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impeachment
Rep. Jeffries' Actions Would Earn the Praise of Trump, Not the US People
By opposing impeachment, the Democratic House leader has acted in the interests of the corrupt US president and not the majority of his party's voters.
Jul 27, 2026
“Leader Jeffries, President Trump is calling.”
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY): “Hello, Mr. President, this is a rare occasion!”
Donald Trump: “Well, Hakeem, I want to have a confidential talk with you on a secure line. Agreed?”
HJ: “Sure, since you made the call.”
DT: “By the way, Hakeem, my Saudi friends tell me that your first name in Arabic means ‘wise.’”
HJ: “I try not to dwell on that, Mr. President.”
DT: “Funny! Here is why I am calling. To thank you for opposing Impeachment. You’ve shown amazing political courage by standing up to the vast majority of Democratic voters who want to impeach me, remove me, and more from my beautifully renovated White House (Trump House, as we call it in our inner circle). The people are screaming at your Democrats in local town meetings because, as you know, the Dems aren’t pushing for impeachment.”
DT: “Even more so, are the real guts you have in shutting down your House Democrats shouting for Impeachment now, especially after my remarks about destroying Iran’s 5,000 years of civilization in April. You also blocked them from signing on to Rep. John Larson’s (D-Conn.) treasonous Articles of Impeachment and shut him up as well. TREMENDOUS exercise of power, Hakeem! You’ve freed yourself from Crazy Nancy, who impeached me twice. I admire that and wanted to tell you that directly.”
HJ: “As you say, Mr. President,” (noncommittedly.)
DT: “Hakeem, I wouldn’t say this publicly, but it looks like you will be Speaker in January and by a comfortable margin. So, we’re going to have to DEAL with each other, right?”
“I assume so,” replied Jeffries, wondering what comes next.
DT: “Not on the big issues, like strong support for Israel and a big military budget. I like what you said a while back that Israel could be the Sixth Borough of New York. And you have happily accepted tons of dough from the AIPAC PACs, as we have.”
DT: “Over the years, you’ve backed bigger military budgets to keep our country strong and NO. 1! Keep doing that, and I’ll go along with a tough audit of the Pentagon budget, which I’m told will take four years… I’m also OK with restoring the cuts to Medicaid, food and energy assistance, and filling the empty seats in the regulatory agencies with the required number of Democrats OK'd by you.”
DT: “Plus, as Ronald Reagan did, I’ll propose a task force to come to a bipartisan agreement to shore up Social Security for our elderly. And Melania wants me to say that I’ll join you with a real child tax credit for 60 million kids.”
HJ: “Sounds good, Mr. President. Can you get your GOP up here to go along?”
DT: “I’ll take care of them. With Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.), we’ll keep them in line. As you say to your rebellious Dems, where are they going to go?”
DT: “By now, you’re probably wondering what I want in return to make it a Deal? I want you to stay with your opposition to any drive to Impeach. Explain it how you will—‘too distracting, too divisive, don’t have the two-thirds vote in the Senate, the people’s business is your priority, whatever.’ As you know, the Impeachment articles would bring up the Epstein smears, the so-called ‘Kitchen Table’ issues, and alleged non-enforcement of the laws. Also, the tax stuff with the IRS, the necessary spending directly by me for our great military actions abroad, and so on. I got matters pretty much under control with the backing of six Supreme Court justices, my veto, and pardon powers. What I can’t control, without drastic actions, is the impeachment power in Congress that is final and can’t be sent to the Supreme Court. I’m being very frank, here, Hakeem. And you know the ways I can fight back.”
DT: “Also, I don’t want you to oppose funding my beautiful White House ballroom and the greatest Arch in the world. Pretty modest requests, wouldn’t you agree, Hakeem?”
“It is too hypothetical for any response,” said Hakeem. “While I believe in compromise for the ‘greater good’ to be achieved, we have to wait until after November. Besides, as you falsely say about us, you are really trying every day to steal the elections. We also don’t know how pliable the incumbent Republicans will be to your demands. Many may blame you for their losses. I must stress that any understanding we arrive at has to be open and subject to consultation with our leadership.”
DT: “I’m not surprised by what you just said. Still, I think this exchange was worthwhile as a preview of any deal. Before closing—have my buddy Mike Johnson calling on the line again—I got to praise you for shutting down Rep. Jamie Raskin’s (D-Md.) toying with an ugly rogue hearing on impeachment by the Dems on the Judiciary Committee. That would have set me off BIG TIME! Unlike Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Raskin gets so much fawning press that it’s hard to attack him without the fake news media going bananas.”
DT: “I guess you just told him: ‘Raskin, either you’re part of the leadership or you’re on your own—NO IMPEACHMENT HEARING, you understand.’ And he took it, he took it. Great job, I must say.”
HJ: “No comment Mr. President. Thanks for your call. God Save America.”
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What Will It Take for the Dems to Impeach Outlaw Trump?
Trump still has something to teach his feeble Democratic opponents: He will never give up.
Jul 20, 2026
The chronic prevaricator and delusionist, President Donald J. Trump, knows the worse his outlaw actions and mouth are, the less likely the Democrats in Congress are to impeach him.
The Democratic leaders, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (NY) and Sen. Chuck Schumer (NY), like Trump, oppose impeachment drives but for different reasons. With Trump the coming weeks are only going to get much worse, domestically and abroad!
Let us recall that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and her Democrats impeached Trump in 2019, over the Hunter Biden-Ukraine deal demanded by Trump, and in 2020 over the January 6th insurrection and attack on Congress. Both Senate impeachment trials failed to get the two-thirds vote required to convict Trump.
Why aren’t the Democrats demanding impeachment back home, where some 60% of the people favor this “You’re Fired” remedy, including 84% of Democratic voters? In a poll taken a few months ago, 59% of the people agreed with the designation of Trump as “a dangerous dictator.” Why has Hakeem Jeffries opposed House Democrats, almost all of whom favor impeachment in principle, signing on to veteran, centrist Congressman John Larson’s (D-Conn.) H.Res.1155 Articles of Impeachment?
Trump has mastered pushing expectation levels to their lowest depths in American history.
Capitol Hill reporters should ask that question why the Democratic leaders are dragging their feet on impeachment. Maybe it is because the GOP could claim that prior Democratic presidents have committed impeachable offenses. But the counterclaim is that no president in history has committed such egregious offenses, daily, doubling down when challenged. Trump brags about his outlawry, his mantra being “doing whatever I want,” aided by the US Supreme Court’s six Injustices (see Trump v. United States 2024).
The Democratic leadership says, “We don’t have the votes” in a GOP Congress. But to get the votes, you have to mount a relentless drive. Impeachment efforts around the country have collateral benefits, such as giving a demanding, angry electorate an answer to their question: What does the Democratic Party stand for? Impeachment is a mobilizer for get-out-the-vote efforts, for educating and energizing the people back home who want fighters for them in Washington, DC, not pussycats among the Republican carnivores. That’s why bold under-funded progressive primary candidates are starting to win against entrenched Democrats.
