Is There a Serious Discussion about Impeachment?

[editec]

Impeachment does not need charges.

It only requires the will of Congress.

 

[longknife]

How can you file charges against a president who was so busy playing golf and campaigning that he never spent any time in the Oval Office? What charges can you file? Ineptitude? Laziness? Lack of Interest?

What?

 

[Oldguy]

Or you can Google them like I did.

Simple enough, right?

So you are asking ME to make your case for you?

For example - please provide evidence that Obama has illegally granted amnesty to 11 million illegal immigrants as you charge.

Well you refuse to make your own.

Immigration bill grants amnesty to employers of illegals; no prosecution for bogus IDs - Washington Times

So, you think the President ought to be held accountable and impeached for a bill pending in CONGRESS?

Good grief, man! Do you even have a CLUE how your government works?

 

[TemplarKormac]

Impeachment does not need charges.

It only requires the will of Congress.

What?

Then what are the Articles of Impeachment for?

 

[Crackerjaxon]

To impeach a president - you have to alleged a crime. To convict, you have to prove that crime.

Are you bereft of anything resembling common seense?

Here, read and learn:

The 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.

The Constitution and and Impeachment

The site goes over grounds for impeachment.

Get a grip. You're trying to equivocate on something that doesn't exist. The president can be impeached for imcompetence should the House and Senate decide to do so.

Your argument is bullshit, probably based on watching lawyers on TV.

I'm sorry. I seem to have missed something. Where exactly in the Constitution does it mention "incompetence" as a cause for impeachment?

Indeed you have. Once again, no specific criminal charges have to be brought for impeachment. What part of that do you not understand? Are you purposely obtuse?

When are you going to glom on to the fact the holders of high office are held to higher standards?

The grounds for impeachment are completely, totally up to the House of Representatives. They may move to impeach on anything they consider a high crime or misdemeanor.

Anything at all.

They may impeach if the president spits on the sidewalk, should they choose.

Do you understand now, or are you going to keep harping on what crime the president committed?

There is no strict definition of an "impeachable offense." It is left entirely to congress.

 

[Crackerjaxon]

Impeachment does not need charges.

It only requires the will of Congress.

What?

Then what are the Articles of Impeachment for?

They are to let the office holder know why they are firing him.

 

[nodoginnafight]

I think the sad part is that you

do a ton of research on my arguments

And you still blow it that bad?!?!

As I have said before (in all your research you may have missed it so I will repeat)

If POTUS has commited a crime, I think he should be impeached and convicted.
But I'm not ready to advocate conviction based on wild unsupported accusations. And I'm not going to just accept guilt on faith.

a man who has now had his second term crippled by three distinct scandals.

This line exposes what I fear ois the REAL motive. It has nothing to do with actual wrong-doing, just an attempt to cripple the presidency of a guy you don't like. Your own words (again) expose the flaw.

If folks are interested in enforcing the law - I'm on board. If your just out to harass someone because you disagree with his ideology, then I believe you are pursuing your agenda to the detriment of my country. I don't respond well to that.

I believe one or two posters here have raised some legitimate questions.

1) Can it be established that records (emails) were destroyed in order to hinder a congressional investigation? Can you nail down that these emails really existed? Testimony is evidence, so that shouldn't be an unanswerable question. Does the State Department routinely destroy sensitive emails? Again, does a written policy on this exist? Can we get testimony as to normal operating procedures on this with examples of where this policy was applied to other emails? Were these emails destroyed specifically to impede an investigation?

2) Did POTUS order the IRS to target political opponents? Did (as it has been suggested) the IRS send identical letters to friendly political groups? Again, I don't think this is a tremendously hard thing to nail down.

Those are the most important questions that I''ve heard raised.

 

[Liberaservative]

In the entire list you provided there is not one impeachable act.

Are you suggesting that unless an event emerges with 100% of the facts known and showing the President committed an impeachable offense, it should just be dropped?

