Wednesday:1/5/11: Hump Day: Articles of Impeachment Against President Obama

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Now that Republicans are firmly in control of the House of Representatives, we can look forward to:

Defunding Health Care for millions of Americans;
Defunding the Environmental Protection Agency;
Defunding the Department of Interior;
Defunding the Department of Education;
Defunding unemployment;
Defunding Social Security;
Defunding Medicare;
Defunding Medicaid;
Shutting down the Federal Government; and
Impeaching President Obama.

This is our Open Thread. What are you waiting for? Get posting!

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.

“Other high Crimes and Misdemeanors” leaves it to a majority in the House to determine whether the President should be impeached for any particular reason. Last time around, it was because President Clinton allegedly lied about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky.

This time, well, maybe we should start a Presidential Impeachment Pool. You get to guess the reasons you think Republicans will include in their inevitable Articles of Impeachment. Get it right, and I’ll give you the banner headline on the following Hump Day!

154 thoughts on “Wednesday:1/5/11: Hump Day: Articles of Impeachment Against President Obama”

  1. I’ve been pondering – can they attempt to, simultaneously, impeach the President and the Vice President? [please say no]

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  3. 2ebb, nothing in the Constitution prevents the House from simultaneously impeaching any number of people. So, for example, if the President, Vice President, Secretary of State and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court were all involved in some illegal scheme, the House could, in theory, introduce articles of impeachment against the lot of them at one time.

    The Senate could, then, convict all, some, or none.

    Interestingly, other than Nixon, impeachments have been more politically motivated than based on actual “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

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  4. Let em impeach the president. The Senate doesn’t have to have a trial, they can just ignore the impeachment.

    Oh, and BTW, the trolls have taken over the Thinkfast thread on TP.
    I wish to FSM they’d get some moderators with some balls and neuter those twits.

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  5. I’m about convinced that TP is a lost cause. Disqus sucks, it’s no better than what TP had before and in many ways is a lot worse. There’s no moderation there, none at all. Sure, troll comments can be “disappeared”, more or less, but the perpetrators always come back. Until ISP bans are part of the SOP, there will be no improvement. Basically, the site has become a waste of time in all regards save for one: they do post salient information there. Sometimes.

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  6. I had a doctor visit this morning and was forced to peruse a variety of bad magazines. Believe it or not there is a magazine titled ” Garden & Gun: Soul of the South”. It seemed to be about food, bourbon, and well, guns. WTF?

    I agree concerning TP and Disqus. No real improvement in exchange for some really buggy software. I almost never even have a reply button.

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  7. Outstanding,

    My first criticism of the system was the reply feature. Comments that stand alone can be disappeared with enough flags. The threshold for that seems to have gotten higher, or else the constant replies by the dozen or so ‘regulars’, that enjoy troll-bashing more than discussion, make it more difficult to do so. Even if one troll replies to another, flagging both will make them vanish together.

    There was no reason to change systems if moderators aren’t willing to use whatever tools are available to thwart the trolls. Screennames don’t seem to get banned like they used to either.

    The point of a partisan political blog is to help your side arm themselves with all the information needed to combat the opposition ‘at the watercooler’. TP doesn’t care what happens on the comments as long as the MSNBC shows and radio talk shows keep having their people on air because of what is written.

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  9. How do you impeach someone who hasn’t done anything wrong.. (other than exist)? Can they impeach the man just because he’s a Democrat? Because they don’t like his looks? What..??

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  11. Impeachment is a solely political process. Which really does mean it can be for anything. (As we saw with Clinton.) The price paid by those who do it is political damage to themselves, which serves as a bit of a check or balance. The public pretty much saw through the Clinton impeachment, and it helped him politically and hurt the Republicans.

    Actual removal is intended to be more the court-like process, by including the Senate to sit as a jury (in effect) and having the proceedings run by the Chief Justice as a judge. It also requires a super-majority (2/3rds) so it’s a much harder hurdle to overcome.

