Back to the thread.
Check out #41 and # 46.
Thanks again, David.
Posted on 10/31/2014 6:19:20 AM PDT by Enlightened1
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid warned in a fundraising pitch Wednesday that Republicans could try to impeach and remove President Obama from office if the GOP wins control of the Senate in next week’s elections.
“Frankly, a Republican House and Senate could go beyond shutting down the government — they could waste months of our lives on impeachment,” Mr. Reid said in a fundraising email sent by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which is an outside group whose goal is to bolster liberal Democrats.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
If congress accepted impeachment proceedings, would that be tantamount to declaring he is legally president?
No.
To the contrary, from a junior Dem staffer, I understand the Dem's are gaming out how an impeachment would work. Seems a little incongruous but they may try to twist this around to "before you can impeach, one element of the action is proof he really holds the office, so the burden of proof is on you to show he was eligible to be there in the first place".
In listening to what I hear in DC, there seems to be a developing common direction that the country would be better off if Barry were not President--as we drift in that direction, the topic of impeachment becomes an obvious consideration because it seems pretty obvious that much of his conduct flies in the face of Constitutional limitations on the powers of his office.
So that said, the fact that the R's lack fortitude may not have changed much but the political price involved in an eviction proceeding of some character suddenly doesn't seem to be quite so high.
Principals on both sides are thinking about the possibilities.
One of the reasons to juice this thread up is to take the temperature of the Obama Bots that hang out here.
One of the many deficiencies of the Republicans in Washington DC generally is that they don't have, use, or want to pay for competent legal help.
John Boehner's recent experience trying to get decent legal help on his lawsuit is a classic case in point--the lawyer community is Democrat and Liberal to start with; the Republicans that are out there are not very good or very aggressive.
So we want to start making a record of the correct direction of the legal process. The way to use legal process to evict Barry is to reopen the process of certification. And if they don't do that at the inception, the Dem's plan to bog them down with procedure that will carry him the rest of the way out to the next campaign.
One assumes that if Joe is not the nominee or elected, there will be effective legal work done by the Dems (who do have, use, and pay competent counsel) to get effective pardon's in place to insulate as many of the principals from legal responsibility as possible. There will still be an overhang of gaps from Barry's administration that will taint government process for many years but absolving individuals from legal responsibility will impair corrective action for some time.
Although I also detect a common understanding that Barry was born outside the United States; and that there is significant uncertainty about his parentage; and there is even some significant undercurrent among senior insiders that he is in fact not Barack H. Obama Jr. (or II); I don't hear anyone who appears to know where he was born or who his true parents were although I believe Nancy Pelosi knows.
Bttt.
5.56mm
That would require way too much work on the part of Congress.
Like the “conservatives” who took the House in 2012, I wouldn’t look for very much to happen should they take the Senate now. That way, should they actually affect by some miniscule chance something positive...anything at all, it would by then, have to come as a rather pleasant surprise, which would only demonstrate how desperate we really are.
IMO, Woofie, it all depends on whether Barry can be personally be shown to have engaged in a campaign of deception.
Barry can’t be blamed for not knowing where he was born, but if he can be proved to have deceived the American people as to where he was born or concealed other significant biographical details (some are claiming mother and/or father are different...let it be proved)..then that is another matter.
Lying to Americans is what caused Nixon to resign in 1974 without impeachment shortly after winning a huge landslide in 1972! Yes, impeachment articles were drafted and could well be drafted against Barry...but a committee of Dems could march down to the WH and give Barry the bad news that it was time form him to spend more time with his “lovely wife” (urp!) and the girls!
OK what about this angle:
But what if someone DID bring up impeachment hearings.....
if impeachment did not apply,would not that point come out in those proceedings... ?
I.E. would questions come up as to why it didn’t apply?
What group would say impeachment didn’t apply?
Which group could use that argument to their advantage?
FRmail welcome
Those questions which are inherent in the political process present a number of clean technical issues. Typically what happens when the issues are as clear as they are here is that they come up and face technical resolution in the process.
If they don't get resolved in a removal proceeding, the failure will carryover into the myriad of issues that Barry's ineligibility to hold the office presents in the government policy environment.
You can start with the general proposition that the Dems always have better legal help than the R's do. So the Dems are usually gaming operation of the technical issues well ahead of the time they are recognized by the R's and that is the case here.
