Articles to read together — see “The Scam Wall Street Learned From the Mafia” by Matt Taibbi (and also recent posts on Taibbi’s blog at Rolling Stone) and also “Rigged Rates, Rigged Markets” at the New York Times. The behemoth global financial houses are rigging the system in a way that is “virtually indistinguishable from the kind of thuggery practiced for decades by the Mafia, which has long made manipulation of public bids for things like garbage collection and construction contracts a cornerstone of its business,” Taibbi writes.

When you’re done with that, see Poor Land in Jail as Companies Add Huge Fees for Probation.

The best thing on the Web today is by Chris Bertram, Corey Robin and Alex Gourevitch at Crooked Timber. It begins:

Libertarianism is a philosophy of individual freedom. Or so its adherents claim. But with their single-minded defense of the rights of property and contract, libertarians cannot come to grips with the systemic denial of freedom in private regimes of power, particularly the workplace. When they do try to address that unfreedom, as a group of academic libertarians calling themselves “Bleeding Heart Libertarians” have done in recent months, they wind up traveling down one of two paths: Either they give up their exclusive focus on the state and become something like garden-variety liberals or they reveal that they are not the defenders of freedom they claim to be.

This is a long post full of links to libertarians who are cranking out counter-arguments. The basic point, though, is libertarianism’s massive blind spot regarding coercion and oppression in the workplace. Basically, the same people who shriek that taxation is slavery wave away, for example, sexual harassment as someone else’s personal relationship problem.

I haven’t had a chance to click through all the links to all the arguments and counter-arguments. But we’re basically looking at a discussion among mostly (if not entirely) white men, who mostly work in think tanks and academia. These are not people who have had the personal experience of working for some soul-sucking martinet while being a couple of missed paychecks away from eviction. The Crooked Timber crew “gets it,” but once again I am struck that libertarian theory is mostly embraced by the relatively privileged, for whom genuine oppression is something they’ve only read about in textbooks.

I’ve written before that current political libertarianism, which sometimes parts company with theoretical/academic libertarianism, grew mostly as a pushback to court-ordered desegregation in the 1950s and 1960s. Libertarianism in the U.S. seems to have always been more about maintaining privilege than about actual civil liberties. In particular, they refuse to see that it is through democratic government that ordinary people are able to protect themselves from oppression by the privileged. Take that away, and most of us revert to being serfs.

That Libertarians have wrapped themselves in the mantle of Patrick Henry while arguing for the rights of King George’s aristocracy is brilliant. That they themselves can’t see that’s what they are doing is pathological.

Paul Ryan says Congress must repeal the Affordable Care Act because rights only come from God, not the government.

By the same logic, they should repeal the Second Amendment.

In a somewhat slow decision, the Maryland Racing Commission has awarded Secretariat the record for running the all-time fastest Preakness Stakes. This means Big Red is the record-holder in all three triple crown races. His official time for the 1973 race is now 1:53.

Jockey Ron Turcotte didn’t use a whip. After blowing past the field beginning at around :40, Secretariat cruised the rest of the way.

It’s, um, hot.

Or, what’s happening now –

Casa Maha has been unaffected so far by the storms and power outages. The air conditioner is working fine, thanks. Hope all is well with you.

In other news, the allegedly nonexistent national leadership of the Tea Party is calling upon members to rev up their Power Chairs and rally against Obamacare this July 4th.

However, the National Weather Service is predicting excessive heat for most of the Midwest and the southern states — prime bagger territory — so the Koch brothers had better cough up some air conditioned buses and stadiums if they expect much of a turn-out.

The recent (and ongoing) wildfires in Colorado brought out the statism in Little Lulu, who has been screaming that President Obama and the federal government aren’t doing enough to help her. Malkin lives in Colorado and had to be evacuated, I take it.

BTW, last year Lulu’s beloved House GOP voted to cut a massive chunk of the National Forest Service budget. See also Budget Cuts Hinder Efforts to Fight Colorado Fires.

Since 2010, the Republicans have cut the federal firefighting budget by more than $200 million.

The resources for fighting fires in Colorado are so bad that a delegation was formed by U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton (R -3d CD), Rep. Cory Gardner (R-4th CD), and Rep, Mike Coffman (R-6th CD) demanding the federal government provide more funds and equipment to help fight the expanding fires.

It’s unfortunate that all three of these U.S. Representatives demanding help for their home state also voted for the Paul Ryan budget cuts which would drastically reduce the funding for the federal firefighting program. Rep. Paul Ryan claims he can meet the country’s needs by cutting back on “imprudent, irresponsible, and downright wasteful spending.” Powerfulstorms.com wonders which category firefighting fall into: Imprudent, Irresponsible or Wasteful?

