The Hill reports that, in return for a promise that President Obama will not make any recess appointments in the upcoming Senate break, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) agreed to stop obstructing several of the president’s nominees:

“As the result of a successful discussion among the minority leader, the White House and myself there will be no recess appointments during the coming adjournment,” said [Majority Leader Harry] Reid, speaking from the Senate floor.

In return, Republicans allowed passage by unanimous consent of several of President Obama’s noncontroversial nominees and allowed Reid to set up a vote on the confirmation of Stephanie Thacker to be a circuit judge for the Fourth Circuit for April 16, the day the Senate returns from its break.

It is, of course, unfortunate that Reid needs to strike a deal at all before the caucus that controls less than half the seats in the Senate will deign to allow completely noncontroversial nominees to move forward. Nevertheless, this incident proves the wisdom of Obama’s decision to make several recess appointments earlier this year despite McConnell’s objections. Prior to Obama’s actions, he and Reid had few bargaining chips they could use to prevent McConnell’s obstructionism in a Senate ruled by the filibuster. Now, Obama and Reid can use the threat of future recess appointments to ensure that the party that voters did not want to control the Senate does not have a total veto power over the president’s nominees.

The story of Trayvon Martin’s death has gripped the nation’s attention for much of the last two weeks. While questions abound in Sanford, Florida as details slowly trickle out, Trayvon’s death has also prompted closer examinations of other, similar shootings around the country.

In Pasadena, California 19-year-old Kendrec McDade was shot and killed by police after they responded to a 911 caller who said he had been robbed at gunpoint by McDade and another young black man. According to police, McDade was seen reaching towards his waistline when officers opened fire from a close distance. He died after being transported to a local hospital, and no gun or weapon of any kind was found at the scene or on his person.

Pasadena police arrested Oscar Carillo, the man who called 911, and charged him with manslaughter for allegedly lying to police about the perpetrators having a gun. Local activists are now calling for an investigation by the Department of Justice, raising concerns about the legal regime that is giving rise to “shoot-to-kill” incidents:

Local black leaders said the event highlights the need for reforms in the Pasadena Police Department, and have called for the Department of Justice to investigate.

“With African-American teens, the perception is that they are all gangbangers, or they are all packing,” said Joe Brown, president of the Pasadena chapter of the N.A.A.C.P. “It does increase the instances of shoot-to-kill with law enforcement, and Pasadena is no exception.”

In Wisconsin, a second story has local leaders drawing comparisons with Trayvon as well. Bo Morrison, a 20-year-old black man, was shot and killed by a homeowner after he ended up on the homeowner’s porch while fleeing a police break-up of a garage party next door. The shooter, Adam Kind, was not arrested thanks to Wisconsin’s newly expanded “Castle Doctrine” laws, which, much like Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” laws, protect citizens who use deadly force if they feel threatened. Morrison, like McDade and Trayvon Martin, was unarmed when he was killed.

In each case, local leaders have begun campaigns to demand justice and changes in the legal system. In Pasadena, a group of civil rights leaders are demanding a meeting with Pasadena Police Chief Phillip Sanchez to discuss the exact details of the shooting, and in Wisconsin, over 150 people rallied in nearby West Bend demanding the state’s Castle Doctrine law be repealed. And this week, demonstrators in D.C. protested these so-called “kill at will” laws.

On Wednesday, the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the conditions of detention centers for immigrants who are facing deportation. The hearing was meant as a follow-up to new health and safety standards put in place by the Obama Administration, but Republicans were there to argue that detained immigrants — who include victims of human trafficking and asylum-seekers– had it too good at the facilities.

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), who chairs the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, titled the hearing “Holidays on ICE,” alleging that the detention centers are like vacations for those brought there by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Smith said in a press release that “the Obama administration’s new detention manual is more like a hospitality guideline for illegal immigrants.”

