Impeachment has become a threat, something to be avoided at any cost, but when our founding fathers included "high crimes and misdemeanors" in the Constitution, they intended it to be one of the checks and balances. Impeachment doesn't have to lead to indictment. It can lead to a proverbial slap on the hand, and should be used anytime there is a question of whether an elected official has abused the power of the office. The Constitution delineates the rights, duties and privileges of the position, and also when to remove the elected official from office for abuse of power.
It is not up to Congress to decide whether a law or practice is legal. The House of Representatives addresses the will of the people and the Senate addresses the rights of the people, and must stand on the rule of law, but it is up to the Judicial Branch to decide what is lawful. The US Supreme Court decides what they believe is Constitutional. The Executive Branch addresses whether laws and practices are executable. For example, the House of Representatives may vote to allow Americans to travel to the moon, that it is the will of the People, and the Senate votes on the rights to travel to the moon. The president decides whether that is something that is possible to accomplish, and if it is, signs it into law, or if not, vetoes the bill. If the law is protested, it will go into the courts to decide whether it is legal, and can be appealed all the way to the Supreme Court. Checks and balances between the Branches keep a sense of balance.
All members of Congress and elected members of the Executive Branch swear an oath of office to the Constitution. Our Constitution is evolutionary, because it can be amended. Some of what was considered lawful in the 1700s, like slavery, is no longer lawful now. We evolved out of slavery in the 1860s.
Slavery has always been against Universal Law, but slavery is more than just racism. The same crises occur on every level. It is a power game that is based on one of the five power games related to revenge. (We go deeper into the power games related to revenge in our Exit Strategy for Iraq proposal.)
There are always three levels in the Universe--the principles, the power and the project--and three levels of the US legal system there are Universal Law, Constitutional Law and Federal Law. The US Constitution is the Power level, so it address the use of power and the abuse of power.
Universal Law is where every person on the planet gets our unalienable rights. Our founding fathers declared, "We are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Our unalienable rights are to be able to live our lives without interference, to be treated fairly and equally, and to have a voice in our government.
Congress functions based on the will and the rights of the people, but the people are oftentimes left out of consideration. Governments deny the people a voice in matters of grave concern, and this leads to acts of terrorism as people raise their voices to be heard, oftentimes to the point of violence. When a nation is facing acts of massacres, such as school shootings, or terrorism, such as bombings or vehicles running down crowds of people on the streets, or wars, the power games are being played within the society.
The preemptive strike on Iraq started an unlawful conflict that devolved as a genocide, but our Congress has yet to recognize the power grab that is still taking lives around the world. Ripples of effects went out from the grand lie that there were WMD in Iraq and Saddam Hussein could attack the United States with one with a half an hour notice. That war went against Universal Law, and it set the stage for the Trump administration to use the same failed policies.
When the president of the United States talks about "fake news," he is telling us that a genocide is devolving within our nation. Genocides are also related to revenge, one of the two power games based on weaving an illusion. People who have been dragged into a genocide lack their liberty--their rights. President Trump's promise to undo everything Obama did while in office can be considered character defamation, an individual form of genocide, and an abuse of his power, and is therefore an impeachable offense.
Wars are started by people who believe they are more important than others, and therefore they have the right to put others down. Trump's policy of maximum pressure is a businessman's tactic to take over other businesses that are floundering, but don't belong in the White House because this leads to wars, not peace. People who have been dragged into a war lack the principle of equality. The first requirement for conflict resolution is that both sides must be considered equal. If you consider a court case to be a mini-war, for a fair trial, both sides must be equal under the law. Trump's policy of maximum pressure is an abuse of power that will lead to perpetual war, and is an abuse of power, and is therefore an impeachable offense.
It may seem like the right thing to do to avoid impeaching the president for "high crimes and misdemeanors," but where would our country to today if our government had listened to the hundreds of thousands of peace protesters all over the world who protested the preemptive strike on Iraq? Why place our complete trust in the hands of one individual who is human, like the rest of us, and plays compensatory games that always backlash on us because they go against Universal Law?
