It’s been a troubling time recently for President Barack Obama

Policy problems, legal challenges, failures to make progress on important international issues, being abandoned by Congressional Democrats on an important legislative measure, President Barack Obama’s recent problems mount daily, it seems.

He told the graduating class at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy: “And this brings me to the challenge I want to focus on today – one where our Coast Guardsmen are already on the front lines, and that, perhaps more than any other, will shape your entire careers – and that’s the urgent need to combat and adapt to climate change.” Not the importance of guarding the shoreline and responding to emergencies and other events there. No, the threat he chose to include in his address was climate change, that much-debated theory that is losing credibility even faster than Mr. Obama is accumulating problems.

Last August, Mr. Obama said his administration was still devising a way to fight ISIS, and last week at the G7 conference in Germany he said, “We don't yet have a complete strategy because it requires commitments on the part of the Iraqis." After ten months with little or no progress on an Iraq policy, one may legitimately wonder whether Mr. Obama is really serious about, or prepared to adequately address this problem. Remember he called ISIS the “JV team.” And more recently the Pentagon claimed that ISIS “is no longer the dominant force in roughly 25 to 30 percent of the populated areas of Iraqi territory where it once had complete freedom of movement.” However, that statement has been shown to be “misleading and incomplete,” according to Raymond Ibrahim, writing in Human Events.

The Affordable Care Act, affectionately known as Obamacare, did succeed in bringing down the rate of uninsured Americans to the lowest levels so far, but continues to show major weaknesses that challenge its positive accomplishment.

Among those weaknesses, as reported in the Washington Free Beacon, are that many Americans still cannot afford health coverage and are delaying medical treatment; that despite Mr. Obama’s promises that “if you like your plan you can keep your plan,” more than five million people in 35 states have lost their health insurance plans; and that Obamacare will add up to $1 trillion in new taxes. Further, the law strengthens government control over healthcare, thus weakening the control of doctors over their practices and of patients over their healthcare, and the law also is reducing choices for patients.

And now a legal challenge before the U.S. Supreme Court may deal a serious blow to the Affordable Care Act. The Court is expected to announce its decision later this month in the King v. Burwell lawsuit, challenging the legality of the government to give tax credits to health insurers in more than thirty states that use the federal health insurance exchange. Should the Court rule for King, Obamacare policies in those states would become unaffordable, and would relieve more than 11 million people of the individual mandate.

Mr. Obama, perhaps having been tipped off by a Court insider that the Justices likely will rule against the administration, has taken to criticizing and chastising the Court for considering a lawsuit against the Obamacare. Some have interpreted his comments as trying to intimidate the Court.

"Ultimately, 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,” he said at the G7 meeting. “And I’d just remind conservative commentators that for years what we’ve heard is, the biggest problem on the bench was judicial activism or a lack of judicial restraint — that an unelected group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law. Well, this is a good example. And I’m pretty confident that this Court will recognize that and not take that step."

Perhaps the president needs a refresher course in American government. The Judicial Branch, led by the Supreme Court, is a co-equal branch of our government with the Executive and the Legislative Branches; none of them is subservient to either of the other two. This separation of powers is expressly designed to prevent any single branch from becoming dictatorial, which likely is Mr. Obama’s reason for complaint.

Judicial review, which is to rule on the constitutionality of legislative and executive acts, is a legitimate function of the Supreme Court, and judicial activism is lawmaking by the courts, which is not a legitimate function. Judicial activism is a primary tool of the political left, seeking to change the constitutional order of things.

Not content merely to take over the health care system, drag his feet on the Iraq and Iran situations, and intimidate the Supreme Court, Mr. Obama now proposes to inject the federal government into influencing or controlling who lives where in the United States, with a plan to diversify neighborhoods.

To be administered through the Department of Housing and Urban Development, critics say it will force municipalities to change their zoning policies, while supporters say it is an effort “to create opportunity for all.”

Whichever it is, it is not the job of the President of the United States.

