The Marriage Dead-Enders and Other Stuff

++While same sex marriage was celebrated this weekend,the resistance mounts. The religious right is trying to get assurances that religious organizations and institutions will be immune. Justice Kennedy had said that the First Amendments still protect those who are opposed to same sex marriage for religious reasons.

++Mississippi is trying to figure out a way that the state doesn't have to approve marriages at all. In fact, Rand Paul proposed yesterday to "privatize" marriage. Of course, marriage also includes some 1,100 legal benefits under the law. So will these disappear?

++My conservative e-mail is running hot and heavy about the Supreme Court being the election issue in 2016. I agree and I am sorry that the Right has waken up to this idea.

++Alabama is trying to put a 30-day hold on the marriage equality order because Justice Moore, he of the famous 10 commandments, can.

++Texas clerks are going ahead even though the governor and the attorney general has said they don't have to and that they will be provided lawyers to defend them.

++The real "religious" issue is that some religious organizations and institutions receive federal tax money. When asked whether they should fear the fate of Bob Jones University who was stripped of its tax free status when it refused to integrate, Solicitor General Verrilli said"that may become a problem." Watch for ferocious court battles like those over Obamacare on this one.

++The Court by 5 to 4 overruled President Obama's EPA for their plan to regulate carbon emissions on America's power plants. The conservative judges said that the EPA had to take into account the costs for doing so. It is not insurmountable but was a blow to the Obama admission to address climate change.

++The Court also ruled that the Texas abortion c;clinics can stay open. But the scary problem is that the Supreme Court is going to take up the whole abortion at the next session. While gay rights has been galloping into the forefront, women's reproductive rights have been hammered.

++The Court also ruled that independent commissions can rule on gerrymandering dealing a blow to Arizona and Texas Republicans. Earlier a vote rigging scheme by Republicans in North Carolina was voted down.

++Mike Huckabee was actually right when he said that same-sex marriage would not have gained such strength if the President,in this case President obama had not pushed it.

++Progressive bloggers over the weekend suggested that the defeats of the Right by the Supreme Court will galvanize the Right and provide them with the motivation to win in 2016. The idea is that only during FDR-Truman did the Democrats run the course and Reagan Bush afterwards. The Democrats will have it hard to win three in a row. Sadly with the polarized atmosphere in this country, this would be an utter disaster on every level--from foreign policy to domestic policy and to a cultural environment. There is no evidence as of yet that the GOP even considers we are in the 21st Century.

++This week we are coming up on the Iranian nuclear deal and the Beltway games are also getting dangerous to sabotage any deal. For your own edification, please read Jeffrey Goldberg's interview with former Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren about Obama and Israel. When you attack Leon Weseltier as a self-hating Jew, you have real problems. But Oren's view of the Iranian nuclear deal is scary because it reveals the mentality that is trying to defeat it.

Josh Marshall on Bibi's blunders

++Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo has a must read on "A Bridge Too Far" on they reactions to Bibi Netanyahu's invitation to speak before a joint session of Congress. 

++Josh has been following the events as appearing in the Israeli papers where Michael Orens, an American born Israeli and former ambassador to the United States called it "a cynical political move". Chris Wallace termed it "wicked".

++Marshall says Chemi Shulev's piece in Haaretz is a must read for the damaging comments by Diane Feinstein who charged that it was a breach of protocol and jeopardized the Iranian negotiations. Marshall believes the intensity of Feinstein's remarks reveals that the Democrats are no longer cowed by the right to be "stronger on national security" than the GOP.

++The net effect is that support for new sanctions now has diminished since the flap over Bibi's speech.

++Obama's Chief of Staff tried to distance himself from the White House official who said "Bibi spit in our face." But the lengthier version of Kerry's interplay with Bibi over Iran and the Palestine Vote makes the Bibi move more egregious. Throughout the several hour meeting with the Israeli ambassador,Bibi's acceptance of Boehner's invitation never came up when the ambassador knew about it the day before.