Punditry Dept., Legacy Hydraulics Division: Obamacare’s victory (in King v. Burwell) takes some of the legacy pressure off the Iran deal, no? …

… is that you don’t have to follow the rules. NPR shows how it’s done! When discussing allegations that Australia paid the crew of a migrant smuggling boat to turn around and go back a) talk only to asylum activist b) don’t check his facts c) don’t try to get the government’s side of the story (which is presumably related to this). … Hey, that’s the sort of thing I might do! But I don’t call it news. … P.S.: Why is it so horrible to pay the crew of a smuggling boat to turn around? … P.P.S.: Here’s a better account, from the Australian press. If only NPR had access to Google. I blame Republican budget cuts. …

Sen. Ted Cruz flipped and voted against fast-track trade authority at the last minute, citing (in part) the Wikileaks revelation confirming the existence of immigration provisions in one of the deals (the Trade in Services Act, or TiSA). Cruz wrote:

Despite the administration’s public assurances that it was not negotiating on immigration, several chapters of the TiSA draft posted online explicitly contained potential changes in federal immigration law. TPA would cover TiSA, and therefore these changes would presumably be subject to fast-track.

Good for Cruz. New Yorker editorialists will sneer, but even Obama’s ex-adviser Lawrence Summers has said “[c]oncerns that trade agreements may be a means to circumvent traditional procedures for taking up issues ranging from immigration to financial regulation must be taken seriously.”  Cruz might also be forgiven for delaying his epiphany until the Wikileaks revelation further destroyed trust in pro-trade leaders like Paul Ryan (who had assured Congress that the secret immigration provisions were just an “urban legend.“)

But you have to wonder if Cruz’s change of direction was also aided, not-so-subconsciously, by the realization that has been blowing his previous advantage over GOP primary rivals on the issue of immigration control (in part because of his support for increased legal immigration).  Cruz now has to worry about both Scott Walker and Donald Trump stealing the issue from him. His fast-track flip helps reestablish some immigration control cred.

If Cruz’s switch is actually a cynical, calculated attempt to curry favor with voters … well, that’s a good thing too. Maybe even better than if it was 100% sincere. It means the primary landscape rewards border controllers. …

Backfill: Roll Call blames Trump …

Update: Byron York a) reminds that Cruz actually wrote an op-ed with Ryan in April promoting the fast-track bill he has now voted against (!); b) notes Cruz, like other Republicans, was feeling a “lot of … heat” from the GOP base, and his colleagues think his flip was “obviously motivated by his political concerns;” and c) speculates that “Cruz’s GOP opponents are going to give him hell about his yes-then-no votes on trade,” especially in debates. … If they do give him hell, I’m not so sure it will hurt him. It just gives him a chance to elaborate on his concerns in a way that might help him re-connect with the GOP base. Also, voters often don’t mind flip-floppers, at least if they flop in the voters’ direction. Demonstrates that they know who’s in charge. …

It looks as if the historically low rate of intermarriage for black Americans may finally be changing. According to Pew, the percentage of newlyweds who married outside their race rose to 19 in 2013 — that’s up from less than 16% as recently as 2008 (see P. 10). For black women –historically less likely to intermarry than black men — the percentage rose by a third, from 9% to 12%, in just the three years from 2010 to 2013, if I read Pew’s maddeningly-presented data correctly. Given the normal glacial pace of big demographic trends, that seems like a significant, and not-so-slow, rise, … Punditry! An Obama Effect? Personally, I would like to blame welfare reform — i.e., women who used to go on welfare now go to work and come into contact with a broader array of potential partners. And “no scrubs“! But I don’t know if the intermarriage boomlet is occuring among potential welfare recipients (as opposed to the black middle and upper class).  Over to you, Kay Hymowitz …

Why is John Kasich so annoying? Byron York notes that John Kasich’s frankly religious appeal to conservative evangelicals in the Faith & Freedom Caucus somehow turned them off. … Kasich loves to lecture. Usually, the not-so-subtle subtext — as with his citation of Matthew 25 to justify his Medicaid expansion — seems to be how moral Kasich is (in contrast with, say, his audience). There’s probably no less convincing way to justify Medicaid expansion to conservatives. …P.S.: In 1996, Kasich was chosen to give the closing argument in the House for welfare reform.  I think if he’d talked for 10 more minutes, welfare reform would have lost. …