My Washington Examiner column today closes out a three-part series this week on “Obama’s Imperial Presidency” (also running at Rea​son​.com). Tuesday’s column covered Obama’s expansion of executive power abroad, and Wednesday’s looked at the ways in which Obama has turned the Imperial Presidency inward against the private sector.

Today’s column begins with a recap of the powers 44 holds:

Abroad, Obama claims the power to start wars at will; scoop up your email and phone records without answering to a judge; assassinate you via drone strike far from any battlefield, and — should your relatives complain — keep the whole thing secret in the name of national security.

At home, Obama has summarily fired the CEO of General Motors, America’s largest automaker; flouted bankruptcy law to shaft Chrysler’s creditors and pay off his union allies; pressured half-nationalized car companies to produce pokey little electric cars, had his National Labor Relations Board assert veto power over a private company’s decision to move a factory to a “right to work” state; and, via imperial edict, began restructuring the industrial economy by imposing restrictions on carbon dioxide emissions despite Congress’ refusal to pass cap-and-trade legislation.

Left or Right, Red or Blue, no American should be comfortable with any one man wielding that much power. Yet too many Americans embrace a philosophy of “situational constitutionalism”: they only get disturbed about the menacing concentration of power in the executive branch when they don’t care for the guy who has the scepter and the crown:

Conservatives who defended every excess of the Bush administration now rail against Obama’s Imperial Presidency, and liberals who considered the Bush era one long descent into the dark night of fascism seem blithely indifferent to the present Oval Office occupant’s multiplying executive power grabs.

Apparently, phrases like “he killed his own people” only grate when pronounced in a clipped, West Texas accent — otherwise, “wars of choice” against third-rate dictators go down smoothly.

But “situational constitutionalism” is the constitutionalism of fools: there’s something absurd–or at least insincere–about people who decide to worry about the Imperial Presidency only every four to eight years, and only when the “other team” holds the office.

Blame power-hungry presidents and feckless Congresses all you want. We’ll never solve the problem of the Imperial Presidency until more Americans manage to pry their eyes away from the Red-Team/Blue Team sideshow and recognize that who holds the office is less important than the powers the office holds.

Many political pundits have dismissed presidential hopeful Herman Cain as a long shot. However, coinciding with a Washington Post exclusive of the recently announced presidential candidate, a new IBOPE Zogby Interactive Poll shows Herman Cain, businessman and radio talk show host, edging out other leading GOP presidential candidates among Republican primary voters. Cain garnered 19% of vote, the plurality response, finally surpassing Governor Chris Christie who received 16% of the vote. A new Gallup poll shows Herman Cain with the leading Positive Intensity Score among potential GOP contenders at 25%, among those who recognize him. His name recognition has jumped from 21% in March to 37% in May.

Cain began receiving substantial media attention due to his popularity with the Tea Party; he recently won a Tea Party Patriots convention straw poll and has garnered 25% of voters most likely to vote for the Tea Party presidential candidate, with Chris Christie at 18%. In addition, GOP pollster Frank Luntz found Cain to be the winner of the first Republican presidential debate in the FOX News-sponsored focus group.

Cain’s recent popularity has brought to the forefront controversial statements he made earlier this year starting with an interview discussing the role of Muslims in American Society with ChristianityToday. ThinkProgress followed up with Cain during the Conservative Principles Conference in Des Moines, IA, asking him whether he would be comfortable appointing a Muslim to his Cabinet or as a federal judge. Herman Cain responded that he would not:

CAIN: No, I will not. And here’s why. There is this creeping attempt, there is this attempt to gradually ease Sharia law and the Muslim faith into our government. It does not belong in our government. This is what happened in Europe. … and now they’ve got a social problem that they don’t know what to do with hardly.…I get upset when the Muslims in this country, some of them, try to force their Sharia law onto the rest of us.

In a subsequent Fox interview, Cain clarified his statement:

CAIN: …I did say no. And here’s why…I would have to have people totally committed to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of this United States, and many of the Muslims … are not totally dedicated to this country or our Constitution and many of them are trying to force Sharia law on the people of this country. …I don’t have time to be watching someone in my administration if they are not totally committed to the Declaration and the Constitution of the United States and the laws of this country.

