Today’s Links: June 29, 2012
OPINION
TOM SCOCCA: “Obama Wins the Battle, Roberts Wins the War”
“Yes, Roberts voted to uphold the individual mandate, joining the court’s liberal wing to give President Obama a 5-4 victory on his signature piece of legislation. Right-wing partisans are crying treason; left-wing partisans saw their predictions of a bitter, party-line defeat undone. But the health care law was, ultimately, a pretext. This was a test case for the long-standing—but previously fringe—campaign to rewrite Congress’ regulatory powers under the Commerce Clause.”
MICHAEL SALTSMAN – “A Campaign Promise It’s Okay to Break”
“Progressive advocacy groups point out that the president has yet to make good on his promise to raise the federal minimum wage to $9.50 an hour and link it to inflation. Whether the unrealized wage hike is due to political calculations or a genuine change of heart, the president can rest easy in knowing that this is one campaign promise it’s OK to break.”
LORENZO FRAMCESCHI-BICCHIERAI – “Good News For Spies and Dictators: ‘FreedomBox’ Is in Danger of an Early Death”
“It’s a developers’ nightmare word: vaporware – a term for hyped new software that’s never delivered. FreedomBox, an ambitious free-software project designed to embed privacy and security into netizens’ routers, seems on the verge of earning that label, risking becoming the Duke Nukem Foreverof privacy-enhancing software. Which would be a sad fate for a project that aimed at freeing the world from the shackles of centralized communication services like Facebook, Gmail and AIM.”
NEWS
LEGAL – Court Won’t Hear ‘Wardrobe Malfunction’ Appeal
“The Supreme Court won’t hear the government’s request to reinstate a $550,000 fine for CBS for Janet Jackson’s infamous ‘wardrobe malfunction.'”
LOTTERY – Dallas NAACP Wants Texas Lottery Shut Down
“The Dallas chapter of the NAACP wants to stop seeing low income Texans pumping money into the state lottery by putting it out of business.”
TECH – Microsoft fine, $1.1B, upheld in antitrust suit
“European court on Wednesday upheld most of a massive fine levied against Microsoft by the European Commission‘s competition watchdog, closing a case against the software giant that began in 1998.”