Amnesty and Impeachment

National Review Online ^ | November 8, 2014 | By Andrew C. McCarthy

[Oldeconomybuyer]

Absent the credible threat of impeachment, Obama will pardon millions of illegal aliens.

There is high anxiety over President Obama’s impending unilateral amnesty order for millions of illegal aliens. How many millions? The estimates vary. On the low end, 3 to 8 million, assuming some correlation to the potential beneficiaries of the president’s already existing amnesty decrees (including DACA or Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals). On the high end, as many as 9 to 34 million, factoring in likely categorical expansions of amnesty and their ramifications over the next several years.

The nation overwhelmingly objects to Obama’s immigration lawlessness, but it has no stomach for the only effective counter to it — the plausible threat of impeachment.

Nevertheless, Obama made clear again this week that he intends to push ahead with massive amnesty by executive order. Further infuriating the public with his cynicism, he has strategically but quite openly delayed his directive until after the election, as if to say, “The rubes are too stupid to grasp what I’m doing even when I make no secret of it!”

[grania]

he won't back down for any reason except maybe impeachment...

I suspect that Obama wants the 'pubs to push impeachment. If that had been on the table for this past election, he would've used it to rally the base. "Those evil 'pubs want to impeach the first black president". He didn't get that issue, instead he got a "Ferguson Effect" where people voted against Obama's lawless agenda, and he went down in flames far more than it seemed possible.

If stopping the invasion of the US is framed by expressing how the current policy is destroying opportunities for minorities and other entry-level US citizens, how it's diverting resources away from communities, and how it's a cheap trick by the Chamber of Commerce and other corporate interests, stopping the invasion will be impossible to ignore by elected pols, both parties.

Instead, we've got RINO backstabbing corporate profit globalists having their way. If we should impeach anyone, it's them, if they yet again turn their backs on the voters who gave them another chance to save the US. This time, they have more constitutional conservative voices in the HOR and US Senate to deal with, so we can hope.

[grania]

Just a thought...

Could Obama be charged with war crimes and tried at the Hague after his term is over?

[ez]

Perhaps another tack...

Don’t the election results in the State legislatures greatly improve the odds of a Constitutional Convention?

[Cboldt]

Impeachment is the "charge" or "indictment, and it takes 50% +1 of the House to impeach.

Conviction on impeachment takes 2/3rds of the Senate.

Those rules play for all impeachments and convictions, be they for an executive (president, AG, SoS) or a judge.

[Vaduz]

Flood a country with third world people and you get a third world nation Nero’s plan is working.

[Cboldt]

-- aren't the bureaucrats subject to criminal charges if they act to implement an illegal EO? --

Two points. First, all enforcement action is discretionary. There are all sorts of games played by prosecutors and charging officials during the general run of the mill enforcement activity. Second, all enforcement is initiated by the executive branch of government.

So, when a government charging official fails to act according to the law, the only remedy is removal from office. The executive isn't going to charge himself; and if Obama has ordered the bureaucrats to break the law, they will also enjoy immunity from prosecution because Obama will also order his attorneys general to ignore dereliction of enforcement of immigration law.

I think a more general proposition is that enforcers are NOT breaking the law when they fail to enforce. The "illegal" EO is just a policy implementation respecting enforcement of immigration law. If the people don't like the fact that the executive is not enforcing the law, the people have the tool of replacement, and in extreme circumstances, impeachment.

[ReaganGeneration2]

One point McCarthy makes is that withholding funding won’t stop it - a blanket pardon takes no money. Withholding funds helps, since it’s harder for the illegals to prove themselves without documentation that DACA provides, but the damage gets done. Think of the chaos.

Another point is that the threat of Impeachment/conviction is now nonexistent. But that is a weapon that can hold him back from this. The threat. With the electorate overwhelmingly against amnesty, and being 2 years away from an election, why not try it? The goal is to stop amnesty.

You need both powers: the purse and the threat of Impeachment/conviction.

[Cboldt]

Why impeach? If the case is strong enough, and if the public is fed up with the president's selective enforcement, then it's the only tool in the toolbox.

The House shifts the burden to the Senate. The politicians in the Senate have to face the public too. Clinton got off because the public was conditioned to think the issue was sex with Monica. The public thought that was a stupid reason to remove a president. The actual reason was lying to the court, but I suspect the public would think that would be a stupid reason to remove a president, too. The political calculus is different when the charge is an attempt to override immigration policy.

IMO, impeachment has to be credibly on the table. That means a committee has to work on drafting articles of impeachment, and there needs to be discussion of it in the House.

[ReaganGeneration2]

And remember that the amnesty action may not be breaking the law. Impeachment/conviction doesn’t need to be for law breaking. McCarthy explains this. It’s a political move, not necessarily legal.

[MHGinTN]

"The political calculus is different when the charge is an attempt to override immigration policy."

It is treasonous when the sitting pResident does it, because illegals are usurping the real sovereigns of this Republic and the pResident is aiding and abetting such an invasion. The penalty should be court appointed firing squad.