Compare the GOP to the Democrats. Republicans, in the minority when the Democrats controlled the House, took their repeal of Obamacare to the House floor over 60 times and lost. Still, they made their point, again and again, until they won the House and, with Trump, moved to make using Obamacare and Medicaid more difficult. As the great workers’ champion, Eugene Debs said, you have to endure losing and losing until you win.
Another explanation for the Jeffries-Schumer crowd is that pushing impeachment creates conflicts and turmoil that goes contrary to their top-down control discipline. They have their narrow and often flawed strategies to win elections, without alienating Wall Street. They also don’t want other variables to rock the boat, including an Impeachment article that raises their complicity with the Netanyahu genocide in Gaza-Palestine and the war against Iran.
When asked about Impeachment, Jeffries replied, “I don’t want to get ahead of that discussion.” What? The mega arsonist is burning down our Republic and the Constitution for which it stands every day, with tens of millions of Americans suffering and endangered, and their political leaders are saying, “Now is not the Time,” contradicting the wishes of the vast majority of their voters.
It is not just the lack of basic political fortitude and self-respect by the Democrats. In recent years, before and including Trump, before and including Elon Musk and his criminal DOGE rampages, there has been a destruction of basic norms and public levels of expectations by people vis-à-vis their political and corporate dominators. Lowering public expectation levels amounts to a get-out-of-jail pass.
Trump has mastered pushing expectation levels to their lowest depths in American history. He can lie, cheat, defame, corrupt, and wreck everything he feels challenges his egomaniacal-driven greed, arrogance, and lust for illegal power and ignorance. Trump’s polls remain in the mid-30s amid all the fake promises and current lies he peddles about his non-existent Golden Age for America, with its booming economy. He even claims falsely that nations are falling all over themselves to invest trillions of dollars in America. (See “Medical Concerns About Donald J. Trump and His Fitness For Office” in the April 30, 2026 Congressional Record.)
In the past, Americans had higher expectations for government officials. For example, Sherman Adams, chief of staff to President Dwight Eisenhower, had to resign in 1958 after accepting a vicuna coat from a textile industry friend who was facing federal regulatory investigations, even though there was no quid pro quo for the gift.
Or in 1987, Sen. Gary Hart (D-Colo.) had to suspend his presidential campaign because of accusations of womanizing. A picture of Hart, a married man, with a young woman sitting on his lap on a yacht raised a furor. In 2016 and 2024, Trump, the worst, most boastful sexual predator in American political history, went to the White House as president.
Ronald Reagan, a grade B actor, broke new ground when he became California’s governor and then president with a winning smile and optimistic, patriotic rhetoric that so diminished people’s expectation levels about what they needed and wanted from an American president.
So low were their expectations, including those of the media, of Reagan’s intelligence and knowledge that he became expert at obliging them. Mark Green, in his great book Ronald Reagan’s Reign of Error, gives many examples of Reagan’s ignorant statements, words, and jokes that would have sunk previous politicians’ prospects. (See: https://nader.org/1983/12/02/ronald-reagan-reign-of-error/) Reagan dismissed criticism of his polices or actions with a laugh inducing people to say, “There he goes again.”
It all comes down to the civic self-respect, knowledge, and engagement of the citizenry, starting with civic history and skill courses untaught in schools, with parents being circumvented by harmful direct corporate advertisements to their children, now addicted to over five hours a day on their iPhones and similar environments for growing up powerless.
There is a glimmer of hope. Tyrants and fascist dictators always overplay their hand. In Trump’s 26-minute televised speech on July 16, 2026, he showed how desperate and depraved he is. Trump wants to usurp state control of our approaching elections. This time, he didn’t begin to fool the media, so off the wall were his fabrications and phony accusations.
Typical is the Wall Street Journal’s summary of his ravings: “ [T]rump didn’t provide any evidence of voter fraud, prove that people had cast ballots in the US who shouldn’t have, or reveal that election outcomes had been altered because of interference.”
The Fuhrer in the White House, who said in January there should not be any elections in November, may have met his comeuppance. Even his core MAGA crowd is shrinking, according to polls.
But Trump still has something to teach his feeble Democratic opponents. He will never give up his many nefarious plans to disrupt the elections with his false claims and his possible invocation of the Insurrection Act to seize the states’ election data and machinery.
Voting in the upcoming election is a right and a duty. The consequences of not using your vote to send dictator Trump and his Republicans enablers the message that our democracy and the rule of law will not be subjugated by a dictator and his criminal gang.
(For more information on our civically-led Impeachment Symposium on Capitol Hill on July 22 see Nader.org/Impeachment.)
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'An Abomination': House Dem Revives Hegseth Impeachment Push After Iran School Massacre Revelation
"Children were murdered in the first days of Trump’s illegal, pointless war that has wreaked havoc across the world," said Rep. Yassamin Ansari.
Jul 08, 2026
The House Democrat who introduced articles of impeachment against Pentagon Secretary Pete Hegseth earlier this year revived her call for his removal on Wednesday following news that top US military commanders bypassed warnings about the reliability of their targeting information before authorizing the bombing of an Iranian school, killing more than 150 people—mostly young children.
"This is unconscionable," Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.), one of two Iranian Americans in Congress, wrote on social media in response to CNN's reporting on the US commanders' catastrophic decision. "Children were murdered in the first days of [President Donald] Trump’s illegal, pointless war that has wreaked havoc across the world. It is an abomination. It is a war crime. And it is why I’ve introduced articles of impeachment against Pete Hegseth."
Ansari urged her colleagues to support the Hegseth impeachment articles, which state that the Pentagon chief "has authorized, condoned, or failed to prevent the use of military force in a manner inconsistent with the law of armed conflict" and "demonstrated a willful disregard for the Constitution," among other alleged violations.
Currently, just 16 House Democrats are listed as co-sponsors of Ansari's impeachment articles against Hegseth, who dismantled the Pentagon's civilian harm mitigation programs before the Trump administration attacked Iran in late February. According to ProPublica, "Hegseth made deep cuts to the Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response programs and slashed CHMR staff at military commands by more than 90%."
"That included removing civilian harm specialists from target development strike teams and reducing the team of 10 at Central Command to only one full-time staffer," the outlet added.
CNN reported on Tuesday that senior US military commanders ignored warnings that intelligence pertaining to possible targets in Iran "was severely out of date and approved some strikes"—including the bombing of Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School in Minab, an attack that human rights groups say should be investigated as a war crime.
Months later, the Pentagon has not publicly released the findings of its investigation into the strike, and Trump recently said he doesn't believe the US was responsible for the Minab school attack, despite now-abundant evidence to the contrary. The attack is seen as one of the worst massacres of civilians in recent US military history.
Last week, The Associated Press reported that when news of the school bombing emerged on the first day of the US-Israeli assault on Iran, "the US military knew they had conducted strikes in the vicinity—though it took the military time to verify the Iranian claims that a school was struck and begin a formal investigation."
