Legal Justifications for Impeachment

THE ABSURD TIMES

"No, my son. I have it on the Highest authority that you'd best enjoy yourself here, for afterwards there is no chance for you."

So, we will finish with the impeachment now. 

• Emoluments: Anything he does enriches himself, including visitors at Trump tower near the White house.  Also, the only bank that would even consider loaning him money was Russian owned.  Not clear how much he owes.  Every act so far designed to enrich the upper 1% (he is one of them).
• Treason: Ample evidence of sharing top classified information with Russia – in the White house!
• Firing Comey, stating the whole reason was to hinder the investigation into him, his staff, and Russia:  All clearly obstruction of Justice and admittedly so.

The Constitution uses the term "high crimes and misdemeanors", not clear what the latter is in this case, but the crimes part is pretty clear.

Below are discussions of it in more detail, including one congressman, from Texas, who openly called for the impeachment.  Some phrases had been blanked out as [expletive deleted], but we used linguistic techniques to reconstruct them.[1]

Last week, Texas Democratic Congressmember Al Green became the first congressmember to call for President Trump's impeachment from the floor of the House of Representatives. Since then, the African-American lawmaker has received a barrage of racist threats, including voicemails in which callers threaten to lynch him. For more, we speak with Congressmember Green.

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TRANSCRIPT

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: Congressman Al Green, is it true you've received death threats? I want to—I want to go to a town hall meeting Saturday, where you replayed recordings of threatening voicemail messages left for you. Let's go to these two particularly disturbing messages. I want to warn our viewers and listeners, the calls contain graphic racial slurs.

CALLER 1: Hey, Al Green. We've got an impeachment for ya. It's gonna be yours. It's actually going to give you a short trial before we hang your [nigger] ass.

AMY GOODMAN: This is another one of the phone calls left on Congressman Al Green's voicemail.

CALLER 2: You ain't gonna impeach nobody, you [nigger]. Try it, and we'll lynch all you [fuckin' niggras]. You'll be hanging from a tree. I didn't see anybody calling for the impeachment of your [nigger] Obama, when he was born in Kenya. He's not even an American. So [fuck] you, [niggra]!

AMY GOODMAN: Congressman Green, these you got on your voice message machine?

REP. AL GREEN: We did. And they have been turned over to the Capitol Police. There will be an investigation. It is our hope that the persons who perpetrated this kind of ugliness will be caught and that they will be properly prosecuted.

But I also said at the town meeting, and I will share again now, that this type of effort to intimidate will not stop what we are trying to accomplish. It won't thwart our efforts one scintilla. We will move forward.

And I am concerned about my staff. We have a lot of young people that work in our office. We have an intern that's still in high school. And persons making these kinds of harmful threats, literally saying they will murder me, these things create a good deal of concern for my staff. So, we're going to do all that we can to protect ourselves, but we assure people that we will continue to move forward.

And finally, I really want to make this point. This had to be exposed because you cannot hide hate. If you hide hate, hate will grow and fester. Hate becomes emboldened. So you have to expose it. You also have to expose it so that the American people can know that people of color live with this kind of behavior that is not something that we have to assume won't be perpetrated upon us. These are ugly statements, but it doesn't matter whether you are the CEO of a major corporation or a member of Congress. People in this country—some, not all—believe that they can intimidate you by threatening to lynch you.

One more thing. The calls in support far outnumber the hateful calls. They far outnumber those who would perpetrate invidious discrimination. And I want to emphasize this, because I believe in America. I really do believe that my country, the country I was born in, the country I love, I salute the flag—I believe that this country is moving in the right direction. There are some bumps in the road, but we are moving in the right direction. I believe that we still believe in liberty and justice for all. I believe we still believe that this is a country where all persons are created equal. So, I think we've just got to deal with these issues. We cannot hide them. They have to be exposed. But I still am grateful to be in this great country.

AMY GOODMAN: Congressman Al Green, I want to thank you for being with us.

