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Biden Should Be Impeached
In an excellent article posted at The Federalist this afternoon, that publication’s Political Editor, the solid, responsible, and highly respected analyst and commentator John Daniel Davidson, has called for the impeachment of “President” Biden.
The piece starts with a brief summary of the latest grotesqueries over the past few days and shows, in a few words, just how massive the collapse of the Administration has been:
Joe Biden is not capable or competent to hold the office of the presidency. If there were any doubt on this point, his press conference Thursday evening in the wake of a pair of coordinated suicide bombings in Kabul should put the matter to rest.
The first blast Thursday killed 13 U.S. soldiers at a Kabul airport gate, along with scores of Afghans. Another bomb at a nearby hotel killed dozens more. Between the two blasts, as many as 170 people perished, not counting the U.S. service members. Hundreds more were injured, and according to U.S. officials there may be more attacks coming.
Whatever the final body count is, Thursday was the deadliest day for U.S. troops in Afghanistan since 2011, and the first time since February 2020 that any U.S. service members have been killed in action there. When the smoke finally clears, one thing is certain: Biden has been derelict in his duty, he is unfit to lead, and he should be impeached.
At his press conference Thursday evening, the president was slow and appeared at times to be confused, his answers rambling and unclear. When the time came to take questions, he said he’d been given a list, and had “been instructed” to call on certain reporters. It was a moment of quiet dread when we all saw confirmed again, before a gaping world, that although Biden is the president, he’s not actually running the country.
The last paragraph brings up what is in my view the most dangerous and obvious and blatant “tipping point” with regard to Biden’s diminished cognitive abilities. While there have been many downright embarrassing performances vividly illustrating his dementia – using a term I see more and more frequently although I disclaim any medical expertise in using the term- a statement by the occupant of the Office of the President of the United States that someone is instructing him to do or say anything is, to put it mildly, frightening. It is simply unimaginable what our major dictator adversaries are thinking now as they ask themselves if they actually are this fortunate to have no one in charge of The Devil America.
The incompetence of the Administration is on display everywhere and need not be recounted here except to note the following discussion in The Federalist piece:
Throughout this crisis, Biden and his White House have been evasive, defensive, and cruelly indifferent to a disaster entirely of their own making. The bare minimum for a commander in chief in this scenario is to be clear and forthright with the American people about what it will take to get Americans out safely, and what will happen if we can’t get them out by the August 31 deadline. Instead, the Biden administration has blamed Donald Trump, ducked questions, stonewalled, and generally contributed to the deadly chaos still unfolding in Afghanistan.
Indeed, what this means for the ongoing evacuation is unclear. It might well be over, at this point. News reports out of Kabul indicate the U.S. military is welding shut the gates of the airport complex, which could mean an abrupt end to evacuation efforts for an estimated 1,500 American citizens, at least, still trapped in Afghanistan.
If that is the case, we are now facing the worst hostage crisis in American history.
Consider a couple of phrases used in that passage — “welding shut the gates of the airport complex,” “worst hostage crisis in American history” — they bespeak errant stupidity, cruelty, and callousness which are hard to comprehend even in some of our less illustrious Presidents. It is clear we have never, in our history, had as incompetent a President and, as if that was not dangerous enough (there’s that word again, but it is important to describe how perilous our situation is with all of these fools in office) so many in the administration have demonstrated they would be fired on the spot in a normal private sector setting.
Noting better illustrates that point than the following:
The administration’s silence continues to be matched by its incompetence. Later on Thursday, Politico reported that U.S. officials in Kabul gave the Taliban a list of names of American citizens, green card holders, and Afghan allies to grant entry into the airport complex, a move that sparked outrage among lawmakers and military officials. “Basically, they just put all those Afghans on a kill list,” one defense official told Politico. “It’s just appalling and shocking and makes you feel unclean.”
“Makes you feel unclean” is a good description of the way one feels when trying to imagine how officials of our Government could be so bereft of any intelligence whatsoever as to hand a group of Stone Age animals a list to make it easier for them to go out and start massacring our fellow citizens.
It makes me sick to my stomach to think we have a Commander-in-Chief so devoid of human compassion as to violate one of the principal tenets of the Warrior Ethos:
In the U.S. Armed Forces, we don’t leave anyone behind. It’s one of the basic pillars of what the Army calls the Warrior Ethos: “I will never leave a fallen comrade.”
Impeachment is just, sound and proper under these circumstances and is also mandated for the protection of our citizenry. It is not a detraction from the justness and propriety of this remedy that it will not realistically take place until early 2023.
We should all pray — fervently — that we can survive that many more months of the most dangerously incompetent President in American history.
Published in General
Jonathan Turley.
The only change I’d make to the comment by @philo would be to strike the word “Democrat.”
I will read and study this piece and, while open to the Professor’s usual excellent analysis, I suspect this won’t be the first time I have disagreed with Mr. Turley.
I hasten to note I fully agree with his observations on the bizarre interview of the murderer of Ashli Babbitt and hope to write a post about his analysis shortly.
Pray for those in our home state in the direct path of Ida.
Thanks, Jim
I find that incredibly unconvincing after 2020.
I came across that after writing my comments, above. I’m inclined to agree with the Professor–who BTW was a staunch opponent of the Trump impeachments. If perceived incompetence is a justification for impeachment, we are likely to have an impeachment for each Administration. Trump’s impeachments proved that we can “impeach” a President based on a House majority regardless of the merits, but actually removing a President is more difficult.
The Founders debated whether “maladministration” would be a sufficient ground to impeach someone. They concluded that it would over-broad, and would simply degenerate to a “no confidence” motion .
While impeachment does not lie, there is a compelling need for Biden to take a Mental Status Examination. The first paragraph of Section 4 of the 25th Amendment states:
Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President. (Emphasis Added.)
