From Rebecca Leber's article in
TNR
Greg Sargent:
The current legal challenge that could gut Obamacare subsidies in three dozen states is regularly described by its proponents as an effort to enforce the law as written. As Dave Weigel has noted, from time to time, champions of the lawsuit acknowledge their real goal is to destroy the law by any means necessary, a frank admission of the goals of this particular exercise in right wing legal activism.
But now this link between the lawsuit and the goal of taking down the law has been drawn tightly by none other than the incoming GOP Senate Majority Leader.
In a very candid moment, Mitch McConnell flatly describes this legal challenge as a substitute means through which an end — repeal — will be accomplished that Republicans failed to accomplish through the political and legislative process.
See also
McConnell: Republicans can't repeal Obamacare, but the Supreme Court can 'take it down'
NY Times:
The monitoring period for the last of the health care workers exposed to Dr. Craig Spencer, who was hospitalized for Ebola in New York, ended on Tuesday, bringing to a close an uneasy period in the city’s health history.
During nearly three weeks at Bellevue Hospital Center, the public hospital designated an Ebola treatment center for the city, Dr. Spencer was cared for by 114 different workers, including doctors, nurses and paramedics, officials said on Tuesday. He has been the only Ebola patient in the city.
All of those workers had to be monitored for signs of the virus for 21 days after their last contact with Dr. Spencer, the maximum documented incubation period. Dr. Spencer, a volunteer with Doctors Without Borders in Guinea, arrived at Bellevue on Oct. 23. He was kept in isolation and treated with plasma from an Ebola survivor, an experimental drug and fluid maintenance. He returned to his apartment, in Hamilton Heights, Manhattan, on Nov. 11, after being found to be free of Ebola.
Some Bellevue workers said they had felt stigmatized — even by some co-workers, who feared contagion. So far, no one else in New York has been found to have Ebola. But the city health department continues to monitor travelers for three weeks after they arrive from Ebola-stricken countries in West Africa; as of Tuesday, 222 people were being monitored.
See also
Remember Ebola? President Obama reminds Congress it still exists.
More politics and policy below the fold.
Don't miss this CNN poll (.pdf) with some great tidbits that set the stage for the current DC policy struggles.
The first question screams "mandate!". The second question (i.e. what happens when the majority of people who agree with you don't vote) just makes you scream.
NY Times:
Congressional Republicans returning to Washington on Monday found themselves facing a treacherous 10 days as they try to balance their desire to fight President Obama’s executive action on immigration with the political imperative not to shut down the government.
WaPo:
Recent success at the polls has done little to calm the internal rancor among congressional Republicans, who remain deeply divided over how to respond to President Obama’s overhaul of the nation’s immigration system.
The latest evidence came Tuesday as House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) unveiled plans to avoid another government shutdown while also allowing furious Republicans a chance to publicly repudiate Obama for acting on his own.
The hybrid approach is a telling example of how Republicans are likely to lead Congress next year: with anger toward Obama, whom they believe has abused the powers of his office, while remaining wary of their own potential for overreach.
WaPo:
Unhappy with the economic recovery in the United States? Could be worse.
Specifically, we could be literally any other country in the world that also just went through a major financial crisis.
WaPo:
Tumbling oil prices are draining hundreds of billions of dollars from the coffers of oil-rich exporters and oil companies and injecting a much-needed boost for ailing economies in Europe and Japan — and for American consumers at the start of the peak shopping season.
The result could be one of the biggest transfers of wealth in history, potentially reshaping everything from talks over Iran’s nuclear program to the Federal Reserve’s policies to further rejuvenate the U.S. economy.