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One third of Americans think President Barack Obama should be impeached, a new poll says.
According to a CNN/ORC International poll released Friday, 33 percent of Americans think the president should be impeached and removed from office, compared with 65 percent who say they don’t support impeachment. Fifty-seven percent of Republicans say they support impeaching Obama, compared with just 35 percent of independent voters and 13 percent of Democrats.
originally posted by: LucidWarrior
a reply to: xuenchen
Hmm. I can understand the sentiment; but, correct me if I'm wrong, doesn't the president have to commit a crime to be impeached? Or is it also to be a way for dissastisfied citizens to oust the man in power?
originally posted by: TerryMcGuire
And then what? Biden? Really? Biden?
Really?
but, correct me if I'm wrong, doesn't the president have to commit a crime to be impeached?
Because "high Crimes and Misdemeanors" was a term of art used in English impeachments, a plausible reading supported by many scholars is that the grounds for impeachment can be not only the defined crimes of treason and bribery, but also other criminal or even noncriminal behavior amounting to a serious dereliction of duty. That interpretation is disputed, but it is agreed by virtually all that the impeachment remedy was to be used in only the most extreme situations, a position confirmed by the relatively few instances in which Congress has used the device.
Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution says, "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." In his report, Independent Counsel, Starr accuses President Clinton of committing eleven acts for which he could be removed from office by impeachment. Are any of those acts "Treason, Bribery, or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors?" Well, that's up to the members of the House of Representatives. According to constitutional lawyers, "High Crimes and Misdemeanors" are (1) real criminality -- breaking a law; (2) abuses of power; (3) "violation of public trust" as defined by Alexander Hamilton in the Federalist Papers. In 1970, then Representative Gerald R. Ford defined impeachable offenses as "whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history." An excellent definition, Mr. Former President. In the past, Congress has issued Articles of Impeachment for acts in three general categories:
Exceeding the constitutional bounds of the powers of the office.
Behavior grossly incompatible with the proper function and purpose of the office.
Employing the power of the office for an improper purpose or for personal gain.
originally posted by: AngryCymraeg
Impeached for what?? Being president with the wrong skin colour? Oh wait, it's a Xuenchen thread, never mind!
originally posted by: guohua
originally posted by: AngryCymraeg
Impeached for what?? Being president with the wrong skin colour? Oh wait, it's a Xuenchen thread, never mind!
You have nothing to contribute except to Scream Racism.
Common Practice,,,,,,,,,
Run and Break Glass,,,,,you have nothing to add!
originally posted by: LucidWarrior
a reply to: xuenchen
Hmm. I can understand the sentiment; but, correct me if I'm wrong, doesn't the president have to commit a crime to be impeached? Or is it also to be a way for dissastisfied citizens to oust the man in power?
originally posted by: AngryCymraeg
Let's face facts - the moment that Obama set foot in the White House the GOP started to go raving mad.
originally posted by: stumason
I was going to say the same - impeached for what exactly?
You can't just impeach a President because you don't like him.
This bit of humor aside, there is no denying that Ted Cruz meets the constitutional requirements to serve as president. This includes the required that the president be a natural born citizen. It is irrelevant that he was born in Canada because his mother was a United States Citizen and thus he acquired citizenship, at birth, through her. President Obama's mother was also a United States Citizen. Of course, that fact was irrelevant in his case because he was actually born in the United States of America. Kind of funny, though, how their 'logic' works, isn't it?
The numbers generally fall in line with CNN results from the past two presidencies — 30 percent of Americans support impeachment for former President George W. Bush in 2006 and 29 percent support impeachment for former President Bill Clinton in 1998.
originally posted by: AngryCymraeg
Oh come off it, these calls for impeachment are ridiculous. The man's done nothing wrong apart from to do his best to clean up the vast pile of rubble left by Bush, a man who should have been impeached three times over. Let's face facts - the moment that Obama set foot in the White House the GOP started to go raving mad.
originally posted by: monkofmimir
1. NSA spying worse than watergate by many, many magnitudes
originally posted by: monkofmimir
2. Fast and furious
originally posted by: monkofmimir
3. All the war crimes he has commited
originally posted by: monkofmimir
4. His censorship of the media
originally posted by: monkofmimir
5. The IRS scandal
1. NSA spying worse than watergate by many, many magnitudes
2. Fast and furious
3. All the war crimes he has commited
4. His censorship of the media
5. The IRS scandal
And these are just the 5 biggest reasons off the top of my head.
