Road to Impeachment, 2/2:Impeaching Obama for Tyranny

Road to Impeachment, 2/2: Unless One Assumes Marx Correct, Obama's Decisions are Utterly Indefensible

Impeaching Obama for Tyranny…Means Finding Political Will, Not the Right “Magic Words”



Impeaching Obama for Tyranny…Means Finding Political Will, Not the Right Magic Words
Road to Impeachment, Part 1,http://josephfreedomoranarchy.blogspot.com/2014/07/impeaching-obama-for-tyranny-only-way.html

This is the second in a two-piece article on impeachment of Barack Obama. America is navigating extraordinary travails attempting to adapt to Barack’s increasingly erratic and arbitrary decision-making. This is apparently motivated by his own misbegotten notion he’s a secular prophet who must force America to adapt into his socialistic fantasies. His trashing of the Constitution, ignoring Congress and claiming amnesia on the separation of powers has created a crisis which few on either side seem ready to address.



Dennis the Menace on Crack: Juvenile Obama Delivers American Disasters

The very bad news is America does not seem to have the courage, conviction or stones to stand up to our deranged and deluded leader, and impeach him. The good news is there is no magic formula for impeachment, just a requirement for political will to do the deed. This certainly goes without saying, for if a leader was found to be doing things to destroy the democracy, regardless the category of his behavior of his “High Crimes & Misdemeanors,” he would have to be removed, ASAP—Correct?

The current border crisis, with its astoundingly depressing details seems like a mélange of the worst aspects of Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals, altruism, and Cloward and Pivin. It seems set as a Magical Realism piece—the Mexican art-house film effect of mixing the surreal with the mundane. It would be slapstick if not so deadly. And our adolescent president looks on with loving, revolutionary approval, as countless hordes surge over the border daily. Barack must especially enjoy the Alinskyite irony that in forcing Americans to swallow ever larger quantities of kids and adults, we are being destroyed by forcing us to live up to our virtues.

https://www.facebook.com/notes/joseph-f-barber/tyranny-and-control-or-freedom-and-achievement-which-will-it-be-for-america-obam/10150416646614984

I. Extreme Constitutional Emergency: Time for Impeachment

It would be redundant at this point to illustrate the incredible number of situations in America, or around the world, which Barack has worsened. We must merely note America is at the tipping point, although most seem unaware. The border chaos is simply emblematic, combining all the hallmarks of his sly “incompetence,” which is really just a genius for creating disasters whose only purpose is overthrowing the old US order.

In fact, the WA Post published on June 27th, 2014 an article titled Restoring balance among the branches of government in Washington, in,http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/restore-balancing-among-the-branches-of-government-in-washington/2014/06/27/81440022-f49d-11e3-b633-0de077c9f768_story.html

A growing crisis in our constitutional system threatens to fundamentally alter the balance of powers—and accountability—within our government. This crisis did not begin with Obama, but it has reached a constitutional tipping point during his presidency…First, we need to discuss the erosion of legislative authority within the evolving model of the federal government. There has been a dramatic shift of authority toward presidential powers and the emergence of what is essentially a fourth branch of government—a vast network of federal agencies with expanded legislative and judicial power… The framers believed that members of each branch of government would transcend individual political ambitions to vigorously defend the power of their institutions.

Overall, considering the subject of Barack’s crazy behavior, and his alarming state of mind, it seems obvious he must be pondering the possibility of some kind of revolution in America. Why? Because, for a man so vain and self-absorbed, how can he possibly accept what seems now his certain place in the pantheon—the worst president in history? In fact, the only way he could acquiesce to the lowest of presidential rankings would be if he had a chance to be top president of the new, reformatted United States of Amerika.