Cain’s blanket condemnation of Muslims as generally unpatriotic is troubling. For starters, Cain’s view of Islam as a disqualification for public office runs contrary to the very Constitution that he claims to cherish: “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.” (Constitution Article VI)

Second, Cain’s public statement of his prejudice—and the fact that such a statement is not widely condemned by both sides of the political spectrum—perpetuates stereotypes, increases religious tension, and contradicts the notions of freedom and individualism upon which this country was founded. People are more than the religion they profess. Individuals are a complex combination of environmental factors, choices, personal experiences, will, and culture. Prejudice such as Cain’s emphasizes the group over the individual. In a prejudiced society, individuals are not held accountable for their own actions, but instead are responsible for the actions of other members of the group with which they are identified—irrespective of the fact that these actions are entirely out of their control.

Individuals pursue their ambitions with hopes of happiness and success. Individuals face the costs and benefits of their decisions, and individuals take risks and reap the losses or rewards of those risks. Individualism unlocks an engine of innovation and prosperity, as people—as individuals—are incentivized and motivated to seek out new ventures. Collectivism in all its forms—from communism to racism—is antithetical to individualism and supplants an individual’s drive to better herself with a sense of hopelessness, since her opportunities are not determined by her own merits, but her group identity.

Cain’s remarks about Muslims are a regrettable perpetuation of religious stereotypes and an affront to the founding principles of this country. Such a worldview runs counter to the conditions under which opportunity and prosperity may flourish. Cain should have known better. More importantly, none of Cain’s Tea Party supporters—if they truly understand the principles behind the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution—should support such statements.

On CBS’s Face the Nation, Democratic National Committee chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (FL) said this of the House Republicans’ Medicare reform plan:

Republicans have a plan to end Medicare as we know it. What they would do is they would take the people who are younger than 55 years old today and tell them ‘You know what? You’re on your own. Go and find private health insurance in the healthcare insurance market, we’re going to throw you to the wolves and allow insurance companies to deny you coverage and drop you for pre-existing conditions. We’re going to give you X amount of dollars and you figure it out.

That ‘s the version of Wasserman-Shultz’s quote that the Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler sent me. Kessler also told me that the DNC cited me as a source for Wasserman-Shultz’s claims:

Michael Cannon: The Ryan Plan Would Provide More Subsidies To Seniors With Pre-Existing Conditions But Wouldn’t Guarantee Coverage. Michael Cannon, the Director of Health Policy Studies at Cato said during congressional testimony on the Ryan plan, “Thank you for the opportunity, Congressman. I think that lots of — all seniors under the chairman’s proposal, as I understand it, will be able to obtain health insurance coverage. And that’s the — that is because the payment they receive from the federal government to purchase that coverage will be adjusted for income so that lower-income people will get larger vouchers if you will. He doesn’t call them that, I’ll use the V word. And they’ll also be risk-adjusted so that people with severe illnesses will get larger vouchers and be able to purchase insurance coverage that will cover a lot of people who have a pre-existing condition. [HEARING OF THE HEALTH CARE, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, CENSUS AND THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE HOUSE OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM COMMITTEE, 4/5/11]

The Actual Amount More Seniors With Pre-Existing Conditions Would Receive Had Not Been Set Out In The Ryan Budget. Michael Cannon, the Director of Health Policy Studies at Cato said during congressional testimony on the Ryan plan, “That would be a result of the rules, the specific risk-adjustment rule that haven’t been spelled out in his budget. But you would have sick people getting a lot more money.” [HEARING OF THE HEALTH CARE, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, CENSUS AND THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE HOUSE OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM COMMITTEE, 4/5/11]

Empasis in original.

Kessler judged Wasserman-Shultz’s claim to be “bogus.” FactCheck​.org said it was “simply wrong.”

Kessler quoted me in his fact-check, but I think he left out the most important parts. So here’s my entire email response to Kessler:

This is some high-octane idiocy.

Ryan’s plan says that insurance companies could not turn away seniors. I’m not sure whether that means only (A) that insurers must issue a policy to all applicants (i.e., guaranteed issue) or whether Ryan’s plan would go further and (B) prevent insurers from charging sick enrollees more (i.e., price controls). I hope Ryan would not include such price controls, but I see hints that that’s where he’s leaning. If so, then the Ryan plan would include the very government guarantee that the DNC is complaining isn’t there. It’d be a lousy guarantee, but it’d be there.

Regardless, the DNC’s attacks are still bunk.

