Obamacare Lives: The Affordable Care Act, the health insurance law known as “Obamacare,” survived its third challenge in the Supreme Court by a 7-2 vote, possibly ending the Republican campaign to kill it.

  Justice Stephen Breyer said in the majority opinion that the 18 Republican-led states and two individuals who brought the case had not suffered the sort of direct injury that gave them standing to sue.

  “This ruling reaffirms what we have long known to be true: the Affordable Care Act is here to stay,” Former President Barack Obama tweeted. 

  Republicans have tried to kill Obamacare since it was passed 11 years ago. They say the healthcare law paves the road to socialism. A Republican Congress removed the requirement that everyone has to have health insurance, thinking Obamacare would collapse. It didn’t. Millions of Americans depend on it as well as the ability to insure their children until they are 26.

  The latest plaintiffs had argued that without the requirement to have insurance, the whole law is invalid. The Supreme Court dodged dealing with that issue directly.

  In dissent, conservative justices Samuel Alito, joined by Neil Gorsuch, said, “In all three episodes, with the Affordable Care Act facing a serious threat, the court has pulled off an improbable rescue.”

Blue Lives: Fifty cops who serve on the Portland, Oregon Rapid Response Team, the front line team handling sometimes violent street protests, have resigned en masse after criminal charges were placed against one of their members. They are effectively disbanding the 70-member volunteer unit.

  The indicted officer is accused of fourth-degree assault for hitting a protester with his baton last summer.

  Police Chief Chuck Lovell was told that the officers were quitting RRT because they think they aren’t getting support from City Hall and the district attorney over the past year. The head of the police union wrote a letter to the mayor last October saying, “Our RRT members do not volunteer to have Molotov cocktails, fireworks, explosives, rocks, bottles, urine, feces and other dangerous objects thrown at them.” Well, sadly, that is what they volunteer for or they wouldn’t be the riot squad.

  Protests in Portland that began with the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis a year ago have been pretty violent at times. The use of force by police has led to multiple civil lawsuits in state and federal court, sanctions from a judge and now an indictment.

It’s Like a Heat Wave: A persistent and dangerous heat wave that has settled into the West for a week appears to be reaching its peak.  After sitting in the northern and central Rockies earlier in the week, the heat has shifted into the Desert Southwest and California’s Central Valley where it is expected to remain through tomorrow.

  The National Weather Service announced that at least 11 states have reported temperatures in the triple digits and more than 40 million people are under a heat advisory.

The Obit Page: Janet Malcolm, The New Yorker writer of piercing judgement, literary flair, and fierce criticism of journalism itself, her own trade, has died of cancer at age 86.

  One critic said of her, “it probably isn’t a good idea even to grant her an interview, as your every unflattering gesture and nervous tic will be recorded eventually with devastating precision.”

  Malcolm criticized and condemned the work of  other journalists while sometimes breaking the rules herself. She was notably sued by the  psychoanalyst Jeffrey Masson and accused of cobbling together quotes from interviews in a way that distorted what he had said to her. In her defense, Malcolm testified in court that “This thing called speech is sloppy, redundant, repetitious, full of uhs and ahs. I needed to present it in logical, rational order so he would sound like a logical, rational person.”

  Malcolm for a time was considered the fallen woman of journalism, but her reputation has been rehabilitated in an age when the sins of journalism have grown much worse.

The Spin Rack: President Biden signed the law that makes “Juneteenth,” the day the slaves were freed, a federal holiday. The actual day is June 19^th. — Missouri Gov. Mike Parson signed a new law that purports to invalidate all federal gun control laws, and prohibits state and local cooperation with enforcement of those laws. Actually, that new law is invalid under federal law. — Funny thing, also in Missouri, the St. Louis Couple who brandished an assault rifle and a pistol at passing protesters last year have pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges and agreed to give up their guns. Mark and Patricia McCloskey became a meme of fearful white people armed against racial injustice protesters. He was dressed in a pink polo shirt and khakis wielding an assault rifle.   

Sorry ‘Bout That: President Biden apologized for snapping at CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins Wednesday on the tarmac before he left Geneva.

  “I owe my last questioner an apology,” the president told reporters on the tarmac as he readied to board Air Force One on Wednesday afternoon. “I shouldn’t have been such a wise guy with the last answer I gave.”

  Collins had asked about Vladimir Putin, “Why are you so confident he will change his behavior, Mr. President?”  The president, who had already turned away, threw up his hands and went back the reporters wagging his finger. “What the hell? … When did I say I was confident?” Biden shot back. 

  In fact, he never said he was confident about Putin changing. He said, “I’m not confident of anything. I’m just stating the facts,” and, “If you don’t understand that, you’re in the wrong business.” 

  Collins said the apology was not necessary, but in truth she owes the President  an apology for basing her question on an inaccurate premise.

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