I’ve no idea where President Obama gets his shirts and smokes, but he certainly talks like a highbrow, sufficiently so to persuade presidential historian Michael Beschloss to pronounce him the day after the 2008 election “the smartest president ever.” Yet, in the end, he plays Chicago style. You can take the community organizer out of Chicago, but you can’t take the Chicago out of the community organizer. Or as the Agence France-Presse headline put it, “Combative Obama Warns Supreme Court On Health Law.”

Headlines in which the executive “warns” the courts are usually the province of places like Balochistan, where powerful cabinet ministers are currently fuming at the Chief Justice’s determination to stop them from kidnapping citizens and holding them for ransom — literally, that is, not merely figuratively, as in America. But, here as there, when Obama “warns” the Supreme Court “over health law,” it’s their health prospects he has in mind. He cautioned the justices — “an unelected group of people” — not to take the “unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically-elected Congress.”

The eunuchs of the palace media gleefully piled on: as The New York Times sees it, were the justices to take an “unprecedented” step so unprecedented there are two centuries’ worth of precedents going back to 1803, they would be fatally damaging “the Court’s legitimacy.”

All that’s unprecedented here is the spectacle of the President of the United States, while the judges are deliberating, idly swinging his tire iron and saying, “Nice little Supreme Court you got here. Shame if anything were to happen to it.”

A nation can have formal “checks and balances,” but in the end free societies depend on a certain deference to the proprieties. If you’re willing to disdain those, you can drive a coach and horses through accepted norms very easily. The bit about “a democratically-elected Congress” was an especially exquisite touch given Obama’s recently professed respect for the democratic process: as he assured Vladimir Putin’s sock puppet at the nuclear security summit in Seoul, South Korea, on 26 March, he’ll have “more flexibility” to accommodate foreign interests after he’s got his “last election” and all that tedious democracy business out of the way. His “last election,” I hasten to add, not America’s.

Aside from his contempt for judicial review and those rube voters, what other checks and balances doesn’t he have time for? Well, he makes “recess appointments” when the Senate isn’t in recess, thus circumventing the dreary business of confirmation by that “democratically-elected” legislature he likes so much. But hey, it’s only members of the National Labor Relations Board and the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, so why get hung up on constitutional niceties?

By the way, have you heard of this Consumer Financial Protection Bureau? No? Don’t worry, no big deal, it’s just a new federal agency. Because we can always use another of those, right? What’s one more acronym jostling in the ever more crowded alphabet soup of federal regulation? CFTC, CPSC, CNPP, and now CFPB. Not to be confused with CFPB-FM, the Inuit radio station just south of the Arctic Circle in the Nunavut village of Kugaaruk, where in 1975 the world’s all-time coldest wind chill was recorded: minus 135 degrees Fahrenheit.

Where was I? Oh, yes: the world’s all-time coldest wind chill. That’s what you’re going to be feeling at this point in an Obama second term. If you like his contempt for judicial review, parliamentary scrutiny and representative democracy now, wait’ll you see how “flexible” he’ll get starting in January 2013. The CFPB appointment is not a small thing. Indeed, its new director, one Richard Cordray, embodies what’s gone so disastrously wrong with American government: you’ll have to be in compliance with him, but he doesn’t have to be in compliance with anybody, whether the Senate or the U.S. Constitution. As I say somewhere in my recent book, you don’t need a president-for-life if you’ve got a bureaucracy-for-life. More and more aspects of the citizen’s daily existence are regulated by rules and officials both of which are ever more disconnected from any meaningful accountability to the people’s representatives. As the President says, look for even more “flexibility” in a second term: more non-recess recess appointments, more executive orders, more bewildering innovations from the commissars of the hyper-regulatory state.

