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Quick – can you guess who I’m describing here? He campaigned against financial mismanagement, and the “harsh realities” of global capitalism. He pledged during his campaign to end corruption in both the government and the private sector. After being elected President, he claimed that he had “inherited” the worst economic situation in recent history and then went about consolidating his power. Once privately-owned enterprises were “restructured” into government owned entities, some even organized into workers’ cooperatives. Unemployment remained painfully high, even as the much-celebrated “reform” measures were being implemented. As private sector workers suffered with worsening economic conditions, government...

Not at all surprisingly, Georgetown University professor and MSNBC contributor Michael Eric Dyson on Sunday made the case that the criticism of President Obama's harsh remarks to the Supreme Court this week were racially motivated.

Administration fears ruling will strike down Obamacare as unconstitutionalWord seems to have gone out in liberal circles that Obamacare is in trouble with the Supreme Court. A systematic and unprecedented assault is undermining the integrity of the system in an attempt to defend this highly unpopular law. President Obama claimed Tuesday that the court has not overturned a congressional economic regulation in more than 80 years, saying, “a law like that has not been overturned at least since Lochner, right?” Well, wrong. The 1905 case of Lochner v. New York dealt with a state statute and had nothing to do...

As Bob Hope and Bing Crosby observed in Road to Bali:He gets his shirts straight from Paris Cigarettes from the Nile He talks like a highbrow But he plays Chicago style . . . 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...

<p>Administration lawyers met their deadline and filed a three-page, single-spaced letter -- following the specific instructions of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is hearing a challenge to the health care law. The letter affirmed the government's stance that federal courts indeed have the authority to decide the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act -- and any other law Congress passes.</p>

The Republican backlash against President Barack Obama’s health care-SCOTUS remarks shows no sign of subsiding.In a noon speech today to the Rotary Club of Lexington, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell continued the GOP counteroffensive, telling the president to “back off” the Supreme Court.“The President crossed a dangerous line this week. And anyone who cares about liberty needs to call him out on it. The independence of the Court must be defended,” McConnell (R-Ky.) said, according to the prepared text of his speech released by his office. "So respectfully, I would suggest the President back off. Let the Court do its...

One of the highly developed talents of President Barack Obama is the ability to say things that are demonstrably false, and make them sound not only plausible but inspiring. That talent was displayed just this week 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...

WASHINGTON — How dare President Barack Obama brush back the Supreme Court like that? Has this former constitutional law instructor no respect for our venerable system of checks and balances? Nah. And why should he? This court, cosseted behind white marble pillars, out of reach of TV, accountable to no one once they give the last word, is well on its way to becoming the one of the most divisive in modern U.S. history. It has squandered even the semi-illusion that it is the unbiased, honest guardian of the Constitution. It is run by hacks dressed up in black robes....

Checks And Balances: A president with no respect for the Constitution warns of judicial activism by a Supreme Court reviewing his landmark legislation's constitutionality. It would be unconstitutional to let it stand. Someone will have to remind President Obama the Supreme Court is a co-equal branch of government, part of a system of checks and balances designed to rein in precisely the kind of runaway government exhibited by his administration. Our community-organizer-in-chief has a different opinion. "Ultimately, I am confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was...

President Obama’s favorite word, as we’ve learned repeatedly, is “I.” He uses it on a constant basis. He uses it to claim credit and to assign blame. He uses it to cajole and to threaten. He uses it to plead and to prod. But he doesn’t use the word “I” purely out of ego. He does it because for President Obama, “I” represents the executive branch. And the executive branch, in Obama’s view, is the ruling branch of American government. President Obama’s latest attack on the Supreme Court is just the latest evidence of his deep-rooted

Today we witnessed something truly remarkable. Barack Obama managed to out-do himself by uncorking what very well may have been the most dishonest, demagogic, and bitterly partisan speech of his presidency. I render that assessment as someone who has sat through and analyzed countless Obama lectures, some of which earned very high marks for deceit and ideological invective. Indeed, today's Occupy-inspired rant takes the cake. It was a depressing and enraging preview of the next seven months, over which this president will unleash a barrage of sophistic and pernicious arguments deliberately designed to sow discord and divide Americans. He will...

