GOP’S DREAMS OF IMPEACHMENT

 

 

The following is how the GOP House Speaker has made his first step toward impeaching President Obama.

The last time an American Democratic president won a 2^nd term, he was impeached by the Republican House. 

When President Bush won his 2^nd term there were many Democrats in Congress that wanted to impeach President Bush, but the then House Speaker, Nancy Peolsi said, “Impeachment is not on the table.”

 

I admit, I had thought that if Clinton could get impeached for having unauthorized sex in the White House, Dubya Bush, getting us into two expensive and pointless wars should be enough justification….?

I guess my point is, for the future, will all future presidents have to start worrying about the possibility of their own impeachment after 2 years of assuming their new office?

Let’s just look at the current president and what he has had to endure since being elected in 2008.

 

President Obama giving his Inauguration Speech

First, on the day of Obama’s inauguration, key Republicans were meeting at a Washington DC restaurant for discussing how they would not work with the new president, and how they could make Obama a one term president.  When the one term idea had failed, they then decided to go after a possible impeachment.

Obama and his administration, with the then help of the Democratic House & Senate, got the things done for fixing the nation’s worst financial disaster since the Great Depression. They then began the process of getting the Affordable Care Act (ACA) lined up for approval.  At that point, the Republicans decided to seriously start looking for something that could justify having an impeachment hearing for this sitting president.

 

 

House Oversight Chairman, Darrell Issa (R-CA)

First, in May of 2010, the Chairman if the House Oversight Committee, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) accused the White House of offering then Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA) a job so he wouldn’t oppose Senator Arlen Specter, a Republican-turned-Democrat.  Issa said that this was,  “a crime and it could be impeachable.”  Since there was nothing to the accusation, and since Sestak lost his election to the Republican candidate, the issue was summarily dropped.

As has been shown by Committee Chairman Issa, he has continued to have investigation after investigation on subjects such as the IRS Scandal, Benghazi, Fast & Furious, NSA and a host of other subjects, but so far, they have all been to no avail for any implementation by the president.

Then, in December 2011, Representative Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI) accused President Obama’s Attorney General, Eric Holder and the Justice Department, of withholding information regarding the “Fast & Furious” hearing.  Sensenbrenner said, “If we don’t get to the bottom of this, Congress might have to resort to the only one alternative it had, and it is called impeachment.” In fact, 20 House Republicans filed to impeach the Attorney General, but that ended the impeachment issue right there, as it was found that nothing was being withheld.

Then 2013 was a busy "impeachment talk" year.

·       Rep. Kerry Bentivolio (R-MI) Made it clear when he said that it would be his “dream come true” if he could be the author of Articles of Impeachment against President Obama.

·       Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.) said that, because of allegations of a White House Benghazi cover-up, “people may be starting to use the I-word before too long”

·       Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) said the nation was “perilously close to circumstances that might require impeachment.”

All this happened in mid-2013, yet you will notice that nothing was or is stated as to what the issues were that would be real impeachable issues that fit the constitutional requirement of, “High Crimes and Misdemeanors”.

 

Speaker of the House, John Boehner (R-OH)

And now, the Republican House Speaker, John Boehner (R-OH) is in the process of suing the president for stopping the employer mandate for the ACA.  This is the same mandate that the Republican House had voted against to get it stopped...?

So, the suit is against the president for doing what the House had tried, and failed to do with their Republican votes...?

The way House Speaker Boehner is trying to make his case is how he framed it for CNN earlier this month when he stated, “In the end, the Constitution makes it clear that the president’s job is to faithfully execute the laws, and, in my view, the president has not faithfully executed the laws when it comes to a range of issues, including his health care law, energy regulations, foreign policy and education. There must be accountability.”

(By the way, if Speaker Boehner’s law suit should become successful, which is highly doubtful, the president’s term will have already ended by the time this suit could even be declared successful.)

The reality is, that this suit is just a beginning step toward an eventual goal of impeachment.  If the suit is rejected by the court and Boehner doesn’t get his desired, “accountability”, the House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA), has already on FOX News, declined to rule out possible impeachment as a next step.

According to past issues that have occurred between the different houses of government, the high courts have refused to take on or allow any suits between the legislative and the executive branches.  In the past, they have basically said , “you guys work it out between yourselves”.  So either work it out or impeach the guy.  This would just give the Republican House the go ahead to do what they did to Bill Clinton in 1998.  And if they were to take the Senate this November, they could then authorize an impeachment trial in the Senate.  

Now, it would take a number of Democratic Senator’s votes to actually oust the Democratic president which would not happen, but they could still put a big asterisk on the first Black president’s legacy.  That is their real goal.

But to get back to the real question.

When compared to other US presidents use of their presidential powers, just exactly what has President Obama done that justifies being impeached?

There is no there…..there.

Copyright G.Ater  2014