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hannahcarter11

McConnell Privately Backs Impeachment as House Moves to Charge Trump - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...l-backs-trump-impeachment.html

trump impeachment mcconnell

shared by hannahcarter11 on 13 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • Senator Mitch McConnell has concluded that President Trump committed impeachable offenses and believes that Democrats’ move to impeach him will make it easier to purge Mr. Trump from the party, according to people familiar with Mr. McConnell’s thinking.
  • Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the No. 3 Republican in the House, announced her intention to support the single charge of high crimes and misdemeanors, as other party leaders declined to formally lobby rank-and-file lawmakers to oppose it.
  • Even before Mr. McConnell’s position was known and Ms. Cheney had announced her plans, advisers to the Senate Republican leader had already privately speculated that a dozen Republican senators — and possibly more — could ultimately vote to convict Mr. Trump in a Senate trial that would follow his impeachment by the House.
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  • While he has said he is personally opposed to impeachment, he and other party leaders did not mount an official effort to defeat the push, and Mr. McCarthy was working on Tuesday to build support for a censure resolution to rebuke the president for his actions.
  • After four years of backing the president at nearly every turn and refusing to condemn even his most extreme behavior, party leaders were racing to distance themselves from a president many of them now regard as a political and constitutional threat.
  • “It is true that the president’s remaining term is limited — but a president capable of fomenting a violent insurrection in the Capitol is capable of greater dangers still,” they wrote. “He must be removed from office as swiftly as the Constitution allows. He must also be disqualified to prevent the recurrence of the extraordinary threat he presents.”
  • The Republican Party’s rapid turn against Mr. Trump unfolded as the House met into the night on Tuesday to debate and vote on a resolution formally calling on Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment to strip the president of his powers, a move that Mr. Pence shot down hours before the House passed it along party lines.
  • In a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Mr. Pence argued that the amendment was meant to address medical emergencies or presidential “incapacity” and that using it as “a means of punishment or usurpation” would set a “terrible precedent.”
  • In a veiled reference to impeachment, he urged Congress “to avoid actions that would further divide and inflame the passions of the moment” and pledged to work in “good faith” with Mr. Biden’s transition team.
  • Mr. Trump has shown no trace of contrition. On Tuesday, in his first public appearance since the siege of the Capitol, he told reporters that his remarks to supporters at a rally that day — in which he exhorted them to go to the Capitol and “fight” so Republicans would reject the election results — had been “totally appropriate.”
  • Mr. McConnell has indicated he wants to see the specific article of impeachment that the House is set to approve on Wednesday, and to hear the eventual arguments in the Senate. But the Senate Republican leader has made clear in private discussions that he believes now is the moment to move on from Mr. Trump, whom he blames for causing Republicans to lose the Senate.
  • “Our nation was founded precisely so that the free choice of the American people is what shapes our self-government and determines the destiny of our nation.”
  • On Monday, Mr. Biden telephoned Mr. McConnell to ask whether it would be possible to set up a dual track that would allow the Senate to confirm Mr. Biden’s cabinet nominees and hold a Senate trial at the same time, according to officials briefed on the conversation who disclosed it on the condition of anonymity. Far from avoiding the topic of impeaching Mr. Trump, Mr. McConnell said it was a question for the Senate parliamentarian, and promised Mr. Biden a quick answer.
  • “The bottom line is that Leader McConnell has the ability to call us back into session and we can then move to convict Donald Trump, draw on the impeachment trial and try him,” Mr. Schumer told reporters in New York. “And that’s what we hope McConnell will do.”
  • For Mr. McConnell and other Republicans, the crisis offered an opportunity to bar Mr. Trump from seeking the presidency again in 2024, as he has repeatedly mused with allies about doing.
  • But that prospect has created a conundrum for Republicans who, understanding the deep affection for Mr. Trump among a powerful segment of their party’s core supporters, are concerned they could pay a steep political price for abandoning him.
  • Mr. Biden has made clear, in public and private, that he will not oppose the Democratic push to impeach Mr. Trump, even though his advisers and some lawmakers in his party are concerned about the impact it could have on his first days in office.
aleija

McConnell Was Done With Trump. His Party Said Not So Fast. - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...connell-trump-impeachment.html

