TUESDAY'S MINI-REPORT.... Today's edition of quick hits:

* Political pressures intensify throughout the Arab world: "King Abdullah II of Jordan fired his government in a surprise move on Tuesday, in the face of a wave of demands of public accountability sweeping the Arab world and bringing throngs of demonstrators to the streets of Egypt."

* The U.S. manufacturing sector had a good month in January, which made Wall Street pretty happy.

* In light of the ambiguities in yesterday's court ruling, Wisconsin's Republican attorney general has decided he no longer has to enforce the provisions of the Affordable Care Act. A spokesperson for the state AG's office refused to explain what this might mean for Wisconsin families.

* Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is aware of Republican plans that include "privatizing or eliminating Social Security," but as far as he's concerned, such plans are "off the table."

* In a bit of a surprise, Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) agreed today to a two-year moratorium on earmarks. The position puts Inouye at odds with Reid.

* Illinois takes a step forward on civil rights, approving a bill making civil unions legal for same-sex couples in this state.

* As a rule, copying and pasting materials from an anti-gay hate group, and including them in a federal court ruling, strikes me as a bad idea.

* The Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) appears to have a legitimate shot this year.

* Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), who, for some unknown reason, is the new Republican chair of the House Subcommittee on Higher Education, Lifelong Learning, and Competitiveness, can't wait to cut education funding. Particularly vulnerable: low income students who go to college thanks to Pell Grants.

* I can't think of a reason to pay close attention to the political views of politicians' kids. They're entitled to their opinions, and I'm glad when they reach the right conclusions, but they hardly seem newsworthy.

* And Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R), in an apparent bid to deal with the controversy surrounding his all-white cabinet, has named an African-American staffer as his Director of Minority Affairs. That's a start, I guess.

Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.

MAYBE MUBARAK MISSED THE SUBTLETIES OF THE PROTESTORS' MESSAGE.... Egyptian protestors obviously want their autocratic president, Hosni Mubarak, to step down immediately. In a late-night broadcast, he seems to have gotten only part of the message.

President Hosni Mubarak announced that he would not run for another term in elections scheduled for the fall, appearing on state television to promise an orderly transition but said he would serve out his term. In comments translated by CNN, he swore that he would die in Egypt.

Television cameras showed the vast crowds gathered in central Tahrir Square in Cairo roaring, but not necessarily in approval. The protesters have made the president's immediate and unconditional resignation a bedrock demand of their movement, and it did not appear that the concession would mollify them.

Well, no. They want his ouster now, and don't necessarily trust the integrity of free elections later this year.

Nevertheless, the announcement is a major development, apparently precipitated by President Obama telling Mubarak, though a veteran diplomatic envoy, that the Egyptian president's tenure had to come to an end. Obama, according to reports, did not demand Mubarak's immediate departure, but rather, urged him to clear the way for a reform process.

The NYT noted that President Obama's move today "appeared to tip the administration beyond the delicate balancing act it has performed in the last week."

Still, the question is how to satisfy the demands of Egyptians who've taken to the streets, and the latest Mubarak address won't, by all appearances, cut it. Reports now indicate that protestors will move to the presidential palace later this week, raising the prospect of a potentially violent showdown.

AGREE WITH IT OR NOT, THE HEALTH CARE RULING IS WEAK.... Jon Chait noted yesterday that Judge Roger Vinson's federal district court ruling, striking down the entirety of the Affordable Care Act, was roughly "no different than if the Wall Street Journal editorial page was asked to rule on the constitutionality. You get a highly tendentious screed resting upon simple factual inaccuracies, only this one is passed off as law rather than some right-wing polemic."

Obviously, those of us with strong feelings about health care -- a group I'm clearly part of -- aren't disinterested observers. If we don't like the outcome of a court ruling, we're not inclined to approve of its reasoning, either.

Objectively, though, Chait's right. Vinson's hyper-political and confusing misjudgments produced a ruling that's not only flawed, but hard to respect as a work of legal scholarship. We talked this morning about one of the ruling's problems; Greg Sargent flagged another doozy this afternoon.