Nothing is an impeachable offense until the person facing impeachment is attached to the offense. Typically, officials subject to impeachment do their damnedest to conceal their involvement in impeachable offenses until an investigation makes it clear they, in fact, did commit such a high crime or misdemeanor.

For you to declare "there is not one impeachable act," ignores the fact that many of the events mentioned are still open questions being investigated so, your declaration of Obama's innocence is a bit premature, wouldn't you agree?

Would you at least allow it's possible Obama has committed an impeachable offense.

Not directed at me, but I would like to weigh in with my position on the questions you raise if that's Ok.

My position is that I agree that you have to investigate to determine the facts BEFORE you can form an informed opinion about whether or not the president has commited illegal acts. But right now, those who are beating the impeachment drum are handicapped by a "boy who cried wolf" reaction.

Non-stop accusations, non-stop investigations, and a litany of one claim after another engenders an understandable "oh please, not again," reaction.

For example, no amount of evidence to the contrary seemed to phase the birthers. I believe it is a very legitimate question to ask - is this just an extension of that kind of harassment?

My personal opinion is that it is a poor way to correct an election that you disagree with to just continually make unsupported accusations and demand an wide, unfocused investigation in the hopes that it will turn up something. It is becoming a standard operating procedure for many on both sides of the aisle and I believe it is to the detriment of the people who elect those who serve.

Bottom line: If a real crime has been commited by any elected official, then I believe we should enforce our laws even-handedly and without regard to political ideology. I'm just sick to death of opposition by accusation and investigation - by EVERYONE who does it.

I can agree with this, as far as it goes but, when you ask the question, "Is this just an extension of that kind [birtherism] of harassment," I would point out a few facts that are known that lend credence to the belief that wrongdoing may have been engaged in by the administration -- up to and possibly including the White House.

Benghazi -- They've already been caught in lying and, as far as I know, haven't acknowledged the lie but, instead, have continued digging. The latest lie being advanced by the administration is that Ambassador Stevens is to blame for his own death.

In the month before attackers stormed U.S. facilities in Benghazi and killed four Americans, U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens twice turned down offers of security assistance made by the senior U.S. military official in the region in response to concerns that Stevens had raised in a still secret memorandum, two government officials told McClatchy.

Why Stevens, who died of smoke inhalation in the first of two attacks that took place late Sept. 11 and early Sept. 12, 2012, would turn down the offers remains unclear. The deteriorating security situation in Benghazi had been the subject of a meeting that embassy officials held Aug. 15, where they concluded they could not defend the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi. The next day, the embassy drafted a cable outlining the dire circumstances and saying it would spell out what it needed in a separate cable.

Actually, it's not unclear at all.

It was State Department policy.

During the hearing, the top regional security officer in Libya over the summer, Eric Nordstrom, and Lt. Col. Andrew Wood, a Utah National Guardsman who was leading a security team in Libya until August, placed the blame squarely on [Charlene] Lamb, the deputy assistant secretary of state for international programs, whom they said was the official who denied those requests.

"All of us at post were in sync that we wanted these resources," Nordstrom testified, adding that Lamb had directly told him over the phone not to make the requests, but that Cretz decided to do it anyway.

"In those conversations, I was specifically told [by Lamb] ‘You cannot request an SST extension.' I determined I was told that because there would be too much political cost. We went ahead and requested it anyway," Nordstrom said.

So, it was official State Department policy in July they would not be accepting any more DOD security help in Libya but, somehow, it's Stevens' fault for not accepting it in August?

Knowing what he knew at about 8:30 P.M. (Benghazi time) on September 11, 2012, would Stevens have disobeyed direct orders and accepted the security? Who knows but the dead guy.

That this administration keeps obfuscating the facts on Benghazi, that they tried to "handle" the witnesses that eventually testified before Congress to facts that made them look bad, that they scapegoated a criminal videographer who, until September 12, 2012, was virtually unknown to the Muslim "street," and because they've been caught lying about how they developed the story they planned to tell the public, I'm convinced its not simply another case of harassment by partisans.

