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The Impeachable Offenses of Barack Hussein Obama

Part I
by Terence James Mason (One American Voice)
[email protected]

Attribute to L. Neil Smith's The Libertarian Enterprise

When L. Neil Smith approached me about starting what is planned as an ongoing series on the impeachable offenses of the current president, my first response was "there aren't enough electrons in the Internet to contain them all." And I should commend to you the following books which explore this area in extreme detail:
     David Limbaugh, Crimes against Liberty and The Great Destroyer;
      Mark Levin, Liberty and Tyranny and Ameritopia;
      Mark Steyn, After America;
      Glenn Beck, Broke, The Original Arguments, Cowards, and the novel Agenda 21.

     L. Neil Smith, Lever Action, the novel The Probability Broach, and virtually every word combination he has produced in the last thirty years.

But I do want to establish a few ground rules first (subject of course to revision by our humble publisher and editor for future installments). For the purposes of this series, an impeachable offense is:

1. An overt act, including a verbal or written act. It's still a free country, and anyone can express an opinion without retribution. However, "verbal and written" acts includes the introduction or execution of illegal, unconstitutional, and/or anti-constitutional legislation, executive orders, regulations, and/or judicial findings; instances of known or suspectedi fraud; and, statements which implore or initiate such action or inaction on behalf of others.

2. As regards impeachment of the President, an impeachable act must be performed either by the President himself (or herself, when appropriate), or by one of his appointed officers or other subsidiary officials and with the President's implicit consent (as by not firing the appointee and reversing the action). Actions performed by the Congressional leaders or members on the President's behalf might and should be cause for said member's impeachment, but they are answerable directly to the people; their actions cannot be cited for the President's impeachment.

3. The action must be responsibly documented in reputable media. Charges which are reposted from blog to blog but which never appear on a reputable web site should not be considered in the absence of a source document—or at least should be documented as "rumored" or "unconfirmed." We can't impeach the President for something we fear he might do, but will clearly update this list as soon as he acts (a candidate list is provided for such actions). Perhaps not surprisingly, many of the President's impeachable acts have been widely documented as triumphs by his party and supporters.

4. Last, but not least, the action must be either (a) explicitly unconstitutional (in excess of the President's power and authority) or anti-constitutional (violations of the Separation of Powers and the Bill of Rights of the People and States); or (b) an explicit violation of established law. In the latter case, law in question may itself unconstitutional or anti-constitutional; this can get convoluted, but the President CAN be in the wrong for opposing an existing law on the grounds its unconstitutional, but he can also enact orders with consequences which are even more damaging to the Constitution, the states, and the people.

Examples should be evident below. The Publisher and Editor wish to grow this effort, so please respond with any information which supplements the charges laid, or which identifies new charges which should be added to the list. For this first edition, I have proceeded to work primarily from memory documenting things that most people either know about or can easily find on the Internet. I hope to revise this in the future with better documentation.

Matters of Birth. I am generally agnostic regarding the question of whether President Obama was born in the United States or in his father's country. From all I have read about the subject, it is my understanding that, if he were born in Kenya, he would not be a natural-born citizen of the United States under the laws in existence at the time of his birth, due primarily to the fact that his mother was still below some threshold age. Had his mother been older at the time of his birth, or had he been born a few years later under different laws, it is my understanding that these objections would not have applied, and so I consider them of little consequence one way or the other. However, it is amusing to watch the dance, particularly since it was revealed earlier this year that he claimed Kenyan birth as late as the early-1990s in order to enhance his credibility as an author. Which begs the question, if he were in fact born in Hawaii and would lie about his place of birth just to sell books he hadn't even written at the time, what would he lie about to remain President?

More to the point, it is established that he was enrolled in school in Indonesia as a citizen of that country, and I give considerable credence to the belief that he enrolled in college in the United States, knowingly and as an adult, as a foreign student. Consequently, his current legal status might well be that of illegal alien. Whether he is in fact natural born makes the further determination fuzzy. However, while citizenship is a requirement of the Presidency, if he were disqualified for the presidency on any such basis, he would still be subject to Impeachment prior to Removal from Office.

