Conservative, Reagan-Appointed Judge Rules: Individual Mandate IS Constitutional!

As Think Progress puts it:

When a federal judge tells you that your argument has no basis in the text of the Constitution, it is a good sign you don’t belong in court. When he compares your argument to claims that the federal ban on whites-only lunch counters are unconstitutional, it’s an even better sign of how deeply radical your argument has become. When that judge is Judge Laurence Silberman, a man who has stood at the pinnacle of conservative judicial thinking for decades, it is about as good a sign as you can hope for that the Supreme Court is not going to like your argument either.

Also worthy of note, Judge Silberman is “a close ally of Justice Clarence Thomas, a former official in the Nixon, Ford and Reagan Administrations and the author of the lower court decision overturning the District of Columbia’s handgun ban.” Yet despite (or perhaps because of?) those impeccable, conservative credentials, Silberman ruled firmly against a constitutional challenge to the individual mandate, declaring that it has no “real support…in either the text of the Constitution or Supreme Court precedent.” As if that’s not good enough, Silberman et al. ruled that the individual mandate “is no more [an encroachment on individual liberty] than a command that restaurants or hotels are obliged to serve all customers regardless of race.”

Sorry, Ken Kookinelli, your radical attempt to undo 200+ years of judicial rulings on the constitution just got flattened! So sad. LOL