1. It’s Thursday, June 25, 2015.

2. We’re now halfway between last Christmas and next Christmas.

3. I haven’t written anything for this blog for a while. There are several reasons, none of which are all that interesting. I intend to be more active starting next week (I know I’ve said that before, so I accept and understand your skepticism).

4. But I do have a few things I want to say before I come back on Monday.

5. Does it say something about the Affordable Care Act that it has been saved twice by a Supreme Court dominated by Republicans? That something is that the ACA, aka Obamacare, is a fairly Republican idea — merchants in the healthcare industry, from doctors to insurers, compete for additional business created when everyone has to have coverage.

If you don’t believe that, look at the stock charts. Just as an example, the health insurer Cigna is trading at 5 times what it was in 2010, when ACA passed.  

If was just up to Democrats, we would have expanded Medicare and gone the full national healthcare thing, like our friends in the U.K., and we all would have paid more in taxes to support it. But, alas, it’s not just up to the most liberal among us.

So we have this alternative that’s not bad — except that the people who would normally love this thing spit on the ground whenever it’s mentioned. That’s because the Democrat who wanted to reconcile the country by going the more conservative route actually succeeded in getting it through.

It’s a victory for everyone — for people who need help paying for healthcare and for companies that provide healthcare (see those stock charts again). But, because the right hates Obama so much, it has chosen to forfeit its share of the glory on a great day for the American people.

6. I have always been offended by the Confederate flag. It is the ultimate symbol of treason.

With the blessings of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution that you’ve chosen to rebuke, you are entitled to stick it on your car or in front of your house. That doesn’t change the fact that you’re a traitor. If my tax money were going to support the hoisting of this traitors’ flag, I’d be really pissed.

So it’s nice that states that have acquiesced in this disloyalty are having second thoughts.

Unfortunately, it took the massacre of nine loyal Americans in a Charleston church to raise this awareness. For that, I’m still profoundly sad.

7. Next week, I’ll figure out how I want to do this everyday. For real.