Thursday, October 22, 2009

Unconstitutional Cuts!

Andrew Napolitano comments on Fox News the order from the administration that the top 25 executives will take a pay cut of 90%... Check out the US Constitution, Article I, Section 9, clause 3:

"No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed."







update 1: Judge Napolitano was also annoyed by the breaking of contracts. Article I, section 10, clause 1 of the US Constitution states:

“No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility."

White House tries to bar Fox News from interviewing Pay Czar

Why does this seem to be some sort of line that has been crossed?

One of the pillars of our nation is that of a free press yet we have an administration that has decided that Fox News is not a real news organization and as such attempted to block them from press gaggle today. To the other news organizations credit, they stood up to the Obama administration and told them that if Fox News was excluded then none of them would interview the pay czar. I guess we shall see if this was a principled response from these news organizations.

It is one thing to publicly attempt to marginalize a news organization but it is another to outright attempt to block them from from a group which the administration has no say over. Where does this end? Do we get to a point where the administration attempts to shut down a news organization because they don't like their reporting like certain other countries do?

What I don't get is why there isn't a larger uproar over these actions? I get that the liberal side of the line don't exactly like the news coming out of Fox News just like the conservative side of the line don't exactly like the news coming out of MSNBC but as a conservative I fix that by not watching MSNBC/CNN and not advocating that they be shut down (let the free market handle that).