While John McCain was explaining on “The View” he wants justices on the SCOTUS who interpret the Constitution and not make law from the bench, Whoopi Goldberg asked if she should be worried about being a slave.

C’mon! Every amendment to the Constitution is still a part of the Constitution and this was a stupid question, in my opinion. Others may differ with me and think it was not a stupid question.

In the first ever ruling by the Supreme Court gun rights, the SCOTUS has voted 5-4 that the Constitution allows the right of hunters and homeowners to bear arms.

The court’s 5-4 ruling struck down the District of Columbia’s 32-year-old ban on handguns as incompatible with gun rights under the Second Amendment. The decision went further than even the Bush administration wanted, but probably leaves most firearms laws intact.

The court had not conclusively interpreted the Second Amendment since its ratification in 1791. The amendment reads: “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

The basic issue for the justices was whether the amendment protects an individual’s right to own guns no matter what, or whether that right is somehow tied to service in a state militia.

Writing for the majority, Justice Antonin Scalia said that an individual right to bear arms is supported by “the historical narrative” both before and after the Second Amendment was adopted.

The Constitution does not permit “the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home,” Scalia said. The court also struck down Washington’s requirement that firearms be equipped with trigger locks or kept disassembled, but left intact the licensing of guns.

This passed by only one vote and that one vote could have gone either way. Think about the Supreme Court when you vote in November. They are there for life while the president who puts them there is there only 8 years at the most.

Warning: Partisan Rant Follows:

I have suspected for a long time that NY Sen. Charles Schumer is really the one in charge in the Senate.

To me he’s an obnoxious partisan to the point of nothing I have ever seen recently.

Today he is quoted as saying the following:

New York Sen. Charles E. Schumer, a powerful member of the Democratic leadership, said Friday the Senate should not confirm another U.S. Supreme Court nominee under President Bush “except in extraordinary circumstances.”

“We should reverse the presumption of confirmation,” Schumer told the American Constitution Society convention in Washington. “The Supreme Court is dangerously out of balance. We cannot afford to see Justice Stevens replaced by another Roberts, or Justice Ginsburg by another Alito.”

Senators were too quick to accept the nominees’ word that they would respect legal precedents, and “too easily impressed with the charm of Roberts and the erudition of Alito,” Schumer said.

“There is no doubt that we were hoodwinked,” said Schumer, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee and heads the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

A White House spokeswoman, Dana Perino, said Schumer’s comments show “a tremendous disrespect for the Constitution” by suggesting that the Senate not confirm nominees.

“This is the kind of blind obstruction that people have come to expect from Sen. Schumer,” Perino said. “He has an alarming habit of attacking people whose character and position make them unwilling or unable to respond. That is the sign of a bully. If the past is any indication, I would bet that we would see a Democratic senatorial fundraising appeal in the next few days.”

It’s all about the party’s agenda and to heck with the constitution, isn’t it, Senator Schumer?

We want justices who will go to foreign countries’ law to decide law in this country rather than rely on the document that has kept us strong all these years, don’t we, Senator Schumer?

We want justices who will make law out of whole-cloth and proclaim it constitutional, don’t we Senator Schumer?

We want justices who will say the right to privacy is a constitutional guarantee someone can abort a baby for any or no reason, don’t we, Senator Schumer?

And last but not least, we want candidates for Supreme Court justices to testify as Ruth Bader Ginsburg did to the Senate, stating how she would rule in hypothetical cases, don’t we, Senator Schumer? In those days someone declared well-qualified by the ABA was all it took to be confirmed.

And I want to see you knocked down from your pedestal upon which you put yourself, Senator Schumer. I hope to live long enough to see that day. Yours is the face of the problems we are having in government right now, Sir, and you’re proud of it.

Yesterday the Supreme Court rejected Louisville, Ky., and Seattle, Wa., diversity plans because they were based solely on race for school assignments but the Court left the door open for using race in limited circumstances.

The court split, 5-4, with Chief Justice John Roberts announcing the court’s judgment. The court’s four liberal justices dissented.

The districts “failed to show that they considered methods other than explicit racial classifications to achieve their stated goals,” Roberts said.

Yet Justice Anthony Kennedy would not go as far as the other four conservative justices, saying in a concurring opinion that race may be a component of school plans designed to achieve diversity.

To the extent that Roberts’ opinion could be interpreted to foreclose the use of race in any circumstance, Kennedy said, “I disagree with that reasoning.”

