Caracas on the Potomac

President Obama and the Democrats in Congress rammed through an irresponsible $1 trillion bailout and now feign outrage, outrage! that AIG is paying out bonuses as provided by the law they crafted. They now attempt to cover this wrong with another wrong. Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do. Their steering wheel is permanently jerked to the left, so they are now going in circles.

Congress has just voted to claw back the AIG bonuses. I could care less about the AIG whizz kids, but I do care about the Constitution, which our politicians, like a herd of swine, routinely trample. Their taking aim at the AIG bonuses sure looks like a bill of attainder, which is prohibited by the constitution. From Tech Law Journal:

The Constitution of the United States, Article I, Section 9, paragraph 3 provides that: "No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law will be passed."

Definition: A legislative act that singles out an individual or group for punishment without a trial.

"The Bill of Attainder Clause was intended not as a narrow, technical (and therefore soon to be outmoded) prohibition, but rather as an implementation of the separation of powers, a general safeguard against legislative exercise of the judicial function or more simply - trial by legislature." U.S. v. Brown, 381 U.S. 437, 440 (1965).

"These clauses of the Constitution are not of the broad, general nature of the Due Process Clause, but refer to rather precise legal terms which had a meaning under English law at the time the Constitution was adopted. A bill of attainder was a legislative act that singled out one or more persons and imposed punishment on them, without benefit of trial. Such actions were regarded as odious by the framers of the Constitution because it was the traditional role of a court, judging an individual case, to impose punishment." William H. Rehnquist, The Supreme Court, page 166.Federalist Number 44, 1788.

"Bills of attainder, ex post facto laws, and laws impairing the obligations of contracts, are contrary to the first principles of the social compact, and to every principle of sound legislation. ... The sober people of America are weary of the fluctuating policy which has directed the public councils. They have seen with regret and indignation that sudden changes and legislative interferences, in cases affecting personal rights, become jobs in the hands of enterprising and influential speculators, and snares to the more-industrious and less-informed part of the community." James Madison,

Our constitution is so accreted with the decrees of judicial mullahs that this clause probably now means the opposite of the founders' intent. Findlaw has good commentary on this clause if you want to read more about it.

Congress has violated the spirit of this document by inciting wild-eyed, pitchfork and torch anger against a singled-out group of people who have broken no laws. The President has insisted he is not a socialist, but Hugo Chavez must be envious. He had to pack the government with his Bolshevik cronies to get such results; President Obama is doing it with freely elected politicians.

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/article01/47.html#1
http://www.techlawjournal.com/glossary/legal/attainder.htm