Much of the left seems inclined to shrug at President Barack Obama’s pre-emptive rebuke of the Supreme Court yesterday. One Democrat even urged Obama to attack the Court on the campaign trail if it overturned Obamacare. A few liberals, however, realize that Obama’s attack is a threat to judicial independence, and ought to be condemned by all. One such was Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post, who said she would “lament a ruling striking down the individual mandate,” yet chided Obama for “channeling tired critiques from the right about activist judges,” calling his attack “unsettling.” Marcus was right about the...

NewsWeek/DailyBeast – The Roberts Court’s rulings appear to be a concerted effort to send us back to the Gilded Age. If they dump the Affordable Care Act, writes David Dow, we should dump them. You think the idea is laughable? Thomas Jefferson disagreed with you. Jefferson believed Supreme Court justices who undermine the principles of the Constitution ought to be impeached, and that wasn’t just idle talk. During his presidency, Jefferson led the effort to oust Justice Salmon Chase, arguing that Chase was improperly seizing power. The Senate acquitted Chase in 1805, and no Justice has been impeached since, but...

The highest elected official in the United States dished out an extra helping of irony yesterday when, in speaking at a joint news conference with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mexican President Felipe Calderon, President Barack Obama slammed the Supreme Court as an “unelected group of people” who will have turned to “judicial activism or a lack of judicial restraint” if they strike down Obamacare. The President’s remarks imply that the Court, were it to rule the individual mandate unconstitutional, would be acting recklessly in undertaking judicial review of Congress’ unprecedented use of the Commerce Clause to force Americans...

President Obama's Rose Garden remarks yesterday on the Supreme Court are shameful, a blot on his presidency. "Ultimately, I am 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," As a purported constitutional law lecturer, President Obama is fully aware that laws passed by democratically elected majorities (that's how laws are made) are overturned by the Supreme Court on a regular basis. His claim of a sizable majority is false when it comes to the House, where the...

“I am confident 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.” That was President Obama earlier today, talking about the legal challenge to Obamacare the court heard last week — and demonstrating once again he doesn’t have a very firm grasp on the meaning of “unprecedented.” After all, the Supreme Court has been overturning laws — which necessarily have been passed by a majority of a democratically elected Congress — since 1803’s Marbury v. Madison decision. By this count...

There was something rather unsettling in President Obama’s preemptive strike on the Supreme Court at Monday’s news conference. “I’d just remind conservative commentators that for years what we’ve heard is the biggest problem on the bench is judicial activism or a lack of judicial restraint — that an unelected group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law,” Obama said. “Well, here’s a good example. And I’m pretty confident that this court will recognize that, and not take that step.” To be clear, I believe the individual mandate is both good policy and sound law, well within...

In a Rose Garden press conference on Monday alongside the Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, President Barack Obama reminded the Supreme Court justices that they have a responsibility to show “judicial restraint” while considering the constitutionality of the president’s signature health care reform law. RELATED: Senate Democrats Warn Overturning Health Care ‘Grave For Nation,’ Good For Democratic Electoral Hopes“I think the American people understand, and I think the justices should understand that in the absence of an individual mandate, you cannot have a mechanism to insure that people with pre-existing conditions can actually get health...

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Senate Republican staffers continue to look though the 2010 health care reform law to see what’s in it, and their latest discovery is a massive $17 trillion funding gap. “The more we learn about the bill, the more we learn it is even more unaffordable than was suspected,” said Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, the Republican’s budget chief in the Senate. “The bill has to be removed from the books because we don’t have the money,” he said. The hidden shortfall between new spending and new taxes was revealed just after Supreme Court justices grilled the law’s supporters about its compliance...