Impeachment is for High Crimes and Misdemeanors. Bush has not broken any laws himself, so a bill of impeachment would be dead before it took two steps.

Once again, Pat Buchanan is smoking crack.

Threatening to impeach the President over illegal immigration is one of the stupidest statements Buchanan has ever made and he's made some doozies. All an impeachment does is open the doors for every person with a gripe to call for the impeachment of a President for every little slight real or imagined.

The impeachment process is not meant to "wake Dubya out of whatever stupor he's in about illegal aliens." It is meant to remove a sitting President for REAL crimes.

You have made some ludicrous statements in the past, but this one just takes the cake.

he swore to uphold the laws of this great country. he is not doing that when it comes to immigration. maybe not doing your job is not a crime, but i hope he "wakes up" nonetheless.

President Hayseed is by far the worst president this nation has ever seen. He has failed to honor his sworn oath of office. If any president has ever needed to be removed from office it is this miserable Texican stooge.

Sorry Jay, I think your going to wish you never made this post

Wouldn't it be easier to just remove the incentives?

You know, when Bill Clinton was President he was the butt of a lot of jokes, and mean-spitited speech. But I point out two things;
1- He actually did those things, and
2- His title and name were still used.

Now, as for Pat Buchanan. I heard him on the radio yesterday (Hannity I think) and he was admitting that this was a publicity stunt designed to wake the President up, and the public at large I suppose.

If he thinks there is a problem with the borders he should get someone in the Legislative Branch to propose a law, get some buy-in, and have it passed.

The Executive Branch is no more responsible for inventing laws than the Judicial. The Exec enforces those laws (which I admit is not being done very well, due in small part to political corectness and weak-kneed-ness) while the Judicial interprets them.

A well-written, meaning simple and short, law would do wonders for the whole country. Wasting our time and money with a frivilous impeachment, like lawsuits, serves no effective purpose.

Am I mistaken?

Oh for chrissakes! What an absolutely moronic idea!

Did it worry you at all to see that shark pass by below?

Jay, you frequently play at the edges of common sense and occasionally stray into simple stupidity. Now you dive head first into insanity. Your "clock" accuracy rate is better than Buchanan's (but then, very few are that bad), but it's not good enough that you should be publicly citing the "broken clock" adage.

Impeachment for policy you don't like--what a measured, wise course of action! Do you have any respect for the Constitution, never mind common sense?

This has got to be the stupidest post of the week in the right wing blogosphere.

I use to like this blog, until I read the libertarian kook crap just now.

Sean,

Go read Article IV, Section 4 of the US Constitution. By failing to provide assistance to the border states, he's in violation of the federal government's obligations pursuant to that section.

Sounds like old "JD" just came over from our Daily Kos "buddies". LOL

And for the geniuses who seem to think that they are such know-it-alls that they'd bash Jay and Pat over this, read the actual law:

"The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence."
-Article IV, Section 4 United States Constitution

I fail to see how any logical and reasonable person can claim that the illegal immigration has not reached the level of a bonafide invasion given the fact that the Mexican government actively encourages its people to colonize the US.

Wow, it's been months since I've had time to read this blog, but I thought I'd check in since I remembered Paul was from N.O. A call to impeach the president was the last thing I expected to see.

Disappointing.

Jay Tea,

I'm with you on this one though it appears to not be paticularly popular so far. Buchanan is fringe and his rhetoric needs to be parsed rather judiciously. On this one, however, he is right. Whether it's a serious plea or a publicity stunt, something must be done to curtail illegal immigration. Bush is clearly not the man for this job.

One quote was particularly telling and a true indictment of our representatives given public opinion on this matter:

"Why is a Republican Congress permitting this president to persist in the dereliction of his sworn duty?"

We all know that all of our representatives are responsible for defending our borders. The Republicans, as majority party, have an obligation to initiate legislation and push this effort. The minority one could as well but they do not set the agenda. The executive should use its bully pulpit to present what it believes. Bush has been expectedly silent on this matter which means he doesn't care about this particular issue, or he does not want to advance what the vast majority believes is the appropriate action - defending our borders.

