I couldn’t disagree more, regarding one part of this anyway. (On the rest, I agree.)
First, I agree that Obama has committed impeachable offenses, such as violating his constitutional obligation (section 2, and I think article 5 thereof) to faithfully execute the law. There are others, as well. So I’m totally with you regarding impeaching Obama.
What bothers me greatly is the notion of also impeaching and convicting Biden. You’re suggesting convicting a man of a crime, when he’s committed no crime (assuming he hasn’t, of course). This is the same “it means what we say it means” line that Obama is so fond of in his own abuses of power, and it’s as wrong for us as it is for him for that very reason.
While I think Biden is a dangerously incompetent nitwit (though not quite as bad as his boss), I don’t see any grounds to support convicting the man of a crime unless he’s committed one.
Now, if you want to get Biden out of office (I do share that goal), I’d fully fully support doing so under the 25th amendment, Section 4;
” Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.”
Mental incapacity is plenty of grounds, and all jokes aside, Biden has displayed this more than adequately. His revelations regarding Seal Team 6 (Which got many of them killed, BTW) and the location of the secure VP bunker (Cheney’s famous undisclosed location) are just two of many that show him incompetent to hold the office. Also note the mention of “such other body as Congress may by law provide”. This could be all set up and ready to go the moment a new VP is selected (and it could be part of your public repeal-and-replace initiative too), so Biden would have the shortest presidential tenure on record.
The practical problem with your plan, IMHO, is there are far too many (including some on the right, like me) who would vehemently object to the concept you outlined regarding Biden. I value the constitution too much to do so.
While I think Biden is a dangerously incompetent nitwit (though not quite as bad as his boss), I don’t see any grounds to support convicting the man of a crime unless he’s committed one.
Supporting in every way high crimes and misdemeanors committed by your boss isn’t a high crime and misdemeanor? Really?
If Biden had said “You know, I don’t think that the president has an authority to do this,” then yeah, he’d be off the hook. But in this timeline, how do you think that works out for him?
Actually, that raises an interesting question. If the long knives came out, and the Democrats realized what an anchor Obama is on their electoral prospects for a generation, if Biden were smart, he’d (with a finger to the wind), say, “Yes, the president has overstepped his Constitutional authority” and lead the way for him to become president, and then the incumbent in 2016.
But I write this as a counterfactual in a universe in which Biden is smart.
I was always surprised that Algore didn;’t do just that in ’98, considering his presidential ambitions. Says something about the Clinton machine that he never wavered.
Supporting in every way high crimes and misdemeanors committed by your boss isn’t a high crime and misdemeanor? Really?
How far are you willing to carry that logic, Rand? Should every House member not voting in favor of impeachment and every Senator not voting to convict be expelled from the House or Senate for supporting high crimes and misdemeanors?
If the House decides to do that, there would be nothing unconstitutional about it. I’d find it highly unlikely, though. It would certainly be unnecessary for the purpose.
Seriously, is there some point to your question?
Why not push for an Impeachment bill now, that schedules a trile for Feb 1 2015,
which allows impeachment to be the issue of the 2014 election?
Why not stop demonstrating yourself to be a moron with every single comment you post here?
Hey, I always say “You should push for a bill of Impeachment”, it’s inherently
a political process. So, Why not push for it. You mention in your article
it would be political suicide, but why do you think that?
Why do you continue to ask stupid questions?
Actually, “supporting” could be, if it’s active support (involvement). It could also be true if Biden was aware of illegal activities that weren’t public knowledge and did nothing.
Was Biden directly involved in any of Obama’s illegal acts? Quite possibly he was, and in that case, that’s an impeachable offense. (Co-conspirator, Obstruction of Justice, etc.) An additional one would be multiple homicide (criminally negligent manslaughter) His big mouth revealed the identity of the unit that took out Bin Laden, resulting in them being targeted by the Taliban, resulting in many deaths. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/aug/9/kuhner-who-betrayed-navy-seal-team-6/
But simply paying lip service to his boss’s actions? I don’t think that meets the criteria, and certainly not the intent of the founders. Manslaughter and co-conspiracy, on the other hand, clearly do. (I’m thus backing off my suggestion to use the 25th amendment, as Biden has clearly committed impeachable crimes – I was wrong there.)
The only think I’m taking issue with here is the way your statement of “in the end, impeachment is a political act, and “high crimes and misdemeanors” can mean whatever the Congress wants them to mean.” come across. It reads (to me, anyway) that you’re saying congress can remove him at will, whether he’s committed any crimes or not.
It reads (to me, anyway) that you’re saying congress can remove him at will, whether he’s committed any crimes or not.
It reads that way because it is Constitutionally true. “High crimes and misdemeanors” are not defined in the Constitution, though there is a body of work that analyzes what the Founders meant by that, which was extensively examined in the late nineties.
