The New York Post reports in its usual restrained way:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday threatened that Democrats are looking at using a provision of the 25th Amendment to effectively remove President Trump from office.

Pelosi (D-Calif.) teased that she and her fellow Democrats are considering invoking the constitutional provision on presidential succession — a seemingly fantastical yearning among Trump opponents.

“Tomorrow. Come here tomorrow. We’re going to be talking about the 25th Amendment, but not to take attention away from the subject we have now,” Pelosi told reporters at a press conference.

Pelosi deflected a follow-up question about whether she believes it’s time to invoke the amendment, which was ratified in 1967. Trump is recuperating at the White House after a three-night hospitalization over the weekend for COVID-19 treatment.

“I’ll talk to you about that tomorrow,” Pelosi said.

In a Thursday afternoon press release, Pelosi and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said they would introduce a bill establishing a new commission that could remove Trump’s powers if it finds him mentally or physically unfit.

The bill would create a Commission on Presidential Capacity to Discharge the Powers and Duties of Office that would “enable Congress to help ensure effective and uninterrupted leadership in the highest office in the Executive Branch of government,” the press release said.

The White House did not immediately comment on Pelosi’s threat.

The 25th Amendment grants a role to the House in cases of presidential succession or temporary incapacitation. It allows either the vice president and Cabinet — or some other entity designated by Congress — to declare the president unable to perform his duties. Congress never created an entity to supplant the Cabinet in making that decision.

The amendment says: “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.”

Pelosi’s legislation is almost certain to die in the Republican-held Senate. If a commission ever were to be established, and if a vice president were to agree that a president was unable to serve, the 25th Amendment requires 2/3 of each chamber of Congress to affirm that finding if the president objects.

At the press conference, Pelosi mocked Trump’s Thursday morning declaration in a TV interview that he’s “a perfect physical specimen and because I’m extremely young” and alleged that he wanted to misdirect coronavirus stimulus funds to his own businesses.

“He’s a perfect physical specimen, did he say? Specimen, maybe I could agree with that. And young, he said he was young. His disassociation from reality would be funny if it weren’t so deadly,” Pelosi said.

Pelosi’s latest gambit is interesting (there are more profane words I could use) given that Democrat Joe Biden is in arguably worse health not because of COVID, but because of his age (77) and the residual effects of his two brain aneurysms in the 1980s. What other explanation is there for Biden’s basement campaign and how protective his handlers have been about his health status?

Pelosi seems to forget, though, that even if Trump is removed from office by the 25th Amendment, Mike Pence becomes president, and he gets to pick his vice president. It won’t be Pelosi.

Zilvinas Silenas:

If you read presidential candidate Joe Biden’s economic plans (“Build Back Better” and “Made in America”), you get a feeling of déjà vu, of having heard it all before: “America, good. China, bad.”

If it was not sprinkled with obligatory “Trump, bad” quips you might think it was lifted from Trump’s program. The leitmotif is: “I am going to do the same things as Trump, but better.”

To be fair, there is nothing wrong with wanting a strong economy, a manufacturing presence on US soil, and aspirations for American companies to become better than their foreign competitors. In these divided times, it is reassuring that, regardless of their differences, both Trump and Biden, at least on paper, want to improve the economy.

But will Biden’s Trump-ish plan actually do that?

One of Biden’s proposals is to Make “Buy American” Real. Basically, if the federal government is paying for a bridge, the contractor must get its steel, cement, and other materials from American companies. This, according to the plan, should help US companies compete with foreign rivals.

This creates the impression that the main global trade issue is companies participating in US public procurement and sourcing work and materials abroad.

Biden talks a lot about public procurement of steel and other construction materials. Yet, steel imports make up less than one percent of what Americans import (and that’s including all steel imports, not just steel for public procurement). Americans spend more on foreign wine, beer and other alcoholic beverages (see page 9 here) than they do on foreign steel.

“Drink American” would have a much larger impact on the trade deficit.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to have a strong domestic steel, or battery, or medical supply industry in the US The issue is how to achieve it.
If we stick to the steel example, in order to qualify for “Buy American” public procurement, all the steel products would have to be “mined, melted, and manufactured” in the US. Which means that bolts and nuts used in construction would have to be manufactured in US/ from a steel melted in the US from the iron ore mined in the US.

Once again, nothing wrong with the notion of making America a good place for an entire supply chain of the steel industry (or any industry). But just to put things in perspective, US iron ore production is 20 times smaller than that of Australia, nine times smaller than China, and constitutes a mere 2 percent of global production.

Is the Democratic Party ready to make the US a good place for mining, smelting and making steel? Perhaps. But it will be interesting to see how this is received by the left wing of the Democratic Party with their Green New Deals (Andrea Ocacio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders each have one) proposing energy taxes, decarbonization, 100 percent renewables, and an emphasis on the environment over industry.

The plan also includes a tax credit that “promotes revitalizing, renovating, and modernizing existing – or recently closed down – facilities.” Once again, nothing wrong with a tax regime under which companies pay less taxes. But this money comes with strings attached—only the chosen ones will be able to benefit from lower taxes.

Who will be the chosen ones? The plan says “[companies with] strong labor standards, including paying workers a prevailing wage(…).” It looks like the government might be picking the winners based on politics—their stance toward unions.

The whole plan suffers from the arrogant premise that if the government is buying something, it can pressure private companies to support certain political objectives. Government already exerts control on the economy. First, by taking a part of your paycheck (like taxes), second by spending your taxes on what they think is needed (like infrastructure). But here you have a third degree of influence—government rewarding or penalizing companies according to political beliefs. To be fair, Biden is not the only one proposing that, but this should be troubling.

To be fair, the plan is not terrible in the parts where Biden sounds pro-development and pro-enterprise. However, these vague sentiments contrast starkly with some of the measures proposed. Can you be for business, mining, and manufacturing in one paragraph, and for big-government labor and environmental policies in another?

Also, “Buy American” is a worthy slogan. But does it imply a policy where American companies produce superior products that everyone wants to buy? Or a policy where American are forced to buy American products?

One is clearly better than the other.