Judge Vinson writes on page 62 of the ruling that the goal of "excluding or charging higher rates to people with pre-existing conditions" is clearly "legitimate" and "within the scope of the Constitution." He clarifies this by indicating that the means to that end must not be inconsistent with the "spirit" of the Constitution. But that end, he says, is valid.

Then, on page 63, Vinson writes that the defendants are right to assert that the individual mandate is "necessary" and "essential" to realizing that same end.

And yet, Vinson then goes on to conclude that "the individual mandate falls outside the boundary of Congress' Commerce Clause authority and cannot be reconciled with a limited government of enumerated powers."

NYU law professor Rick Hills told Greg, "Huh? How can a means that is conceded to be necessary for a legitimate end not be within Congress' implied powers to pursue that end?"

That's a good question. The answer, I suspect, is that a Republican judge started with the answer and worked backwards to figure out a legal justification for his preferred outcome. When one does this, failures of logic are inevitable.

Hills isn't the only one who's noticed. The White House blog had an item today, noting legal experts -- including some conservatives -- who've pointed to rather dramatic flaws in Vinson ruling.

What's more, Adam Serwer had a good piece explaining why the decision is "more political than legal," while Andrew Cohen has a related piece noting, among other things, the ruling's "head-scratching analysis."

Conservatives hate the law, so they love the ruling. I get that -- Vinson's decision is a means to an end, and if I were in the right's shoes, I might be tempted to adopt a similar approach. Who cares if it's partisan activism from a judge who acts like a lawmaker? As long I get the outcome I want, who cares?

Well, people who care about the integrity of the law care. Conservatives can tell me how thrilled they are, at least until the appeals, but don't tell me this is a sensible ruling, based on sound legal reasoning and good judgment.

It's not.

CONSEQUENCE-FREE POSTURING.... Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham (S.C.) and John Barasso (Wyo.) held a press conference this morning to unveil their newest piece of legislation. After a month of waiting, might it be the first GOP bill related to job creation?

Of course not. It's called the "State Health Care Choice Act," and Barasso said its intended purpose it to put a "dagger into the heart of Obamacare." Dave Weigel reports:

"We're opening up a third front in the challenges against Obama health care," said Graham. If the bill passed, "it would be easier for me to imagine more than half the states opting out of Obamacare. The bill would fall." Graham got a follow-up question, asking whether opting out would shrink the risk pool. "You've hit the point. The goal is repeal and replace." The goal was to bring the debate over health care into the 2012 campaign and into "the streets."

I asked why this was necessary when states had the option -- and were exercising it -- to get waivers that allowed them to develop their own health care plans.

"That doesn't give the states the options to opt out," said Barasso. "All the criteria of Obamacare are there." (These criteria include some of the aspects of the bill that are popular, of course, like the ban on discrimination against pre-existing conditions.)

As a substantive matter, the Graham/Barasso bill is obviously a bad joke, and a reminder of why it's so difficult to take Republicans seriously on health care policy.

But as a political matter, they don't care. Indeed, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) announced this morning that the GOP bill to repeal the entirety of the Affordable Care Act could come to the floor as early as this week, and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told reporters this afternoon that all 47 members of the Republican caucus will vote for it.

These efforts are profoundly annoying on a variety of levels, but listening to the audio of the Graham/Barasso press conference, it occurred to me that we're witnessing consequence-free posturing. I suspect there are plenty of Republican lawmakers who'd like to scrap various parts of the health care law, while keeping others, but they rant and rave all they want, knowing full well that their misguided bills don't stand a chance.

And at a certain level, I find this more irksome than the bills themselves. Republicans realize that no matter what proposals they push, or speeches they give, or lies they tell, the only noticeable damage they're doing is to the discourse and their elusive integrity. Real people -- Americans families, their constituents -- won't actually suffer as a result of their posturing.

They have the luxury of scoring points and parading for the cameras, instead of, say, shaping actual legislation intended to help people.

The point generally goes unstated, but if Republicans were sincere -- they're not, but if they were -- about their disgust for the individual mandate, they could call Harry Reid and the White House and propose a fix. The mandate is pretty important, but there are creative ways to make the law work without it, and if GOP members wanted to work on such an alternative, they could. Plenty of Dems would probably welcome this, and the provision Republicans claim to find so offensive would go away.

