A former congressman and GOP presidential candidate says for current members of the House and Senate to uphold their oath of office that includes the defense of the United States against enemies “foreign and domestic,” they need to be filing impeachment charges against Barack Obama.

Former U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., joined what has become a growing surge of those recommending the ultimate solution for a president they believe not only has disagreeable policies, but is participating in actions that damage the nation.

Tancredo wrote in a opinion piece in the Washington Times that, “Mr. Obama’s refusal to live up to his own oath of office – which includes the duty to defend the United States against foreign invasion – requires senators and representatives to live up to their oaths. Members of Congress must defend our nation against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Today, that means bringing impeachment charges against Mr. Obama.”

Tancredo is not the first to raise the idea of impeachment against Obama, who has implemented legislation and policies effectively nationalizing financial institutions, automobile companies, health care and many other previously private interests.

In fact, he was not even the only person on this particular day. Times columnist Jeffrey T. Kuhner, who also is president of the Edmund Burke Institute, wrote at the same time, “President Obama has engaged in numerous high crimes and misdemeanors. The Democratic majority in Congress is in peril as Americans reject his agenda. Yet more must be done: Mr. Obama should be impeached.”

Kuhner continued, “He is slowly – piece by painful piece – erecting a socialist dictatorship. We are not there – yet. But he is putting America on that dangerous path. He is undermining our constitutional system of checks and balances; subverting democratic procedures and the rule of law; presiding over a corrupt, gangster regime; and assaulting the very pillars of traditional capitalism. Like Venezuela’s leftist strongman, Hugo Chavez, Mr. Obama is bent on imposing a revolution from above – one that is polarizing America along racial, political and ideological lines. Mr. Obama is the most divisive president since Richard Nixon. His policies are Balkanizing the country. It’s time for him to go.”

Tancredo’s arguments aren’t complicated. During his brief presidential run in 2008 he focused on the border security issue of the United States, and he still is concerned that the failure to secure the U.S. boundary – especially with Mexico – will lead to tragic consequences at the hands of border-crossing terrorists.

Tancredo appeared on Fox News today to defend his position from skeptics, saying Obama’s responsibility is to protect and defend the Constitution and the United States, not “fundamentally transform” them.

“Our president is an enemy of our Constitution, and, as such, he is a danger to our safety, our security and our personal freedoms,” Tancredo warns, affirming his belief that Obama is more dangerous for the United States than al-Qaida.

“He is more dangerous simply because he is inside,” he said. “Few people took him seriously about fundamentally transforming America. That is what he is all about. That is what he has set about doing. He is a committed ideologue. When you have someone like that in the White House, it is a scary proposition.”

He cited the president’s lack of action to adequately secure the border with Mexico.

“He’s putting his country in danger,” Tancredo said. “The country the Founders put together, that’s what’s in jeopardy.”

“Barack Obama is one of the most powerful presidents this nation has seen in generations. He is powerful because he is supported by large majorities in Congress, but, more importantly, because he does not feel constrained by the rule of law. Whether he is putting up the weakest possible defense of the Defense of Marriage Act despite the Justice Department’s legal obligation to support existing law; disenfranchising Chrysler and GM bondholders in order to transfer billions of investor dollars to his supporters in the United Auto Workers; or implementing yet a third offshore oil-drilling moratorium even after two federal courts have thrown out two previous moratoriums, President Obama is determined to see things done his way regardless of obstacles,” Tancredo wrote in his op-ed.

“To Mr. Obama, the rule of law is a mere inconvenience to be ignored, overcome or ‘transcended’ through international agreements or ‘norms.’”

Tancredo wrote that the “dedicated Marxist who lives in the White House” holds power over budgets, the judiciary, national defense and health care. As such, “his regime and his program are not just about changing public policy in the conventional sense. When one considers the combination of his stop-at-nothing attitude, his contempt for limited government, his appointment of judges who want to create law rather than interpret it – all of these make this president today’s single greatest threat to the great experiment in freedom that is our republic.

“Yes, Mr. Obama is a more serious threat to America than al-Qaida. We know that Osama bin Laden and followers want to kill us, but at least they are an outside force against whom we can offer our best defense. But when a dedicated enemy of the Constitution is working from the inside, we face a far more dangerous threat. Mr. Obama can accomplish with the stroke of his pen what bin Laden cannot accomplish with bombs and insurgents.”

Tancredo, who served five terms representing Colorado and now is chairman of the Rocky Mountain Foundation, was joined by Kuhner, who accused Obama of abusing his office and violating his oath.

Kuhner cited Obama’s demand that all Americans buy health insurance.

“The federal government does not have the right to coerce every citizen to purchase a good or service. This is not in the Constitution, and it represents an unprecedented expansion of power,” he wrote. “Yet Obamacare’s most pernicious aspect is its federal funding of abortion. Pro-lifers are now compelled to have their tax dollars used to subsidize insurance plans that allow for the murder of unborn children. This is more than state-sanctioned infanticide. It violates the conscience rights of religious citizens.”

He further cited Obama’s actions regarding the BP oil spill.

“There is a legal process for claims to be adjudicated, but Mr. Obama has behaved more like Mr. Chavez or Russia’s Vladimir Putin: He has bullied BP into setting up a $20 billion compensation fund administered by an Obama appointee. In other words, the assets of a private company are to be raided to serve a political agenda.”

He also wrote about the takeovers in the auto and financial industries, and the New Black Panther case.

“Under Mr. Obama, the Constitution has become a meaningless scrap of paper,” he said. “As president, he is supposed to respect the rule of law. Instead, his administration has dropped charges of voter intimidation against members of the New Black Panther Party. This was done even though their menacing behavior was caught on tape: men in military garb brandishing clubs and threatening whites at a polling site.”

