Grounds For Impeachment, Part 1: The Obama Administration's Fire, Smoke and Kindling Abuse of the Constitution and Rule of Law

Over the past three days we identified over 60 ways that the Obama administration has screwed up the lives of every American. However, we recognized that those five dozen or so failures were not grounds for impeachment and removal from office, no matter how heinous and damaging those failures were. We reminded readers that you cannot remove a President from office:

• For having ineffective and/or stupid policies.
• For being ineffective in executing his duties of office.
• For being arrogant, narcissistic, and pompous.
• For waging class warfare and dividing the nation into voting blocs.
• For lying about his past or his promises.

The first of those three posts can be accessed at:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2014/01/part-1-first-twenty-failures-of-obama.html

Presiding over an economy where over 20 million Americans are under employed or unemployed and where almost 50 million Americans receive Federal government food assistance are not grounds for impeachment.

Running up astronomical national debt levels so that the debt burden in the country is over $50,000 per person is not grounds for impeachment.

Having an ineffective and bumbling foreign policy strategy and operation are not grounds for impeachment.

Failing to rein in wasteful government spending is not grounds for impeachment.

Blatant lying about how things are or will be in the Presidential administration and its policies and programs are not grounds for impeachment.

Dissing our veterans in so many ways are not grounds for impeachment.

However, while those 60 or so failures are not grounds for impeachment and removal from office, there are numerous breeches of laws, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights that have emanated out of this Presidential administration. And it is those actions that we will review and present today in the next five posts, actions that we believe warrant and require the Congress to institute impeachment proceedings against this President.

Our grounds for impeachment are to be presented in three categories:

1. Fire: obvious grounds for impeachment that require very little additional research and analysis before being presented to the Senate as articles of impeachment.
2. Smoke: probably grounds for impeachment that require some additional research and analysis before being presented to the Senate as articles of impeachment.
3. Kindling: possibly grounds for impeachment that require a lot of additional research and analysis before being presented to the Senate as articles of impeachment but if true, would easily end the current Presidential administration.

The main violations for impeachment include the following:

• The Constitution - Article I, Section I: All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.
• The Constitution - Article I, Section 8: The Congress shall have the power …to declare war, grant letters of Marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water.
• The Constitution - Article I, Section, 9: The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.
• The Constitution - Article II, Section 1: No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution shall be eligible for the office of President.
• The Constitution - Article II, Section 1: Before he [the President] enter on the execution of his office, he shall take the following oath or affirmation: “I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.
• The Constitution - Article II, Section 2: The President shall have power to fill vacancies that may happen during the recess of the Senate.
• The Constitution - Article II, Section 3: …he [the President] shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed.
• 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 - First Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people to peaceably assemble, and to petition the government for a redress if grievances.
• The Constitution - Fourth Amendment: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
• The Constitution - Sixth Amendment: In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy trial and a public trial.
• the Constitution - Fourteenth Amendment: The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law… shall not be questioned.
• The Declaration of Independence - We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.

A few more points before we proceed:

1. I am not a lawyer, never wanted to be a lawyer, and would be more than happy to be corrected about my assumptions and conclusions regarding this topic from someone who is more versed in law and the Constitution.
2. Although I have legally voted since the 1970s, I have never voted for a Republican for President and up until 2010, I had never voted for a Republican for national political office. Thus, I am not a rabid Republican who is jut trying to do a hatchet job on the current Democratic President.
3. If you object to my views and conclusions, reconsider if your objections would vanish if the Bush administration had committed the same identified actions and transgressions against the country, the Constitution, and the laws of the land that the Obama administration has allegedly done. If you then still think that my views and conclusions are wrong, then we have a serious disagreement of what constitutes impeachable actions regarding the office of the President.

In this discussion, the President is being held responsible for the actions of all of those in the executive branch of our government. This means that a violation of any law and the Constitution by anyone in that branch is his responsibility. 

Now, we realize that we cannot hold him accountable for actions that he had no knowledge of beforehand. However, if he fails to take action. e.g. fire or arrest and prosecute the executive branch member who broke the law, after the violations come to light, then he should be criminally treated as an accessory after the fact, which we consider grounds for impeachment.

Okay, that is a long lead up to the discussion of whether this President has committed impeachable offenses. However, this is serious stuff and better to lay out the groundwork than to emotionally jump right in without a framework for analyzing the actions of this administration. We will get started with the ‘Fire” offenses today and continue the discussion tomorrow, finishing up “Fire” and moving on the “Smoke” and “Kindling categories.

The “Fire” reasons why President Obama should face impeachment proceedings:

1) He led the United States into a majjor military action against the country of Libya, spending well over a billion dollars of taxpayer wealth and placing our armed forces in danger without the approval of Congress, violating the War Powers Act and Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution.

2) He refused to fire James Clapper, a high ranking member of the President’s national security team after Clapper lied to Congress about how much electronic information the National Security Agency (NSA) was collecting on every American citizen, becoming an accessory after the fact in Clapper's lying to Congress.

3) He signed the latest NDAA legislation whose sections 1021 and 1022 allow for the indefinite detention of American citizens, without trial, who the government considers terrorist suspects until the vague “end of hostilities,” which violates the habeas corpus protection of American citizens under Article I Section 9 of the Constitution.

4) He personally signed off on the assassination of American citizens in foreign lands, e.g. the killing of American citizen Anwar al-Awlaki via a drone attack in Yemen, denying him and other citizens a fair trial by their peers, negating the rights, and lives, of al-Awlaki and at least three other American citizens, violating their right “to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” the Fourth Amendment, and the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution.

5) He has repeatedly and in varied ways denied members of our armed forces to their right to personally celebrate, follow, and take comfort in their personal Christian religion and faith, violating the First Amendment to the Constitution.

6) His administration’s development and deployment of the Fast and Furious gun running operation to supply weapons to violent Mexican drug cartels has violated any number of laws including:

• The illegal shipment of weapons to criminal organizations.
• Violations of international treaties regarding illegal gun smuggling.
• Abetting the violence of those cartels who used Fast and Furious weapons to kill innocent Mexican civilians and a U.S. border agent, Brian Terry.
• Denying Congress and Congressional investigators access to pertinent Fast and Furious executive branch documents needed to investigate the alleged transgressions by claiming executive privilege.

These actions ignore and/or break existing laws and thus, violating Article II, Sections 3 and 4 of the Constitution.

That will do it for today, a lot of serious information. We will continue the impeachment discussion tomorrow, more fire, smoke, and kindling.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

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Please visit the following sites for freedom:

Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w