Yes Bush should have been impeached too but its kinda funny how progressives claim a higher moral standard yet when one of their leaders is shown to be a evil monster they are so quick to point out the flaws in the gop as if that somehow makes anything they do okay.
The attitude could be summed up as "We'll he may be a war criminal but at least he isn't a republican"
Aug. 14, 2013: The Obama administration delayed the provision in ObamaCare to cap out-of-pocket health care costs, picking and choosing parts of the law to enforce, which is to exceed its authority.
July 17, 2013: The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals joined the federal appeals courts in D.C. and Philadelphia in ruling President Obama’s National Labor Relations Board recess appointments — who by law must be approved by Congress — were unconstitutional. Thus far, the president has ignored the ruling.
July 1, 2013: The Obama administration unilaterally decided to delay the employer mandate provision of ObamaCare for a year, which is to provide information to the feds about the extent of an applicant’s insurance. Never mind that the law states the mandate must go into effect on Jan. 1, 2014 — they are now relying on the “honor system” from applicants to determine if they are qualified for subsidies.
June 25, 2013: The Supreme Court ruled in Shelby County v. Eric Holder that Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act is “unconstitutional” and that “the formula can no longer be used as a basis for subjecting jurisdiction to preclearance.” Instead of complying with the ruling, Holder filed suit to order Texas to submit to preclearance, in defiance of Congress’ authority to legislate and the Supreme Court’s authority to rule on the constitutionality of the law.
June 15, 2012: The Obama administration announced it will stop deporting illegal immigrants under the age of 30 in a “deferred action” policy to circumvent immigration laws. This comes after Congress rejected a similar measure about a year ago. Since then, more than 500,000 illegals have received the deferment and only 20,000 have been rejected. As for the law-abiding applicants who have been waiting in line, well, that’s Obama’s idea of “lawfulness.”
May 20, 2013: A Washington Post article revealed that Fox News reporter James Rosen was investigated by the DOJ, which subpoenaed his phone records and emails in direct contravention of the First Amendment under the pretense of a leak investigation.
For now, the impeachment movement is too fringe even for the likes of Cruz, the capitol's chief boat-rocker. But I was curious: What does Klein’s case for impeachment consist of? There’s a lot in the book, he told me, but he gave a few examples. The constitutional standard for impeachment is "Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors." Klein's claims fall under the second two categories.
* Obamacare: Klein describes a number of arguments involving the health-care legislation, with the crux being that Obama committed a crime against his office by bypassing Congress in some way. "An obvious response is that the healthcare legislation was upheld by the Supreme Court," he noted. "But the book reports the White House has been hard at work changing the implementation of key sections of Obamacare without Congressional oversight."
* Immigration: Did Obama’s executive orders and interagency directives usurp Congress’s legislative authority? “President Obama has bypassed Congress, which has legislative authority for setting immigration policy in America,” Klein says. Last summer’s temporary reprieve for young undocumented immigrants, for example, “seems to be de facto amnesty without congressional approval.”
* Benghazi: In the attack last fall that killed four diplomatic workers, Klein sees a new version of the Iran-Contra scandal, claiming his original reporting has uncovered arms trafficking that wound up in the hands of al-Qaeda fighters.
* Fast and Furious: “I would think it would be very easy to argue that sending weapons deliberately with the intention of getting them in the hands of the drug cartels is a very clear violation [of the law], especially since it resulted in the murder of a U.S. border agent.”
* Surveillance: Klein claims to have uncovered much of the expansive surveillance regime that’s now coming to light; his book went to press before NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden went public.
* The Libya campaign: “There’s a chapter that questions whether the entire campaign was unconstitutional. We don’t conclude it was or wasn’t; we present both sides of the debate.”
* Bribery: “There are a lot of questions about stimulus-bill money that went to campaign donors. There’s money that went to different green companies that some of the top leaders then popped up as members of the Obama administration.”