Which brings us to another aspect of government that Obama apparently finds a frightful bore: budgets. In free societies, the executive is subject to the creative tensions of popular restraint, legislative restraint, judicial restraint, and fiscal restraint. All these the President has artfully sidestepped. In the last three years, the United States has ceased to have any meaningful budgeting at the national level, with the consequence that Washington piles on roughly a trillion dollars of new debt every seven or eight months. On 3 April, before the fawning toadies at the Associated Press luncheon, Obama attacked Congressman Paul Ryan’s plan to prevent America plunging into the debt abyss and at least keep its fingernails clawing at the clumps on the cliff edge for a couple more decades. Don’t believe him, sneered the President. “Hundreds of national parks” will close. Parts of the country will see “complete elimination of air traffic control.” We will be unable to “combat violent crime.” Two million mothers and young children will wind up without “access to healthy food.” Anything else? You bet. The Ryan plan will doom everything everywhere — “the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food that we eat.”

“This is not conjecture,” said the President. “These are facts.”

Speaking of facts, in the last year the federal government has added the equivalent of the GDP of Canada in new debt. Who’s buying it? The Chinese? Not so much. They’ve got pretty much all the Washington IOUs they need. 61% of debt issued by the Treasury is bought by the Federal Reserve — which is to say the left hand of the U.S. government is lending money to the right hand of the U.S. government. That’s one reason the dollar is in steep decline against every major currency. Indeed, had it not been for the French and Germans et al inaugurating the new century by inventing a currency for an artificial jurisdiction with even less connection to economic reality (the European Union), it’s likely that the markets would have yanked the rug out from under the dollar by now.

Nonetheless, in a land where every mewling babe in the American nursery is born with a debt burden of just under $200,000, the President brags that only his party is “compassionate” to have no plan whatsoever even to attempt to do anything about this, no way, no how, not now, not ever.

On 2 April, the head of the General Services Administration, the federal agency that picks out the office furniture for the other federal agencies, had to resign after a bureaucrats’ junket to Vegas that included a lavish party with clowns and a $3,200 mind reader. The clowns seem surplus to requirements, but I’d love to know what that mind reader found. Obama-sized government ends nowhere good, and in his Chicago-style contempt for checks and balances he’s telling us that, if you enjoyed the first term, you ain’t seen nuthin’ yet.

That talent was displayed in early April when he was asked whether he thought the Supreme Court would uphold ObamaCare as constitutional or strike it down as unconstitutional.

He replied: “I’m confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress.”

But how unprecedented would it actually be if the Supreme Court declared a law unconstitutional if it was passed by “a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress”?

The Supreme Court has been doing precisely that for 209 years!

Nor is it likely that Barack Obama has never heard of it. He has a degree from the Harvard law school and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago law school. In what must be one of the most famous Supreme Court cases in history — Marbury v. Madison in 1803 — Chief Justice John Marshall established the principle that the Supreme Court can declare acts of Congress null and void if these acts violate the Constitution.

They have been doing so for more than two centuries. It is the foundation of American constitutional law. There is no way that Barack Obama has never heard of it or really believes it to be “unprecedented” after two centuries of countless precedents.

In short, he is simply lying.

Now there are different kinds of liars. If we must have lying Presidents of the United States, I prefer that they be like Richard Nixon. You could just look at him and tell that he was lying.

But Obama is much smoother. On this and on many other issues, you would have to know what the facts are to know that he is lying. He is obviously counting on the fact that, in this era of dumbed-down education, many people have no clue as to what the facts are.

He is also counting on something else — namely, that the pro-Obama media will not expose his lies.

One of the many ways of lying smoothly is to simply redefine words. Barack Obama is a master at that as well.

In the comment on the case pending before the Supreme Court, President Obama said that he wanted to remind “conservative commentators” that they have complained about “judicial activism” — which he redefines as the idea that “an unelected group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law.”

First of all, every law that the Supreme Court has overturned for the past 209 years since Marbury v. Madison was “a duly constituted and passed law.”

Second, the “judicial activism” that conservatives have complained about was judges making rulings based on how they felt personally about the issue at hand, rather than about what the Constitution of the United States said.

