(image: Vox.com – The case that could gut Obamacare, explained)

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on Wednesday in the case of King vs Burwell, which challenges the Affordable Care Act. Here’s how six words landed Obamacare back in the lap of the highest court in the land.

The Washington Post writes on what you need to know about the case, and how a reversal could potentially derail the legislation.

Eric Posner at Slate explains how the Court’s “motivated reasoning could destroy Obamacare.”

David Catron writes at The American Spectator that the case is about the separation of powers and is “an attempt to prevent the President from doing further violence to the Constitution.”

“The Constitution grants the power to tax and spend to Congress alone. Yet the executive branch, under the Obama administration, has brazenly arrogated the power to spend with its IRS rule authorizing the distribution of subsidies through federal exchanges. The original cert petition filed with the Court on behalf of the plaintiffs phrases it as follows: “If the ACA means what it says… the IRS is illegally spending billions of taxpayer dollars every month without congressional authority.”

But, as MSNBC‘s Benjy Sarlin points out, the case “creates an unwelcome risk for Republican 2016 candidates just as they’re getting their campaigns off the ground, potentially placing them between voters who are benefiting from the subsidies and a fired up conservative base demanding full repeal. Making matters worse, the list of states whose residents are most threatened by the case include presidential battlegrounds Ohio, Florida, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Michigan, and North Carolina.”

Argument starts at 10am ET. You can follow Wednesday’s developments at the always excellent SCOTUSblog here.

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* WORLD * Reaction to Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress ran the gamut, as might be expected. In Washington, it was largely along party lines. The New York Times found it “unconvincing”; Bloomberg called it “Tough, Fair, Unconstructive”; while Fox News thinks it might give Netanyahu a boost in his domestic election campaign.

Here’s what he left out. And here’s the reaction on the streets of Tehran; and from Jerusalem.

Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov was laid to rest in Moscow.

(YouTube/CBS News)

Writing in the Washington Post, J. Paul Goode says “the question to ask about the murder  is not who, but why?”

China said its defense budget would rise by about 10 per cent this year.

Former Gen David Petraeus reached a plea deal with the Justice Department and admitted sharing classified information with his mistress while he was Director of the CIA.

A jury will hear opening statements on Wednesday in the trial of accused Boston marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Meanwhile, ABC News reported that the widow of Tsarnaev’s brother and alleged co-conspirator is “under active investigation and could face charges” in connection with the blast.

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* POLITICS * A Justice Department civil rights report report into the Ferguson, Missouri Police Department and the city’s municipal court has found “systematic discriminatory practices” against African-Americans. The New York Times says that the report – set for official release on Wednesday – “will most likely force Ferguson officials to either negotiate a settlement with the Justice Department or face being sued by it on charges of violating the Constitution.”

What if the City of Los Angeles had an election and no-one turned up?

Congress sent a bill to the President funding the Department of Homeland Security without any of the immigration add-ons some Republicans had demanded. The AP reported that “There have been suggestions that [House Speaker John] Boehner would face an insurrection by tea party-backed conservatives if he brought a “clean” DHS bill to the floor. But Boehner’s opponents seemed resigned, and there was little sign of a brewing coup.”

That Hillary email scandal? Not so fast, writes Michael Tomasky at the Daily Beast. 

A key question would seem to be this: When did the new regulations go into effect? If 2007 or 2008, then Clinton would appear to be in direct violation of them, depending on what precisely they said. If later, it gets a little murkier. Oddly, the Times article doesn’t say. It doesn’t pin the new regs down to a specific date or even year.

But, he says:

Clinton still has some questions to answer, two that I can think of: Why did she not take a state.gov address? And is the Times accurate in writing that “her aides took no actions to have her personal emails preserved on department servers at the time, as required by the Federal Records Act”? If she can’t put forward persuasive answers to these two questions, then there may still be something here.

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* BUSINESS * Wanting to move from New York to Pennsylvania is perfectly understandable. But secession because of FOMO?

The Economist reports that residents of some small towns in upstate New York are thinking of seceding to the Keystone State for fear of missing out on revenues from fracking.

While it’s “not illegal,” the Bank of Canada would probably prefer Star Trek fans to stop “Spocking” their five dollar bills.

(image: Canadian Design Resource/BBC)

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* MEDIA * The opening day of the trial in London’s high court over alleged celebrity phone hacking at Mirror titles was told the activity took place on “an industrial scale.”

Former NBC News President Andrew Lack is thought to be in talks to return to NBCUniversal’s news division, according to Variety.

So, the guys at Gawker want to buy the New York Daily News.

Harvard’s Shorenstein Center announced the winners of this year’s Goldsmith Awards, with the Miami Herald taking the prize for investigative reporting.

John Dick posts at PBS Idea Lab on the relationship between sponsored content and objective journalism, concluding that Consumers Want it Both Ways: Free Content with No Tracking.

People have made two things crystal clear: They care about the future of objective professional journalism and the most desired (or at least tolerable) revenue model for content publishers to preserve it, quite simply, is advertising. For all of this to work, publishers and consumers need to find common ground.

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* SPORTS * Ahead of Friday’s scheduled season opener, Major League Soccer and the league’s players’ union are still negotiating over free agency. A federal mediator is facilitating the process, but the union is threatening to strike if a new collective bargaining agreement does not include a form of free agency.

In baseball, Tuesday saw the first day of spring training games. Here are 10 things to watch for as the pre-season unfolds.

(image: USA Today/Bleacher Report – 2015 Spring Training predictions)

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* CULTURE * With the opening day of shooting on Oliver Stone’s biopic of Edward Snowden, to be played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, the fugitive former security contractor’s Russian lawyer says he might be ready to come back to US. Reuters quotes a Justice Department spokesman as saying:

“It remains our position that Mr. Snowden should return to the United States and face the charges filed against him. If he does, he will be accorded full due process and protections.” The U.S. position is that “Snowden is not a whistleblower. He is accused of leaking classified information and there is no question his actions have inflicted serious harms on our national security,”

Wednesday night sees the broadcast of Conan in Cuba, a show filmed on location in Havana over the President’s Day weekend.

Finally, a promoter at Oberlin College decided that a musical combo called Viet Cong has a name that’s just too offensive.  Guess he won’t be booking Jello Biafra and his band anytime soon then…