Unlike the power to regulate activities that have a substantial effect on interstate commerce, the power to enact laws enabling effective regulation of interstate commerce can only be exercised in conjunction with congressional regulation of an interstate market, and it extends only to those measures necessary to make the interstate regulation effective. As Lopez itself states, and the Court affirms today, Congress may regulate noneconomic intrastate activities only where the failure to do so “could … undercut” its regulation of interstate commerce. [. . .] This is not a power that threatens to obliterate the line between “what is truly national and what is truly local.” Lopez, supra, at 567—568. - Justice Scalia in concurrence in Gonzales v. Raich

At the Volokh Conspiracy, Professor Orin Kerr notes that Judge Roger Vinson in his decision (PDF) striking down the individual mandate and the Affordable Care Act ignored Supreme Court precedent and instead relied upon his own conceptions of the "first principles" of the Constitution. something a district court judge is not permitted to do:

I'm sure there's big news but I'm focused on the deep freeze. And there's a new Harry's Law with Kathy Bates tonight. If you haven't seen it, check it out.

Here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

I find the arguments from the decision striking down the individual mandate to be ludicrous, but this Ezra Klein post makes me think twice about my views of the GOP strategy to undermine the health bill:

The resulting policy [after a successful GOP obstruction} isn't too hard to imagine. Think something like opening Medicare to all Americans over age 45, raising Medicaid up to 300 percent of the poverty line, opening S-CHIP to all children, and paying for the necessary subsidies and spending with a surtax on the wealthy (which is how the House originally wanted to fund health-care reform). That won't get us quite to universal health care, but it'll get us pretty close. And it'll be a big step towards squeezing out private insurers, particularly if Medicaid and Medicare are given more power to control their costs.

Where do I sign up for this result?

Speaking for me only

Update: I can't imagine two days of this weather.

Temperatures could reach minus 10 degrees before morning, with wind chills as low as 25 below, the weather service said....Tuesday wind chills could dip to minus 35, with the actual lows near minus 20.

National blizzards are on their way, and expected to affect 100 million people. Here in Denver, we're not just getting snow, but arctic cold. We may not even make it up to zero tomorrow. The latest National Weather alert: [More...]

In his decision striking down the health bill, Judge Vinson found it necessary to perform a double backflip and explain that while the individual mandate was "essential"to the Affordable Care Act, it was not Necessary and Proper to the implementation of the law. Vinson wrote (PDF):

The Necessary and Proper Clause cannot be utilized to “pass laws for the accomplishment of objects” that are not within Congress’ enumerated powers. As the previous analysis of the defendants’ Commerce Clause argument reveals, the individual mandate is neither within the letter nor the spirit of the Constitution. [. . .] .The defendants have asserted again and again that the individual mandate is absolutely “necessary” and “essential” for the Act to operate as it was intended by Congress. I accept that it is.26 Nevertheless, the individual mandate falls outside the boundary of Congress’ Commerce Clause authority and cannot be reconciled with a limited government of enumerated powers. By definition, it cannot be “proper."

Why is the individual mandate not "proper?" According to Vinson:

Finding the individual mandate unconstitutional and not severable from the health bill, a Florida federal judge has struck down the health bill. The Opinion (PDF):

The threshold question that must be addressed is whether activity is required before Congress can exercise its power under the Commerce Clause. [. . .] It would be a radical departure from existing case law to hold that Congress can regulate inactivity under the Commerce Clause. [. . . T]he individual mandate regulates inactivity.

But what of the Necessary and Proper Clause? The judge has the chutzpah to cite McCulloch v. Maryland:

Via Atrios, rortybomb writes:

[W]e already have this great system for writing down and managing burdensome debt, and it’s this marvelous thing called our bankruptcy laws. [. . .] We could easily pass a streamlined, modified version of bankruptcy just for this crisis. [. . .] We can make this fair on the backend. [. . .] It can have clawback mechanisms to address potential future appreciation.

[. . .]Why doesn’t this happen?

It doesn't happen because it requires banks to recognize huge losses. The reality is that given the choices made by the Obama Administration, the most effective way to get past our balance sheet recession is for underwater homeowners to walk away from their houses. More . . .

Via David Dayen, Obama Chief of Staff Bill Daley echoes Grover Norquist:

The White House acknowledges that more cuts are needed beyond the spending freeze President Obama proposed, chief of staff William Daley said Sunday. Daley, in his first Sunday show appearance since taking office, said that the Obama administration understands that, if it wants to balance the budget, more cutbacks will be necessary beyond the five-year freeze in domestic discretionary spending the president laid out in his State of the Union address.

"It will take a tremendous amount more than that," Daley said on "Face the Nation" when asked if more cuts would be needed beyond the freeze. . . .] We all agree there must be cuts to this government. And again, you're going to see this president lay out a very substantial cut already."

(Emphasis supplied.) Apparently everyone agrees with the Norquist Strategy of cutting taxes and slashing government spending. Reaganomics Lives!

Speaking for me only

Busy day.

Open thread.

It's the men's superpipe finals tonight at the X Games, live on ESPN. Shaun White just moved into second place and Scotty Lago is in the lead. Louie Vito is doing really well too. Actually, they all did great on their first run. The second runs are just starting.

The SAG awards are also on, and a there's a new episode of Shameless on Showtime.

Here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

NYTimes:

CAIRO — The Egyptian military reinforced parts of the capital on Sunday with tanks, jets and helicopters as tens of thousands of protesters flooded central Cairo for the sixth day, defying yet again government orders of a nationwide curfew. The uprising, which began as a spontaneous grass-roots movement, appeared to coalesce, at least for the moment, as the largest opposition group, the Muslim Brotherhood, threw its support behind a leading opposition figure, the Nobel laureate Mohamed ElBaradei, to negotiate on behalf of the protesters.

Mr. ElBaradei arrived in Liberation Square, the center of the protests, shortly after nightfall and addressed the crowd through a bullhorn. “We are beginning a new era in Egypt,” he said. “What we have begun cannot be reversed. “We have a key demand: for Mubarak to step down and to start a new era.”

Yong Vui Kong is on death row in Singapore, arrested at age 18 for carrying 1.5 ounces of heroin. Singapore's law provides the death penalty for anyone caught with more than 15 grams of heroin (Kong had 47) and provides no exceptions.

His dedicated family (particularly his brother and sister) and his attorney Madasamy Ravi, a Singapore human rights lawyer and member of the Anti-Death Penalty Asia Network, have done a herculean job so far of keeping the case in the courts. The end is now here, but he still could be saved.

Al Jazeera made the excellent video above telling the story, I hope you will all watch. [More...]