Words fail me .... but, then, I’m no longer surprised at the lengths some of these so-called “politicians” will go to try to make their successors jobs as hard as possible. How on earth can he do this without Senate approval and sign off by the president? Even more important, therefore, to get the orange clown out of the White House pronto
The trial and conviction will be done by the Senate, where a 2/3 majority is required to convict. That means 17 GOP senators will need to vote to convict. While unlikely, a lot depends on Mitch McConnell, who has already said there won’t be a whip on Republicans, and might himself even vote to convict. If he does, that might lead to enough others finding where they have hidden their courage, In some ways conviction isn’t the aim any more though, as all it means is removal from office, and the trial won’t happen until after Biden is inaugurated anyway. The symbolic stigma of being impeached is the important thing, plus the secondary issue of a simple majority vote banning Trump from ever holding public office again.
The Senate might be a different animal, though the bar there is extremely high. In the House, most districts are extremely safe: members face far more of a challenge in a party primary (or from death threats! They're getting a lot of those!) than a general election. In the Senate, while there are a lot of extremely safe seats, there are many more potentially competitive ones overall. The other element is that Senate GOP leadership is less Trump-adjacent than the House. Mitch McConnell is evil but he isn't a fool, and it increasingly appears that he knows that there will be a reckoning with the forces of Trump at some point. I still expect him to vote against, and for conviction to fail, but there's considerable strategic value for the old guard Republicans in convicting at this point. Trump's the front-runner for the 2024 nomination as it stands, and if the party remains Trumpy, there isn't going to be much room for the Mitch McConnells in short order. This might be their only chance to seize the party back.
It doesn’t seem to have reached the media but British Gas employees are on a 5 day strike because their employers want to sack them and rehire them on worse contracts. A sad sign of the times.
Apparently there are currently more US troops on the ground in Washington DC than there are in Afghanistan.
He's finally made an appearance! Should've been this firm/presidential last week... Still no apology for inciting or radicalising, though, as that would be an admission of culpability.
Yeah, that's less "being presidential" and more "the White House counsel has advised me that I have legal exposure", I think. Which is basically the only way you can get Donald Trump on-message for an hour.
I am not convinced that impeaching Trump will resolve the problems with American politics and the deep-rooted issues which are entrenched there. Trump let the very ugly genie out of the bottle and it will not easily be forced to return. I feel that the unpleasant, far-right elements of society feel confident that they have been given a voice. The tasks facing Biden are almost insurmountable. The office of President has been totally tainted and the State's status in world politics has been irrevocably tainted by Trump. Internally, there is a very large minority who seem open to challenging the Democrats through either the courts or demonstrations and they will continue to have a grievance that a democratic election has let them down despite the fact that this argument has no credibility. Biden strikes me as being quite weak and anodyne but I am not sure that a strong and potentially divisive Democrat president would be the answer either. I keep thinking just how much worse it would be if Hilary Clinton had been elected this time around and that we would have witnessed something far worse than the storming of the Capitol as a consequence. It will take more than a generation to repair the damage Trump has done. He has reversed race relations back to the 1960s. Most right thinking people feel he should be impeached and claims that he should face some kind of prosecution do not seem at all wild in these circumstances. Unfortunately, this will just exacerbate the problem. As long as Trump is around as either a politician or a figurehead for dissent, there will be major issues in America. If he is jailed, he will be a cause celebre for many people. If he retains leadership of the Republicans, I think he will be back as President in the next term. He needs to be removed by the Republicans themselves before anything can move on and I am not sure this will happen. (He will fight through the courts the same way he contested the presidential election.) America has produced a unique problem for itself and I am not sure that it is one where there is a tidy solution or that does not have serious consequences. The problem does not go away with the election of Biden or even if Trump quits the political stage. It is a total disaster zone.
Just as an observation, no party led by Tony Blair is going to redress the balance of power in the workplace in a way that would prevent these abuses.
I thought the Tories were bad but listening to Trump's impeachment debate there are some complete fruit loops in the Republican party!
Can’t remember which one, but one of them was complaining about the metal detectors which have been installed which was interfering with his right to bear arms, to save him from the very people he had been empowering by objecting to the election result.