But the very idea that Republicans would consider such a move is a whimsical fantasy. For one thing, they want something to whine about, and removing the mandate would take away one of their favorite toys. For another, crafting an alternative solution would take actual work -- and who wants to work on policy ideas when there are pointless games to be played and symbolic gestures to be pushed?

There was a point, not that long ago, at which many GOP officials actually wanted to try to address the problems in the health care system. Those officials are now gone, and what remains is a party that loves to tear down, rather than build up.

Repeal would have real-world consequences that would hurt millions of families. Seniors would pay more for prescription medication. Children with pre-existing conditions would lose their protections. Young adults would be kicked off their family's plan. Small businesses would lose their tax breaks. Untold numbers of Americans would lose their homes, savings, businesses, and quite possibly their lives, simply because they got sick.

As of today, Republicans recognize these consequences, and claim to welcome them. They'll come up with some other fix later, they say. Just let them gut the American health care system now, and they'll get back to us eventually with some magical replacement.

What a waste.

BILL SAMMON'S 'SOCIALIST' INSTRUCTIONS TO THE FOX NEWS TEAM.... Bill Sammon sure does write a lot of memos.

During the final days of the 2008 presidential race, Bill Sammon used his position as a top Fox News editor to engage in a campaign to link then-Sen. Barack Obama to "Marxists" and "socialism," internal Fox documents and a review of his televised appearances show.

On October 27, 2008, Sammon sent an email to colleagues highlighting what he described as "Obama's references to socialism, liberalism, Marxism and Marxists" in his 1995 autobiography Dreams From My Father. Shortly after sending the email, Sammon -- then the network's Washington deputy managing editor -- appeared on two Fox News programs to discuss his research and also wrote a FoxNews.com piece about Obama's "affinity to Marxists" that was disseminated throughout the conservative blogosphere.

What a remarkable coincidence. Just days before the 2008 presidential election, a top editor suggested the Republican network's on-air talent connect the Democratic candidate not only to socialism, but to his "racial obsessions" while in college. I'm sure there's a reasonable, journalistic explanation for this, though I can't imagine what it is.

If I didn't know better, I might think Sammon has some kind of partisan political agenda or something. (Sammon's marching orders were sent to the network's news division, not its opinion shows, though the line between the two doesn't really exist.)

"Bill Sammon's October email reads like a piece of opposition research from the McCain campaign," said Media Matters' Ari Rabin-Havt. "The network clearly embraced this brand of 'journalism.' Sammon was promoted to Washington managing editor a mere four months later."

Also note, this is the third Sammon memo that's come to light in recent months. In December, we learned that Sammon ordered the network's journalists to downplay the science of global warming.

Around the same time, we also learned of a Sammon memo telling Fox News reporters to use Republican-endorsed rhetoric, exclusively, to describe the public option during the health care debate.

None of this is even remotely surprising -- Fox News is a obviously Republican propaganda outlet. But when memos like Sammon's come to public light, it helps add additional weight to the larger indictment against the ridiculous cable news outlet.

Let's also note that all of the memos have been uncovered by Media Matters, which suggests the organization has a helpful source within the network. That's good news.

HUCKABEE STAKES HIS CLAIM AS THE PRO-ISRAEL CANDIDATE.... Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R), whose unfamiliarity with foreign policy was widely derided during his first presidential campaign, is hoping to bring a little more credibility to his second presidential campaign.

This week, Huckabee's in Israel with right-wing actor Jon Voight -- Republicans hate Hollywood, except when they don't -- announcing his opposition to the Middle East peace process.

Potential 2012 U.S. presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said Tuesday that if Palestinians want an independent state, they should seek it from Arabs — not Israel.

The evangelical minister and Fox News host said Jews should be allowed to settle anywhere throughout the biblical Land of Israel -- an area that includes the West Bank and east Jerusalem.

He called the demand on Israel to give up land for peace an "unrealistic, unworkable and unreachable goal."

It's worth appreciating just how far from the mainstream Huckabee's line really is. As Jon Chait noted, "Note that not even the Likud government opposes a Palestinian state in principle. If Huckabee sets the pace for defining what constitutes 'pro-Israel' in the 2012 GOP primary, we could be in for a race to the bottom."