Tancredo nearly two months ago broached the subject of impeachment, suggesting an “impeachment file.”

“I believe there is a growing body of evidence of impeachable offenses sufficient to warrant a formal impeachment resolution in the House, followed by a trial in the Senate,” he wrote at the time.

And the suggestion even has come from onlookers at a presidential appearance. CNN has documented when Obama made a surprise visit to a crowd on a shuttle bus, one onlooker shouted, “When are you going to quit. When are you going to be impeached?”

The issue even has appeared among online gamers, when Microsoft told an Xbox user the signon name “Impeach Obama” was not allowed because, “If you were President Obama, how would you feel if someone wanted to impeach you?”

Floyd and Mary Beth Brown, in a column on WND, discussed the ImpeachObamaCampaign.com that they launched.

They reported that many, instead of examining the evidence, attacked the messengers.

“We expected these attacks,” they reported. But they said the unresolved issues include:

• “Obama repeatedly lies to the American people when he says we can keep our private insurance, knowing full well that his legislation will inevitably drive private insurers out of business.
• “Gerald Walpin, inspector general of the Corporation for National and Community Service, investigated Kevin Johnson, a big buddy of the president, for misuse of funds from an AmeriCorps grant. Obama did not like Walpin’s investigation and findings, whereupon he vindictively fired Walpin to cover for his friend, Johnson. A subsequent investigation vindicated Walpin’s judgment in the matter.
• “Barack Obama oversaw the effective takeover by government of banks, the largest insurance company (AIG), General Motors and Chrysler – the bulk of the U.S. auto industry – thus stripping bondholders, shareholders and others of their personal property.
• “Barack Obama is actively pursuing cap-and-trade legislation. Instead of taxing the very air we breathe, it will instead, in a manner of speaking, tax the air we exhale, giving the government unprecedented control over the economy and American businesses. Those taxed businesses will then pass the fees onto the American people.
• “Spending American citizens’ money, Barack Hussein Obama is running up our debt at an alarming rate. In just the nine months since Obama assumed office, our national debt has gone up by over a trillion dollars. To put that figure in perspective, it took George W. Bush eight years to add $4.8 trillion to the national debt.
• “And, to add insult to injury, Obama is printing money like it’s going out of style. The effect will be hyperinflation, a crippling of our economy and, quite possibly, personal hardship on a scale that has not been experienced since the Great Depression.
• “Barack Hussein Obama appointed countless “czars” to oversee everything from the closing of Guantanamo to the food we eat. These czars don’t have to be approved by the Senate. The czars have unprecedented power and report only to Obama. Members of both parties are disturbed by these extra-constitutional excrescences. Sen. Robert Byrd said: “The accumulation of power by White House staff can threaten the constitutional system of checks and balances.” Rep. Jack Kingston called the czars a “parallel government.”
• “And finally, Obama consistently refuses to approve the release of his actual birth certificate, college transcripts and his medical records. Is he trying to hide something that will threaten his presidency?”

Retired U.S. Maj. Gen. Paul E. Vallely, a noted military leader who now is a presence on the Internet with his Stand Up For America and Veterans Defenders websites, told WND he would like Obama to resign.

Vallely, who served in Vietnam and retired in 1991 from the U.S. Army as deputy commanding general for the Pacific, said, “We now must call for the immediate resignation of Barry Soetero (AKA President Barack Hussein Obama) … based on incompetence, deceit, fraud, corruption, dishonesty and violation of the U.S. oath of office and the Constitution.”

“We can wait no longer for a traditional change of power and new government,” he has warned.

“‘We the People’ have had enough. Enough is enough. The Obama White House and identifiable members of Congress are now on a progressive socialist, treasonous death march and are bankrupting and weakening the country. We have watched them violate their sacred oath of office. ‘We, the People’ cannot wait for and solely rely on the next round of elections in November of this year. It is now and each day that these public servants must put the citizen’s interests above self-interest by resigning immediately,” he said.

Peter Ferrara, on the American Spectator website, also has predicted Obama’s resignation.

“I am now ready to predict that President Obama will not even make it [to 2012],” he wrote. “I predict that he will resign in discredited disgrace before the fall of 2012,” Ferrera said.

From News Busters:

Effectively reporting on the Gulf oil spill is now a Class D felony, punishable by a fine of up to $40,000.

That’s right, the most transparent administration in history has made it a felony, effective July 1, to get within 65 feet of what the Coast Guard determines are essential recovery efforts. According to Anderson Cooper, officials tried to up that number to 300 feet.

Cooper, who claimed federal officials prevented CNN on two occasions from taking photographs in the gulf, seemed frustrated when he reported on the new laws the day they went into effect. The press is “not the enemy here” he pleaded. The new policies, he said, make it “very easy to hide failure, and hide incompetence.”

Cooper also let loose this zinger: “Transparency is apparently not a priority with [Coast Guard Commandant] Thad Allen these days.” Ouch (full video and transcript below the fold -- h/t Ron Robinson).

www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpJBsjKhRTo

This is but the latest in a string of incidents that seem to have much of the country — and if Cooper is any indicator, at least a few journalists — questioning the sincerity of candidate Obama’s pledges of transparency, openness, and respect for the press.

But these new regulations on press coverage of the spill have not garnered as much attention as perhaps they should — certainly not as much as similar moves during the Bush administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina (a fact that Cooper notes).

Shortly after the Hurricane hit, according to the Washington Post, “FEMA refused to take reporters and photographers along on boats seeking victims in flooded areas, saying they would take up valuable space needed in the recovery effort and asked them not to take pictures of the dead.”

