Thread: The Case For Obama’s Impeachment

The Case For Obama’s Impeachment

June 9, 2014 by Bob Livingston

OFFICIAL WHITE HOUSE PHOTO BY PETE SOUZA

There is clear and convincing evidence that President Barack Obama has on numerous occasions willfully committed treason and high crimes and misdemeanors and should be removed from office.
The “crimes” that led to the impeachment of both Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton and the resignation of Richard Nixon pale in comparison to Obama’s. Johnson’s “crimes” were purely political. He favored a policy of benevolent reconciliation with the Southern States following the Civil War. He issued a series of proclamations that directed the Southern States to hold conventions and elections to reform their governments; he attempted to veto a number of bills establishing military districts to oversee the new State governments; he vetoed an incumbent protection act called the Tenure of Office Act; and he fired Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, who was working against him at every turn. Those moves were all contrary to the wishes of the Republicans who controlled both houses of Congress in the aftermath of the war. The impeachment vote in the Senate failed by one vote on all three counts to receive the two-thirds majority necessary to remove Johnson from office.
Clinton was impeached for perjury to a grand jury and obstruction of justice in the Paula Jones sexual harassment suit and the related independent counsel’s investigation in the Monica Lewinsky affair and various other Clinton misdeeds. Forty-five Senators—all of them Republican—voted to remove Clinton from office over the perjury charge. Fifty voted to remove him for obstruction of justice. Though Clinton was clearly guilty, not one Democrat in the Senate voted to impeach. And, in fact, the Senate voted 100-0 to not hear any live witnesses in the trial.
Nixon, of course, resigned a couple of weeks after the House opened its impeachment hearings over his role in the cover-up of the Watergate break-in and other allegations of his misuse of office, the facts of which were just coming to light at the time.
The “I-word” hit the mainstream media after war-loving, chicken hawk and John McCain-lapdog Senator Lindsey Graham warned Obama that Republicans would call for his impeachment if he released more prisoners from Guantanamo Bay without Congressional approval. Before that, anyone mentioning impeachment was shouted down and cast by the media and the establishment as nutty, kooky or… wait for it… a conspiracy theorist. Obama responded to Graham’s threat by having his underlings release news that another Gitmo prisoner may soon be sprung.
I am under no illusion that the impeachment proceedings are in the offing, regardless of what Obama does. Neither is Obama. Graham’s threat was as idle as an inattentive parent’s threat to a misbehaving child. When you hear a parent tell his child “No” over and over, and then hear him say, “You do that once more and you’re in trouble,” you know that child is never disciplined — and the child knows it, too. This is Congress and Obama.
Neither Republicans nor Democrats in Washington, D.C., are interested in anything other paying lip service to the Constitution while solidifying their respective grips on power and transferring America’s wealth to their favored crony partners. That is all that matters in D.C. Neither party will intentionally do anything to upset their cushy apple cart.
And the MSM, which long ago abandoned any pretense at objective journalism, are beholden to the elites and in the tank for the regime, drunk as they are on being next to the power structure. You can’t expect real journalism with a lineup like this:

• ABC Senior Correspondent Claire Shipman is married to outgoing White House Press Secretary Jay Carney.
• CNN President Virginia Moseley is married to Hillary Clinton’s Deputy Secretary Tom Nides.
• CBS President David Rhodes is the brother of top Obama official Ben Rhodes, who is responsible for rewriting the Benghazi talking points.
• ABC President Ben Sherwood is the brother of Obama special adviser Elizabeth Sherwood.

However, six years of this lawless regime is more than any sane person should be expected to endure. Even leftist legal scholar Jonathan Turley called Obama “the president Richard Nixon always wanted to be.”
So here are my articles of impeachment — in no particular order — for the undocumented usurper currently despoiling the People’s House: Barack Hussein Obama.

