A bill of attainder is law passed directed against a specific person or group. Congress often flirts with passing such laws when members get angry (or exploit populist anger) at individuals or groups.

During the Clinton era, bills of attainder (directed against the president) were seriously considered to as an alternative to impeachment. The most recent example is the prohibition of disbursing stimulus funds to Illinois while Blago was still governor (now moot).

The best and most egregious example is Sen. Chuck Schumer’s threat to pass a law to confiscate the bonuses of AIG employees. How many of our lawmakers and media reporters are aware of Article I, section 9, clause 3 of the United States Constitution?

From Bill Bennett, former secretary of education (emphasis mine):

That is the provision in the Omnibus legislation that strips funding for 1,700 poor and minority students in Washington, DC who receive federal aid to attend private schools. The DC Opportunity Scholarship program died in the Senate last night with the Omnibus vote, despite DC Superintendent Michelle Rhee supporting it and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan stating he would like to see the students in that program stay in it. Keep in mind, the Opportunity Scholarship program currently helps two students attend Sidwell Friends School, where Barack and Michelle Obama send their two daughters, so it now looks like Sasha and Malia will have two less school mates in 2010 as a result of the vote yesterday. As Virginia Walden Ford said: “I’d like to see a reporter stand up at one of those nationally televised press conferences and ask President Obama what he thinks about what his own party is doing to keep two innocent kids from attending the same school where he sends his.“

Me: Instead, the media choose to cover the fact that Obama attended a parent-teacher conference at Sidwell Friends. How admirable.

Jim Kramer, Paul Volcker, David Brooks, Christopher Buckley, Andrew Sullivan, Silicon Valley, …, and all other moderates, conservatives, pragmatists, etc., who wanted us to believe that Barack Obama wasn’t as far to the left as his opponents portrayed him to be, and was going to bring competence back to the White House, are beginning to have buyer’s remorse.