"One former Pentagon official, similarly speaking on condition of anonymity, said the bombing came as a natural result of changes made by the Trump administration to reduce staff to mitigate civilian harm and Hegseth’s emphasis on lethality," the outlet noted. "When Hegseth took charge, he slashed the size of an office called the Civilian Protection Center of Excellence, created at the direction of Congress in late 2022. That stopped the office’s work on updating 'no-strike lists,' which are lists of protected sites such as hospitals, schools, churches, and mosques, that the Pentagon keeps."
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Why Won't the Cowardly, Corrupt Democratic Leadership Act to Impeach Trump?
Small wonder that the huge number of Americans who despise Trump also do not trust the Democratic Party, which the media describes month-after-month as being in disarray.
Jun 13, 2026
In my past two columns, I made the case for the Democratic Party to take the lead in pushing for President Donald Trump’s Impeachment. The majority of people favor firing Trump, and the massive number of blatant, impeachable acts by the lawless, corrupt, violent, unstable, dangerous Tyrant Trump increases by the day. If it helps the passive Democratic Party leadership, constitutional law specialists agree that were the Founding Fathers (who signed the Declaration of Independence and crafted the Constitution against would-be monarchs) here today, not one would oppose Impeachment.
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), the party’s leaders in the House and Senate respectively, know all the ways Trump is wrecking America. They know that the Democrats in the House and Senate overwhelmingly want to impeach Trump. So, what’s the problem with these two men, and their weak Democratic National Committee?
Why do they constantly whine, “Now is not the Time,” “We don’t have the votes,” “Wait until after the midterm elections,” which they know Trump has his Trumpsters working overtime to disrupt? These are not the real reasons; they are pretexts. Trump, the burgeoning arsonist of our Republic and the Constitution for which it stands, should not be given one day more without being confronted by a fast-rising national impeachment movement. Along with a growing majority of Americans, the powerful New York City Bar Task Force declared in a March 9, 2026 report that Trump should be immediately impeached. (See report: “The Crisis Deepens: Congress Must Act Now to Address Escalating Abuses of Executive Power”). This from a bar dominated by corporate lawyers, no less.
Why then is the party leadership so cowardly and corrupt?
The bright light comes from insurgent Democrats from Texas to Maine who are coming to Congress to join the progressive core there and may challenge the leadership posts of Jeffries and Schumer in January 2027.
1. They are antidemocratic CONTROL FREAKS quite comfortable contracting out their campaigns to corporate-conflicted, incompetent consultants. This is a long-building drive of political immolation. Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich said, "The Democratic Party. It’s Dead,” after the 2000 election in a Washington Post op-ed.
These control freaks have excluded the input and voter turnout proposals of progressive citizen groups and progressive labor unions, which could have shown them how to landslide the worst GOP ever in election after election. (See the August 27, 2024, letter to Liz Shuler and winningamerica.net).
2. By definition, control freaks do not like electoral mandates from the public. These Democrats want to win elections THEIR WAY—raise lots of money, including from corporate PACs and Wall Street; run on a very few issues distinguishing them from the Republicans; and declare they are NOT Trump the vengeful, wild outlaw. People want candidates who are fighters, specifically for their rights and interests, not slick politicians giving them double talk.
Imagine if Democratic candidates pushed for “Medicare for All” instead of inadequate Obamacare or fought for an adequate living wage instead of not even raising the federal minimum wage when the Dems controlled both houses of Congress and had a Democratic president?
3. The Articles of Impeachment (H.Res.1155) introduced by Representative John Larson (D-Conn.)—viewed hostilely by Jeffries—offer a mechanism to check Trump’s unbridled destruction of our democracy and “kitchen-table” necessities. Impeachment shines a spotlight on a host of reform agendas that the ossified Democratic leadership does not want to address, unlike restive younger Democratic candidates, some of whom are winning upset primaries. For example, Trump is starting his own wars, without the authority of Congress—a prime impeachable offense. However, American Israel Public Affairs Committee; the Israeli-government-can-do-no-wrong lobby embedded in the party; and the giant weapons manufacturers like Boeing, General Dynamics, and Lockheed Martin support Trump’s war-making abuses. While pocketing campaign donations from these lobbies, the Democratic Party has no interest in Mr. Larson’s Article of Impeachment regarding Trump unconstitutionally initiating war as a belligerent or co-belligerent against Iran, Yemen, Lebanon, Syria, Nigeria, and Gaza without constitutionally required congressional authorization.
A similar aversion extends to the “take care that the laws be faithfully executed” clause of the Constitution. This would open up a can of worms for The Democrats because Democratic presidents have failed to faithfully execute the law by ignoring waves of corporate crime, hundreds of billions of dollars in commercial billing fraud, including on Medicare and Medicaid; refusing to push for adequate corporate enforcement budgets; bankrolling huge corporate welfare schemes and allowing the tax code to be turned into Swiss cheese riddled with loopholes for the rich and powerful; and supporting the construction of nuclear power plants that are targets for terrorists, hazardous, and extremely costly compared with renewable wind, solar, and geothermal energy.
The Democratic leadership doesn’t want the November election to be about the concentration of power abuses by plutocrats who have been inflicting so many injustices, crimes, and anxieties on the American people, reducing their livelihoods and public services.
They have not publicly adopted a comprehensive corporate crime reduction agenda for Congress to address, leaving a bill by Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-Pa.) in isolation (see Corporate Crime Reporter). With then Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the Democratic leadership rejected legislation favored by the majority of congressional Democrats, led by Rep. John Larson, to raise Social Security benefits, frozen since 1971, by increasing Social Security taxes on higher-income people.
The Dems do not even take a loud, consistent campaign stand against Trump’s crazed tax exemptions for big corporations—many of which pay little or no income taxes on their immense profits. According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP): “The automaker Tesla reported zero federal income tax paid on almost $5.7 billion of US income in 2025. Southwest Airlines avoided all federal income tax on $561 million of income last year; its competitor United Airlines achieved the same zero-tax result on almost $4.3 billion of U.S. income. The entertainment company Live Nation Entertainment paid zero federal income tax on $98 million of U.S. income. [and] Yum! Brands, the parent company of the fast-food chains KFC, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut, paid no federal income tax on over $1 billion of U.S. pretax profits last year." (See: "88 Corporations, $105 Billion in Profits, Zero Federal Income Tax").
Small wonder that the huge number of Americans who despise Trump also do not trust the Democratic Party, which the media describes month-after-month as being in disarray. Repeatedly, people ask “What does the Democratic Party stand for?” The party does not respond with a coherent COMPACT FOR AMERICA. The Democratic Party is led by political cowards which IS why it is in disarray.
The bright light comes from insurgent Democrats from Texas to Maine who are coming to Congress to join the progressive core there and may challenge the leadership posts of Jeffries and Schumer in January 2027.
More immediate is how feeble the Democrats are in opposing Trump’s intricate campaign to overturn election results. Trump has already said there should not be elections in November. He has spoken about invoking the Insurrection Act to unleash the police and the “Injustice Department” against state election officials, seizing ballots, obstructing mail-in ballots, sending intimidating police to the polls or election certification sites.
