BIG WEEK FOR NEWS

 What a week this has been for news -- and it's only Wednesday:

1.  We had Netanyahu's hugely controversial speech before Congress yesterday, which has been roundly panned by Democrats and liberal pundits, and even some in the Jewish community -- but it was even more jubilantly cheered by Republicans and visitors in the House chamber.   Jon Stewart has called that whole spectacle "by far the longest blow job a Jewish man has ever received."

2.  Then immediately after giving his conservative House Republican colleagues such a serving of red meat, John Boehner essentially told them:  "Sit down now do what we have to do by voting for the Senate's clean Homeland Security funding bill."    Tea Party conservatives were irate, but it passed the House by a wide margin, thanks to Democrats and a sizable number of Republicans.

3.  The Department of Justice will release today what is said to be a scathing report on its investigation that found blatant racial bias in the Ferguson, Missouri police department.   The investigation arose from the Michael Brown killing by a white police officer.     It will either result in a consent order agreement that will mandate major changes or, if they do not cooperate with that, the DoK cam dissolve the entire Bupolice department itself.

4.   The revelation by the New York Times that, during her entire tenure as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton used a personal email account exclusively rather than a government account that would be automatically preserved and archived.    Colin Powell has come forth and said that he did too.   Clinton has released 55,000 pages of copies of her emails, although some are suggesting that some were selectively left out of this data dump.    This is still a developing story, with conflicting accounts of whether a government email account was actually required at that time, as well as accusations that the Times story selectively left out information that they had that would have been more in Clinton's favor.    

5.  A states rights constitutional crisis showdown is brewing in Alabama, where Roy "Ten Commandments" Moore is now Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court.    In January a federal district judge declared Alabama's gay marriage ban unconstitutional.   Moore had ordered probate judges not to issue licenses to same sex couples, causing much confusion.   Now the entire state supreme court has voted to order probate judges not to issue licenses or perform marriages for same-sex couples.    If the 5th Circuit Court upholds the district federal judge's ruling, overturning the bad, then we have a clash between federal and state courts -- and it could head to SCOTUS.

6.  All that, and it's only Wednesday.   But Wednesday will be the biggest day of all as SCOTUS hears arguments in the case that is challenging the subsidies in the Affordable Care Act.   If SCOTUS strikes down the subsidies for those who got their insurance in the federal exchange, instead of a state exchange, then millions would be unable to afford their newly acquired policies.   This could be big enough to destroy the program, which is of course what the plaintiffs want.   If they didn't, the questioned wording in the ACA law could very easily be fixed by Congress simply voting to insert the four words: "or a federal exchange."    It won't happen.

So a big week.  Stay tuned.

Ralph 

Afternoon PS:  You can add to the week's news that the Senate failed to override President Obama's veto of the Keystone Pipeline bill.