Posted on 03/19/2009 6:57:28 AM PDT by EBH
Edited on 03/19/2009 7:34:42 AM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
WASHINGTON
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Our Constitution Died today...
UPDATE for the folks I pinged a moment ago on the other thread. I was wrong - oh, so wrong... This wasn’t shelved for long! It just passed the house - apparently they wanted to rip out the 13th Amendment before ripping out part of the Constitutional Articles...
May God bless and protect us all.
This is probably my last ping to you folks today. I just had to “get the word out” somehow. :)
I’m going to buy me a nice 9mm and a good rifle. Apparently our Constitution died today and I get the feeling the jackbooted acolytes of the Messiah are coming for us.
If anything, it is pitchfork time.
Dear Representative Shimkus, I am writing to express my disappointment with your Yes vote on HR 1586. While I typically appreciate your fairly conservative voting record, I feel that this bill, while appealing to populist sentiment, is clearly an unconstitional bill of attainder. While I'm opposed to the entire government bailout concept, I'm troubled by this blatant targeting of specific classes of people, especially if there were previous employment contracts that governed these bonuses. I'm much more fearful of an out of control Federal government, which the current Administration unfortunately seems to champion, than I am of any alledged private sector abuses. Thank you for your time and attention to this correspondence
IMHO, that was WAY too polite... :)
The Congress is prohibited passing Bills of Attainder and Ex Post Facto Laws by Article I, Section 9, Clause 3 of the Constitution (the same prohibition applies to the States via Article I, Section 10, Clause 1).
The Democrats are getting creative in their Constitutional violations. Maybe they can violate the Port Preference Clause, the Export Clause or the Third Amendment next.
Just noting their next angle of attack that they’ll use in case the class envy thing doesn’t pan out for them. These same DUmocrats don’t have a problem when DUmocrats in congress, DUH-bama or his cabinet failed to pay their taxes.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2210121/posts
You may be right. Never a bad idea to have weapons for personal protection anyway. Better safe than sorry — even if somehow we avoid what I think is coming.
Yeah! Your exactly right! /s The unions, with a 20% productivity oughta have their pay taxed for overpayment! Is your salary taxed at 100% yet?
No. It died on 11/4/08 when Zero was elected. It's just been downhill since and not getting any better.
It is a tax, not a fine, and as such not a bill of attainder.
Can you say “Bill of Attainder”?
http://www.independent.org/pdf/tir/tir_06_4_manweller.pdf
Said it was a tax being used as punishment...
These folks who collected this bonus did so legally. We may not like it, but it was all legal.
The tax is being levied against them at some outrageous 90%, because people got mad about the bonus. I heard words like extortion (Frank) and justice (Pelosi).
Who is congress to make accusations of extortion and mete out justice? Who is congress to circumvent appropriate court action to reclaim the funds? If they had been indeed ill-gotten gains?
As so many on FR have often told me, that is politics. AIG is the pariah today, and that is part of the game. They got their money, and have paid off the DNC already, so this is just part of the dog and pony show to appease the masses.
Kind of like show trials.
What a way to try to avoid looking bad and getting their money back.
Instead of reneging on the deal, just tax it back. Same difference.
You're right.
AIG today.........the rest of us tomorrow, through “get evenism” taxation
This is 0bama's version of the CCC and WPA and those other "New Deal" programs.
0bama's looking for his place in the history books, a 21st Century FDR.
His ego knows no bounds.
All this in less than 100 days.
At this point, I stop typing, else I go too far and Men in Suits visit me.
Almost as disturbing is that the Supreme Court has been expanding its definition of what is "civil" and narrowing its definition of what is "criminal." This further reduces the scope and effect of the ex post facto clauses.
The Bill of Attainder Clauses, which also constrain state and federal governments, provide only limited protection against retroactive civil legislation. Although the Supreme Court has construed these clauses as protecting rights, the clauses bar only those laws that legislatively determine guilt and inflict punishment on identifiable individuals without the protections of a judicial trial. The Supreme Court has not struck down a law as an unconstitutional bill of attainder since the mid-1960s."
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