On Tuesday, former CIA Director John Brennan testified to the House Intelligence Committee that he had growing concerns last year that Trump's campaign may be colluding with Russian officials to influence the 2016 election—and that the Russians might lead Trump officials down a "treasonous path." Trump has now hired a lawyer to represent him in the ongoing investigation, which has sparked mounting calls for Trump's impeachment. For more, we speak with John Bonifaz, co-founder and president of Free Speech for People, one of the organizations that launched the "Impeach Donald Trump Now" campaign just moments after Trump's inauguration.

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TRANSCRIPT

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: John Bonifaz is also with us, Free Speech for People. John, you came on Democracy Now! like within a week of the inauguration, calling for the impeachment of Donald Trump. How have things changed? You focused on violations of the Emoluments Clause at the time. Explain what your concern was with that. And is that still what you feel is grounds for impeachment?

JOHN BONIFAZ: Amy, thank you for having me. I'm honored to be on with Congressman Green and with you this morning.

We have launched this campaign with RootsAction on the day of the inauguration at ImpeachDonaldTrumpNow.org. More than 1 million people all across the country have called for this impeachment investigation in light of the president's direct and ongoing violations of the anticorruption clauses of the Constitution. His refusal to divest fully from his business interests placed him on a collision course with the Constitution from the day he took the oath of office. But we have since expanded the grounds for our call for an impeachment investigation to include obstruction of justice, in light of the shocking revelations that the president fired the FBI director to try to stop a criminal investigation that may incriminate him as well as other associates in his campaign.

Congressman Green is an American hero. He's standing up for our Constitution and our democracy at this critical moment in our history. And we're urging people all across the country to join us at ImpeachDonaldTrumpNow.org, to stand with him and to make sure that this president be held accountable via the impeachment process.

AMY GOODMAN: So how does this move forward right now, John Bonifaz?

JOHN BONIFAZ: I think it's incumbent upon all of us all around the nation who believe in our Constitution and the rule of law and democracy, that no one, not even the president of the United States, is above the law, that we stand up, that we stand with Congressman Green, that we call on our members of Congress to join him in making this call to issue an impeachment resolution and start the process in the United States House of Representatives.

I know there are people who are saying, "Well, we need to get the facts out." And we do need to get the facts out. But as Congressman Green has eloquently stated, we need—we already have these facts. They're talking about getting other facts. The facts are out on obstruction of justice. The facts are out on the violations of the anticorruption clauses of the Constitution.

And we're dealing right now with a constitutional crisis, in which this president is openly defying the rule of law in our Constitution. So, people all across the country need to stand up. Nine communities, including the Los Angeles City Council, have already passed resolutions calling on Congress to take this action. Brookline Town Meeting in Brookline, Massachusetts, is going to vote this Thursday on this question. And many other communities in the weeks ahead will do that, as well. And people can go to our site at ImpeachDonaldTrumpNow.org. They can download a local resolution and have it passed in your community. Hold an impeachment town hall, as Congressman Green did this past Saturday, and get your community talking about this critical question of our time. This is about our Constitution. It's about our democracy. And we all need to stand up.

AMY GOODMAN: Congressman Al Green, have Republicans come to you in support, any of your—any of the Republican congressmembers?

REP. AL GREEN: Well, I've had Republicans to say to me that they oppose these ugly things that have been said. I have not had any Republicans to tell me about the resolution that I'm proposing or the impeachment effort. And that's because I have not asked. I have intentionally not approached colleagues on this issue. This is a question of conscience for me. And I hope that my colleagues will approach it as I have, but I will not ask anyone to do this. I'm not lobbying anyone. I have concluded that this has to be done, and my hope is that others will see things similarly. But if they do not, I will understand. I think the people of the United States of America, as John has indicated, have to get involved. It's a participatory democracy. If the people will advance their will, the will of Congress will be advanced.

AMY GOODMAN: The Hill has reported that Congressmember Justin Amash of Michigan, Republican, admitted Trump may have committed an impeachable offense if he asked FBI Director James Comey to drop the FBI's investigation into Flynn. Amash is at least the second Republican openly to say Trump may have committed an impeachable offense. Also Republican Congressman Carlos Curbelo did, from Florida, said this on CNN last week. Your thoughts on this, Al Green?

