Obama Unveils New Plan to Work with Foreign Governments to Ignore the Constitution
You know why Obama seems so disconnected and disinterested in the presidency? Because he doesn't want to be president, he would rather be king:
The Obama administration is working to forge a sweeping international climate change agreement to compel nations to cut their planet-warming fossil fuel emissions, but without ratification from Congress.
In preparation for this agreement, to be signed at a United Nations summit meeting in 2015 in Paris, the negotiators are meeting with diplomats from other countries to broker a deal to commit some of the world's largest economies to enact laws to reduce their carbon pollution. But under the Constitution, a president may enter into a legally binding treaty only if it is approved by a two-thirds majority of the Senate.
To sidestep that requirement, President Obama's climate negotiators are devising what they call a "politically binding" deal that would "name and shame" countries into cutting their emissions. The deal is likely to face strong objections from Republicans on Capitol Hill and from poor countries around the world, but negotiators say it may be the only realistic path.
"If you want a deal that includes all the major emitters, including the U.S., you cannot realistically pursue a legally binding treaty at this time," said Paul Bledsoe, a top climate change official in the Clinton administration who works closely with the Obama White House on international climate change policy.
Look at how these people speak. If you cannot get the Senate to ratify a treaty (technically, passing a resolution of ratification), then the United States is not a party to that treaty. Period. Full stop. The Constitution is not iffy on this. This part is not a suggestion. There is no wiggle room.
There are a lot of nonsensical or highly exaggerated chain e-mails accusing the president of working with foreigners to subvert the U.S. Constitution. But this time you've got the foreigners and administration officials themselves confirming it on the front page of the New York Times!
"There's a strong understanding of the difficulties of the U.S. situation, and a willingness to work with the U.S. to get out of this impasse," said Laurence Tubiana, the French ambassador for climate change to the United Nations. "There is an implicit understanding that this not require ratification by the Senate."
"The difficulties of the U.S. situation" is a reference the fact that we have a Senate that opposes the treaty.
The Times casually notes that President Obama ignored the legislative process in his domestic climate-change agenda, too:
In seeking to go around Congress to push his international climate change agenda, Mr. Obama is echoing his domestic climate strategy. In June, he bypassed Congress and used his executive authority to order a far-reaching regulation forcing American coal-fired power plants to curb their carbon emissions. That regulation, which would not be final until next year, already faces legal challenges, including a lawsuit filed on behalf of a dozen states.
". . . days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America . . .
This from Carry_Okie. (My response to C_O is that as long as the “agencies” implement any rules and regs/reqs called for, the senate RATification is moot.)
Carry_Okie to rktman
But unless two-thirds of the Senate can be persuaded to ratify it, it will not pass.
This statement is false in so many ways I am not going to bother with more elaboration beyond the link. The Federal government will begin alignment with a treaty upon the signature of any officer present at its negotiation pursuant to the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, which the US never ratified. According to the Department of State, it is a matter of “customary international law.” Read the link. I don’t care what Reid v. Covert said.