To me, this is an impeachable offense. He is not advancing the Constitutional perogative of defending our nation's citizens by securing borders. He is a hypocrite for warning Syrians and Iranians to stay out of Iraq and protect their borders while he is unwilling to defend our own. His advancement of the Patriot Act (which I endorse) rings rather hollow when a flood of humanity enters daily. This humanity spreads unchecked and ignored despite monies allocated to increase the personnel tasked to defend the country.

Bush continues his legacy of encouraging illegal immigration and a chummy relationship with Vincente Fox. As Tancredo has said previously, I wish Mr. Bush were as concerned about this issue here as Mr. Fox is in Mexico.

I have but one question for those defending Mr. Bush's immigration policy (or lack of one): If Mr. Clinton were as egregious in his thumbing of nose at our immigration laws, particularly in view of 9/11, would you be asking for his impeachment? You can bet I would and it would be appropriate. Job number one for the government is to protect its citizens. Bush has failed miserably in this regard despite admirable speeches regarding foreign lands. Repeating them does not absolve him from his responsibility at home. He should be taken to task and if impeachment hearings are required, then count me in.

Jay, please tell me you're kidding.

While we are at it, why not call for Bush to be impeached because of all the people the IRS doesn't catch cheating on their taxes? Or all the murderers and other criminals not caught by law enforcement? Or the contraband being smuggled into the US that isn't caught by Customs?

There are few on the right side of the aisle who disprove more of what Bush is and isn't doing than I... but calling for his impeachment because we don't like his priorities is a tad silly... and too much of what I expect from the other side.

"I fail to see how any logical and reasonable person can claim that the illegal immigration has not reached the level of a bonafide invasion given the fact that the Mexican government actively encourages its people to colonize the US."

I fail to see how any logical and reasonable person can claim it's an "invasion" when the state's are providing food, shelter, clothing, health care and jobs for the invaders.

We don't need the Army or Border Patrol or an Iron friggin' Curtain down there. Stop paying them to come here and they will stop coming.

Hmmm.

I see a lot of people making some snide remarks without actually contributing anything to this discussion.

Frankly I don't think an impeachment effort would really go anywhere. But I do think it would accomplish a great deal. If nothing else it would show the GOP, in a very literal way, just how aggravating this issue is for a lot of people.

What's needed more though is an accurate, state-by-state, assessment on the actual costs due to the illegal immigration. Just in basic education costs alone the bill could be enormous, and that's without healthcare costs borne by states and the federal government.

The assessment is needed, prior to any serious discussion of impeachment, to combat the whole "illegals are good for the economy" nonsense.

And I'll point out that any such impeachment proceedings are not, and should not, be limited to President Bush. If it's possible to bring them about against Bush, then it's possible to bring them about to any sitting President that doesn't actively enforce control over the borders.

Hmmmm.

I'll also add one other point.

This is how Mexico first lost Texas.

If the southwestern states are majority populated by Mexican citizens, with say dual citizenship, and they decide to seceede from the union to rejoin Mexico, are you willing to send combat troops there to fight another civil war?

Would you prefer to head things off now?

Or would you like to practice a, then necessary, form of ethnic cleansing to force out the Mexican separatists by force?

This is why I think an impeachment proceeding isn't out of the bounds.

Sorry for the anger in my first comment, but this really set me off. If immigration is your hot button, then join up with the Minutemen; at least they're doing something about it. Urging a Republican congressman to start an impeachment resolution is a stunt, pure and simple.

If we impeached government officials for every real or perceived dereliction of duty there'd be no one left to govern. In that respect, the impeachment process should be used with great and cautious discretion. To call for Bush's impeachment is knee-jerk reactionism that's better left to the Left.

Having said that...

I think AnonDriv makes some excellent points (as usual); the President's hypocritical stance on borders and security is laughable and could very well be his undoing should another 9/11-type event occur and it was discovered that the attackers came through our porous southern border.

By all means, the President needs to wake up to the HUGE problem illegal immigration is presenting in this country—from rising health care and medical costs, education, crime, to the potential terrorist threat.

Obviously, we need to make the President care about this issue. As citizens, we need to get off our asses and put some pressure on our representatives to make this a BIG issue. And that means writing campaigns, calling talk radio shows, etc., all the things the left does really well and that GOPers do not. There has to be that overwhleming ground swell that gets to the right people. And that ain't happening, folks.

But impeachment? Puhleez.

