Have some things to get to this afternoon, so kicking back early. Here are some goodies…

• Couple stories today about health care professionals working through the Affordable Care Act to come up with some better solutions. The LA Times finds doctors teaming up to create coordinated care teams and lower costs, and the New York Times turns to Texas, and finds bureaucrats and legislators fighting the elected leaders at the top to implement the law. Meanwhile, insurance lobbyists continue to try and undermine the law, as Wendell Potter demonstrates.

• Immigrant rights groups are correct, in my view, to go after less comprehensive but significant changes in the law that would provide legal farm labor and provide a path to citizenship for undocumented students. Faced between that and nothing, we should start there.

• Good to see someone providing real solutions to the foreclosure crisis. Raul Grijalva has introduced a “Right to Rent” bill that would allow homeowners facing foreclosure to stay in their properties and pay rent on them. It would give a fair-market return to the lender on the property while stabilizing the community. Fannie and Freddie have already implemented a trial program on this and it’s reportedly working well. This is a far better solution that the mess that is HAMP.

• Defense appropriators in the House again approved a second engine for the F-35, with Republicans unanimous in their support, even though John Boehner has said that all wasteful defense programs must be eliminated. I guess it depends on the meaning of the word wasteful.

• Here’s a great endorsement for Elizabeth Warren – Ann Brown, the former head of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, who came into her job as a consumer advocate with no agency “experience” but managed to pass confirmation without even being asked about that.

• Adam Serwer highlights a new lawsuit filed by lawyers for three detainees at Bagram AFB in Afghanistan, which would challenge their lack of habeas corpus on the grounds that they were taken from their point of capture to Bagram to avoid judicial oversight. Hopefully they can win, so Bagram doesn’t continue as the new Guantanamo.

• Democrats still say they want to pass stimulus funding for Medicaid, teacher jobs and the TANF emergency fund, but they don’t have a vehicle to pass it, and their main pay-for, which was an oil spill fee, went into the Senate energy bill.

• Olympia Snowe becomes the fourth Republican to announce her support of Elena Kagan’s confirmation, so that vote can happen really at any time.

• If the Gulf oil spill didn’t move anyone to action, will one in Michigan help? Harry Reid still seems adamant to pass his small-ball bill and move on. He told reporters again today that the votes aren’t there for a renewable energy standard.

• California, New Mexico and three Canadian provinces aren’t waiting, pushing forward with their own regional cap and trade program. I think the world will stay on its axis.

• Massachusetts became the latest state to pass the National Popular Vote. They become the sixth state to endorse the concept of the winner of the popular vote getting their electoral votes, joining Illinois, New Jersey, Hawaii, Maryland, and Washington. That’s 73 electoral votes right there, with 197 to go.

• I don’t think banning secret holds is important in and of itself, but getting a Senate rules change on the calendar does help with the idea that Senate rules can change over time, so it’ll be useful down the road. The Senate Rules Committee held a long and interesting hearing on rules reform today. This is going to happen eventually.

• The President clicked around HealthCare.gov, giving people a tour.

• Everything you wanted to know about Glenn Beck and Goldline in one chart.

• Airline tragedy in Pakistan.

• I heard about this at Netroots Nation, and Digby wrote it up. Women politicians still have to deal with a lot of sexist crap that their male counterparts barely understand.

• Would it be better for Democrats to link Republicans to the Tea Partiers, or to Big Coal and other polluters?

• No more bullfights in Catalonia, Spain.

• Haitian President Wyclef Jean?

• RIP to the world’s oldest Twitter user.