The Healthcare Party:President Trump’s decision to back a lawsuit aimed at demolishing Obamacare came after a heated White House meeting in which Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney convinced the President he could do through the courts what he couldn’t accomplish in Congress, The NY Timesreports. 

  Mulvaney, who was a South Carolina congressman, argued for years that Obamacare should be repealed. The lawsuit originally brought in Texas would wipe out Obamacare, leaving millions of Americans without insurance and no replacement plan yet-announced to take its place.

  Success would render a lie Trump’s often-repeated campaign pledge that he would  do nothing to harm Obamacare’s guarantee of health insurance for people with pre-existing conditions.

  The Times reports that Attorney Gen. William Barr and the White House counsel opposed backing the lawsuit. Vice President Mike Pence was worried about the political ramifications of taking insurance away from millions of Americans on the brink of the 2020 election, the report says.

  Trump told reporters in the White House, “If the Supreme Court rules that Obamacare is out, we’ll have a plan that is far better than Obamacare.” He’s said that for years and we haven’t seen it. Nothing prevents him from offering a replacement if he actually has one.

Quitsit:British Prime Minister Theresa May told Parliament  that she’ll resign as soon as the country has left the European Union if they would only pass a deal to do it — and they didn’t. Eight different plans failed to win a majority yesterday.

  May said that if Parliament agrees to an orderly exit from the EU she’ll leave 10 Downing Street and let a successor negotiate a free trade agreement with Europe.

  She told fellow conservatives, “I know there is a desire for a new approach, and new leadership, in the second phase of the Brexit negotiations, and I won’t stand in the way of that.”It’s an amazing political jam she’s in. She can’t stay, and she can’t leave either.

The Injustice Files: Defiant Chicago police yesterday released redacted records incriminating actor/singer Jussie Smollett, who falsely claimed he was the target of an anti-gay and black hate attack on a Chicago street. They were ordered by the state’s attorney’s office to stop, but the records were already on the internet.

 Smollett claimed he was attacked by white men saying “this is MAGA country,” citing President Trump’s slogan. Possibly most damning was a $3500 check Smollett wrote to two Nigerian brothers to stage the phony attack. The cops also have surveillance video of the brothers buying items used, including a rope, black masks, hats and gloves.

  Chicago is in an uproar because the charges against Smollett were dropped in trade for his $10,000 bond. He still claims he’s a victim. Some critics say State’s Attorney Kim Foxx made a shady deal.Mayor Rahm Emanuel is hinting that the city might even sue Smollett.  “I would like a resolution in the sense of accountability and responsibility in the system, of who is right.” 

Justice Files:The neo-Nazi who in 2017 ran his car into a crowd protesting white nationalism in Charlottesville, Va., killing a woman, pleaded guilty to hate crimes. The plea by James Fields Jr., 21,includes killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injuring 28 other people. He faces up to life in prison. — Jake Patterson, who murdered the parents of Wisconsin teenager Jayme Closs then held her captive for three months, pleaded guilty and faces life in prison. — The Monsanto company was ordered to pay $80 million to a California man whose cancer was caused partly by the popular weed killer Roundup. 

Reading Material:St. Louis firefighters on Tuesday night rushed in and out of the burning  Karpeles Manuscript Library Museumand were able to save a trove of artifacts, including a copy of the proclamation of France’s approval of the Louisiana Purchase and a yearbook from Fidel Castro’s high school.

  The museum’s Greek Revival columns were outlined by flames in second-story windows and coming through the roof.  

  About 80 firefighters rushed in and out of the museum, housed in the building that was once the Third Church of Christ, Scientist, hauling out armloads of documents, manuscripts, statues, and carved wooden ship models. 

  “They knew they were in a museum,” Fire Chief Dennis Jenkerson told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “It’s like, ‘Don’t leave empty-handed. Grab something and get it out of here.’ “

The Obit Page: Michel Bacos, the Air France captain who heroically refused to abandon his passengers after Palestinian and German hijackers seized his plane in 1976, has died in France at 95.

 He was given France’s highest civilian award, the Légion d’Honneur.

  The flight carrying 260 people originated from Tel Aviv and was seized in Athens. It  was eventually forced to fly to Entebbe, Uganda where the Israeli passengers were separated and the others flown to Paris. Bacos and his crew refused to leave the Israelis.

  “I told my crew that we must stay until the end, because that was our tradition, so we cannot accept being freed. All my crew agreed without exception,” Bacos later told the BBC.

 The hostage taking ended six days later at Entebbe airport in Uganda, when Israeli commandos stormed the terminal. Yonatan Netanyahu, brother of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was the only Israeli killed in the raid.

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