A similar case can be made for the IRS scandal; we were first told by this administration the offenses were committed by rogue employees in a local office in Ohio. Obviously, that's not the case and this administration knew it wasn't the case from the very beginning. Then, President Barack Obama gives his "I'm outraged, I'll get to the bottom of this, People will be held accountable, and it will never happen again," formulaic controversy speech while throwing the bone that the acting Commissioner had been fired only to learn the acting Commissioner was already scheduled to rotate out at the end of May and, again, I think it's perfectly reasonable to assume there's something amiss.

 

[nodoginnafight]

Indeed you have. Once again, no specific criminal charges have to be brought for impeachment. What part of that do you not understand? Are you purposely obtuse?

Since this delusion has been so completely debunked, I have to conclude that it is you who are being intentionally ignorant.

Go on and believe whatever you want - it doesn't matter to me at all.

 

[PratchettFan]

Impeachment does not need charges.

It only requires the will of Congress.

You are wrong.

 

[TemplarKormac]

So you are asking ME to make your case for you?

For example - please provide evidence that Obama has illegally granted amnesty to 11 million illegal immigrants as you charge.

Well you refuse to make your own.

Immigration bill grants amnesty to employers of illegals; no prosecution for bogus IDs - Washington Times

So, you think the President ought to be held accountable and impeached for a bill pending in CONGRESS?

Good grief, man! Do you even have a CLUE how your government works?

If you had been reading the entire discussion, I thought he should be impeached for bypassing congress on two distinct occasions. He granted 800,000 illegal immigrants amnesty, and started a war in Libya without congressional approval.

This is abuse of executive privilege.

 

[nodoginnafight]

Liberservative:
I won't bog things down by repeating your entire post. But I will say that in my previous post I zeroed in on what I believe the legitimate questions are. You add some questions about Benghazi - but as I understand the situation, I can't find a basis to claim criminal activity.

I acknowledge the existence of legitimate questions. I think you have to acknowledge just how understandable an "oh please, not AGAIN!" reaction is. The Boy Who Cried Wolf syndrome - is completely understandable given the non-stop litany of attacks and accusations that have been hurled (non-stop) at this POTUS from day one.

The goal for many is not to enforce law - it is to cripple a POTUS they disagree with. That is undeniable and if Now, they pay the price by having legitimate concerns ignored, they can only blame themselves imho.

 

[Liberaservative]

Liberservative:
I won't bog things down by repeating your entire post. But I will say that in my previous post I zeroed in on what I believe the legitimate questions are. You add some questions about Benghazi - but as I understand the situation, I can't find a basis to claim criminal activity.

I believe some of the misinformation was testified to, under oath, before Congress.

I acknowledge the existence of legitimate questions. I think you have to acknowledge just how understandable an "oh please, not AGAIN!" reaction is. The Boy Who Cried Wolf syndrome - is completely understandable given the non-stop litany of attacks and accusations that have been hurled (non-stop) at this POTUS from day one.

The goal for many is not to enforce law - it is to cripple a POTUS they disagree with. That is undeniable and if Now, they pay the price by having legitimate concerns ignored, they can only blame themselves imho.

I will admit no one would be happier than I if this President's agenda were stopped dead in its tracks but, that's just a happy coincidence to holding him accountable for the misdeeds of his administration.

And, the "non-stop litany of attacks," for the most part, were all instigated by actions by the President or his subordinates.

Fast and Furious? Remember when President Obama and Janet Napolitano stood on the border, in El Paso, and blamed the violence in Mexico on guns smuggled across from the United States? Well, not only was that an extreme exaggeration (most weapons used by the drug cartels are smuggled from Central and South America) but, we subsequently found out the Obama administration was facilitation the smuggling of weapons from the United States to Mexico. C'mon, even you have to say WTF on that one.