What the Dems would do about it is speculation. The litney I heard from a relatively junior staff person was that the Dems would attempt to stall the proceeding with the procedural issue of eligibility--the burden of proof of all elements of the claim is on the moving party: ie the R's need to start by proving that Barry is the office holder at all. Whether they do that or not is anyone's guess.
Impeachment generally is a very difficult task. Barry is in a lot of political difficulty; it has been generally thought that impeachment would get an adverse kickback from his racial supporters however I see the current polls showing that he is losing support in that group also. It is very clear that the R's are no longer so intimidated by the difficulties.
I have set out in my earlier post what I believe the correct procedure is--I think it can be done with a majority vote by the Republicans.
Under the 20th Amendment to the Constitution the process is pretty clear--if Congress certifies an eligible person elected Vice President and does not certify an eligible person President, the certified Vice President acts as "Acting President" until an eligible person is certified President.
So technically, where we have been since January of 2009 is operating with an Acting President--Joseph Biden. Joe is not only not president, he isn't Vice President either. The 22nd Amendment makes that clear.
Section 1 of the 22nd Amendment says that "no person who has acted as President for more than 2 years of a term shall be elected to the office of President more than once."
One might think that Joe has been Acting as President for a lot more than 2 years and thus would only be eligible to run for President only once which he likely would do if Barry is ejected.
Again, I think the Dems have been here ahead of us because on several significant acts, Biden has been the actor.
Hillary and Leon Pinetta had Joe in the room for the decision to take down Osama for a reason.
Given the other things they have done (Barry's actual swearing in on both occasions was done in camera because the oath is a substantive act), you don't really know what they have done to prepare for the prospect of an end game.
That is one of the reasons the side with the best legal help usually wins these kinds of confrontation.
But it is pretty obvious that Harry is correct--lots of people in the political establishment are moving in the direction of replacing Barry.
Back to the thread.
Check out #41 and # 46.
Thanks again, David.
im confused, why not bring him up on charges of high crimes and misdemeanors without attacking his eligibility..if the dems say he was not eligible the they will have to prove it...after he is removed then attack his eligibility if the dems don’t..
Thanks... we haven’t heard the last of this.
Why would Biden be acting president or hold any office? The people voted on the combined ticket of the usurper and Biden. If the usurper is out, so should be Biden.
Because the 20th Amendment to the US Constitution says so.
From that page the first question is;
Question: What happens if the President-elect fails to qualify before inauguration?
Answer:
If the President-elect fails to qualify before inauguration, Section 3 of the 20th Amendment states that the Vice President-elect will act as President until such a time as a President has qualified.Then further down on that page is another question.
Question: Who verifies if a candidate is qualified to run for President?
Answer:
The Office of the Federal Register at the National Archives and Records Administration administers the Electoral College process, which takes place after the November general election. The Office of the Federal Register does not have the authority to handle issues related to the general election, such as candidate qualifications. People interested in this issue may wish to contact their state election officials or their Congressional Representatives.
In light of this answer I emailed the contact for that page the following.
From: Greg XXXXXXXI think there should be transcripts of some past joint sessions where eligibility is discussed. IE Chester Arthur for instance or maybe perhaps President number 10, John Tyler, who was one of the first NBC Presidents.
Sent: Wednesday, September 25, 2013 3:23 PM
To: 'electoral_college@nara.gov'
Subject: US Code 3On this page "Previous Questions of The Week." here http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/previous_questions.html
There are two questions I would like to address, the First one is "What happens if the President-elect fails to qualify before inauguration?" And the answer is correct as it states the process described in the 20th amendment and US Code 3 Sec 19. US Code 3 describes the process of counting the electoral vote for President and Vice President during a joint session of congress.
Then a subsequent question "Who verifies if a candidate is qualified to run for President?" That answer is not very specific. You mention the Office of Federal Register at the National Archives but go on to state it is a states issue. Well in section 11 we see the first mention of the Archivist. But there are three other copies of the certificates, one set being delivered to the President of the Senate. Then is section 15 we see that two tellers from each house previously selected and are handed the certificates for opening and are dealt with in an alphabetical order. It goes on to explain and clarify the counting process.
The word qualify does not appear until section 19 when it mentions the President "elect." This is because we have determined who the President and Vice President elect are. That is the point where qualifications are to be handled. In fact section 19 describes every different situation where someone other than the President elect would assume to act as President and in each case it also declares that that person needs to be "qualified". It is mentioned "nine" times! Now how can one think that any other person or body be responsible for seeing that in these different situations involving the qualification of the President and Vice President elect, or any of the other situation listed, be handled by but Congress?
