Harry

Not sure if it's just because I have a son but I this photo really hits me in the heart. It's not as well known as you'd expect the extent of personal loss and devastation that Biden has incurred in his life. I don't personally know anyone who's endured as much grief. It makes him an uncommon leadership figure, and I'd expect that history would shape his decision making, probably for the better. I wish he was 15 years younger but I'm glad he's president.

The significant thing to remember is it won't be Mitch McConnell making the decisions if the Dems wait to send the articles over to the senate. Will be Schumer holding all the cards.

It's hard to know as it requires trusting Mitch McConnell. His relationship with Biden is meant to be quite positive but I still wouldn't put it past him to hold the trial up and make it drag through Biden's first days, slowing his cabinet appointments etc. My guess is he doesn't bring forward the trial/vote

Next stage of the Mitch rhetoric. Leans toward convicting him

Reporting now that McConnell is FOR impeachment. If he were to vote for that, almost certainly 16 others in the GOP would follow suit. I think it's gone from unlikely removal to possible removal in the last few hours.

Speaking of powerful stuff this statement from Liz Cheney is "There has never been a greater betrayal by a President of his office and his oath. I will vote to impeach"

No. It starts on Jan 19th unless McConnell agrees otherwise. I've heard it said there is no chance of senate conviction at present, and that the house would impeach but wait for Biden's first 100 days in office to send the articles to the senate. This will give significantly higher chance of conviction, removing him from being able to run in 2024 and pension and travel allowance, and once Biden's people are running the defence department

Honestly a bit worried about this. Trump is a narcissist. And he has now been deprived of his greatest source of narcissistic energy.

Sounds like Trump will be impeached by the house a second time. With the idea being that the senate can convene and remove him depending on behaviour.

Not at all mate. Still two weeks to make matters worse including on the day of the inauguration of Biden. 25th amendment to remove from power immediately. Impeachment to formally censure and legally bar him from observing any government position ever again.

This is a god damn tragedy. Absolutely heartbreaking for the american people, and absolutely 100% the product of Trumps efforts to delegitimise the election, and that of Hawley and Cruz who lended creedence to it. The darkest day for US democracy since the civil war. Trump should be impeached and removed immediately.

What needs to be remembered is the median senators home state and the median state in the electoral college is 4-6% more conservative than the country as a whole. The small state skew of electoral college and senate really hurts democrats, and therefore hurts the majority of voting Americans. Addressing this imbalance would be my number one priority... Statehood (and 4 new likely D senate positions) for Washington DC and Puerto Rico. Abolish the electoral college. Those two reforms sets you up to be able to move the median political centre position back towards the line with the median voter, and force the GOP to need to win a bigger coalition to win power... I'd hope that would pull them out of crazytown and back towards centre right.

Ok wow.

The prospect of Mitch McConnell being out of the role of senate majority leader is huge. Huge just for America but also big for the world. He has been the grim reaper of legislation. Blocking votes from being held on things like Covid relief spending that would get enough Republican senators to side with the Dems to be implemented...

Promising so far for the democrats. Georgia has been red so long that the GOP still have a strong chance to win. But it can't be understated how much Trump has created chaos in the Georgia Republican party since November. He has smashed a popular Republican governor and secretary of state that were strongly pro trump, over their refusal to commit election fraud in his name. This caused the two senators to come out and call for the resignation of those two. Loeffler has even sunken to challenging the election result tomorrow to try to motivate Trump's fanatics to vote. But ultimately the GOP would want to turn out all its voters and he created a massive split within the group. He also field conspiracy theory behaviour of the election being rigged which would always reduce turnout amongst his base.

It doesn't seem logical to me for Iran to do this. The US political establishment is worried Trump will start a war with Iran on his way out the door as a means of torching the place for the next administration. Why would Iran provoke that?

Closing argument on the impeachment hearing. Powerful, and relevant.