We could itemize every incidence where you would claim witch hunt and I would claim legitimate investigation but, can we concentrate on the scandals at hand? And, in those, it is apparent to me the administration is trying to hide something. Otherwise, why would they lie?

 

[TemplarKormac]

If POTUS has commited a crime, I think he should be impeached and convicted.
But I'm not ready to advocate conviction based on wild unsupported accusations. And I'm not going to just accept guilt on faith.

a man who has now had his second term crippled by three distinct scandals.

This line exposes what I fear is the REAL motive. It has nothing to do with actual wrong-doing, just an attempt to cripple the presidency of a guy you don't like. Your own words (again) expose the flaw.

If folks are interested in enforcing the law - I'm on board. If your just out to harass someone because you disagree with his ideology, then I believe you are pursuing your agenda to the detriment of my country. I don't respond well to that.

I believe one or two posters here have raised some legitimate questions.

1) Can it be established that records (emails) were destroyed in order to hinder a congressional investigation? Can you nail down that these emails really existed? Testimony is evidence, so that shouldn't be an unanswerable question. Does the State Department routinely destroy sensitive emails? Again, does a written policy on this exist? Can we get testimony as to normal operating procedures on this with examples of where this policy was applied to other emails? Were these emails destroyed specifically to impede an investigation?

2) Did POTUS order the IRS to target political opponents? Did (as it has been suggested) the IRS send identical letters to friendly political groups? Again, I don't think this is a tremendously hard thing to nail down.

Those are the most important questions that I''ve heard raised.

I don't see this as a partisan issue. I see this as an all encompassing issue that effects both sides of the aisle. I see one side aggressively pursuing the issue, while the other side is aggressively resisting any investigation of it.

To answer:

1) Yes, it already has. The White House released 100 pages of e-mails yesterday. These are indeed internal machinations of the State Department. I never suggested that such behavior was going on. The response was delayed, and no e-mails were deleted that I know of. But the Administration has indeed been stonewalling the public on the progression of each issue.

2) I grant that more needs to be researched before making such a claim. The fact remains that these organizations (DOJ & IRS) are all regulated within the executive branch of government. And that each organization is subject to the orders and directives issued by the President himself. As for the letters, I don't doubt it. However it's quite telling when a Liberal 501 (c) (4) tax exempt is expedited over a Conservative one. It doesn't matter what was sent to who in this regard. It's also quite odd that the IRS would send information on existing Conservative c4's to Liberal c4's, that in and of itself is a crime.

 

[nodoginnafight]

Liberservative:
I won't bog things down by repeating your entire post. But I will say that in my previous post I zeroed in on what I believe the legitimate questions are. You add some questions about Benghazi - but as I understand the situation, I can't find a basis to claim criminal activity.

I believe some of the misinformation was testified to, under oath, before Congress.

I acknowledge the existence of legitimate questions. I think you have to acknowledge just how understandable an "oh please, not AGAIN!" reaction is. The Boy Who Cried Wolf syndrome - is completely understandable given the non-stop litany of attacks and accusations that have been hurled (non-stop) at this POTUS from day one.

The goal for many is not to enforce law - it is to cripple a POTUS they disagree with. That is undeniable and if Now, they pay the price by having legitimate concerns ignored, they can only blame themselves imho.

I will admit no one would be happier than I if this President's agenda were stopped dead in its tracks but, that's just a happy coincidence to holding him accountable for the misdeeds of his administration.

And, the "non-stop litany of attacks," for the most part, were all instigated by actions by the President or his subordinates.

Fast and Furious? Remember when President Obama and Janet Napolitano stood on the border, in El Paso, and blamed the violence in Mexico on guns smuggled across from the United States? Well, not only was that an extreme exaggeration (most weapons used by the drug cartels are smuggled from Central and South America) but, we subsequently found out the Obama administration was facilitation the smuggling of weapons from the United States to Mexico. C'mon, even you have to say WTF on that one.

