Republicans Plan To Flip The Senate In November And Impeach Obama As Quickly As They Can After That

Looking for another reason to vote against Maine Republican Susan Collins?

A few days ago, Jonathan Capehart wrote in the Washington Post that "President Obama will be impeached if the Democrats lose control of the U.S. Senate." Keep in mind that due to the unwillingness of Nancy Pelosi to replace that startlingly incompetent and venal Steve Israel as DCCC chair, the Democrats won't only not win back the House; they will experience a very painful net loss of seats.) Were Patty Murray still in charge of the DSCC, I wouldn't sweat the chances of the Republicans winning that body. But Murray, who was breathtakingly successful last cycle was replaced, while Israel, who was a shockingly abject failure, was held on to prove he hadn't learned a single lesson from the disaster he presided over in 2012. Replacing Murray is another timid centrist stooge like Israel with no courage and no vision, Michael Bennet, a front man for Guy Cecil, who thinks about nothing beyond being Hillary Clinton's campaign manager in 2016.

Bizarre racist sociopath Lou Barletta (R-PA) beat one of the most blatantly corrupt Democrats in Congress in 2010-- but only with 55%. A credible Democrat should be able to replace him in two cycles, if not one. Instead, Israel chose to ignore the northeast Pennsylvania district and focus on districts in Arkansas that are 10 times redder (and which he will lose gigantically). Roly poly Tea Party clown Blake Farenthold was elected at the same time as Barletta, beating Solomon Ortiz by 799 votes (47.8-47.1%). Barletta and Farenthold have something else in common besides the day they managed to get into office. Neither has a DCCC opponent in November. Oh… and one more thing: these are the two fools the GOP is using to push the impeachment message.

Rep. Lou Barletta (R-Pa.) became the latest to openly discuss impeaching the president. In response to a question from a radio host on Monday, the two-term congressman who was swept in during the tea party wave of 2010, said, Obama is “just absolutely ignoring the Constitution and ignoring the laws and ignoring the checks and balances.” Articles of impeachment, he added, “probably could” pass in the House.

In a later interview, Barletta said one of the reasons he wouldn’t vote for impeachment was because a Democrat-controlled Senate would never convict the Democrat president. Blake also mentions this parenthetically in his piece. Others who have talked about impeachment point to this as the reason not to pursue the extraordinary political rebuke.

Last August at a town hall meeting, Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-Tex.) cited the Senate as a reason for not pursuing impeachment. “If we were to impeach the president tomorrow, you could probably get the votes in the House of Representatives to do it,” he said in response to a constituent upset about “the fraudulent birth certificate of Barack Obama” and who wanted him punished. “But it would go to the Senate and he wouldn’t be convicted.” A week later, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) was asked, “Why don’t we impeach him [Obama]?” His answer was similar to Farenthold’s. “It’s a good question,” the freshman senator said, “and I’ll tell you the simplest answer: To successfully impeach a president you need the votes in the U.S. Senate.”

Actually, impeachment is a two-step process that starts in the House. All it takes is a simple majority of that chamber to approve a single article of impeachment against the president for “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” Once that happens, a president is forever branded as having been impeached. President Andrew Johnson (1868) and President Bill Clinton (1998) share that distinction. President Richard Nixon resigned in 1974 before the full House could vote to impeach him.

To officially remove a president from office, two-thirds of the Senate must vote to convict him on those articles of impeachment. Johnson and Clinton were not convicted. Obama could share the same or worse fate. A Republican-controlled Senate could lead to Obama becoming the third president impeached and the first ever to be removed from office.

I don’t make this prediction lightly. The tea party-infused GOP has done things many once believed impossible. I’m thinking specifically about the two instances it brought the nation and the world to the brink of economic ruin because of its resistance to raising the debt ceiling. If Republicans are willing to ignore their leadership and jeopardize the full faith and credit of the United States, there really is nothing they aren’t willing to do. And a Republican takeover of the Senate would only embolden them.

I hope level-headed voters in Maine will figure out that a vote for Susan Collins is a vote for a Republican take over of the Senate-- and for impeachment of President Obama. Collins vowed to only stay in the Senate for 2 terms. She's trying to slip into her 4th now. Shenna Bellows would make a far better senator. Another great replacement in the Senate is up to the voters in South Dakota, where Democrat Tim Johnson is retiring and where the Republicans expect to get their careerist special interests guy, Mike Rounds, in. If you don't think Rounds would be a vote for impeachment, you don't know anything about him. Here's a statement Rick Weiland made on the impeachment controversy, which is picking up steam among South Dakota teabaggers.

"Mike Rounds and his support of the South Dakota Republican Party State Convention’s impeachment of the President are an embarrassment to our state and a disservice to the people of South Dakota. It substitutes hate for reason, impeachment motives for rational discussion and impeachment itself for the casting of ballots-- and represents the very opposite of the South Dakota common sense that Mike Rounds claims to be representing.

"It is incredibly sad and disappointing when an extreme minority within a party proposes something so extreme and misguided that entire county delegations, who were at the South Dakota State Republican Party Convention last week in Rapid City, actually voted against it but the purported leader of the party sat by and did nothing to stop it.

"I challenge Mr. Rounds to come out from behind his big money campaign and the special interests bought and paid for big money campaign commercials and tell the people of South Dakota what kind of common sense he thinks it is to put the country through another gut wrenching impeachment fight.

"How can you say with a straight face that you want to represent South Dakota common sense and then vote to rip the country apart with an obviously politically motivated impeachment proceeding?  The type of action the state Republican Party convention endorsed last weekend is how they do things in a banana republic, not the United States.

"There are two things a democracy like ours should never do-- one is shut down the government and threaten to default on our debts-- and the other is to pursue an impeachment over political differences, instead of high crimes and misdemeanors. Mr. Rounds is now on the record supporting both of these extreme efforts.

"As I continue to travel to every one of our South Dakota towns for the second time, I can assure, there isn’t a lot of support for impeaching the President of the United States. People are fed up with this poisonous partisan bickering and want their elected leaders and future leaders to work together to address the many challenges facing our state and country.

"I’m calling on Mr. Rounds today to stand up against this kind of extremism and publicly oppose this impeachment resolution."

You can do your bit in keeping the Senate in Democratic hands-- and away from the impeachment loons-- by contributing to Weiland and to Shenna Bellows on this ActBlue page. One stop shopping.