• Obamacare: Ding dong! The witch still lives! Obamacare has shrugged off the most recent legal attack on it, allowing millions of residents in red states to continue receiving subsidies to stay on health care plans. Of course there are still a few efforts to kill it, but there is now rumbling that Republicans will now nuke the filibuster in order to kill it, if a Republican is elected in 2016. This is probably one reason why all the Republican candidates that have gone on the record have vowed to repeal it if elected.
  
• Banking and Finance: While everyone’s eyes are on Greece and its impacts on the European and global economies, here in the US, there’s still some Dodd-Frank rule-making left to do, and executives and others are not happy about the latest: having to reveal compensation.
  
• Budget and Appropriations: While most state budget processes have inched towards conclusion (most had deadlines of June 30), the federal budget continues apace. Appropriations bills that have been moving through the Senate include Transportation and HUD (including obvious minimal increases to housing programs), Defense (now stalled). The House, meanwhile, has been working on bills covering the FDA (with appropriate budget gaps in food safety and a delay in restaurant labelling regulations), Education (featuring nearly $3b in cuts , and of course letting for-profit colleges live another day by not having to report veterans’ benefits as government tuition assistance), and Financial Services and General Government (killing funding for net neutrality enforcement). We may still see Obamacare defunding through reconciliation (to throw Republican primary voters some red meat) and other attempts to defund various agencies Republicans hate as the budget process grinds to a halt over the next month or two, presaging the fireworks sure to come in the fall over both the budget and the debt ceiling.
  
• Trade: Alas, for opponents of the TPP, after seemingly failing to pass through some legislative finagling on Democrats’ parts in the House, the TPA and the TAA (the two components Obama required for the TPP) passed the House and Senate on their own later in the month, which Obama then signed, late in the month.
  
• Cybersecurity and Telecommunications: So, uh… China now has basically everything it needs to blackmail any US federal employee it wants. Expect this to lead to CISA (the latest revision of CISPA) and the proposed changes to the Wassenaar rules banning bug bounties being pushed very hard in the fall, the former over civil libertarians’ objections. In telecom news, as mentioned before, net neutrality will be effectively defanged, if the current FCC appropriations passes (it won’t, at least not in its current form).
  
• Gun Control: You might think that Dylann Roof might lead to people talking about gun control seriously (besides Obama, of course). Haha, nope! Not gonna happen. Now let me tell you about how legalizing same-sex marriage means we can now legalize reciprocal concealed carry! Are you ready to see gun control return to SCOTUS?
  
• Environment: Not much on the Congressional front, other than a vote to delay the EPA’s carbon regulations. In much bigger news, however, has been the EPA’s court battles. The EPA lost in its bid to regulate mercury in coal emissions. Sorta. (and that loss may have some good side-effects) It is now officially fending off a legal challenge to the recent expansion of the applicability of the Clean Water Act as well. In other EPA news, they failed to find proof that fracking systematically contaminates water supplies, leading to much Republican crowing.
  
• Immigration: Obama's hopes of getting executive amnesty any time soon have dwindled as the two judges who voted to sustain the stay on its implementation are also in charge of the larger case in the Fifth Circuit. Expect this one to go to SCOTUS next term before Obama gets a better chance. Nevertheless, DHS plans to help reduce stays for families at immigration centers, allowing them to live with relatives while seeking asylum.
  
• War on Terror: The AUMF against ISIS was almost back for a moment, but was pulled as an amendment shortly thereafter, leaving the AUMF in limbo again. Of course us not doing anything is Obama’s fault.
  
• The Torture Report and the NSA: The USA Freedom Act was signed, signaling a sea ch… hahahahah nah. Meanwhile, Wikileaks has been furiously working to chill American/French relations, including a new leak indicating industrial espionage (though some might say this is just tit-for-tat so far as that goes) Is it a bid for asylum? Also, in continuing signs that nothing has really changed thanks to Snowden…
  
• Foreign Policy: The Iran talks are going slow and steady, but have once again missed their latest deadline. Sen. Corker (R-TN) and Republicans are not happy, and are even less likely to be happy since the US is unlikely to be allowed into every military site. And it’s unclear whether Iranians will grant access even to those sites it claims to be willing to. Elsewhere in the world, US-Cuban relations continue to thaw with the announcement of the re-opening of embassies.
  
• Abortion: Iowa's Supreme Court ruled that telemedicine for abortion pill prescription is legal and a Kansas judge has blocked their ban on effectively all second-trimester abortions from going into effect (but this will almost certainly go the other way and/or be appealed). SCOTUS is looking increasingly likely to take on Texas’s abortion regulations as well, which may not be a good thing given the current makeup of the court.
  
