SCOTUS Recap - The ACA And Alvarez Decisions

On June 28, 2012, the last day of the U.S. Supreme Court's 2011 term, saw a surprising and important decision handed down in National Federation of Independent Business et al. v. Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services, et al., the challenge to the Affordable Care Act (the "ACA"). While most of the news media was focused on the decision in the ACA challenge, the Supreme Court also issued an opinion in U.S. v. Alvarez on the same day overturning the Stolen Valor Act of 2005 in a decision likely to become a key piece of the Court's First Amendment jurisprudence.

I'm not going to attempt to provide incisive legal commentary on the ACA opinion - there is plenty of good commentary available with far more insight than I can muster, and frequent readers know that "incisive legal commentary" isn't really what I do. I will go ahead and say that my predictions on the outcome of the ACA challenge were wrong.  Being wrong in my predictions puts me in good