I’m starting to get a little worried about this Obama fella.

He’s already made a threat to tax individual citizens for their previously arranged bonuses, which Congress knew full well of over a year ago. Let’s read Amendment 14, Section 1 of the Constitution:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Would taxing a select handful of executives count as “due process”? How about retroactive taxation? Selective taxation on individuals? There aren’t even retroactive pay raises for House members. (27th Amendment; first proposed in 1789, enacted in 1992.)

Then there’s the matter of rescuing the newspapers. A Democratic Senator introduced this bill today as a means of letting newspapers become non-profit entities:

Under this arrangement, newspapers would still be free to report on all issues, including political campaigns. But they would be prohibited from making political endorsements.

Advertising and subscription revenue would be tax exempt, and contributions to support news coverage or operations could be tax deductible.

What could possibly go wrong with THAT? Sure, I guess we could somehow keep Maureen Dowd and Clarence Page from making any sort of political endorsement in one of their loony news columns. (How would an innocent article on wanting to have sex with the President rate as an endorsement?) I was under the impression that the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, a paper doomed to go online, was already endorsing Obama just by its own biased political coverage without even adding in opinion and endorsement to the mix.

What does ye olde parchment say? Amendment 1:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Not so obvious right away the conflict of interest, but once your government is able to threaten your existence by removing your tax-exempt status, it certainly is a threat to that form of media. Why is the US government looking to bailout the antique media, anyway? If the newspapers set to fold were not enough of a government mouthpiece before, this poses a real danger.

Ace of Spades (vis-a-vis Samizdata) also points out that Obama is trying to tip the 2010 US Census to White House control. Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution:

The actual Enumeration shall be made within three years after the first meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent term of ten years, in such manner as they shall by law direct.

This gave power to Congress to enact this law:

“The Secretary [of Commerce] shall perform the functions and duties imposed upon him by this title, may issue such rules and regulations as he deems necessary to carry out such functions and duties, and may delegate the performance of such functions and duties and the authority to issue such rules andregulations to such officers and employees of the Department of Commerce as he may designate.”

In other words, the Census is under the control of the Department of Commerce. If the demographic shift to the Republican-favouring Southwest, they will start to get more representation in the House of Representatives as a result. Would ACORN be hired out to be doing the US Census, even after they have been found to commit widespread voter registration fraud? YES THEY CAN!

I also wrote an earlier article detailing the danger of having unaccountable czars and czarinas running throughout the executive branch. I would have never guessed that Robert Byrd (D.-WV) would agree with me:

“As presidential assistants and advisers, these White House staffers are not accountable for their actions to the Congress, to cabinet officials, and to virtually anyone but the president,” Byrd wrote. “They rarely testify before congressional committees, and often shield the information and decision-making process behind the assertion of executive privilege. In too many instances, White House staff have been allowed to inhibit openness and transparency, and reduce accountability.”

There’s also the little matter of the “volunteer” corps being set up for national service through H.R. 1388:

The U.S. House of Representatives has approved a plan to set up a new “volunteer corps” and consider whether “a workable, fair, and reasonable mandatory service requirement for all able young people” should be developed.

The legislation also refers to “uniforms” that would be worn by the “volunteers” and the “need” for a “public service academy, a 4-year institution” to “focus on training” future “public sector leaders.” The training, apparently, would occur at “campuses.”

Ther used to be a similar situation–conscription–that appears to have similar goals. However, conscrtipts were paid a salary. Also, there is ambiguous language as to Congress’s power to “raise and maintain armies” and can also be disputed under both the Fifth and Thirteenth Amendments. What option do our young people have here? Can they become conscientious objectors?

Here’s Obama intending to violate Constitutional law on his first day (thanks to TalkLeft):

If elected president, Democratic White House hopeful Barack Obama said one of the first things he wants to do is ensure the constitutionality of all the laws and executive orders passed while Republican President George W. Bush has been in office.

Do I even need to point that one out? Well, okay. Article I, Section 7:

Every bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a law, be presented to the President of the United States.

You can’t review anything, Mr. President. Have the new House pass a law to overturn the old law. Your powers are limited by issuing executive orders, which you should know by now.

I’d also refer you to Article II, Section 4, Mr. President. Supposedly you’re a Constitutional scholar. It’s been less than three months, and this is is the agenda he already has in mind. No amount of supposed civil rights violations can ever match what is going on in the United States. Meanwhile keep an eye out for my article on the violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, due out when Michael Ignatieff becomes Prime Minister.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 25th, 2009 at 11:02 am and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.