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Brilliant, ain't he? Fox News senior legal analyst Andrew Napolitano on Tuesday suggested that President Barack Obama could be impeached for implementing automatic spending cuts in the so-called "sequestration" in a way that embarrassed Republicans.

"If you're talking about the military, for example, the president wants to hire another 100 soldiers, can he only hire 98? Of course not," Napolitano explained to the hosts of Fox & Friends. "He can hire all 100, and he can take that 2 percent cut in decreased spending and apply it somewhere else in the Defense Department."

"The president has an obligation under the Constitution to make the federal government work, and to make it do the things that we have hired it to do," he continued. "You can't get on an airplane without going through the TSA. The plane can't get in the air without an air traffic controller. The country will not stay safe and free without soldiers. These are far more important than other operations of the government, from which he could cut in order to keep those operations that we rely on every day at full force!"

Fox News host Steve Doocy noted that instead of making reductions in spending "as easy as possible," Obama and his administration were "scaring the living daylights out of people... He's become President Panic."

And hey, that's our job!

"This is almost an impeachable offense," Napolitano agreed. "If the president is deciding how to spend money in order to hurt us, rather than in order to provide us with the services for which we have paid and for which we have hired him, he is doing the opposite of what he has taken an oath to do."

"He has taken an oath to uphold the laws. That means make the government work. Don't make it painful, find a way to make it work on 2 percent less."

It seems he's missed the point of the sequester. But that kind of savvy is why he makes the big bucks at Fox.

The former judge concluded: "That's the way the constitution works!"

Oh, and he also does standup at bar mitzvahs and weddings.

(h/t: Media Matters)

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Fox News host Brian Kilmeade on Monday suggested that the "best thing" that the presidential campaigns could do would be to send poll watchers to "intimidate people into playing it straight."

Appearing on Fox & Friends on the Monday before election day, Fox News senior judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano explained that campaign lawyers had found "ingenuous ways to challenge things."

"So no matter how well it's going, no matter how smoothly it looks, whoever's losing has an opportunity to make a challenge," Napolitano said. "The Democrats will say, 'Republican poll workers wouldn't let people who are authorized to vote, vote.' And Republicans will say, 'Democrats are voting twice. They also have people voting who aren't authorized to vote.' And the courts are not going to be able to resolve this on Tuesday night."

Kilmeade replied: "So, if you have presence there, if you're a Republican, if you're a Romney or Obama people, Republican on Democrat, the best thing you can do is to have a presence there to show -- maybe intimidate people into playing it straight. Correct?"

"Well, intimidation is actually [a crime]," Napolitano point out.

"Not intimidation," Kilmeade said. "Just go, 'Oh, that guy's over here and..."

"I'm watching," co-host Steve Doocy added.

Napolitano noted that most states allowed three poll watchers from each party at each polling place, but "the only way there won't be all this litigation is if one of them wins by substantial numbers in given states."

"And these are poll watchers, not dancers," Kilmeade concluded.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 made it a crime to "intimidate, threaten, or coerce, or attempt to intimidate, threaten, or coerce any" voter.

Title 18 U.S.C. 594 specifies fines and/or jail time for "[w]hoever intimidates, threatens, coerces, or attempts to intimidate, threaten, or coerce, any other person for the purpose of interfering with the right of such other person to vote or to vote as he may choose."

(h/t: Mediaite)

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Fox News senior judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano is insisting that it was "not domestic terrorism" for a white supremacist to shoot seven people dead at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, but a Muslim U.S. Army major killing 13 coworkers at Ft. Hood was.

Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday that the FBI was investigating Wade Michael Page's deadly rampage at the Wisconsin Sikh temple as possible domestic terrorism. The FBI defines terrorism as "the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof in furtherance of political or social objectives."

"The legal definition of terrorism is two or more acts of violence intended to change the policy of the government, by scaring the population or by scaring the government," Napolitano told the hosts of Fox & Friends on Tuesday. "That does not appear to be what happened in this case."

"Page appears to be -- appears, he's dead -- appears to have been a disgruntled nut job who hated Muslims, didn't know the difference between Sikhs and Muslims and thought by killing the Sikhs he was somehow going to eliminate the Muslim population. It is an absurd, tortured way of thinking but it is not an act of domestic terrorism."

He continued: "On the other hand, the Ft. Hood shooter [Nidal Malik Hasan] who killed military in the place where they worked while damning and condemning the behavior of the government -- the employer of the people that he killed -- the government refuses to call that an act of domestic terrorism."

"While hailing Allah," Fox News co-host Brian Kilmeade noted.

"If that's not a case of terrorism then nothing is a case of terrorism," Napolitano agreed. "I think that what's playing here is politics. I think that there's a political ramification to calling something terrorism. It scares people. We look at it more closely. But if you call something 'workplace violence,' as horrific as it is, it doesn't scare us as much as it does with the word 'terrorist.'"

(h/t: Mediaite)

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Even former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin couldn't resist telling her own penis joke after Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) resigned Thursday.