The Post touted claims that the FEMA policy was “in line with the Bush administration’s ban on images of flag-draped U.S. military coffins returning from the Iraq war” — clearly drawing a comparison to other Bush policies rife with accusations of politically-motivated censorship.

So far, the Post is silent on the criminalization — a much stronger statement of administration policy than the refusal to allow embedded reporters on rescue efforts — of media coverage in the Gulf. With a scant few exceptions, the legacy media are silent on the issue.

But for his part, and to his credit, Cooper issued a heartfelt call for more press transparency:

…the Coast Guard today announced new rules keeping photographers and reporters and anyone else from coming within 65 feet of any response vessel or booms out on the water or on beaches — 65 feet.

Now, in order to get closer, you have to get direct permission from the Coast Guard captain of the Port of New Orleans. You have to call up the guy. What this means is that oil-soaked birds on islands surrounded by boom, you can’t get close enough to take that picture.

Shots of oil on beaches with booms, stay 65 feet away. Pictures of oil-soaked booms uselessly laying in the water because they haven’t been collected like they should, you can’t get close enough to see that. And, believe me, that is out there.

But you only know that if you get close to it, and now you can’t without permission. Violators could face a fine of $40,000 and Class D felony charges.

What’s even more extraordinary is that the Coast Guard tried to make the exclusion zone 300 feet, before scaling it back to 65 feet.

Here is how Admiral Allen defends it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALLEN: Well, it’s not unusual at all for the Coast Guard to establish either safety or security zones around any number of facilities or activities for public safety or for the safety of the equipment itself. We would do this for marine events, fireworks demonstrations, cruise ships going in and out of port.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: So, this is the exact same logic that federal wildlife officials used to prevent CNN on two occasions from getting pictures of oiled birds that have been collected, pictures like — like the — well, that we’re about to show you which are obviously deeply disturbing, pictures of oiled gulls that we just happened to catch. Suddenly, we were told after — after that day we couldn’t catch it anymore. So, keeping prying eyes out of marshes, away from booms, off the beaches is now government policy.

When asked why now, after all this time, Thad Allen said he had gotten some complaints from local officials worried people might get hurt. Now, we don’t know who these officials are. We would like to. But transparency is apparently not a high priority with Thad Allen either these days.

Maybe he is accurate and some officials are concerned. And that’s their right. But we’ve heard far more from local officials about not being able to get a straight story from the government or BP. I have met countless local officials desperate for pictures to be taken and stories written about what is happening in their communities.

We’re not the enemy here. Those of us down here trying to accurately show what’s happening, we are not the enemy. I have not heard about any journalist who has disrupted relief efforts. No journalist wants to be seen as having slowed down the cleanup or made things worse. If a Coast Guard official asked me to move, I would move.

But to create a blanket rule that everyone has to stay 65 feet away boom and boats, that doesn’t sound like transparency. Frankly, it’s a lot like in Katrina when they tried to make it impossible to see recovery efforts of people who died in their homes.

If we can’t show what is happening, warts and all, no one will see what’s happening. And that makes it very easy to hide failure and hide incompetence and makes it very hard to highlight the hard work of cleanup crews and the Coast Guard. We are not the enemy here.

We found out today two public broadcasting journalists reporting on health issues say they have been blocked again and again from visiting a federal mobile medical unit in Venice, a trailer where cleanup workers are being treated. It’s known locally as the BP compound. And these two reporters say everyone they have talked to, from BP to the Coast Guard, to Health and Human Services in Washington has been giving them the runaround.

We’re not talking about a CIA station here. We’re talking about a medical trailer that falls under the authority of, guess who, Thad Allen, the same Thad Allen who promised transparency all those weeks ago.

We are not the enemy here.

Yes, yes, I know. An impeachment investigation will never be started while Nancy Pelosi is speaker of the House. The good news is that this obstacle to impeachment will likely be removed by January.

It goes without saying that the impeachment process should never be a political weapon used to pursue partisan political advantage. But neither should an impeachment investigation be obstructed for political reasons.

Impeachment is a constitutional remedy to be used for serious offenses identified in the Constitution. So, we must ask this question: Has Barack Obama crossed the line that separates political differences from the serious offenses that warrant impeachment?

The Constitution’s provisions for impeachment and removal are not aimed solely at the office of president. Article II, Section 4, stipulates that “the President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”

I believe there is a growing body of evidence of impeachable offenses sufficient to warrant a formal impeachment resolution in the House, followed by a trial in the Senate.

It is instructive that the founders listed only two specific crimes justifying impeachment – bribery and treason. The accusations of bribery against this president are now numerous and growing, and by themselves deserve an independent investigation under supervision of a bipartisan committee of the House of Representatives. In Pennsylvania and Colorado, candidates for the U.S. Senate were offered federal appointments in exchange for dropping out of their respective races. On their face, those actions are attempted bribery and warrant a thorough investigation.

There are also presidential actions that may stray into the category of high crimes and misdemeanors. Only this past week we have witnessed a United States senator tell his constituents that the president, in an Oval Office conversation, refused a direct request to enforce the Constitution’s guarantee of federal protection against foreign invasion. Obama wants a legislative “deal” in exchange for acting to secure the southwest border.

Let’s ponder the meaning of that news item and ask if this falls into the category of normal political “horse trading.” The president of the United States, in brazen defiance of his oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution, refuses to faithfully execute the laws of the United States unless he gets amnesty legislation to benefit another 15 million to 20 million illegal aliens. The principal beneficiary of that amnesty would be a foreign country, Mexico, not the United States.

