

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
To donate by check, phone, or other method, see our More Ways to Give page.


Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
Just what are you waiting for? What are your escapist excuses?
The staggering cowardliness by four ex-presidents vis-à-vis Tyrant Trump’s wrecking of America cannot escape history’s verdict. However, there is still an opportunity for vigorous redemption by George W. Bush—whose life-saving AIDS Medicine Program in Africa was shut down by President Donald Trump—Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden, if they have any self-respect for their patriotic duty.
As of now, these former presidents are living lives of luxury and personal pursuits. They are at the apex of the "contented classes" (see my column “Trump and the Contented Classes”, November 14, 2025) who have chosen to be bystanders to Trump’s tax cuts for the wealthy, deregulation, and the doling out of Trump’s corporatist welfare giveaways.
Imagine, if you will, what would happen if these four wealthy politicians, who still have most of their voters liking them, decided to band together and take on Trump full throttle. Privately, they believe and want Trump to be impeached (for the third time in the House) and convicted in the Senate. This time, on many impeachable actions that Trump himself boasts about, claiming, “With Article II, I can do whatever I want as President.”
Right off, they can upend the public discourse that Trump dominates daily with phony personal accusations, stunningly unrebutted by the feeble Democratic Party leaders. This counterattack with vivid, accurate words will further increase the majority of people who want Trump “Fired.” Just from their own observations of Trump’s vicious, cruel destruction of large parts of our government and civil service, which benefits and protects the populace, should jolt the former presidents into action.
Send these four politicians, who are friendly with one another, petitions, letters, emails, satiric cartoons, or whatever communications that might redeem them from the further condemnation of history.
Next, the bipartisan Band of Four can raise tens of millions of dollars instantly to form “Save Our Republic” advocacy groups in every congressional district. The heat on both parties in Congress would immediately rise to make them start the Impeachment Drive. Congressional Republicans’ fear of losing big in the 2026 elections, as their polls are plummeting, will motivate some to support impeachment. Congressional Republicans abandoned President Richard Nixon in 1974, forcing his resignation with Impeachment on his political horizon.
Events can move very fast. First, Trump is the most powerful contributor to his own Impeachment. Day after day, this illegal closer of long-established social safety nets and services is alienating tens of millions of frightened and angry Americans.
Daily, Trump is breaking his many campaign promises. His exaggerated predictions are wrong. Remember his frequent promise to stop “these endless wars,” his assurance that he would not impair government health insurance programs (tell that to the millions soon to lose, due to Trump, their Medicaid coverage), his promise of lifting people into prosperity (he opposes any increase in the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour) and he has signed GOP legislation to strip tens of millions of Americans from the SNAP food support and take away the Obama subsidies for Obamacare. Many Trump voters are among the vast number of people experiencing his treachery, where they live and raise their families, will lose out here. The catalytic opportunities of these four ex-presidents and their skilled operating teams are endless.
Further, this Band of Presidents, discovering their patriotic duty, will recharge the Democratic Party leaders or lead to the immediate replacement of those who simply do not want or know how to throw back the English language against this Bully-in-Chief, this abuser of women, this stunning racist, this chronic liar about serious matters, this inciter of violence including violence against members of Congress, this invader of cities with increasingly violent, law breaking storm-troopers turning a former Border Patrol force into a vast recruitment program for police state operators.
Trump uses the word “Impeachment” frequently against judges who rule against him, and even mentions it in relation to it being applied to him. Tragically, Democratic Party leaders Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries have made talk of Impeachment a taboo, arguing the time is not yet ripe. How many more abuses of power do they need to galvanize the Democrats in the House and Senate against the most blatantly impeachable president by far in American history? He keeps adding to his list—recently, he has become a Pirate and killer on the High Seas, an unconstitutional war maker on Iran and Venezuela, openly threatening to illegally seize the Panama Canal, Greenland, and the overthrow of the Cuban government.
Constitutional scholar Obama can ask dozens of constitutional law professors the question: “Would any of the 56 delegates who signed our US Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the 39 drafters who signed our US Constitution in 1787, being told about Monarch King Donald Trump, oppose his immediate Impeachment and Removal—the only tool left he doesn’t control?” Not one, would be their studied response.
Trump, a serial draft dodger, pushes through another $150 billion to the Pentagon above what the generals requested while starving well-being programs of nutrition for our children and elderly, and cutting services, by staff reductions, for American veterans, and strip-mining our preparedness for climate violence and likely pandemics.
He promised law and order during the election and then betrayed it right after his inauguration, pardoning 1,500 convicted, imprisoned criminals, 600 of them violent, emptying their prison cells and calling them “patriots” for what they did to Congress on January 6, 2021.
MR. EX-PRESIDENTS, JUST WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? WHAT ARE YOUR ESCAPIST EXCUSES? Call your friends who are ranking members of the GOP-controlled Committees of Congress and tell them to hold prompt SHADOW HEARINGS to educate the public through witnesses about the TRUMP DUMP, impeachable, illegal, and unconstitutional government. The media would welcome the opportunity to cover such hearings. Congressman Jamie Raskin thought this was “a good idea” before being admonished by his frightened Democratic leaders to bide his time and remain silent.
As more of Trump’s iron boots drop on people’s livelihoods, their freedoms, their worry for their children and grandchildren, their antipathy to more aggressive wars against non-threatening countries, and their demands at town meetings and mass marches for action against Trump’s self-enriching despotism, the disgraceful, craven cowardliness of our former presidential leaders will intensify. Unless they wake up to the challenge. With the mainstream media attacked regularly and being sued by Trump’s coercive, illegal extortion, the action by the Band of Four will bolster press freedom, press coverage, and their own redemption.
Send these four politicians, who are friendly with one another, petitions, letters, emails, satiric cartoons, or whatever communications that might redeem them from the further condemnation of history.
Rest assured, with Trump in the disgraced White House, THINGS ARE ONLY GOING TO GET WORSE, MUCH WORSE! For that is the predictable behavior from the past year and from his dangerously unstable, arrogant, vengeful, and egomaniacal personality.
"These disturbing images raise even more questions about Epstein and his relationships with some of the most powerful men in the world."
US House Committee on Oversight and Reform Democrats on Friday released 19 of the 95,000 new photos they just received from the estate of deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, as the Department of Justice is preparing to release its files from the federal case against President Donald Trump's former friend following votes in Congress.
"These disturbing images raise even more questions about Epstein and his relationships with some of the most powerful men in the world," the committee's Democrats said on social media, with a link to the photos, all of which Common Dreams has included below, on Dropbox. "Time to end this White House cover-up. Release the files!"
The photos feature sex toys, Trump condoms, and high-profile figures including the president, film director Woody Allen, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, former President Bill Clinton, lawyer Alan Dershowitz, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, billionaires Richard Branson and Bill Gates, and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, previously known as Prince Andrew of United Kingdom.
The committee's Democrats received the photos on Thursday night and have reviewed "maybe about 25,000... so far," Ranking Member Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) told CNBC. "There's an enormous amount of photos we have not gone through... It will take days and weeks to ensure that we got those photos and that a redaction is done in the appropriate way."
"Obviously there are photos of powerful men, and folks that we want to have an opportunity to speak with and ask questions of,” Garcia said, noting that some shots Epstein took himself and others may have been sent to him. "Some of the other photos that we did not put out today are incredibly disturbing."



