REP. AL GREEN: Well, thank you, Amy. I think a good many people see the obstruction of justice, and a good many people understand that obstruction of justice is impeachment. I think it's beneficial that three members of the Republican Party have given these indications. But I also understand that there are a good many members who will be silent until given the opportunity to vote. And at that point, they will voice their opinions. My hope is that they will have heard from enough of their constituents, so that they better understand the will of the people. I think the will of the people will prevail. It's just a matter of making sure people understand what the issues are.

And finally, this, on this question of others, I believe that others who desire to speak up will have the opportunity to do so as more things come out, as there's more evidence presented. I think that we haven't seen the last of this evidence that is ultimately going to be presented. But I also know that we already have enough to impeach, because of the firing and because the president confessed on national television that he did it because of the investigation.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Texas Congressmember Al Green, John Bonifaz of Free Speech for People, thanks so much for joining us.

REP. AL GREEN: Thank you.

JOHN BONIFAZ: Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: We'll continue to follow your actions on the floor of the House, Congressman Green, and this whole impeachment movement around the country.

This is Democracy Now! When we come back, we'll go to London to speak with Tariq Ali about the suicide attack at the Manchester arena. Stay with us.

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

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[1] Devices such as phonemes, allophones, syntax, dialect, and so on.  It also shows a certain personality and level of education, all pointing to a typical Trump voter (although, of course, not all of them).

WHY AND HOW TO IMPEACH NOW -- MIDTERMS

THE ABSURD TIMES

SECTION 1

In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.

SECTION 2

Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.

SECTION 3

Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President.

SECTION 4

Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.
    
Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days 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. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.

DECISION FOR IMPEACHMENT

EDITORIAL MEETING

We had an editorial meeting of the entire staff to discuss the future, or lack of it.  Editors and contributors such as Czar Donic, Bernard Shaw, Arthur Schopenhauer, Papa Yaga, Honest Charlie, Ellis Dea, Tsar Donic, and others sat at the table.  In the center was the most beautiful chocolate cake you've ever seen in your entire life.  That cake was really wonderful, believe you me. 

First discussed was the farce of religion and what is done in its name.  Arguments flew back and forth until Shaw said:

Beware of the man whose God is in the skies.

That pretty much ended the discussion, especially since Arthur began to show signs of irritation and nobody wanted to let him go on about the subject.

Eventually, things led to the talk of impeachment.  It is pretty clear that such a step would have to be started by congress, with a majority of Republicans, and that was considered unlikely so long as Trump was likely to sign anything they finally sent them.  He likes signing things anyway, no matter what they mean.  If something happened, abruptly, we would get Pence, the Ryan, then Hatch, then Tillerson, and so on down the way until perhaps things would wind up with Betsy De Voss as President.  So, something had to be done.

This led to the 25^th Amendment.  For some reason, actually for obvious reasons, there has been a tremendous upsurge of searches of the 25^th Amendment.  It seems that until LBJ, after the Kennedy assassination, recognized the need to have things clearly outlined and the amendment was passed.  So we looked it up, several places, along with discussions, and here it is:

Section 1. In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.

Section 2. Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.

Section 3. Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President.

Section 4. Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days 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. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.^[3]

Additionally, after the Vice President, comes the Speaker of the House (Paul Ryan), then the President pro temp of the Senate (Orrin Hatch of Utahahah), and then the Secretary of state and so on dawn the cabinet.  However, section 4 has never been invoked, although the other sections have been needed.  Mike Pence could conspire with other member of the cabinet, and then send a letter to Ryan and Hatch.  After that, things get hairy, but they are spelled out and all you need to do is read and imagine.  It could happen.

The decision was made to talk about impeachment, obviously, with a slight objection from Papa Yaga, and we promised to put an explanation of Russsia at the end.  He agreed, and thus the discussion.