Article IV, Section 4, of the Constitution guarantees each state protection against foreign invasion. The governor of Arizona and three other governors have formally requested 6,000 National Guard troops to help protect against the foreign invasion now under way, an invasion supported, encouraged and assisted by the government of Mexico. President Obama says – no, I will not fulfill that constitutional duty unless I get something in return.

Seven United States senators have written President Obama to ask him not to use his executive powers for parole and delayed departure to grant de facto amnesty to millions of illegal aliens. If he does use this power, which was clearly intended by Congress as an administrative remedy to be used in individual cases, he will be violating the spirit of the separation of powers and usurping legislative authority over immigration law.

In foreign affairs, this president has shown a cavalier disregard for the security interests of the United States. In Afghanistan, he has insisted on a fixed timetable for withdrawal of U.S. military forces – against the strenuous objections of his military advisers. He thereby gave the enemy a timetable for their victory and the return of terrorist training bases in that country.

Obama has refused to allow anyone in his government to use the term “radical Islam” to describe the enemy who has declared war on this country. To what purpose? If you cannot identify your enemy, that can only serve to hinder the prosecution of that war and undermine the sovereignty and security of the United States.

But perhaps Obama’s most serious offense against the Constitution’s limitations and obligations is his war against the Constitution itself. He does not adhere to the oath he took to defend the Constitution because he does not respect the Constitution.

It may be that these actions do not yet support or prove a case for impeachment. But considering Obama’s drive for expansion of his executive powers and his disregard for clear constitutional duties, it clearly is time for Congress to open an investigation.

Citizens and patriots who love the Constitution and the liberties it protects have already started their own impeachment files to chronicle Obama’s high crimes and misdemeanors, beginning with the overt crime of bribery. Whether or not the crime of treason will be added to that file remains to be seen. But the question is being asked, and the answer may not be pretty.

On June 24 the House of Representatives passed by a bare minimum number of votes the DISCLOSURE Act, a law that is supposed to be a new effort to get around the recent US Supreme Court decision that struck down parts of Congress’ campaign finance law. Bare minimum or no there is no doubt that this new law is an unconstitutional mess that unfairly limits the free political speech of some Americans while giving an unfair advantage to unions and certain lobbyists — lobbyists including the National Rifle Association and Big Labor groups such as the AFL-CIO and the SEIU.

The DISCLOSURE Act (full name, Democracy is Strengthened by Casting Light on Spending in Elections Act) was passed through the House by a 219 to 206 vote with only two Republicans voting in favor and 36 Democrats voting against. The two Republicans that voted in favor were Mike Castle of Delaware and Joseph Cao of Louisiana.

So what is this law supposed to do? For one thing the law would require“special interest group officials to physically appear at the end of campaign ads they sponsor, acknowledging their campaign contributions.” It would also require that advocacy groups detail on their public websites every campaign they’ve donated to.

But, as it turns out, Democrats excluded some of the biggest spenders on political ads and campaigns in the country, most of them their patrons. In a manager’s amendment the Democrats excluded any organization that has over 1 million members. That leaves Big Labor free and clear of these new disclosure rules. It also leaves the National Rifle Association free of the new requirements.

And this is precisely what makes the whole thing unconstitutional. It is true that Congress has made rules requiring disclosure of campaign donations and it is also true that the courts have declared it constitutional. But those laws were all levied equally on everyone. The laws affect everyone that donates a certain amount of money and higher, for instance. This law treats some donations as necessary of disclosure while affording other donations the luxury of secrecy.

The Constitution of the United States has always been conceived as one that affects everyone equally. But if the courts let this law stand, then we will be solidifying into law the concept that Congress can make laws that discriminate against some Americans while giving other Americans more freedom. This is a dangerous precedent to set.

One thing is sure, disclosure of campaign donations have been used by advocacy groups for opposition research. California’s recent pro-traditional marriage vote, for instance saw disclosure of donors put into the hands of groups that used the lists to track down and personally attack individual donors. In California such donor lists left folks that donated to protect traditional marriage for religious reasons open to personal attacks by gay advocacy groups.

The fact is that disclosure can go too far and have unintended consequences and this should also be taken into consideration and be weighed for effect.

For his part Republican Leader John Boehner is already denouncing the law.

With this misguided bill, Democrats would restrict free speech and violate the First Amendment. But not for everyone. This bill would muzzle small businesses but protect labor unions. It allows the Humane Society to speak freely, but not the Farm Bureau. It would protect the AARP’s rights, but not 60-Plus. And lastly it would protect the National Rifle Association but not the National Right to Life. The NRA is carved out and gets a special deal in this bill. The NRA is all about protecting the Second Amendment, but apparently its leaders don’t care about protecting the First Amendment. That’s very disappointing.

This is a potentially dangerous piece of legislation, but it isn’t law yet. The U.S. Senate has to pass it and then the president has t sign it. There is still time to defeat this unconstitutional favoritism for Big Labor and other Democrat constituencies.

Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) told CNSNews.com he does “not know that” President Barack Obama had the constitutional authority to tell BP to surrender its stockholders’ money into an escrow account outside the company’s control that would be used to pay damages to victims of the Gulf oil spill. Moreover, Nelson said the constitutional question was “not going to get answered” because BP agreed to Obama’s demand.

In his Tuesday speech from the Oval Office, President Obama said, “Tomorrow, I will meet with the chairman of BP and inform him that he is to set aside whatever resources are required to compensate the workers and business owners who have been harmed as a result of his company’s recklessness.”

On Wednesday, after President Obama met with BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg, he announced that the company had agreed to relinquish $20 billion to a fund that would be controlled by an independent, third party to pay compensation to people suffering damages as a result of the spill.