"Ghislaine Maxwell can't be taken at her word, so we need these files now in order to corroborate any claims she makes," said Reps. Robert Garcia and Summer Lee.
A House of Representatives subcommittee on Tuesday issued a subpoena for files related to the criminal prosecution of the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, despite U.S. President Donald Trump's demands that people stop talking about the case.
As The Washington Post reported, House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) issued the subpoena "nearly two weeks after one of the panel's subcommittees—with some GOP support—voted to compel the Justice Department (DOJ) to release the files." In addition to the Epstein files, Comer also issued subpoenas to former President Bill Clinton, 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, and former FBI Director Robert Mueller.
Comer requested that the United States Department of Justice deliver the requested documents related to Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, his imprisoned longtime associate, by August 19.
Reps. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) and Summer Lee (D-Pa.), both members of the House Oversight Committee, celebrated the subpoena while also emphasizing that much more work needs to be done to bring true justice for the people who were victimized by Epstein and Maxwell as part of an international sex trafficking operation.
"We must continue putting pressure on the Department of Justice until we actually receive every document," they said. "While this subpoena is a critical milestone in our investigation and a win for the American people, we won't stop demanding every piece of information our government has in a timely manner. We know that Ghislaine Maxwell can't be taken at her word, so we need these files now in order to corroborate any claims she makes. It's important to show folks that corruption and violations of our laws don't go unchecked, regardless of your political party or how much wealth you have. This fight is not over."
In a separate statement posted on X, Garcia vowed that "we are going to end this White House cover-up."
Controversy over the Epstein files exploded over the summer when the DOJ and FBI issued a joint statement asserting that Epstein had no "client list" of powerful men involved in his sex trafficking ring and that no further disclosures about the matter were warranted. Epstein, whom law enforcement officials determined died by suicide while in prison in 2019, was a longtime associate of Trump and also had relationships with other powerful public figures including former President Bill Clinton and Prince Andrew, the Duke of York.
Allegations of a cover-up by the Trump White House grew louder after The Wall Street Journal reported last month that the president had been informed back in May that his name appeared multiple times in the Epstein files, although it is not clear whether these mentions were incriminating.