• He provided aid and comfort to the enemy by releasing five suspected terrorists and former members of the Taliban who participated in or orchestrated attacks against Americans.
• He violated a law he signed six months prior requiring him to notify Congress 30 days before releasing GITMO detainees.
• He has willfully and repeated violated Article I, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution by continuously amending the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare.
• He knowingly and willfully violated Article I, Section 7 of the U.S. Constitution by signing the ACA, knowing full well it was a bill for raising revenue that had originated in the Senate.
• He engaged in fraud by repeatedly lying to the American people about the effects of the ACA by claiming that Americans could keep their current coverage and physicians if they chose.
• He exercised an abuse of power by instructing, through his proxies, agents of the Internal Revenue Service to target conservative organizations and his critics for extra scrutiny and audits.
• He participated in an obstruction of justice and a criminal conspiracy by hindering a Congressional investigation into the Internal Revenue Service targeting scandal and using Attorney General Eric Holder and the Department of Justice in that obstruction.
• He provided aid and comfort to the enemy by ordering or allowing the sale of arms and ammunition to al-Qaida-linked terrorists in Syria and by dispatching agents of the government to advise and train in the use of the those weapons and in military tactics.
• He failed, despite repeated requests by the U.S. Consulate, to provide the security necessary to ensure the safety of U.S. personnel and the Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.
• He knowingly and willfully denied military assistance to Americans under attack at the Benghazi Consulate, resulting in the trashing of the U.S. Consulate building, the theft of sensitive documents and the deaths of four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens.
• He knowingly and willfully lied and ordered his proxies to lie about the circumstances surrounding the attack on the U.S Consulate in Benghazi, thereby perpetrating a fraud on the American people in order to ensure his re-election and to cover up his illegal gun running operation.
• He violated the War Powers Act by failing to gain Congressional approval for the military attack on Libya that resulted in the overthrow of the Libyan regime.
• He provided aid and comfort to the enemy by using the American military and intelligence organizations and allowing the sale of arms and ammunition to al-Qaida-linked terrorists in order to assist them in overthrowing a legal regime in Libya that Congress had not declared war upon.
• He has repeatedly made war on various Middle Eastern countries with the use of drone attacks without the approval of Congress in violation of the War Powers Act and in violation of Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution.
• He has ordered the murders of at least three American citizens without due process in violation of Amendments 5, 6, 8 and 14.
• He has repeatedly used the Environmental Protection Agency to contravene Congress and pass laws harmful to American businesses and consumers, in violation of Article I, Section 1.
• He has repeatedly violated the 4^th Amendment by allowing agencies under his direction to continue to spy upon, wiretap and collect personal information of American citizens who are not criminal suspects.
• He has repeatedly violated Article II, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution by disregarding laws passed by Congress, including, but not limited to, U.S. immigration laws, civil rights laws and the Defense of Marriage Act.
• He knowingly allowed the illegal sale of weapons to Mexican narco-terrorists that were later used to kill Americans, including border agent Brian Terry.
• He obstructed justice by participating with Attorney General Holder in a cover-up of the Fast and Furious gun running scheme.
• He knowingly and willfully violated Article IV, Section 4 by failing to protect the border States against invasion, and in fact encouraged that invasion through his rhetoric and with the use of executive orders that contravened U.S. immigration law.
• He knowingly and willfully violated Article IV, Section 4 (guaranteeing a republican form of government to each State) by strong-arming, intimidating and threatening to withhold funds from the States of Oklahoma, Texas, Montana, Rhode Island and Arizona in order to coerce the people and legislatures of those States and prevent the passage of laws according to the citizen’s wishes.
• He instructed his Interior Secretary to ignore the orders of Federal courts to lift a moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, which denied oil workers an opportunity to earn a living and damaged the U.S. economy.
• He broke established precedent and contravened established bankruptcy law, to the detriment of the bond holders and the advantage of his campaign contributors (auto unions) in the General Motors bailout.
• In the auto bailout, he knowingly and willfully deprived numerous auto dealers of their dealerships for political reasons in violation of Amendments 4 and 14.
• He repeatedly transferred funds from the U.S. Treasury to his cronies and campaign contributors for use in failing green energy schemes.
• He violated Article II, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution by appointing officers without first obtaining the “Advice and Consent of the Senate.”