3 U.S. Code Chapter 1 - PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS AND VACANCIES
So there is the process listed. Why and when did Congress start stopping at section 15?
Thank you for the ping. Very interesting, indeed.
I think the jury is till out on that one. But getting through the entire qualification process first is much more important at this point.
HupA RepubliCAN’Ts.
The federal register is not in the Constitution. To me, the twelfth Amendment makes a joint session of Congress the sole arbitrator. All the USC does is attempt to set forth the applicable procedure. But the decision is up to a joint session under the twelfth Amendment.
In January of 2009 and again in January of 2013, they relied on certificates from political officers that the guy with the greatest number of votes was eligible. Mistake of fact. Procedural error.
We have a long line of US Supreme Court decisions that eligibility to hold office is different from procedural error--it overrides everything; a person who is not eligible does not hold the office no matter what the procedure.
So to fix this, it seems to me, takes a joint session of Congress which I think the R's can do with a majority vote if they don't get there for some other reason.
More hookers in Twelfth Amendment.
The only power in Congress to elect a different vote getter than the guy who got more electoral votes comes "if no person has a majority of the electors". Barry did. Therefore the joint session who reopens the eligibility issue could not proceed to choose Romney.
Section 3 of the Twentieth Amendment seems pretty clear. it speaks in terms of the person elected having "qualified" however there are only a two sets of qualification descriptions for service in the office of President and Vice President and they are set forth in Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution.
The second: You can't serve as president until you have taken the oath the words of which are specified. The first: No person is eligible to hold the office who is not a natural born citizen who has attained the age of thirty-five years who has resided in the US for fourteen years.
So when you have a guy who is not a citizen at all even under the looser test (than the 14th Amendment) of adopted citizenship law, you have a lot of difficulty thinking that the Supreme Court would hold he was Natural Born.
So back to the twentieth Amendment--Congress gets to a joint session; designates a Special Joint Judiciary Committee at that joint session to investigate and determine the facts of whether or not the guy who got the most electoral votes was eligible--that's not in the Constitution but a joint session would have the power to do that; no limits on who that committee is but politically, it would be most credible if it were representative of the whole in terms of Dems and R's--the R's have 60% of the total members of both House and Senate--they get 60% of the members of the committee. Probably wise to have both House Members and Senate members. Fix a date for the Committee to report it's findings and then adjourn to a time certain to hear the report and decide the elections.
My guess is you don't get the R's enough courage to do this until they have either an original or attested copy of the hospital birth file believed to be that of Barry. It likely has a much different name on it than the name Barry is now using so someone who has some idea of how the persons named as mother and father got to be the actual parents of Barry would presumably testify to how that got to be the case.
That file will have an original footprint.
You then prove conclusively by getting a print from Barry under evidentary circumstances (so you know you got the real thing) to compare with the print in the birth file. When they match, you have proven where Barry really came from and have a factual basis on which to reach a legal conclusion on his eligibility status.
Barry refuses to give the print? Just like Slick Willie and the dress. If you refuse the print, we are going to determine it is you without the print. Barry will either provide or stipulate that the print is his.
Your Special Judiciary will find the facts and render a legal opinion on the eligibility issue. Assume it returns as expected, the Joint Session vacates Barry's elections in 2013 and 2009.
I don't see any real appeal of a decision from this process. One might occur and there is a theoretical basis on which that could happen. But I wouldn't expect the Court to reverse the decision either.
Under the 20th Amendment, Congress has failed to designate an eligible person by the beginning of the presidential term so the Vice President serves as acting President.
Congress might well have the power to designate a President under these circumstances. The Amendment contemplates it might well do so.
I would speculate that is not going to happen and that Joe would serve out the remainder of the term. No reason to designate a Vice President for Joe--not in his interest nor in the interest of the R's who run Congress at that point; so if Joe doesn't serve out his term, the Speaker is successor.
I would seem to me that the phrase “fails to qualify” places the burden of proof on the president elect. He of course, as we now all know, can’t.
Now that (R)'s control the Senate, and Sherriff Joe should be doing his Cold Case Posse research doc dump shortly does that mean we can now start talking about it too?
FReegards!
Its looking like 12 or 13 Democrat votes would be needed to reach the 67 votes that the Constitution requires in order to convict Obama in a Senate impeachment trial, plus all of the Senate RINOs would have to vote “guilty” too.
RINOs are unreliable. Ten of them voted Clinton not guilty of perjury.
only if we can succeed imo.
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