Shocking-but-True: I Will Now Defend the Media

Steve Benen is a guy who's generally right, but I think he's off target with this one:

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. 

He then takes a look at how the media reported these decisions and concludes:

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.A court upholding a law passed by Congress is simply not as big of a story as a court overturning a law passed by the legislature. 

The problem here is that a court upholding a law passed by Congress is simply not as significant a story as a court overturning a law passed by the legislature. The courts are supposed to defer to Congress in any close call. It's called judicial restraint.

Man bites dog is legitimately a bigger story than dog bites man, and I think that, rather than the typical bias towards Republican ideas, is what's going on here.

Wingnuts Propose Mandate for Gun Ownership; End Up Supporting Health-Care Reform

Taegan Goddard's on wingnut watch:

"Five South Dakota lawmakers have introduced legislation that would require any adult 21 or older to buy a firearm "sufficient to provide for their ordinary self-defense," the Sioux Falls Argus Leader reports.

The bill would give people six months to acquire a firearm -- "suitable to their temperament, physical capacity, and preference" -- after turning 21.

Rep. Hal Wick (R) "is sponsoring the bill and knows it will be killed. But he said he is introducing it to prove a point that the federal health care reform mandate passed last year is unconstitutional."

These people are so confused.

As I wrote last week, what they're proposing was in fact the law of the land in the early days of the republic.

In 1792, none other than George Washington signed the Uniform Militia Act, a law requiring every white male citizen to purchase a whole basket of items – “a good musket or firelock, a sufficient bayonet and belt, two spare flints, and a knapsack, a pouch, with a box therein” – from private companies.

Many of the Founders served in the 2nd Congress, yet no Constitutional issues were raised at the time.

Conservatives have dismissed the relevance of that law to the current health-care debate because it was passed under the auspices of the Constitution's militia clauses, not, like the ACA, under the Commerce Clause.

So along comes these yahoos to show, yet again, that they haven't the slightest grasp of either American history or what the Constitution does and does not permit the government to do. Because either mandating that citizens buy a gun is irrelevant to today's debate as it doesn't fall under the Commerce Clause, or, if the opposite is true, it discredits their whole argument against the insurance reforms.

New Column on the Republicans' Unpopular Health Care Mandate

I have a piece over at AlterNet looking at the health-care mandate.

That Republicans are relentlessly attacking the constitutionality of what had long been one of their signature ideas for reforming the health-care system -- the individual mandate requiring people to buy insurance or pay a penalty – is a testament to just how far down the rabbit-hole our discourse has gone.

Check it out here.