There is a compelling need for Congress to appoint psychiatrists and psychologists to evaluate Biden. (I first started to write “Trump, but that is now moot.) A mental status exam is easy to administer. And if someone’s mind is going, they won’t be able to answer it.
Well, this quote is significant to me:
I am appalled at any Ricochet members who advocated, raised money for, and voted for President Biden calling for his removal from office after only 7 months in office (buyer’s remorse) for such vague and specious charges of “dementia and dishonorable” conduct.
Hardly amounting to Treason, Bribery and other High Crimes and Misdemeanors. [edited]
Congress cannot compel and has no authority to compel any medical treatment of a president over political disagreements, ever.
Under the explicit words of Section 4 of the 25th Amendment, Congress can appoint a body to examine the President to determine if he is unable to discharge the duties and powers of his office. This is not medical treatment, this is a mental status evaluation. This is not based upon policy disagreements, this is based upon whether the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. I am quoting from an earlier post on this issue which I believe is relevant. https://ricochet.com/1030568/the-25th-amendment/
I wrote:
Back in 2017 Representative Jamie Raskin introduced legislation to address the alternative. Raskin’s press announcement states:
“The Speaker of the House, House Minority Leader, Senate Majority Leader, and Senate Minority Leader each select four physicians and four psychiatrists to serve on the Commission. Additionally, the Democratic and Republican leaders of each chamber will select, by party, four retired statespersons (e.g., former Presidents, Vice Presidents, Attorneys and Surgeons General, Secretaries of State, Defense, and Treasury) to serve. The 16 appointed members then select a 17th member, who acts as the Chair of the Commission. In order to avoid conflicts of interest and both civilian and military chain of command issues, none of the members can be current elected officials, federal employees, or members of the active or reserve military.”
Now here’s the irony. We don’t want people willy nilly removing presidents for being flaming narcissists. We want them removed if they are showing the symptoms of senility, dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease. I will defer to the physicians of Ricochet as to whether there are markers that can be objectively ascertained as to the above conditions upon a blood draw and so forth. However, there is a quick and easy 30 question mental status exam that a psychologist can easily perform. A Neurologist suggested to me that Biden could miss well over the number of questions which would indicate senility.
Now let’s talk politics. Raskin’s bill was introduced by him this session while removal of Trump was still on the table. My suggestion is that Republicans join his bill and seek to have it heard.
If Biden cannot pass a simple Mental Status Exam, he should not be president. Use the vehicle that Jamie Raskin has provided us to that possible end. This would be an ongoing commission appointed by both parties.
You completely miss the point. The 25th Amendment is an alternative path to removing a President. It has nothing to do with “dishonorable” conduct. It is everything to do with dementia which appears may be creeping in on Biden, based upon recent events.
Does this include a proctological exam? This means examine his record for “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes or Misdemeanors.” Not examine whether he has hair plugs, or eczema, or a stutter. And they cannot force him to undergo a political test, either.
“So Mr. President, what time does this clock face show?
“Um, twelve thirty-one.”
“Wrong! It shows it’s time to go!!”
(“Dagnabbit, and I got that one right, too.”)
The creeping dementia has been evident for several years. Now regarding Biden’s other kind of creeping, . . .
YOU brought up dishonorable conduct, gary.
And yet Biden was still enthusiastically the candidate of choice by the NTers. They never, none of these ever, acknowledged this suspicion of dementia at all prior to the election. And now they conveniently want to nullify the results of what they claim was a straight-up and fair election because of this new-found dementia and his “dishonorable” handling of the withdrawal (even if one of them now denies the invocation of dishonor as a rationale for removing him from office). Very disingenuous. Very hypocritical.
I suggest that you check out The Bulwark. They (and I) have broken with Biden very, very publicly on the issue of Afghanistan.
”Dishonorable” is not a High Crime or Misdemeanor, nor is incompetence. Dementia is grounds for removal via the 25th Amendment, and I have outlined in Comment #39 how Congress can compel a Mental Status Examination.
As for your stated reason for removing Biden from office being “dishonor“, you brought it up. I didn’t.
As for your removing him from office by reason of your accusation of a permanent and incapacitating diagnosis of “dementia”, which I have never made, I will ask you: Are you, or have you ever been, a licensed psychiatrist or clinical psychologist? And in which state did you conduct your examination?
If you aren’t and haven’t. I will ask you: Who diagnosed President Biden; what are his or her credentials; and in which state did he conduct his examination?
And finally, since the psychiatrist you presented as an expert who diagnosed President Biden with “dementia” privately told you about his findings, and since you are by your own assertions a licensed and practicing lawyer and an officer of the court, have you reported this HIPPA violation to the proper regulatory authorities? If not, why not and when will you?
If you can’t or won’t answer these questions, then you have no standing to make your derogatory and possibly defamatory assertions about President Biden.
He’s my President, too, you know, and if you won’t stand for impartial and unbiased application of rule of law apart from political expediency, I will.
Wrong thread
Look, nobody’s going to be impeached. Nobody’s going to be fired. Nobody’s going to resign.
We no longer have a functioning government. You’re on your own, folks.
I think it’s best if we break up into 50 independent nations and then start over.
I doubt that would be allowed. While the Democrats hate to export America to others they would relish the deployment of the military against Americans. They would really prefer if the Deplorables were dead.
And that’s why we need to separate. 50 nations. Then we’ll do another one o’ them constitutional conventions and see if we can recreate America again. I suspect some will want to stay out. And I wouldn’t blame ’em.
Which states(s) keeps the military? GPS. Nuclear control. California (incl. Oregon & Washington)? New York? Illinois?
I would prefer a radical return of the 10th Amendment, but there are necessary purely federal things.