Schadenfreude over the rage and tears of Obamacare opponents

So the reviews are coming in from the right wing nutcases following today’s Supreme Court ruling upholding the subsidies provided by the federal exchanges in those states that did not set up state exchanges. They were predicted to be over the top and they did not disappoint, essentially claiming that democracy is dead and the system of government envisioned by the country’s founders has been replaced by a tyrannical president supported by judicial activist Supreme Court.
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Supreme Court rules in favor of Obamacare

By a 6-3 vote issued today in the case of King v. Burwell, the US Supreme Court upheld the subsidies for health insurance provided by the federal exchanges in those states that decided to not set up state exchanges. This will come as a huge relief to the Obama administration’s signature legislation. But more importantly, it will enable about 10 million people to continue to get affordable health care coverage.
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Breaking free of arranged marriages

Arranged marriages are not common in the US where women and men have many opportunities to meet one another in co-educational schools, workplaces, and social settings. This creates, from the point of view of highly traditional families, a ‘problem’ in that when allowed to mix freely in cosmopolitan settings, people might well fall in love with those who do not share their own ethnic or racial or religious backgrounds.
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The suddenly toxic confederate flag

In a previous post, I expressed some pessimism that southern states would disassociate themselves from the confederate flag, pointing out that the determination of fans and owners of the Cleveland Indians baseball team to retain their racist mascot in the face of opprobrium shows the strength that symbols have on people. If a baseball mascot could not be gotten rid of, what are the chances of doing so for a flag in a nation that fetishizes flags?
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John Oliver and chicken farmers

Recently John Oliver exposed the abusive practices by the four big companies who exploit chicken farmers by misleading them with various promises that entice them into signing contracts that result in a form of indentured servitude, and being protected by some members from Congress, funded by the big chicken lobby, who blocked any corrective legislation. The video got over 3 million viewers on YouTube. I linked to the clip and wrote about this issue earlier.
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A possible end to long-term solitary confinement?

There are many problems with the American criminal justice system. It is too easily prone to use excessive and even lethal violence, it can be very abusive, it treats people differently based on their color and/or socio-economic status, it incarcerates people for too many things and for too long, it kills people using the death penalty, it tortures, and so on. But there is one other feature that is less discussed and that is the fact that it is not uncommon for prisoners to be kept in solitary confinement for very long periods of time, even though we know that this can cause serious psychological damage. Some states like Texas and Virginia automatically put death row inmates in solitary confinement irrespective of whether they are judged to pose a danger or not.
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The absurd fuss over Obama’s use of the n-word

In an interview with Marc Maron, president Obama used the n-word quite casually while making the pretty obvious point that its use or non-use should not be the measure of the state of racism in the US. Of course, his use of the word gave many people the vapors. As a result, the rest of the hour-long interview has been pretty much ignored but you can get a synopsis here.
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