In his book Faithless Execution, Building the Political Case for Obama’s Impeachment, Andrew C. McCarthy notes: “Impeachment is a grave remedy on the order of a nuclear strike.” Obama’s lawless Presidency has been nothing less than a nuclear strike on the U.S. Constitution, which now lies in tatters.
“Impeachment is a political remedy: even if palpably guilty of profound transgressions, a president will not be ousted without a groundswell of public ire,” McCarthy writes.
In his case for impeachment, McCarthy breaks Obama’s high crimes and misdemeanors into seven articles. They are:

• Article I: The President’s willful refusal to execute the laws faithfully and usurpation of the legislative authority of Congress.
• Article II: Usurping the Constitutional authority and prerogatives of Congress.
• Article III: Dereliction of Duty as President and Commander in Chief of the U.S. Armed Forces.
• Article IV: Fraud on the American People.
• Article V: Failure to execute the Immigration Laws faithfully.
• Article VI: Failure to execute the laws faithfully: Department of Justice.
• Article VII: Willfully undermining the Constitutional rights of the American people that he is sworn to preserve, protect and defend.

Those articles contain many of the charges laid out above. But they also include Obama’s defiance of Congressional law and court orders in obstructing the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project, his defiance of Federal law requiring him to address Medicare insolvency, his undermining of and contempt for Congress’ duty to conduct oversight of Federal agencies, his dereliction of duty by imposing unconscionable rules of engagement that endanger American troops, lying about Iran negotiations and assisting that country with its nuclear program, politicization of the DoJ, politically motivated selective prosecution by the DoJ, DoJ investigations and other intimidation of journalists in violation of Amendment 1, systematic stonewalling of Congress, abridgement of Amendment 1 in appeasing Islamic supremacists by adopting repressive sharia blasphemy standards, suppression of information about Islamic terrorism, including its occurrence at Ft. Hood, abridgement of Amendment 1 by vindictively targeting and prosecuting high-profile critics, and his abridgement of Amendment 2 by joining an international treaty despite Congressional opposition.
McCarthy notes that since impeachment is a political rather than a legal remedy, the burden of proof is different. But he also states that as long as there is no groundswell of opposition to the President’s actions from the public, there will be no impeachment.
I’ll go one step further: As long as there is not a two-thirds majority of Republicans in the Senate, there will be no impeachment. But even in the off chance that Republicans were to somehow come up with 66 Senators willing to remove the President, the Republicans would not have the stomach to attempt it because the sycophantic media would gin impeachment up as a racial issue and stir up street riots that would make Watts riots look like a park stroll.
The ensuing carnage would likely result in the removal of the entire power structure in Washington. And the establishment — whether it sides with the Democrats or Republicans — will agree it can’t have that.
Update: In the wake of the growing chorus of calls for Obama’s impeachment, the GOP establishment has publicly announced it cares more for power than the Constitution.