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  12. I lived in AZ when the Mormon bigot governor Evan Mecham was impeached. He was truly a despicable character, would today be a teabagger if he were still alive. He got the boot in either the late eighties or very early nineties, can’t remember the date anymore, and his conviction was upheld by, if memory serves, the AZ Supreme Court.

    Of course those were the day when islands of sanity remained in AZ. That’s as opposed to today, of course. Actually, Brewer is more despicable than Mecham could ever have hoped to be, and she got elected in November.

    Hope is fading fast, all across these United States. Bush SHOULD have been impeached, but Pelosi refused to allow the issue to be heard in the House. That’s one thing I’ll never be able to forgive her for. Clinton was impeached for purely political nonsense, and they may well try the same with Obama — if they can think of anything to charge him with other than being black.

    Commune in Belize, anyone?

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  14. Wonderful photo. Event though they ‘hang out’ at the NWR Egrets don’t let you get that close.

    I see these are taken in Gilbert- that’s where my nephew and his family live – until moving to North Carolina.
    I may just have to pay them an Arizona visit!

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  15. I’ll be most interested to see if Harry Reid says the words…The Senate is not a continuing body….!!!
    Bummer I can’t watch from work…

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  17. While I think Bush most definitely deserved impeachment, as I mentioned in my previous post, impeachment (as the founders knew, by having it be in the house) is strictly a political process. It’s in the political domain. So very often, the decisions to do it/not do it are strictly political. As we saw with Clinton, it can backfire, and I suspect that was part of the decision by Pelosi. What’s the gain vs. the risk. (Again it’s not a right/wrong decision, it’s a political one.)

    I suppose another aspect of it become if you go after Bush and succeed, Cheney would assume the presidency. If they were to have gone after both (again much deserved), then the media narrative becomes “power grab by Democratic congress to remove a sitting Republican President and Vice President and install their own party in the executive.” It would come across as trying to negate the entire election since those doing the impeaching stand to gain by doing so.

    Another aspect of impeachment, it can then derail any other things you might be hoping to accomplish. The media becomes obsessed with the impeachment. A lot of political capital is spent on that, and there’s not much left to get other things done. And despite what the right-wing noise machine likes to say, the last two years were very productive for progressives.

    Don’t get me wrong. Bush and Cheney deserve to be in prison for war crimes. I’m in no way defending them, but in the realm of political calculus I can see why they weren’t impeached; no matter how much they deserved it.

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  19. Ebb: Yes, photo was taken in Gilbert. He gets “close” by virtue of his 400mm lens.

    If you decide to visit Gilbert and are interested in having a coffee with a wildlife/bird photographer, let me know. đŸ™‚

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  20. “It would be so sweet if they fucked over Boner.”

    oh, please, oh, please, oh, please!

    Does Boehner look sober?

    Wonder who had to babysit him last evening – so that he wouldn’t drink to excess.

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  24. There’s a way to continue the opening day session to the 25th. Even if they leave the chamber, they don’t adjourn, but just suspend until then.

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  27. He’s an alcoholic – that’s one reason he ‘cries’ so easily.

    I can not and refuse to watch or listen to the asshat. I’ll read transcripts if I must!

    ————————

    Zooey, really – they’re going to read an edited version of the grand Constitution?
    I was only joking to my neighbor when I said – they’ll probably re-write it, like the did the bible, before entering it into the record.

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  34. zxbe, if you can recall what the gist of the flagged posts were – I’ll go post, with quotes, to see if it were the content (which I doubt very much) or because you responded to a troll who got flagged.

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      • I always have such good ideas — going through old receipts today.

        I just finished 1998, and I’ve only kept one thing. The biggest problem is that there are full credit card numbers on statements and receipts, and SSNs on bank statements.

        *sigh*

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  36. A tad like ‘old home week’: TRoS; Spencer’s Mom and Juan all on the same thread!

    I’d forgotten about Juan working on his PhD!

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  37. That’s very kind ebb, but not necessary. I get e-mails for replies, so I have them. And here are the offending posts:

    ————–
    Commerce Clause.

    —————
    Of course, the Tea Baggers should use the Complete Idiot’s Guide to the US Constitutionâ„¢.

