Wow, what a news day. I was going to write something about inflation, but it’ll have to wait.

Highlights:

As expected, the Supreme Court ended the Biden Administration’s covid mandates on large employers. However, health care workers at facilities that recieve Medicare and Medicaid funds, which is probably pretty much all of them, must still get vaccinated. I have not read the decision, but here is one commentary from Paul Campos at Lawyers, Guns and Money:

Meanwhile in not so good news, John Roberts and the Furious Five have ruled that because in 1970 Congress didn’t have the foresight to pass a statute that specifically said that Joe Biden could tell OSHA in 2021 to issue a vaccine mandate because of COVID-19, Joe Biden can’t do that. This is a consistent application of the Republican Supreme Court’s doctrine that statutes written in general terms to deal with a wide variety of issues can only be enforced by Republican administrations.

I expect that’s about right.

On a happier note, the U.S. Justice Department has indicted the founder of Oath Keepers and a bunch of other Oath Keeper types on seditious conspiracy, folks. Yes, they used the “s” word. Let me boldface that — seditious conspiracy. A beautiful thing. The FBI arrested them today. “This case is being prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia and the Department of Justice National Security Division’s Counterterrorism Section,” the Justice Department says.

You lose some, but sometimes you win some.

There was a news story saying that Prince Andrew has been stripped of his royal titles, which suggests he is no longer “Prince” Andrew unless Prince is really his first name. But the BBC, which probably gets this stuff right, just says Andy can’t be called His Royal Highness any more, and he’s also been stripped of military titles. Poor baby.

The RNC wants to pull out of future presidential debates. These are the debates between the party nominees run by the bipartisan presidential commission, not the primary debates, which were a hot mess last time. “The Republican National Committee is preparing to change its rules to require presidential candidates seeking the party’s nomination to sign a pledge to not participate in any debates sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates,” the New York Times says. The commission is unfair! It is unfair to Republicans! say the Republicans.

One suspects Trump is behind this. Donald Trump’s two debates with Joe Biden were a disaster for Trump, you might recall, and Trump refused to take part in one of the scheduled debates because he was recovering from covid and it was going to be remote.

So that’s today’s news roundup. Stay safe.

Update: Oops, I wasn’t done. After all the effort of President Biden and others to get a voting rights bill passed, today the deadly duo of Manchin and Sinema pretty much shot it down. I want them both gone. I don’t know what else there is to be done.