Hello Michael,
Sorry. I keep posting things you have trouble viewing. I used to have satellite at home and could never watch videos. I could only see them on my work computer where I had bandwidth and speed. Thankfully they finally brought high speed down my road earlier this year.
Have a great weekend,
O.A.

I'm not sure I interpret it the same way. The Constitution specifically puts the VP in charge of the Senate. To have the VP from the opposing party would be a powerful check on "populist" bills that squeek by on the slimmest of margins. And it isn't as if the VP can sign bills into law. I'd also love to see the VP run the Senate instead of the Majority Leader - especially if the Senate was filled with representatives selected by State Legislatures rather than by popular vote.

Also, I think the President should fear for his status in office - not at threat of life or limb but certainly by Impeachment and Conviction. I hearken back to the words of several of the Republicans like Trey Gowdy when talks of impeaching Obama were brought up and his response was all about how that would put Biden in.

And can you imagine how differently Presidential elections would be conducted if every candidate was actually vying for the top seat but that the second-most vote getter also got a position of power? It would make third-parties a much more viable possibility and people would be able to vote for the Ross Perots and Ron Pauls without it just being a means of putting Democrats into office. I can guarantee you that the Republican Party would almost certainly cease to exist overnight as it would really break down into a Constitution party and Libertarians. It would also fracture the Democrats into a Progressive wing and a Blue Dog wing.

I would love to see that! There's a huge laundry list of people whom Trump ought to fire along with him, including the head of the VA, the head of the Justice Department, the head of HHS, and MANY more. What would be even better is if he just "downsized" the entirety of many of those agencies.

blarman: What many people seem not to under-
stand is that a state government may also be ty-
rannical. I think that there are things that govern-
ment should be prohibited from doing, whether
Federal, State, or municipal. I don't see that slavery or Jim Crow was justifiable, just be-
cause neither was Federal.

Well, maybe that will be good. If we can't just a-
bolish the whole da_n thing.

Why the 12th? Having the president and VP come from different parties only meant the President dared not leave town (and would always be in danger, since if something happened to him the opposition would take over).

Frankly, I think we'd be better off with a parliamentary system. At least with that, everyone is accountable, and there's never any gridlock unless the election was so close that a coalition government resulted. And you have the very useful mechanism of a vote of no confidence.

Exactly. The impeachment of Clinton demonstrated that the Senate will always vote their politics and not the truth in any impeachment trial, so the whole exercise is pointless.

We need to amend the Constitution to give the voters the power of recall.

That's my understanding as well, and I agree with your conclusion. The House votes to Impeach. The Senate votes to Convict.

It will only matter if impeachment actually succeeds. If the Democrats block it in the Senate (as I predict they will) then nothing will change.

I happen to know the founders of the Tea Party movement, they live about 20 miles from me in Grass Valley, CA. The ridiculous stuff they went through filing for non-profit status was unreal... they demanded a list of all charities they had donated money to in the last 10 years, a list of all candidates for any elected position they had donated to, a list of all members and donors of their organization, and their spouses names, what all the members of the organization did as an occupation and their annual incomes for the last 2 years, a list of all former addresses for the last 10 years for themselves and all members... etc. It was ridiculous. It looked much more like gathering material for an 'enemies list' than deciding if the organization met the standard for political non-profit.

Pardon the mixed metaphor, but when draining the swamp be careful not to throw the baby out with the bath water. It will be very easy for this society to devolve into pure anarchy. That is the progressive goal, after all.

I'm not an expert on the topic, but I suspect impeachment can only be used on elected or appointed positions... full time civil servants would be disciplined through the civil service code.

It would seem that this guy and his deputies (likely only the ones in the chain of commend to Lerner) would be vulnerable.

I would point out that the Constitution is a contract - just like the Articles of Confederation were. The two documents just have significantly different terms.