On Capitol Hill, CNSNews.com asked Nelson, “Along the lines of the BP escrow accounts, does President Obama, in your mind, have the constitutional authority to have BP surrender the stockholders’ money without due process of law?”

Nelson said, “Well, I don’t know that he does have that. But, on the other hand, there’s a moral obligation that I think was pointed out and apparently BP has accepted that opportunity to put this money aside to deal with the compensation and the remediation and the security that that represents.

“So, we probably won’t have to have that test of whether or not there’s [constitutional] authority,” said Nelson. “Certainly, he had some moral authority that they responded to.”

Nelson, a member of the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee, also said that the question of Obama’s constitutional authority to demand the fund would not “get answered.”

“Obviously, there’s always a limit to whatever authority you have,” Nelson told CNSNews.com. “In this case, they [BP] went along with the number that’s been agreed to and he hasn’t asked for more than they were willing to give apparently, or agree to, and so that question is not going to get answered.”

Nelson said the president appeared strong and “connected the dots” during his first address from the Oval Office.

“I think he did a good job of connecting the dots,” said Nelson. “I think he had to connect the dots between what’s been done and to give people some background on all the activity that’s been ongoing, much of which doesn’t appear to the public because they don’t see it.”

“Number two, I think he had to point out that BP energy is on board to get things done but they’re not going to do it alone,” he said. “We’re – the government’s going to be working with them.”

“Thad Allen, the [Coast Guard] admiral, is very much involved,” said Nelson. “And then, finally, that BP would be on the hook for not only remediation of the Gulf but for compensation for all those who’ve lost their livelihood at least temporarily, hopefully not forever. So, I think he connected the dots there. Now there are others who, for political purposes, think he needed to appear strong, and what have you, and I, quite honestly, thought he did.”

President Barack Obama is joining recent presidents who have wanted a power they can’t quite have: the line-item veto.

His predecessors — Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Bill Clinton — supported versions of the concept, which would allow the president to strike specific spending items from large appropriations bills and, supporters hope, put an end to Congress’s ability to lard unrelated spending into large pieces of legislation.

But line-item-veto legislation sponsored by Republicans in the 1990s — and briefly wielded by Clinton — was struck down by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional in 1998.

So, on Monday, the Obama team proposed a line-item veto with a twist: The president would have a limited time after a bill is passed to submit a package of rescissions that must be considered by Congress in straight up or down votes.

“The line-item veto gave the knife to the president, and that was unconstitutional,” White House budget director Peter Orszag told reporters in a conference call on the issue. “Here, we are trying to find a way for the president to give the knife back to Congress.”

Orszag said the mere threat that a president could call out spending as wasteful with such a legislative maneuver might prevent members of Congress from adding the spending in the first place.

“The proposal provides the president with important, but limited, powers,” he said. “It changes the optics and changes the dynamics in an important way.”

Politically, the proposal helps the Obama administration mute criticism from the right that it isn’t doing enough to cut spending. And because the Obama proposal is similar to one included in the Republican Contract With America in 1994, it helps move him toward the political center on the spending issue.

It also presents a challenge to Republicans, who have traditionally pushed for line-item-veto authority but may be wary of giving such power to Obama for fear it could be used against them politically.

For their part, Republicans on Monday said they supported the measure even as they criticized the president for runaway spending and the highest deficit of the post-World War II era.

“We’re pleased President Obama is interested in demonstrating fiscal discipline,” House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said. “But he already has the authority to force Congress to consider spending cuts immediately, and Republicans have been inviting him to use it for months.”

The measure sent to Congress for its consideration — officially titled the Reduce Unnecessary Spending Act of 2010 — would have three main differences from the president’s current authority, the White House said.

First, it would require that a package of proposed rescissions be submitted within 45 days after the final passage of an appropriations bill.

Second, Congress would not be permitted to amend the package of cuts.

Third, the House and Senate would face time limits for debate, which would guarantee the president’s cuts get an up or down vote rather quickly.

The White House said the new authority would help Obama cut “billions” of dollars in spending each year. And officials released a list of current spending measures they said Obama would have used the authority on, including:

•$157 million in funding for earmarked projects at the Environmental Protection Agency

•$293 million for earmarked transportation projects at the Transportation Department

•$25 million at the Commerce Department and the Agriculture Department to fund public broadcasting, even though that funding is covered under the Corporation for Public Broadcasting

•And $17 million for a Department of Housing and Urban Development brownfields economic development initiative that the administration said duplicates another federal program.

One detail was missing from President Obama’s list of qualifications for his nominee to replace John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court: Any mention of the Constitution.

He just doesn’t get it.

At a time when Americans are furious over Obama’s headlong plunge into socialism, when his Democrat party is losing elections and hemorrhaging incumbents because voters reject their big-government “remaking America” agenda, the chameleon forgot to adapt.

The master wordsmith — who knows how to say what people want to hear — blew it.

He didn’t state the main qualification for any person who serves in government, the absence of which has lit a brushfire of discontent, fidelity to the Constitution.

He and his allies haven’t taken that first step to recovery — acknowledging their problem. It’s their utter disregard for the Constitution that is causing this big mess. The concept of a limited government, restrained in what it can and should do, is foreign to them, while for most Americans it’s in our DNA. This is what puts Obama at odds with so many Americans.

President Obama said his Supreme Court nominee will be someone who knows “that in a democracy, powerful interests must not be allowed to drown out the voices of ordinary citizens.”

Newsflash for the president! The most “powerful interest” in America today that is drowning out citizens’ voices is…. the government!

Citizens are trying all kinds of ways to be heard by their congressmen — phone calls, e-mails, rallies in districts, rallies in D.C., voting against the party in power.