We need to review the election.  Bernie Sanders was very popular and had great enthusiastic support, both from regular Democrats and from independents.  Many who were Obama voters, and some who later voted for Trump, were amongst his supporters.  However, the party was seen as having been bought by corporate interests, and Hillary's ties to Wall Street were well known.  Her long association with corporate interests represented everything that had turned off many voters, anger some, and led many others simply not to participate.  It is still clear that the party is unwilling to be the party of the lower and middle classes, the unions, teachers, and workers, and instead does what it can to support the corporate world.

The only worse force is the Republican Party.  As it stands today, it is not only highly influenced by corporate interests, but those very corporate interests have been appointed to Presidential Cabinet positions.  In other words, Democrats may have served corporate interests, Republican are corporate interests.  This is what we call a two party system.  Trump fooled enough people by not sounding corporate, that is the only difference. 

He wants to provide Tax reform.  More precisely, he wishes to take 800 billion dollars away from Medicaid and give it to corporations in the form of tax cuts.  He will try to undermine and remove any and all of the "New Deal" and any legislation passed since that helped the lower and middle classes.  There is no doubt.

So what does this have to do with impeachment?  Simply this: it is necessary to keep the Republican Party, the majority party in the House, preoccupied with this and other issues until a midterm election can allow enough opposition party members to be elected to stop some of this attack on people.

Blame the Russians for interfering? Haven't we gone over this enough? First, we know there is no direct evidence that they did the hack.  Beyond that, who knows?  We do know that we constantly interfere in other people's elections and governments, even overturning them. There is no reason to doubt that they adopted our practice.  It is the job of our own center-intelligence folks to look out for that.

Trump said "I love Wikileaks!"  He encouraged them to look for Hilary's e-mails.  And we don't care about them anyway.  If Donald can share intelligence openly with the Russians, why can't she have her own e-mail system?  And who cares?  She is over with and the only thing that is now disturbing about he is that she wants to be considered part of the "resistance".  That is worthy or resistance right there.

Ok, so we know all the typical B.S., but we do need to occupy Congress with something distracting to keep them from screwing us.  The most obvious is Impeachment, using every Chauvinistic and Jingoistic (look the words up) cliché we can, even though we know it is erroneous.  It is the only sort of thing that would get our media and Trump types to start impeachment.  So, here are some points to make:

• The Russians have hacked into our "Democracy" (forget the real definition of "Democracy"
• Trump and his team worked with them on this.
• Lots of money went to Russia and then much gets kicked back to Trump.
• Flynn told the Russians that they were going to life sanctions when Trump becomes President.
• Flynn got paid by Turkey (his guys in suits attacks peaceful demonstrations in D.C. and Erdogan is now attacking the D.C. Police force for defending the demonstrators). 
• Russian TV hired Flynn.
• Kushner gets payoffs from Russia (remember, Russia = Bad Guys).
• Trump fired Comey, head of FBI, because he investigated all this.
• People involved with Trump and Russia are all taking the 5^th which means they are guilty – Trump says so.

There are even some true points to make, although they might be less effective:

• All republicans seem to want people to die of existing conditions.
• People will loose their disability payments.
• Food Stamps will be cut in half or more.
• They will soon go after Medicare, Social Security, and anything else that helps people.

Well, that's about it.  It has been very tiring to watch this happening.  We have had it.

Why Impeach Trump?

THE ABSURD TIMES

A SIGN FOR THE TIMES

On Impeaching Trump

By

Arthur Schopenhauer

Many of you will not like the points made here.  Too bad.

A recent survey indicated that the most popular American candidate for President right now would be Bernie Sanders, despite his use of the term "socialist" and statements otherwise objectionable to the wealthy.  In addition, we know full well that many who voted for Obama with his message about hope and change, and eliminating the "politics of fear" (meaning George Bush and other Republicans who were then in power) this time voted for Trump.  The only possible reason for this is that the vast majority of the country does not like the way healthcare is handled, how wealth is distributed, how people are treated.

For awhile, blame cast upon minorities will allow the "elite" (meaning the few with most of the money) to escape and divert blame.  However, ultimately the idea of a coalition of the very poor and the workers along with much of the middle class will emerge as a dominate force, unless of course military force is used against them by their own government which is not an unbelievable sernario.

