U.S. Supreme Court decides, by 6-3 margin, to preserve Affordable Care Act subsidies for states that did not run their own exchanges. Chief Justice Roberts, writing for the majority, could not bring himself to believe that Congress intended to "destroy" the health insurance industry with the ACA, despite "more than a few examples of inartful drafting"; it's good to see him take a few halting steps outside the Prison of Literalism.
That was no better than the second-best Supreme Court decision of the day, though: the Court also ruled, by a 5-4 margin, that folks could sue to redress housing discrimination under the Fair Housing Act even if they couldn't prove intent to discriminate -- since if the result is racist, who cares what the "intent" was? Justice Kennedy even put the word "animus" in his majority opinion, and I wouldn't be surprised to learn that he did it just to piss off Justice Scalia.
Bill Scher warns that "Republicans Ignore the Pope at Their Peril." I doubt that, since Republicans never seem to suffer for all the mammon-worshiping they do, but Mr. Scher does a public service in noting how quickly Republicans inject religion into politics when it supports their ends, but how quickly they criticize Pope Francis for doing the same when it doesn't.
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, arguably the most unpopular Governor in the land, is running for President, and we honor this event most appropriately, I think, by linking to this Onion article entitled "Bobby Jindal Not Sure He's Willing to Put Family Through Two-Month Presidential Campaign." You know what might actually be better, though? If he and all the others had a pretty solid five percent base of supporters who'd run through a wall for them, denying Republicans a nominee by convention-time.
Finally, Yes! magazine (who else?) does some serious bright-side looking after the nefarious "free" trade "fast-track" bill passed the Senate earlier this week. Long story short: we didn't stop it, but we did a lot of good anyway -- and the public will get to look at the TPP (at last! After all those wonderful early reviews!) for two full months before Congress can vote on it, which we can only hope will be like sunlight to a vampire.
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