Posted on 06/15/2010 8:59:29 PM PDT by Qbert
(CNSNews.com) - In his first-ever address from the Oval Office on Tuesday night, President Barack Obama said he was going to “inform” the chairman of BP that he must surrender the company’s money to an independent party that will distribute it to people and businesses determined to have been harmed by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
The president’s declaration raises a serious constitutional question about his authority: Where does the president get the lawful power to order any private-sector company—BP or any other—that it must surrender its money? Should not courts and normal legal proceedings determine who is responsible, who has been harmed, and who owes what to whom in regards to the Gulf oil spill? Leaving aside BP's relative popularity or lack of it today, if President Obama, on his own initiative, can tell a corporation to surrender its money because he has determined its culpability in an oil spill, under what other circumstances can Obama or any future American president tell a corporation or a private citizen to surrender money?
What rights do the stockholders in BP have to due process of law to protect their property? The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution says: "No person shall be … deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”
Does Obama think he can “inform” persons and corporations to surrender or exchange their property without due process of law?
(Excerpt) Read more at cnsnews.com ...
It has nothing to do with constitutionality. 0bama’s statement makes perfect sense if you add the “or else” to it. They will hand over the dough or else.
“Or else” there are many, many unpleasant things he can legally do.
So. “We can do this easy, or we can do it hard.”
“Where Does Obama Get the Authority?”
We are now living in a democracy, a dictatorship of the proletariat where the voters worship the leader and give him the backing of a congress that lays down and purrs.
All those Democrats and brilliant, brilliant,
really-really intelligent independents hate the greed and evil of big oil.
So, the leader of the proletariat will take whatever property he wants because “the people” want him to punish those evil and greedy capitalists who are destroying the earth.
(Hail to the Chief takes on new meaning.)
IMHO
O’Really? BOR should resign from Fox and be Alvin Greene’s campaign manager.
That is exactly what needs to happen, and it needs to happen NOW, before he grabs anything else.
The people around the gulf need $ immediately, isn't that FEMA's job?
It's the Chicago Way: give up the money and I won't hurt you as much as I otherwise would.
The "Laws" must be invoked and applied in a court decision for the specific case in question not declared in force in a rambling diatribe by a dictatorial wannabe.
Why should BP have to pay for the people ruined by HIS moratorium?
Dear Lord, help us to drive the left entirely out of political and social power, first in the US, the country You founded, and then across the face of the Earth. Amen.
Obama is a buffoon with a law degree.
A very common mistake for non-lawyers is to forget you can not threaten criminal prosecution in a civil matter.
Obama, who could not practice law to save an ant, obviously does not know this or care. He is threatening the BP officials with criminal prosecution or pay up. He is using the surrogates to do the dirty work threat and then join them after the goombas have softened the BP execs up.
It is just a mob rough up without the brass knuckles.
He gets the power, not the constitutional authority, because BP is probably guilty of serious crimes in its operation of the Deepwater Horizon rig. Funny now being threatened with corporate extinction can concentrate the mind and loosen the purse strings, sort of like being thretened with hanging when you know the threatener can do just that.
The audience sees only the monkey on a string, the organ grinder is the real enemy.
Thank you Star Travleer.
You can also find it here on this thread:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2535484/posts?page=50#50
Ahhh.... that’s only the second time I’ve seen the full text on a Free Republic thread, besides the thread that I started ... :-)
I didn’t see it when I posted here... good going ...
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