Identity Justice  —  Responding to early 19th-century rumors that they drank excessively, the Supreme Court justices decided to drink nothing on conference days — unless it was raining.  At the next conference, Chief Justice John Marshall asked Joseph Story to scan the sky for signs of rain.

Exploding debt threatens America  —  Standard and Poor's decision to downgrade its outlook for British sovereign debt from “stable” to “negative” should be a wake-up call for the US Congress and administration.  Let us hope they wake up.  —  Under President Barack Obama's budget plan, the federal debt is exploding.

Ted Olson goes to court on behalf of gay marriage  —  Former Bush administration solicitor general Theodore Olson is part of a team that has filed suit in federal court in California seeking to overturn Proposition 8 and re-establish the right of same-sex couples to marry.

It Sticks in My Craw  —  Most e-mailers were with me on the post on the pronunciation of Judge Sotomayor's name (and a couple griped about the whole Latina/Latino thing — English dropped gender in nouns, what, 1,000 years ago?).  But a couple said we should just pronounce it the way the bearer …

Flashback: George H.W. Bush On Clarence Thomas' ‘Great Empathy’  —  Conservatives have curiously decided that one of the best ways to battle Obama's first Supreme Court nominee is by declaring a war on empathy.  When he described his criteria for selecting a replacement for Justice David Souter …

Burris on tape offering a check for Blagojevich  —  A transcript of a secretly recorded phone call between the brother of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich and U.S. Sen. Roland Burris was released in federal court today, a call in which Burris, then seeking the Senate seat, was recorded offering the Blagojevich campaign a campaign check.

Billions in new cuts loom for California — including eliminating welfare and closing most state parks  —  Faced with a ballooning deficit and a clear signal that voters won't pay more to fix it, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger released a budget plan Tuesday that would eliminate welfare …

Supervisor Asks Woman To Take Down American Flag  —  UPDATE: Hospital Says Woman May Re-Hang Flag (Read More Below)  —  MANSFIELD (CBS 11 News) ― Is it okay to show your patriotism at the office?  —  For one Arlington woman, the answer was “no” after she hung an American flag in her office just before the Memorial Day weekend.

Huckabee to endorse Rubio for Florida Senate seat  —  WASHINGTON (CNN) - Florida Gov. Charlie Crist has rolled out a succession of endorsements from national Republicans since announcing his entrance into the 2010 Senate race.  —  Now his Republican primary rival, former Florida House speaker Marco Rubio …

North Korea Threatens Armed Strike, End to Armistice  —  North Korea threatened military action in response to South Korea joining a program to seize weapons shipments, and said it's no longer bound by the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War.  —  South Korea's actions are tantamount to a …

AT&T May Have Swayed ‘Idol’ Results  —  LOS ANGELES — AT&T, one of the biggest corporate sponsors of “American Idol,” might have influenced the outcome of this year's competition by providing phones for free text-messaging services and lessons in casting blocks of votes at parties organized …

Holder pressed for answers on Murtha project  —  Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) is pressing for new answers about funding for a counter-narcotics center that Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) has supported for more than two decades.  —  Coburn sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder late …

A “'Heritage of the Left' of the Right”  —  The political system enters a period of infinite regress: … This seems pretty misguided to me.  In particular, DHE needs to think harder about the fact that there are already well-resourced conservative think tanks with plenty of capabilities.

Professor Steven Chu: paint the world white to fight global warming  —  As a weapon against global warming, it sounds so simple and low-tech that it could not possibly work.  But the idea of using millions of buckets of whitewash to avert climate catastrophe has won the backing of one of the world's most influential scientists.