He did this after having taken a fossil fueled flight to Montreal
(Hamilton Spectator) Former U.S. president Barack Obama has again decried what he calls the lack of American leadership on climate change.
In a speech to the Montreal Board of Trade on Tuesday, Obama did not mention U.S. President Donald Trump by name but clearly targeted his successor’s decision to pull the United States out of the Paris climate change agreement.
“In Paris, we came together around the most ambitious agreement in history to fight climate change,” Obama said. “An agreement that even with the temporary absence of American leadership will still give our children a fighting chance.”
How cute. This is a guy whose foreign policy can best be described as “leading from behind.” And who was thrilled to saddle Americans with policies that wouldn’t cause himself any issues.
So, why didn’t President Barack Hussein Obama try, when he was in office, to get the Paris Accords ratified by the United States Senate, so that his successor couldn’t withdraw from it? Why didn’t he lead, when he was the
Führerleader of this country?Doesn’t it take 67 votes to ratify a treaty in the US Senate?
It requires a 2/3 majority of all Senators voting, so yes, if all Senators are present and vote, it requires 67. If one is absent, then 66 will suffice.
But, what’s your point? I’m old enough to remember when Jimmy Carter signed the Panama Canal Treaties, and the then-current wisdom was that he’d never get the Senate to ratify it. Yet he believed in it, lobbied for it, cajoled, and just plain fought for what he anted, and won, both treaties being ratified 68-32.
If President Obama had been an actual leader, he’d have submitted the agreement to the Senate for ratification, and fought for it; he pussied out.
Or, perhaps, he could have submitted it to both Houses, as a Legislative-Executive Agreement, something which has been used recently, in which case he needed only 51 in the Senate and 218 in the House. He didn’t try that, either.
Yeah, but golf, ya know… and helping Iran get nukes and stuff.
LOL. Nice hypothesis, but you know full well impossible.
Everybody thought it was impossible for President Carter to get Panama Canal Treaties ratified, but he did it. Nothing is possible if you don’t try.
Then again, why would our (supposed) constitutional scholar former President sign an international agreement in the first place if he did not believe it was possible to get the Senate to ratify it? Did he not know the Congress’ role in international agreements?
Well, I’ll be good enough to answer that not-so rhetorical question: President Executive Order saw himself as an autocratic Tsar, who governed by decree as much as he could, and he believed that he would be succeeded by the odious Hillary Clinton, who, as Tsarina, would have retained the Paris agreement, also while choosing not to submit it for ratification.
This is where the Senate has fallen down. For some reason, the Senate — under both Democratic and Republican leadership — has thought that they must wait for a President to submit a treaty for ratification. No, they don’t: the Senate can take up a signed treaty for ratification on their own, whether the President likes it or not. Senator McConnell should have taken the signed Paris agreement, assigned it to committee, in anticipation of a ratification vote.
Failing that, President Trump repeated President Bush’s mistake. President Bush withdrew our signature from the Kyoto Accords — which were most definitely treaties requiring ratification — when he should have asked the Senate for a ratification vote, knowing it would be defeated. Even though President Obama had Secretary Kerry get the Paris agreement in a form in which it (supposedly) didn’t require ratification, President Trump should have taken it and submitted it to the Senate for a ratification vote, knowing it would be rejected.
Were I somehow to become President, I would take every unratified treaty, and submit them to the Senate for a proper ratification vote, in accordance with the principles and procedures specified in the Constitution. You remember the Constitution, the one every President swears an oath to preserve, protect and defend?
There is leadership on the issue. President is getring us out of the scam
“Obama” and “leadership” is an oxymoron.
Barry Soetoro Obama needs to go away.
He was an embarrassment as a president and remains one as an ex-president.