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
It's the Chicago Way: give up the money and I won't hurt you as much as I otherwise would.
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.