US trump Politics history

shared by aleija on 28 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • So his decision on Tuesday to join all but five Republican senators in voting to toss out the House’s impeachment case against Mr. Trump as unconstitutional seemed to be less a reversal than a recognition that the critical mass of his party was not ready to join him in cutting loose the former president. Far from repudiating Mr. Trump, as it appeared they might in the days after the Jan. 6 rampage at the Capitol, Republicans have reverted to the posture they adopted when he was in office — unwilling to cross a figure who continues to hold outsize sway in their party.
  • He made clear to associates in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack that he viewed Mr. Trump’s actions around the riot as impeachable and saw a Senate trial as an opportunity to purge him from the party. In a letter to colleagues, Mr. McConnell signaled he was open to conviction, a stark departure from a year before when he had declared that he was not an “impartial juror” in Mr. Trump’s first impeachment trial and guided him to acquittal.
  • Mr. McConnell remains eager to move beyond Mr. Trump. While his House counterpart, Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, was set to meet Mr. Trump on Thursday in an effort to repair his relationship with the former president, the Senate leader gladly told reporters he had not spoken to Mr. Trump since Dec. 15, after Mr. McConnell congratulated Mr. Biden as the president-elect. He has told allies he hopes never to talk to Mr. Trump again.
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  • After four years, the minority leader had finally had enough. But with most Republicans rallying around Donald J. Trump, he sided with his colleagues trying to throw out the impeachment case.
  • For Mr. McConnell, a leader who derives his power in large part from his ability to keep Republicans unified, defying the will of his members would have been a momentous risk, putting his own post in peril and courting the ire of the far right.
  • He made clear to associates after the Jan. 6 attack that he viewed Mr. Trump’s actions around the riot as impeachable and saw a Senate trial as an opportunity to purge him from the party, prompting an article in The New York Times that his office notably did not challenge.
  • And then last week, in a speech on the Senate floor, Mr. McConnell flatly said the president had “provoked” the mob that sent the vice president and lawmakers fleeing as it violently stormed the Capitol, trying to stop Congress from formalizing his election loss.
  • In the week since Mr. Trump skipped President Biden’s inauguration and decamped to his private club in Florida, it had become increasingly clear that his departure from the Oval Office had done little, if anything, to loosen his grip on rank-and-file Republicans in Congress.
  • Not only is this impeachment trial a distraction from the important issues Americans want Congress focused on, it is unconstitutional, and I join the vast majority of Senate Republicans in opposing it,” said Ronna McDaniel, the Republican National Committee chairwoman.
sidneybelleroche

Breyer's retirement preempts more Supreme Court hardball from McConnell - 0 views

news.yahoo.com/itch-mc-connell-205055024.html

shared by sidneybelleroche on 27 Jan 22 - No Cached
  • While many Democratic activists may regard Mitch McConnell as an all-powerful bogeyman, there is little that the Republican Senate minority leader from Kentucky can do to stop President Biden from nominating the next Supreme Court justice.
  • While many Democratic activists may regard Mitch McConnell as an all-powerful bogeyman, there is little that the Republican Senate minority leader from Kentucky can do to stop President Biden from nominating the next Supreme Court justice.
  • Republicans hope to take back the Senate majority in the midterm elections this fall, and McConnell had already signaled last summer that if that were to happen, he would likely block any attempt by Biden to nominate a justice to an open Supreme Court seat.
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  • Justice Stephen Breyer’s impending retirement comes none too soon for Democrats.
  • But as long as Democrats have the majority in the Senate, Biden can nominate justices to the Supreme Court. That’s because McConnell abolished the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees in 2017, in order to appoint Neil Gorsuch to the bench.
  • McConnell’s position does not have precedent, despite his claim to be an institutionalist.
  • When Scalia, a conservative justice, died almost six years ago, McConnell — who controlled the Senate at that time as majority leader — moved with lightning speed. Within an hour, he issued a statement saying he would not even allow a hearing for any nominee put forward by then-President Barack Obama.
  • Under McConnell’s rationale for blocking the Garland nomination in 2016, he would have left the seat open and allowed “the American people” to “have a voice in the selection.
  • nstead, McConnell reversed himself. “President Trump’s nominee will receive a vote on the floor of the United States Senate,” he said. The confirmation of Justice Amy Coney Barrett moved the court solidly to the right, giving conservatives a 6-3 majority in some cases and a 5-4 majority even in cases in which Chief Justice John Roberts did not rule their way.
  • I
  • His retirement now, rather than a year from now, will prevent conservatives from dominating the court even more than they already do. And it may end up being the only Supreme Court vacancy filled by Biden.
katherineharron