Many American voters, having been stupid enough to vote for Donald Trump, are now regretting it.  Calls for Impeachment abound, and the accusations of "collusion" with the Russians to elect him are based on the basic notion of treason.  The point here is to explain why this is not a great idea, how this came to pass, and what would come to pass if such a movement were possible and came to fruition.  The focus, however, would be on motive and consequences.

The idea that the largest nuclear powers could come to an agreeable truce of sorts and cooperate, at least to avoid a deadly conflict, is propagated as somehow evil and bad for the working class.  The working class, thinking that the real enemy consists of Mexicans and Moslems has so far been diverted, but there is no real evidence that this will continue.  The prospect of an arrangement with Russia has even led to terrorists attacks inside Russia, this time in St. Petersburg. 

There is no real evidence that Putin set out to get Trump elected, none at all.  In fact, there is more evidence that he despised Hillary Clinton than anything else, so let us forget about hacking and all that.  As best I can make out, since I speak no Russian of consequence, and the Cyrillic alphabet is an enormous barrier here, Putin once said that Trump was "Flashy."  That was translated, incorrectly as "bright," and such a mistake is clearly possible.  Given Trump's personality disorder, details to follow, he easily interpreted that to mean Putin considered him a "genius."  Hence his admiration for Putin as far as it goes.

Now why would Putin detest Hillary?  To understand that, you have to understand a bit about Putin.  The Stasi, or Staatssicherheit (State Security) will come in a bit later in connection with Merkel.

Putin was in East Germany during the fall of the Wall.  He was completely alone, cut off from Moscow, expendable part of the KGB, but did burn countless documents as East Germans threatened the building.  He went out alone and told the crowd that it would be best for them not to enter as there were countless armed defenders and that he would hate for them to be shot as he considered them brothers.  They refrained and he returned to finish burning papers.  He eventually made his way to Moscow and after the farce of Yeltsin, became President.  

After his first two terms under the new constitution, he had his friend take over for a few years and then ran again.  Hillary, then Secretary of State, led a charge against him, and used every means possible to overturn him, without success.  She then (and the tape exists somewhere) conferred with NATO allies to depose the pro-Russian government and replace him with what she called "Yaz".  (Some of you may know who I mean.)  Putin never forgot.  There is little doubt that if he could punish her, he would.  The fact that Trump would benefit was "collateral damage," if nothing else.

Further, for centuries, every conflict Russia had was with attacking border states.  The U.S. does not seem to take this into account.  It was, in fact, the reason for the Warsaw Pact.  The Pact was abandoned on the assurance that there would be not encroachment on Russia.  The U.S. has expanded NATO to the point where Russia is now surrounded on its west by hostile countries with the lone exception of Ukraine, a country populated by a vast Russian population.  The entire Eastern part of Ukraine is predominately ethnic Russian.  Crimea was glad to join the Russian Federation as the Wages of each worker increased fourfold as a result.  Clinton was very much in favor of any and all expansion eastward.  Putin and most Russians saw her as a clear threat to their own peace.

There is also doubt as to whether the Russians did in fact do any hacking as the CIA is perfectly capable of forging Russian programming code and, more importantly, nothing that was leaked was erroneous.  Podesta's email account had a password.  It was PASSWORD.  Is it unlikely that someone would try that, perhaps an eleven year old?  Anyway, the whole point is moot.  Surely, we would never interfere in another country's election. 

Trump did much to spread good will when Angela Merkel was here by suggesting that they were both wiretapped by enemies (Obama).  For her, growing up under the Stasi, this was a remarkable statement and she looked at him as if he were insane.  She was close.  He is simply neurotic.

On to the impeachment. 

First, let's look at the line of replacement.  After Mike Pence, Paul Ryan, Orrin Hatch, Rex Tillerson, and so on.  Not a very nice thing to contemplate. 

