Glenn Beck reports that an animal-rights fanatic is on track to become President Obama’s regulatory czar. That individual is the radical legal theorist Cass Sunstein who has argued that:

• your money doesn’t really belong to you because the government laid the foundations for your success;
• Internet censorship is a good idea;
• animals should be allowed to sue people;
• the names of carbon dioxide emitters should be compiled as part of a “greenhouse gas inventory” and publicized to shame those emitters into changing their behavior; and
• Americans’ support for property rights and freedom of contract is an “incoherent” form “of so-called individualism.”

Beck noted that Sunstein co-wrote Nudge, a paternalistic book in which he argued that people need to be encouraged to make the right choices in their personal lives.

David Martosko of the Center for Consumer Freedom described Sunstein as a close friend of President Obama’s who happens to be a “raving animal rights nut.”

“He is a philosopher in the mold of Peter Singer,” explained Martosko. Singer, an animal rights fanatic who also believes that human parents should be legally permitted to kill a “severely disabled” infant up to 28 days after its birth, recently wrote in a New York Times op-ed that healthcare rationing (for people) is both moral and good public policy.

Martosko said Sunstein, whom the president has nominated to be administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the Office of Budget and Management, believes “government has to lead you by the nose in every facet of life.” Sunstein believes that all of your rights exist only because the federal government allows you to have them, he said.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) has placed a “hold” on Sunstein’s nomination out of concern that he would use his office to promote a radical animal rights agenda.