McConnell rebuffs Democrats' call for speedy impeachment trial, but is undecided on con... - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

trump

shared by katherineharron on 13 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is rejecting Democratic calls to bring the Senate back immediately to convict President Donald Trump, a decision that is likely to allow the President to serve out his final days in office.
  • an impeachment trial won't begin until the early days of Joe Biden's presidency.
  • The news comes as McConnell has privately indicated that he believes impeaching Trump would be the way to rid him from the party,
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  • McConnell sent a note to his Republican colleagues Wednesday afternoon on impeachment, writing that "while the press has been full of speculation, I have not made a final decision on how I will vote and I intend to listen to the legal arguments when they are presented to the Senate."
  • "The Senate trial would therefore begin after President Trump's term has expired," the memo states.
  • In a memo a few days ago to Republican senators, McConnell suggested the trial wouldn't start until Biden becomes president, saying all 100 senators would need to consent to change the Senate's schedule
  • But McConnell is furious, sources say, over Trump's incitement of the violent riots that turned deadly at the US Capitol last week, and he also blames Trump for the party's failure to hold the two Georgia Senate seats
  • House Democrats are signaling they plan to send the article of impeachment over to the Senate immediately after a vote later Wednesday in which they will be joined by some Republicans to impeach the President for a second time in the wake of the insurrection. The vote comes after the President repeatedly made false claims that the election had been stolen.
katherineharron

McConnell: Marjorie Taylor Greene's views are a 'cancer' for the GOP - CNNPolitics - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

gop

shared by katherineharron on 02 Feb 21 - No Cached
  • Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell on Monday issued a tacit rebuke of controversial Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, slamming the Georgia Republican's "loony lies and conspiracy theories" as a "cancer" for the party.
  • "Somebody who's suggested that perhaps no airplane hit the Pentagon on 9/11, that horrifying school shootings were pre-staged, and that the Clintons crashed JFK Jr.'s airplane is not living in reality. This has nothing to do with the challenges facing American families or the robust debates on substance that can strengthen our party."
  • While McConnell did not name Greene directly, his statement stands as a scathing rebuke of the freshman Republican House member.
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  • Greene quickly shot back on Twitter, asserting that "the real cancer for the Republican Party is weak Republicans who only know how to lose gracefully. This is why we are losing our country."
  • Greene has faced backlash since a CNN KFile report last week found that she had repeatedly indicated support for executing prominent Democratic politicians in 2018 and 2019 before being elected to Congress.
  • In a separate statement to CNN, he expressed support for Republican Rep. Liz Cheney's vote to impeach President Donald Trump as some Trump loyalists seek to remove her from leadership.
  • Greene now faces potentially serious consequences in light of her prior comments, with House Democrats moving expeditiously to remove her from her committee assignments.
  • CNN previously reported that McCarthy is slated to meet with Greene this week, as many House Republicans have been silent about her newly resurfaced incendiary comments.
  • McConnell's short but pointed rebuke Monday night came the same day the Kentucky Republican waded publicly into another controversy threatening party unity.
  • The freshman congresswoman has a track record of incendiary rhetoric, including past comments using Islamophobic and anti-Semitic tropes, as well as ties to the baseless and thoroughly debunked QAnon conspiracy theory.
  • Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell on Monday issued a tacit rebuke of controversial Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, slamming the Georgia Republican's "loony lies and conspiracy theories" as a "cancer" for the party.
hannahcarter11