So let's look at Trump for the next two years after taking a look at the personality disorder he exhibits.  This is ultimately from DAM V and is, in my opinion, a bit sketchy and the entire edition has too many problems to go into here, however, it is a starting point:

DSM[i]-5 criteria for narcissistic personality disorder include these features:

·                        Having an exaggerated sense of self-importance

·                        Expecting to be recognized as superior even without achievements that warrant it

·                        Exaggerating your achievements and talents

·                        Being preoccupied with fantasies about success, power, brilliance, beauty or the perfect mate

·                        Believing that you are superior and can only be understood by or associate with equally special people

·                        Requiring constant admiration

·                        Having a sense of entitlement

·                        Expecting special favors and unquestioning compliance with your expectations

·                        Taking advantage of others to get what you want

·                        Having an inability or unwillingness to recognize the needs and feelings of others

·                        Being envious of others and believing others envy you

·                        Behaving in an arrogant or haughty manner

One need only have a certain number of these symptoms, and requiring constant admiration, a sense of entitlement, and inability to unwillingness to recognize the need and feelings of others, etc., are certainly there.  The constant admiration is a centerpiece.  Also, he has an exaggerated sense of self-importance.  In other words, he is more or less oblivious of special outside interests.  All of the others in the line of succession want to privatize Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and eliminate any of the reforms of the FDR administration.  One the other hand, Trump only wants what will help enhance his sense of self-importance, the rest be damned.

Let us take an example: Obamacare.  He would easily sign a bill repealing Obamacare, but if it repealed the Affordable Care Act, he would veto it.  Many people who benefit from the ACA like it, but hate Obamacare.  It is like the woman in the earlier tea party days who shouted at Arlen Spector of Pennsylvania "Keep your government hands off my Social Security!"  They are morons, but they love Trump and his idiotic rants. 

He has no idea of where Neil Gorsuch stands or how good a judge he is.  He got his name from a list provided by some "Heritage" right wing group, eliminated the female judges, and settled on Gorsuch.  He can only distinguish a judge by how much money it will cost him and how it will affect his brand name.  He does not care that the Judge was Hispanic, he did care that he would rightfully rule against him.  Trump is not a sharp legal mind.

The reason he did not ban Moslems in the gulf states, for example, is that Trump hotels and the like are there with his brand name on them.   Somalia?  Ok, they are all black anyway, aren't they?  (Sessions assured him that they were.  Guliani helped out with the deal of the ban.)  So what if it is stopped in the courts? He will fight and look good to his bigot fans. 

At one time, I was extremely angry with Nancy Pelosi for not allowing the Democratic Majority impeach George Bush because of the proven lies about the Iraq war.  He truly deserved to be impeached, but that would have, after all, left Dick Cheney in charge.  That would have been even more horrible what with his penchant for shooting friend and foe alike.  

Certainly Trump is disgusting and has made it fashionable for white supremacists to attack Blacks, Moslems, and Jews, but these attacks have also led to greater harmony amongst those groups.  Hispanics and women also and yes, I know there are Hispanic women.  The point is, Trump is so ridiculous that he may do something that does not fall in line with the big money if it leads to further unpopularity or is otherwise a blow to his ego.  His lack of comprehension of any real ideology other than self-love or esteem is easier to tolerate than the ideological likes of the other Republicans. 

The only real answer is for the Democratic Party to become a progressive, people centered party.  So far, it has not done very well, allowing the Zionist lobby stop Ellison from becoming head of the DNC.  Still, it is the only real solution. 

His family now rules the country.  Kushner will bring peace to the middle east, restructure the U.S. government, stimulate scientific progress in "innovation," and still keep Ivanka satisfied.

The Romanovs thought the same about themselves, but they did not end happily.

Trump will always be happy, as he is, by his own definition, superb. 

Besides, he will now make us safe from a nuclear attack from North Korea.  After all, a missile could reach the West Coast in 20 minutes and we could not detect it as it is limited by the speed of light and our many jets would be useless, no?

At any rate, with the structure of state such as it is right now, impeachment is a futile gesture and would only perpetuate matters.

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[i] The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychological Association, usually considered the authority on mental illnesses.