In Obama’s mind, “ordinary citizens” are paid ACORN protesters but not unpaid Tea Partiers. His version of “Let them eat cake” is “they can’t get a job and their doctor quit, but they’ll have insurance.”

Anger at the cap-and-trade bill drove huge turnouts to town hall meetings. How did congressmen respond? They held town halls in gated communities or avoided meetings altogether. They denigrated their constituents, calling them “brown shirts” or “Astroturf.”

Remember the kerfuffle over James O’Keefe getting arrested in Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office? Overlooked in the story is why he was there. He was trying to find out why her constituents’ phone calls weren’t being answered. Was there a problem with the phone system, or was her staff ignoring the calls?

The best picture that captures this arrogance is Nancy Pelosi pounding an oversized gavel in her hand while marching with congressmen to vote for the health care bill — in defiance of the thousands of protesters surrounding the Capitol begging “kill the bill.”

One thing we can all agree on is that the Constitution is the foundation for our country, the main unifying element, what distinguishes us as America. It provides defined roles for the government, based on the profound recognition of the sinful tendency of mankind to abuse power.

So why do liberal politicians have a problem when people bring it up?

When asked by a reporter where the Constitution authorizes Congress to order Americans to buy health insurance, Pelosi cackled, “Are you serious?”

The same question posed to Rep. Phil Hare (D-Illinois) elicited this classic, “I don’t worry about the Constitution on this.”

It’s not only the Constitution that is swept aside when liberals have a goal to accomplish.

Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-Florida and former judge, impeached for bribery) was caught on tape stating, “‘There ain’t no rules around here — we’re trying to accomplish something.’ And therefore, when the deal goes down, all this talk about rules, we make ‘em up as we go along,”

Another “Obama standard” for a Supreme Court justice is someone who has “a keen understanding of how the law affects the daily lives of the American people.”

We all know what he means. This is the “empathy” standard. A person must be black, Hispanic, a woman, or a homosexual to be compassionate and just. They must have experienced discrimination to understand “the American experience” (discrimination against people who are white or male or conservative or Christian doesn’t count).

The irony is that this is the reason why Americans are overwhelmingly against judicial activism. Because we’ve seen — and experienced — how judicial arrogance, the kind that puts a thumb on the scale for the judge’s preferred party, impacts our daily lives. It leads to the slaughter of unborn children, censoring religious expression, government seizing private property, unleashing obscenity, imposing same-sex “marriage” (thus forcing children to be taught about homosexuality), and frivolous lawsuits.

A poll taken last year found that 9 out of 10 Republicans and more than 8 out of 10 Democrats agreed: “When considering a new Justice for the United States Supreme Court, I would prefer that my United States senators look for a man or woman who will interpret the law as it is written and not take into account his or her personal viewpoints and experiences.”

President Obama has an opportunity to change course and show “empathy” with Americans — by choosing a Supreme Court nominee with a strong history of fidelity to the Constitution.

The same Supreme Court justices whom President Obama blasted during his State of the Union address this year may ultimately decide the fate of his crowning achievement as more than a dozen states have called on the courts to strike down the health insurance mandate of Democrats’ health care overhaul – a move that would threaten the entire law.

Two major constitutional challenges have been levied against the new law, one by the state of Virginia, which enacted a law exempting its citizens from the federal health insurance mandate, and another by Florida and 12 other states. Legal scholars are divided on the merits of the cases, and even Congress – through its research service and its budget scorekeeper – has said it’s an open question whether the provision could pass constitutional muster.

At issue is the scope of the federal government’s power over states and individuals. Critics of the law say the requirement that all Americans buy insurance or pay a fine, if allowed, would mean that Congress has virtually boundless authority to compel actions. Proponents argue that legal precedents support an expansive reading of the legislative branch’s license to regulate such activity.

“This is one of the most consequential lawsuits in our generation,” said Baker Hostetler lawyer David B. Rivkin Jr., who is serving as outside counsel to the 13 states that have filed suit. “The fact you have so many different state attorneys general, Republicans and Democrats, from a variety of states coming together to do this just underscores how strongly they feel that the act infringes core constitutional interests of their respective states.”

The mandate, which doesn’t take effect until 2014, is central to Democrats’ goal of insuring about 32 million more Americans. The law would offer tax credits to low-income individuals and allow young adults to remain on their parents’ policies longer.

Both of the state lawsuits challenge the federal government’s authority under the Commerce Clause, which grants Congress the power to regulate commerce among the states. The Florida case also cites a violation of the 10th Amendment, which reserves those powers not spelled out under the federal government in the Constitution to the state governments, and argues that the health care law’s expansion of state Medicaid programs threatens state sovereignty.

Among the arguments against the law is that because it does not allow for purchasing insurance across state lines – the insurance exchanges are state-based – the buying of health insurance does not constitute interstate commerce. In addition, the plaintiffs say, not purchasing health insurance does not constitute an economic activity.

“Thus far in our history, it has never been held that the Commerce Clause, even when aided by the Necessary and Proper Clause, can be used to require citizens to buy goods or services,” Virginia Attorney General Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II argues in his state’s lawsuit. “To depart from that history to permit the national government to require the purchase of goods or services would … create powers indistinguishable from a general police power in total derogation of our constitutional scheme of enumerated powers.”

While a requirement to buy health insurance might be new, some legal analysts say, Congress can in fact define an economic activity as something that results from not taking an action.

“The 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibits hotels and restaurants from discriminating based on race and thus prohibits inactivity,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California Irvine School of Law, noting that law relied upon the Commerce Clause. “The Supreme Court has said that Congress can regulate economic activity that has a substantial effect on interstate commerce. Buying or refusing to buy insurance is economic activity. The effect on the economy is enormous.”