It’s true that “high crimes and misdemeanors” aren’t defined, and I do recall the debates over whether Clinton’s perjury was enough to fit that definition, but I think it’s rather clear that there must be at least some actual crime involved or it does not fit the constitutional standard. For example, it would be quite unconstitutional for congress to decide that having hair plugs was enough to impeach Biden for.
I have no qualms if they impeach on an actual crime (I’d be massively in favor of it – especially the manslaughter charges) , but saying Biden can be impeached and convicted essentially at congresses’ whim, even if lacking any sort of crime, reminds me far too much of the same argument when it came from the left; that Bush should be impeached because he “lied”.
If Bush actually had “lied,” with grave consequences for the nation, that certainly could be an impeachable offense. A literal crime per the US code is not necessary to be a “high crime and misdemeanor.”
I would not enjoy a President Biden selecting Hillary as a VP.
@ Rand,
I agree that an actual crime per US code is not needed for impeachment. The scope of “High crimes” per the intent of the framers (based on their discussions and debates at the time) includes things like usurpation of powers.
Where I disagree with you, specifically, is your use of the word *Anything* in “High crimes and misdemeanors can mean anything Congress wants it to mean. Sorry, but I think that’s not so, because while it can, and does, include a range of things, it’s not everything. (They can’t, constitutionally, impeach and convict him for having hair plugs, for example).
The framers absolutely did not intend impeachment and conviction to be at the whim of congress, and the wording they chose set limits for a reason. Where those limits are is arguable, but that the framers intended some limit on congress’s power of impeachment is not. They most clearly did, and thus “Anything congress wants it to mean” is against both the spirit and letter of the constitution itself.
And as a purely practical matter, the reason I’m arguing on this so vehemently is that in the main I like your idea of (should political conditions permit it) making “repeal and replace” a campaign issue. Therefor, I’d like to see it work, and that entails not handing cudgels to the other side for them to beat us with.
Maybe not literally anything (though his hair plugs are a crime against aesthetics), but I’m quite confident that many of the Founders would find both Obama and Biden impeachable by their own definition.
On that, we fully agree. I’ve read into the debates and discussions that took place during the writing of the Constitution, and they absolutely would include usurpation of power as an impeachable offense. Their definitions were broader than modern ones, and per several SC rulings, the intent should be the governing factor. (For example, the founders clearly intended usurpation of powers to be a “high crime”).
However, even by modern standards, Obama and Biden are eminently convictable. To name just one for each we have Obama’s willful and persistent refusal to faithfully enforce the law as required by the constitution, and Biden’s commission of 38 counts (!!!) of negligent homicide.
I couldn’t disagree more, regarding one part of this anyway. (On the rest, I agree.)
First, I agree that Obama has committed impeachable offenses, such as violating his constitutional obligation (section 2, and I think article 5 thereof) to faithfully execute the law. There are others, as well. So I’m totally with you regarding impeaching Obama.
What bothers me greatly is the notion of also impeaching and convicting Biden. You’re suggesting convicting a man of a crime, when he’s committed no crime (assuming he hasn’t, of course). This is the same “it means what we say it means” line that Obama is so fond of in his own abuses of power, and it’s as wrong for us as it is for him for that very reason.
While I think Biden is a dangerously incompetent nitwit (though not quite as bad as his boss), I don’t see any grounds to support convicting the man of a crime unless he’s committed one.
Now, if you want to get Biden out of office (I do share that goal), I’d fully fully support doing so under the 25th amendment, Section 4;
” Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.”
Mental incapacity is plenty of grounds, and all jokes aside, Biden has displayed this more than adequately. His revelations regarding Seal Team 6 (Which got many of them killed, BTW) and the location of the secure VP bunker (Cheney’s famous undisclosed location) are just two of many that show him incompetent to hold the office. Also note the mention of “such other body as Congress may by law provide”. This could be all set up and ready to go the moment a new VP is selected (and it could be part of your public repeal-and-replace initiative too), so Biden would have the shortest presidential tenure on record.
The practical problem with your plan, IMHO, is there are far too many (including some on the right, like me) who would vehemently object to the concept you outlined regarding Biden. I value the constitution too much to do so.
While I think Biden is a dangerously incompetent nitwit (though not quite as bad as his boss), I don’t see any grounds to support convicting the man of a crime unless he’s committed one.
Supporting in every way high crimes and misdemeanors committed by your boss isn’t a high crime and misdemeanor? Really?
If Biden had said “You know, I don’t think that the president has an authority to do this,” then yeah, he’d be off the hook. But in this timeline, how do you think that works out for him?
Actually, that raises an interesting question. If the long knives came out, and the Democrats realized what an anchor Obama is on their electoral prospects for a generation, if Biden were smart, he’d (with a finger to the wind), say, “Yes, the president has overstepped his Constitutional authority” and lead the way for him to become president, and then the incumbent in 2016.
But I write this as a counterfactual in a universe in which Biden is smart.
I was always surprised that Algore didn;’t do just that in ’98, considering his presidential ambitions. Says something about the Clinton machine that he never wavered.