In April, Politico published SEVEN very useful, practical ways to keep the November elections free and fair. Best advice for active voters and state officials I’ve seen. (“The Clock Is Ticking to Secure the Midterms—Here’s What the Experts Say,” Politico Magazine, April 20, 2026). Stealing elections has to be done locally, where you are! Stand up to stop cold gangster Trump from committing his greatest impeachable crime this year. Don’t wait for the Democratic Party to show you the way.
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Dear Democrats: Put Trump Impeachment Front and Center
As wild and crazy Trump becomes more of a political disaster for the GOP in November, Republicans will want to save their own political skins over Trump’s.
Jun 05, 2026
Public support for the Impeachment of Donald J. Trump is growing by the day. A March 9, 2026 Task Force report by the New York City Bar – dominated by powerful corporate lawyers – was titled “The Crisis Deepens: Congress Must Act Now to Address Escalating Abuses of Executive Power.” The recommendation – Immediate Impeachment of Donald Trump. I don’t recall a division on such a serious domestic policy stand between citizen groups, allied with the Democratic Party on one side and the public and a major corporate bar association on the other side.
Several leaders of national progressive citizen groups are counseling delaying such a drive until after the election in anticipation of a Democratic Party victory in both the House and the Senate. This mirrors what the feeble Democratic Party leadership (Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer) are telling their increasingly restless rank and file in the House and Senate (see the April 11, 2026 article in the New York Times by Annie Karni, “Democrats Warm to Idea of Removing the President”).
Meanwhile, as Trump’s illegal and erratic daily behavior and executive dictates worsen the wrecking of our country, the present majority of Americans favor impeaching Trump and removing him from office is nearing 60 percent.
Consider the pluses for launching an Impeachment drive supported by the people focused on Capitol Hill and a Congress controlled by the Republicans, who are likely to block any vote or formal Committee hearings.
1. It is a great campaign issue – tying together in an authentic way – see Res.1155 – all of Trump’s vicious shredding of the people’s health, safety and economic benefits and constitutional freedoms. Majorities despise openly corrupt Trump, whose support in polls is slumping, but many voters also don’t trust or believe in the wavering Democratic Party, which can’t come up with a credible compact that addresses the needs of the people and a set of political commitments embodied in specific pending bills. A compact with voters should be convincingly advanced and emblazoned across the land.
H.Res.1155’s thirteen Impeachment Articles, introduced by Cong. John Larson (D-CT) and their connection to “kitchen-table necessities” must be highlighted in this year’s political campaigns.
The people want fighters for them who care for them in Washington, D.C., using the citizens’ delegated powers and tax revenues in the interest of the people, the families, and the children. “Impeachment” is our founding fathers’ word for “YOU’RE FIRED,” a phrase used by Tyrant Trump against millions of civil servants, contractors, and other people working to help make a better country.
Regardless of their political labels, just about all families want fair play, justice, protections, and opportunities where they live, work, and raise their children. Articles of Impeachment are constitutional-level MANDATES for a political party and candidates to run on, replacing insincere throw-away lines and bloviating rhetoric so despised by a disgusted populace.
2. Making Impeachment front and center educates and inspires people about how central this Constitution of ours is to their daily lives. The mission of our government is to “promote the general welfare.” Only Congress can spend your money, not the president. Only Congress can take us from peace to war, not the president. Only Congress can define the authority entrenched in the executive branch, not the president or six “Injustices” on the Supreme Court for life. Only Congress can tax or not tax, not the president wielding arbitrary tariffs, charging fees, or riddling the tax code with loopholes and escapes for the super-rich and powerful.
Only “We the People,” not “We the Corporations,” nor “We the Congress,” is in the Preamble to our Constitution, making us the fundamental sovereign power in our country.
3. A grassroots Impeachment movement – already petitions are circulating (see impeachtrumpagain.org) – signals deterrence if Trump, with his rabid, dangerous personality, is thinking of more major disruptions of the November elections. Foreshadowing his invoking the Insurrection Act to take over the gears of the states’ election machinery, the fevered Trump said in January, “…we shouldn’t even have an election” in November. This is subversion of our Republic, and the Constitution for which it stands, beyond the wildest imaginations of our historic overseas enemies.
The most promising reform movements are often sparked and strengthened by the perpetrating outlaws providing continual, incriminating evidence of their own lawlessness. That is the essence of the foul-mouthed, lying, violent, corrupt, delusional, egomaniacal Trump. (See the April 30, 2026 statement from medical professionals in the Congressional Record – “Medical Concerns About President Donald J. Trump and His Fitness For Office.” Remember, with Trump the worst is yet to come as he continues to double down. Even a conservative columnist for the Washington Post, military historian Max Boot, is fearful of what might come abroad from the zigzag actions of an impulsive, fact-deprived Trump with his finger on the nuclear trigger.
All this is to say that what the Democratic Party leadership thinks is prudent to delay until after the election is in reality a very risky position. They are barely in contention to recover the Senate, even with the advantage of having far fewer seats (12) up for election than do the Republicans (20).
The Democrats, who are comfortable taking big bucks from giant corporate PACs, should run WITH and FOR the people. The time for political posturing is over. If their “loser leaders” don’t step aside, they should at least free the rank and file, including the progressive primary winners, to show the way to landslide, by far, the worst GOP in history. That means, for starters, let a willing Rep. Jamie Raskin, ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, have “shadow hearings” on Trump’s many ongoing impeachable offenses. Such a hearing would draw prominent witnesses and great media attention to further galvanize the people.
Since all Democrats on Capitol Hill, if asked, would say “Yes,” Trump should be impeached, but the Party’s upper echelons say taking it to a vote can’t go anywhere so long as the GOP runs Congress. The push for Impeachment doesn’t have to reach a vote. As wild and crazy Trump becomes more of a political disaster for the GOP in November, Republicans will want to save their own political skins over Trump’s.
That’s what happened with defiant Nixon in 1974, after the one-time Watergate scandal, when the GOP jumped ship and forced his resignation. Trump’s crimes are far worse than Nixon’s and intensifying every day. As in 1974, it is before the elections when the GOP feels more insecure. Today Republican members of Congress know their majority is at risk.
In raw politics, sometimes it doesn’t take a vote. It just takes pressure from a President’s Congressional base and, for Tiring Trump, the public humiliation that comes with abandonment.
In addition to all its collateral benefits, an impeachment drive is a road to Trump’s resignation.
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The Soaring Case for Impeachment of Corrupt, Cruel, and Lawbreaking Trump
Trump is an unstable lame duck outlaw, including violating congressional authorities. He must be stopped.
May 30, 2026
Give Dangerous Donald credit. Coming off the floor of his 2020 defeat, under several federal and state indictments, a convicted felon, accused by over sixty women of sexual abuse or worse, his endorsed candidates having lost in the 2022 elections, the Trump business brand wilting along with his polls, Trump displayed more vengeful energy and cunning than the entire feeble, defeatist Democratic Party apparatus. He roared back against all odds in 2024 as an elected dictator to implement his declaration that he “can do whatever I want as president.”