Quite right. We've gone from Republicans agreeing with the notion of a two-state solution to at least one presidential hopeful saying a two-state solution might work, just so long as one of the states is far away.

That said, the "race to the bottom" is likely to be an actual competition. Romney was in Israel last month; Huckabee is there now; Haley Barbour will be in Israel this weekend; and Sarah Palin is reportedly planning a trip as well.

I guess this is becoming another box to check off for presidential aspirants?

MANDATORY GUN PURCHASES IN SOUTH DAKOTA?.... Apparently hoping to make some kind of political point about health care, several lawmakers in South Dakota have proposed requiring adults in the state to purchase a firearm after turning 21. (thanks to reader J.S. for the tip)

The bill, which would take effect Jan. 1, 2012, would give people six months to acquire a firearm after turning 21. The provision does not apply to people who are barred from owning a firearm.

Nor does the measure specify what type of firearm. Instead, residents would pick one "suitable to their temperament, physical capacity, and preference."

The measure is known as an act "to provide for an individual mandate to adult citizens to provide for the self defense of themselves and others."

The lead sponsor, a Republican named Hal Wick, apparently doesn't take his own legislation seriously, and is pushing the measure as some kind of political statement.

"Do I or the other cosponsors believe that the State of South Dakota can require citizens to buy firearms? Of course not. But at the same time, we do not believe the federal government can order every citizen to buy health insurance," Wick said.

John Cole noted in response, "I'm not sure how exactly that proves his point, but I'm not a wingnut, so wingnut logic doesn't work on me."

I'm stuck with the same reaction. I mean, sure, I see the gist of the point -- government-required purchases vs. government-required purchases -- but the argument just doesn't stand up well.

The health care insurance mandate is part of a larger reform law that regulates the national health care system, legally permissible at the federal level through the Commerce Clause, and as Mitt Romney can tell you, legally permissible at the state level, too. As a practical matter, there's no meaningful difference between this and mandatory car insurance, mandatory flood insurance in coastal areas, or mandatory property insurance imposed on some factory owners.

How is this the equivalent of forcing South Dakotans to buy a gun?

TUESDAY'S CAMPAIGN ROUND-UP.... Today's installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn't necessarily generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers:

* The 2012 Democratic National Convention will be held in Charlotte, North Carolina next year, edging out St. Louis, Minneapolis, and Cleveland.

* The Republican National Committee announced yesterday it's now $23 million in debt, a budget hole with no modern precedent for a major political party.

* U.S. Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman formally delivered a letter of resignation to President Obama yesterday, and will depart on April 30. It is widely believed that Huntsman, despite serving in the Obama administration for more than two years, will seek the Republican presidential nomination.

* In Montana, Republicans have recruited the Senate candidate they wanted -- Rep. Denny Rehberg (R) will take on Sen. Jon Tester (D) next year. Businessman Steve Daines, the other Republican in the race, is expected to drop out and run instead for Rehberg's House seat.

* The National Republican Trust helped elect Sen. Scott Brown (R) in Massachusetts a year ago, but announced yesterday that it hopes to defeat Brown in a GOP primary in 2012.

* Sen. Herb Kohl (D) of Wisconsin hasn't officially said whether he'll seek re-election next year, but in the last quarter of 2010, he loaned his campaign $1 million, which should make his intentions clear.

* On a related note, Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) told a local reporter yesterday that he'll seek a 25th term next year.

* Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) says he's not running for president in 2012, but told a group in Las Vegas yesterday, "If I ran for office, I would be a proud younger brother of George W. Bush and a proud son of George H.W. Bush." I suspect Democrats wouldn't have it any other way.

A VISION OF FOREIGN POLICY THAT ONLY BECK CAN PROVIDE.... Over the last year or so, Fox News' Glenn Beck has lost about a third of his audience, which is a pretty significant drop, and may very well lead the deranged media personality to think of ways to bring viewers back.

One way, for example, may be for Beck to be even more creative when sharing crazy visions of global affairs. Yesterday, the strange man did his best to explain events in Egypt with a take that really has to be seen to be believed. Chris Hayes called it "a tour de force of paranoid ignorance," which sums it up nicely.