We could itemize every incidence where you would claim witch hunt and I would claim legitimate investigation but, can we concentrate on the scandals at hand? And, in those, it is apparent to me the administration is trying to hide something. Otherwise, why would they lie?

You raise some good points. But to just brush off the constant barage of wild and unsupported claims and insist "no this time there really IS something" and expect it to be accepted on its face, is unrealistic to the point of .... well, I will just say it demands an assumption of credibility that has not been earned. Given the dishonesty and extreme exaggeration that you ask we forget about in order to seriously consider new accusations, it is hard to accept that a desire to hold this POTUS harshly accountable for dishonesty and extreme exaggeration is not politically motivated. It would be easier to accept the sincerity of the accusations if so many of the accusers had not engaged in the same type of behavior that is now being called into question.

That being said, if laws have been broken then prove it and I'll be on board with justice being administered.

 

[nodoginnafight]

Templar: If you had just admited that you were wrong about the amnesty claim, I'd accept your points with much less skepticism. When you make up a wild story about planting one of your 22 charges just to have it destroyed so you could then produce the REAL charge, you present yourself as someone who makes up cock and bull stories to pursue your agenda.

And if you are a person who has demonstrated a prediliction for cock and bull stories, then why should I pay any attention to you at all?

Everyone makes mistakes. That's nothing to be ashamed of. It is how someone responds when confronted with their mistake that determines credibility. I will give you props in that subsequent posts have been more reasonable. But forgive me if I still have a bit of a memory that causes me to hesitate.

 

[Mac1958]

.

Celebrating Obama's impeachment = Celebrating Romney's landslide win

Deja vu, huh?

.

 

[nodoginnafight]

.

Celebrating Obama's impeachment = Celebrating Romney's landslide win

Deja vu, huh?

.

Well, I won't say it's impossible. But the "done deal" kind of speculations about his impeachment do appear to be pretty silly right now.

It will clearly take some new information that we haven't seen yet - imho.

 

[TemplarKormac]

Templar: If you had just admited that you were wrong about the amnesty claim, I'd accept your points with much less skepticism. When you make up a wild story about planting one of your 22 charges just to have it destroyed so you could then produce the REAL charge, you present yourself as someone who makes up cock and bull stories to pursue your agenda.

And if you are a person who has demonstrated a prediliction for cock and bull stories, then why should I pay any attention to you at all?

Everyone makes mistakes. That's nothing to be ashamed of. It is how someone responds when confronted with their mistake that determines credibility. I will give you props in that subsequent posts have been more reasonable. But forgive me if I still have a bit of a memory that causes me to hesitate.

Actually, I was playing on your irrationality. Then again I was having fun throwing stupid GOP claims at you which I myself have no inkling of taking seriously.

They weren't destroyed. In fact I spent three hours researching each of them. What I want you do do is refute each and every one of them. You have a predilection for dismissing my claims but not doing any research or fact checking of your own. I love how you pulled your dismissals right out of your backside.

Refute all 22 charges. If you refuse, then you lose this argument, and such a refusal will speak to your credibility, not mine. Plainly put.

And um, what are "cock and bull" stories?

 

[nodoginnafight]

The response was delayed, and no e-mails were deleted that I know of.

If that proves true then I don't believe there is anything impeachable that has come out about Benghazi. Something about witness tampering kind of charges MAY crop up at some point, but it doesn't look very likely right now.

As for the letters, I don't doubt it. However it's quite telling when a Liberal 501 (c) (4) tax exempt is expedited over a Conservative one. It doesn't matter what was sent to who in this regard.

Oh I believe it does matter what was sent to who. A blanket review of all politically active organizations and their compliance with code is a very different thing than using the IRS to target political opponents.

Again, as far as I can see, there is going to have to be something new in order to justify impeachment.