Judge Andrew Napolitano, a Fox News commentator, raised the question on Neil Cavuto's "Your World" show Wednesday. And while it seems fanciful in light of the safeguards built into our democracy and its institutions, it recognizes the threat posed by the president's policies and actions if left unchecked.
"I think the president is dangerously close to totalitarianism," Napolitano opined. "A few months ago he was saying, 'The Congress doesn't count, the Congress doesn't mean anything, I am going to rule by decree and by administrative regulation.'
"Now he's basically saying the Supreme Court doesn't count. It doesn't matter what they think. They can't review our legislation. That would leave just him as the only branch of government standing."
Some would consider this borderline hyperbole. But this is, after all, a president who has said he can't wait for Congress to act and will govern by executive order and regulations if necessary. He has questioned the Supreme Court's "unprecedented" review of ObamaCare.
As the Department of Justice turned in its homework assignment on the judicial review of the constitutionality of laws, it was a reminder that this is an administration that's already been found in contempt of court by a federal judge.
In February of last year, Louisiana Federal District Court Judge Martin Feldman found that the Obama Interior Department was in contempt of his ruling that the offshore oil drilling moratorium, imposed by the administration in 2010, was unconstitutional. After Feldman struck down the initial drilling ban, the Interior Department simply established a second ban that was virtually identical.
Judge Feldman was not amused. "Each step the government took following the court's imposition of a preliminary injunction showcases its defiance," Feldman said in his ruling. "Such dismissive conduct, viewed in tandem with the re-imposition of a second moratorium ... provides this court with clear and convincing evidence of its contempt."
As for Congress, we see the same dismissive tone. "Whenever Congress refuses to act, Joe and I, we're going to act," Obama said in February at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, with Vice President Joe Biden off to the side. "In the months to come, wherever we have an opportunity, we're going to take steps on our own to keep this economy moving."
When cap-and-trade failed to make it through Congress — a Congress that had specifically denied the Environmental Protection Agency the authority to regulate so-called greenhouse gases via the Clean Air Act — the Obama administration, with the support of the usual suspects in the media, went ahead, unleashing the EPA to make war on coal and other fossil fuels.
In April 2009, Time Magazine ran a piece titled, "EPA'S CO2 Finding: Putting a Gun to Congress' Head." The New York Times editorialized that if Congress fails to ram through cap-and-trade legislation, the EPA should ram it down our throats. And that's what the administration has been doing.
The whole thrust has been the acquisition of power by the federal government centered on the White House. That is the theme of ObamaCare, which is not about health care but about making people as dependent on government benevolence, if we can use that word, as possible.
Those who stand in the way, whether it be the Supreme Court, Congress or institutions such as the Catholic Church, are to be either ignored when possible, or intimidated and bullied into silence and acquiescence in the proud tradition of President Obama's mentor, Saul Alinsky.
What is at stake here is freedom and whether we shall be governed by a document that begins with "we the people" or whether we shall be ruled, in totalitarian fashion, by a bill that says "the secretary shall determine" what our rights and freedoms are.
http://news.investors.com/article/606939/201204051834/obama-dangerously-close-to-totalitarianism.htm?src=IBDDAE&p=full
"I think the president is dangerously close to totalitarianism," Napolitano opined. "A few months ago he was saying, 'The Congress doesn't count, the Congress doesn't mean anything, I am going to rule by decree and by administrative regulation.'
"Now he's basically saying the Supreme Court doesn't count. It doesn't matter what they think. They can't review our legislation. That would leave just him as the only branch of government standing."
Some would consider this borderline hyperbole. But this is, after all, a president who has said he can't wait for Congress to act and will govern by executive order and regulations if necessary. He has questioned the Supreme Court's "unprecedented" review of ObamaCare.
As the Department of Justice turned in its homework assignment on the judicial review of the constitutionality of laws, it was a reminder that this is an administration that's already been found in contempt of court by a federal judge.
In February of last year, Louisiana Federal District Court Judge Martin Feldman found that the Obama Interior Department was in contempt of his ruling that the offshore oil drilling moratorium, imposed by the administration in 2010, was unconstitutional. After Feldman struck down the initial drilling ban, the Interior Department simply established a second ban that was virtually identical.
Judge Feldman was not amused. "Each step the government took following the court's imposition of a preliminary injunction showcases its defiance," Feldman said in his ruling. "Such dismissive conduct, viewed in tandem with the re-imposition of a second moratorium ... provides this court with clear and convincing evidence of its contempt."
As for Congress, we see the same dismissive tone. "Whenever Congress refuses to act, Joe and I, we're going to act," Obama said in February at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, with Vice President Joe Biden off to the side. "In the months to come, wherever we have an opportunity, we're going to take steps on our own to keep this economy moving."
When cap-and-trade failed to make it through Congress — a Congress that had specifically denied the Environmental Protection Agency the authority to regulate so-called greenhouse gases via the Clean Air Act — the Obama administration, with the support of the usual suspects in the media, went ahead, unleashing the EPA to make war on coal and other fossil fuels.
In April 2009, Time Magazine ran a piece titled, "EPA'S CO2 Finding: Putting a Gun to Congress' Head." The New York Times editorialized that if Congress fails to ram through cap-and-trade legislation, the EPA should ram it down our throats. And that's what the administration has been doing.
The whole thrust has been the acquisition of power by the federal government centered on the White House. That is the theme of ObamaCare, which is not about health care but about making people as dependent on government benevolence, if we can use that word, as possible.
Those who stand in the way, whether it be the Supreme Court, Congress or institutions such as the Catholic Church, are to be either ignored when possible, or intimidated and bullied into silence and acquiescence in the proud tradition of President Obama's mentor, Saul Alinsky.
What is at stake here is freedom and whether we shall be governed by a document that begins with "we the people" or whether we shall be ruled, in totalitarian fashion, by a bill that says "the secretary shall determine" what our rights and freedoms are.
http://news.investors.com/article/606939/201204051834/obama-dangerously-close-to-totalitarianism.htm?src=IBDDAE&p=full
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