• Gay Rights:
  
  
  
  (but let's not let that stop the haters)
  

• The flow of presidential contenders has begun to slow, with only two more contenders left to declare (Scott Walker and John Kasich). On the Republican side this month, we had Rick Perry, Lindsay Graham, Jeb Bush, Bobby Jindal, Chris Christie, and forum favorite Donald Trump jumping into the fray. Lincoln Chafee announced his doomed candidacy for the Democratic nomination as well. In third party news, Jill Stein has announced she will run for a second consecutive Green Party nomination. Keep in mind, while discussions about such news in the USPol thread is inevitable, please remember that we do have a 2016 Presidential Primary thread and a 2016 Senate elections thread, too, if you're okay posting in RSF.
  
• The SCOTUS 2014-2015 term came to an end on Tuesday, giving us not only gay marriage, but also a reprieve for Obamacare and surprise saves for the Fair Housing Act and for Arizonan and Californian redistricting commissions. On the other hand, it also reaffirmed lethal injection and helped make the EPA’s job of protecting us from pollution harder, so it wasn’t all good news. As for next session, in addition to the one-person-one-vote and striking-black-people-from-juries cases from last month, we’re also due up for Fisher II and a case to overturn Abood v. Detroit Board of Education.
  
• Racism continues to thrive, as Dylann Roof shot and killed 9 in a historic black church in Charleston. This has raised a discussion, not on gun control, but on the Confederate flag, with even NASCAR getting into the mix. However, even as protesters take to civil disobedience to take down the flag, a streak of arson attempts appear to have struck historically black churches in the South, possibly in retaliation.
  
• The $10 (not the $20!) will have a female face on it by 2020.
  
• Puerto Rico is functionally bankrupt.
  
• After months of speculation, Obama officially announced that he will be extending overtime compensation to up to 5 million more people currently considered exempt from overtime rules.
  
• Republicans are very angry with Pope Francis, who has called for action on global warming, blaming human selfishness and who recently concluded a treaty with Palestine, its first with a Muslim country.
  

• Slavery by Another Name
  
• Citizenfour (Laura Poitras's companion pieces My Country, My Country and The Oath are useful for additional context on the impact of the US war on terror in the Middle East)
  

• The Atlantic
  
  • "The Case for Reparations" by Ta-Nehisi Coates (systematic mistreatment of African Americans in the economic sphere)
    
  • "The Tragedy of the American Military" by James Fallows (the US: the chickenhawk nation)
    
  • "The Southern Captivity of the GOP" by Christopher Caldwell (still-applicable 1998 article about regionalism in the GOP)
    

• Punishment and Inequality in America by Bruce Western
  
• The First Civil Right: How Liberals Built Prison America by Naomi Murakawa
  
• The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
  
• Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich
  
• Matt Taibbi's
  
  • The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap and
    
  • Griftopia: A Story of Bankers, Politicians, and the Most Audacious Power Grab in American History
    
• Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power by Rachel Maddow
  
• Rick Perlstein's trilogy on the history of the modern conservative movement:
  
  • Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus
    
  • Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America
    
  • The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan
    
• Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party, From Eisenhower to the Tea Party by Geoffrey Kabaservice
  
• Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class by Ian Haney López
  

• @costareports (Robert Costa, Washington Post, formerly National Review): Conservative-leaning journalist to whom Republican sources often leak backroom stories (Republican retreats, Presidential campaigns, etc.)
  
• @daveweigel (Dave Weigel, Bloomberg Politics, formerly Slate): "Idiosyncratic libertarian" journalist who is second only to Robert Costa in connections/interviews with Republican officials. Contrary to popular belief, not D&D superstar Joementum.
  
• @BruceBartlett (Bruce Bartlett, ex-Reagan/Bush official): "Lifelong conservative who now thinks the GOP panders to fools, whom he calls wankers. My tweets should not always be taken seriously."
  
• The following are semi-random selections from a list offered by Rygar201 and may be good or bad.
  
  • @owillis (Olivier Willis, research fellow, Media Matters)
    
  • @mattyglesias (Matt Yglesias, executive editor, Vox)
    
  • @JuddLegum (Judd Legum, Editor-in-Chief, Think Progress)
    
  • @dick_nixon "37th President of the United States. Messages from the President are unsigned, others from Ronald Ziegler. "
    
  • @EricBoehlert (Eric Boehlert, Media Matters)
    
  • @JamilSmith (Jamil Smith, senior editor, The New Republic)
    
  • @jonathanchait (Jonathan Chait, New York Magazine)
    
  • @nielslesniewski (Neils Lesniewski, Senate coverage, Roll Call)
    
  • @abwhite7 (Abraham White, former comms for Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA), Chuck Schumer (D-NY))
    
  • @DSenFloor (Senate D Floor Watch): "Live floor updates from the Senate Democrats"
    
  • @billmon1 (Billmon)
    
  • @ebruenig (Elizabeth Bruenig, The New Republic)
    

ComradeCosmobot fucked around with this message at 03:02 on Jul 20, 2015

fosborb fucked around with this message at 14:39 on Jul 1, 2015