Rep. Lauren Boebert: "The blame starts at the top with Biden and his hand-picked Vice President … It is time for action. Impeach Biden, impeach Kamala Harris…” pic.twitter.com/ehhDeJs6FW
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) August 31, 2021
This is the current line of succession:
Where do you stop impeaching and end up with someone who is competent to run the United States?
It’s turds all the way down.
Question – can we get them on a deck of cards instead of paint by number?
There is a deck-of-cards precedent….
Let’s just glass everything and everyone inside the Beltway and salt the earth.
If you glass first, wouldn’t the salt then just blow away?
I don’t think this works like the chain of command in the goatee-Spock universe; if the president is impeached or dies, the speaker of the house does not become VP and the secretary of the interior does not become the AG. Rather, if the President through #8, say, are all taken out by a gene-spliced hamster high on crack, SecAg becomes the head of of the executive branch, aka the president, but SecCommerce stays as SecCommerce unless the new president asks that person to step into a new role.
This line of succession is for emergency situations, e.g. rapid sequence of events. A successful impeachment can certainly be a crisis, but it doesn’t have the short timespan element characteristic of an emergency.
At least that’s my understanding.
Boris, that’s not right. The succession rules have nothing to do with emergency or lack of it.
There is, however, a question whether the Speaker and President Pro Tem can succeed, since they can’t hold that office while serving as president at the same time. And of course, if they resign their current office they no longer are in the supposed chain of succession. The others (the cabinet officers) do fit, however. See 20th amendment, section 3. Also Article 1, section 6.
Impeaching Biden gets him and his incompetent clownshow of advisors out of office. It is a noble goal, and Biden leaving before 2024 is almost inevitable anyway. BUT!!!!
Will it ever happen? 45 out of 50 Senate Democrats will vote NO on impeachment even if they had absolute proof including Hi Def video that Joe Biden murdered a child and raped its corpse.
That leaves the 25th Amendment
Kamala Harris will bring her own MASSIVE incompetence into the Presidency, She will also hopefully be able to be sane and lucid, maybe even slightly competent for more than an hour or two per day, unlike Senile Joseph Robinette Biden.
Yes, she will be more radical, she will use her Blackness and her Femaleness as armor against critics. Will those be strengths or weaknesses this time? Black is no longer an automatic excuse. Woman even less. Her staff IS excrable, fractured third rate hacks that will be spending more time fighting the Joe Biden Staffers that will still be hanging around until Joe resigns.
Let her nominate a replacement VP. I don’t think the Democrat Senate Caucus will agree with the house Caucus on an acceptable candidate, much less get Republican support. Who? Pelosi? Conyers? Schumer? Gillibrand?
I have a dream.
I dream that Trump runs for the House of Representatives in 2022 and wins. He is then elected Speaker when the GOP takes it back in a landslide. Along with the Senate.
Then they impeach Joe and Kamala, because they can, and convict them too, because they can.
And that makes Donald Trump the President of the United States. As he should be.
It would be a beautiful end-around.
I know. Never happen in a billion years. Let me dream.
Julie,
The Speaker of the House does NOT need to be a Member of the House. Traditionally they always have been. All they need is a Majority of the House of Representatives to elect their person as Speaker.
But i cannot see those power hungry, parochial, short sighted, narcissistic politicians ever electing Trump to anything. They would not even agree to pass laws that they supposedly campaigned for (ObamaCare Repeal, The Wall), because Trump would get good publicity. The only reason many did NOT vote to impeach Trump was that their career and the Republican Party would have ended then and there. Just ask Liz Cheney.
On the converse, It is hard to see Trump as a good Speaker of the House. He is too prone to bloviate and stake positions that his caucus would not support. Speaker is a hard job, and a new Speaker needs to build concensuses, trust, and be willing to trade favors. Trump can possibly do that, but will he?
Imagine what chaos the 25th Amendment will do?
Section 4
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.,
Can VP Harris hire and fire Presidential Staff? Can she even move the “Biden Staff” aside in favor of HER Staff? What happens if Dr. Jill does not take the hint and “after a reasonable interval” resign Joe’s Presidency?
After all, Joe Biden could recover and resume the duties of his office. Shouldn’t POTUS Joe Biden’s staff remain ready and available to support the ELECTED President? Shouldn’t the Biden Staff be the people providing day to day support of the “ACTING” President? After all, Joe could come roaring back!
Imagine the in-fighting, the intrigue, the stabs in the back? The resignations, the promotions, the reassignments? The ass kissing, the brown nosing, the shattered bureaucrat alliances? Washington DC will grind to a halt.
Communist China could capture Taiwan, Phillipines, Japan, NZ, and half of Australia before anyone in Washington DC looks up from their turf battles and notices.
Biden will not be impeached. He is a Democrat and above reproach. He is God to them.
Even if Biden were to die in office unless it happened publicly they would hide the fact for months if not years.
And you know why they won’t impeach Biden? The Senate “majority“. If Biden goes they lose it. Think about it. And blaming Trump for everything only works on the partisans now.
J.,
Here is someone who despises McKinsey and their philosophy as much as you do (and I am really starting to):
https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/the-war-in-afghanistan-is-what-happens
I read that and swore that I could have written it. I’ve been debating posting on it. Thanks for the heads up.