No sooner had Donald Trump taken his oath of office as the nation’s 45th president than Democrats were plotting for his removal. The Washington Post reported on Jan. 20, 2017 — the day of his Inauguration — that the effort to impeach President Donald John Trump was already underway.

Amid last week’s sham House hearings, Speaker Nancy Pelosi stated that the impeachment process has been going on “for 22 months, two-and-a-half years actually.” During much of that time the House Speaker had been telling us that any impeachment effort needed to be bipartisan to proceed.

Partisan Trump haters Adam Schiff, who presided over the House Intelligence Committee “inquiry” and Jerry Nadler, the House Judiciary Committee chairman, turned the impeachment proceedings into a partisan circus that could be disastrous for Democrats running for reelection.

While Democrats follow their House leaders and their flimsy articles of impeachment, the Senate is poised to correct the national embarrassment by voting down the bogus charges.

Not distracted by the House, the executive branch has been getting work done. A ceremony last week that received little attention from the liberal media was the president’s signing of an executive order aimed at helping combat growing anti-Semitism on U.S. college campuses. Triggering an element of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, it interprets members of the Jewish religion as part of a distinct nationality and universities could lose federal funding if they do not stop discrimination against Jews on their campuses.

Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a major Jewish human rights organization, said the measure will set an environment wherein Jewish students have some semblance of protection and recourse.

Some critics said Trump’s executive order was meant to satisfy his Orthodox Jewish supporters and predicted it would be used to muzzle free speech, especially when it involves legitimate criticism of Israeli policies toward the Palestinians.

The American Civil Liberties Union called the executive order unnecessary, contending anti-Semitic harassment is already protected.

Matt Brooks, president of the Republican Jewish Coalition, however, said many of the critics are infected with Trump derangement syndrome, pointing out that earlier in the week they were accusing him of trafficking in anti-Semitism.

Robert Jeffress, Evangelical Southern Baptist pastor, author, and radio and television host, spoke briefly at the White House ceremony, calling Trump the most pro-faith President in history.

Attorney Alan Dershowitz, Harvard law professor emeritus and a Democrat, also spoke, calling the executive order a game changer and vital for turning universities away from being bastions of hatred and discrimination. He said Trump’s order will go down in history as one of the most important events in the 2,000-year battle against anti-Semitism.

Dershowitz, who voted for Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016, has been critical of Trump and many of his policies but he always defended the president’s “civil liberties.” He argued that Trump had the constitutional authority to fire former FBI director James Comey and therefore should not have been charged with obstruction of justice.

This put Dershowitz at odds with many Democrats, including a number of former “friends” who turned against him.

While the Democrats’ vote to impeach Trump reflects of the blanket partisanship dividing the nation along party lines, it’s refreshing to know that there are still some rational, independent thinkers who vote their conscience, even in the midst of hostile attacks from so-called friends and a liberal media.

By Jim Zbick | tneditor@tnonline.com