We’ll have more tomorrow on this, but I wanted to flag today’s ruling by a federal judge in Florida on the new health care reform law. The government was seeking to dismiss the lawsuit by state attorneys general to declare the law unconstitutional. The judge agreed with the government in part and threw out four of the six claims. But the judge preserved one of the plaintiffs’ key claims: that the mandate in the law requiring citizens to purchase health insurance violates the Commerce Clause. In doing so, he went so far as to suggest that he was skeptical of the government’s argument that the mandate is constitutional.
Based on the reporting we’ve done, it looks like the Commerce Clause argument is the best shot the attorneys general have — but it was still considered a long shot. Now at least one judge seems to be buying it (note: a federal judge in Michigan rejected it last week). He’s just a district court judge, and this isn’t a ruling on the merits. So there’s a long way to go. But today’s ruling is a red flag. As I said, more on this tomorrow.
I’ll be live blogging tonight’s Reid/Angle debate, starting at 9 Eastern.
8:53 PM: Getting ready for the Reid/Angle debate, which starts at 9 PM. Join me on Twitter where we’re discussing it. I’m at @joshtpm.
8:57 PM: Watching Angle ad which says Reid and Pelosi have secret plan to raise taxes on 34 million families right after the election. Hmmm. Might have been a good idea to hold that vote. Sad.
8:59 PM: Wow, Politico says Angle and Reid are equal in terms of being prone to gaffes? Really?
9:00 PM: And here we go. Which is weirder? That Reid has to debate this goof? Or that there’s a good chance she’ll succeed him? Hard to tell.
9:02 PM: I remember there was an old yarn about Sen. Scoop Jackson, that if he’d given a fireside chat, the fire would have gone out. Reid sorta reminds me of that.
9:04 PM: Angle may be less articulate than Reid. It’s a challenge. But I think she’s risen to it.
9:07 PM: What? “They allowed 11 foreign countries to join that suit.” Foreign countries joined the DOJ’s lawsuit? What? Angle just said that. I don’t think our system works that way. See where this came from in the rightwing blogosphere.
9:10 PM: Angle: I’m happy to lie about Social Security again.
9:16 PM: The level of dishonesty in Angle’s discussion of bad issues of health care economics is breath-taking. And yet totally par for the course for the mainstream of the GOP.
9:17 PM: I must say, I think the moderator here is pretty good. Not a lot of grandstanding or hogging the stage but actually asks pretty pointed questions and then follows up when the debaters ignore him.
9:19 PM: Best moment of the night: Sen. Reid’s awkward impromptu discussion of mechanics of colonoscopy.
9:20 PM: Angle says she knows a company that has already laid off 5 employees because of Obamacare? Really? Which one?
9:26 PM: So half hour in I think we can say this is a debate between two people who’ve apparently agreed not to speak in complete sentences. More seriously, I think Reid is doing relatively well, not saying anything totally ridiculous and hitting key points fairly well. Angle is wildly ignorant. But I think most people knew that on the way in.
9:30 PM: Probably the best example so far about how far the DADT debate has come is that not even a crackpot like Angle is willing to defend it.
9:32 PM: Oh man, it’s going to be a long two years.
9:34 PM: “Man up, Harry Reid!” This is preceded by a bizarre ramble of lies about Social Security.
9:35 PM: “Phase out” … Angle hit on the same on Social Security word games Republicans have been using since 2002.
9:36 PM: The Social Security lies get painful after a while. TPM Reader JR writes in to say: “I’m watching Reid-Angle debate on internet and I have to say that you are right that both can’t seem to speak english very well but I find it shocking how weak Reid really is. This not so much a debate as rather it’s Sharron Angle making up facts as she goes along while smirking and Harry Reid looking ill and stammering fragment sentences. It’s really incredible how poorly Reid is prepared to confront a serial liar like Angle.” Maybe I’m just grading Reid on a curve. But I really don’t feel like he’s doing that bad. For Harry Reid I think he’s doing it reasonably well … I’d like to build my own nuclear ractor.
9:40 PM: My God, this discussion of nuclear power and Yucca Mountain by Reid is frightening and bizarre. There’s no longer any need for Yucca Mountain as a place to store nuclear waste and that’s why I support it. Eeesh.
9:43 PM: TPM Reader JB writes in: “The tough part for Reid is refuting Angle’s falsehoods without sounding unbelievable himself or, worse, like a condescending bully.” Yep.
9:45 PM: I wonder if this claim about Ashjian is going to hurt her. Promising him special favors to get out of the race? That’s the same access as every voter will have? Not sure about that.
9:49 PM: I get that I’m becoming a broken record on this one. But God, just lie after lie. The whole point of the HCR bill is that you can buy from multiple vendors. Ugh. You sort of have to have heard Angle’s response. But classic up-is-downism.
9:53 PM: Economy is doing so poorly because of looming threat of non-extension of Bush tax cuts. Genius.
9:55 PM: I thought Reid was joking when he said he needed to pull his notes and paper together to give his final statement. I guess not.
9:58 PM: And that’s all she wrote. On first blush, looking at comments on Twitter and reader emails, I think Reid did a bit better than people are giving him credit for. Angle simply ignored most of the point where she was asked about various false statements. But in general I don’t get the sense that anything that happened in this debate was really enough to change the dynamics of the race. If you don’t already get that Angle is nuts, I don’t think there was anything is this debate that was going to convince. Reid showed he understands the issues and has realistic responses. But again, if that mattered to you, you’d already be voting him. The fact that both candidates speak English as a second language only made things a bit more painful.
Anti-Murray protestor arrested outside the debate hall for waving meat cleaver at Murray supporters.
I was traveling last week. So I missed this when it first came out. But even in a year rife with racist and xenophobia ad imagery, this ad by David Vitter attacking Charlie Melancon on illegal immigration has to be the rankest I’ve ever seen. The inset you see to your left is the whooping and hollaring bandana-clad illegals driving off in the limo Melancon had waiting for them at the hole they’d cut in the border fence along with their poster board welfare check. You really just have to watch it, maybe a couple times, taking special note of the skin color of the various characters in the ad.
Watch it here. Just watch.
It’s almost quaint to think that people found that Jesse Helms notorious ‘hands’ ad so outrageous back in 1990. Or Pete Wilson anti-immigration ads in 1994.
The momentum Republican Linda McMahon seemed to have a few weeks ago in the Senate race in Connecticut has waned, and Democrat Richard Blumenthal is back to a double-digit lead in most of the polls.
It’s become the public political art form of the decade — the racist and/or nutso anti-Obama billboard. And we’ve got the ten best (of the worst) here.
