A federal judge has held Obama’s Interior Department in contempt of court for refusing to comply with an order to end the government’s illegal drilling moratorium (Hat-tip: Conservative Outlooks):

A federal judge in Louisiana held the Interior Department in contempt late Wednesday, citing the agency for “dismissive conduct” by blocking offshore oil drilling during last year’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Judge Martin Feldman of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana last summer blocked the Obama administration’s first attempt to place a moratorium on offshore drilling, only to have Interior come back with a second ban.

That didn’t go over well with Feldman, who Wednesday also ordered Interior to pay attorneys’ fees for oil companies challenging the drilling ban.

“Such dismissive conduct, viewed in tandem with the reimposition of a second blanket and substantively identical moratorium and in light of the national importance of this case, provide this Court with clear and convincing evidence of the government’s contempt of this Court’s preliminary injunction order,” Feldman wrote in his eight-page order.

This seems to be a developing pattern from the Obama administration, which doesn’t much care for what the courts say. Following Judge Vinson’s ruling that Obamacare is unconstitutional in its entirety, which an anonymous White House official whined was “thoroughly odd and unconventional,” the White House has announced its intention to flaunt the binding ruling and implement the law anyway, declaring on the White House blog that “Implementation will continue.”

I will say this: Judge Vinson was plainly wrong about one thing; it is not safe to assume that this administration will follow the law.