It's a little tough to excerpt, but Media Matters flagged this gem, which helped capture Beck's vision: "I believe that I can make a case in the end that there are three powers that you will see really emerge. One, a Muslim caliphate that controls the Mideast and parts of Europe. Two, China, that will control Asia, the southern half of Africa, part of the Middle East, Australia, maybe New Zealand, and God only knows what else. And Russia, which will control all of the old former Soviet Union bloc, plus maybe the Netherlands. I'm not really sure. But their strong arm is coming. That leaves us and South America. What happens to us?"

The poor folks who watch Beck and actually listen to him received quite an education yesterday. China will seize New Zealand; Turkey is a dictatorship; Hamas will take over Saudi Arabia; and there's some kind of connection linking uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt with debt crises in Greece.

All of this, of course, is the fault of "Marxist communists" -- as opposed to, say, Marxists and communists -- Muslims, and progressives. Indeed, Beck insisted that the events only he can see are "coordinated."

I'm still torn on whether Beck actually believes his own insanity, but his viewers are nevertheless being instructed to begin "storing food" because we're witnessing the "coming insurrection."

Adam Serwer's take on this rang true: "I tend to think this would be more frightening if it were comprehensible, but it's a symptom of a basic problem which is that several basic heuristics conservatives use for slotting things into 'good' and 'bad' categories are clashing with each other. So democracy is supposed to be good, but Muslims are bad, liberals are bad, and if Muslims are bad and liberals are bad, then the protests must be some kind of combined Marxist-Islamist conspiracy that will lead to Islamists and Marxists splitting the globe between each other."

CRITICIZING FOR THE SAKE OF CRITICISM.... The Obama administration's policy towards Egypt of late can probably be summed up with "cautious nudging." U.S. officials, of course, don't know how the recent uprising will shake out, but with varying degrees of subtlety, they've pointed Mubarak towards the door, while planning for his departure.

President Obama's handling of the crisis has earned some plaudits from high-profile foreign policy observers like Marc Lynch and Aaron David Miller, but what's been even more interesting is the deference the White House has received from congressional Republicans.

Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas), the chairwoman of the House subcommittee in charge of foreign aid, told CNN yesterday she and the administration are on the same page, and on Sunday, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) offered their backing for the White House's approach. Politico reported, After months of pounding President Barack Obama on every front, Republican congressional leaders finally have found a reason to praise him -- his handling of the fast-moving crisis in Egypt."

But the support is not universal. Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), last seen screwing up over New START, seems to have decided yesterday that a day without Obama criticism is like a day without sunshine.

A top Senate Republican leader accused the Obama administration Monday of failing to promote democracy around the world with the same vigor of President George W. Bush, possibly leaving Egyptian protestors wondering if the U.S. really stands with them.

"We might be in a better position if we had more closely followed President Bush's prescription for support of greater democracy in all parts of the world," Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Arizona, said as he stepped off the Senate floor Monday. "If we had maintained that position and had that reputation in the world...then our calls today for restraint would have more credibility because the people of Egypt would know our heart was with their desire for greater representation."

This strikes me as a great example of a Republican criticizing just for the sake of doing so. There's no real coherence to Kyl's concerns, or even much of a point. U.S. officials called for the Mubarak regime to show restraint, and for the most part, it has. Does Kyl really believe Egyptian officials -- or Egyptian protestors -- are making decisions based on their perceptions about White House rhetoric on democracy promotion?

Indeed, his finger waving notwithstanding, Kyl, who's never demonstrated any expertise on foreign policy, didn't articulate a competing policy at odds with Obama's approach, he just wanted to complain about the departure from Bush's rhetoric and professed agenda.

Kyl may not have noticed, but as Matt Duss explained, Bush was wrong: "Bush's democracy agenda was a huge failure for a number of reasons, but not least because it featured as its main advertisement the smoking ruins and charred bodies of Iraq. There was also the Bush administration's tendency to pull the plug when it became obvious that democracy might mean the political victory of people the U.S. didn't like, as happened in Egypt. Or, as in Gaza, to try to reverse the outcome through a coup."