In recent years, great efforts have been made to redefine “judicial activism” in terms of judges declaring laws unconstitutional, instead of “deferring” to Congress or other government institutions.

But what is the Constitution’s Bill of Rights supposed to protect the ordinary citizen from? Government institutions! If judges are to defer to the very institutions that the Bill of Rights tries to protect the citizen from, what is the point of having a Bill of Rights?

As for Supreme Court justices being unelected, that has been true since the Constitution was created. That was done deliberately, so that they could render their judgments without fear of political repercussions. If unelected Supreme Court justices are to automatically defer to elected officials, that again raises the question of why they are there at all.

Why are the taxpayers paying their salaries and housing them in an expensive marble building — just so that they can go along to get along?

It would be hard to become nostalgic about Richard Nixon, who was forced to resign in disgrace. But at least you could tell when he was lying. Obama’s lies are just as big but not as visible, and the media that exposed Nixon is covering for Obama.

Editor’s note: Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution in Stanford, CA, and served in the USMC as an instructor in pistol shooting.

The video clip of an unscripted exchange on 26 March between Obama and outgoing Russian President Dmitry Medvedev should be grounds for the American people to hire a new commander-in-chief in November. The two leaders, evidently unaware they were being recorded, were discussing new limits on U.S. ballistic missile defense.

Obama: “On all these issues — but particularly missile defense — this can be solved, but it’s important for him to give me space.”
Medvedev: “Yeah, I understand. I understand your message about space — space for you.”
Obama: “This is my last election. After my election, I have more flexibility.”
Medvedev: “I understand. I (will) transmit this information to Vladimir.”
Note to reader: The “him” in Obama’s opening soliloquy and the “Vladimir” in Medvedev’s final remark are the same person: Vladimir Putin — the former and future president of Russia. On 7 May, Putin and Medvedev exchange places in Moscow’s revolving-door government.

This surreal moment of unintended transparency from the Obama administration immediately went viral around the world. In Warsaw, where pro-U.S. politicians are still bruised from endorsing U.S.-built missile defenses — only to have the O-Team “postpone” the project — the President’s conversation is seen as proof that “Obama will cave in to Russia.” One Polish paper’s headline read, “Were they trading Poland?”

In the immediate aftermath, officials in Romania and the Czech Republic — both of which are slated for ballistic missile defense sites — wouldn’t comment on the Obama gaffe. But more than one political commentator observed that this is what we should expect from the Obama “reset” with Russia.

Unfortunately, the Obama reset hasn’t worked at all — and Putin didn’t need any privately delivered message from his lackey Dmitry to tell him that. Putin has been playing Obama as Yo-Yo Ma plays the cello. And now, thanks to what happened in Seoul, everyone can hear the music. The indelibly corrupt regime in Moscow has spurned every effort at improving relations with the U.S. and repeatedly used its veto threat in the United Nations Security Council to pre-empt any onerous sanctions against its clients in Iran and Syria.

Despite repeated entreaties from the White House to endorse Obama’s naive hope for “a world without nuclear weapons,” Putin is proceeding to quietly modernize Russia’s own arsenal — while we do not. Notably, Putin has spurned an invitation to the 20-21 May NATO summit in Chicago, where ballistic missile defense is on the agenda.

The fallout from the fiasco in Seoul is undoubtedly good news to the ayatollahs in Tehran. Buoyed by the precipitous withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Iraq last November and talk of an early pullout from Afghanistan, Iranian advocates for pressing ahead with their nuclear weapons program just gained further evidence that the American President is a paper tiger with a big mouth but no teeth.

The day after he bared his political soul in Seoul, Obama tried to make light of the matter. As he walked into the summit meeting, he clowned for the world press by placing his hand over the microphone on the dais and said, “Is the mic on?” They all laughed.

But it really isn’t a laughing matter. Who can imagine Ronald Reagan saying or doing such things anywhere — much less at a summit of world leaders — on or off mic? Can any of us recall Reagan in 1984 talking about “my” election? He knew it wasn’t his; it was ours.

