I & I Editorial BoardRemember back when the left kept yapping about how President Donald Trump secretly wanted to be a dictator, based on nothing but fearmongering?
Now, these same people are urging President Joe Biden to ignore Congress and the Supreme Court and enact sweeping powers over the country. In other words, to be a dictator.
Their reason? The weather.
Seriously.
Democrats are using the latest heat wave to push Biden to declare a climate “emergency” so he can bypass the legislative branch. Biden is reportedly considering doing just that.
The left is freaking out because Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.V., won’t sign onto a bill that includes carbon emission mandates at a time when gasoline prices are way up, inflation is rampant, and the economy is almost certainly in a recession. Plus, the Supreme Court just tossed an attempt by the EPA to control the nation’s power grid in the name of fighting “climate change.”
On Monday, Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon, told reporters “There is probably nothing more important for our nation and our world than for the United States to drive a bold, energetic transition in its energy economy from fossil fuels to renewable energy.”
Merkley said time is of the essence because it’s not clear when Democrats will be able to pass a climate bill.
“Am I concerned that it will be a decade before we have a climate majority? I am damn concerned about that,” he said. “We have to use every tool at our disposal, and certainly the tool right now is bold, intense executive action.”
He wasn’t finished. Merkley also declared war on the Supreme Court. “We cannot sit still for fear of what the Court might do,” he said. “Let’s pursue every option and if a few of them are struck down, they’re struck down, we’ll double down on the rest.”
He added that declaring a climate emergency “also unchains the president from waiting for Congress to act.”
“Unchains the president”? Isn’t that the very definition of a dictatorship? A leader unconstrained by a constitution’s separation of powers, free to act however and whenever he wants?
Legal scholar Jonathan Turley notes that when the founders set up the separation of powers, they assumed that each branch of government would jealously guard its prerogatives.
James Madison, who wrote Federalist 51, “clearly did not envision many of our current leaders in Congress who often call for presidents to circumvent their own institution when they are unable to prevail with legislation,” he writes.
Turley goes on to instruct the public – because ignorance of civics is so clearly rampant – why separation of powers matters.
Many Americans misunderstand the separation of powers as simply a division of authority between three branches of government. In fact, it was intended as a protection not of institutional but of individual rights, by preventing any branch from assuming enough power to become tyrannical. No branch is supposed to have enough power to govern alone.
Merkley isn’t the only Democrat calling on Biden to assume dictatorial powers in the name of “climate change.” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., said that because they can’t get Manchin on board they are “eager to see really broad, robust, rapid executive action.”
Apparently, to these folks, representative democracy is fine if it achieves their leftist goals. But it must be jettisoned whenever they can’t get a majority on their side. Again, we ask, isn’t this exactly how dictatorships work?
Readers of this page know we long ago predicted that once Democrats could no longer use COVID “emergency powers” to trample Americans’ rights, they’d declare a climate “crisis” to continue the stampede.
Way back in November 2020, for example, we ran an editorial headlined “Are Pandemic Lockdowns A Dry Run For The ‘Climate Crisis’?“
Back then we wrote that:
Observant and cunning politicians have gone to school since March and are now likely convinced they can use the pretext of a climate emergency to control Americans and break the back of capitalism.
We hate to say we told you so …
To be honest, this wasn’t hard to predict. Scratch a leftist and you’ll always find a tyrant underneath. And whenever the left can’t get its way through honest, democratic channels they try to force their way, either by enlisting the courts or, as in this case, calling on the president to act unilaterally.
So, you will excuse us if we scream out loud the next time we hear a leftist call any conservative “dictatorial.” Today, in the United States, that label applies only to those who now control the Democratic party and are in charge of Biden’s brain.
— Written by the I&I Editorial Board
Using these vague “policy violations,” Google is now threatening to demonetize us. It’s part of Big Tech’s effort to silence conservative voices.
A flawed premise (CO2) can go a long way. The myth that CO2 is correlated with climate change needs to be euthanized and put to rest once and for all. In any event, when temperatures fluctuate up and down, the human species is adaptable enough to survive without the aid of a global dictatorship. I am reminded of the old story of The Boy Who Cried Wolf. Another case of the Democrats being the Political Party That Cries Wolf again and again in their quest for absolute power and establishing a Soviet-style state. To them, every ingrown toe nail is an emergency calling for dramatic measures and handing over absolute power.
You know what affects “climate” far more than CO2? Water vapor. The difference is, the powers-that-be can’t control water vapor, or make any money trying to “contain” it.
Not gonna happen. No one wearing an adult diaper can be a credible dictator.
“Am I concerned that it will be a decade before we have a climate majority? I am damn concerned about that,”…
After a decade of hopefully doing nothing about “climate change” what will happen is that the temperature of the Earth as measured by the flawed system of surface thermometers plus adjustments will increase by somewhere between 0.0 and 0.1 degrees Celsius. That is a crisis worthy of installing a dictatorship? Do Democrats, any of them, ever step back and listen to themselves?
There is a solution to many of our biggest problems. Vote against all Democrats until the party as a whole shows some sanity again.
The only thing that comes to mind here is an old saying: “Be careful what you wish for. You might get it.”
” “Unchains the president”? Isn’t that the very definition of a dictatorship? A leader unconstrained by a constitution’s separation of powers, free to act however and whenever he wants? ”
Why, yes it is. Democrats LOVE dictators – as long as the dictation follows THEIR narrative.