The Supreme Court marathon is more proof of how American health care, with or without reform, is in the hands of the wrong people—-the for-profit insurance industry that siphons off one out of every three dollars for overhead and profit. Now largely forgotten in the inside-baseball legal arguments is that, in 2008, it was Barack Obama who opposed the mandate that Hillary Clinton backed and now finds himself...

UPDATE III: The same newspaper that was attacked by Senator Santorum — through one of its reporters — says this morning that “taking heed of criticism, Santorum tones down attacks.” Meet a “more subdued Santorum” here. Will his new-found mellowness be too little, too late? UPDATE II: And one more nail in the coffin: According to the WaPo, “U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), considered...

NPR’s “Morning Edition” has been trumpeting their series on the gazillionaires who are funding the presidential stakes, thus far. But, under attack from Congress, they must, of course, bend over backwards to be “balanced.” Penny Nance was on NPR this morning Never mind that there are, according to their own reporting “More than two dozen people or groups have donated at least...

Could it be that global concern over North Korea’s upcoming launch of a rocket capable of carrying a nuclear warhead is just a great big misunderstanding? According to this surprisingly conciliatory news item from the state-run Korean Central News Agency, North Korea’s Foreign Ministry insists that the launch, which it maintains is for peaceful purposes, was not part of the deal it signed with Washington...

Have the most extreme elements on the political landscape – once considered beyond the embrace of polite society – taken control of the Republican Party? According to columnist Jean-Sébastian Stehli of France’s Le Figaro, the conspiracy theorists who once shouted themselves hoarse about fluoridated water being a communist mind-control plot and government implantation of chips under citizens’...

Aziz Poonawalla argues not at all, because better options almost certainly will then open up.

Many trees have died in the service of the words “GOP Southern Strategy.” But their death was unnecessary. All we had to do was look at this very simple infographic from Georgia’s Like the Dew: Jim Cobb, who teaches history at the University of Georgia, writes: [This] is a snapshot of the GOP’s coming-out party in Georgia, an event simultaneously celebrated and bemoaned in four other southern...

Our Quote of the Day comes from First Read which says: brace yourselves for another 5 to 4 Supreme Court decision. Yesterday’s hearings at the Supreme Court certainly seemed to suggest that what may be coming is a rerun of Bush versus Gore — another decisions that partisans on one side will point to as an example of a decision influenced by partisan preferences rather than totally on law: *** Brace...

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Amid many signs that the race for the 2012 Republican nomination will end with former Gov. Mitt Romney as nominee, here is another sign that it will end that way — and perhaps quite soon. A poll finds former New Senator Rick Santorum may be tanking in his home state of Pennsyvania — a must win state if Santorum ever had one: Rick Santorum appeared to be the Republican presidential candidate to beat...

Losing momentum, Rick Santorum is letting the public mask slip and openly showing what historian Richard Hofstadter identified half a century ago as “The Paranoid Style in American Politics.” The candidate is now publicly attacking a New York Times reporter: “Stop lying” and “quit distorting our words,” calling his question “bullshit” and adding “C’mon man! What are you doing?…You...

UPDATE: Perhaps a sign of just how tough things are for Gingrich is the decision of the Gingrich campaign to start charging supporters $50 to have their photo taken with the vanishing GOP hopeful. Holding the ridiculous cardboard gallon of gas is $2.50 extra. (Sorry, couldn’t resist it.) Trying to make the absurd and the cheapo look logical, generous and patriotic, the campaign says that the new...

Several sites are doing live blogging of arguments before the Supreme Court on health care reform. A few –The Wall Street Journal –ABC News –USA Today –Washington Post Some early reports: Most justices seem uneasy with the mandate to buy health insurance.

Gaffees Inc. has just supplied former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney — its best customer on the campaign trial — a new supply of gaffes, and Romney rolled one out this morning for all and sundry to admire. Romney has announced that Russia is America’s biggest foe. So: breathe easy China…breatehe Iran….breathe easy North Korea. Mitt Romney said today that Russia — not Iran or...

RJ Matson, The St. Louis Post Dispatch This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

WASHINGTON — The “Stand Your Ground” laws in Florida and other states should all be repealed. At best, they are redundant. At worst, as in the Trayvon Martin killing, they are nothing but a license to kill. Police in Sanford, Fla., cited the statute as grounds for their decision not to file charges against Martin’s killer, George Zimmerman. Martin, 17, was strolling home from a...

Georgia’s HB954, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, hit a snag in the state Senate on Monday. The Georgia bill, introduced by Rep. Doug McKillip (R-Athens), was “all but gutted” by a bi-partisan coalition, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The Senate bill would provide an exception to the 20-week rule: In a major shift, the Senate adopted a last-minute change that would...

From “the spark is gone” to the “walking dead” is quite a jump, but the latter is how Chris Cillizza at the Washington Post characterizes the present phase of the Republican primary. In today’s The Fix, a daily political weblog at the Post website, Cillizza begins with: ”This is how primary campaigns end — not with a bang but with a whimper. Or, more accurately, a whine,” and discusses the latest...

UPDATE II: See the New York Times version of the sparks flying here UPDATE I: Apparently the spark is not gone — at least not with Santorum. Santorum generated quite a few sparks on Sunday in a mini-confrontation with New York Times reporter Jeff Zeleni. When asked by Zeleni, “You said Mitt Romney is the worst Republican in the country. Is that true?” a sparkly Santorum lashed back “Stop...

Nate Beeler, The Washington Examiner Today the focus turns to the Supreme Court as it begins a challenge to President Barack Obama’s signature health care reform act. Few pundits are willing to predict what will happen but it’s clear some Supreme Court members will not be fans of the act. The question then becomes: if the court nixes health care reform how will it impact Obama’s re-election?...