First, I agree that illegal immigration is a big problem, but I have to say that everyone who has discussed radical action here needs to take a chill pill.

Our economy is inextricably intertwined with illegal immigrants. There is no realistic or economically feasible plan to extricate them from the system. No one would be willing to pay the taxes needed to build a government agency that could really control the boarders, catch, detain, and deport all the illegals. Nor would we be happy with the consequences of such an action. Imagine triple priced produce, double priced services, etc. That would plunge the economy into a depression very quickly.

Any measure taken needs to be incremental and well thought out (and what government program is well thought out?) or we will end up with suffering from the law of unintended consequences. Besides if its such a problem, why are the Governors of the most affected States doing next to nothing? They are in control of their National Guard Troops within their states. If it is truly the emergency that some are making it out to be why not deploy the troops? I think their inaction tells us volumes.

We do need to wake Bush up about this issue, but impeachment as the means to do it, is simply stupid. Sorry, J -- no Kool-Aid for me.

Oh yeah, I also question the use of the term "pourous-southern-boarder". Our northern boarder is arguably much more porous and inarguably much larger. Further, our coastlines are virtually unprotectable and again much larger (a handful of coastgaurd patrols covers thousands of miles). Thus, the use of the terrorist via southern boarder line of argument only serves as a scare tactic and doesn't hold intellecutally honest water in my mind.

Not only did this digital clock hit midnight, it's BLINKING. It needs to be reset.

Brother Jay...I just don't get it. Sorry. I will grant you that the efforts at border control have been woefully inadequate, but to say Bush has done nothing is simply not true. What is true is that he hasn't done enough. Additionally, the blame cannot be solely heaped upon the President. There is that thing called Congress and if they felt something needed to be done they could have, and can, act on their own. And the Dems are only spouting border control as a wedge issue to separate Bush from his conservative core and motivate union and trade groups. I see them as being very NOT serious about controlling illegal immigration.
And please, stop reading Buchanan. Anyone to the right of Pat Robertson deserves an audience of none.

RE: McGehee's post (August 31, 2005 03:06 PM)
We do need to wake Bush up about this issue, but impeachment as the means to do it, is simply stupid. Sorry, J -- no Kool-Aid for me.

That's OK. [J, I'll take McGehee's.]

The problem is that Bush need not be awakened to anything. He knows about the associated problems and risk/reward yet chooses to do nothing. Actually, he does less than nothing.

He has lived in a border state for decades. He was governor of a border state for two terms. He has advocated NAFTA and CAFTA and was one of, if not the strongest, proponent of NAFTA as Texas' governor. His father, as VP in the Reagan administration, was the first to advocate and pass amnesty for illegal aliens.

To give this President any excuse for not being aware is foolish. He is as aware as is humanly possible. He supports this illegal immigration because of special interest business pressure desirous of cheap labor. That's the financial end of his position. The political one is that he feels, incorrectly in the current environment, that by defending the borders, he (and by extension the Republican party) will be tagged xenophobes - the very ammo Rove and like-minded handlers do not want to hand over to a hypocritical Democratic party.

I refuse to give this President a pass on this issue. He has failed miserably and needs to be pressed to do something. If he won't, and it is apparent that it is his wont, we have a duty to express our displeasure. I do not want to look back on 9/12 of this or another year as the day that another eighteen radicals entered our soil and carried out a plot that annihilated another population of innocents. Will we be conducting another 9/11 Commission in the near future wondering where we went wrong? Can we wash our hands of responsibility a priori? Who will be responsible for the next "Gorelick wall" of politically correct advocacy?

Is the presentation of impeachment hearings or other such rhetoric inflammatory? Yes. Partisan? Possibly. Hyperbolic? Perhaps. Necessary? Apparently. Forgetting all of the other issues besides the security one for a moment, Bush may get lucky and nothing tragic may happen on his watch. Well, good for Bush and his legacy. But what of the risks he leaves behind for other administrations? Look what the Clinton administration left for this one re acute terrorism? Why won't we learn this lesson?

I just don't get it. (Hyperbole alert - do not read further if you are easily offended.) Maybe my KoolAid needs to be spiked with Gamma Hydroxy Butyrate. I'll feel so much better as the duped victim.