    —————
    Took me a second… nicely done. đŸ™‚

    I can certainly see how those are a violation of the terms of service. lol

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  39. It’s possible that someone broke out the entire sock drawer just to vote down zxbe’s comments; it wouldn’t be the first time. The troll formerly known as Pee would be the most likely culprit.

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  40. [I recall reading those – it has to be the trolls. You probably really pissed them off.]

    On second thought -young man – go wash your mouth out with soap. Speaking/writing that way. ;>

    ________________

    zxbe, do you get the synopsis just for your comments or an entire thread?

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  41. Wow, zxbe, such language!

    Funny how it works. I recently referred to one troll as a motherless turd and got a whole pile of ‘likes’. Maybe it’s because I borrowed the words from James Clavell (in Noble House). Clavell also coined the phrase ‘shit-festering pig fucker’ — the perfect description of roboslater. Maybe I’ll try it, see what happens!

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  42. ebb, Disqus sometimes sends them one-at-a-time and sometimes there will be multiple replies in a single e-mail. Must depend upon the volume of posts at the time.

    Sorry everyone, if my obviously horrible and obscene language has embarrassed anyone. lol

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  43. It’s possible that someone broke out the entire sock drawer just to vote down zxbe’s comments; it wouldn’t be the first time. The troll formerly known as Pee would be the most likely culprit.

    Pulling out all the stops… er socks.

    lol

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  44. I’m sorry.. I don’t mean to keep ‘pounding’ this, but just what is the giant gavel supposed to signify??

    I’m guessing “bigger government.” I could be wrong. The other choice is it makes him feel more manly.

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  46. I’m sorry.. I don’t mean to keep ‘pounding’ this, but just what is the giant gavel supposed to signify??

    Over compensation. I’d imagine Boner is impotent as well as incompetent.

    He’s an alcoholic. It will be interesting to see how he acts in the coming days and months. He’ll need a full time keeper – making sure he isn’t stumbling drunk.

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  47. Okay, warning this story is a downer. I saw it first on HuffPo, and found a bit more detail here.

    A woman announced on her facebook page that she was going to kill herself, and her friends just argued and bickered and one even called her a liar. But she actually did it.

    There’s a snippet of the Facebook comments at the link. Just tears me apart. A combination of anger and sadness that people could be so shallow and cruel.

    /bummermode off

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  49. Gathering from the notes the woman was unstable – that does not excuse the excuses for human beings reading that on FB.
    (1,048 Facebook “friends” ) No one has that many ‘friends’ so the word is a misnomer.

    Truly sad no one could take her seriously – especially now that it’s known some lived within walking distance…

    We must always respond to ‘the boy who called wolf’ – we must never ‘tire of hearing that’ and act ~ one day it could end as this woman’s life did – no one caring.

    (it always makes my blood boil when folk in our town talk about charging for police/fire calls that turn out not to be emergencies. That can’t be assessed until the call has been answered.)

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  52. “Friending” on FB is purely a game of scoring points, and has nothing to do with people being your friend.

    I got on FB reluctantly at first, as a means of keeping in contact with my family (email is just SO 2007!) It then became a chance to stay in touch with my actual friends from SIU, and then others started showing up as well (folks from Ren Faire, folks from here — thanks!) Depending on how you count things, I’m one or two degrees of separation with some of the folks I’ve “friended” from people I’ve actually met. But all those people are folks who I think have interesting things to say and whose sense of humor variously tickles me. (There is one fellow who very closely follows the precious metals markets. I would never do such a thing, but it is fascinating to watch from a distance through his posts on the subject, and I value having that info pop up in my FB newsfeed.)

    But a 1000+?

    Village life is no longer possible once the population grows much over 200 people. Below that number it is still more or less possible to know everyone. You can’t possibly know, in any meaningful sense of the word, 1000 or more people.

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  53. God, the only good thing you can say about my Senators is that they are barely less stupid and ideological than the cockroaches from Oklahoma.

    (I just got an automated reply from McGrampa that was a virtuoso display of vapid vacuity. This, only some weeks after the original message to which it was a response.)