HOW THE MEDIA COVERS HEALTH CARE RULINGS.... Four federal district courts have heard challenges testing the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act. Two judges concluded the law is legally permissible, two came to the opposite conclusion.

But it occurs to me the public has heard quite a bit more about the latter than the former. Indeed, it seems as if the media largely ignored court rulings that bolstered the arguments of health care reform proponents, while making a very big deal about rulings celebrated by conservatives.

My perceptions, though, are just that -- personal observations, subject to opinions and reliant on memory. Let's go a little further, and quantify matters a bit.

Ruling #1

On October 7, Federal District Court Judge George C. Steeh of Michigan issued the first ruling testing the constitutionality of the reform law, and he sided with the Obama administration. Here's the media reception:

The Washington Post ran a story on page A2, which was 607 words.
The New York Times ran a story on page A15, which was 416 words.
The Associated Press ran a story, which was 474 words.
Politico ran a story, which was 830 words.

Ruling #2

On November 31, Federal District Court Judge Norman K. Moon of Virginia issued the second ruling testing the constitutionality of the reform law, and he too sided with the Obama administration. Here's the media reception:

The Washington Post ran a story on page B5, which was 507 words.
The New York Times ran a story on page A24, which was 335 words.
The Associated Press ran a story, which was 375 words.
Politico ran a story, which was 535 words.

Ruling #3

On December 13, Federal District Court Judge Henry E. Hudson issued the third ruling, siding with opponents of the law. Here's the media reception:

The Washington Post ran a story on page A1, which was 1624 words.
The New York Times ran a story on page A1, which was 1320 words.
The Associated Press ran a story, which was 915 words.
Politico ran three separate stories, which totaled 2734 words.

Ruling #4

On January 31 (yesterday), Federal District Court Judge Roger Vinson issued the fourth ruling on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, also siding with opponents of the law. Here's the media reception:

The Washington Post ran a story on page A1, which was 1176 words.
The New York Times ran a story on page A1, which was 1192 words.
The Associated Press ran a story, which was 1164 words.
Politico ran four separate stories, which totaled 3437 words.

Keep in mind, as a legal matter, none of these ruling is more important than the other. They're all at the federal district level, they're all dealing with the same law, and they'll all be subjected to an appeal.

And yet, the coverage discrepancy is overwhelming. One of the two pro-reform rulings didn't even make the Washington Post's A section at all. In literally every instance, the Republican-friendly rulings generated more coverage, with better placement, and longer stories than the rulings preferred by Democrats.

If there's a sensible explanation for this, I'd love to hear it.

—Steve Benen 9:35 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (36)

INJUNCTION CONFUSION.... Court rulings are supposed to help bring clarity to a dispute, but they occasionally fall far short. In going after the Affordable Care Act yesterday, for example, Judge Roger Vinson not only offered strange rationales, he also left nearly everyone confused as to the state of the law.

The judge declined to immediately enjoin, or suspend, the law pending appeals, a process that could last two years. But he wrote that the federal government should adhere to his declaratory judgment as the functional equivalent of an injunction. That left confusion about how the ruling might be interpreted in the 26 states that are parties to the legal challenge.

The insurance mandate does not take effect until 2014. But many new regulations are already operating, like requirements that insurers cover children with pre-existing health conditions and eliminate lifetime caps on benefits. States are also preparing for a major expansion of Medicaid eligibility and the introduction of health insurance exchanges in 2014.

David B. Rivkin Jr., a lawyer for the states, said the ruling relieved the plaintiff states of any obligation to comply with the health law. "With regard to all parties to this lawsuit, the statute is dead," Mr. Rivkin said.

But White House officials declared that the opinion should not deter the continuing rollout of the law. "Implementation would continue apace," a senior administration official said. "This is not the last word by any means."

If Rivkin is right, effective today, half the country is in pretty big trouble -- small business taxes have gone up this morning, seniors who stop by the drug store today should pay more for medication, children with preexisting conditions will face discrimination, young adults have just been dropped without warning from their family health plans, etc. For Republicans and this Republican judge, this is the outcome effective immediately in the 26 states that participated in this lawsuit. Indeed, as far as conservatives are concerned, the notion of all of these families losing their benefits is cause for celebration.

