The refrain from Washington has been that we need to look forward and not investigate credible allegations of wrongdoing. Such an approach has become something of a Beltway tradition, but this time it looks especially perverse. For more on pruning back executive power see Pruning Shears.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals today rejected the appeal by Philip Morris that the company has a first amendment right to sell its killer products wherever it pleases. San Francisco's law preventing pharmacies, seen by consumers as retail establishments that sell things that are good for you, from selling tobacco must now withstand another challenge from the pharmacy retail industry itself.

Pillars at SCOTUS via David Paul Ohmer. The full transcript from yesterday's Citizens United arguments has been released by SCOTUS. SCOTUSblog has links to both the transcript and the tape of oral argument, made available from PBS Newshour. Depending on the outcome of the case, there could be a reversal of laws which sought to balance speech rights against a compelling interest to prevent public corruption that go all the

The Citizens United case will be re-argued today before SCOTUS. As Robert Barnes put it, this is yet another test of stare decisis in a period where that hallowed doctrine has been repeatedly tested since Justice Roberts took the helm. And, more precisely, it "raises new ones about the boldness of a court that has moved to the right with the addition of Roberts and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr."

The last brief has just been filed in support of summary judgment in al-Haramain v. Obama. The critical states secrets case of the Bush/Cheney era is now set to be argued and decided by the court.

This is supposed to be a bipartisan occasion, there's no point in arguing over who tortured who.

Civil liberties extremists felt they had reason to celebrate when Barack Obama was elected President. It now appears that those celebrations were not justified.

Yesterday, Gregg highlighted some prime interview inanity from RNC chairman Michael Steele. The President himself has said he doesn't want to look backwards, but now he's allowing his Attorney General to do just that. Leaving aside the disturbing Pre-Crime connotations straight out of Phillip K. Dick's Minority Report, Steele's utter ignorance of how DOJ is supposed to properly function is stunning.

As several here have noted, there is a particularly odious op-ed spinning the CIA torture innocence position in today's New York Times by self professed novelist Joseph Finder.

The DOJ appointment of a special prosecutor has the Beltway press all aflutter. Why? Because it's that thing they do: The art of the hissy fit lies in your ability to bring the entire media over to the fainting couch over even the most absurd allegations of impropriety and insensitivity.