Posted on 02/17/2024 1:09:15 PM PST by jfd1776
The U.S. House of Representatives has impeached Alejandro Majorkas, the Secretary of Homeland Security.
The Constitution sets a very high bar for the removal of an officeholder through impeachment. Everyone is certain that this bar will not be cleared in the U.S. Senate.
Many onlookers, including plenty of our Republican representatives themselves, therefore wonder, what’s the point?
And you might not expect it, but this very issue is at the heart of one of the biggest disagreements in the current Republican party.
There is an unwritten parliamentary rule among legislators in leadership: You never call a vote on any measure unless you know, for certain, that you are going to win it.
There’s a lot to be said for that rule. It avoids embarrassment. Avoids failure. Avoids wasting time.
With anything that needs to get through both houses of Congress, therefore, the rule is extended to include even a bill that would pass one body, but is sure to fail in the other. Again, the sensible question is, what’s the point? Shouldn’t we be making better use of our time?
But there is another viewpoint. And this one requires stepping back a moment, and looking at the big picture.
Why do we elect people in the first place?
It’s not just to pass a budget and write new laws.
We elect our representatives to enunciate the principles of America. To keep the spirit of American liberty alive. To remind the public, constantly, what our country is all about.
We elect legislators to stand for American values, even when outnumbered, so that voters remember why they need to choose more wisely in the next election. And the next. And the next.
Why do we propose bills that would cut oppressive taxes, reduce unconstitutional regulations, close rogue federal agencies? Because that’s what ought to happen. And if we don’t say so, out loud, every day, we might eventually forget that it needs to be done.
There is one more reason. We propose the right bills, and we take them to the floor and call that roll call, every chance we get, because even if the bill fails, calling the question puts everyone on record.
When a popular tax cut or principled regulatory correction is proposed, and it goes down, political candidates on the right side of the question have a specific “No vote by their incumbent opponents to highlight in the campaign ads of the summer and fall.
Challengers, whether in swing districts or sacrificial lamb jurisdictions, need to have clear issues to run on.
Republicans in Congress have a duty to work as hard as they can to expand their numbers in the next election. They therefore have an obligation to give their fellow candidates lots of ammunition to work with on the campaign trail – ammunition like this.
What kind of legislator could possibly vote to protect the regime’s point man for open borders, in direct contradiction to not only the Constitution but his very job title?
Ultimately, clarifying that point is what this impeachment vote is at heart.
It isn’t just a referendum on a corrupt, treasonous cabinet secretary, who is personally leading the charge to flood our nation with millions of illegal aliens, among whom are countless thousands of robbers, rapists, drug dealers, and killers.
This impeachment is also a litmus test.
Everyone who votes to impeach this reprehensible enemy of the people has stood for the rule of law.
And everyone who votes against this impeachment has locked arms with the Biden-Harris regime, joining forces in intentionally weakening our nation’s economy, community, and culture.
If you don’t hold such a vote – every chance you get – you allow all such vermin to get away with it.
Copyright 2024 John F. Di Leo
John F. Di Leo is a Chicagoland-based trade compliance trainer and transportation manager, writer, and actor. Once a County Chairman of the Milwaukee County Republican Party in the 1990s, after serving as president of the Ethnic American Council in the 1980s, he has been writing regularly for Illinois Review since 2009. Follow John F. Di Leo on Facebook, Twitter, Gettr or TruthSocial.
A collection of John’s Illinois Review articles about vote fraud, “The Tales of Little Pavel,” and his 2021 political satirical discourses about current events, “Evening Soup with Basement Joe,” Volumes One, Two, and Three, are available in either paperback or eBook, only on Amazon.
That's what they say about exercising one's constitutional rights.
I say that the same thing applies to impeachment -- if we don't do it, they won't fear it. If they don't fear it, they will overreach to the point where impeachment no longer matters.
-PJ
Bkmk
Well said, Political Junkie. Right on target.
“We elect our representatives to enunciate the principles of America. To keep the spirit of American liberty alive. To remind the public, constantly, what our country is all about.”
Our representatives engage in Parliamentary Democracy; we vote our overlords into authority so they can direct our lives and our money to their collective benefit.
Thank you for your vote. Now hand us your wallet and get on your knees.
“Republicans in Congress have a duty to work as hard as they can to expand their numbers in the next election.”
Nice sentiment. Hard to do when so many of them are Assistant Democrats.
"The Constitution sets a very high bar for the removal of an officeholder through impeachment."
FR: Never Accept the Premise of Your Opponent’s Argument
First, the bottom line...
Consider that political party and media fuss about "obsolete" electoral college is because it is the only thing stopping the corrupt political parties from establishing a permanent puppet presidency that will unquestioningly sign unconstitutional taxing and spending bills into law.
Getting back to today's impeachment difficulties, the Constitution's bar for removing someone impeached by the House from office is not as high as Mr. Di Leo is claiming imo.
More specifically, corrupt political parties have divided both houses of Congress imo. By doing so, they have not only wrongly effectively nullified the Senate's supermajority power to remove people impeached by the House from office, evidenced by desperate Democrats and RINOs twice failing to remove Trump after mock impeachments, but have also likewise nullified Congress's power to override presidential vetoes.
The bottom line is that it's up to Democratic and Republican patriots to support hopeful Trump 47 by immediately primarying ALL incumbent lawmakers in state and federal governments up for reelection this year, except for MTG, Gaetz & Company (and others?), replacing them with patriot lawmakers who will work together to support Trump to finish draining the swamp.
Again, consider that corrupt political party and media fuss about "obsolete" electoral college is because the electoral college is the only thing stopping the corrupt, constitutionally undefined political parties that have pirated control of state and federal governments from establishing a permanent puppet presidency that will unquestioningly sign unconstitutional taxing and spending bills into law.
“ If the tax be not proposed for the common defence, or general welfare, but for other objects, wholly extraneous, (as for instance, for propagating Mahometanism among the Turks, or giving aids and subsidies to a foreign nation, to build palaces for its kings, or erect monuments to its heroes,) it would be wholly indefensible upon constitutional principles [emphases added].” — Justice Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution 2 (1833).
"Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States." —Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
From the congressional record:
(Again) ”Simply this, that the care of the property, the liberty, and the life of the citizen, under the solemn sanction of an oath imposed by your Constitution, is in the States and not in the federal government [emphases added]. I have sought to effect no change in that respect in the Constitution of the country.” —John Bingham, Congressional. Globe. 1866, page 1292 (see top half of third column)
“Cherish, therefore, the spirit of our people, and keep alive their attention. If once they become inattetive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, judges and governors, shall all become wolves [emphasis added]. It seems to be the law of our general nature.” - Thomas Jefferson (Letter to Edward Carrington January 16, 1787)
Pelosi: "We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it." (non-FR; 6 sec.)
Democrats [and RINOs] Are Terrified Of An Educated And Informed Public (3.12.23)
Impeaching Mayorkas will cause everyone who votes against conviction to defend that and to defend the open borders policy Mayorkas has overseen in direct violation of the law and enabling rampant illegal immigration. That refusal to abide by the law is impacting a lot of people, including a lot of Democrats in a strongly negative way.
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