Mitch McConnell Says Trump Is Responsible For Insurrection : Trump Impeachment Aftermat... - 0 views

www.npr.org/...and-morally-responsible-for-ri

McConnell Trump impeachment Insurrection

shared by hannahcarter11 on 16 Feb 21 - No Cached
  • Following Saturday's vote acquitting former President Donald Trump, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., excoriated Trump for his actions on the day of the attack on the U.S. Capitol, calling them a "disgraceful dereliction of duty.
  • he did not vote to convict the former president because of constitutional concerns.
  • "There's no question, none, that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day," McConnell said
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  • McConnell rebuked Trump for his actions after the insurrection as well.
  • But McConnell said that the process of impeachment and conviction is a "limited tool" and that he believes Trump is not "constitutionally eligible for conviction."
  • "The Constitution gives us a particular role. This body is not invited to act as the nation's overarching moral tribunal," he said.
  • Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer acknowledged the group in separate remarks after the vote, saying, "I salute those Republican patriots who did the right thing. It wasn't easy. We know that."
  • The New York Democrat called Trump's actions on Jan. 6 a "textbook example" of an impeachable offense.
katherineharron

McConnell for the first time recognizes Biden as President-elect - CNNPolitics - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

gop

shared by katherineharron on 15 Dec 20 - No Cached
  • Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for the first time acknowledged Joe Biden's victory and referred to him as President-elect, six weeks after Election Day and amid President Donald Trump's continued refusal to accept defeat.
  • "The electoral college has spoken," McConnell said in remarks from the Senate floor in the US Capitol, adding, "Today I want to congratulate President-elect Joe Biden."
  • many Senate Republicans still wouldn't recognize Biden's victory on Monday evening even after the Electoral College made the win official.
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  • it took more than 40 days since Americans went to the polls for many GOP members of Congress to speak up.
  • "The fact that it took six weeks for my colleagues to recognize reality and stop undermining our Democratic process is sad and disappointing," said Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin in a floor speech Tuesday following McConnell's remarks.
  • Trump needs to "take his cue from Leader McConnell, that it's time to end his term," in a floor speech
  • "Our Republican colleagues, for the sake of our democracy, for the sake of the peaceful transition of power, should stop the shenanigans," Schumer said "Stop the misrepresentations and acknowledge that Joe Biden will be our next president."
  • "It would take far more than one speech to catalog all the major wins the Trump administration has helped deliver for the American people," he said. "The outsider who swore he would shake up Washington and lead our country to new accomplishments, both at home and abroad proceeded to do exactly that. President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence deserve our thanks and our gratitude for their tireless work and their essential roles in all these victories and in many more."
  • McConnell said while millions wished the election would have yielded a different result, "our system of government has processes to determine who will be sworn in on January the 20th. The Electoral College has spoken."
  • Trump, even in defeat, holds enormous sway over his party, to the point where many refuse to publicly accept electoral reality or raise any concerns as the President continues to undermine the integrity of US democracy by lying that the election was rigged and stolen from him
  • "Montana cast three electoral votes for President Trump, and the Electoral College voted today," said Daines, who just won reelection in Montana. "And Congress will need to ratify in January."
  • some GOP members of Congress were signaling they were more willing to accept Biden's victory.
  • "We've now gone through the constitutional process and the electors have voted, so there's a President-elect," Blunt said. "With Vice President Biden as the President-elect, the President continues, obviously, to have all the options he has available to him, but the electoral vote today was significant."
  • Two other members of GOP leadership -- Senate Majority Whip John Thune of South Dakota and Sen. John Cornyn of Texas -- both said that any effort to overturn the election results on January 6, when a joint of session of Congress meets to count the electoral votes, would be fruitless.
  • "I think everybody realized it yesterday that counting the voting of the electors was a pivotal moment, and I agree," Cornyn told reporters Tuesday, when asked if he recognizes Biden as President-elect.
aleija

Opinion | Could Mitch McConnell Support Impeaching Trump? - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...connell-trump-impeachment.html

