So why hasn't Biden resigned or been ousted using the 25th Amendment?
Asks Glenn Reynolds in "Harris would be as much a figurehead as Biden — and we’d be ruled by the swamp" (NY Post).
Maybe Democratic Party insiders think Harris would make such a hash of even a temporary presidency that she would destroy her chances of winning the election in November.... Or maybe it’s just that those currently running the government like this president-less setup. They have power without responsibility and without meaningful accountability.... That most of our political class doesn’t care about this at all tells us how little it thinks of both democracy and legitimacy.... The coming election offers a stark choice between a chief executive who will govern as an executive, and one more likely to serve as a colorless tool of special interests. The special interests would prefer the tool....
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That’s pretty much it…
So why hasn't Biden resigned or been ousted using the 25th Amendment?
Obama needs a cover for his third term in office.
It would undercut the get out the vote effort to make Kamala the first woman President if she already we’re the first woman President.
I’m so sick of autocorrect.
If Harris does win Tuesday, I’m going to beating the drum that there is no reason that Biden shouldn’t step down immediately so she can start working on her To Do List. We have critical problems to solve, there is no time to waste.
Pelosi made him a deal he couldn't refuse -- drop out or we'll 25th you -- and, because she's a beneficent don, she's sticking to the terms.
If the Grey Eminence was going to appoint a figurehead, you'd think they'd pick someone who was better, or more convincing at it.
Because Biden didn't want to resign, and a fight over the 25th Amendment would have been devastating to Dem candidates. Also, I suspect that Biden's staff have been backing him because they know that if Harris takes over, they'll all be out of a job.
They showed Joe the portfolio of evidence they've been salting away, quietly, for the past 20 years. That's why Joe stepped down quietly - every single male family member would be headed for the Big House if he got stiff-necked. But that doesn't mean he's going quietly.
Trying to effect a 25th Amendment removal would require the cooperation of Republicans, who are unlikely to want to see Joe being set aside without a full media cat-fighting circus. So: No. Joe is doing what he can to torpedo Obama's putative fourth term, but he's cloaking it in his 'Crazy Uncle Joe' category so he'll get away with it, with his family fortune intact, come Jan 21st.
Well, let's see, his letter says, "...I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term." That doesn't seem to provide any insight.
There was no legal way to remove Biden from the candidacy, but there was a legal way to remove him from the presidency. The power brokers made Biden a deal he couldn't refuse: Back out of the nomination or we will remove you from office.
The answer is probably more mundane. (1) 25th amendment is a whole process and Biden wouldn't go quietly. (2) Harris becoming president would make her responsible for administration actions from then on, which would be problematic for her electoral strategy, given how unpopular Biden's administration is.
Ah, here it is, in the text of his withdrawal speech: "You know, in recent weeks it’s become clear to me that I needed to unite my party in this critical endeavor." It didn't have anything to do with his abiliities.
Biden was still up to running for president but he obviously wasn't up to serving another whole term
It's not a democracy, it's winging it, with the structural constraints in the Constitution.
Why would Wyoming consent to be ruled by California? They get more votes per capita to make up for it. Otherwise they secede along with a lot of other states.
"Section 4. Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President."
Harris would have to do this and she can't do this because she would be admitting that she has been lying about Biden's cognitive decline. She still keeps maintaining that he is doing a great job.
Enlighten us, Readering- how much of a new term was Biden up to serving?
Harris had 2 Constitutional duties as VP - preside over the Senate and trigger the 25th A. She was a disaster in casting the decisive vote on legislation for which we will be paying for decades to come and she failed to trigger the 25th A. Remind me again how she is qualified for anything at all?
Because THAT was the THREAT that they used to force him from office. Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, Kamala Harris and several other co-conspirators in the coup used this THREAT to FORCE Joe Biden to give up a nomination that voters chose.
That's felony treason. A hangable offense. And they better god damn well hope I'm never the Attorney General or they WILL hang.
The fact that Biden has been ousted, even if it is only by a putsch by his own party, means that I can't lose this election.
That wasn't the issue. Same holds for Trump.
Had Harris replaced Biden BEFORE election, everyone would have soon recognized she's even less capable of performing role than Biden himself, even she were provided with Biden's established protocol of multiple disability accommodations, such as shortened work-hours, multiple many-day beach vacations, always light scheduling, energy cocktails, teleprompters, advance-scripting of all questions and responses, favored reporters w/face card identifications, talking-point notecards, and earpiece verbal coaching at all public and government agency events, to name just a few cheats.
i really doubt, that THAT was the deal..
the details of the 25th (2/3rds of EACH house) make it pretty useless for that.