II. Elements of Impeachment

From previous articles on impeachment, here’s a summary of Obama Must be Impeached: He’s Either Incompetent, or Purposely Failing, and Obama’s Grave Dereliction of Duty as an Impeachable Act.
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/25496

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/25761

http://josephfreedomoranarchy.blogspot.com/2014/07/obama-no-consequences-for-treason-and.html

A. The Impeachment Process in a Nutshell
Standard impeachment follows a well-established path, outlined by the Legal Information Institute:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/background/impeach/impeach.htm

The process roughly resembles a grand jury inquest, conducted by the House, followed by a full-blown trial, conducted by the Senate with the Chief Justice presiding. Impeachment is not directed exclusively at Presidents. The Constitutional language, “all civil officers,” includes such positions as Federal judgeships. The legislature, however, provides a slightly more streamlined process for lower offices by delegating much of it to committees. See Nixon v. US, 506 U.S. 224 (1993)(involving removal of a Federal judge). Presidential impeachments involve the full, public participation of both branches of Congress.
http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/91-740.ZS.html

B. High Crimes & Misdemeanors
Constitutional warrant for impeaching US officials is found in US Constitution, Article II, Section 4.

“The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”

1. Reasonably Defining High Crimes & Misdemeanors

The phrase High Crimes & Misdemeanors can mean obvious crimes, yet cannot simply be claimed “criminal activity” as this would wall-off devastating presidential acts creating irreparable damage, which were not technically “crimes.”http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution.html

http://topics.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articleii

“High Crimes & Misdemeanors” ought be viewed as an assault against the state’s integrity by a high official. Michael J. Gerhardt, in The Federal Impeachment Process: A Constitutional and Historical Analysis,” explains impeachable acts are properly understood as an attack against the state. This must be true by logical necessity. For if not—a leader set upon destroying a country, yet never caught in an actual crime, could not be removed.

To illustrate, Judge Richard Posner, in An Affair of State: The Investigation, Impeachment, and Trial of President Clinton, claims impeachment can occur despite technical absence of law breaking.

Posner offers the following hypothetical:

If the President moved to Saudi Arabia so that he could have four wives, intending to run the government of the United States by email and telephone, he would have to be removed from office, even though he would not be committing a crime by his absenteeism; and the only mode of removal would be impeachment.

C. Essence of Impeachment: Political Crimes
Gerhardt explains how impeachment is fundamentally a political decision, not a legal or moral one. In Chapter 9, titled “The Scope Of Impeachable Offenses,” he sums up the issue:

The major disagreement is not over whether impeachable offenses should be strictly limited to indictable crimes, but rather over the range of non-indictable offenses on which an impeachment may be based.

1. British History of Impeachment

Impeachment originated in England. For its history, Raoul Berger, in Impeachment: The Constitutional Problems, states the British defined “‘high crimes and misdemeanors’ as a category of political crimes against the state.” Further, William Blackstone, British legal expert to the Founders, differentiated “high treason” from “low treason,” the latter being disloyalty to an equal or lesser. So high treason was disloyalty to a superior person or entity. According to Arthur Bestor, this difference describes how a fair impeachment proceeding would be founded upon a profound assault to the state itself, or high treason, as detailed in the Clinton Impeachment record.http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/GPO-CDOC-106sdoc3/html/GPO-CDOC-106sdoc3-20.htm

2. Founders on Impeachment

The American constitutional Framers understood the difference between high and low treason, believing impeachment dealt with high treasons in the form of attacks against the state. For example, George Mason felt impeachments should be limited to acts that “attempt to subvert the Constitution,” among which he felt should include ”maladministration.” None of the Founders believed impeachment was simply a process to deal with straightforward crimes. Gerhardt writes,

In short, the debates at the constitutional convention show at least that impeachable offenses were not limited to indictable offenses, but included offenses against the state.