Other House Republicans and their experts piled on Smith’s suggestion that detainees enjoy hotel-like accomodations:

• Rep. Steve King (R-IA) said that 110 deaths since 2003 was not alarming to him. King said he felt it reflects the general population, though those kept in ICE detention centers otherwise do not (PDF), and there is ample evidence of abuse and human rights violations.
• King followed up, inquiring “Is it true that some of the inmates control the keys to their own cells?” The expert responded that he was not aware of that.
• One witness said that detainees had access to move around within the facility. But images of the facilities paint a different picture.
• As part of the new rules, detainees have a hotline to report abuse, During the hearing, the committee’s Republicans painted this as a bad thing. But previous experts have concluded that many facilities do not “meet the threshold of basic human rights standards.” Those standards include permitting detainees access to medical care and allowing women who are being held to give birth without being shackled.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren, however, actually had photographic evidence of some of the conditions in these facilities, and they offered up a very different view of the detention centers. Many of her pictures depicted the results of brutal abuse, and one detainee Lofgren discussed died of cancer after being denied access to a doctor for two months.

Immigration advocates in the House have come out strong against Rep. Smith’s hearing. Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA), who wrote legislation pushing for detention center oversight, said that the hearing showed Republicans were seeking “cheap political points” and were unconcerned about the rights of people in the detention centers.

Watch highlights from the hearing below:

One of the more ridiculous constitutional attacks against the Affordable Care Act is the plaintiff states’ claim that, by expanding Medicaid for states that choose to remain in the program and offering to pay 90 percent of the cost of this expansion, the federal government is somehow “coercing” the states into providing health care to the needy. In an exclusive interview with ThinkProgress’s Scott Keyes, however, Nebraska Attorney General and U.S. Senate candidate Jon Bruning (R), one of the conservative elected officials behind the anti-health care lawsuit, says that even this nonsensical attack on health reform does not go far enough. If it were up to him, a seminal 25 year-old opinion laying out the federal government’s power to work in partnership with states should be overruled as well:

KEYES: What about something like with the transportation bill where the federal government mandates that the states have to have a drinking age of 21 in order to get federal highway money?

BRUNING: Yeah, that’s the Dole case, and, in that particular case, it was about five to seven percent of the state’s transportation funding. . . . I think that’s coercive too, but I understand why the Court let it pass . . . .

KEYES: If I’m hearing you correctly, the drinking age, the string attached to the federal highway is not something that you

BRUNING: No, I think it’s coercive as well, but this Court said it was not . . . I believe it’s coercive in both cases.

KEYES: And unconstitutional?

BRUNING: And unconstitutional, yes.

Watch it:

Eliminating the nationwide drinking age would hardly be the end of the world, but it is important to understand what else is at stake under Bruning’s reading of the Constitution. The national drinking age exists because the federal government offers the states more highway funds if they set a drinking age of 21 — a law that was passed in an effort to reduce drunk driving deaths. States can either take the money, or they can leave it on the table and choose any drinking age they would like, but they are not free to take the federal government’s money and refuse to comply with the conditions attached to it.

This same arrangement is the basis of numerous other essential laws and programs, including the entirety of Medicaid, and most federal funding for public schools and universities. In other words, Bruning’s theory doesn’t just threaten minor laws such as the drinking age, it also could potentially strip health coverage from tens of millions of Medicaid recipients.

Shortly after Solicitor General Donald Verrilli began his arguments in defense of the Affordable Care Act’s insurance coverage requirement on Tuesday, he momentarily had trouble speaking, took a single sip of water, and then resumed his presentation. I know this because I was sitting directly behind Verrilli in one of the seats reserved for members of the Supreme Court bar when it happened, and Bloomberg news verifies it by examining the argument transcript and the genuine audio of the exchange.

Nevertheless, a Republican National Committee attack ad released shortly after the argument tampers with the audio of Verrilli’s brief pause to give the impression that he was so feckless that he spent nearly 20 seconds unable to utter a coherent word. Watch it:

Of course, the entire case against the Affordable Care Act is based on falsehoods — false claims that the Constitution does not allow the United States to “regulate commerce,” false claims that upholding health reform would destroy the existing rules preventing much non-economic federal regulation, and false claims that judges are free to simply ignore the Constitution’s text. So it probably isn’t surprising that the RNC decided to add yet another falsehood into the mix.