How Drug War Hysteria May Save the Affordable Care Act

I just love this. Scalia's freakout over pot may come back to bite him in the ass over the healthcare mandate.

Unfortunately, Scalia is smart enough, corrupt enough and hypocritical enough to pretend his own precedent doesn't exist. Never forget that in Bush v. Gore, he ignored his own claimed federalism, 200-plus years of precedent, and the original, plain-language Constitution to annoint Smirky Dear Leader.

Talking Points Memo:

On first blush, it seems like a no-brainer that Antonin Scalia will vote to overturn the health care reform law’s requirement that Americans buy insurance: the Reagan-appointed justice is a staunch conservative who’s beloved by Republicans; for what possible reason could he deliver such a devastating blow to his own side and boost President Obama?

The answer: judicial precedent. His own. And the Obama administration has noticed.

In its amicus brief filed with the Supreme Court Friday, the Justice Department cited no fewer than 10 times the 2005 Gonzalez v. Raich case, in which Scalia (and Justice Anthony Kennedy) broke with the court’s conservative wing to hand down what scholars viewed as one of the broadest declarations of federal power under the Commerce Clause: a 6-3 ruling decreeing that Congress may ban a medical-marijuana patient from growing cannabis for personal use in California where it’s legal.

Raich was bound to come up either way as it’s seen as the most relevant precedent to the Affordable Care Act case, but the Obama administration is deploying it to box in Scalia specifically and conservatives broadly. Five separate times in the brief, the DOJ noted Scalia’s concurrence in the case.

But like the congressional repugs, the conservatives on the Supreme Court are there not to serve the people, the nation or the constitution; they are there to serve the Koch Brothers, the Reich Wing Freakazoids, and the anti-Obama fanatics.