Oh, this is comforting:

Of concern to McCain's campaign, however, is a remaining and still-undisclosed clip from Palin's interview with Couric last week that has the political world buzzing.

The Palin aide, after first noting how "infuriating" it was for CBS to purportedly leak word about the gaffe, revealed that it came in response to a question about Supreme Court decisions.

After noting Roe vs. Wade, Palin was apparently unable to discuss any major court cases.

There was no verbal fumbling with this particular question as there was with some others, the aide said, but rather silence.

[Politico]

Wherein you, the readers, talk amongst yourselves.

So the Supreme Court clarified the definition of the Second Amendment today, ruling that it does protect an individual's right to bear arms. The ruling knocked down D.C.'s existing handgun ban and will do the same in many other places throughout the country, making guns more accessible. What do you think about the decision?

LISTEN UP, HILLARY-OR-NOTHING DEMOCRATS Here's a taste of what's at stake: "The next President of the United States will have an enormous opportunity to shape the U.S. Supreme Court for decades. That’s because several members of the court are getting up there in years. John McCain says he would pick Justices along the lines of John Roberts and Samuel Alito, two conservatives nominated by President Bush. Barack Obama told me last week that he would favor nominees along the lines of Justices Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, two liberals nominated by former President Bill Clinton. Clearly, the two presidential frontrunners have a major disagreement on this critically important issue, and no doubt it would be a major consideration for voters in the fall." [CNN]

Wherein you, the readers, talk amongst yourselves.

The U.S. Supreme Court today placed its judicial stamp of approval on an Indiana voting law that requires photo identification at polling places. Opponents of the law say it could disenfranchise "countless elderly, poor, and minority voters." The Indiana primary is on May 6th.

Do you think there's a good justification for a law like this or does it seem like it's designed to keep certain people from voting?

Yesterday, I asked you to weigh in on the death penalty debate in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision that executing death row prisoners by lethal injection does not amount to cruel and unusual punishment. One would assume, to the chagrin of those who don't believe in capital punishment, that the new ruling will speed up executions, which been on hold all over while the court made its decision. But, according to the New York Times, the ruling might slow the process down in many states as lawyers for death row inmates try to navigate the new legal standards.

Proponents of the death penalty are pleased with the decision, but one admits that the Supreme Court failed to "completely slam the door and lock it." Opponents say the ruling only opens the door for more litigation.

Lawyers representing death row inmates said the plurality opinion presented them two challenges. One is to distinguish their state’s procedures from that used in Kentucky. The other is to overcome the high evidentiary bar Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. set for all challenges to methods of execution.

Experts agree that the quick-to-kill states — Texas, Alabama, etc. — will have execution dates lined up before we know it. Yay.

The Supreme Court just approved lethal injection as an appropriate form of execution and is currently deciding whether or not a man can be put to death for a crime other than murder. Are you for or against the death penalty? As it's used now, do you believe that it is effective in any way? Why or why not?

The desiccated Supreme Court today overturned the death sentence of Allen Snyder, a black Louisiana man convicted of murdering his wife's lover in 1996.

In a 7-2 decision penned by poncey Justice Samuel Alito, the court ruled that the state trial judge erred when he allowed prosecutors to strike a specific black juror, a man who they said was being dismissed because he was a college student worried about missing class, not because he was black. The Supreme Court reacted with skepticism to that claim, and rightfully so: All five black jurors in Snyder's jury pool were dismissed, leaving an all-white group of 12. Then, throughout the court proceedings, which took place only months after the racially charged OJ Simpson trial, the lead prosecutor reminded the jury often of the "similarities" between the Simpson case and Snyder's case.

The Supreme Court ruled 7-2 — Clarence Thomas was one of the two, in case you were wondering — to allow judges to use their discretion to impose more lenient sentencing for crack-related crimes than federal sentencing guidelines demand. In her majority statement, Ruth Bader Ginsberg said that judges can use their discretion and take into account the stark disparity in crack and cocaine sentencing.

Tomorrow, the U.S. Sentencing Commission will vote on whether to apply a new set of guidelines, which slightly reduce the crack/cocaine (read: black/white) sentencing disparity, retroactively to people who are currently serving time in prison.

One small step for man; one giant leap for Tyrone Biggums.

Snyder v. Louisiana, a controversial case involving a 1996 Louisiana murder trial during which the prosecutor frequently compared the black suspect (who was convicted and sentenced to the death penalty) to the recently-acquitted O.J. Simpson in front of a meticulously-selected, all-white jury, went before the Supreme Court yesterday.

Snyder's lawyer said that the prosecutor "learned" from O.J. Simpson's sensational murder trial that he shouldn't let any blacks on the jury and played to the divisive racial feelings aroused by Simpson's verdict to secure a guilty conviction. Not surprisingly, Justice Antonin Scalia didn't agree. Even less surprisingly, Clarence Thomas had nothing to say on the matter. The decision is expected by the summer. [MSNBC]

• Wow, this show just gets worse and worse. [MG]

• Black lawyers rarely go before the U.S. Supreme Court. [AP]

• Humiliating workplace stories? You know you have them. [Jossip]

• Another Sean Paul song for you to get tired of after three plays. [CL]

• Jay-Z's American Gangster tour sold out within 1 minute in Chicago, LA and Philadelphia. I guess he wouldn't want to help Kelly Rowland out with a guest appearance on her tour? [Bossip]

• The FDA just approved a new HIV drug that attacks the virus in a different way — great news for patients who have developed a resistance to current HIV drugs.

• Calling Supreme Court justices — women are just as likely to get abortions when it's illegal as they are when it's not.

• Breast cancer treatment differs between black and white women. No way!

• Prostate cancer is more likely to return in blacks than in whites.

• First borns have higher IQs? As a last born, i recent the implications.

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, aka one of black America's least favorite black men (of all time, perhaps), has written a memoir, which the Washington Post characterizes as "angry." This makes sense, considering the fact that Thomas has been all but sitting in the corner sulking with his arms crossed since his contentious, scandal-plagued confirmation hearings in, umm, 1991. Someone's still nursing some hurt feelings.

"My Grandfather's Son," for which Thomas has received a reported $1.5 million, is a 289-page memoir of his life in rural Georgia, his reliance on religious faith and his rise to the high court. His book ends with the day he was sworn in and contains only fleeting mentions of his time on the bench.

Thomas lovingly describes the iron-willed grandfather who raised him after his own father abandoned him as a toddler, praises the Roman Catholic Church for providing him with an education but criticizes it for not being as "adamant about ending racism then as it is about ending abortion now," and gives a detailed description of the confirmation hearings that electrified the nation in 1991 and the sexual harassment allegations by Anita Hill that he said destroyed his reputation.

Wow. That critique of the Catholic church — that it was not as adamant about ending racism then as it is about ending abortion now — is a pretty damn ballsy statement coming from Clarence Thomas. Is it too much to hope that he spends a portion of the $1.5 million he received for the book on some lessons in self-reflection? Or therapy? I wish I didn't care, but we are stuck with this guy for a long, long time.

[WP]