If insurers can charge sick Medicare enrollees whatever they want, and Medicare gives sick enrollees enough money to cover those higher premiums, who needs price controls? High premiums aren’t scary if you have the money to pay them. A fair question would be whether the vouchers would be large enough. The best evidence available (from the Dartmouth Atlas) suggests that one third of spending in traditional Medicare is pure waste. That is a huge margin of safety: it means that the vouchers could be one-third less than what a Medicare enrollee would otherwise spend without reducing access to necessary care. The quotes they took from me completely undercut their attacks on the Ryan plan. I hope they keep quoting me.

Experts widely acknowledge that traditional Medicare exposes seniors to unnecessary and even harmful services. And Medicare is rapidly consuming more and more of every American’s paycheck. I can’t imagine anything more irresponsible than defending Medicare as we know it.

A few highlights from this week’s health care news:

• Politico reports that Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) is a former health insurance executive. (He was a hospital executive.)
• Suzy Khimm writes that to fix the problems created by centralized planning of the health care sector, we need more centralized planning of the health care sector.
• The Obama administration blows the doors open on the colossal failure that are ObamaCare’s high-risk pools, but doesn’t bother to say where the money is coming from.

I’ve been battling the Organization for Economic Cooperation for years, ever since the Paris-based bureaucracy unveiled its “harmful tax competition” project in the late 1990s. Controlled by Europe’s high-tax welfare states, the OECD wants to prop up the fiscal systems of nations such as Greece and France by hindering the flow of jobs and capital to low-tax jurisdictions.

Guided by a radical theory know as Capital Export Neutrality, the OECD wants to impose global tax rules that would prevent taxpayers from ever having the ability to benefit from better tax law in other jurisdictions. This is why, for instance, the international bureaucrats are anxious to undermine national tax laws – such as America’s favorable treatment of bank deposits from overseas – that enable people to escape onerous tax regimes.

Bolstered by support from the Obama Administration, the OECD now is taking its campaign to the next level. At its Global Tax Forum in Bermuda, which ends later today, the bureaucrats unveiled a new scheme that effectively would result in the creation of something akin to a World Tax Organization.

The vehicle for this effort is a Multilateral Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters. This may sound dry and technical, but the OECD wants all nations to participate in this pact, which has existed for a couple of decades but was radically expanded last year to give high-tax governments sweeping new powers to impose bad tax law on income generated in low-tax jurisdictions.

But the real smoking gun is that the OECD has put itself in charge of the “co-ordinating body” that will have enormous powers to interpret the agreement, modify the pact, and resolve disputes – thus giving itself the ability to serve as judge, jury, and executioner.

This is a profoundly dangerous development with all sorts of very troubling implications. Since I’m in Bermuda trying to destabilize this effort, I don’t have time for extensive analysis, but here’s a press release from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity and here are some of my immediate concerns.

1. Higher tax burdens. If high-tax governments succeed is imposing this Multilateral Convention (insert “World Tax Organization” whenever you see that term), tax competition will be undermined and politicians will respond by increasing tax burdens. This is why nations such as France have been pushing this scheme, of course, and why left-wing academics have long dreamed of this type of arrangement.
2. Risk to human rights. Amazingly, the Multilateral Convention is open to repressive regimes, which then would have access to all sorts of sensitive and confidential taxpayer information. Already, the thuggish dictatorship of Azerbaijan has signed up, as well as the unstable nation of Moldova and the corrupt government of Mexico. The implications are grim, including the sale of private data to criminal gangs, the loss of sensitive information to hackers, and the direct misuse of American tax returns.
3. Loss of sovereignty. For all intents and purposes, the Multilateral Convention outlaws certain pro-growth tax policies and discourages others. Equally worrisome, it creates a system allowing foreign tax collectors to cross borders. The Obama Administration has specifically acquiesced to this provision, so perhaps we will soon see corrupt Mexican tax authorities harassing businesses and individuals on American soil.
4. Outlawing tax avoidance. The OECD historically has tried to portray its efforts as a fight against tax evasion, but the Multilateral Convention explicitly talks about “combating tax avoidance.” This should not be a surprise since the Capital Export Neutrality ideology is based on the notion that taxpayers should have zero ability to lower their tax burdens. This means we can fully expect an assault on all forms of tax planning, with American companies almost sure to be among the first to be in the OECD’s crosshairs.

The final insult to injury is that American taxpayers are the biggest funders of the OECD, providing nearly one-fourth of the bureaucracy’s bloated budget. So our tax dollars are being used by OECD bureaucrats (who receive tax-free salaries!) to dream up new ways of increasing our tax burdens. In case you need any additional reasons to despise this bureaucracy, here’s a video detailing its anti-free market activities.

And since I’m recycling some videos, here’s one explaining why tax competition is so important.

In Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith, when Chancellor Palpatine transforms the republic into an empire, Senator Amidala remarks:

So this is how liberty dies … with thunderous applause.

But it can also happen in silent acquiescence. For decades now, successive Congresses have evaded their responsibility to make decisions about the deployment of U.S. armed forces abroad. I write about the latest instance of this, in Libya, in today’s Britannica column:

Presidents have an obligation to obey the Constitution and the law. But one of the ways that separation of powers works is that each branch of government is supposed to jealously guard its prerogatives from usurpation by the other branches. Too often Congress ducks that responsibility, preferring to let presidents make decisions, make law, and make war without the involvement of Congress. As Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., explained in his book The Imperial Presidency, the expansion of presidential war-making power has been “as much a matter of congressional abdication as of presidential usurpation.”

The president is derelict in his duty to obey the Constitution and the War Powers Resolution. And Congress is derelict in its duty to assert its constitutional authority. And I’m still wondering what’s happened to the antiwar movement, which ought to be loudly protesting not just the continuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan but the newborn war in Libya.

As George Will said last week, “even if you think the War Powers Resolution is an unwise law—it is a law.” And a former law professor who is now the president of the United States should obey the law. Will expanded on that point in his Sunday column, titled “Obama’s Illegal War,” in the old-fashioned print edition of the Washington Post.

Full Britannica column here.

The Patriot Act extension passed by Congress this week did not become the law of the land. It is void and without effect.

So may argue some future defendant whose conviction rests on evidence gotten under Patriot Act powers during the extended period Congress sought to establish in the bill it passed this week.

President Obama is at a meeting in Europe, so he had the bill signed by auto-pen. Representative Tom Graves (R‑GA) has written a letter inquiring of the president whether he was presented the bill and truly intended to sign it.

Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution says:

Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the President of the United States; If he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it…

Is presentment and signing a quaint formality? Something to put aside in light of modern technology and time-constraints? Or is it an important step in the law-making process, to be executed quite literally without deviation from past practice?

The answer lies mostly in consideration of what a signature is, and what it does. I looked into signatures, among many other identifiers and security techniques in my book, Identity Crisis.

Wikipedia has a definition of “signature” that’s good enough: “A signature is a handwritten (and sometimes stylized) depiction of someone’s name, nickname, or even a simple ‘X’ that a person writes on documents as a proof of identity and intent.” Key words: identity and intent.

In the world of identification and security, a signature is classed as a “behavioral biometric identifier.” That is, it’s a product of a given person’s bodily action that is distinctive enough to create strong evidence of the person’s presence.

A signature does many things, and inferences spill out from the presence of a mark on paper that is sufficiently similar to other marks made by a particular person. Because it’s left on the paper, a signature indicates that the person was in the presence of the document. This means in most cases that he or she could review it and had the opportunity, barring some exigency, to affirm its accuracy and completeness. By long-standing custom, absent duress or fraud, the signature indicates the giving of one’s assent or the placing of authority behind the content of the document. A signature supplies evidence—imperfect, to be sure—that a given person approved a given document.

Does a signature by auto-pen create the same inferences? Almost none of them. To know that President Obama indeed meant to affirm the bill, one would have to investigate how he was apprised of the bill’s content. Were there security measures in place to ensure that the communication about the document and the giving of assent were not altered or forged in transit from Washington, D.C. to Europe? One would need assurance that the controller of the auto-pen applied its mark to the exact document that the president was apprised of, and that no substitute document was inserted. All these problems are solved by bringing the person with authority into the same room with the document to manually apply the signature.

I haven’t a whiff of doubt that President Obama intended to sign the bill. The authority of the president and the gravity of bill-signing are such that I’m confident security measures were in place to control the security issues noted above.

But the question in a court case dealing with the presentment and signing requirement is not what happened with this particular bill. It is what should happen in all cases to help exclude the risks of fraud and duress in law-making—with much longer bills, for example, or some future circumstance when the president’s whereabouts or capacity might be unknown.

The authority of the president and the gravity of bill-signing actually cuts the other direction: The president should be in the same room as the actual document, applying his genuine signature to the artifact of a United States public law’s creation. It’s that important a function of the presidency.

Until biometrics and encryption are good enough that we can sign our mortgages remotely, it’s not too much to ask, having the president to sign legislation in person. If a criminal or two go free in the future because of the inadequacy of the process here, it will be worth it for the small security against fraudulent passage of legislation in a future full of uncertainties.