Trump’s wrecking, endangering, and weakening of America worsens by the day, as he doubles down and calls his critics “deranged,” “demented,” “wackos,” “weak,” “low-IQ,” “crazy,” and “treasonous.” Moreover, his vicious expletives expand by the day.
However, the tide is finally turning against the failed gambling Czar and Netanyahu dittohead. Trump’s relentless greed is starting to undermine his dwindling support, despite his control of the Republican primaries. The headlines tell the story of his decline, and not just in the polls, with approval ratings down to 35%. The majority of Americans polled—nearing 60%—want him impeached and removed from office. This demand comes without the backing of the Democratic Party leadership, still skittish about mounting an Impeachment Drive. The case for Impeachment is aided and abetted daily by Trump’s outrages.
Let’s go to the revealing Headlines:
“Millions are Expected to Lose ACA Coverage” (Washington Post, May 20, 2026).
Due to Trump’s GOP ending subsidies.
“Fast-Moving Ebola Outbreak May Prove Difficult to Contain” (Washington Post, May 20, 2026). “People Will Die of Ebola Because of U.S. Cuts to Global Health” (New York Times, May 22, 2026).
Significantly due to Trump cutting USAID’s funding, monitoring, and disbanding critical expert teams.
“Mosque killings follow rise in anti-Islam voices” (Washington Post, May 20, 2026).
Led by chief Islamophobe, Donald Trump, from Day One in 2017.
“Trump’s Deal with Trump,” and “Prison to Pardons to Payouts: Rioters Rejoice” (New York Times, May 21, 2026). “I.R.S. Ordered to Drop Audits Against Trump as Part of Payout Deal” (New York Times, May 20, 2026).
Trump uses the government to reward his lawless supporters and wants to put himself above the law.
“Trump’s War is Punishing the Working Class” (New York Times, May 18, 2026).
Trump cares far more about the super-rich than the working class.
“EPA Wants to Repeal Limits on ‘Forever Chemicals’ in drinking water” (Washington Post, May 19, 2026), “Coal’s Comeback Fouls the Air With Resurgent Levels of Toxic Mercury” New York Times, May 13, 2026), “Chemical Board That Trump Wants to Remove Warns on Disaster Rules’ Rollback” (New York Times, May 18, 2026).
While a deadly chemical spill in California forces evacuation of 50,000 residents in Orange County.
“Trump Ramps UP Lawlessness on the Seas” (Washington Post, May 5, 2026).
Speaks for itself.
Now comes the headline, “A tough week for Trump on Capitol Hill, as Republicans deal him setbacks” (Washington Post, May 23, 2026) that must worry Trump. The $1.8 billion slush fund for violent, convicted felons and immunity for Trump and his extended family from IRS audits and enforcement proved too much for Trump lackey Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD). At the same time, Trump endorsed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a crook impeached by his own Party in the Texas House, an adulterer under suit by his wife for divorce (see the Post article of May 19, 2026) over former judge, Sen. John Cornyn, popular with the Senate GOP. Earlier, Trump came out against Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), helping Cassidy lose the primary. To Thune and allies, a president coming out against his own incumbents is treachery.
So, the water in the Senate GOP’s cauldron may be starting to boil. They know about Nixon’s experience in 1974 coming off winning 49 out of 50 states in the 1972 election. With Nixon’s polls sinking after the Watergate scandal (a quaintly modest one-time crime, compared to Trump’s hundreds of continuing scandals), the Congressional GOP saw itself sinking in the 1974 elections. A delegation of GOP Senators went to the White House and told Nixon, “Mr. President, your time is up.” Nixon resigned days later.
One can envision something similar today. Trump is an unstable lame duck outlaw, including violating congressional authorities. Republicans have to face the voters in November. They are likely to lose the House. The Senate has 20 Republican Senators up for election compared to only 12 Democrats. They have a three-vote margin now. Trump, given his economy, his chosen wars, his unrestrained greed and self-enrichment, is making prospects of a Democratic win in the Senate more possible.
Had the Democrats not ceded half the states (the red states) to the Republicans decades ago, leaving behind remnants of their organized presence, almost all the Republican Senators running this year could be at risk. Instead, only about six have competitive races—thank you, obtuse Democratic Party.
In any event, most politicians, however servile they may have been to a President, prefer saving their own political skins to falling on their swords for an unpopular president losing his cognitive grip and voter sensitivity by the day. (See the April 30, 2026 statement from medical professionals in the Congressional Record – “Medical Concerns About President Donald J. Trump and His Fitness For Office.” Do you know any other president who would say “I don’t care about the financial condition of Americans” in the midst of surging inflation, rising food, health care, rental, and gasoline prices? A president who is using the White House to massively enrich himself and his family. (See Cashing in on the presidency: here).
Unless Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer open the Party to input from labor and advocacy groups to help sharpen a stronger, authentically advanced agenda (Compact for America, anyone?), the Democrats may eke out a 51 to 49 win, with erratic John Fetterman (D-PA) playing the role of Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) as the swing vote. This will give the tie-breaking power to Vice President J.D. Vance.
One slim ray of hope: The Washington Post reported on May 17, 2026, that “House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York) has directed the chamber’s Democratic policy committee to host listening sessions with members, with voters and with advocacy groups to inform a party-wide agenda…”
Even if you don’t believe Jeffries, rush through that open door with your proposals, as we will with the recommendations of 24 civic leaders (see winningamerica.net). My winning get-out-the-vote agenda is there as well. (See my column: “Somersaulting Voters: Stopping Rabid Gerrymandering,” May 15, 2026).
Contact Rep. Hakeem Jeffries – https://jeffries.house.gov/ / 202-225-5936.
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Trump and Musk Rob the Poorest Children to Pay for War Crimes
These are the human costs of the American people electing politicians whose military death cult keeps getting more Pentagon funding from Congress, displacing programs sustaining life.
May 23, 2026
A skeptical friend reading The New York Times asked me why columnist Nicholas Kristof keeps writing columns about recurring poverty in less developed countries. My answer is simple. Because he keeps going to these remote areas populated by brutalized human beings living in dire impoverishment and sickness.
At no small risk to himself (Kristof caught malaria in the Congo), he goes to where the most deprived people on Earth live for his stories. He does what few columnists are willing or able to do by exposing how children, the elderly, and entire families are dying under the most unimaginable cruelty.
I suspect that what keeps Kristof going is that he sees how inexpensively many of these mortalities and morbidities can and have been prevented. For example, a $4 vaccine can prevent cervical cancer, which kills over 900 women worldwide every day!
Knowing all this has led to his sharp denunciation of Tyrant Donald Trump and DOGE Director Felon Elon Musk’s immediate and illegal closure of the Agency for International Development (USAID). Soon after the failed gambling czar re-disgraced the White House on January 20, 2025, the world heard Musk’s sadistic boast, “We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the woodchipper.”
Nicholas Kristof, it is time to break the unspoken reluctance of The New York Times editorial page—replete with specific editorial and op-ed denunciations of bully Trump’s many crimes—and raise the cry of IMPEACHMENT.