opinion US Politics trump

shared by aleija on 17 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • Why the Republican leader should be tempted by the Senate’s opportunity to bar Trump from running for president again.
  • As a master of institutional power, McConnell probably believed that he had the upper hand over Trump, because only institutional power can actually turn political passions into policy and law.
  • And since Trump has popular power and McConnell doesn’t, it doesn’t matter that the president will soon be out of office and the Senate’s soon-to-be minority leader will remain institutionally in charge: The party will still belong, soul and body, to Trump and only Trump.
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  • a last and unexpected moment of true institutional leverage, where his power in the Senate matters more than Trump’s resilient popular support.
  • The point wouldn’t be to punish Trump or alter the majority leader’s public reputation or create a moment for the history books. It would be to use a power that Senate Republicans have now, and will presumably never have again — the power to guarantee that Trump cannot be a candidate for president four years from now, which can be accomplished by a simple majority vote following a Senate conviction.
  • It would cast Trump as a martyr to the perfidious Republican establishment, and so struck down, he could potentially emerge more influential (with some of his supporters, at least) than before.
  • But there’s nothing like a coherent Trumpist movement in the party, the way the Tea Party movement existed for a time as a reasonably coherent force.
  • Does Trump actually want an heir, a successor to whom his legacy belongs? (Ask Mike Pence.) Does he want to live in a world where a son he used to disfavor — to say nothing of someone who isn’t his flesh and blood — is nominated for president instead of him?
  • Whereas as much as Republicans want to believe in the “just fade away” narrative, if Trump can be the nominee in 2024, he really might be, and even the shadow of that possibility will shape and warp the G.O.P. effort to leave the events of Jan. 6 behind.
  • What McConnell has before him, then, is an opportunity to exert agency, to wield power, that is entirely unique to early 2021, and will be long gone by 2024. There is no guarantee that using it will work, but at a moment when every Republican scenario looks bad, it seems more likely to leave Trump weakened than just doing nothing and hoping that some kind of wasting disease will carry his political potency away.
johnsonel7

Pelosi and McConnell Begin 2020 in Standoff Over Trump Impeachment Trial - 0 views

www.msn.com/...ar-BBYxvFV

pelosi mcconnell impeachment trump

shared by johnsonel7 on 02 Jan 20 - No Cached
  • Pelosi has held up delivering to the Senate the two articles of impeachment adopted by the Democratic-majority House, saying she wants to see a “fair” process for the trial. Officials in Pelosi’s office said she and Schumer are in lockstep on what that means: trial procedures that would include documents and testimony from witnesses that were blocked by Trump during the House’s impeachment inquiry.
  • “Neither Senator McConnell, nor any Republican senator, has articulated a single good reason why the trial shouldn’t have these witnesses or these documents,”
  • For Schumer and Pelosi, withholding the impeachment articles and demanding more witnesses has given them a chance to raise questions about whether Trump’s trial in the Republican-controlled Senate can be fair. McConnell made clear he has no intention of being impartial — despite an impeachment oath that has traditionally required senators to deliver “impartial justice” — and said he’s closely coordinating with the White House.
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  • Republicans are arguing that Pelosi withholding the articles of impeachment contradicts the main message from Democrats during impeachment: that Trump is such a danger to national security and the next election that he must face swift consequences for his actions.
  • Republicans scoff at the idea that Pelosi has any leverage over McConnell, arguing that the impeachment went ahead without waiting to see whether courts would compel more witnesses to testify in the House because Democrats set a political deadline. One GOP aide said that Pelosi’s attempt to dictate Senate process would only alienate moderate Republicans.
tsainten

The homes of Mitch McConnell and Nancy Pelosi were reportedly vandalized. - The New Yor... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ere-reportedly-vandalized.html

Politics US Trump

shared by tsainten on 03 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • The homes of Mitch McConnell and Nancy Pelosi, political opponents and the two most powerful members of Congress, were reported to have been vandalized, as their standoff continues over a stimulus bill that has been criticized as inadequate by from both the left and right — including President Trump.
  • the senator’s home was tagged overnight with red and white spray paint. Photos show writing on the front of Mr. McConnell’s home, including a message that says “Weres my money” on the front door.
  • President Trump signed a bill providing $900 billion in stimulus last Sunday, but called for payments to individuals be increased to $2,000 from $600. Ms. Pelosi rallied support for the shift, and the House voted to raise the payments on Monday. Mr. McConnell blocked the effort the following day .
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  • “I’ve spent my career fighting for the First Amendment and defending peaceful protest,” Mr. McConnell said in the statement. “I appreciate every Kentuckian who has engaged in the democratic process whether they agree with me or not. This is different. Vandalism and the politics of fear have no place in our society.”
  • the Senate would “begin a process” to consider bigger payments along with Mr. Trump’s other demands, which include investigations of his baseless claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election and the repeal of certain legal protections for tech giants such as Facebook, Google and Twitter.
Javier E

