This motion doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of ever passing, but it’s entertaining nonetheless, though probably not the sort of game we should be playing as a government shutdown looms. Outgoing GOP Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO) appears to have caught the Congress equivalent of ‘senioritis’ with this measure: he wants Kamala Harris to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Joe Biden from office (via Politico):
Rep. Ken Buck introduced a measure Monday that called on Vice President Kamala Harris to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove President Joe Biden from office, a surprising move from a Republican who has been publicly skeptical about impeachment.
Buck's (R-Colo.) resolution urges Harris to convene the Cabinet to “declare what is obvious to a horrified Nation: That the President is unable to successfully discharge the duties and powers of his office.”
The retiring conservative has questioned both of House Republicans' impeachment efforts. He was one of three GOP lawmakers to vote against a recommendation to boot Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas that passed the House earlier this month and has faulted his colleagues for failing to provide a credible link to date that would support impeaching the president.
“I want to make sure we don’t ruin this institution over a tit-for-tat impeachment,” he told CNN in September. “If the evidence is there … I will absolutely vote for impeachment. I don’t see the evidence at this point."
The impeachments of Biden and Mayorkas are the right courses of action, though Republicans don’t have the votes. Buck’s resolution also isn’t to pass. If he wants Biden removed, he should just back his party’s impeachment effort at this point. And the evidence is there, Ken. It’s why the Justice Department was rushing to get Hunter Biden’s blanket pardon plea deal done at rapid speed, which blessedly fell apart when IRS whistleblowers Joseph Ziegler and Gary Shapley came forward to disclose the rampant interference the DOJ inflicted upon their investigations into the president’s son.
Buck’s moral high road nonsense is yesterday’s news. The base wants scalps, no matter what the circumstances. The Democrats opened the floodgates to these sorts of games, and we should take them up on it ten-fold. Impeachment is now a tool to go after people we don’t like—I’m perfectly fine with that precedent.
But let’s play around with this: could you imagine if the 25th Amendment was invoked on Biden and Kamala took charge? I’ll repeat it: the GOP would win 49/50 states, which is why it will never happen. As Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) said earlier this month, the vice president is the best insurance policy against that move. Democrats already have a dissatisfied base heading into this election season. Labor union members, blacks, Hispanics, and Arab American voters are all either souring or enraged at Biden for multiple reasons, with the Israel-Hamas war being the main sticking point. Young voters and Muslim Americans are especially angered over the Biden White House’s position on the situation in Gaza. The depressed turnout from these voter blocs is a guaranteed Trump win. Engaging in chaos with 25th Amendment stuff, as entertaining and beneficial as it would be, will not happen. Democrats may be a mess, as are we to a certain extent on the Hill, but they’re not going full-blown ‘Japanese human wave attack on Okinawa’ insane with removing Joe, even though he forgot when his son died.
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