http://personalliberty.com/case-obamas-impeachment/

Impeach Obama? The Democrats Would Love For Us To Try

June 12, 2014 by Chip Wood

PHOTOS.COM

How much effort should members of the liberty movement devote to the impeachment of Barack Hussein Obama?
I’m going to argue not a minute and not a penny. I am convinced that beating the drums to get the House of Representative to vote on articles of impeachment would be a terrible tactical mistake that would play right into the hands of our enemies.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that there aren’t plenty of grounds for impeachment. Heck, if we had a majority of Constitutionalists in the House and Senate, we wouldn’t even be having this discussion today. If that were the case, Obama would already have been put on trial for his numerous violations of the Constitution. And then found guilty.
In my column last week, I described how the latest disastrous decision of this Administration — the absolutely incredible prisoner exchange that freed five of the most dangerous terrorists from prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba — had led to “rumblings” about impeachment as the one sure way to stop Obama from carrying out any more of his Marxist schemes.
Then, this past Monday, Bob Livingston, the founder of Personal Liberty Digest™, published a column entitled The Case For Obama’s Impeachment. Please check it out if you haven’t already read it; it is the most damning list of the reasons Obama should be impeached that I have read anywhere.
Here’s how the very first sentence of that column put it: “There is clear and convincing evidence that President Barack Obama has on numerous occasions willfully committed treason and high crimes and misdemeanors and should be removed from office.”
And you know what? I agree. If you read the more than two dozen specific items Livingston offered in his articles of impeachment, I’m sure you will, too. In fact, my only point of disagreement comes at the end of that superb presentation. That is his contention that if it looked like there was the slightest chance that the House of Representatives would seriously consider impeachment charges against the President, “the sycophantic media would gin impeachment up as a racial issue and stir up street riots that would make Watts riots look like a park stroll.”
While I certainly don’t doubt that the mainstream media, which have repeatedly demonstrated their slavish devotion to Obama, would do anything they could to protect and defend the President and discredit any effort to impeach him, I don’t believe they could instigate race riots across the country because of it. In fact, I don’t think the most avid racist agitators in the country today, from Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson on down, could do that.
Cutting out welfare could. Or even mounting a threat to substantially reduce it. But I don’t think a movement to impeach this country’s first black President would.
So if there are ample grounds for moving to have Obama impeached (which there are) and if I don’t think we’d see massive race riots as a result (and I don’t), then why am I opposed to working for his impeachment now?
The key word in that last sentence is now. I’m going to argue against trying to impeach Obama at this time for three reasons.
One, we don’t have the votes. While it’s true that there is a Republican majority in the House, I don’t think most of them would support a resolution to impeach Obama at this time. And even if they would (something I seriously doubt), there is absolutely no question what would happen in Harry Reid’s Senate. The effort would be dismissed with the absolute minimum amount of discussion he could allow.
If the evidence against Obama is so overwhelmingly clear, why don’t we have the votes? That brings me to my second reason: We don’t have the public’s support. We don’t have their support because they aren’t informed enough, and they aren’t (yet) angry enough.
Given time, those last two factors could disappear. In fact, the latest Obama Administration scandal at Veterans Affairs could lead to an explosion of anger that could cost the jobs of a bunch of politicians — and some pencil-pushing bureaucrats, too.
And that brings me to my third and most important reason for opposing an impeachment campaign at this time. Right now, the Democrats are in utter disarray. Why would we want to give them something that would unite them, while at the same time switching voters’ attention from all of the Administration’s screwups to something that will be presented as a mean-spirited Republican hatchet job?
So many scandals have erupted recently that Democrats must feel like they’ve been caught in a nightmarish version of Whac-A-Mole: Benghazi, Obamacare, Internal Revenue Service persecution of conservatives, National Security Agency spying on all of us, immigration, Fast and Furious, the Bowe Bergdahl-for-five-terrorists swap.
And now the biggest one of all: the shocking and shameful way this country has been treating its military veterans who need medical care. Just this week, we learned that an audit of the VA found that 57,436 veterans are currently waiting to be scheduled for some kind of care. An additional 63,869 vets had enrolled in the VA healthcare system over the past decade but have never been seen for an appointment. (Aren’t you impressed with the exactness of those government numbers? You’re supposed to be.)
These numbers are not just shocking; they are absolutely criminal. The more we learn about the lies and cover-ups and faked statistics at the VA, the worse it looks. And now we’re supposed to be glad that the government is going to take over the rest of this country’s healthcare system? God help us.
That’s why so many Democrats running for re-election are terrified of what all of these scandals will mean for their chances. And we’re talking some big numbers here: one-third of the Senate, every member of the House of Representatives, and a ton of State legislators and Governors are at stake this November.
Hiding from one or two of these scandals would be tough enough. But having an opponent bring up all of them, night after night and commercial after commercial? It’s a Democrat’s worst nightmare.
That’s why, if I were a Democratic candidate, I would be praying for the Republicans to announce an impeachment campaign against Obama. There is simply no other issue that could distract voters’ attention away from all of these other issues and give me a chance to win.
Don’t blow it, Republicans. You have a golden opportunity to win back the Senate, to increase your majority in the House and to add to the number of Republican State legislators and Governors. Don’t give the Democrats the one issue that could salvage the coming midterm elections for them.
Keep the focus on the scandals that the American public can see and understand. Earn their support because you deserve their support. Do a good enough job, and you’ll see the rewards this November.
Let’s win enough victories this fall, and then let’s talk about the best way to bring Obama to account.
Until next time, keep some powder dry.
–Chip Wood

