Wonkette

* Iraq Study Group leaks its non-binding recommendations: they want to withdraw American troops, offer no timetable. [WP, NYT, LAT]
* President Bush also ignored by Iraqis, as Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki ducks him at their so-called summit. [NYT]
* Bill Frist won’t run for president in 2008, cites influential Pete Seeger lyrics in announcement of decision. [WP, NYT, LAT]
* Majority of Americans think: Iraq is in civil war, Donald Rumsfeld’s ouster was needed, and that Robert Gates probably won’t be able to really change anything over there. [WSJ]
* One of “the most difficult and important” recommendations of the 9/11 Commission will be largely ignored by the Democratic Congress. [WP]
* Supreme Court hears first case on Greenhouse gas emissions. Antonin Scalia says, “I don’t want to have to deal with global warming.” [WP, NYT]
* States will try to bolster the public’s “fragile trust” in electronic voting machines before 2008. [WSJ]

• New media fails Rick Santorum as his two full-time campaign bloggers can’t find a link to victory. [Blog P.I.]

• Regular basement bloggers thankful for self-aggrandizing post-election rant template. [Mr. Sun]
• One tiny ballot cast for a Democrat, one giant vote for Sean Penn, NAMBLA, the Klu Klux Klan, Pete Seeger, and Kim Jong-Il. [Sweetness & Light]
• Self styled hipster-minister blames Ted Haggard’s gayness on his wife’s refusal to strap it on and get the job done. [Pandagon]
• Supreme Court clerks are in it for the pussy, don’t care if you know. [Above The Law]
• Elvis Aaron Presley: registered voter, Memphis, Tennessee. [Voting in Memphis]
• Missouri Senate race to be decided by which candidate’s pronunciation of the state’s name sounds less like a redneck pig-fucker. [The Right Place]
• Next-to-last day of Katherine Harris’s political career goes swimmingly as she is endorsed by the brothers Bush. [The Swamp]

• FBI examines Foley’s computers after Dennis Hastert calls out the Justice Department junkyard dogs. [NYT, WP, Roll Call [sub. req.]]

• Tom Reynolds (R-NY) will not be “thrown under a bus” by Hastert, over who-knew-what-when Foley info. [WP]
• Foley not totally evil, was after all, “one of the cool congressmen.” [NYT]
• “GOP Suburban Agenda” in full effect as Republicans push through small bills that embattled incumbents can use to show constituents they did something. [WP]
• Supreme Court enters second term, “that will define the new court in both substance and style.” [NYT]
• Wal-Mart: now hiring anyone who’ll work for 15 cents a day and no bathroom breaks. [NYT]
• Virginia worries its regal brand identity will be tarnished by one of the overtly racist candidates it plans to elect to the Senate — Leno, Stewart agree. [WP]

Ever since we crawled out of bed this morning, we here at Wonkette Central have been wondering how best to handle Charles Lane’s totally awesome review in the Washington Post of Chief Justice John Roberts’ new “kid-friendly” biography, now on sale at the Supreme Court gift shop. We know, we know: gift shop? Can you buy genuine Supreme Court gavels there? Not answered in the article, but a lot else is. Basically, we’ve decided to just excerpt the best of the piece, along with an attempt to transcribe our own dumbfounded reaction. That’s right: it’s a snarky summary of an earnest summary of a book written for 12-year-olds. This skillfully illustrates why blogs exist and why maybe they shouldn’t. Layers of intertextuality continue after the jump.

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* The Supreme Court bench-slapped the White House in the Gitmo military tribunal case. Tony Snow is unfazed: “Oh, those wacky Supreme Court justices, who knows what those guys mean!” MORE »

Here’s Stephen Colbert’s take on yesterday’s Supreme Court decision in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, striking down the military tribunals for Guantanamo Bay detainees as violative of U.S. and international law. MORE »

• The Supreme Court strikes down the Bush Administration’s plan to try Guantanamo detainees before military commissions, as violative of both U.S. law and the Geneva Conventions. [NYT, WSJ, USAT, WP]

• The Court’s ruling places constitutional limits on Bush’s use of executive power in the war on terror and raises questions concerning how the Guantanamo Bay detainees’ cases should now be handled. Republicans are hoping to craft a legislative fix. [WP, NYT, LAT]
• As midterm elections approach, Senate Republicans are trying to figure out how to move forward on immigration reform and reach a compromise with their colleagues in the House. [WP]
• The House Republicans’ aggressive stance on immigration may harm Bush’s effort to improve the GOP’s standing with Latino voters. [WP]

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• More Koizumi/Bush/Elvis funnies — though Zengerle fails to point out that the Japanese Prime Minister looks remarkably like Jim Jarmusch. Or is that just us? [The Plank]

• There’s some sort of fight going on over in liberal blog-land, involving Kos, TNR, fascism, and now, “velvet gloves.” Keep up the kink and we might actually get interested. [TAPPED]
• Bounce! Bounce! Bounce! [The Corner]
• Counterterrorism blog to those who think Bush will pay attention to Hamdan: O RLY? [Counterterrorism Blog]

The Bush Administration’s preliminary reactions to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld are in — and they’re not terribly exciting or surprising.

At a press conference earlier today with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, President Bush got peppered with questions about the decision. Pretty much every non-Asian journalist in the room asked about Hamdan. Bush said that “we take them [the Supreme Court] very seriously.” Glad to hear it; so do we. He also stated that “we will conform to the Supreme Court.” Nothing controversial there.

Tony Snow’s PM presser wasn’t much more exciting. Every journalist present tried to get Snow to admit that the SCOTUS handed the White House its ass on a platter. But Snow didn’t take the bait, refusing to admit that the executive branch got housed by the judiciary. Quoth Tony: “You don’t sit around going, ‘Oh my gosh, the Supreme Court ruling!’ You try and deal with it.”

A few more remarks, after the jump.

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Just this morning, the Supreme Court struck down the Bush Administration’s plan to try Guantanamo detainees before military commissions, as violative of both U.S. law and the Geneva Conventions. The decision in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld was 5-3, with the conservatives — Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Alito — in dissent. (Chief Justice Roberts was recused, since he had ruled on the case — in favor of the government — as a lower court judge.) MORE »

• The Supreme Court upholds most of the GOP-designed redistricting plan for Texas, but strikes down the redrawing of one district as violating the Voting Rights Act. The Court’s ruling may encourage more gerrymandering in the future. [NYT, LAT, WSJ, USAT, WP]

• Former House majority leader Tom DeLay hails the Supreme Court’s ruling as “a victory for the Constitution and a victory for the people of Texas”; but the criminal case against him remains unaffected. [WP]
• Israeli forces continue attacks in Gaza and seize several Hamas leaders. Palestinian gunmen claim to have killed an Israeli settler. [WP, NYT]
• As midterm elections approach, Bush takes the offensive against congressional Democrats and the news media, casting them as uncooperative in the war on terror. [WP, NYT]

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