We shouldn’t want a clown for a president. We ought to have a Commander-in-Chief who knows that his primary job is to protect the American people from harm. We deserve a head of state who will bow before God Almighty and no one else. And we need a chief executive who will tell the truth to our allies, our adversaries and, most importantly, the American people. It would be good to remember all this, particularly these dangerous diplomatic deceits, in November.

Editor’s note: Oliver North is a combat-decorated Marine. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy and served 22 years as a Marine. His service awards include the Silver Star, Bronze Star for Valor and two Purple Hearts for wounds in combat.

Under this new “Obama doctrine,” U.S. troops can be deployed to arrest or even terminate individuals wanted by the ICC, which is based on a treaty that has not been ratified by the U.S. Senate and isn’t even up for Senate consideration.

This “Presidential Study Directive on Mass Atrocities,” another name for PSD-10, declares that “Preventing mass atrocities and genocide is a core national security interest and a core moral responsibility of the United States.” This is at sharp variance with the traditional role of the U.S. military: self-defense and protection of the homeland. Toward this end, an “Interagency Atrocities Prevention Board” is being formed to develop and implement this new Obama doctrine. However, it is apparent that the doctrine is already going forward.

Members of the public haven’t heard of PSD-10, but they may have heard of a decision Obama made on 14 October 2011, when he informed Congress that he had authorized “a small number of combat equipped U.S. forces to deploy to central Africa to provide assistance to regional forces that are working toward the removal of Joseph Kony from the battlefield.”

Kony, a Ugandan warlord who runs the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), is better known than most foreigners, since he is the subject of the viral “Kony 2012” video about the more than 30,000 “invisible children” he has allegedly murdered or abducted. His whereabouts are unknown, although it is believed he is no longer in Uganda.

Despite the name of his group, Kony is not a Christian and instead receives backing from the Islamic regime in northern Sudan. Although he poses no direct threat to the United States and has not carried out terrorist attacks on the U.S. or killed any American citizens, the Department of Treasury has designated him as a “global terrorist” under Executive Order 13224, a measure signed into law by President Bush after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Obama’s authority?
In regard to seeking Kony’s “removal,” Obama told Congress, “I have directed this deployment, which is in the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States, pursuant to my constitutional authority to conduct U.S. foreign relations and as Commander in Chief and Chief Executive.”

Obama noted that Congress, in passing the “Lord’s Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act of 2009,” had “expressed support for increased, comprehensive U.S. efforts to help mitigate and eliminate the threat posed by the LRA to civilians and regional stability.” But it did not authorize deployment of combat forces. What’s more, a statement from Obama after signing the law did not give any indication any would be sent.

One of the sponsors of the bill, Rep. Edward Royce (R-CA), has subsequently introduced “Rewards for Justice” legislation (HR 4077) that would allow the State Department to offer a reward for the apprehension of Kony.

For his part, Obama is basically deploying the U.S. Armed Forces on behalf of the ICC, which indicted Kony for war crimes in 2005 and issued an arrest warrant for him. However, not only has the U.S. Senate not ratified the ICC treaty, Congress has never authorized the use of U.S. troops to carry out the ICC’s edicts. So where does Obama get the power to deploy U.S. troops in this manner?

The question is made more relevant because Obama has such an expansive view of his own executive power to wage war. He claims the power to kill American citizens overseas, on the grounds that they collaborate with foreign terrorist groups, and FBI Director Robert Mueller has told Congress that he is not sure whether the president also has the power to kill American citizens on American soil, inside the U.S. Mueller testified, “I have to go back. Uh, I’m not certain whether that was addressed or not.”

In the case of Kony, Obama seems to be taking his cue from the ICC. Its prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo, appears in the “Kony 2012” video, noting that Kony was the first person ever indicted by the court. The video also celebrates Obama’s decision to use U.S. troops to try to apprehend Kony. It does not take a big exercise in connecting the dots to arrive at the conclusion that Obama is using U.S. troops to carry out the orders of the ICC. But rather than seek ratification of the ICC and then obtain the approval of Congress to apprehend Kony, and perhaps even to kill him, Obama simply issues orders to U.S. troops and bypasses the Congress.