I'm comfortable thinking that the deal was:
drop out or DIE IN OFFICE
again.. Dead men CANNOT run for the Presidency
ALL it takes to remove a candidate.. is to have him DIE
The problem is not the problem, as demonstrated by the phrase (fragment?) "..ruled by the swamp". If that is part of your premise, whatever follows matters to some extent, but is also irrelevant. It's like baking bread so you can make a sandwich when you know you have no meat.
Agreed, it I think we can simplify a bit. If Joe Biden were to be removed via the 25th Amendment (and I agree that he’d fight it, hard and dirty) then it would by now be obvious to all but the most rabid Yellow Dog Democrat that she is too small a person for the demands of the job.
2024: Biden was still up to running for president, but he obviously wasn't up to serving another whole term.
2020: Biden is up to running for president, but he obviously isn't up to serving a whole term.
1988: Biden isn't up to running for president, and obviously isn't up to ever serving as president.
Proof that the country really is getting stupider.
Yea, after all, she knows all about time ....
“The significance of the passage of time, right? The significance of the passage of time. So when you think about it, there is great significance to the passage of time.”
“It is time for us to do what we have been doing. And that time is every day. Every day it is time for us to agree that there are things and tools that are available to us to slow this thing down”
God help us if she is 'elected.'
I’ve been a bit surprised that Trump didn’t make a bigger deal of Kamala not performing her 25th amendment responsibilities.
Yes she is using the fig leaf of "I'm not president" when asked why she hasn't done any of the things that she keeps promising to do "day one" and that fig leaf would be gone if she had the chief executive job.
1: As Dixcus said: that was the threat
2: Harris needed to run as "the outsider", which she couldn't do if she was President
The point is that you and other Democrats obviously believe he is up to serving at least part of the next term and I don't see what exactly changed in June that you no longer believed he was up to serving the entire next term. I am asking you what part of the next term do you think he was up to serving out? None of it? 1/4 of it, 1/2, 3/4?
Leaving him in office gives assurance to potential Harris voters that we can have a completely inept person as titular President and the government will continue.
I'm not an aging expert. I thought Trump should not have been running in 2016, neither should have been running in 2020, and really neither should have been running in 2024. Too risky. To me as obvious for both (pretending a hand job and a blow job on a mike at a videoed rally???).
Glenn Reynolds: "Harris would be as much a figurehead as Biden — and we’d be ruled by the swamp"
I think this is clearly correct.
Well said, Glenn. Perfect, in fact.
how slowly could have Congress walk 25A? till election day? Joe will still be on ticket!!!
The more I think about, the more it makes no sense to threaten Biden with the 25th Amendment. Invoking the 25th would have required a whole lot of Democrats, starting with Harris and Pelosi, to publicly make a whole lot of declarations regarding Biden that they likely wouldn't want to make. It's an empty threat. I suspect that the actual threats were probably prosecutions of Hunter, Jim, and other Biden family members.
Yeah. The guy tearing around the country doing rallies andc3 he interviessis just as incapacitated as Joementia. Makes you wonder about readering's cognition.
That doesn't make sense either- Biden as President is free to issue whatever pardons he wants. The real threat may have been an impeachment.
3 hour interviews
I’ve been pointing out the figurehead angle regarding Biden here for months. I’m glad Glenn finally caught up. Word Salad Kami was appointed to keep the scam going.
Also, Joe’s mental condition had nothing to do with whether he was allowed to stay or was forced out. He was keep because it benefited Democrats. It allowed Harris to distance herself from the administration. What was best for the country was never a consideration.
My cognition is fine. Trump talking drivel on a daily basis. And now simulating happy endings on camera.
You have to wonder why the Swamp is okay with Open Borders? Does the deep state only care about neocon policy and foreign wars?
Several reasons. 1) Biden has never been a President that leads . It is all staff and Cabinet. 2) The 25 th Amendment has never been used and it is not that easy to implement.3) The timing, it was such a short time since Biden decided to not run and the election. After the Democrats machine pushed so hard at Biden to get him to drop out of the race, the sop to his ego was to leave him as President.. After to refer to 1) Biden never did run the White House it always someone else. Hence the variety of contradictory policies.
Yeah, Biden doesn’t seem “up to being president.” Neither does Trump. One of them will soon stop being president, and we still have time to stop the other one from being president.
Harris is not “up to” being president. Trump was and is “up to” being president.
Biden might even step down after Tuesday after all the votes are in.
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1850462045335933266?s=46&t=VX4S-gjuq5nKM-bW4zL54w
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