It was worth it.  Probably.  —  Open enrollment for the Affordable Care Act ended officially on Monday night.  And the last-minute rush to sign up for new insurance plans was every bit as big as the experts had always predicted.  Traffic to the online marketplaces and calls to the telephone help centers were the highest ever.

‘The debate over repealing this law is over’: Obama boasts 7.1 MILLION have signed up to Obamacare - but study shows just 858,000 newly insured Americans have paid up!  — President took a major victory lap and took political shots at Republicans, but ignored shortcomings in his administration's official numbers

Starbucks apologizes to Louisiana woman for alleged Satanic symbols in coffee foam  —  The hellish “brewhaha” is over.  Starbucks has apologized to a Louisiana schoolteacher who complained that a Baton Rouge barista drew Satanic symbols in her coffee foam.  —  It all happened at the Mall …

Ryan Budget Would Cut Food Stamps and Medicaid Deeply  —  WASHINGTON — Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin on Tuesday will lay out a tough, election-year budget that purports to come into balance by 2024, in large part through steep cuts to Medicaid and food stamps and the full repeal …

What Really Killed William Henry Harrison?  —  William Henry Harrison, the ninth president of the United States, holds a distinction that with luck will never be equaled: He was our shortest-serving president, dying on April 4, 1841, after just a month in office.  —  What killed him?

Hobby Lobby's Hypocrisy: The Company's Retirement Plan Invests in Contraception Manufacturers  —  When Hobby Lobby filed its case against Obamacare's contraception mandate, its retirement plan had more than $73 million invested in funds with stakes in contraception makers.

CNN's Missing Plane Coverage Turns Up Garbage (VIDEO)  —  In its wall-to-wall coverage of the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, CNN has raised the possibility of the supernatural, blackholes, and North Korea; it has interviewed a psychic, tried but failed to rent its own 777 jet …

Tax the Childless  —  We should slash taxes on parents by jacking them up for nonparents.  —  When my mother was my age, she was working full time while raising three small children, and she spent every spare moment studying to finish a graduate degree.  My father was working extremely hard as well.

Obamacare Cuts Kentucky's Uninsured Rate By 40 Percent  —  Obamacare has cut Kentucky's uninsured population by more than 40 percent, signing up roughly 360,000 residents since enrollment opened up on Oct. 1, according to the Louisville Courier-Journal.  —  Some 75 percent of them — 270,000 — were previously uninsured.

Mississippi Approves Religious Freedom Bill, Governor Expected To Sign It Into Law  —  The Mississippi bill is the first of many varying “religious freedom” bills introduced in several states this year to advance to a governor since a more expansive bill was vetoed by Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer in February.

Appeals Court Finds Florida's 2012 Voter Purge Broke The Law  —  A federal appeals court on Tuesday ruled that Florida's 2012 efforts to remove non-citizens from its voter rolls violated the National Voter Registration Act.  —  The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that the state's efforts …

Climate activists uncaged  —  Jailing global warming deniers?  That's a lot of hot air.  —  Finally, someone has come up with a way to settle the debate over climate change: Put the people on the wrong side of the argument in cages.  —  A writer for the website Gawker recently penned a self-described …

Kerry-Abbas Visit Canceled as Mideast Talks Falter  —  JERUSALEM — The fraught Mideast peace talks were thrown into confusion on Tuesday as a meeting between Secretary of State John Kerry and President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority was canceled after Mr. Abbas moved …

Home-Run Hitters of the Supreme Court  —  In the nation's history, 112 people have served on the Supreme Court of the United States.  Suppose that we were to select the all-time greats.  Who would make the cut?  —  To answer that question, we need a metric.

Time for climate scientists to go on strike  —  Late last night Yokohama time, the world's scientists did once more what they've done so many times in the past: issued a thumping big report demonstrating that climate change poses the greatest danger our civilization has ever faced.

Someone Else's Debt Could Ruin Your Credit Rating  —  Debt collectors are pursuing one in seven Americans—and often screwing up  —  Last month, Amrit Singh, an adjunct professor at Hostos Community College in the South Bronx, received a letter from the New York City Marshal, advising him that he owed $10,000, due within 20 days.

Condoms Never FDA-Approved for Sodomy  —  By Dr. Judith Reisman - BarbWire guest contributor  —  (Note: Tom Hampson, chief investigator, Liberty Center for Child Protection, contributed to this column.)  —  A class action lawsuit by AIDS victims and their loved ones would rock the world …

The CIA and the Moral Sunk Costs of the Torture Program  —  This morning, The Washington Post has a blockbuster story about that 6,300-page Senate Intelligence Committee report on the CIA's torture program.  The part that will likely get the most attention is the conclusion that torture produced little …

Rand Paul: GOP must get ‘beyond deportation’  —  Sen. Rand Paul on Tuesday argued that the Republican Party needs to get “beyond deportation” in order to break through to Hispanic voters.  —  The Kentucky Republican and likely 2016 contender argued that before the GOP can make its case …

CREW scores major FOIA win in Tom DeLay case  —  A watchdog group pressing a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit for records about a federal investigation into former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) scored a major legal victory Tuesday by winning a court ruling that could increase public access …

Why a Jeb Bush presidential run would be hard on the GOP.  —  Jeb Bush is having a moment.  For two months or so, as Chris Christie's presidential fortunes have appeared abridged, people who have supported the New Jersey governor (or at least are predisposed to support him) …