Posted on 05/19/2017 10:29:33 AM PDT by drewh
Bill Kristol and Ross Douthat have respectively gone public with their scheming to remove President Donald Trump from office.
Douthat wrote a New York Times column published Tuesday night that called for Trump to be removed from office via the 25th Amendment to the Constitution
Kristol wrote on Twitter Tuesday that his and his allies goal is to dispose of Trump and Trumpism but that it will take time, Several of you have asked, What IS path forward? Well, were working on it. Disposing of Trump & overcoming Trumpism cant be done in a day.
Kristol was writing about the path forward for Republicans in wake of latest onslaught against Trump, GOP members & donors are in grip of quiet desperation. Task of anti-Trump Republicans isnt to say I told you so, but chart path forward.
Douthat teased the genesis of his column with comments on Twitter about Trump and fired FBI DIrector James Comey, I think the combination of saying this to Comey and then *firing* Comey makes a stronger 25th Amendment case than impeachment case It suggests a man who literally cannot think through the howlingly obvious consequences of his actions.
Excerpt from Douthats column in which he argues Trump has a childs mind and cannot be held legally accountable for his actions:
There is, as my colleague David Brooks wrote Tuesday, a basic childishness to the man who now occupies the presidency. That is the simplest way of understanding what has come tumbling into light in the last few days: The presidency now has kinglike qualities, and we have a child upon the throne.
It is a child who blurts out classified information in order to impress distinguished visitors. It is a child who asks the head of the F.B.I. why the rules cannot be suspended for his friend and ally. It is a child who does not understand the obvious consequences of his more vindictive actions like firing the very same man whom you had asked to potentially obstruct justice on your say-so.
A child cannot be president. I love my children; they cannot have the nuclear codes.
But a child also cannot really commit high crimes and misdemeanors in any usual meaning of the term. There will be more talk of impeachment now, more talk of a special prosecutor for the Russia business; well and good. But ultimately I do not believe that our president sufficiently understands the nature of the office that he holds, the nature of the legal constraints that are supposed to bind him, perhaps even the nature of normal human interactions, to be guilty of obstruction of justice in the Nixonian or even Clintonian sense of the phrase. I do not believe he is really capable of the behind-the-scenes conspiring that the darker Russia theories envision. And it is hard to betray an oath of office whose obligations you evince no sign of really understanding or respecting.
Which is not an argument for allowing him to occupy that office. It is an argument, instead, for using a constitutional mechanism more appropriate to this strange situation than impeachment: the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, which allows for the removal of the president if the vice president and a majority of the cabinet informs the Congress that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office and (should the president contest his own removal) a two-thirds vote by Congress confirms the cabinets judgment
End excerpt, complete article at link.
The Establishment sharks smell blood in the water and may be moving in to try take Trump out.
We said if all Trump did was destroy the Republican party he’d be a success.
Looks like that is still in play.
WTF has TRUMP done that they still can't stand?
I saw this other IDIOT Bret Stephens bashing TRUMP the other day
I just don't get it
The cocktail parties are no fun anymore, and that’s a real problem.
Add Steve Hayes and Jona Brassberg to the list
Kraut hammer is also bad news but he is just old and worn out and can’t contemplate change to get out of his rut
Their only pique is that he’s not a Republicrat like they are........
Kristol is in a class by himself... he’s taken over the old role McCain played - always ready to trash Republicans if a camera’s near by... There’s hope for the other two...
Yes. That's what they're saying. In spite of the fact that NO COUNTRY run by self appointed 'elites' ever works... they all devolve into elites becoming thugs in the process of feathering their own nests...
AMEN.......he can kiss my arse and burn in hell!
RB...
If by chance did you see any of my post in the last 1.5 years? I called it "the great disillusionment"
All our vaulted hero's turned to zero's with their TDS. How many do I never read or listen too again, let me name a few: Kristol, Beck, Levin, Erickson and those are pundits. Politico's? Dick Armey, Haley Barbour what they did to rig it for "Thad", McCain, Trent Lott, Lindsey G do I need to go on? Some have had the light go on, that includes Rush, Kruthammer, and Hewitt, I can take them in limited doses, very limited....
Where are all the Republican office holders? Why aren’t they out defending Trump vociferously and telling Graham, McCain, Amish, etc. to shut up? All Freepers should call or email their representatives and senators and ask that. Light a fire under their butts and tell them they must support and openly defend the president!
Let’s go to the relevant sections of the 25th:
“Section 3. Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President.”
This is how, fortunately, it has always been invoked, usually for the period of a pending surgery.
“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.”
So the plotters have to get Mike Pence and a majority of the Cabinet to go along with the premise that President Trump is psychologically or psychiatricly disabled, if a convenient physical disability doesn’t arise.
Failing that, Congress would then have to rush through legislation with a veto-proof majority to create an alternate body, made up of God knows whom, to declare Trump disabled, and then hope a judge somewhere doesn’t stay its declaration or declare the legislation unconstitutional.
“Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days 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. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.”
So Congress has to then gin up a two-thirds vote of both Houses to override the President’s declaration of ability, within three weeks, a process that could be repeated again and again just by having him file the appropriate letter.
Every presumption in the 25th Amendment is in favour of the President, as it should be, lest it be used by irresponsible schemers to remove a healthy but undesirable President.
People who cite the 25th Amendment as a miracle escape clause are deluding themselves, especially if they have read it.
What could happen to these people while they play this dangerous game?
A firing squad? Nah.
So what can it be?
They could possibly set off a Civil War.................
Trump needs to shape-up according to Perle.
Perle still needs zillions to put the finishing touches on the oil company he started w/ his war profiteering from the Iran war....... the war the calculated warmongering neocons duped GwB into.
Course, Perle stays above the fray----dining in fine Paris restaurants on tuffled squab in Armagnac Sauce ...quaffing crystal flutes of chilled Châteauneuf-du-Pape of impeccable Southern Rhône vintage.
Kristol better hurry up.....Perle needs the war profiteering zillions.
Sources tell mynewscalifornia, that no Republican member of the US House of Representatives is onboard, with this proposal.
Kristol and Douhat needed a reason to publish something, anything to be in the news.
I’d like to hog-tie Kristol, spray paint him black, and stick him out in my front yard holding a lantern...
The narrative is that Trump is mentally ill, and therefore...
I haven't seen this kind of filthy political evil since the 70s when the Soviet and Chinese Communists sent people to mental institutions to be "reeducated."
Sadly, most conservatives aggressively defended Kristol and Perle during the Dubya regime years.
I cannot imagine any act that could end the Republican party quicker than to attempt to impeach & remove Trump from office. That would be the last straw for me & most working/thinking Americans, who would form another party & abandon the corrupt Republicans for good.
Someone needs to check the Capitol water supply - it might be contaminated with LSD.
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