Unfortunately, under current law, Obama has more than enough collaborators in Congress to likely avoid impeachment no matter his crimes. In fact, his supporters seem to revel in some of his most objectionable actions. As President Gerald Ford said, "What, then, is an impeachable offense? The only honest answer is that an impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers to be at a given moment in history; conviction results from whatever offense or offenses two-thirds of the other body [the Senate] considers to be sufficiently serious to require removal of the accused from office." That is one reason why No Loopholes seeks to make impeachment less discretionary on the part of Congress when it becomes necessary.

Call to Action. I implore any readers of this essay who believe that impeachable offense have been conducted, and in particular who have a Democrat representative or Democrat senators, to contact them, diligently laying out the case for impeachment. As a matter of practical politics, any charge of impeachment would have to be sponsored by a majority of the President's own caucus to avoid the charges of partisanship rampant during and after the impeachment of William J. Clinton, not to mention the charges of racism that would permeate the response. Besides, even if 100% of Republicans were to vote for impeachment, we would need about one third of the Democrat caucus in the House and almost half of the Democrats in the Senate to reach a two-thirds majority in each chamber. That's not going to happen without a loud clamor from the people of conservative-libertarian districts who have still voted a Democrat into office. Otherwise, I do not urge or recommend any action other than "the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances"—in the most vigorous and visible fashion possible. And not to comply with any unconstitutional or illegal order or law which impacts you.

The Impeachable Offenses of United States President Barack Hussein Obama

1. The General Motors and Chrysler Bailouts

This item has been very well documented. In summary, when General Motors and Chrysler were faced with bankruptcy and a reorganization which would of necessity lead to the breaking of their United Auto Workers contracts, the President, through various appointed office (which avoided Congressional oversight), intervened and dictated a solution which stiffed the secured creditors who should have been left with ownership of the companies under current Bankruptcy law, rewarded the President's Union supporters with continued unviable contracts and partial ownership of the companies, and also left the government with substantial partial ownership of the residual corporations. It's also noteworthy that after acting to protect the pension of Union members, the President and his appointees explicitly denied pension to 20,000 non-union "white collar" employees of the Companies. It is also reported that Obama (or his representatives) openly threatened the secure bondholders with retaliation if they sought to recover their rights under the law.

Thus with this one action, the President violated the separation of powers and equal protection clauses (by unilaterally rewriting bankruptcy law for two cases), unconstitutionally assumed partial ownership of the companies (there is no provision in the Constitution permitting the government such a right), and, apparently, contributed to the violation of state laws regarding threats of violence, which certainly in and of itself falls under the "high crimes and misdemeanors" clause. Further, as these actions were to the benefit of organizations (auto unions) which contributed heavily to his campaigns, his actions were at best unethical and possibly illegal under federal and/or state law (certainly federal officials who took such money personally would be dismissed immediately).

I lead off with this because for some time my mantra has been "for this alone he should have been impeached." But it also illustrates how the deafening applause of his caucus makes impeachment impossible for even extraordinary levels of corruption.

2. Operation "Fast and Furious"

We all know the story: The Holder Justice Department, under the guise of "tracking gun sales to the Mexican Drug Cartels," allowed known cartel agents ("starw buyers") to purchase firearms at US gun stores and turn them over to the Cartels. Except that the tracking part never happened, and at least one US Customs Agent and hundreds of defenseless Mexican citizens (denied self defense by their own government, and we should remind the US Gun control lobby that this is coming to the US if they disarm us) have been murdered.

It is widely reported, not refuted, and in part consistent with e-mails between Justice Department Officials, that one purpose of Fast and Furious was to develop a case for regulating US gun sales to prevent the Cartels from getting access to them. That even seemed to be working in some corners until Officer Terry was shot by a program gun.

Attorney General Holder and the officers under him should be impeached and imprisoned as accessories before the fact to murder. So should Obama as an accessory after the fact in permitting the cover-up and keeping Holder in office. (Unless, of course, he was complicit, in which case the charge should also be accessory before the fact.) In this case, the implicit effort to justify judicial overturning of the Second Amendment is (almost) secondary to the actual crimes involved.

