Can you impeach a former president ?

Dutch Uncle said:
The key, IMO, is regular checkups and listen to the doctors. Sure, if it's something serious, get a second opinion but be forewarned.
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I have noticed with people in my family, that as you lose mental function, you revert to your inner self. It can be angry, happy go lucky, or anything else. There are people with Alzheimer's who are the happiest people on earth, and there are people who are violent, dangerous people. I am not sure who my inner self is, I hope not violent.

I heard Reagan thought he was being made fun of when they told him he had been President. He became quite angry about it.
 
martin said:
The Nixon case isn’t applicable in that it was about trial procedure and not, as this case would be, the meaning of the impeachment clause. Your argument if upheld would mean Congress could, right now, impeach and convict Obama or Bush or Clinton or Carter, absurdity notwithstanding.
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Congress has the right to give US citizenship to whoever they want. They gave citizenship to William Penn, a man who died nearly a century before the US was founded, and showed no interest in having any other citizenship other than English. It was a silly, meaningless gesture... But completely constitutional. Even beyond being constitutional, because it is so absurd, and meaningless, the Supreme Court will not touch it. They do not bother with rules until they have a real world effect.

So what happens if William Penn is impeached. Reminder, he is dead, did not want to be an American, nor hold any American office, did not even know the United States would exist, etc. If you wanted to challenge that in court, you would have to convince the Supreme Court to take on a case of no meaning. Which they will not do.

trump has meaning. trump could run in 2024, so impeachment would take that away. So he would have to go to the Supreme Court, claim Congress acted absurdly, and then reverse the claim and say it had great meaning. It is not for the Supreme Court to review whether the actions of Congress are good or not, so they cannot review whether trump should be banned from running in 2024.
 
martin said:
The Nixon case isn’t applicable in that it was about trial procedure and not, as this case would be, the meaning of the impeachment clause. Your argument if upheld would mean Congress could, right now, impeach and convict Obama or Bush or Clinton or Carter, absurdity notwithstanding.
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What keeps the Senate from baseless impeachment convictions is the two-thirds requirement. The amendment process is similar limitation, where amendments need two-thirds of each house, and three-quarters of the states.

It is tempting to say the Supreme Court should review amendments to make sure they are not absurd, but lets think about it for a minute. If an amendment requiring people to wear silly hats makes it through all that, then maybe it is not absurd. Maybe it has a good reason. Or put another way, the Supreme Court might have struck down the amendment that gave women the right to vote, if they thought that was absurd.
 
martin said:
The Nixon case isn’t applicable in that it was about trial procedure and not, as this case would be, the meaning of the impeachment clause. Your argument if upheld would mean Congress could, right now, impeach and convict Obama or Bush or Clinton or Carter, absurdity notwithstanding.
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Lets say four members of the Supreme Court were caught accepting bribes. The solution is obvious, impeach them. The Senate votes unanimously to convict, but then it is appealed to the Supreme Court, and those same four judges strike down the impeachment.

There is a reason that the writers of the Constitution did not want the Supreme Court to have any power over impeachment. Impeachment is one of the few checks on their power. If you allow them power over the check on their own power, you remove the check on their own power.
 
martin said:
Your argument if upheld would mean Congress could, right now, impeach and convict Obama or Bush or Clinton or Carter, absurdity notwithstanding.
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Is it absurd? All four men could get positions of trust. If two-thirds of the Senate felt they were a danger to the USA in a position of trust, why should you be able to call it absurd without knowing any of the evidence?
 
Walt said:
I have noticed with people in my family, that as you lose mental function, you revert to your inner self. It can be angry, happy go lucky, or anything else. There are people with Alzheimer's who are the happiest people on earth, and there are people who are violent, dangerous people. I am not sure who my inner self is, I hope not violent.

I heard Reagan thought he was being made fun of when they told him he had been President. He became quite angry about it.
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Psychoquacker, Uncle/Walt.
 
Walt said:
What keeps the Senate from baseless impeachment convictions is the two-thirds requirement. The amendment process is similar limitation, where amendments need two-thirds of each house, and three-quarters of the states.
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Nope. Congress need not be involved at all. The States themselves created the Constitution. They own it. Only they can change it. States can form a Constitutional convention to do just that BY THEMSELVES.
Walt said:
It is tempting to say the Supreme Court should review amendments to make sure they are not absurd, but lets think about it for a minute. If an amendment requiring people to wear silly hats makes it through all that, then maybe it is not absurd. Maybe it has a good reason. Or put another way, the Supreme Court might have struck down the amendment that gave women the right to vote, if they thought that was absurd.
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The Supreme Court has no authority to change the Constitution.
 