The ratification debates on the Constitution examined “great” offenses, such as when an executive “deviates from his duty” or “dare to abuse the power vested in him by the people.” Founder Alexander Hamilton wrote on this in Federalist 65:http://www.ustreas.gov/education/history/secretaries/ahamilton.shtml

http://www.constitution.org/fed/federa65.htm

A well-constituted court for the trial of impeachments is an object not more to be desired than difficult to be obtained in a government wholly elective. The subjects of its jurisdiction are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated POLITICAL, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself. The prosecution of them, for this reason, will seldom fail to agitate the passions of the whole community, and to divide it into parties more or less friendly or inimical to the accused. In many cases it will connect itself with the pre-existing factions, and will enlist all their animosities, partialities, influence, and interest on one side or on the other; and in such cases there will always be the greatest danger that the decision will be regulated more by the comparative strength of parties, than by the real demonstrations of innocence or guilt.

Founder and US Supreme Court Justice, James Wilson concurred, calling impeachable offenses… “political crimes and misdemeanors.” US Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, himself a noted impeachment authority, agreed. In “Proceedings in the Cases of the Impeachment of Charles Robinson, et al,” Wilson stated,

http://www.archives.upenn.edu/people/1700s/wilson_jas.html

http://www.oyez.org/justices/joseph_story

http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_2_5s18.html



The subject (of impeachment) is full of intrinsic difficulty in a government purely elective. The jurisdiction is to be exercised over offenses which are committed by public men in violation of their public trusts and duties. Those duties are, in many cases, political; and, indeed, in other cases, to which the power of impeachment will probably be applied…the power partakes of a political character… Political injuries to be of such kinds of misdeeds… as to peculiarly injure the commonwealth by the abuse of high offices of trust.

D. Novel Crimes are Impeachable
Justice Story also stated a particular action did not have to have been previously made illegal, writing “...no previous statute is necessary to authorize an impeachment for any official misconduct.”  This was considered crucial since no exhaustive statutes could ever be drafted so well as to foresee every single future event threatening the Republic. He said,

Political offenses are of so various and complex a character, so utterly incapable of being defined, or classified, that the task of positive legislation would be impracticable, if it were not absurd to attempt it.

III. Non-Indictable Impeachable Offenses

The hardest category for impeachments is defining actions that are not obvious crimes, but reveal such lack of character, ill-will or indifference to America’s safety that they become impeachable offenses, ipso facto. Lawrence Tribe, in his “American Constitutional Law” mentions two examples: “...a deliberate presidential decision to emasculate our national defenses or to conduct a private war in circumvention of the Constitution” could form the basis for a non-indictable, impeachable action against a president. According to Buckner F. Melton’s book The First Impeachment: The Constitution’s Framers And The Case Of Senator William Blount, impeachment is designed to remove a person who profoundly betrays the public trust. It is also an adversarial undertaking.

IV. Grave Dereliction of Duty as an Impeachable Event

A. General Argument of Dereliction as Impeachable Offense
Bad decision-making, when it reaches critical levels, must lead to removal under the theory the state has a right to survival. “Grave Dereliction” is here defined as decision-making indefensibly threatening national security, fiscal solvency, or political stability. John Locke’s

B. Defining “Dereliction of Duty”
The phrase “Dereliction of Duty” is sometimes used within a military setting. This fits Obama splendidly given his title of Commander & Chief of the Armed Forces.
http://usmilitary.about.com/library/milinfo/mcm/bl113.htm

Uslegal.com defines Dereliction of Duty as:http://definitions.uslegal.com/d/dereliction-of-duty-military-law/

Dereliction of duty refers to failure through negligence or obstinacy to perform one’s legal or moral duty to a reasonable expectation. In other words, it means willful or negligent failure to perform assigned duties or performing them in a culpably inefficient manner.

Who would not categorize abandoning Iraq, supporting random Middle Eastern uprisings, pointlessly blocking new oil pipelines, Refusing to enforce our border, or shrinking the US military during times of unprecedented danger, etc would not be Dereliction of Duty for Obama?!!

Conclusion

It is clear that unless Barack Obama is removed from office, and quickly, America quite possibly will suffer some kind of failure of security, economy, public policy, or an international disaster from which we will never fully recover. The world without America is a much less prosperous and more dangerous place. To survive, we must remove our national cancer…The Time to Impeach Obama is Now!!!