Why on Earth would these callous corporatists criminally destroy an agency with an average budget of $23 billion a year (about 10 days of the Trump-bloated Pentagon war budget) to save the lives of millions of babies, children, women, and men? Especially when much of this spending goes right back to US contractors who ship the food, medicines, drinking water, wheelchairs, medical devices, and other materials to poverty-stricken nations.
The Trump-Musk cabal sadistically exuded glee, declaring they were saving taxpayer money. The money spent by USAID is a small price to pay for preventing the atrocities they visited on those most in need of humanitarian assistance on the planet. Given the reputation of the US’ invasive military empire all over Asia, Africa, and South America, war criminal Trump failed to understand the benefit that such aid—often called “soft power”—does to improve Uncle Sam’s tarnished reputation.
In his latest column, dated May 10, 2026, and titled “The Children America Abandoned,” Kristof makes the following points:
“A year after some of the world’s richest men cut aid for the world’s poorest children, …” Trump and Musk retained “some lifesaving programs, particularly for HIV/AIDS…” However, Trump’s “71% cut in humanitarian aid from 2024 to 2025…” led to the loss of “750,000 lives worldwide” in Trump’s first year, citing a study by a Boston University researcher. The prestigious British medical journal The Lancet projected that at present official development assistance (ODA) defunding rates, 9.4 million lives will be lost worldwide, including 2.5 million among children 5 years and younger, by 2030.
While these enormous preventable death numbers may shock most Americans, it is because USAID over decades has not been encouraged by its cautious superiors in the White House to toot its own horn for fear of enraging right-wing ideologues in Congress who have long wanted foreign aid abolished.
“A few doses of a $3 malaria vaccine can now save a Congolese child’s life,” Kristof writes. Tuberculosis is a major contagious killer in Africa, mostly among children and pregnant women. A series of regular TB drugs, consistently administered by clinics, can sharply reduce this epidemic. Again, very cost-effective.
What these clenched-jawed Trumpty Muskites ignore is that catching precursors of pandemics in African or Asian countries can prevent deadly viruses and bacteria from migrating to the United States. Without funds and diligent monitoring, the current Ebola emergency in the Congo is spreading.
These are the human costs of the American people electing politicians whose military death cult keeps getting more Pentagon funding from Congress, displacing programs sustaining life. Trump’s war crimes are used to seek an increase of a staggering 50% budget increase or $500 billion for the Pentagon. Trump wants to use deficit financing to further bloat the Pentagon budget so he can keep cutting taxes for the super rich, himself, and giant corporations for the next fiscal year.
In one of his previous columns, Kristof shows how the swollen, corrupt military spending on contractors can be better used in our domestic economy, repairing public services and building infrastructure. The last president to make this comparison was former five-star general President Dwight Eisenhower in 1953 in an address before the American Society of Newspaper Editors (See the address.) Two recent books: Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex by William D. Hartung and The Spoils of War: Power, Profit, and the American War Machine by Andrew Cockburn unmask the devastating impact of wasteful military spending on human needs.
The Democratic Party refuses to make the runaway military budget, now overconsuming half of the entire federal operating budget, a political campaign issue. Worse, they eagerly join the congressional Republicans in the yearly hoopla for ever more megadollars for the Pentagon. Serious appropriations hearings in the House and Senate are a long-ago memory for this untouchable depravity of blank checks, stealing from the many unmet necessities of the American people and their children here at home, which also cost many American lives.
So, Kristof, who has written devastating critiques of Trump, ends his column with “The truth is ugly: The world’s richest men are crushing the world’s poorest children.”
Nicholas Kristof, it is time to break the unspoken reluctance of The New York Times editorial page—replete with specific editorial and op-ed denunciations of bully Trump’s many crimes—and raise the cry of IMPEACHMENT or, in the vernacular that Tyrant Trump very often uses, say “YOU’RE FIRED!” (See, the Impeachment Symposium of April 8, 2026).
As I have said many times, with Trump, IT IS ONLY GOING TO GET WORSE, MUCH WORSE. In addition to manipulating districts, he is openly intending worse takeovers of the November elections, having said in January, “We shouldn’t even have an election” in November. What are our politicians and the mainstream media waiting for? It is time for them to summon the courage of their declared convictions!
P.S. Kristof’s most recent feature exposes the sexual violence by Israeli soldiers against kidnapped Palestinian men, women, and children, including training dogs to rape shackled prisoners (See The New York Times, May 17, 2026, “The Silence That Meets The Rape of Palestinians”).
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Extra! Extra! All the News the Media Won't Print
Maybe you can help explain the following examples of editors and reporters going AWOL and suggest how they could overcome their jaded inaction.
May 09, 2026
Editors of newspapers like to say that they cover the newsworthy events “without fear or favor.” Sure. But how can they cover events without the requisite curiosity, without deeply feeling for the public’s right to know, and without breaking through their “comfort zone”?
Maybe you can help explain the following examples of editors and reporters going AWOL and suggest how they could overcome their jaded inaction.
1. You’ll recall the criminal enterprise, led by felon Elon Musk, in 2025 called “The Department of Government Efficiency” or DOGE. Trickster Trump allowed Musk to rampage through one government agency after another. In fact, DOGE ushered in a regime that set records in government waste yet received insufficient media attention. By shuttering, dismantling, or closing programs and whole agencies serving people’s needs—health, safety, and economic support and protections—the Musk-Trump DOGE left crumbling agencies doing little or nothing with hamstrung staff.
There is sprawling corruption and waste inside the government, causing devastating and real waste by not preventing sicknesses and injuries, and forcing consumers deeper into personal debt for necessities such as healthcare, housing, food, and transportation.
With declining polls and rising majorities of Americans wanting Congress to impeach and remove Trump from office, more civic power, that is laser-focused on Congress and receives mass media, is needed.
Since DOGE began to wind down last summer, after Musk exited as a hyper-wealthy fugitive from justice, there have been no thorough investigations by Congress nor by the inspectors general, most of whom President Donald Trump illegally fired very early on in his dictatorial regime.
Not a day goes by without Trump unilaterally wasting billions of taxpayer dollars on his White House ballroom, on further larding runaway Pentagon spending. Wasteful and unnecessary military attacks, and the firing of government auditors, watchdogs, irreplaceable experienced managers, and first responders to disasters all contribute to freezing vital government services.
2. Why has the media not covered the legislative drive in New York’s state legislature to end the 45-year-long rebate of a tiny sales tax on stock transactions? Minimally estimated at $15 billion a year collected and electronically rebated back to the brokers, the bill S01237-A allocates the revenues to mass transit, education, healthcare, and the environment (visit greedvsneed.org for more information on the campaign to pass this legislation). Two years ago, the sponsoring lawmakers led a demonstration before the New York Stock Exchange building. No coverage. New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani needs this money for his people-serving programs, yet he has been totally silent about ending the rebate. No reporters are asking him why?