Last October Jake Tapper of ABC News asked Obama about the decision to deploy troops “to help eliminate Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army.” Obama replied:
“Well none of these decisions are easy, but those who are familiar with the Lord’s Resistance Army and their leader, Mr. Kony, know that these are some of the most vicious killers. They terrorize villages, they take children into custody and turn them into child soldiers, they engage in rape and slaughter in villages they go through. They have been a scourge on Uganda and that entire region, eastern Africa. So there has been strong bi-partisan support and a coalition, everything from evangelical Christians to folks on the left and human rights organizations who have said it is an international obligation for us to try to take them on. And so given that bipartisan support across the board belief that we have to do something about this, what we’ve done is we’ve provided these advisors. They are not going to be in a situation where they are called upon to hunt down the Lord’s Resistance Army or actively fire on them, but they will be in a position to protect themselves. What they can do is provide the logistical support that is needed, the advice, the training and the logistical support that hopefully will allow this kind of stuff to stop.”

Notice the use of the term “international obligation.” That is not the same as a declaration of war or resolution on the use of force from Congress.

Transnational justice?
Indeed, the Obama administration seems to have the view that it has to seek authorization for military action against foreign regimes or individuals from the UN or NATO, but not from Congress. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta recently told a Senate committee that the U.S. military would have to seek “international permission” before intervening in Syria. Senator Jeff Sessions responded, “I’m really baffled by the idea that somehow an international assembly provides a legal basis for the United States military to be deployed in combat. I don’t believe it’s close to being correct. They provide no legal authority. The only legal authority that’s required to deploy the United States military is of the Congress and the President and the law and the Constitution.”

Some liberals are now complaining that the “Kony 2012” video has become a “pretext for military intervention.” If so, it is after the fact. They fear the intervention may not really be designed to find Kony. Still, it is not too late for liberals and conservatives alike to question whether Obama has superseded his constitutional and legal authority. It is certainly time for the major media to examine what Obama is getting the U.S. into in Africa — and on what legal basis, if any, he is doing it.

While Obama had ordered U.S. troops to apprehend Kony, he has been careful not to order them to arrest and detain Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir, a patron of Kony’s who has also been indicted by the ICC on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. Sudan is a member in good standing of the Organization of the Islamic Conference. The crimes of Al-Bashir dwarf those of Kony.

It should be apparent what is happening here. The Obama administration has what the UN calls an “evolving policy” of “positive engagement” toward the ICC. It doesn’t seem to matter that the administration isn’t seeking ratification of the ICC, also known as the Rome Statute, and has no plans to do so.

The policy is an open secret. Rosemary A. DiCarlo, the U.S. Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN, has said, “Although the United States is not a party to the Rome Statute, over the past several years we have sent observer delegations to the Assembly of States Parties (ASP) sessions and the Review Conference in Kampala. In December, we cosponsored a high-level panel at the ASP to highlight the importance of ensuring protection for witnesses and judicial officers. We have engaged with the Office of the Prosecutor and the Registrar to consider ways to support specific prosecutions already underway, and we have responded positively to a number of informal requests for assistance.”

She spoke of the need for “transnational justice,” saying that the review undertaken as part of implementing Presidential Study Directive-10 would focus on “how we can work with our international partners to more effectively prevent and respond to atrocities. We look forward to working with our partners to strengthen the international community’s capabilities in this area.”

So while the Pentagon prepares for across-the-board cuts in national security and defense programs, plans are underway by the Obama administration to use some of what’s left of our military to operate on behalf of the UN and the ICC. The “fundamental transformation” of the United States is now underway at the Department of Defense.

From the AIM Syndicate, 4455 Connecticut Ave., N.W., Ste. 330, Washington, DC 20008; www.aim.org