Required reading from around the web of the best, most interesting, or most though provoking things we’ve read:
Solomon: ‘Unmasker in Chief’ Samantha Power spewed anti-Trump bias in government emails
“Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power may share an unflattering stage with a text-loving FBI agent and his Donald Trump-hating paramour from the bureau. […] It turns out that Power — the diplomat whose authority inexplicably was used to unmask hundreds of Americans’ names in secret intelligence reports during the 2016 election — engaged in similar Trump-bashing on her official government email, according to documents unearthed by an American Center for Law and Justice lawsuit. The conservative legal group is run by Trump defense attorney Jay Sekulow. The discovery could add a new dimension — a question of political bias — to a long-running congressional investigation into why Power’s authority was used to unmask hundreds of Americans’ names in secret National Security Agency intercepts during the 2016 election. That practice of unmasking continues to grow today.
Power’s barbs toward Trump started . . .”
Abutaleb: Appellate court raises potential new threat to ACA
“A federal appeals court on Wednesday questioned whether more than a dozen Democratic states and the U.S. House of Representatives have the right to appeal a lower court decision that struck down the entirety of the Affordable Care Act, throwing the law’s future into question. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, which is scheduled to begin hearing oral arguments on the constitutionality of the law on July 9, said it needed more information as to whether the House and Democratic states had standing to intervene in the lawsuit and whether their interventions were timely. Some legal experts said the request did not bode well for the future of former president Barack Obama’s signature domestic policy achievement.”
Jacobs: Democrats Debate How Many Americans To Take Health Insurance From
“Of the candidates on stage, only New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren said they wanted to do away with private insurance entirely. But as I explained on Wednesday, the other candidates’ plans for a so-called “public option” could result in two-thirds of those with employer-sponsored coverage losing their insurance. In reality, then, the debate centered not around whether to take away Americans’ current health coverage, but how many would lose their insurance—and how honest Democrats would be with the American people in doing so: . . .”