"Here in New York today, we all witnessed the spectacle of Congressman -- he's still a congressman -- Anthony Weiner announcing that he was going to resign because of personal behavior that was utterly reprehensible," Fox Business' Judge Andrew Napolitano told Palin. "Should the Congress have threatened to kick him out or are the people of Brooklyn and Queens entitled to have a pervert representing them in Congress if that is what they want?"

"Yes, they are entitled to have someone like Anthony Weiner represent them if that is truly what they want, but I have faith of the people there in Queens and elsewhere in New York that they deserve better," Palin replied. "Anthony Weiner, from henceforth after his personal indiscretions were disclosed, he was going to be rendered impotent basically in Congress and he wasn’t going to be effective."

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Weeks after Sean Hannity was caught selectively editing a clip of President Barack Obama to paint him in a negative light, the Fox News channel has done it again.

The latest clip, aired by Fox & Friends Tuesday, has the president appearing to say that he could not give tax cuts to the richest Americans.

"It is an irresponsible thing for us to do. I can't give tax cuts to the top two percent of Americans..." Obama said before being cut off in mid-sentence by the morning show's editing.

But in the full context, it's clear that the president said that he couldn't give tax cuts and lower the deficit at the same time.

The Hill reported Obama's full quote as it aired on CNBC Monday.

When asked if he would modify his position on the Bush-era tax cuts to only increase taxes on those making at least $1 million, President Obama on Monday said the country simply could not afford it.

"I can't give tax cuts to the top two percent of Americans -- 86 percent of that going to Americans making $1 million or more -- and lower the deficit at the same time," he told CNBC. "I don't have the math."

Fox News' Steve Doocy and Andrew Napolitano spent the remainder of the segment blasting Obama's tax policies.

"It's theft," Doocy told Napolitano.

"It is a form of theft," said Napolitano. "I mean, it presumes that the government decides how much of what we own and what we earn we'll be permitted to keep."

Continue reading »

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Well, this is something you don't see every day. Ralph Nader hosted this interview segment with Fox News' Judge Andrew Napolitano and discussed his book, Lies the Government Told You. I'm surprised the judge is going to be allowed on Fox after making the statements he did about Bush and Cheney during the interview.

Nader: What about the more serious violations of habeas corpus. You know after 9-11 Bush rounded up thousands of them, Americans, many of them Muslim Americans or Arabic Americans and they were thrown in jail without charges, they didn't have lawyers, some of them were pretty mistreated in New York City. You know they were all released eventually.

Napolitano: Correct.

Nader: Is that what you mean also about throwing people in jail without charges violating habeas corpus?

Napolitano: Well that is so obviously a violation of the natural law, the natural right to be brought before a neutral arbiter within moments of the government taking your freedom away from you. And the Constitution itself, as the Supreme Court in the Boumediene case pretty much said, wherever the government goes, the Constitution goes with it and wherever the Constitution goes are the rights of the Constitution as a guarantee and habeas corpus cannot be suspended by the president ever. It can only be suspended by the Congress in times of rebellion which in read Milligan says meaning rebellion of such magnitude that judges can't get into their court houses. That has not happened in American history.

So what President Bush did with the suspension of habeas corpus, with the whole concept of Guantanamo Bay, with the whole idea that he could avoid and evade federal laws, treaties, federal judges and the Constitution was blatantly unconstitutional and is some cases criminal.

Nader: What's the sanction for President Bush and Vice President Cheney?

Napolitano: There's been no sanction except what history will say about them.

Nader: What should be the sanctions?

Napolitano: They should have been indicted. They absolutely should have been indicted for torturing, for spying, for arresting without warrants. I'd like to say they should be indicted for lying but believe it or not, unless you're under oath, lying is not a crime. At least not an indictable crime. It's a moral crime.

Nader: So you think George W. Bush and Dick Cheney should even though they've left office, they haven't escaped the criminal laws, they should be indicted and prosecuted?

Napolitano: The evidence in this book and in others, our colleague the great Vincent Bugliosi has amassed an incredible amount of evidence. The purpose of this book was not to amass that evidence but I do discuss it, is overwhelming when you compare it to the level of evidence required for a normal indictment that George W. Bush as President and Dick Cheney as Vice President participated in criminal conspiracies to violate the federal law and the guaranteed civil liberties of hundreds, maybe thousands of human beings.

They go on to discuss how these crimes have gone on unpunished and how the practices have continued under Obama and that as long as our citizens are willing to accept government deception and as long as the Justice Department and the lawyers in this country are not going to pursue these cases in court it's never going to stop. It's a topic that our media is happy to help brush under the rug as well.

UPDATE: If you would like to watch the entire hour long interview from Book TV, C-SPAN has it available in their video library here.

From The Daily Show July 8, 2010:

Arizona police officers can't arrest you for not carrying your papers, but if you don't have them, you can be detained. I guess that's what's known in Arizona as a "Catch Veintidos".

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November 16, 2009 FOX News

Judge Andrew Napolitano explains to Bill O'Reilly why a New York Trial is appropriate for the 9/11 terrorist.