It's tough to admit that there's reason in any of Buchanan's statements but he DOES hit the right note on occasions and in the opinion of many -- such that, to write the statement, "I can't believe I agree with Pat Buchanan" has been written by many on the internet.

About this issue, I can't believe that I agree with Pat Buchanan.

And with MikeT, this thread:

And for the geniuses who seem to think that they are such know-it-alls that they'd bash Jay and Pat over this, read the actual law:

"The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence."

-Article IV, Section 4 United States Constitution

I fail to see how any logical and reasonable person can claim that the illegal immigration has not reached the level of a bonafide invasion given the fact that the Mexican government actively encourages its people to colonize the US....Posted by: MikeT at August 31, 2005 01:43 PM

SOME OF US (you are here) WHO VOTED FOR PRESIDENT BUSH are at wits end with Bush's mishandling if not downright fascilitating illegal immigration. He's either going to have to come out and say he's been wrong about his positions (among the worst, his statement defending illegal immigrants as "doing the work that Americans won't do" and referring to the Minutemen Project as "vigilanteism"), or, he's doing a good job of driving many conservatives toward other voting options in the years ahead.

Since we really, really do not like the idea of President Hillary Clinton, that leaves a divided GOP in the upcoming elections and especially the Presidential in 2008 and it'll be Bush's failure on this issue of illegal immigration that'll ensure that it happens. Or does not, if he gets on the ball and makes serious course corrections of the right quick kind.

And, anyone who uses the terms, "migrant workers" and "guest workers" and "immigrants" for illegal aliens is just pandering. And should not be reelected, regardless of who they are.

The country is fed up with illegal aliens and the disrespect for our nations laws, and particularly with Vicente Fox and President Bush sipping tea on this issue. He needs to get tough about illegal immigration, border security and law enforcement and do it now.

And, BMoe...tell that to the huge numbers of Brazilians who are in the U.S. illegally (they are illegal aliens) and the ongoing numbers from there who persist in illegally entering (and remaining in) the U.S.

They seem to be driven by some vanity notions more than anything. Same with many Russians. The Chinese and Mexican/Central American illegal aliens (also who number in the millions and continue to arrive -- illegally, to be noted) are motivated by crime and indebtedness (means by which they arrive here is criminal in theory and practice, despite the homey nature of many who affiliate with the organizations who make the individual illegal activity possible).

The thing that most of these more recent illegal aliens have in common is that they are not interested in citizenship, and thus perceive no reason for legal immigration. They are here to use the country and not to contribute to it by citizenship otherwise.

It is an invading force. For every American business who employs illegal aliens, American citizens subsidize their illegal profiteering, and the illegal behaviors of the illegal aliens involved.

They may not be wearing uniforms but the huge numbers of illegal aliens continuing to enter our country today and recently are colonizing: they are not arriving to join but to usurp.

Probably not hard to guess who in this thread feels they are financially or otherwise benefitting from illegal immigration.

That's the biggest problem. Take candy away from a child and you'll get more complaints out of them than if you slapped them in the face.

Cardinals Nation,

Have you forgotten the separation of powers? The Congress cannot legally command the military or federal law enforcement apparatus. Only the President and to a very limited degree the judiciary (force the President to act) can do that. The only thing the Congress can do is pass a law making it mandatory for US military forces to occupy the border region and then impeach Bush if he doesn't enforce the law.

The only thing the Congress can do to Bush is impeach him if he fails to uphold the law or to execute Constitutionally-mandated obligations. They can lawfully remove him from office because Article IV, Section 4 requires Bush in cases such as this to order federal law enforcement and military forces to take action. Bush has a constitutional obligation to put at least one army division on the southern border and get federal law enforcement going hard on employers of the illegals.

But he's not doing it. We have gangs like MS-13 that are causing domestic violence and are intimately tied to the illegal immigration question. Again, Bush is willfully refusing to uphold a constitutional right of the state governments which is in this case to the military and federal police protecting them from invasion and domestic violence caused from issues under federal jurisdiction.

Hmmmm.

Frankly nobody really benefits from illegal immigration. The costs are just spread in different ways and are often hidden. In New Jersey it costs an average of $14k per student per year to educate them.

How many illegal aliens there are in the New Jersey school system nobody knows. It would be a good thing to know, but politically incorrect or some such thing.