Prof. Chemerinsky says Justice Ginsburg “has in her power the ability to prevent a real shift in the balance of power on the court.”  —  “On the other hand, there's the personal.  How do you decide to leave the United States Supreme Court?”  —  Wow!  How much of this kind of moral pressure is being applied to the venerable Justice?

It's Reagan's party no more  —  It should cause no shortage of frustration for congressional Republicans that President Obama is in line with the Reagan legacy — and they're actively rejecting it.  Politico's David Rogers had a fine piece of reporting touching on this point yesterday.

Strauss-Kahn Case Adds to Doubts on Prosecutor  —  Cyrus R. Vance Jr., the Manhattan district attorney, seemed preoccupied when he sat down with two reporters last Monday.  He already knew what the world would soon learn: his marquee prosecution, the sexual assault case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn, was falling apart.

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The Failure of Al Gore Part Three: Singing the Climate Blues  —  Some readers are wondering why I am spending so much time analyzing the political problems of a former vice president.  It is not out of any personal animus toward Mr. Gore.  Though I'm not expecting any invitations …

Europe Agrees to Give Billions to Greece  —  BRUSSELS — Greece will get a vital loan installment by July 15 while work continues on a second bailout for the struggling country, euro zone finance ministers said Saturday.  —  The ministers agreed to their portion of the 12 billion euro …

Obama's Declaration of Dependence  —  Dozens of countries have “Independence Days.”  November 25th, for example: Independence Day in Suriname.  In that instance as in most others, the designation signifies nothing more than transfer of de jure sovereignty and de facto operational control …

Here's The Legal Complaint WikiLeaks Is Threatening To File Against Visa, MasterCard  —  More than six months have passed since Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, and others cut WikiLeaks' purse strings.  And if that blockade lasts six more days, the secret-spilling group plans to take its financial fight to the courtroom.

Biden to Union Members: If You Vote Republican, Don't Ask Me For Any Help  —  Vice President Joe Biden acknowledged it wasn't a political event, but it still didn't prevent him from sending this warning to Teamsters union members during his address at their annual convention in Las Vegas this past Friday.

On Obama's visit, presidential seal blew off his limo on I-76; it later was recovered  —  There's nothing quite like that feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when you just know that you've lost something important.  —  It happens to people all the time - especially travelers.

China's Stimulus  —  Word from Prime Minister Wen Jiabao : … Now obviously what Wen doesn't add to that is “and a lot of this new construction is pretty wasteful.”  But the reality is that it is.  People often say that China has a billion people.  But it doesn't.  It has over 1.3 billion people.

Obama: We can't afford to keep every tax break  —  President Obama used his weekly address to reiterate his demand for ending tax breaks for “millionaires and billionaires” in any budget deal to raise the nation's debt limit.  —  “It would be nice if we could keep every tax break, but we can't afford them,” Obama said.