Supporting in every way high crimes and misdemeanors committed by your boss isn’t a high crime and misdemeanor? Really?
How far are you willing to carry that logic, Rand? Should every House member not voting in favor of impeachment and every Senator not voting to convict be expelled from the House or Senate for supporting high crimes and misdemeanors?
If the House decides to do that, there would be nothing unconstitutional about it. I’d find it highly unlikely, though. It would certainly be unnecessary for the purpose.
Seriously, is there some point to your question?
Why not push for an Impeachment bill now, that schedules a trile for Feb 1 2015,
which allows impeachment to be the issue of the 2014 election?
Why not stop demonstrating yourself to be a moron with every single comment you post here?
Hey, I always say “You should push for a bill of Impeachment”, it’s inherently
a political process. So, Why not push for it. You mention in your article
it would be political suicide, but why do you think that?
Why do you continue to ask stupid questions?
Actually, “supporting” could be, if it’s active support (involvement). It could also be true if Biden was aware of illegal activities that weren’t public knowledge and did nothing.
Was Biden directly involved in any of Obama’s illegal acts? Quite possibly he was, and in that case, that’s an impeachable offense. (Co-conspirator, Obstruction of Justice, etc.) An additional one would be multiple homicide (criminally negligent manslaughter) His big mouth revealed the identity of the unit that took out Bin Laden, resulting in them being targeted by the Taliban, resulting in many deaths.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/aug/9/kuhner-who-betrayed-navy-seal-team-6/
But simply paying lip service to his boss’s actions? I don’t think that meets the criteria, and certainly not the intent of the founders. Manslaughter and co-conspiracy, on the other hand, clearly do. (I’m thus backing off my suggestion to use the 25th amendment, as Biden has clearly committed impeachable crimes – I was wrong there.)
The only think I’m taking issue with here is the way your statement of “in the end, impeachment is a political act, and “high crimes and misdemeanors” can mean whatever the Congress wants them to mean.” come across. It reads (to me, anyway) that you’re saying congress can remove him at will, whether he’s committed any crimes or not.
It reads (to me, anyway) that you’re saying congress can remove him at will, whether he’s committed any crimes or not.
It reads that way because it is Constitutionally true. “High crimes and misdemeanors” are not defined in the Constitution, though there is a body of work that analyzes what the Founders meant by that, which was extensively examined in the late nineties.
It’s true that “high crimes and misdemeanors” aren’t defined, and I do recall the debates over whether Clinton’s perjury was enough to fit that definition, but I think it’s rather clear that there must be at least some actual crime involved or it does not fit the constitutional standard. For example, it would be quite unconstitutional for congress to decide that having hair plugs was enough to impeach Biden for.
I have no qualms if they impeach on an actual crime (I’d be massively in favor of it – especially the manslaughter charges) , but saying Biden can be impeached and convicted essentially at congresses’ whim, even if lacking any sort of crime, reminds me far too much of the same argument when it came from the left; that Bush should be impeached because he “lied”.
If Bush actually had “lied,” with grave consequences for the nation, that certainly could be an impeachable offense. A literal crime per the US code is not necessary to be a “high crime and misdemeanor.”
I would not enjoy a President Biden selecting Hillary as a VP.
@ Rand,
I agree that an actual crime per US code is not needed for impeachment. The scope of “High crimes” per the intent of the framers (based on their discussions and debates at the time) includes things like usurpation of powers.
Where I disagree with you, specifically, is your use of the word *Anything* in “High crimes and misdemeanors can mean anything Congress wants it to mean. Sorry, but I think that’s not so, because while it can, and does, include a range of things, it’s not everything. (They can’t, constitutionally, impeach and convict him for having hair plugs, for example).
The framers absolutely did not intend impeachment and conviction to be at the whim of congress, and the wording they chose set limits for a reason. Where those limits are is arguable, but that the framers intended some limit on congress’s power of impeachment is not. They most clearly did, and thus “Anything congress wants it to mean” is against both the spirit and letter of the constitution itself.
And as a purely practical matter, the reason I’m arguing on this so vehemently is that in the main I like your idea of (should political conditions permit it) making “repeal and replace” a campaign issue. Therefor, I’d like to see it work, and that entails not handing cudgels to the other side for them to beat us with.
Maybe not literally anything (though his hair plugs are a crime against aesthetics), but I’m quite confident that many of the Founders would find both Obama and Biden impeachable by their own definition.
On that, we fully agree. I’ve read into the debates and discussions that took place during the writing of the Constitution, and they absolutely would include usurpation of power as an impeachable offense. Their definitions were broader than modern ones, and per several SC rulings, the intent should be the governing factor. (For example, the founders clearly intended usurpation of powers to be a “high crime”).
However, even by modern standards, Obama and Biden are eminently convictable. To name just one for each we have Obama’s willful and persistent refusal to faithfully enforce the law as required by the constitution, and Biden’s commission of 38 counts (!!!) of negligent homicide.