Over the last eight years, I have spoken to seven reporters and two business editors, who say that it is a good story, recently made better by Mamdani not speaking out about this proposal. The journalists said they would get back to me. None have. That’s not indifference from the top; that’s silent censorship! Only the Amsterdam News wrote a long feature on this topic. The rest of the New York City media balked. Shame on The New York Times and the New York City daily newspapers.
3. The vast death undercount in Gaza (over 600,000, not the reported 75,200) is explained away by both the mainstream and independent media. Reporters say they have no reliable estimate of the enormous death toll. Nonsense. Dig in and investigate! Various disaster casualty specialists have estimated deaths at hundreds of thousands resulting directly from Israeli military genocidal violence and indirectly from the related absence of food, water, healthcare, medicine, fuel, and electricity, blocked by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. One expert on bombing casualties, professor emeritus Paul Rogers of the University of Bradford in the UK, calculated that the TNT volume of Israel’s bombs, missiles, and artillery was the equivalent of six or more Hiroshima atomic bombs and more devastating because of today’s precision targeting of this tiny enclave of crowded, defenseless civilians.
What other ethnic group would have its death toll underestimated by nearly 90%? (See my March 28, 2025 column “The Vast Gaza Death Undercount—Undermines Civic, Diplomatic, and Political Pressures” and my February 21, 2025 column “Stop Repeating the Vast Undercount of Gazan Deaths. It Is Ten Times Greater.” Also see “Exposing the Gaza Death Undercount” in the August-September 2024 issue of the Capitol Hill Citizen.) A more accurate estimate matters morally and intensifies the political, diplomatic, and civic pressure to stop the killing and to compel the Israeli regime to fully allow sufficient humanitarian aid into Gaza to help the starved, sick, and dying in this ravaged land. (See Dr. Feroze Sidhwa’s report, “The Truth About Gaza’s Dead”). The calculating media plays dumb.
4. The Democrats on Capitol Hill have been very willing to oust their colleagues accused of sexual harassment or assault. Pushed out were Congressman John Conyers in 2017, Senator Al Franken in 2018, and Congressman Eric Swalwell in 2026.
Yet when it comes to the far greater order of magnitude of offenses by the craven, sadistic, sexual abuser of women (over 60 women have dared to provide credible experiences of Trump’s abuses, and one woman has won a tort lawsuit against him). Since 2016, the congressional Democrats have largely looked away.
In early 2020, I delivered personally to over 100 Democratic members of Congress, most of them women, a lengthy letter detailing the case for congressional hearings on Trump’s felonious aggressions (See the OPEN LETTER TO THE WOMEN IN CONGRESS, February 24, 2020). I met staff who agreed that some action was necessary, but said it was up to Speaker Nancy Pelosi or that hearings would have little impact on Teflon Trump and be ineffective. Suffice it to say that only two members of Congress formally acknowledged receipt of the letter without comment. The rest ignored the letter, as did several women’s groups known for focusing on sexual harassment and assault against women. No media coverage. No interest at all in this contradiction by reporters. Read the letter; your observations are welcome.
5. With declining polls and rising majorities of Americans wanting Congress to impeach and remove Trump from office, more civic power, that is laser-focused on Congress and receives mass media, is needed. Fast-rising tides could occur were the retired presidents, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and even G.W. Bush, to come out of their luxurious lairs and mobilize pressure to impeach Trump. The serious entry into this struggle to save the Republic and the Constitution for which it stands would electrify the mainstream media and the frustrated citizenry. Such an effort could quickly and easily attract the requisite funds needed to mobilize such an effort to every congressional district. Feeling the heat, Democrats in Congress would commence publicizing “shadow hearings” and further splinter the once iron-clad sycophancy for Trump by the GOP, who are terrified by their prospects in November.
Trump himself daily provides more vivid evidence of impeachable offenses. (See, H.Res. 1155). He can’t help himself, believing he can continue to get away with everything he does, no matter how extreme.
We know why there is reluctance by the ex-presidents. They would be assailed by Trump and the Trumpsters. They would be accused of having committed many of the same or similar crimes when they were in the White House. True for G.W. Bush in Iraq and Joe Biden in Gaza, for starters. However, this is an occasion for declared regrets and redemption as they pursue the removal from office of Donald Trump, a dangerously unstable, megalomaniacal tyrant who is perilously wrecking, endangering, and weakening our country. MOREOVER, WITH TRUMP, THE WORSE IS YET TO COME, MUCH WORSE AND SOON.
Do the former presidents want to stay on the sidelines and have their inaction on their conscience for historians to record? The philosopher Alfred North Whitehead said wisely: “Duty arises from our potential control over the course of events.”
Why don’t the reporters ask the former presidents the obvious questions? How about some editorials? Or op-eds?
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We Can't Rely on Impeachment Or the 25th Amendment to Save Us From Trump's Chaos
Instead of looking for a magic bullet in the Constitution to bring Trump down, progressives and anti-Trumpers should concentrate on building a lasting, broad-based, and genuine pro-democracy movement.
Apr 19, 2026
The United States Constitution provides two paths for removing a sitting president from office: impeachment and the procedures outlined in the 25th Amendment. Both approaches are being raised again, and with increasing fervor, as ways to bring an early end to Donald Trump’s second term of chaos, incompetence, and corruption. Both are clearly warranted, but structural hurdles built into both render them legally infeasible.
Instead of looking for a magic bullet in the Constitution to bring Trump down, progressives and anti-Trumpers should concentrate on building a lasting, broad-based, and genuine pro-democracy movement. Impeachment hearings and calls for invoking the 25th can play a role in that process, but only an ancillary one.
Here’s why.
Impeachment
The Founding Fathers were well aware of the dangers of unbridled one-man rule. Along with removing the yoke of King George III, they sought to prevent the rise of homegrown tyrants driven by ambition, greed, and vanity.
In a rational country with leaders committed to the rule of law, the resolution would swiftly lead to Trump’s demise. But we are not that country today.
At the Constitutional Convention in 1787, after prolonged debate about the extent of presidential powers and whether the new federal charter should include a provision authorizing the impeachment and removal of the president, the delegates adopted the now-famous clause inscribed in Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution that provides, “The President, Vice President, and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”
To strike a balance between a strong chief executive and what the antifederalists dreaded would eventually devolve into monarchy, they created a two-step process for impeachment. As set forth in Article I of the Constitution, the House of Representatives holds the sole power of impeachment, akin to a grand jury’s authority to return an indictment against a criminal defendant. A simple majority vote is all that is needed to accuse federal officers of committing an impeachable act and send their cases to the Senate, which is given the sole power to try cases of impeachment. In the upper chamber, however, a two-thirds vote (67 senators today if all are present) is needed to sustain a guilty verdict and remove a defendant from office.
As it was designed to do, the two-thirds requirement has drastically curtailed the frequency and impact of impeachment. Including Trump, only 21 federal officials have been impeached in our history. Fifteen were judges, two were Cabinet members, and one was a senator. The other three were presidents—Andrew Johnson in 1868, Bill Clinton in 1998, and Trump in 2019 and 2021. All were acquitted by the Senate. To date, there have only been eight impeachment convictions, all handed down against federal judges.