3. Obamacare

"It's constitutional," according to Chief Justice Roberts. But that is because the penalty for not buying insurance was reclassified as a tax by rewriting the legislation in his finding. So yes, he should be impeached also.

In addition, "Obamacare" is a massive federal power grab not authorized by the Constitution; while the Administration claims some traceability to the "general welfare" and "commerce" clauses, "general welfare" does not give the federal government authority track every individual citizen, or monitor their health and maintain their health records. It violates the 1st Amendment (by requiring that employers and insurers pay for "reproductive health services"—an Orwellian term for contraception and abortion—that is contrary to their personal religious beliefs). It apparently skirts violation of the 2nd Amendment only because of NRA vigilance (thank goodness, for once). By giving the federal government control over health records, it violates the 4th Amendment right to be secure in your papers. It violates the 10th Amendment because the Constitution gives the Federal government no role in public health other than the general welfare clause, not to mention mandating numerous actions on the State. It's a gross expansion of the already tortured commerce clause.

And that's just off the top of my head.

Everyone involved in it, from Obama, Pelosi, and Reid on down, should be impeached and removed from office for violation of their oath and directive to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution.

4. The "Flexibility" Statement to the President of Russia

During an international conference in March, Obama was caught by an open microphone in a discussion of missile defense with then Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, asking him to carry the message back to strongman Vladimir Putin, "This is my last election. After my election, I have more flexibility." As I'm sure is well known, Russia opposes the United States placing missile defense in Europe to protect against ballistic missile attack on US forces in Europe and on the Continental United from launch points in the Middle East, a program that was started under former President Bush. Russian's objection is that such defenses could also be used to inhibit Russia from attacking the United States (under the Cold War "Mutual Assured Destruction" policy).

The implication is that Obama sought to set foreign policy and defense spending priorities before the election with an intent to be re-elected, and change them afterward. At best this was defrauding the American people, and failing his responsibility to provide for the common defense. At worst, his actions may have risen to the standard of "providing aid and comfort."

I realize that many readers of TLE are probably not concerned about missile defense, or convinced of the need for missile defenses. That is a subject for a different essay. The point is that Obama is lying to the American people about his commitment to defend the United States. Morally, this is just another effort to disarm the American people—one with nuclear stakes.

Candidate Offenses and Suspicious Events. This section discusses items which might move onto the Impeachable Offenses list given more information or future developments.

1. Executive Order Gun Control.

As outlined in Point 1 above, speech is free. The Vice-President's comments on executive order gun control may well have been "sticking his finger in the wind" to sense the political climate. I sincerely hope that he found the wind shear not to his liking. That said, if such an executive order is executed, it is Unconstitutional and will merit impeachment of both the President and the Vice-President as his agent in this matter; and, being illegal, there is no legal obligation to adhere to it. (The nature and extent of opposition is, of course, a matter of individual choice). But if such an order goes further, into the confiscation of even one legally held gun, or the attempted disqualification of any person or persons from gun ownership, the executive order becomes an act of war against the United States, as does any effort to prevent the successful prosecution of such charges for impeachment and removal from office, and similarly any effort to enforce or comply with such order. Again, you have to make your own decisions in this regard. Just, whatever you do, make sure you have a firm justification, both moral, and legal in terms of Constitutional law—even if your justification is not considered acceptable to the majority (or more likely, a very vocal Anti-Constitutional minority), the Constitution is supposed to support your rights also. I strongly hope that a "clamor" will be sufficient in this regard.

Author's note: I am philosophically closer to Heinlein than to Rand, a minarchist rather than an anarchocapitalist, who believes that there is a proper and necessary Constitutional role for government in the national defense, one which I have benefitted from during my professional career (see No Loopholes for additional discussion). If you will, feel free to discount any observations I make which appear to be a conflict of interest as regards that relationship.

Terence James Mason is the author of No Loopholes: Getting Back to Basics, an assessment of the meaning of the Bill of Rights and a suggestion of additional Constitutional Amendments to restore the Framer's vision for the Republic. No Loopholes is electronically published by Twilight Times Books (http://twilighttimesbooks.com) in Kindle, Nook, and other popular electronic formats. Mason tweets on the need for #NoLoopholes @OneAmericanVoice.
Web site: www.oneamericanvoice.me

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