[Cboldt]

-- And remember that the amnesty action may not be breaking the law. --

I suspect that it isn't. Even when not written into law, the executive has discretion with regard to enforcement; plus has the pardon power.

And I think the immigration law is written in a way that expressly gives discretion. This tries to be a limited form of discretion, for cases such as "need" and "refugee", etc., which just adds another layer of rhetoric to argue about.

At bottom, this issue is whether Congress or the president sets immigration policy. The fact that there are federal laws on the books makes it appear as though Congress has that role. It will be interesting how far it lets the president step. I predict loud complaints, lawsuits filed by Congress (which will be rejected), and nothing else. Congress has no backbone.

[AFret.]

Congress still controls the money. Freeze every penny for DACA execution.
____________________________________________________________
Reasonable solution..but a non-starter. The petulant one will in turn refuse to sign ANY budget or CR effectively shutting down the govt. He will blame Rep’s and they will cave, as usual....criss cross.

[Chuzzlewit]

you make good points.. but you say it has to be credibly on the table.

it’s not credible, IMO... therefore it will be fodder for MSNBC and they will sqauk about it, even when it’s whispered from our side..

defund... and I’m not even sure how that is credible..

I”m open to what is going to work on this...

[Obama_Is_Sabotaging_America]

This isn’t about working. HILLARY WANTS +10 MILLION NEW DEMOCRAT VOTERS FOR 2016. THAT is what this is about.

[Jacquerie]

Just as bad money displaces good, corrupt institutions often corrupt virtuous arrivals.

It is why rats never turn conservative, and Tea Partiers have been prone to go wobbly or full rino.

Perhaps things will be different this coming congress, for there is a gale of tailwind behind Boehner and McConnell I informed Marco Rubio that the GOP is on probation. Failure to stop and reverse Obamunism or to nominate another squish in 2016 probably means the end of the party and our republic.

[Temujinshordes]

May be a non-starter now, but does not the Constitution specify that all appropriation bills originate in the House? I know, the Constitution has not mattered much lately, but it could with both houses now having some adults involved. Next year, the House could just refuse to appropriate funding or even authorize a CRA funding everything but Obama’s pets, so there would be no government shutdown, and then dare him to veto such a bill. Congress has to do something to keep from becoming even more of a non-entity.

[AFret.]

May be a non-starter now, but does not the Constitution specify that all appropriation bills originate in the House?
____________________________________________________________

You are correct, all appropriation bills originate in the House, even CR’s and sent to the president for signature. My point is that, if they don’t fund amnesty, he will refuse to sign any appropriations bill, shutdown the govt and blame the republicans. Yes, he is that petty..

[spodefly]

If Obama unilaterally grants amnesty to X million illegal aliens, he is saying FU to America’s legal citizens ... he is deliberately changing the demographic and electoral future of the country, replacing legal taxpaying citizens with wards-of-the-state whose hands are out to Uncle Sugar for a lifetime of care.

Impeachment is the least of what should happen to him.

I will comply with NOTHING that comes from DC if they do not stop this treason.

[nathanbedford]

Rely always on Andrew McCarthy to make his meaning plain and to bring to his writing a real coherence and a relevance to the Constitution. Let's see if we can do the same from a political viewpoint.

The threat is that Obama will flood America with 10 million to 30 million illegal aliens who will vote Democrat thus disenfranchising millions of bona fide citizens and consigning conservatism to permanent minority status. The fight is over citizenship pure and simple because that would be the means of our undoing. As a political movement, we conservatives can survive 10 million to 30 million aliens in our midst for a given amount of time but we cannot survive a like amount of aliens voting for socialism.

As deleterious to the economy as an in-flood of 30 million illegals seeking jobs which would devastate the middle-class unquestionably it would be, that is not the fight. The damage can be undone providing Republicans take the White House and the right conservative is put into the Oval Office. If a Bush is put there or a Christie, there can be no doubt that a compromise deal will be struck and the voting rolls will swell with illegal aliens.

Despite my accolades to McCarthy for his clarity, I confess I am unable to trace the steps from executive orders and executive clemency to voting citizenship. He states that liberal judges will probably rule that the Obama's clemency wipes the slate clean and therefore those illegals possessed of Obama's amnesty can be moved to the head of the line. I assume Obama would then implement a mass citizenship drive no doubt with far more efficiency than he managed for the implementation of Obamacare.

Obama would have about 26 months to get these people enrolled as citizens, a formidable task which can only be accomplished by mass swearing ins etc. it may be that Obama would seek court orders from his judges ratifying the status of these illegals as proper candidates for citizenship. These decrees would then elevate them up above the level which can be undone by an executive order subsequently issued by a conservative president. In any event, Obama probably figures it's a good bet that the next president will be unable politically, if not legally, to undo his fait accompli.

I confess that I am largely ignorant of the laws concerning the path to citizenship so I cannot venture how monkey wrenches might be thrown into the procedures by which millions of Americans would be created out of illegal aliens. Andrew McCarthy does not touch on this but there must be several intermediate steps vulnerable to interdiction. These possibilities must be searched out because the alternative is to fall back to Andrew McCarthy's position that impeachment and only impeachment, or at least the credible threat of impeachment, has a chance of stopping Obama.

