SORRY, CHUCK TODD, BUT REPORTERS ARE NOT THE REFEREES OF POLITICS.  Makes it pretty clear why they do what they do though, doesn't it?

a few more observations on the fruits of Obergefell ... no pun intended

Here's What John Roberts and Salon.com Have in Common

[Eugene Volokh] Why may the government ban businesses from saying “we won’t bake cakes for same-sex weddings”?  

Note: this is NOT the same as denying service to a gay couple.  The bakery MAY bake them a birthday cake, a graduation cake, or any of several other cakes.  It simply des not wish to be forced to contribute to the wedding.

Some good reads on Obergefell.  I support SGM.  I do NOT think this is the optimum way to achieve it, due to the establishment of precident.  Although with Windsor being overruled so quickly one wonders what effect precident has any more.

[Sasha Volokh] Is marriage really a liberty right?

[Ilya Somin] Of marriage and liberty – some thoughts on Justice Thomas’ Obergefell dissent

2 QUESTIONS FOR THE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES IN THE AFTERMATH OF THE SAME-SEX MARRIAGE CASE.

1. Will you pledge that religious organizations that refuse to perform same-sex marriages will not lose their tax-exempt status?

2. Who do you think should prevail if there is a conflict between the interests of gay people — as they engage in commerce and seek full membership in society — and the interests of religious people — as they try to frame their conduct to accord with the tenets of their religion?

[David Post] A few words on Obergefell and the countermajoritarian tendency (with my favorite quote from The Notorious RBG)

Marriage and the Constitution: What the Court Said and Why It Got It Wrong

an finally, two things: “You Can’t Compromise with Culture Warriors,” Jonah Goldberg

and

June was a rough month.  Helbig case gave us John Roberts telling us that the phrase "established by the state" actually means "NOT established by the state."  If I'd told you after Windsor was decided that it would be overturned within two years those of you favoring SGM would've been desponant.  It was.  You arent.  Then there's Hillary's daily twisting, turning and corruption of the English language.

Then there's this:  State Department Officially Calls Iran’s Forced Sex Change Surgeries ‘Confirmation:’

By referring to the surgeries as “gender confirmation,” rather than the much more widespread and morally neutral “sex reassignment surgery,” the State Department seems to be siding with the Iranian government’s false “cure” for homosexuality.

John Kerry never got the memo that Orwell wrote 1984 as a warning, not a how-to guide.

Also now meaningless? 

Religeous Freedom.  The ACLU Now Opposes Religious Freedom Because Christians Need It

Press Briefing.   State Dept threatens to arrest Washington Free Beacon reporter for covering Iran talks

Legislature now means voting population: The Founders weren’t perfect but they were more precise wordsmiths than the average Supreme Court Justice. For example, when they meant “the people,” they wrote “the people.” So when they wrote “the legislature,” confidence is high that they meant “the legislature.”

Jimmy Carter no longer means "worst president ever:   Jimmy Carter: Obama’s Foreign Policy Accomplishments ‘Minimal’.

YUVAL LEVIN: King v. Burwell and the Law:

PATTERICO: KING V. BURWELL: INTENTIONALISM TRUMPS TEXTUALISM, AND THE RULE OF LAW DIES:

This reminds me of a hypothetical I offered in 2010:

Assume you make $50,000 a year. The legislature passes a law imposing a hefty tax on “people making over $100,000 per year.” Since the law does not apply to you, by its plain terms, you do not pay the tax. However, you are convicted after a judge finds irrefutable contemporaneous evidence showing that all legislators who voted for the tax intended to impose it on people making over $10,000 a year. The judge, an “intentionalist,” finds that the intent of the legislature controls, regardless of the plain meaning of the law.

Under the plain language of the law, the tax does not apply to you. Applying the intent of the legislators, it does. Which is the better interpretation?

Read the whole thing.

Also, the progressive left’s belief that “law is politics” is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. As Andrew McCarthy pointed out in NRO this weekend, there was no speculation about whether one of the four liberal/progressive Justices would vote in any of the recent high profile, controversial cases precisely because liberal/progressive Justices don’t “wander off the reservation.”

For some reason, it’s the GOP-nominated Justices who turn out to be unpredictable.

And then there was this: HOW TO TALK TO A NON-LEFTIST THE OTHER 364 DAYS A YEAR: Taking Mr. Obama’s advice and planning to pitch your relatives on the many wonderful benefits of Obamacare tomorrow? What happens the other 364 days? Robert Tracinski of the Federalist offers some advice for his friends on the other side of the aisle to try breaking the ice, including — and I know this will be very difficult for many leftists — “Talk to people beneath your station:”

At a university or in an urban hipsterville neighborhood, you may think that everyone around you is on the same page ideologically. But you are almost certainly wrong. Part of the problem is that a lot of the people who differ from you on politics are the people you don’t notice. They’re not the professors or administrators or graduate students, or the performance artists, and baristas, and artisanal vegan sriracha curators. They are receptionists and groundskeepers and especially small business owners who run some of the stores and shops and restaurants you go to.

Some university employees might be on the right, but I’m afraid they probably won’t talk to you about it. Why? Because they are afraid of losing their jobs. They are afraid that if word gets around about their retrograde views, people will show up with mattresses demanding that they be fired. At the very least, their bosses will quietly disapprove and their potential for advancement and new opportunities will shrink. Maybe they would open up if you talked to them nicely, but chances are that they just don’t trust you.

That what the headlines SHOUD read.

Why should it be called a Democrat symbol?  WILL DEMOCRATS APOLOGIZE FOR SLAVERY AND SEGREGATION? An open letter to DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

SHE SPEAKS THE TRUTH:  Katie Pavlich: America is not racist.