Obamacare’s serious weaknesses driving even strong supporters away

Although Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) only recently acknowledged that the health care reform bill he helped create – the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as Obamacare – is a “train wreck,” most Americans suspected that at its creation.

Things are so bad that President Barack Obama, trying to prevent some of the disastrous results, did something he is not allowed by the U.S. Constitution to do: postpone implementation of part of the law by suspending the employer mandate until 2015 and leaving the rest of the law intact. The Executive Branch of our government is obligated to enforce the laws – all of them, and all of each of them – and does not have the power to choose which ones, or parts thereof, it will enforce.

The House of Representatives passed two measures delaying the employer and individual mandates for one year, with 35 and 22 Democrats respectively joining in those efforts, which Mr. Obama has curiously threatened to veto.

And more recently, one of Obamacare’s most devoted groups of supporters has jumped ship. In a letter to Democrat Congressional leaders, Teamsters union president James Hoffa, and the presidents of two other unions, said this: “Right now, unless you and the Obama Administration enact an equitable fix, the ACA will shatter not only our hard-earned health benefits, but destroy the foundation of the 40 hour work week that is the backbone of the American middle class.”

The law has already encouraged some employers to trim their staffs to fewer than 50 full-time employees to avoid the expense of the mandate, and in other cases to decide against providing insurance altogether, and pay a much cheaper fine.

Nevertheless, Mr. Obama declared last week that "the law is working the way it was supposed to for middle-class Americans,” and criticized House Republicans for trying to dismantle it.

Polling data from five different polling organizations from mid-May through July 13 shows continuing disfavor among Americans, with the disparity of opposition-to-support running from as little as 5 points to as much as 15 points, and the Real Clear Politics average of the five polls at 10.2 points.

According to the Gallup poll from late last month, 42 percent say that in the long run the law will make their family's healthcare situation worse, and only 22 percent say it will make it better. And 47 percent believe the law will make the healthcare situation in the U.S. worse, while only 34 percent say it will make it better.

Republicans also are criticized for offering no alternatives while trying to dismantle the measure. “Three years after campaigning on a vow to ‘repeal and replace’ President Barack Obama’s health care law, House Republicans have yet to advance an alternative for the system they have voted more than three dozen times to abolish in whole or in part,” Sunday’s editorial in The Washington Post complained. That ignores, however, H.R. 3400 - Empowering Patients First Act, introduced in 2009 before Republicans campaigned for and won control of the House.

And now there is another, H.R. 2300 – the Empowering Patients First Act of 2013. Its principal sponsor is Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), who sponsored H.R. 3400, and he has credentials for health care issues matched by few in the Congress. Rep. Price is also Dr. Price, a physician who actually delivered and understands patient care.

This measure allows patients, families and doctors to make medical decisions, not Washington, DC. That is an excellent place to begin improving health care. What a shame that wasn’t the driving factor behind the ACA.

“You can get folks covered, you can solve the insurance challenges, and you can save hundreds of billions of dollars in this health care system,” said the physician/Congressman, “all without putting Washington or health insurance companies in charge of those decisions that ought to be between patients, and families and doctors.”

How can H.R. 2300 – a bill of only 249 pages, less than a tenth the length of the monstrous Obamacare bill – accomplish this?

Rep. Price describes it as comprehensive legislation under which “every single American has the financial feasibility to purchase the coverage they want, either through tax deductions, or credits, or advanceable credits or refundable advanceable credits so that they can purchase the coverage they want for themselves or their families, not what the government forces them to buy.”

He says further that everyone owns their own coverage, like a 401k plan, so if they change their job or lose their job, they take their coverage with them, and it allows all of those with pre-existing conditions to pool together, giving them the purchasing power of millions so that no one person’s adverse health status will change the cost for anyone else, including that one person.

While H.R. 2300 has the great advantage of being properly focused on patients and physicians, trying to straighten out the voluminous failures of the ACA in one bill is a Herculean feat. Obamacare needs to be repealed in total, and as soon as possible, and then Congress must undertake a sensible approach to correcting the problems of the health care system without turning it over to the government.