http://personalliberty.com/impeach-o...s-love-us-try/

http://www.alipac.us/f9/growing-case...7/#post1417120

http://www.alipac.us/f19/unraveling-...9/#post1417122

A Lawless Administration: Andrew McCarthy at the Heartland Institute

by John Engle
June 12, 2014

Author and former federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy joined the Heartland Institute on June 12^th to talk about his new book, Faithless Execution: Building the Political Case for Obama’s Impeachment, with a packed and lively crowd of Heartland supporters. McCarthy was incisive and exceptionally convincing.
McCarthy began his talk by bemoaning the fact that an author must eventually stop writing and submit a book for publication, which means that events occurring between the final draft’s submission and the actual publication cannot be included in the text. This fact means that his book is “two or three impeachable offenses behind.” Even still, the list he presents in Faithless Execution is enthralling and terrifying.
The talk then turned briefly to the subject of Bowe Bergdahl, whose release has stirred up tremendous controversy in Washington and across the nation. McCarthy explained that the focus in Congress was all wrong, and that the issue was not really about the violation of the statute requiring the president to talk to Congress 30 days before the release of prisoners from Guantanamo Bay. Rather, the issue of concern is the fact that releasing five Taliban leaders represents a clear case of replenishing an enemy that is still fighting the United States, which is an “irresponsible dereliction of duty of a commander-in-chief.”
McCarthy explained that, despite the focus going awry, the Bergdahl case has had two positive effects. First, it was perfectly timed to publicize his book. Second, it had finally led mainstream politicians to start using a word they have constantly avoided: impeachment.
Impeachment has ceased to be muttered behind closed doors alone and is now being spoken openly. “Even Lindsey Graham is comfortable uttering it,” McCarthy said.
The Obama administration has been, according to McCarthy, deliberately “overloading the system,” engaging in a cascade of scandals that takes advantage of ordinary people’s finite ability to deal with crises. McCarthy gave the example of how the new EPA regulations that may have profound impacts on the health of the economy have barely been discussed, sandwiched as they are between the Bergdahl and VA hospital scandals.
It is because of these scandals and persistent abrogation of duty that McCarthy proposes the process of impeachment. McCarthy explained to the audience that, “Impeachment is a political remedy, not a legal one.” In other words, despite the trappings of the courtroom, impeachment proceedings are not about assessing criminal liability. Rather, the “high crimes and misdemeanors” to which the Constitution refers are concerned with breaches of fiduciary duty and violations of the public trust. McCarthy stated that he could identify many such breaches committed during Obama’s tenure.
Chief among the president’s impeachable offenses, McCarthy explained, is his failure to execute laws faithfully. The president is the only federal official under the Constitution required to take an oath to execute the laws faithfully and to defend the Constitution. McCarthy cited Obama’s unilateral amendments of Obamacare and his selective and arbitrary enforcement of certain laws to benefit his allies and harm his opponents as evidence of unfaithful execution.
Another offense McCarthy identified was Obama’s dereliction of duty. He identified the atrocities committed to Americans in Benghazi and the previous unauthorized military actions in Libya as clear examples of this offense.
After outlining these offenses, McCarthy turned the discussion to the political climate and the prospects for impeachment. McCarthy was adamant that impeachment must not be a frivolous exercise. After all, it takes a two-thirds majority in the Senate to convict, which is only possible if there is wide bipartisan support for the proceedings both among legislators and in the public.
McCarthy then pointed out that there is no appetite in the American people for impeachment. He pointed to Bill Clinton’s impeachment as a clear example of the dangers of impeachment when there is no popular will for it. When an impeachment fails, the media can paint it as an endorsement of the very actions under censure.
What McCarthy proposed, in his book and during the talk, is a concerted effort to change the political environment so that the issue of lawlessness is front-and-center in the public discourse. Changing that environment would likely push Obama to actually execute the laws faithfully and to act within the bounds of the Constitution.
Failure to change the discourse could have serious negative effects for the future of the American republic, as McCarthy deftly explained. He described how the accretion of presidential power erodes citizens’ liberty, and that this is “not a conservative issue, not a Republican issue, it is an American issue.” Unless something is done about it, the powers Obama takes for himself will belong to his successors, of whatever party.
McCarthy explained that he was still hopeful for the republic’s future, a hopefulness he expanded upon during the Q&A session after his talk. When asked about what people can do if impeachment is not yet possible, he said, “Let’s make a big issue out of lawlessness.”
It is that issue that must be won before the imperial presidency can be stopped. Andrew McCarthy’s magisterial book will go a long way to winning it.

http://blog.heartland.org/2014/06/a-...and-institute/