title:  BREAKING: Republican Judge Calls For Impeaching ‘Dangerous’ Trump: ‘America Is At Stake’
text: Donald Trump has been nothing but a disaster since taking office nearly four weeks ago and now even Republicans want him impeached.Of particular concern is Trump s ties with Russia and his assaults on the free press and the judicial branch.Trump seems to fancy himself a king and Republicans in Congress are gleefully treating him that way instead of doing their public duty to protect this country from threats like him.Well, a former Republican judge is disgusted with his party and he just publicly called for Trump s impeachment.Mark Painter served on the Ohio Court of Appeals for many years and the Republican Party is unrecognizable to him today. It used to be a center-right party but Trump has solidified it as the party of extremists who deny reality and facts with impunity.And that s why Painter is offering to help Republicans draft articles of impeachment to take Trump down before it s too late. In any time except our post-factual era, no office holder, much less the president, could get away with any one of the dozens of dazzlingly illegal things Trump has already done,  Painter wrote in a piece for Cinncinati.com.  They would forfeit office immediately. Each new day is a new nightmare. We are still trying to digest one breathtaking assault on America when another is signed, issued, or Tweeted. All this amid constant lies. Constant. Lies. It s tough, but we must end this dangerous presidency. Trump must be impeached and removed with all haste. But only Congress can initiate the process. Painter calls out Ohio Rep. Steve Chabot specifically and tells him to  man-up  and stop defending Trump, pointing out that Chabot helped draft articles of impeachment for Bill Clinton for far less than what Trump has done.Indeed, Bill Clinton had an extramarital affair in office and lied about it under oath. Donald Trump has lied about anything and everything, including his ties to Russia, his taxes, his conflicts of interest, etc He has violated the Constitution in so many ways it is hard to count them all. But Painter mentions a few. Basic American values   free speech, the rule of law, separation of powers, even common decency   are unknown in this White House. We now have a president who has no concept of separation of powers, or why we have three branches of government. If he knew anything about the Constitution, he would know the framers envisioned just the situation we have now   a would-be dictator. They provided checks and balances   such as an independent judiciary to protect us from presidential tyranny.We must admit we have elected a president who has immediately proved himself to be a grifter, a pathological liar, a mean-spirited bully and dangerous to American values. This not-ready-for-prime-time show is too dangerous to continue. America is at stake. It s time to end Trump s regime before he destroys our country. The only problem is that Republicans are eager to help him destroy it. In the end, elections, protests, and impeachment could be useless methods to get rid of Trump. As long as Republicans control Congress they will refuse to save the country and they will remain in control by trying to destroy voting rights. They are also already proposing bills designed to quell protests. And when peaceful methods of changing our government are taken away from the people, that only leaves the kind of method that Thomas Jefferson spoke of in a letter to William Stephens Smith in 1787.Hopefully, it won t come down to that. But we can t keep pretending that peaceful protests will make Republicans listen to reason, nor can we expect Republicans to stop chipping away at voting rights. And the fact that Republicans are okay with Russia helping their candidate win suggests they will expect foreign help in 2018 and 2020. We also can t expect the judicial branch to stop Trump because Republicans are already busy working on a bill to split up the Ninth Circuit Court as punishment for not agreeing with Trump s executive order.The American people need to rise up and demand the impeachment of Trump and his entire administration, and then a new election must be held. The future of our nation depends on it.Featured image via Andrew Harrer   Pool/Getty Images