Who coined the mortifyingly apt greeting, “Happy Dependence Day”? The earliest use I have found in a by-no-means exhaustive search was in 2010 by cartoonist A.F. Branco marking President Obama’s giant spending programs. Recycling the slogan this week, Branco came up with a far more potent image. In his one-frame cartoon, star-spangled letters spell out Happy Independence Day as a gavel labeled SCOTUS whacks the “In” off of “Independence.” Happy Dependence Day.

That perfectly sums up my sense of the nation’s 236th birthday. By too many measures, we are no longer a self-governing people. Our president dictates law from the Rose Garden, as when he recently and unconstitutionally bestowed amnesty on over one million illegal immigrants. Our Supreme Court rewrites law from the bench, as with the cataclysmic ruling on Obamacare (also unconstitutional).