No, I can't relate to conservative values, either.

And at the exact same time, many others have read the identical ruling and are working under the assumption that the right's interpretation is wrong, and that the same legal protections that existed before the ruling are still in effect now. Vinson could have issued an injunction stopping implementation, but he didn't.

So much for legal clarity from the odd, activist Republican judge.

Jonathan Cohn spoke to an unnamed "learned court observer" about the legal state of play, and he/she explained, "On the injunction question, it's complicated, but it's also kind of stupid, because in the end of course the government is going to be able to continue implementing the law."

Apparently, Vinson figures the administration will simply stop implementing the Affordable Care Act, now that he's graciously explained the law to everyone. The Justice Department doesn't necessarily have to seek a stay from the appeals court, but probably will anyway, given the ambiguities.

VINSON'S MOST STRIKING ERROR.... In his ruling on the Affordable Care Act yesterday, Judge Roger Vinson made a variety of errors in fact and judgment, but there's one point in particular that deserves a closer look. From the ruling:

"... the mere status of being without health insurance, in and of itself, has absolutely no impact whatsoever on interstate commerce (not 'slight,' 'trivial,' or 'indirect,' but no impact whatsoever) -- at least not any more so than the status of being without any particular good or service. If impact on interstate commerce were to be expressed and calculated mathematically, the status of being uninsured would necessarily be represented by zero. Of course, any other figure multiplied by zero is also zero. Consequently, the impact must be zero, and of no effect on interstate commerce."

This comes up quite a bit among opponents of the law on the right. The government has the power to regulate interstate commercial activity, including health insurance, but those who choose not to buy coverage aren't engaging in an activity, and therefore fall outside the law's reach.

It's important to appreciate how mistaken Vinson is here.

The argument from the Obama administration is straightforward: the Commerce Clause empowers the federal government to regulate interstate commerce; the American health care system is interstate commerce; and the Affordable Care Act regulates the health care system. As such, the ACA fits comfortably within the confines of the Commerce Clause.

Yes, there may be folks who don't want to buy insurance, who would be penalized under the law. But under our system, those folks still get sick, still go to the hospital with medical emergencies, and -- here's the kicker -- still get care. As you may have noticed, for quite a while, it's been one of the right's favorite arguments: the uninsured can always just go the emergency room and receive treatment, whether they have insurance or not.

Of course, when the uninsured get this care, and can't pay for it, the costs are passed on to the rest of us -- it makes the entire system more expensive, with hospitals and medical professionals providing care without compensation from the patient. As a consequence, those who would choose not to get coverage have a significant impact on the larger health care system, which is precisely why the notion of a mandate enjoyed broad, bipartisan support up until late 2009. There was never any doubt as to its constitutionality; this was a no-brainer.

Indeed, the Constitution empowers the government to make laws that "shall be necessary and proper" to "regulate commerce among the several States." ACA proponents say the mandate is necessary and proper to effectively regulate the marketplace; Vinson says the necessary and proper clause of the Constitution doesn't really count.

To put it mildly, the judge and those heralding the ruling aren't exactly making a persuasive case.

MONDAY'S MINI-REPORT.... Today's edition of quick hits:

* Egypt: "The political forces aligned against President Hosni Mubarak appeared to strengthen sharply Monday when the Army said for the first time that it would not fire on the protesters who have convulsed Egypt for a week demanding his resignation. The announcement was shortly followed by the government's first offer to talk to the protest leaders. Egypt's new vice president said on state television that he had been authorized to open a dialogue with the opposition for constitutional and political reforms."

* Some economic fallout from the uprising: "Political turbulence in Egypt is casting a pall on global financial markets and creating new risks for the shaky world economy in the months ahead. Higher prices for oil and food, a problem intensified by the Egyptian uprising, could cause further unrest in the Muslim world. Analysts also are concerned that movement could be restricted through the Suez Canal, controlled by Egypt and a crucial link in world trade."