WHY ARE DEMOCRATS ALWAYS SO RACIST? George Takei: Justice Thomas ‘a clown in blackface.’ As somebody said on Twitter, Takei is taking the sore-winner thing to a whole new level.  See also  Hillary Clinton Donor Calls Prominent African-American Legal Scholar a ‘Clown in Blackface’
Will she condemn? I think that all Democratic candidates should be asked about this. And President Obama, too!

And then there's this:

 And while we're discussing flags, can you IMAGINE the outrage had this been Fox:

THIS IS CNN: ‘Look a bit closer’: CNN told why that wasn’t an ISIS flag at a gay pride parade:

Uh, you may want to look a bit closer, @CNN. pic.twitter.com/vMrN9aSfaI

— Alex Bowles (@alexqgb) June 27, 2015

.@CNN devoted an entire segment to an "ISIS flag" at a gay pride event. The flag was actually a bunch of dildos. https://t.co/rlQBpfHTWx

— Carlos Maza (@gaywonk) June 27, 2015

@DefendWallSt @camboviet This is some scary stuff here , they better watch their back

— Johnna Beuerlein (@fcwic1) June 27, 2015

Heh.™

The Top Ten Films of 1945

I was actually surprised at how .... bad .... this list is - even GIVEN then war.

THE SADDEST THING ABOUT HILLARY’S EMAILS: Relax, you don’t have to pick just one, but emails reveal weak grasp of reality among global power players. We have the worst political class in American history. And it is an embodiment of the Dunning Kruger effect.

 Andrew Napolitano on Hillary Clinton's Secret War

AND THEY SAY SHE LACKS A SENSE OF HUMOR! ‘People should and do trust me,’ says Hillary Clinton.

HILLARY “WHITE POWER” CLINTON: Clinton tweets, then deletes, photo of man with ‘white’ tattoo.

Related?  FUNDAMENTALLY TRANSFORMED: Survey says: 35 percent of Americans would expatriate. A country that has generous social benefits, with high taxes and many political/regulatory barriers to success, will attract the unproductive and chase away the productive. End result: “Bad luck.”

Here’s the context. Senator Grassley asked Roberts to describe his approach to statutory interpretation, and in particular to weigh in on Justice Scalia’s refusal to consider legislative history. Roberts gave this answer, with my emphasis added:

Obviously, when you’re dealing with interpreting a statute, the most important part is the text. You begin with the text, and as the Supreme Court has said in many cases, perhaps most cases, that’s also where you end — the answer is clear.

I have, though, as a judge, relied on legislative history to help clarify ambiguity in the text. The Supreme Court stated once, and I think it’s a very important principle, you look to legislative history to clarify ambiguity. You don’t look to legislative history to create ambiguity.

In other words, if the text is clear, that is what you follow and that’s binding. And you don’t look beyond it to say, well, if you look here, though, maybe this clear word should be interpreted a different way.

On the other hand, we confront situations where the text is not clear and the legislative history can be helpful in resolving that ambiguity. It requires a certain sensitivity to what you’re dealing with. All legislative history is not created equal.

There’s a difference between the weight that you give a conference report and the weight you give a statement of one legislator on the floor. You have to, I think, have some degree of sensitivity in understanding exactly what you’re looking at; appreciate where those comments were made in the legislative process; be careful to make sure that they’re dealing with the same language that was eventually adopted.

You have to, for example, be very skeptical about statements by opponents of the bill. It’s quite a common thing saying, well, this bill would do this and this and this, and so we shouldn’t pass it. That’s not always the best guide as to what the sponsors really intended in the language.

So it does require a certain sensitivity to what you’re dealing with, but I have quoted and looked to legislative history in the past to help determine the meaning of ambiguous terms, and I would expect to follow that same approach on the Supreme Court.

I don’t think there’s a difference there in terms of what things you think it is appropriate to look to, help you do your job, which is to figure out what Congress intended.

HILLARY FLASHBACK: ‘No,’ New York Should Not Recognize Same-Sex Marriages (Video).

Let’s face it, not everyone in the political sphere can be as forward thinking as Dick Cheney and the Koch Brothers.

Speaking of whom, “The arc of history is long, but it bends toward Koch.”

ELENA KAGAN IN 2009: “THERE IS NO FEDERAL CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO SAME-SEX MARRIAGE.” As Prof. William A. Jacobson writes at his Legal Insurrection blog,  “Then she was a nominee for Solicitor General, now she is an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Then she was bound to follow the law, now she gets to make it.”

CHOCOLATE RATION RAISED TO TWENTY GRAMS A WEEK! Politico Editor: Falling GDP Is Good.

John Kerry and Claire McCaskill agree that bad economic news is certainly good for Gaia.

 FUNDAMENTALLY TRANSFORMED: Labor Participation Rate At 38-Year Low. Plus, the inevitable downward revision to previous months: “There were 60,000 fewer jobs created in April and May than initially reported.”

Related: Men Not At Work. “Thirty-eight years takes us back to 1977, the unhappy dawn of the Age of Carter.”

[Jonathan H. Adler] Pennsylvania’s governor doesn’t understand economics (or won’t admit the real reasons he vetoed ending state liquor monopoly)  Claims monopolies now HELP consumers!

the watch this: WATCH: How Germany Forgot the Horrors of Communism an see how it applies to 19th Century US History

also related: HOW TO GET RICH QUICK VIA TAXPAYERS! A bunch of politicos got in on the ground floor of Obamacare’s $2 billion co-ops in 2011. Today, they are filthy rich cauz nobody’s been watching. Except Richard Pollock of the Daily Caller News Foundation. Tomorrow’s second part will make you even madder.