YES, IT REALLY IS THAT BAD.

Can't say it any better than David Karki at Northstar:

Perhaps you were occupied with watching a 50-1 long shot win the Kentucky Derby on Saturday, or getting out to enjoy a sunny spring weekend. But while that was happening, President Obama was once again channeling his inner Josef Stalin. He forcibly nationalized Chrysler and handed it over to his union supporters on the proverbial silver platter, dictating the terms of bankruptcy to the investment banking firm to whom Chrysler owes $6.8 billion.

And most chilling of all, when the lawyers for the firm objected to being paid a measly 29 cents on the dollar, (they proposed getting 66 cents, or two-thirds), the Obama Administration threatened them with personal harm if they didn't accept the dictated terms immediately. To quote chief counsel Tom Lauria, describing the extortion and intimidation:

"Let me tell you it's no fun standing on this side of the fence opposing the president of the United States. In fact, let me just say, people have asked me who I represent, and that's a moving target.

I can tell you for sure that I represent one less investor today than I represented yesterday. One of my clients was directly threatened by the White House, and in essence compelled to withdraw its opposition to the deal under threat that the full force of the White House press corps would destroy its reputation if it continued to fight. That's how hard it is to stand on this side of the fence.”

This is frightening on a number of levels. One, you have the Obama Administration outright seizing business after business. From the auto industry to health care to the inherent totalitarianism of cap-and-trade and carbon emissions, there is simply nothing they don't want to control. They seek to be the dictators of all that is within their field of vision.

To hell with the Constitution, the rule of law, the integrity of contracts and any other written limitation on their power – they will do anything they can get away with. Which means that we are all at risk, and the only reason some of us haven't been targeted is that Obama simply hasn't turned his attention to that particular sector yet. But he will – it's only a matter of time.

Two, the moment anybody gets in the way of their grandiose communist plans, the Obama Administration's first instinctive reaction is to threaten people with personal destruction. This suggests both a childishness – throwing a temper tantrum the moment it seems their object of desire might be put beyond their reach – and an evil large in scope.

When you stoop that low right out of the gate, the extremity of it indicates a total lack of conscience. Just ask Robert Bork, Clarence Thomas and Sarah Palin how it feels to be so instantly targeted by the left for annihilation. And the haste of it portends an intention to go much farther than that one area – hence the need to get it over with quickly, so as to proceed to the next victim.

Third, the fact that the Obama Administration would so confidently wield the press as a weapon indicates that they aren't merely vomit-inducing in shoving their tongues up his teleprompter-dependent bunghole in blind worship. The media, by the White House's own de facto admission in having issued this threat, will not only refuse to report and thus cover up the malicious misdeeds of their “messiah,” it will happily and obediently destroy his enemies upon his marching orders. They are, in essence, his club-wielding goon squad. (Whereas a Republican president so threatening people would result in screaming for impeachment and ululating echoing through newsrooms as they wrote veritable fatwas of jihad against him.)

That sound you hear is Thomas Jefferson rolling over in his grave, as the two entities he presumed to be natural antagonists – the press and government – join forces to trash the founding documents and the nation he helped create.

The rest is here.