To a rightie, firefighting falls into all three categories until it’s their houses on fire. Is this Imprudent, Irresponsible, or Stupid?

Sorry about slow posting. Lily went downhill rapidly and she was euthanized yesterday, so I’m pretty bummed. I still have a chunk of a tab to pay off at the vet’s, so I’m rattling the tin cup one more time –

All help gratefully appreciated.

First — a collection of tweets from people who say they are moving to Canada because “Obamacare” is socialism. Yeah, let’s live somewhere free of the scourge of socialized medicine! Oh, wait …

Righties already are seizing on Roberts’s decision that the individual mandate is constitutional because of the power of Congress to levy taxes. It’s a tax! (It’s a witch! Burn it!) The ever not-brilliant Kathleen Parker accused the Obama Administration of deceit for sneaking a tax into the ACA without telling anybody. This rather overlooks the fact that Roberts is the only one calling it a tax. The Solicitor General who defended the ACA before the court very pointedly argued that the penalty was not a tax, and calling it a “tax” instead of a “penalty” doesn’t mean the whatever-it-is will suddenly cost you more money than it would have as not a tax, or lurk under your bed and eat your socks.

Jennifer Rubin joins the mob:

Randy Barnett, one of the key architects of the Obamacare legal challenge, e-mails me: “Today’s decision validates our claim that a Congressional power to compel that all Americans engage in commerce was a constitutional bridge too far. By rewriting the law to make it a ‘tax,’ the Court has now thrown ObamaCare into the political process where the People will decide whether this so-called ‘tax’ will stand. And the People will also decide whether future Supreme Court nominees will pledge to enforce the Constitution’s restrictions on the power of Congress.”

The problem here, of course, is while the Obama administration swore up and down that Obamacare did not tax every American, the Supreme Court, in effect, held that the Democrats did exactly that. In that regard, the opinion is a tribute to President Obama’s utter disingenuousness.

Except that the Court did not “rewrite” that part of the law at all. The only difference is in the legal theory supporting what the law said. And the penalty is not a tax on “every American,” just people who refuse to comply with the law.

So expect a lot of hysteria about it’s a witch! I mean, it’s a tax!

The ACA actually gives the government very little power to collect the penalty or tax or whatever you want to call it. As the law is written now, if you refuse to pay it you won’t be charged with a crime, and the government can’t put a lien on your property or anything.

While welcome as far as the ACA goes, Roberts’s peculiar opinion on taxing versus commerce clause is likely to cause a lot of trouble for progressives down the road. It really should have been found valid under the commerce clause.

Well, we should know in about 25 minutes …

Hoopsi-doodle; I’m getting the news that the individual mandate is upheld. Details to come …

SCOTUSblog has a live blog that is confirming the individual mandate has been upheld. Also I’m hearing that Roberts voted with the majority opinion. A number of commenters said predicted this outcome over the past few hours.

Blood-curdling howl to rise from the Right in 5 … 4… 3… 2… 1…

Update: Yeah, the mandate was upheld 5-4, with Roberts in the majority. I’m assuming that means Scalia, Thomas, Alito, and Kennedy wanted to nix it.

Update: The skunk in the rose garden is that the majority ruling is that the mandate does violate the commerce clause, which is something that could spell trouble for progressivism. But the mandate is upheld under the taxing power. Go figure.

Update: From SCOTUSblog,

In Plain English: The Affordable Care Act, including its individual mandate that virtually all Americans buy health insurance, is constitutional. There were not five votes to uphold it on the ground that Congress could use its power to regulate commerce between the states to require everyone to buy health insurance. However, five Justices agreed that the penalty that someone must pay if he refuses to buy insurance is a kind of tax that Congress can impose using its taxing power. That is all that matters. Because the mandate survives, the Court did not need to decide what other parts of the statute were constitutional, except for a provision that required states to comply with new eligibility requirements for Medicaid or risk losing their funding. On that question, the Court held that the provision is constitutional as long as states would only lose new funds if they didn’t comply with the new requirements, rather than all of their funding.

The dissents are still being read.

Update: Not a lot of reaction from right-wing blogs yet. I guess they are waiting to receive their talking points from Rush and Hannity.

“Justice Scalia must resign.”

I guess all hell will break loose tomorrow when the Supremes hand down their Obamacare ruling, but in the meantime here is some other stuff to read:

“The truth about the Fast and Furious scandal.” CNN investigates and finds the “scandal” is all right-wing hysteria. Not that the righties will stop being hysterical, of course.

“Confirmation Bias.” Political reporters stick to The Narrative, even when it’s wrong.

“The Supreme Court’s collateral damage.” After tomorrow, we may be living under an entirely different, anti-progressive constitution.