by Joseph DeMaio, ©2023
(Oct. 14, 2023) — He’s done it again. The most incompetent, corrupt and arrogant Commander-in-Cheat to have ever “occupied” – as in “likely illegitimately” – the Oval Office has stumbled while trying to climb three (3) stair steps to reach a speech podium. He stumbled not once, but twice in his 3-step challenge to reach the top, nearly falling over before grabbing a handrail…, with both hands…, to prevent a face-plant.
Brandon was delivering remarks – ultimately largely incoherent “Bidenomincs” fantasies – to a “throng” of perhaps 40 or 50 workers at the Tioga Marine Terminal in Philadelphia. After stabilizing himself on the handrail, he turned to the gathering of people – likely SEIU unionistas conscripted to attend the photo-op – and seemingly celebrated to them that he successfully remained upright. One guy in the “crowd” threw up his hands signaling “touchdown.” Yikes.
The relevance of this event is simply this: Brandon is not only intellectually vacuous, at age nearing 81, it is increasingly apparent that if he takes another spill and cracks his cranium open on a concrete tarmac, although the Republic will mercifully be rid of the Goof, it will then be saddled with the Word Salad Queen. If Brandon’s fall were fatal, § 1 of the 25th Amendment would install Harris as “President.” On the other hand, if the fall merely rendered him “unable to discharge the powers and duties of [the] office…,” – even more so than now evident on a daily basis – Harris would become the “Acting President” under § 3 of the Amendment.
But if, for whatever reason, VP Harris does not ascend to the presidency – as discussed here – as of today, there is the real possibility that Democrat Senator Patty Murray (D. WA) would become president. This is because, as of the date of this offering, there is no sitting “Speaker of the House of Representatives” under 3 U.S.C. § 19, the “Presidential Succession Act.”
As a result of the “vacating” of the position through the removal of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Cong. Patrick McHenry (R. NC) became the “Speaker Pro Tempore,” with very limited powers. The question of the nature and extent of McHenry’s “powers” remains unclear. There may yet be a fight over whether McHenry might challenge Murray should the foregoing sequence of events take place. But that would present a “constitutional crisis” at perhaps the worst possible time.
Memo to DC politicians: in case you have not noticed, there is a potential nuclear war metastasizing in the Middle East, so stop your squabbling, get a GOP Speaker of the House in place and get set for even more problems the next time Brandon tries to walk up (or down) any stairs…, and this time doesn’t make it.
We may as well just go ahead and call this what it is—a constitutional crisis.
While clearly the 25th Amendment should be invoked, doing so would lead to a problem with Article II of the Constitution because there is no legally eligible successor in the office of Vice President of the United States.
Even if the factor of the unlawful holder of the office of Vice President were obviated, there would then be a tertiary crisis: No Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, the next in line of succession. It must be hoped that this condition is very temporary.
The fourth impediment to a safe and sane line of succession to the presidency is that the President pro tempore of the U.S. Senate is Patty Murray of Washington. An exemplar of what her cohort John Fetterman ironically describes as “not the best and the brightest” her two-digit IQ would be an insurmountable handicap if surreally thrust into the office of President of the United States of America.
So at the moment, there are three people, the so-called “president” and the two people in immediate line of succession to him, and none are qualified to serve as President.
Brain-dead OBiden’s frequent trip and falls make former President Gerald Ford’s airplane departing/entering gymnastics look like a ballerina.