January 31, 2011

Liberals in denial now just flat out hallucinating

Or 'tweaking' as the kids might say

The liberal Beltway pundits' reaction to this afternoon's order* of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida has been uniformly ridiculous. Here are a couple of special gems.

This is the Interstate Commerce Clause:
The Congress shall have Power To ... regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several States ...
This is the Think Progress Wonk Room:**
The [interstate commerce] clause as written gives Congress the power to regulate economic decisions ...
As you can see with your own eyes that's pure, unsupported fantasy.

Astonishingly, this claim appears on the immediate heels of Wonk Room's complaint that the inherent question of what counts as commercial activity and what doesn't — and, therefore, what it is that's subject to regulation — is a red herring because "the actual text of the Constitution makes no mention of such a difference."

And then goes and makes up this stuff about "economic decisions."

This is the Necessary and Proper Clause:
The Congress shall have Power To ... make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers ...
This is the Washington Post's Greg Sargent, quoting Louis Seidman, a Georgetown University law professor:
[Seidman] argued that the Constitution's "necessary and proper clause" explicitly provides for the regulation of anything that "has an effect" on interstate markets.
Ye gods. Thank heavens for the roundball programs.

Among those foregoing powers is the power to regulate interstate commerce so first, you have to find that power. Otherwise there's nothing to carry into execution. What a brute force non sequitur.

There is obviously no such "explicit provision" there, or anywhere.

Finally from TPM, this strangely persistent myth:
Legal experts across the spectrum largely held that a Constitutional challenge was futile.
Then they were not much of an expert, lemme tell ya.

* .pdf; 78 pgs. digested & mocked by liberal pundits in seconds flat.

** Bonus: Vinson cops to borrowing verbiage from hate group

5 comments:

gnarlytrombone said...

Now we're cookin' with gas.

illusory tenant said...

S'truth.

Jim said...

At least Congress has interstate commerce to try to base their law in. Do you think the SD Republicans know being a state legislator is different?

illusory tenant said...

I would hope so.

On a related note, I wonder how many of the Beltway pundits who made so much of Judge Vinson's provocative little Boston Tea Party reference noticed that the judge rejected the States' -- including Wisconsin by its agent J.B. Van Hollen -- other charges of "coercion and commandeering" against the federal government with respect to the Medicaid program. That rejected claim is far more consistent with modern Tea Party sympathies, but Judge Vinson was having none of it.

illusory tenant said...

(Randy Barnett made exactly the above point to the Senate Judiciary Committee moments ago.)