What’s interesting in the news today?
1. The ObamaCare ruling may end civilization as we know it.
Or not.
From TheAmericanSpectator “The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in King v. Burwell three weeks from now, and the possibility that the justices might uphold the health care “reform” law as written has driven our liberal friends to the edge of lunacy. This is never a long journey for anyone on the left, of course, but they have arrived at the precipice with unusual alacrity this time. Their predictions about the outcome should the Court rule that “established by the state” actually means “established by the state” have gone from the merely portentous to the downright apocalyptic in only a few months.
When the Court agreed last November to hear this lawsuit, which challenges the IRS decision to ignore the text of the law and issue tax credits through federally created insurance exchanges, Obamacare advocates were clearly shocked. Still, they affected confidence that the plaintiffs had no prayer of prevailing. The justices, they said, would never rule against the government based on a “drafting error” in the statute. But when these people discovered that the typo argument was so thin that even the Obama administration had stopped using it, they began to show signs of alarm.
They started predicting that the Court would “cripple” Obamacare. But 60 percent of Americans disapprove of the law, so this didn’t exactly cause panic in streets. Next, they said that a ruling against the government could deprive many of taxpayer-funded insurance subsidies. The taxpayers were oddly unmoved. Now, they have resorted to claims so wild that even progressives will have trouble taking them seriously. Think Progress, for example, published a screed last week with the following title: “How King v. Burwell Threatens the Lives of Millions of Children.”
And DNC mouthpieces like Think Progress are by no means the only purveyors of such balderdash. The nominally independent Slate warns that “9,800 additional Americans will die each year” if the Court rules against the Obama administration. Even relatively respectable publications have joined this chorus. The Hill posted a story last Friday titled, “King v. Burwell will decide the Fate of Millions,” whose author solemnly warns that “the wrong outcome” would put “American lives in peril” and “erode some of the largest coverage expansions in decades.””
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2. Somehow I doubt this will calm ObamaCare’s left-leaning supporters.
From TheNYPost “For five years, President Obama has ridiculed Republicans for not having “a meaningful alternative” to ObamaCare. The tables are turning.
Republicans announced a plan on Wednesday, just two weeks before the Supreme Court will hear a new, major challenge to the health law. If the president loses in court, he will have to deal with this GOP blueprint, not dismiss it.
The plan kills the major features of the Affordable Care Act, including mandates on individuals and employers, numerous taxes and the IPAB rationing board.
In their place, it offers tax credits for low-income citizens, more consumer choice, regulatory relief for employers and medical-malpractice reform to drive costs down.
Right now, it’s pie in the sky. Obama would veto it tomorrow.
But in a crisis, “the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable,” noted economist Milton Friedman. Whatever idea’s ready to go becomes the course of action.”
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3. Obama is putting forward his new authorization for military force against ISIS.
From BloombergView “President Barack Obama will soon give Congress his proposal for a new authorization for the use of military force against Islamic State fighters, and it will place strict limits on the types of U.S. ground forces that can be deployed, according to congressional sources.
Almost six months after the president began using force against the Islamic State advance in Iraq and then in Syria, the White House is ready to ask Congress for formal permission to continue the effort. Until now, the administration has maintained it has enough authority to wage war through the 2001 AUMF on al-Qaeda, the 2002 AUMF regarding Iraq and Article II of the Constitution. But under pressure from Capitol Hill, the White House has now completed the text of a new authorization and could send it to lawmakers as early as Wednesday.
If enacted, the president’s AUMF could effectively constrain the next president from waging a ground war against the Islamic State group until at least 2018. Aides warned that the White House may tweak the final details before releasing the document publicly. “
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4. How a family adoption trip led to a charge of criminal child neglect.
From MSNNews “For three years, Jessica Smith’s son had been begging her for a little brother.
Then the orphanage in Mongolia that had given her Ziggy called to tell her that it had another young boy for her. At the time, Ziggy, whose given name is Zorigt, had just started second grade at a D.C. public school.
Smith had to make a decision. Should she and Ziggy fly to Ulaanbaatar and adopt the child they’d been seeking to make their family three? Or should she avoid the risk of too many classroom absences and give up on the child for which they had been longing and waiting?
The decision she made landed Smith in D.C. Superior Court last month on a charge of criminal child neglect. In a city battling a sky-high truancy rate, her story illustrates the absurd rigidity of the rules, which forbid excusing more than 10 absences without a doctor’s note, a court note or an emergency.”
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5. Anybody shocked? They keep insisting there’s nothing there, yet they keep hiding documents.
From TheHill “The Obama administration is refusing to publicly release more than 500 documents on the IRS’s targeting of Tea Party groups.
Twenty months after the IRS scandal broke, there are still many unanswered questions about who was spearheading the agency’s scrutiny of conservative-leaning organizations.
The Hill sought access to government documents that might provide a glimpse of the decision-making through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.
The Hill asked for 2013 emails and other correspondence between the IRS and the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA). The request specifically sought emails from former IRS official Lois Lerner and Treasury officials, including Secretary Jack Lew, while the inspector general was working on its explosive May 2013 report that the IRS used “inappropriate criteria” to review the political activities of tax-exempt groups.
TIGTA opted not to release any of the 512 documents covered by the request, citing various exemptions in the law. The Hill recently appealed the FOIA decision, but TIGTA denied the appeal. TIGTA also declined to comment for this article.”
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6. HA! Finally the proof I needed to justify my afternoon nap. 🙂
From TheDailyMail “Indulging in a power nap can repair the damage caused by a lack of sleep, new research today claims.
Having a 30-minute snooze can help relieve stress and bolster the immune systems by restoring hormones and proteins to normal levels.
Scientists hope their findings will help shift workers and those suffering insomnia, by mitigating the damage caused by too few hours sleep.
Sleep deprivation not only puts people at increased risk of suffering accidents, but they are also more likely to develop chronic diseases including obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure and depression.
Dr Brice Faraut, of the Université Paris Descartes-Sorbonne Paris Cité, said: ‘Our data suggests a 30-minute nap can reverse the hormonal impact of a night of poor sleep.”
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Wandering Views 