In fact, as the court's 58-page opinion shows, gun controllers are the ones who have reinterpreted the Second Amendment, finding hidden meaninglessness. They insist that "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms" guaranteed by the Second Amendment, unlike the rights of "the people" mentioned in the First, Fourth, Ninth, and 10th amendments, is not a right that belongs to people. But as the D.C. Circuit pointed out, "The Second Amendment would be an inexplicable aberration if it were not read to protect individual rights as well."...

The Washington Post called this ruling "radical." I suppose it is, in the sense that it goes to the root of what the Framers wanted to protect.

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It is too bad to see the new congressional majority break its pledge of fiscal responsibility so soon.

Members of Congress used to know an earmark when they saw one. They used the term to describe any of the favored, parochial expenditures that lawmakers might tuck into a complicated spending bill — $35 million for a Mississippi space center, for example, $25 million for spinach growers or $74 million for peanut farms....

Democrats pointed to the new rule, which defined "Congressional earmark?"as any expenditure requested by a lawmaker, intended for a specific state, district or "entity," and outside the usual administrative process. None of the three allocations qualify as an earmark, Democrats said.

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Says Todd Gaziano, director of the conservative Heritage Foundation's Center for Legal and Judicial Studies: "Every president has engaged in the equivalent of warrantless wiretapping and surveillance-the only difference is that this administration is being far more sensitive to civil liberties."

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Even when monopoly or cartelization exist, moreover, antitrust has undesirable side effects.

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"Politically, it is very difficult to fight this very simple idea of 'Let the people vote,' which is the slogan the other side is marketing," Cunningham said.

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The real American question of our times is how our country in a little over 200 years sank from the great hope to the most backward democracy in the West. The U.S. offers the worst healthcare program, one of the worst public school systems and the worst benefits for workers. The margin between rich and poor has been growing precipitously while it has been decreasing in Europe. Among the great democracies, we use military might less cautiously, show less respect for international law and are the stumbling block in international environmental cooperation. Few informed people look to the United States anymore for progressive ideas.

We ought to do something. Instead, we keep worrying about the vision of a bunch of sexist, slave-owning 18th century white men in wigs and breeches. Even in the 18th century, the founding fathers were not the most enlightened thinkers available....

To be honest, the U.S. was never as good as it was supposed to be.

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Campaign finance reform is what it pretends to combat: corruption. The Supreme Court should have said something like that when it struck down, as unconstitutional abridgments of free speech, Vermont's severe limits on contributions to and spending by campaigns.

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A GOP aide said the Judiciary Committee is moving toward a vote on William Haynes' confirmation to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in July. But before the committee brings Haynes up for a vote, Chairman Arlen Specter (R.-Pa.) is likely hold a second hearing, at which time Haynes would be given the opportunity to defend himself from Democrat attacks for his role as general counsel at the Department of Defense. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R.-S.C.) has also drawn the ire of conservatives for his role with Haynes....

Another nominee, Michael Wallace, who was tapped by Bush for the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, is also slated to get his first hearing before the committee in July, the GOP aide told me. Wallace has come under attack for his "not qualified" rating by the American Bar Association, but Republicans have attributed the rating to political bias on the part of the ABA.

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In yesterday's ruling, a five-justice majority agreed that the Army Corps of Engineers, the lead federal agency on wetlands regulation, exceeded its authority when it denied two Michigan developers permits to build on wetlands. The court said the Corps had gone beyond the Clean Water Act by making landowners obtain permits to dump rocks and dirt not only in marshes directly next to lakes and rivers but also in areas linked to larger bodies of water only through a network of ditches and drains.

But there was no clear majority as to where the Corps should have drawn the line, with a four-justice plurality made up of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. arguing for an across-the-board reduction in the Corps' regulatory role but Kennedy rejecting that view and calling for a case-by-case approach.

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To add insult to injury, the rights of property owners who had their homes and businesses damaged by Katrina's wrath now face a more powerful and potent threat. Local government officials, armed with the public health code, eminent domain powers and a bevy of dubious legal techniques, aim to demolish buildings--and, some fear, strip titles from owners--in what are being euphemistically called "forced buyouts."

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Inouye also said he believed it "would be unwise" to battle for a new vote this year on the Native Hawaiian federal recognition bill after the Senate rejected an effort last week to bring the bill to the floor for a debate and vote.

Instead, supporters are expected to offer a new version of the Native Hawaiian bill after the next Congress convenes in January.

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All the other projects associated with the Fort Trumbull development--the condominiums, the retail shops and restaurants, the hotel half of whose rooms Pfizer, Inc. promised in 1999 to keep permanently filled--€”are out where the woodbine twineth, vaporware with no visible means of support.

If you want another example (beyond the intrusion on individual rights) of why eminent domain abuse needs to be stopped, New London is in the process of providing it. The city is in the final stages of removing private property owners in the name of a development plan that is nearly ten years old, drafted in an era of post-cold-war base closings, soaring profits for pharmaceutical companies, and a depressed real estate market. That is to say, at a time when the local, state, and national economies were entirely different from what they are today. Pfizer, a private company, has already moved on from its entanglement in the Fort Trumbull mess. The city of New London can't. They broke Fort Trumbull, and now they've bought it.

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Hawaii's statehood referendum passed with an incredible 94.3 percent of the vote. About 95 percent of the Hawaiians who voted specifically agreed to all the terms of the admission act. Fewer than 8,000 Hawaiians voted no on either question. Because approximately 20 percent of the population in 1959 would have qualified as '€śnative'€ť under the definition in S.147, then at least three-fifths of that group must also have voted for statehood with no separate rights for individuals of their ancestry. Though a small minority opposed statehood, at no point in the statehood debate did anyone in Congress suggest that the U.S. should treat so-called 'native Hawaiians' like an Indian tribe. As the above statements demonstrate, Hawaiians'€™ sentiment was, in fact, quite the opposite.

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Faced with the inability of two bickering attorneys to resolve even the most innocuous scheduling questions without his intervention, a Florida federal judge yesterday ordered the two to meet on the steps of the federal courthouse and resolve their latest quarrel by playing "one (1) game of 'rock, paper, scissors.' "

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"It is only for people of Native Hawaiian blood," said 'Ehu Kekahu Cardwell, director of the Koani Foundation, a grass-roots group dedicated to restoring the Hawaiian nation.

"We want it to be for any descendants of kingdom nationals who were loyal to the queen during the time she was deposed. We want everyone to be able to have a say in how this turns out," Mr. Cardwell said.

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