Trump is often compared to Richard Nixon for his abuse of power, ruthlessness, paranoia, and relentless pursuit of revenge against real and imaginary enemies. Both men have also been accused of believing in the “madman theory” of the presidency—the idea that if the president appears to be temperamentally extreme and unhinged, he will be seen as willing to do anything, no matter how vile or illegal, to impose his will.
But the conventional thinking that Trump will eventually suffer Nixon’s fate has been proven wrong. The Republican Party of the 1970s was tethered to constitutional governance. Today’s GOP has degenerated into a neofascist political cult. Trump has given the party control of all three branches of government, and he has given party leaders permission to be the most authoritarian versions of themselves. The party did not abandon Trump even when presented with overwhelming evidence in his second impeachment trial that he had incited the January 6 insurrection. There is no reason to believe it will abandon him now.
Still, hope springs eternal. On April 6, Democratic Rep. John Larson of Connecticut introduced a resolution to initiate impeachment proceedings against Trump. Drafted by Ralph Nader and constitutional scholar Bruce Fein, the resolution consists of 13 articles that charge Trump with, among other derelictions, violating Congress’ war powers by unconstitutionally initiating wars as a belligerent or co-belligerent against Iran, Venezuela, Yemen, Lebanon, Syria, Nigeria, and Gaza; militarizing domestic law enforcement with deployments of the National Guard; and using Immigration and Customs Enforcement to racially profile citizens and suspected immigrants.
In a rational country with leaders committed to the rule of law, the resolution would swiftly lead to Trump’s demise. But we are not that country today.
The 25th Amendment
Ratified in 1967, the 25th Amendment was drafted in the aftermath of the assassination of John F. Kennedy to clarify the law of succession when the president becomes disabled. According to the first paragraph of Section 4 of the amendment:
Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments [the Cabinet] 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.
As Trump continues to unravel, invoking Allah in threats to obliterate Iranian civilization and attacking the pope as too liberal and weak on crime, calls to invoke Section 4 have accelerated. But Section 4 is an even weaker remedy than impeachment.
The second and final paragraph of Section 4 instructs that the president can attempt to override a declaration of disability by notifying the Senate and House leadership that no such disability exists. Thereafter, the vice president, with the support of either a majority of the Cabinet or “the other body” of the first paragraph, can contest the president’s override. To resolve the conflict and place the vice president in charge, a two-thirds vote of both houses of Congress—not just the Senate—is required to confirm that the president is, in fact, “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”
The procedures outlined in Section 4 have never been invoked, and it strains credulity to think they will be used against Trump as long as JD Vance is the vice president and the Cabinet is staffed by sycophants and grifters who routinely pledge their loyalty to their dear leader.
This is not to say that agitating for impeachment or calling for Trump’s removal on 25th Amendment grounds is pointless. But we should not view the avenues for forcing Trump’s early exit as ends in themselves. Rather, they are best seen as organizing tools that can be useful in drawing Americans into a broad-based movement to restore democracy. In Hungary last week, 16 years of authoritarian rule ended with the defeat of Viktor Orbán. It can and must happen here.
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Give the People What They Want: Impeach Trump!
This drive for presidential accountability stems from the 15 months of Trump wrecking America, weakening America, endangering America and its people.
Apr 18, 2026
For over a year, firing President Donald Trump via Impeachment in Congress has been a taboo subject for the so-called Democratic leadership—House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY). Recently, their grip on their flock is unravelling. (See: RootsAction’s petition “Tell Democrats in Congress to Insist That Schumer and Jeffries Step Aside.”)
Jeffries is a repetitive “one-note Charley”—“House Democrats are going to focus on making life more affordable for the American people.” Speak for yourself, Hakeem. The majority of House Democrats are for Impeachment in part because Trump’s war, wage, price, and tariff policies define UNAFFORDABILITY and, in part, because he is driven by a dangerously unstable, violent personality whose accusations against his critics “as deranged and demented” can be more precisely applied to his megalomanic state of mind that worsens by the week.
Calls for impeachment or removal by the 25th Amendment are coming from not just “…partisans on the left, late-night comics, or mental health professionals… It can be heard now among retired generals, diplomats, and foreign officials. And most strikingly, it can be heard now on the political right among onetime allies of the president,” reports The New York Times’ formidable White House reporter Peter Baker.
Some of this resurgence has been provoked recently by Tyrant Trump himself—the Jesus episode, the epithets about Pope Leo, threats to wiping out Iran’s 5,000-year civilization, and many more unhinged vituperatives and chronic lying about serious matters of state on his misnamed Truth Social.
Trump, of course, just keeps doubling down with his clenched-jawed rage, strengthening the case against himself.
A majority of Americans polled want him impeached. A corporate lawyer-dominated Bar Association of the New York City Bar last month issued a detailed report concluding with the demand that Trump be immediately impeached. (See report: 'The Crisis Deepens: Congress Must Act Now to Address Escalating Abuses of Executive Power.")
Trump, of course, just keeps doubling down with his clenched-jawed rage, strengthening the case against himself. His impulsive ego-rage is off the charts. He falsely boasts that he has ended nine wars with a 10th coming in Lebanon—a war he backed and provided Israel with weapons without conditioning their use in the mass war crimes Israel commits daily.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee, sent a letter to the White House physician requesting an evaluation of Trump, indicating that he is exhibiting symptoms “consistent with dementia and cognitive decline” and that he has become “increasingly incoherent, volatile, profane, deranged, and threatening.” Raskin, a former constitutional law professor, is planning a briefing for House Democrats on Impeachment and the 25th Amendment. Close allies expect him to schedule a “shadow hearing” in the House on these subjects, with prominent witnesses and growing mass media interest.
Kathleen Parker, a long-time centrist columnist for The Washington Post, ended her April 9, 2026 piece with the conclusion that “Donald Trump is a danger to the world and should be stopped by any legal means.”
It was Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) who first stepped forward after Trump started illegally bombing Iran last summer, right in the middle of negotiations with Iranian officials, and filed a resolution to impeach Trump for his “direct violation of the War Powers Clause of the US Constitution in his military attack on Iran without congressional authorization.”
This month, moderate Congressman John Larson (D-Conn.) filed 13 articles of Impeachment and plans to send a “Dear Colleague” sign-on letter once the House returns next week from one of its many recesses. Last week, the first organized civic symposium in a House of Representatives committee room—"Expert Legal Symposium on Impeachment and the Meaning of “Bribery, or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors”—was held. C-SPAN covered this event, which will serve to encourage more organized citizens around the country to demand their cautious representatives call for Trump’s impeachment.
Annie Karni, the congressional correspondent for The New York Times, reported (April 10, 2026) Democrats saying “their phone lines were being flooded with phone calls to do something—anything—to try to stop Mr. Trump from pursuing his deeply unpopular war with Iran.”
This drive for presidential accountability stems from the 15 months of Trump wrecking America, weakening America, endangering America and its people. (See nader.org for previous columns and many feature articles from the mainstream press.)
The congressional switchboard for your demands is 202-224-3121.
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