We must take a serious look at our laws and how they are enforced

Most people are for law and order, and most obey the laws that keep society functioning. And most have great respect for the men and women who have the sometimes-dangerous job of enforcing those laws.

That said, some laws are just plain dumb and should be done away with, and what is more important, there are so many laws, rules and regulations today that no one can know all the decrees from the federal, state and local governments that affect him or her, and therefore it is impossible to obey them all. This over-regulated environment puts each of us in the position of likely being in violation of one or more of them at any given moment.

What's worse than so many decrees from so many sources, however, is what seems to be a growing tendency of law enforcement agencies at all levels to imagine that even tiny infractions warrant the most dramatic responses.

Case in point: After making a purchase at a Charlottesville, Va. grocery store one night, a 20-year-old University of Virginia student and two roommates were approached in their car by a group of six men and one woman in street clothes. "They were showing unidentifiable badges after they approached us, but we became frightened, as they were not in anything close to a uniform," she recalled in a written account of the incident.

Police say one of the group jumped on the hood of her car. The girl said one drew a gun, and they tried to break out car windows. Unsure who they were, the girl tried to flee the dark parking lot and called 911. Given the circumstances and stories of people being assaulted by phony police officers, who could blame her?

It turned out to be a squad of plainclothes state Alcoholic Beverage Control officers who suspected the girl had purchased beer in the store – she hadn’t – and was under-age. She spent the night in jail as a result.

Question: Who at the ABC thought this procedure actually made sense? Is it reasonable for a squad of plainclothes agents to approach three female college students in a dark parking lot, fail to adequately identify themselves, point a gun at them, jump on their car and try to break out the windows because they think one of them had bought beer that she might not be old enough to purchase?

Prosecutors dropped charges against the young woman, describing her as having panicked at the sight of plainclothes agents who approached her and her roommates.

Case 2: When the Leander, Texas police wanted to serve a warrant on Bradly Simpson, they sent officers to his home. When no one responded to the knock on the front door, a couple of officers walked around the side of the house toward the back yard whereupon they saw two German Shepards coming toward them. One officer pulled his gun and fired three shots. The police said the dog was growling and aggressively coming at them. Fortunately, the officer’s aim was not good and only one of the dogs was hit, but only wounded.

After that spectacle, the police were unable to serve the warrant because they were at the wrong address, and in the wrong neighborhood. Worse than that, not far from where the dog was shot the home owners’ terminally-ill six year-old grandchild was playing.

Worse, yet, the home owners said neither dog was aggressive, that they were merely curious about who was visiting their home, and had never behaved the way the police claimed. And, as it turns out, the lady of the house is a professional dog trainer, and therefore knows about dog behavior, and furthermore noted that there are routinely customers visiting her home, so strangers don’t spook her dogs.

And what heinous crime prompted the police to go to Mr. Simpson’s home to serve the warrant? He had an expired vehicle registration.

Leander police officials say what happened was "an unfortunate accident." Wrong: What happened is that the police screwed up.

The number of rogue law enforcement personnel that intentionally abuse their authority and position is surely very small. Nevertheless, instances of over-aggressive law enforcement action and plain dumb mistakes like these are indefensible and intolerable, and there appears to be a growing attitude toward over-aggressive behavior.  

To maintain the public trust and respect government and law enforcement are going to have to stop doing stupid and dangerous things like these examples, and even worse incidents that have caused serious injury and even death for innocent citizens.

Solutions? Do we really need so many law enforcement officers that seven of them can spend nights sitting around in one store parking lot waiting to catch an under-age person buying beer? Does an expired registration really justify armed police visiting the vehicle owner’s home?

What about accountability? Officials that exercise bad judgment or act rashly must be disciplined, encouraging them to carefully consider how to properly and safely do their jobs, and also demonstrating that public officials really take seriously their duty to adequately serve the people they work for.

Something must be done, and the sooner, the better.

Obama's Train Wreck: Don't Look

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