Sardonic NY Post front page. New Yorkers will enjoy it.
The Onion is irreplaceable:
New Anti-Abortion Legislation Requires Doctors To Scale 18-Foot Wall Surrounding Clinic
Richard L. Hasen:
Justice Antonin Scalia of the Supreme Court is the leading proponent of textualism, an approach he justifies as required by the Constitution and better than the alternative of using legislative history. He thinks judges unreliably cherry-pick legislative history, quoting the late Judge Harold Leventhal’s quip that it’s “the equivalent of entering a crowded cocktail party and looking over the heads of the guests for one’s friends.” Before Scalia, textualism was one tool among many for interpreting statutes. But now, thanks to his relentless campaigning for the textualist approach, for many strongly conservative judges, the text is the beginning and the end of the analysis when it comes to the meaning of a statute.
To understand how the DC court could possibly decide
Halbig the way they did, it helps to understand textualism. In any case, this is one of the best interps of the decisions I have read so far.
Another excellent source for Halbig/King is Nicholas Bagley, who blogs at The Incidental Economist, one of my favorite sites:
Halbig said it was applying the law as written. Don’t believe it.
More politics and policy below the fold.
Brian Beutler:
In other words, if a state sets up a single payer plan, it will be granted as much federal money as its residents would have been eligible to receive in sum, if those residents were consumers in an exchange. Any exchange. Congress' clear intent was to make sure that proportional federal funding flowed to all states whether residents are covered through exchanges or not. Conservatives trying to convince you otherwise are—at best—extremely mistaken.
More from
Nicholas Bagley, in the form of a
podcast discussion between Jonathan Adler (
Volokh Conspiracy and an architect of the
Halbig case) and Bagley.
But why won't it lead? RT @ron_fournier: This tweet is. Just is.
— @Neil_Irwin
Nate Cohn:
Georgia might well be moving down the same road as Virginia. No other plausibly competitive state — not Nevada or Virginia, not Colorado or North Carolina — has had a change in the racial composition of the electorate that’s as favorable for Democrats. That’s giving Georgia Democrats hope that they might win a race that they almost certainly would have viewed as a lost cause only a few years ago...
Ms. Nunn will probably fall behind as Mr. Perdue consolidates Republican-leaning voters and gets around to attacking her. That’s not assured, of course, but it’s the likeliest scenario, given the partisanship of the state, the national political environment and the small number of examples of federal Democratic candidates approaching 30 percent of white voters. Perhaps the simple way to view the race is this: The electorate will be about as diverse it was in 2008, when Mr. Martin lost by 3 points in a great year for Democrats and when incumbency didn’t help Republicans much.
German Lopez:
A federal judge on Wednesday struck down Colorado's ban on same-sex marriages, but the ruling will not allow the state's same-sex couples to marry for now.
US District Judge Raymond P. Moore's decision said the Constitution's Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses protect same-sex marriage rights. Following the Supreme Court's 2013 decision to strike down the federal ban on same-sex marriages, other cases on the issue have used the same rationale to uphold LGBT rights.
Colorado's same-sex couples will not be able to get married just yet, because Moore put his decision on hold until August 25 as it works through the appeals process.
David Kroll:
A California fruit-packing company has issued a voluntary recall of certain lots of Sweet2Eat whole peaches (white and yellow), nectarines (white and yellow), plums and pluots.
Wawona Packing Company is recalling these fruits packed between June 1, 2014 and July 12, 2014 because of their potential for contamination with Listeria monocytogenes
Listeria is a microbe that can cause illness and even death in infants and children, elderly people, and those with weakened immune systems. Pregnant women exposed to Listeria may potentially experience miscarriage or stillborn infants.
The company announced yesterday that their consumer hotline has been overwhelmed and that there are unusually long wait times. Here’s what you need to know:
Aaron Blake:
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) pledged Wednesday to serve out her term and sought to pour cold water on the idea that she might run for president in 2016, according to the Boston Herald.
"I'm not running for president and I plan to serve out my term," Warren said at a news conference for Boston mayor-elect Marty Walsh, the Herald reported. Pressed further, Warren said she would "pledge to serve out my term."
Warren added: "I am not running for president. I am working as hard as I can to be the best (possible) senator I can be."
Warren's office confirmed the comments to Post Politics.
James Pethokoukis:
The weird obsession that's ruining the GOP
Benghazi? ObamaCare? Hillary Clinton? No — it's inflation.