that might be, it's a terrific thing when a rotten-hearted bastard who has violated the moral code, for which he cannot be made to answer, winds up also violating the ethical code, for which he can be.

Robert Chatingy, you'll recall, believes that "sexual sadism" as found in 99% of serial killers ought to be a mitigating factor at sentencing, and perhaps an exonerating one. A vicious admitted serial killer came before him and no longer wished to fight his well-deserved death penalty; acting as judge, Chatigny threatened to have the serial killer's lawyer's bar licence yanked unless he violated his client's wishes and fought the sentence.

And none of that apparently was enough to disqualify him in the eyes of Obama.

Well maybe this might.

President Barack ObamaÂ’s nominee to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, Robert N. Chatigny, did legal work as a private defense attorney in 1992 for convicted serial killer Michael Ross and then, in 2005, as a federal district judge, led a proceeding that resulted in a delay in RossÂ’ execution. Chatigny says he forgot about the earlier work and should have recused himself from the matter.

“Had I recalled it, I would have recused myself,” Chatigny wrote in a questionnaire last month for the Senate Judiciary Committee.

In 1992, Chatigny reviewed motions filed on behalf of Ross and exchanged a letter with Ross, work that did not involve direct representation of the killer.

...

In a written response to questions from Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Chatigny wrote, “I recalled my prior involvement only after one of the complainants amended his initial complaint to include a claim based on my prior involvement. Until then, I had no recollection of it.”

Ross had been convicted in 1987 and sentenced to death for the killing of four teenage girls; he boasted of raping and killing four other women.

I usually remember the bulk of my personal correspondence with serial rapist-killers who boast of having killed eight women. That sort of thing tends to stick in my mind. But that's just me.

An ethics violation was already filed back in 2005 and the sitting judge, shocker of shockers, was cleared of all wrongdoing.

And what was the then-defense-attorney's suggestion to the serial killer? Was it to lodge his own pet defense of "sexual sadism"?

Posted by: Ace at 07:50 AM | Comments (59)
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Tweaker Terminatrix:

As West Valley City police Capt. Tom McLachlan said, "This was an episode that is out of the normal."

And that's an understatement.

A man was pulled over, posting business signs on the side of the road. Sylvina Beagley pulled up next to him and got out of her car.

"Unique thing about that was that, uh she was not wearing any clothes," McLachlan said.

Then she decided to steal his car, driving north toward West Valley City.

The man jumped into her abandoned car and followed Beagley, while dialing 911.

At 5300 South, she crashed into a gate on ATK property and ran. Officers eventually caught up with Beagley, but they couldn't quite physically catch her.

"She did have blood on her body from the initial crash. She was hot and sweaty, dirty, and very slippery. She managed to escape the grasp of the two officers," McLachlan said.

And she was off again! This time she got into a squad car and drove away, only to crash into another gate, hit a burm and soar 50 feet in the air.

Beagley didn't stop there either. She ran from the totaled car and scaled a barbed wire fence.

Officers realized a Taser was necessary to stop her, and so it ended.

"It's an unusual story. It'll pique the interest of a lot of people," McLachlan said.

I've got a pique in my pants.

The woman is expected to plead out to two counts of Partying Excessively Hardy.

Thanks to rdbrewer.

Black Eyes, Like A Doll's Eyes... Well, sadly but predictably, she is not exactly what you'd call classically hot.

Still. Stealin' cop cars and making 50 foot jumps adds a point or two.

Posted by: Ace at 07:33 AM | Comments (118)
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