Taxing Decision: A federal judge in Texas yesterday struck down the entire Affordable Care Act — known as Obamacare — because, he said, the requirement to buy health insurance is not constitutional.
President Trump tweeted, “Now Congress must pass a STRONG law that provides GREAT healthcare and protects pre-existing conditions.”
He’s been saying that since 2016, and neither he nor the congressional Republicans have proposed an acceptable replacement for Obamacare, which has provided health insurance for millions of Americans.
The Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that the requirement was constitutional because it carried a penalty if you didn’t buy insurance. The Court said that was acceptable under the government’s authority to levy taxes.
But Congress eliminated the penalty as part of its tax reform earlier this year, so Judge Reed O’Connor of the Federal District Court in Fort Worth said the requirement to have health insurance “can no longer be sustained as an exercise of Congress’s tax power.”
This puts Obamacare on a path to another hearing before the Supreme Court.
Plan B: President Trump yesterday appointed his Budget Director Mick Mulvaney to be his “acting” chief of staff, all but admitting that he can’t find a permanent replacement for the departing John Kelly.
Trump claimed he had 10, then after some turned him down, at least five great candidates for the job. He tweeted last night, “For the record, there were MANY people who wanted to be the White House Chief of Staff. Mick M will do a GREAT job!”
Mulvaney will be Trump’s third chief of staff in less than two years. He has also doubled as chief of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which he has been dismantling at the direction of the President.
Money: The Dow Jones dipped another 506 points yesterday.Matt Phillips writes for The NY Times that, “For the first time in decades, every major type of investment has fared poorly, as the outlook for economic growth and corporate profits is dampened by rising trade tensions and interest rates. Stocks around the world are getting pummeled, while commodities and bonds are tumbling — all of which have left investors with few places to put their money.
Power Grab: Wisconsin’s outgoing Republican Gov. Scott Walker signed legislation yesterday designed to diminish the power of his Democratic successor. These kinds of laws are the latest tactic of Republican legislatures that try to make sure they don’t lose even when they’ve lost an election.
Walker crashed onto the national scene in 2011 becoming a hero to conservatives with his campaign to take power from public employee unions.
The Wisconsin bills curb the authority of the incoming Gov. Tony Evers in rule-making and gives lawmakers, not the governor, most appointments on an economic development board until next summer. The measures also limit early voting as well as l the power of Josh Kaul, the incoming attorney general.
Short Tour: Arizona Republican Sen. John Kyl, who was appointed to replace the late John McCain, announced that he’s retiring at the end of the year. A possible replacement to be named by the governor is Rep. Martha McSally, who lost to a Democrat last month in a race for Arizona’s other Senate seat.
No Vig: The Education Department announced that it is forgiving about $150 million in student loans taken out by students attending for-profit colleges that went out of business. About half attended schools run by the defunct Corinthian Colleges.
It’s not the generosity of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos — it’s because of an Obama-era rule designed to protect students who attend useless schools. DeVos fought the rule in court and lost.
The Obit Page: Sondra Locke, the actress who starred with Clint Eastwood in the bullet-riddled movie “The Gauntlet,” and was Eastwood’s life partner for 14  years, has died at age 72.
Locke was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar in the 1968 movie version of the novel, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. She took up with Eastwood for better, and ultimately worse, while shooting  “The Outlaw Josey Wales” released in 1976. From then on, she worked almost exclusively in Eastwood movies, until they broke up and she couldn’t get work.
It was a famously nasty breakup, revealing that the charming and talented Clint Eastwood is really not a nice guy.
Folding: The Weekly Standard, a voice of traditional conservatism in Washington, is folding after 23 years of publication. Circulation has been slipping, but the editors have also clashed with the publication’s owners over critical coverage of President Trump.
The Standard didn’t last as long as the war in Iraq.

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