He agreed with Roberts that the plans in Louisville and Seattle violated constitutional guarantees of equal protection.

Justice Stephen Breyer, in a dissent joined by the other liberals on the court, said Roberts’ opinion undermined the promise of integrated schools that the court laid out 53 years ago in its landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education.

“To invalidate the plans under review is to threaten the promise of Brown,” Breyer said.

I have grandchildren in school now and not my own children so I can’t speak too much to the question from first-hand experience except to say I know the schools in our city are integrated, but we are not as large a school system as these two cities.

I have always thought bussing children clear across town, when they have to stand at the side of the street waiting for the bus while it’s still dark and they don’t get home until after 5 pm in the afternoon, when it’s again dark in the winter, was not the best solution to the problem of integration, but it seemed to be the best solution fifty years ago.

Last night the Democratic presidential candidates apparently had another debate, and it included talk of this decision and of race.

I’m not going to review the entire debate except to say it was held at Howard University in front of a predominantely black audience, but one quote stuck out at me and has really angered me by what was said by Sen. Clinton:

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, the first female candidate with a serious shot at the presidency, drew the night’s largest cheer when she suggested there was a hint of racism in the way AIDS is addressed in this country.

“Let me just put this in perspective: If HIV-AIDS were the leading cause of death of white women between the ages of 25 and 34 there would be an outraged, outcry in this country,” said the New York senator.

Haven’t we spent millions of dollars on HIV-AIDS research and haven’t we tried to educate the people in our country on how one gets HIV-AIDS? Haven’t we sent millions of dollars to help stop the spread of HIV-AIDS in Africa, which the last time I looked, was populated mostly by people with black skin?

Excuse me, Sen. Clinton, but you are using the race card to continue to divide our country by race and you are not trying to bring together the various races in our country. It works better for your party if you keep a split there and make it look as though it’s all the Republicans’ fault.

Here’s a factoid I’m sure you know, but just failed to mention: President GW Bush has spent more money on AIDS research and prevention than any other president in our history, including your husband who was his immediate predecessor.

Before this everlasting campaign for president is over I expect to hear the old Social Security scare used to get the old people to vote against the Republicans because it has proven to be a vote-getter in the past.

When are we going to get past this and talk about solutions and not try to make people afraid and angry? This is done on both sides, and I’m tired of politics as usual. In fact, it’s one of the reasons I am tiring of politics altogether.

Nothing new gets said in campaigns from one year to the next. We just continue to anger and scare voters but offer no solutions.

The Republicans are guilty of it too, and when I see the quotes I’ll put them up here.

I’m only seeing banner headlines and short stories of one paragraph on two stories.

The first is the SCOTUS ruled against the boy who displayed a banner reading “Bong Hits For Jesus”. No other information on that yet.

The other is the SCOTUS has struck down some of the restrictions on corporate and union-funded ads.

From Yahoo News here is the complete story as it is written right now:

The Supreme Court loosened restrictions Monday on corporate- and union-funded television ads that air close to elections, weakening a key provision of a landmark campaign finance law.

What a difference a couple of justices make when we got rid of Sandra Day O’Connor and her citations of foreign law to back up her decisions rather than using our Constitution.

Update:From Breitbart News (AP) is this one sentence announcement of the “Bong Hits for Jesus” decision:

The Supreme Court tightened limits on student speech Monday, ruling against a high school student and his 14-foot-long “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” banner.

Update: here’s a more in-depth article about the campaign finance law.

Here’s a more in-depth article on the Bong Hits story.

According to this ABC news column President Bush is doing what most presidents do in June: preparing for a possible surprise resignation from the Supreme Court.

The SCOTUS justices who might step down are Ruth Bader Ginsburg and John Paul Stevens.

Justice Ginsburg has been said to not be in the best of health and has even fallen asleep on the bench this past year (I’ve been on juries where the judge usually sleeps through the trial) and Justice Stevens is getting on in years, so the speculation turns to them.

There may not be an opening in the Court, but most presidents prepare just in case there is.

Priscilla Owens and Janice Rogers Brown are on the short list, along with other less known candidates. Both Owens and Brown were filibustered for the judgeships they now hold, but now have records on a federal court to judge their positions.

If there is an opening, and that’s a big if, look for a dog fight like we haven’t seen in a long time in the Senate during any confirmation hearings, as this would definitely tip the Court to a conservative bent with four conservatives already there and Kennedy voting both ways on decisions.

That’s why I doubt either Ginsburg or Stevens will leave while this president is in office, if they can help it.