It would, I believe, be grounds for declaring the President a usurper and illegitimate, fit not only for impeachment, but for having all of his actions disregarded from that point on; it could be the trigger for something like a civil war. I think the White House agrees, which is why they aren’t buying this argument put forth by law professors with more ingenuity than political sense.
Yes.
There is no grounds for declaring Obama a usurper or illegitimate, and if Prof. Reynolds actually read the Constitution he’d know that. The only recourse would be for Congress to impeach Obama, and the only penalty would be removal from office. None of that would mean we could ignore any law or act that Obama did prior to removal.
If the acts Obama performed were the reason for his impeachment and removal; then his actions will have been deemed a criminal act by Congress, which is to say unlawful. I suppose others are free to continue to perform the illegal acts, but they would like face prosecution for violation of the law, just like the impeached President.
actions disregarded from that point on – No, only those actions found to be worthy of impeachment, and then only if they were otherwise illegal.
An impeachable offense is whatever Congress decides it is. Impeachment (and removal) are entirely political acts.
Obama himself has ruled out the 14th Amendment option.
If we go through the debt ceiling he’ll be forced to break the law in some way, either by continuing to borrow (violating the debt ceiling law) or not spending money as directed by Congress. The specifications for computer languages at times indicate that a particular operation will result in “undefined behavior” — you might get one answer, you might get another, the program might crash. Breaching the debt ceiling is undefined behavior for the global economy.
If we go through the debt ceiling he’ll be forced to break the law in some way, either by continuing to borrow (violating the debt ceiling law) or not spending money as directed by Congress.
He could always ask Congress to direct him to spend less money, thus slowing the rate in which the government reaches the debt ceiling, so that perhaps this might be the last time it has to be raised. But the President does not seem inclined to do this. For certain, the Senate has seemed uninterested in passing the President’s budget request.
We’re two weeks from the debt ceiling. Nobody in Congress from either party would support the sort of deep cuts it would take to postpone that date by even a few weeks.
Reading comprehension Jim:
He could always ask Congress to direct him to spend less money, thus slowing the rate in which the government reaches the debt ceiling, so that perhaps this might be the last time it has to be raised.
This is what Porkbusters, then Senator Obama, and now the TEA Party have been suggesting for several years now. The GOP failed to act last decade and they lost power. Now the DNC is following the old GOP’s course.
I think this line of thought is rather stupid. It’s just not that hard to generate a pretext for whatever you want to do, be it exaggerating the harm of a political scrum or invading Poland. I wonder if previous generations had so many idle academics speculating on the laziest ways to rationalize violation of the law. Maybe we ought to ban the practice. I’m sure it wouldn’t violate the First Amendment all that much.
I wonder if previous generations had so many idle academics speculating on the laziest ways to rationalize violation of the law.
Have you read Michael Crichton’s State of Fear?