“[O]ur government is supposed to be ‘a government of laws and not of men.’ If our laws and our institutions determine that BP ought to pay $20 billion — or $50 billion or $100 billion — then so be it. But the Constitution says that private property is not to be confiscated by the government without ‘due process of law.’ [...]

On the day President Obama was elected, armed men wearing the black berets and jackboots of the New Black Panther Party were stationed at the entrance to a polling place in Philadelphia. They brandished a weapon and intimidated voters and poll watchers.

The Houston Chronicle is reporting the Netherlands, a experienced oil producing nation, offered the United States help in dealing with the British Petroleum spill very quickly after it started, but the Obama Administration turned them down, opting instead to coordinate with BP to stop the spill and contain the damage.