Anderson Cooper: “The Fact Is, I'm Gay.”  —  Last week, Entertainment Weekly ran a story on an emerging trend: gay people in public life who come out in a much more restrained and matter-of-fact way than in the past.  In many ways, it's a great development: we're evolved enough not to be gob-smacked when we find out someone's gay.

Kaiser Health Tracking Poll: Early Reaction to Supreme Court Decision on the ACA  —  This poll fielded following the Supreme Court's decision upholding the heart of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) finds a majority of Americans (56 percent) now say they would like to see the law's detractors stop …

CPAC's boy wonder swings left  —  Jonathan Krohn took the political world by storm at 2009's Conservative Political Action Conference when, at just 13 years old, he delivered an impromptu rallying cry for conservatism that became a viral hit and had some pegging him as a future star of the Republican Party.

W.H. gets unexpected backup: Romney camp says it's a penalty, not a tax  —  Prominent Dems including White House chief of staff Jack Lew and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi have repeatedly argued in recent days that the fee for not buying insurance under the health care law is in fact a penalty and not a tax.

Romney Plans Trip to Israel  —  JERUSALEM — Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, will visit Israel this summer to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other leaders, a senior aide to the prime minister confirmed on Monday evening.

Mitch McConnell: Covering 30 million uninsured is ‘not the issue’  —  Mitch McConnell's appearance today on Fox News Sunday was remarkably revealing — it showed as clearly as you could want that the Supreme Court decision is finally forcing Republicans to declare what, exactly …

Romney Invested in Medical-Waste Firm That Disposed of Aborted Fetuses, Government Documents Show  —  And these documents challenge Romney's claim that he left Bain Capital in early 1999.  —  Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel/Zuma  —  Earlier this year, Mitt Romney nearly landed …

Obama Now Leads Romney, 48% to 43%  —  Represents largest lead for Obama among registered voters since April  —  PRINCETON, NJ — President Barack Obama has maintained at least a slight margin over Mitt Romney in each of the last six Gallup Daily tracking averages, including a 48% …

Secret Service disrupts students' ‘Fire Holder protest’ over ‘suspicious package’  —  The Secret Service on Monday shutdown a student-protest calling for the firing of Attorney General Eric Holder saying they were acting on concerns over a ‘a suspicious package’ apparently left by a tourist on White House grounds.

US manufacturing shrinks for first time in 3 years  —  WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. manufacturing shrank in June for the first time in nearly three years, a troubling sign as evidence builds that economic growth is slowing.  —  The Institute for Supply Management, a trade group of purchasing managers …

Sweaty Washington returns to work; mass outages persist, though numbers decline  —  Area residents experienced slightly less sweltering temperatures and relatively quiet roads on Monday, as utility companies continued to battle massive power outages from Friday's severe storms.

Romney at Langone, Murdoch, Blankfein meeting: I won't be ‘flip-flopper’ on immigration  —  Mitt Romney last week told a private group of potential supporters and business and media elites, including Rupert Murdoch, that he was treading carefully around the issue of immigration to avoid looking like a “flip-flopper.”

The real victor in Brussels was Merkel  —  Mario Monti faced down the German chancellor and won the battle.  He will survive a few more weeks or months in politics.  It was clever of him to threaten a veto on something Angela Merkel badly needed.  He had her in the corner.

A New Grievance For the Right  —  The big non-weather news over the weekend was a thinly sourced article by CBS' Jan Crawford seeking to confirm the theory that Chief Justice Roberts switched sides in the ACA case after initially supporting its invalidation on Commerce Clause grounds.

Christie Calls Reporter “Idiot” at Press Conference  —  When a reporter tried to ask Chris Christie an off-topic question at a press conference, the governor snapped at him  —  New Jersey's governor is known for speaking his mind when something displeases him.

Downstate county clerks move to defend gay marriage ban  —  Two downstate county clerks are stepping in to defend Illinois' gay marriage ban, after high-ranking government lawyers made the rare decision not to defend the state law against a pair of legal challenges in Cook County.

Armando Montano, AP summer intern, dies in Mexico City at age 22  —  Eduardo Verdugo/Associated Press - In this June 4, 2012 photo, Armando Montano, 22, poses for an ID photo at the Associated Press office in Mexico City.  Montano, an aspiring journalist who was working this summer …

Dems target vulnerable GOP lawmakers over health law repeal vote  —  The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) is launching a new campaign Monday targeting vulnerable GOP lawmakers on healthcare ahead of the House vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Doing Double Duty at Justice  —  On June 8, Attorney General Eric Holder assigned the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Ronald C. Machen Jr., and the U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland, Rod J. Rosenstein, to lead criminal investigations into recent instances …