Now, we must consider the downside of impeachment. Charles Krauthammer makes a very telling point that Obama is probably courting impeachment as a way to reverse the verdict of the people in this election. It might appeal to his narcissism as a glorious end to his career to become a political martyr to millions of people of color. He probably believes as does Krauthammer that impeachment would fail and likely would produce a pushback even more damaging than that which allegedly resulted from the impeachment of William Jefferson Clinton. These are imponderables to be sure but if the fight over citizenship can be won short of impeachment that option should be taken to avoid considerable downside risks of impeaching the First Black President and falling short of removal.

What if Andrew McCarthy is right, impeachment is in fact the only way to stop Obama from destroying the Republic through unrestricted immigration? We conservatives would no doubt unhesitatingly say, impeach him even at the cost of predictable failure because the downside is literally the loss of the country. We might even find a few conservative senators who will fall on their swords with us but we would find damn few Rinos and no Democrats. The establishment of the Republican Party certainly will not risk breaking their rice bowls merely to save the Republic. So there is realistically small hope that impeachment will be attempted. Even if attempted, there is very little hope that it will succeed and result in removal from office. Even if attempted, successful, and removes Obama from office, even that does not necessarily mean that his plan will not have succeeded by the time impeachment is fully implemented. The point is not to impeach Obama but to keep illegal aliens out of our polling booths. That is the fight. It is for survival which means that if Obama succeeds we die.

I propose that counteroffensives on all fronts be initiated immediately. It is not too soon to condition the public to the threat and to open the public's mind to impeachment. As part of the counteroffensive all legislative options should be used as soon as Republicans gain control the Senate. Meanwhile, lawsuit after lawsuit in jurisdiction after jurisdiction should be undertaken. Somewhere, somehow we need an affirmative ruling which at least a delay is if it doesn't derail Obama's plan. As much money should be spent on television ads to educate the public to the threat of immigration, their loss of jobs, their increase taxes, their loss of community services and hospital care etc, to shape the political landscape so that some doubt is raised in Obama's mind that impeachment might actually succeed in his removal. In any event it is naïve to believe that the courts are not influenced by the political winds and if enough noise can be generated and if the 70% who oppose amnesty can be animated, the courts will listen and contrive some way to derail the process of baptizing citizens wholesale.

We must not forget that it was Republican senators who drove down Pennsylvania Avenue to tell Nixon that he had lost their support and must resign. Pressure must be brought against Democrats so that they abandon their lame-duck president in order to save their own seats. If a few hundred million dollars is spent (a fraction of the $3 billion spent on this recent midterm election) the entire picture for Democrats not just for immigration but for impeachment can be altered.

Congress is still possessed the power of the purse and it can strip all of the agencies responsible for making citizens of their budget. As one poster suggested, such a move would bring a veto by Obama and result in a shutdown of the government. Many of us do not believe that the Republicans would suffer as much damage as the establishment media would lead the country to believe from shutdowns, and I don't believe that a properly handled and advertised shutdown would be damaging if the public comes to understand that the alternative is unrestrained amnesty. In any event, it is a fight for survival and if the price of shutting down the government must be paid to survive, so be it. The question is how to make Rino Republicans see the light and that should be done, as Ronald Reagan said, by making them feel the heat.

[MacNaughton]

3 Without the 67 votes necessary to convict, Obama feels he is golden, (and he is). Unless the Pubbies can convince enough moderate Democrats that their future is in peril if Obama continues along his anti-constitutional track nothing can or will happen. I am even somewhat suspect of a few of the RINO Republicans when it comes to voting for conviction. ...

Blue Dog Coalition

The Blue Dog Coalition, commonly known as the Blue Dogs or Blue Dog Democrats, is a caucus of U.S. Congressional House Representatives from the Democratic Party who identify themselves as moderates and conservatives.

It was formed in 1995[8] during the 104th Congress to give more conservative members from the Democratic party a unified voice after the Democrats' loss of Congress in the U.S. Congressional election of 1994.[9] Blue Dog Coalition membership experienced a rapid decline in the 2010s, now having 19 seats in the 113th Congress. The 2014 mid-term election saw that number in the U.S. House reduced to 11.

The term "Blue Dog Democrat" is credited to Texas Democratic Rep. Pete Geren (who later joined the Bush Administration). Geren opined that the members had been "choked blue" by extreme Democrats from the Left.[12] It is related to the political term "Yellow Dog Democrat," a reference to southern Democrats said to be so loyal they would even vote for a yellow dog if it were labeled Democrat.

Map of caucus members during the 111th Congress

Map of caucus members during the 113th Congress

Getting the U.S. Senate to vote 67% for conviction on articles of impeachment and removal is an extremely high bar. We are witnessing the near extinction of the Blue Dog Democrats in the U.S. House during BHO's watch. I cannot envision 15 Democrat Senators, who are statesmen, who would cross the aisle and vote for BHO's conviction. And that is ASS-U-ME-ing that the RINO Senators all vote for conviction.