* Oh, for crying out loud: "Fraud and mismanagement at Afghanistan's largest bank have resulted in potential losses of as much as $900 million -- three times previous estimates -- heightening concerns that the bank could collapse and trigger a broad financial panic in Afghanistan, according to American, European and Afghan officials."

* Let's just say the White House wasn't impressed with the Republican court ruling on the Affordable Care Act today.

* Consumer spending climbs higher: "Americans spent at the fastest pace in three years in 2010, boosted by a strong finish in December."

* I'd characterize this as a one-sided vote: "Southern Sudan's referendum commission says more than 99 percent of voters in the south opted for secession according to the first official primary results released since the vote was held earlier this month."

* Income inequality in Egypt is a real problem. As it turns out, though, income inequality is actually worse in the United States right now.

* In an apparent terrorist plot, Roger Stockham was arrested last week after police found him with explosives in the trunk of his car in the parking lot of the Islamic Center of America, a Dearborn, Michigan, mosque.

* Former Sen. Evan Bayh becomes a lobbyist. Try not to be surprised.

* A far-right blogger, Paul Mirengoff of Powerline, blasted the Native American invocation at the recent memorial service in Tucson, despite working at a law firm with American Indian clients. As part of the fallout, Mirengoff is no longer a part of the prominent right-wing blog.

* Are America's state universities too cheap? Actually, no, they're not.

* And Richmond Ramsey tackles a common contemporary problem: an inability to have reasonable conversations with older relatives who watch Fox News. Ramsey labels it "Fox Geezer Syndrome," which is actually a pretty good name for it.

Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.

REACHING 'NEW FRONTIERS IN PARTISAN JUDGING'.... That Federal District Court Judge Roger Vinson would find the individual mandate unconstitutional was a near certainty going into today. What was unexpected was Vinson, a Republican appointee, deciding that this one provision in the massive law necessarily means that the entirety of the Affordable Care Act must be voided.

Brian Beutler noted today that this is a legal standard that even Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts hasn't embraced, and Roberts isn't exactly a moderate.

Simply ruling against the mandate puts any judge on the opposite side of the vast majority of expert legal opinion. But given just such ruling, a less "activist" judge could have stricken just the mandate, along with directly relevant provisions -- like guaranteed issue and the ban on discrimination against people with pre-existing conditions. Vinson decided instead to "legislate from the bench" and scrap the subsidies, regulations, marketplaces, and other goodies the law creates that really have nothing to do with the mandate as well.

It's new frontiers in partisan judging.

Vinson's ventures into new frontiers in partisan judging actually go even further that this today. The ruling goes so far as to reference a ReasonTV.com video on page 47.

Hell, the guy even makes a not-so-subtle Tea Party reference in the ruling: "It is difficult to imagine that a nation which began, at least in part, as the result of opposition to a British mandate giving the East India Company a monopoly and imposing a nominal tax on all tea sold in America would have set out to create a government with the power to force people to buy tea in the first place."

For a federal judge to put this in print is rather foolish. Federal regulatory power has been used this way for centuries. Nuclear power plants are required to purchase liability insurance, whether they want to or not. The Civil Rights Act mandated businesses engage in commercial activity that owners found objectionable. George Washington even signed a law requiring much of the country to purchase firearms and ammunition.

It's precisely why Republicans didn't think the health care mandate was unconstitutional when they came up with the idea -- it's consistent with how the government has operated for generations.

For whatever reason, Vinson also seems oddly preoccupied with founding fathers like James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, perhaps unaware that John Adams and Thomas Jefferson supported legislation that required private citizens to pay into a public health-care system, and included a "regulation against a form of inactivity."

I'll gladly admit there are legal scholars who can speak to this with far more authority than I can, but at first blush, this ruling appears to be a complete mess, seemingly crafted by an activist who started with the answer, and then worked backwards to justify the ideologically acceptable answer.

The only way to reject the mandate is to take a "fairly radical" reexamination of the Commerce Clause, so Republican state attorneys general found a fairly radical judge who wrote a ruling that reads like a piece published by a far-right blogger.

All of this is interesting, as far as it goes, but I should emphasize the point that renders at least some of this trivial: the Supreme Court will have the final call. Between now and then, we're left to marvel at the extremism of some misguided Republican judges.