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  55. A strip joint next to City Hall in Abbotsford that won’t serve blacks. Somehow I don’t think this clown is bright enough to make it happen, let alone have it last longer than a day.

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  56. Gary, I have a handful of letters from both McCain and Kyl, responses to stuff I had written to them. Yep, it takes 2-3 months to hear from either of them, and then all you get is boilerplate bullshit. Still, I keep them in an envelope in a box in the storage shed, along with copies of my original letters to them. They’re worth a laugh, and if I ever get the chance to use the letters to embarrass those two assholes I’ll jump at it.

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  57. What remains unclear to me is whether these events are even unusual, much less connected, or whether the media simply got a bug up it’s ass and decided to report them with much fanfare and hand-wringing.

    Once the first report happened to surface, suddenly everyone everywhere starts noticing.

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  58. Well, I heard some people say all the animals, birds and fish dying off are part of a world wide suicide protest against the US going islamofascistsocialistcommie.

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  60. Muse: “To the list of dead fish, now add 40,000 crabs on the beaches of England. … It’s the apocalypse.”

    Reagan’s Interior Secretary, the nutcase James Watt was once quoted as saying, “God gave us these things to use. When the last tree is felled, Jesus Christ will return.” (that’s from memory, but it’s close)

    One thing the human species needs more than anything else — and NOW — is rapid evolution that quickly and substantially improves the furnishings in the cranial penthouse! Collectively, it’s becoming more and more obvious that we as a species are too freakin’ dumb to survive, to not become the first species to self extinct.

    “God’s image” eh? Figures, somehow.

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  62. Perhaps the future ‘rapture’ prophesied in the bible was misinterpreted… It’s the animals that are to be taken up, and the humans who destroyed this earth (that all animals depend on to survive) are the ones who will be ‘left behind’… A thought…

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  63. That sign does not invoke this type of gentlemen’s club, at least to me.

    I’m attempting to find a photo showing the entire sign – the one above and below.
    Curiosity has me needing to know what “Everything used…” relates to.

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  65. đŸ˜€

    2ebb, they couldn’t get any farther from me and still be in Alabama. I like the way the Fox station called her a NASCAR driver, that’s like calling a Stradivarius a fiddle! They did acknowledge that she won an Indycar race, but not like it was important or anything.

    Zooey, you do know what Godaddy does, right? It’s about as boring a business as business can get. So they use exclusively hot sexy girls on all their ads.

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  66. When I hear ‘godaddy’ it reminds me of Maynard G. Krebs (from Doby Gillis fame) – he used to say “daddy-o” being a beatnik .
    He doesn’t say ‘daddy-o’ in this clip but it’s humorous – note the ‘portable radio’ – the i-Pod of its time:

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  69. GoDaddy registers internet domain names, Zooey. It must make money, they spend enough on the race teams.

    I was wondering if Rachel would be back today, if she had been at Jerry Brown’s inauguration like Bill Press. He was back this morning. I guess she is taking this week off, since Keith took last week.

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  70. I got first sight of Boner’s new gavel and the first thing that came to mind was a croquet mallet with a cut down handle. For some reason, I can’t stop giggling. đŸ˜†

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  71. Dobie’s dad had the tag line: “I’ve got to kill that boy, I’ve just got to…”

    It was the equivalent to “to the moon, Alice!” on the Honeymooners.

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  74. Was looking for a Dobie clip with Zelda in it – but there don’t seem to be any.
    Zelda was played by Sheila Kuhl – one of our state Senators for eight years.
    Maybe she didn’ t think it dignified – but I doubt that.

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  78. Heart breaking news – just devastated that such lovely creatures were disturbed to death (heavy sigh) for some fireworks. The damn New Year will arrive whether they kill birds with whirly, sparkly crap or not.
    Save the birds~!~

    Mysterious bird deaths explained

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  82. Walt there was a link – I clicked on it and had to leave the machine before it pop up.
    I came back to this huge weevil on the screen.
    Not a handsome as a dragonfly but has some interesting features!

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