Wiretap: If Obamacare tanks, GOP wins big – even when 13 million lose insurance

An animal plummets toward its death holding an Obamacare sign.

Mass sentence

Those Democrats who think Republicans lose if they win on the Supreme Court ruling on Obamacare are wrong, writers Jeffrey Toobin in The New Yorker. If Obamacare loses, Obama loses. The case, based on one sentence in the law, could cost 13 million people their subsidies and, therefore, their ability to afford insurance. If they lose their insurance, Toobin writes, Republicans will blame a flawed law and the person who is most identified with it.

Flip flop

Meanwhile, the sick man whose Obamacare story went viral – first he was part of the lawsuit and then he embraced the law – now may be among those who get hammered again by the Supreme Court. Via The Washington Post.

Long winded

Rand Paul is back in long-speech mode, this time speaking (for 10 hours and 31 minutes) against the renewal of the Patriot Act. He is joined by seven Democrats and three Republicans in accomplishing two things: The vote probably gets delayed, and Paul gets to separate himself from the dozens of rivals for the GOP presidential nomination. Via Bloomberg Politics.

Big spender

The question they’re starting to ask about Marco Rubio now that he’s cashed in an IRA account, in part, to buy a $3,000 refrigerator: Does Rubio have a spending problem? Via The Washington Post.

Secret stash

The U.S. government declassifies and reveals to the public much of what was found in Bin Laden’s last hiding place: Books, papers, conspiracy theories, and letters – one of which suggested, about six months before the raid, that it was time for bin Laden to leave his Pakistani hideout. Via The Washington Post.

Reading list

What did bin Laden read? The Atlantic has a partial list.

Last breath

And now George Will on capital punishment’s slow death. Via The Washington Post.

Pop not prop

Once a revolutionary, later a curmudgeon, Letterman always understood that puncturing the culture was the thing, not propping it up. Who will ever forget when Cher called him an asshole? Who would ever think that Dave disagreed? Via The New Yorker.

Later man

Letterman goes out with laughs, not tears. Like anyone is surprised. Via The New York Times.

 

Photo credit: Charles Fetinger, Creative Commons, Flickr.

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