If you haven't read it, I would seriously suggest "The Anti-Federalist Papers". It is a collection of the deliberations of the Constitutional Congress and was very enlightening to me, as it described the various positions taken by participants of those negotiations and how things played out. When I read it, I didn't get any sense of fear-mongering or rumor-mongering whatsoever. Indeed, the debates were of great substance and depth and there was the greatest latitude given to a divergence of ideas. On several key portions of the document, there were dozens of votes held to break the gridlock of opposing thoughts. That doesn't happen when fear rules a debate. The book goes on to detail how most of Hamilton's ideas were rejected outright by the vast majority of the participants: they rejected a strong central government in favor of strong State governments. And it was only in the event of the War of 1812 (which threatened to destroy and subjugate the nation as a whole) that all the States finally threw in together and pledged their support to becoming truly the United States of America.

Has the Constitution been corrupted by the designs of power-mongering men in the past 200 years? Absolutely. Benjamin Franklin warned that those who would be drawn to the seats of power would not likely be the honorable men of the nation. But if one goes back to the original Constitution and Bill of Rights and starts from there (along with appropriately interpreting such clauses as the "Necessary and Proper" clause, the "Commerce" clause, and several others), that the foundation for a free society is all right there. I see a dissolution back to individual states as serving only to breed fractiousness but neither freedom nor greatness. You are of course welcome to disagree.

Yes, there were problems that could have been resolved by contract. It was used by the statist Hamiltonians to create a central government that made it easier to control via corruption. They didn't even include the Bill of Rights. It was an afterthought to the disgusting central power that was planned. They used the fear factor and rumor mongering to get it passed. The European powers were little threat. They couldn't control the colonies because of the distance and astronomical expense.
yes, I would prefer to see 5 nations with contractual confederation agreements instead of the evil empire that is the federal government.
Give the people a real choice without a gun to our heads and the income tax, the federal reserve, the mommy state will be extinct in at least several of the nations. The ones that choose socialism will collapse under their corruption, just as the USA is destined to.

There were major problems with the Articles of Confederation, which was why they were abandoned in the first place. Some included individual states placing tariffs on other States' products, the threat of several of the States to enter into mutual defense treaties with England (against other States), and numerous problems with jurisdictional squabbles over enforcement of judicial judgments and laws. Would you have us go back to those issues and be dissolved as a nation? Did you have potential solutions?

No, like under the Articles. Europe has never had freedom. The EU is a monetary enslavement of the member countries.

Hello blarman,
This whole spectacle is proof positive that the entire alphabet soup of federal agencies have become nothing more than tools for the elitists in charge. The IRS and DOJ are among the worst... They are completely politicized and might as well be part of the political apparatus of the DNC right now. The EPA is also at the top of that list.

Impeachment proceedings should not stop with Koskinen... He is merely a pawn among many.
A fish rots from the head down...
Respectfully,
O.A.

Liberty died with the Articles of Confederation, and Empire was born.
I would much rather see a smaller confederation of states prospering in liberty than an empire enslaving producers for power.

However, under the constitution, without the 16th amendment and the federal reserve act which spawned it, the central government would not have the means to amass power and banksters the means to rob and control the people. The 12th and 17th are also anti-liberty.

Impeachment would work - but blatant partisanship obstructs it from being effective. It isn't the Constitution, but cronyism that is the cancer.

“Impeachment is the appropriate tool to restore public confidence in the IRS and to protect the institutional interests of Congress,” Chaffetz said in introducing the resolution. “This action will demonstrate to the American people that the IRS is under repair, and signal that Executive Branch officials who violate the public trust will be held accountable.”

Rubbish. Impeachment is a band aid on the fatal cancer that is the 16th amendment
When the IRS is disbanded and the 16th amendment repealed, then and only then, will the people be assured that the IRS will no longer be a threat to liberty.
The power of the agency (and of the entire federal government) is the problem.
The only solution is to reduce the power to what it was under the Article of Confederation. The constitution has not been adequate to limit federal government power.