As pundits and politicians dissect the carnage of ObamaCare, a serious question demands an honest answer: At what point did the president know his plan to nationalize one-sixth of the national economy was not ready for the October 1 launch?

If, as he pleads with every controversy swirling around his administration, he did not know, his incompetency demands his removal from office.

But it is inconceivable that Barack Obama would not know the status of his signature legislation, his very legacy.

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He knew, and he had a duty to his country to delay the launch, as so many had called him to do.

But this is a man who does not understand civility. He did the opposite.

He allowed a partial shutdown of the federal government in order to harm the credibility of his Republican critics.

Worse, his administration deliberately harmed American citizens in what can only be described as a rampant abuse of power.

On October 2, a flight of elderly veterans landed in Washington, D.C. to visit the World War II Memorial. When they arrived they found barricades surrounding the open-air site, announcing the space was closed “Because of the Federal Government SHUTDOWN.”

Armed security agents were deployed, deemed “essential” in order to keep these veterans, arguably the most noble Americans alive, out of their own memorial.

It was a continuation of the president’s troubling habit of using the federal government as a weapon to inflict pain on Americans when it suits his purpose.

With 83 percent of the government staying open and the cost to maintain an open air monument absolute peanuts, there was no need to do this, none whatsoever.

Yet countless monuments, memorials and parks were closed all over America. In the process citizens were also hassled, even threatened with arrest—all for political gain. And that was just the start.

Breitbart’s John Nolte has compiled a stunning list of 47 outrageous ways the Obama administration used the government shutdown to inflict pain on Americans. Some of the abuses include:

- Refusing to fund last-chance experimental treatment for children with cancer, even when the House passed funding for NIH, just for this purpose.

- Temporarily shutting down the Amber Alert website for missing children

- Forbidding priests on military bases to conduct Mass and baptisms.

- Blacking out sports and entertainment programming for our troops overseas.

- Instructing park service rangers to make life “difficult for people.”

- Forcing residents out of private homes that sit on federal lands.

- Shutting down Mt. Rushmore AND a viewing area on a highway outside the park.

And perhaps the most offensive of them all…The Obama administration denied death benefits to the families of fallen warriors.

It doesn’t get more noxious than this.

This is nothing new for this ethically-corrupt administration.

In 2012, as part of the “sequestration” deal, Obama was forced to make cuts. Everyone knows there are untold billions of dollars wasted every week by this bloated government.

But what did he cut?

School children trying to visit the White House on educational trips to the nation’s capital found Obama had cut all tours of the White House.

Americans already suffering the awful burdens of airplane travel learned the FAA had been instructed to furlough air traffic controllers, to maximize disruption to flights around the country.

And prior to the sequester even passing, Obama started releasing jailed illegal immigrants and blaming it on sequestration.

The unnecessary suffering inflicted on America's citizenry by this administration, using the power of the federal government as a weapon is politics at its worst. And, as with the shutdown abuses, no one ever knows who gave the order, or why. This administration won’t accept an ounce of responsibility for its abuses.

I believe it screams for an investigation.

There is no more feared branch of government than the Internal Revenue Service. After countless denials it is now established that for years federal agents have been persecuting Obama's critics, flagging groups with words like “patriots” or “Tea Party” in their name and placing them in bureaucratic limbo, ensuring they would be sidelined during Obama’s reelection campaign.

Individuals and corporations have been subjected to costly and ghastly federal audits. What has been this administration's response?

These IRS thugs have been awarded with bonuses and promotions.

Case in point: Sarah Hall Ingram, the woman behind the IRS targeting scandal who has now been appointed to head up the IRS’s ObamaCare enforcement office.

Is it not an utter disgrace that this administration refuses to tell Americans the truth surrounding the September 11, 2012 terrorist attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi?

We now know the administration failed to protect Ambassador Stevens and his team when they had asked for more security. We now know they dishonestly tried to blame it on an anti-Muslin video, while refusing to acknowledge that this was a terrorist attack.

We now know about the intimidation of whistleblowers in the CIA and State Department who wanted to come forward with their stories about the attacks.

This cone of silence must be lifted. We are owed answers.

Using intimidation to keep information away from the public is a common theme for this administration.

Fox News’s James Rosen and reporters from the Associated Press have been targeted for investigation by Obama’s Justice Department for the crime of …investigating the government. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder told Congress he had never been associated with Rosen’s case, yet it was he who signed off on the affidavit that labeled Rosen a “potential criminal.”

This is the same Eric Holder who refused to prosecute Black Panther thugs threatening voters at a 2008 polling location in Philadelphia.

The list of abuses does not end.

Four U.S. citizens (one a known terrorist) have been killed by the administration’s use of unmanned drones. The “Fast and Furious” scheme allowed U.S. weapons to disappear and then be used in crimes like the December 2010 killing of a U.S. border patrol agent.

The administration lavished millions of taxpayer dollars on campaign donors who were associated with green tech failures like Solyndra.

Former EPA administrator Lisa Jackson used a false name in emails to avoid transparency, end-running the will of Congress.

President Obama continues thumbing America in the eye by stalling on the Keystone pipeline as well as off-shore drilling, choosing to implement his radical climate agenda unilaterally, denying work for thousands of Americans, hurting the U.S. economy, and threatening our energy security.

He governs as a despot.

This is an administration out of control with its abuse of the federal government’s power, and it needs to be stopped. Congress has a Constitutional obligation to investigate, to stop the abuse and, where laws have been broken, to bring the culprits to justice.

If President Obama didn’t order these assaults on liberty, certainly he allowed them, and made no attempts to stop them. For that, there must be consequences.

Lincoln said that “if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” It’s time to get definitive answers about the character of the man occupying the White House.