Americans have grown used to Congress claiming the right to regulate and control everything they do. But by what right can Congress force Americans to purchase health insurance?

This question is at the root of lawsuits filed by 14 states challenging Obamacare’s requirement that those without health insurance must obtain it or face fines of $2,085 per household or 2.5 percent of income – whichever is greater.

Defenders of the new law point to the constitutional provision empowering Congress to regulate interstate commerce. The Supreme Court has long interpreted the Commerce Clause to extend well beyond what a common-sense reading would support. In the 1942 case Wickard v. Filburn, the high court ruled that farmer Roscoe Filburn could not grow wheat in excess of limits set by the 1938 Agricultural Adjustment Act. It did not matter that the wheat was grown on his own land for his own use – in this case feeding his chickens. According to the court, “control of total supply … depends upon the control of individual supply.” If enough farmers like Filburn grew their own chicken feed, they would not buy it, and this would have an impact on commerce nationwide. The Congress that can regulate Roscoe Filburn’s chicken feed can regulate anything.

Still, Congress never claimed it could force people to take up farming or any other vocation. This is the radical interpretation of the Commerce Clause embedded in the health care bill. It is not a power to regulate commercial activity, but to compel it.

The change is unprecedented. All previous Commerce Clause cases have dealt with regulating pre-existing activity, but if someone is not buying health insurance, there is no commerce to regulate. The clause has never been used to compel private citizens not engaged in commerce to spend money on a government-mandated program. This is a new, extreme and potentially dangerous interpretation.

Professor Erwin Chemerinsky of the University of California, Irvine, School of Law defends the individual mandate on the grounds that the Commerce Clause “includes authority to regulate activities that have a substantial effect on interstate commerce. In the area of economic activities, ‘substantial effect’ can be found based on the cumulative impact of the activity across the country.”

This is a significantly flawed view as applied to the individual mandate because almost everything people do or choose not to do has a “substantial effect” on commerce. It would by extension give Congress the power to regulate all human activity or inactivity. Professor Chemerinsky’s interpretation of the Commerce Clause represents a significant threat to human freedom because it gives Congress essentially unlimited power. The Constitution is an instrument created to limit the power of government, not a vehicle to justify its infinite reach. Thus, any line of argument that grants limitless powers under the Constitution is inherently wrong. Any laws justified by such claims are, by the same reasoning, abhorrent to the Constitution and must be overturned.

The states fighting Obamacare in court are concerned with more than just health care. At stake are two fundamental views of the nature of the Constitution. In one, government power is limited. It enables and supports human liberty, serves as a referee to keep the game fair and punishes criminals who break the law. In the other view, government is a coercive mechanism that aims at perfecting a social vision in which personal freedom takes a back seat to the utopian plan where the ends justify the means.

The lawsuits arising from the government health care takeover will help to clarify these issues. They will force the government to justify its actions in terms that will be acceptable not only to the courts, but also by the people. Whether or not the states prevail, it is doubtful that the Obama administration and the Democrats in Congress will be able to satisfy the public that their rights and liberties, not to mention health and pocketbooks, have to be sacrificed in pursuit of this particular vision of paradise.

From Jewish World Review:

The Reality of ObamaCare

First: Congratulations to President Obama and the Democratic leadership. You won dirty against bipartisan opposition from both Congress and the majority of Americans. You’ve definitely polarized the country even more, and quite possibly bankrupted us, too. But hey, you won. Bubbly for everyone.

Simply, you have nationalized health care by proxy. Insurance companies are now heavily regulated government contractors. Way to get big business out of Washington and our lives! These giant corporations will clear a small, government-approved profit on top of their government-approved fees. Then, when health care costs rise — and they will — Democrats will insist, yet again, that the profit motive is to blame, and out from this ObamaCare Trojan horse will pour another army of liberals demanding a more honest version of single-payer.

The Obama administration has turned the insurance industry into the Blackwater of socialized medicine.

That’s always what Obama had in mind. During the now-legendary health care summit, Obama, who loves to talk about “risk pools,” “competition,” “consumer choice” and the like, let it slip that he actually doesn’t believe in insurance as commonly understood. The notion that Americans should buy the health care “equivalent of Acme Insurance that I had for my car” seemed preposterous to him. “I’m buying that to protect me from some catastrophic situation,” he explained. “Otherwise, I’m just paying out of pocket. I don’t go to the doctor. I don’t get preventive care. There are a whole bunch of things I just do without. But if I get hit by a truck, maybe I don’t go bankrupt.” Apparently, people are just too stupid to go to the doctor — or maintain their homes — if they have to pay much of anything out of pocket.

The endgame was to get the young and healthy to buy more expensive insurance than they need or want. “Expanding the risk pool” and “spreading out the risk” by mandating — i.e., forcing — young people to buy insurance is just market-based spin for socialist ends. A risk pool is an actuarial device where a lot of people pay a small sum to cover themselves against a “rainy day” problem that will affect only a few people. Such “peace of mind” health insurance is gone. What we have now is health assurance. With health assurance, there are no “risk pools” really, only payment plans.

Under the new law, all the exits from the system are blocked. You can’t opt out or buy cheap, high-deductible Acme Car-type insurance, even if that’s what you need. Ultimately, even that coercion won’t be enough to make the whole thing work because the “cost curve” will not be bending.

