An absolutely infuriating piece from Gene Healy at the Cato Institute that I think everyone should read–it also appeared in the January 9th Washington Examiner. Not infuriating because of Gene’s article, but of how he reveals what our most imperial of presidents thinks he can get away with. The last part of the article sums it all up very nicely–and very chillingly:

But the worst hypocrisy here is Obama’s. “I’ve studied the Constitution as a student, I’ve taught it as a teacher,” he piously intoned in 2009: “I know that we must never, ever, turn our back on its enduring principles for expedience’s sake.”

Yet Bush never fought a war without congressional authorization — as Obama did in Libya. Nor did Bush ever publicly claim the power to assassinate American citizens via drone strike, far from any battlefield. (The memo explaining Obama’s legal rationale for that move is classified — he could tell you, but then he’d have to kill you.)

And deeming the Senate “functionally” in recess was a bridge too far even for Bush. When Bush’s attorneys urged him to do it in 2008, he declined. The Cordray appointment is just the latest instance where 44 has gone even further than 43 in the abuse of executive power.

Employing the royal “We” in an interview last month, Obama declared: “Where Congress is not willing to act, we’re going to go ahead and do it ourselves.” How long will Congress let him get away with it?

Maybe it’s already too late. Maybe our country is finally doomed to become just another socialist welfare state with its provisions enforced by a police state and tin-pot dictator. I don’t know, but I want out…