Walt said:
Is it absurd? All four men could get positions of trust. If two-thirds of the Senate felt they were a danger to the USA in a position of trust, why should you be able to call it absurd without knowing any of the evidence?
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We can argue about the absurdity of Congress convening to impeach Jimmy Carter in 2021 (I know the side I'll take), but there isn't any question about the fundamental difference between the Nixon case and a possible Trump case, the former involving trial procedure which the Court held to be exclusively the province of Congress and the Trump case requiring interpretation of a central meaning of the Impeachment clause, namely in what circumstances does it and does it not apply, a question squarely the province of the SC.
 
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martin said:
We can argue about the absurdity of Congress convening to impeach Jimmy Carter in 2021 (I know the side I'll take)
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Yes, it is absurd, but it cannot be constitutionally banned. Carter would be 100 years old at the next election, and is a very good human being. But if with constitutionally ban impeachment. In the unlikely event that Carter is discovered to be a danger to our democracy, and able to run for President, a super majority of the Senate should be able to counter that. It will not happen with Carter, but anything that can happen to someone, will happen sooner or later.

martin said:
but there isn't any question about the fundamental difference between the Nixon case and a possible Trump case, the former involving trial procedure which the Court held to be exclusively the province of Congress and the Trump case requiring interpretation of a central meaning of the Impeachment clause, namely in what circumstances does it and does it not apply, a question squarely the province of the SC.
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If you allow the Supreme Court to reverse an impeachment for their own reasons, then you have destroyed impeachment. That goes for whether the initial reason is good, or bad. The Supreme Court will always have the say over whether any impeachment is valid.

Dictators will always come up with technicalities to be dictators. These technicalities are mostly imagined, but they can threaten judges and others into accepting them. If we allow the Supreme Court to enforce these imagined technicalities, the last defense against dictatorship, impeachment, will be destroyed.

The Founding Fathers knew what they were doing when they banned the Supreme Court from hearing impeachment appeals.
 
Walt said:
You are not actually quoting the Constitution, but rather just posting insults against those who do quote the Constitution.

You believe this is a waste of taxpayer money. You might be right. Questions over what is the best way to spend the taxpayers money is up to the Congress, and being "wasteful" is not a question for the Supreme Court.
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well it seems democrats have now said that the only reason they are doing this is so Trump can't run in 2024... SUCK IT BITCH
 
Dutch Uncle said:
I'm content to let the Gods of the Fates determine karma, but it never hurts to put in a request. :)

Where he'll be in a year is anyone's guess, but I'm guessing health will put a damper on his public appearances.
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NYC doesn't want him. Mar A Lago isn't a viable option legally. He can purchase that property in a Fla. gated community that Javanka did. Maybe they'll give him a good price?

Because that community doesn't allow Jews...or despots.

Maybe the pillow monger will set up a spread for him in that Chinese pillow factory?
 
Hello Althea,

Althea said:
It's up to the new POTUS to decide the intel. Biden will def. take that away, as trump cannot be trusted not to sell top secret info to our enemies. The running joke is that it's a damned good thing that trump hasn't had any briefings in months.


But, they also get a rather generous annual travel expense account, office with staff, pension, etc. That can all be taken away. Unfortunately, the SS detail is separate and will still apply.


https://www.ntu.org/foundation/tax-page/pensions-and-perks-for-former-presidents-archive
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Yeah, take all that stuff away. It would be an insult to the majority of taxpayers to pay for that, and he no longer deserves it.

I agree the SS protection should continue. We don't want him to be snapped up and taken by a foreign power and pressured to give up what he knows.
 
Hello Dutch Uncle,

Dutch Uncle said:
As Trump's delusions manifest themselves more strongly, once out of power, he'll quickly be sidelined. Too crazy to trust with the world's greatest economic system and military, donchano' ;)

Agreed on the Republicans unfucking themselves, but that's going to take some time since the Trumpazoids are still screaming too loudly.

The Democrats have a similar problem with radical elements within their own party. You know, those who want complete unconditional surrender from the Republicans or they will nuke the Republican bastards a couple times. Some Democrats never change. LOL.
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Agreed the views of the radicals of both sides need to be suppressed. The problem with the internet and social media is the wildest views which never got much attention are now getting it.
 
Hello Walt,

Walt said:
Congress refused to let the Nixon Library into the Presidential Library system, with all the taxpayer money that entails, because they did not trust Nixon with public documents. When he died, they finally let his library in.

Why trust trump with a library, office, etc? Obviously, he can get his own, but not with taxpayer money.
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Best case, it will be a prison inmate project.
 
Hello Althea,

Althea said:
trump barely won in '16 because just enough Independents didn't know what a liar/fraud he is. Sure, there were quite a few Bernie voters who opted for trump out of spite to Hillary, but in 4 years the former will know more about him than we do now.

The only thing that gets trump elected if he did run, would be a gross violation of voting rights. That will get better under Biden, not worse.
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Republican States full of Trump fans control most of the voting rights issues.
 
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