Profit-hungry insurance companies were never the problem. (According to American Enterprise Institute economist Andrew Biggs, industry profit margins are around 3 percent, and the entire industry recorded profits of just $13 billion last year, close to a rounding error in Medicare fraud estimates.) Rather, health care costs have been skyrocketing because consumers treat health insurance like an expense account. Putting almost everyone into one “risk pool” doesn’t change that dynamic; it universalizes it. And eventually, the only way to cut costs will be to ration care.

In September, Obama got into a semantic argument with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, who noted that requiring all Americans to pay premiums for a government-guaranteed service sounds an awful lot like a tax. “No. That’s not true, George,” Obama said. “For us to say that you’ve got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase. What it’s saying is … that we’re not going to have other people carrying your burdens for you.”

Stephanopoulos invoked a dictionary definition of a tax: “a charge, usually of money, imposed by authority on persons or property for public purposes.” Obama laughed off the idea that a dictionary might outrank him as the final arbiter of a word’s meaning: “George, the fact that you looked up … the definition of tax increase indicates to me that you’re stretching a little bit right now. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have gone to the dictionary to check on the definition.”

OK, put aside your dictionaries. The legislation allocates $10 billion to pay for 16,500 IRS agents who will collect and enforce mandatory “premiums.” Does that sound like the private sector at work to you?

Who cares about the U.S. Constitution, when Barack Obama’s vision for America is weighing in the balance?

Don’t count on the U.S. Congress to care.

In the aftermath of the Senate’s passage of an Obamacare bill, Attorney’s General from multiple states have begun to announce that they are launching investigations into the legality, and constitutionality of the Senate legislation. Chief among their concerns is the possibility that that the bill places Americans outside the state of Nebraska at a significant disadvantage, financially and otherwise, to residents of the state of Nebraska.

South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster, along with the Attorneys General in the states of Washington, Michigan, Texas, Colorado, Alabama and North Dakota – have joined forces to consider, among other things, if the Obamacare bill in the U.S. Senate violates the 10th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The 10th Amendment stipulates that powers not granted to the national government nor prohibited to the states by the constitution of the United States , are reserved to the states or the people.

As such, the 10th Amendment may pose constitutional challenges to the Obamacare bill itself. Does the constitution grant to the federal government the “power” to provide healthcare? More curiously, does the constitution grant to the federal government the “power” to mandate that people buy anything – including health insurance (the Senate version of the healthcare reform legislation stipulates both)?

Additionally, state Attorneys General should also be concerned about Obamacare for another reason: it could be in violation of the “equal protection” clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Concerns over the Fourteenth Amendment appear to be present (this is based on what we know of the legislation, which, because of Pelosi and Reid’s secretiveness, is not a lot) in the portion of the Obamacare bill that grants special (and expensive) privileges to residents of the state of Nebraska. In the Senate’s Obamacare bill, the state of Nebraska is afforded special financial advantages from the federal government – to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars every year – for the funding of Medicaid. The reason this provision appears in a Senate healthcare bill, as many readers of this column are aware, is because the bill could not be passed without the vote of Democratic Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska .

Obamacare is strongly opposed by roughly two-thirds of American voters. And according to a survey published less than two weeks ago by the Tarrance Group polling firm, sixty-seven percent of Nebraskans oppose Obamacare, while ninety percent of Nebraskans are happy with the heatlhcare they currently receive and don’t want it to change.

Additionally, the Senate Obamacare bill is vague, at best, as to when and where it funds abortion procedures – and Nebraskans overwhelmingly find the aborting of unborn children to be abhorrent. And for all these reasons, Senator Ben Nelson had every reason to vote against the Obamacare bill.

So, given Senator Nelson’s incentives to oppose the Obamacare bill, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid crafted a special deal to incentivize Nelson to vote in favor of the bill. The “incentives” included special economic incentives for the state of Nebraska , incentivizes that people in the other 49 states don’t receive.

Using the law to single-out certain individuals, or certain groups of individuals, and impart to them either special privileges or penalties that don’t apply to other Americans, is, well – Un-American. And it may very well prove to be un-constitutional in court.

Residents in the other forty-nine states pay taxes according to the same federal taxation structure as do Americans in Nebraska. Furthermore, in as much as we are U.S. citizens, we are all deserving of the same “protections” under the law to which Nebraskans are subject.

But the Senate Obamacare bill sets aside Nebraskans, and makes a special privileged class of them. If this bill becomes law, Nebraskans will be entitled to subsidies from the federal government that those of us who belong in the category called “non-Nebraskans” are not.

This disregard for the U.S. Constitution and matters of “equal protection” do not begin and end with Senator Ben Nelson. Earlier this winter, Senator Mary Landrieu (D-Louisiana) was asked a simple question by reporter Nicholas Ballasy of CNSNews.Com: “What part of the Constitution do you think gives Congress the authority to mandate that individuals have to purchase health insurance?”

In response, Senator Landrieu (who, much like Senator Nelson of Nebraska did, essentially “sold” her vote in the Senate despite opposition to Obamacare in her home state of Louisiana) replied “we’re very lucky as members of the Senate to have constitutional lawyers on our staff, so I’ll let them answer that.”

Yes, of course – “the lawyers clean up all details” as American poet (and “classic rock” star) Don Henley once lamented about his country. The fact is, however, that Senator Landrieu couldn’t answer the question if she tried.

But just like the legal profession itself, our current President and Congress have little regard for the U.S. Constitution, and for the rights of the human individual. Just as it is with the practice of law, the process of “law making” revolves around “leverage” – what can one individual or group force another individual or group to do? What does it take to accomplish what we, the politicians, want to accomplish?

Will any more among the 535 elite Americans in Congress dare to raise any constitutional concerns about this? And how about the Attorneys General of the other 43 states? Does the Constitution matter any more?