A Different World

Health care reform ruling round up

A vindication, with a legacy still to be written

Modesty and audacity

The real winners

Explaining health care's hot topics

Vindication for maligned lawyer in Supreme Court ruling

If Romney wins, he can repeal Affordable Care Act - and he should

Did Obama just get his mojo back?

The 8 stages of conservative grief after ruling

Superstitious, needy children's letters to God

Superstitious, needy children's letters to God

Why don't Christians have to get circumcised? The other Abrahamic religions both do.

Why don't Christians have to get circumcised? The other Abrahamic religions both do.

From the piece: A German court ruled on Tuesday that parents may not circumcise their sons at birth for religious reasons, because the procedure violates the child’s right to bodily integrity. Both Muslims and Jews circumcise their male children. Why is Christianity the only Abrahamic religion that doesn’t encourage circumcision?

Because Paul believed faith was more important than foreskin.

Mother records herself abusing infant, sends video and texts to taunt father of child

Mother records herself abusing infant, sends video and texts to taunt father of child

Columnist to journalism students: Don't do this

Columnist to journalism students: Don't do this

Health reform is legal, but is it moral? A bioethicist weighs in

Health reform is legal, but is it moral? A bioethicist weighs in

From the piece: "Critics of the Affordable Care Act have convinced America that the Obama plan stinks. The government mandate was their best bogeyman in stirring distrust of health reform. They had placed all their chips on a "shock and awe" strategy of having the Supreme Court blow away Obamacare’s mandate in one gigantic negative decision. That did not happen. 

The critics will now shift gears and start to fight a guerilla war to chip away at the plan. They will complain about cost, government meddling in the doctor-patient relationship and reopen talk of death panels. The only way to meet these criticisms is for the administration and its allies to do what they still have not done — convince the American people, not of the legality of health reform as happened today but of its morality."

Remember when I said earlier this week gas prices might fall too low? Forget that.

Big movement in the attempts to resolve the euro-zone crisis has sent stocks flying high this morning in New York and around the world, and oil prices have skyrocketed, up almost $4.30 per barrel at last check. That's an incredible jump. Fortunately, oil prices had dropped below $78 for parts of this week, so a big jump like that still leaves it at a really manageable $82 per barrel or so. That's a good place to keep gas prices pretty much where they are, give or take a few few pennies. But if that euro zone plan actually turns out to be something real, it could mean that oil prices will finally have something firm to stand on, which means they won't keep falling like they have been for several weeks, which means gas prices won't continue to decline.

Gov. Haley says GOP activist who filed complaint is a racist, sexist, bigot. Is that the race card?

Gov. Haley says GOP activist who filed complaint is a racist, sexist, bigot. Is that the race card?

From the article:  "Haley said in her only meeting with him, while she was running for governor, Rainey was demanding and demeaning, and she told her staff she did not want any campaign contributions from him.

`He wanted me to prove certain things so that if I took the oath, they wouldn’t find out later that my family was related to terrorists,' Haley said. `I’m still very offended by that.'

Rainey declined to comment Thursday.

However, one of his attorneys said Thursday’s hearing was a 'farce.'"

Me: Is that the infamous race card so many people talk about any time someone is called a racist? Or does the "playing the race card" card only apply to liberals accusing conservatives of something bad? Or is it possible that the guy who brought the complaint against her is really a racist, sexist, bigot and that Haley is simply speaking the truth?

Writer: Why I had an affair with a married man

Writer: Why I had an affair with a married man

Would Al Gore have won in 2000 if John Roberts was Chief Justice then?

With Affordable Care Act ruling, John Roberts changes his legacy

From the piece: 

John Roberts may have forgotten the oath of office when he administered it to Barack Obama; he remembered his oath when he decided this case. Indeed maybe it is possible that Al Gore would have been president if Roberts had been chief justice in 2000. Yes, I know that he was part of the Bush legal team in Florida, but that is not the point. Given his politics, I am certain that Roberts would not have voted to pass health reform. But he did vote to uphold it; he did what a judge is supposed to do—follow the law, not his own politics.

The chief justice made the difference while Anthony Kennedy, who many had hoped might, instead joined the Three Horsemen of the Rightwing Apocalypse on the Court.  One can disagree with many of Roberts’ choices—for example, his vote in Citizens United, which opened the floodgates for special interest money in campaigns. But he has now assured that the Roberts Court will be seen and remembered as more than an ideological rubber stamp.