Snowden Has Left the Airport

++Whistleblower and former Booz-Hamilton employee Snowden has left the Moscow airport and been given one-year asylum in Russia. He has been offered a job by Russia's Facebook. The U.S. says it is  sad.

++Award-winning writer Samantha Powers was approved as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Most important about Ms. Powers is that she is married to Cass Sunstein, whom Glenn Beck said was the "most powerful man in America". She was approved by the Senate by a vote of 87 to 10. Marco Rubio led the dissenters.

++Patricia Millett made it out of the Senate Judiciary Committee today, putting confirmation of Obama's judicial nominees off until September.

++Illinois' Governor just signed the bill legalizing medical marijuana, making the state 20th to do so.

++Mitch McConnell successfully filibustered the Senate's Transportation bill sending Susan Collins in a huff about the Senate not being able to do its work.

++The Post's op-eds tonight were filled with Republicans lamenting the carnival atmosphere of the GOP's threats to close down the government. Michael Gerson tried to lecture the tea baggers that Obamacare will fail anyway of its own weight but that their nonsense to repeal it only breathes new life in it. Basically he cautioned the GOP on threatening to defund Obamacare as a recipe for electoral disaster. Charles Krauthammer lectures the libertarians on the threat of isolationism.

++Same sex marriages are now legal in Minnesota, Rhode Island and Washington,D.C. A lesbian couple has launched a federal suit to have same sex marriage recognized in Virginia. A Gallup poll now has over 50% of Americans believing same sex marriages should be legal in all states.

++All the noise about the debt ceiling,defunding the government and Obamacare seems not to make sense but it does. Congress will be away on recess until September. The House will only be in session for  9 days in September. By the end of September,there has to be either a budget agreement or a continuing resolution and lifting of the debt ceiling. October 1, another phase of Obamacare kicks in. So the nihilists among the Republicans want to bring the house down but others think any budget deal is going to be close to impossible except for a continuing resolution. But the problem with this is that sequestration will then continue--gutting both domestic discretionary spending and the military budget.

++ Ted Cruz will join Jim DeMint on the "Defund Obamacare Tour" funded by the Heritage Action for America, the activist arm of the Heritage Foundation. 

++The House will conclude tomorrow with its 40th attempt against Obamacare. This time it is a bill to prevent the IRS from being involved in enforcing the bill. Testimony from the staff rolling out Obamacare infuriated Republican congressmen because the Obama official said that she has met with thousands of small businesses and small business associations and there have only been anecdotal evidence that a small number of small businesses will not ensure their employees. The CBO projects the delay in implementing the individual mandate will cost the government about $10billion and mean that 500,000 will not be insured in 2014 as planned. 

++The Tea Party Republicans hope that lightning will strike twice this summer and they will repeat the uprising of 2010. But this time they will have to confront the basic benefits of Obamacare and reality might de-rail their game. The big money players are still hoping to dissuade young people from applying for medical insurance so that the "exchanges" will become more expensive than advertised. Kaiser polls indicate that young people or the "invincibles" now believe health insurance is important for their lives. The key will be how many act on their beliefs.