I was kind of disappointed with Thomas here. He properly threw a barb at the majority for flip-flopping from Raich. However, he voted AGAINST them on Raich - and votes against them here - which is puzzling in its own right. And he gave no clear rationale for his dissent, other than he didn't follow the majority's reasoning.
Guess I'll have to read Scalia's dissent to get the legal reasoning.
He's saying (as far as I can tell): "Look...not seven months ago, the court decided that the commerce clause can be stretched so far as to allow the regulation of the intrastate possession of marijuana."
"Fine...that's settled law...but you cannot now turn around and say that states' rights somehow compels the court to decide for a particular interpretation (one limiting executive authority) of part of the same law."
Although he didn't explicitly say it, I think part of the reason Thomas sorta goes along with Raich here is that a bad rule enforced arbitrarily is worse than a bad rule enforced consistently. Requiring that those who make rules must accept their consistent enforcement is something of a check against bad rules. Not that it works perfectly--or even close to it--but without that check rulemakers can produce so many rules that anybody can be prosecuted at any time for at least 'something', if such is the prosecutor's whim.
Guess I'll have to read Scalia's dissent to get the legal reasoning.
Thomas joined in Scalia's dissent, and so didn't feel any need to say in his own the things that were already said there.