The Roman Republic Was Teetering. Then a Volcano Erupted 6,000 Miles Away. - The New Yo... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...rome-caesar-volcano.html

environmental volcano crisis roman republic empire

shared by Javier E on 24 Jun 20 - No Cached
  • a volcanic eruption in the remote Aleutian Islands, 6,000 miles away from the Italian peninsula, contributed to the demise of the Roman Republic. That eruption — and others before it and since — played a role in changing the course of history.
  • At the Desert Research Institute in Reno, Nev., it’s not unusual to find researchers in puffy parkas and wool hats handling chunks of ice in a minus 4 Fahrenheit “cold room.” Ice cores, typically drilled vertically from glaciers, hide bits of volcanic material that rained down from long-ago eruptions within their layers.
  • Joseph McConnell, a climate scientist at the institute, and his collaborators are in the business of looking for that debris. Using an instrument they designed and built, they melt the ice and pipe the water into an array of sensors. With hundreds of feet of tubing, the setup looks downright chaotic, but it’s exquisitely sensitive. The sensors pinpoint many substances, including about 30 different elements, and they do so by catching just tiny whiffs.“They have sensitivities of parts per quadrillion,” Dr. McConnell said.
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  • Volcanic ash, more generally known as tephra, sometimes hides in ice. It’s a special find because it can be geochemically tied to a specific volcano. “The tephra comes from the magma itself,
  • Sulfur is also indicative of a past eruption. Sulfur dioxide, a gas commonly belched by erupting volcanoes, reacts with water in the atmosphere to create sulfate aerosols. These tiny particles can linger in the stratosphere for years, riding wind currents, but they, like tephra, eventually fall back to Earth.
  • The ice also carries a time stamp. Dr. McConnell and his colleagues look for variations in elements like sodium, which is found in sea spray that’s seasonally blown inland. By simply counting annual variations in these elements, it’s possible to trace the passage of time, Dr. McConnell said. “It’s like a tree-ring record.”
  • In layers of ice corresponding to the early months of 43 B.C., they spotted large upticks in sulfur and, crucially, bits of material that were probably tephra. The timing caught the scientists’ attention.
  • Researchers have previously hypothesized that an environmental trigger may have helped set in motion the crop failures, famines and social unrest that plagued the Mediterranean region at that time. But until now, “There hasn’t been the kind of data that these scholars brought forth to really get those theories into the mainstream,”
  • The match was spot on, Dr. Plunkett said. “There are some events that are tricky. With Okmok, there’s nothing else that looks like it.”
  • This eruption was one of the largest of the last few millenniums, Dr. McConnell and his collaborators concluded, and the sulfate aerosols it created remained in the stratosphere for several years. These tiny particles are particularly good at reflecting sunlight, which means they can temporarily alter Earth’s climate.
  • “They’ve created, for a short term, global cooling events,”
  • Using climate models to simulate the impact of an Okmok eruption, Dr. McConnell and his collaborators estimated that parts of the Mediterranean, roughly 6,000 miles away, would have cooled by as much as 13.3 degrees Fahrenheit.
  • “It’s an incredible coincidence that it happened exactly in the waning years of the Roman Republic when things were falling apart,”
  • That climate shock came at precisely the wrong time, Dr. Clark said. “This was a period of Mediterranean-wide political, social and economic upheaval.”
  • Historical records compiled by Roman writers and philosophers note food shortages and famines. In 43 B.C., Mark Antony, the Roman military leader, and his army had to subsist on wild fruit, roots, bark and “animals never tasted before,” the philosopher Plutarch wrote.
  • For a society already reeling from the assassination of Julius Caesar the year before, such trying conditions might have exacerbated social unrest, the researchers concluded. They might even have kick-started transfers of political power that led to the rise of the Roman Empire.
  • Rain patterns changed as well — some regions would have been drenched by 400 percent more precipitation than normal, the modeling revealed.
  • The links in the study are probable, but not definite. “They’re not being heavy handed and saying this is absolutely it,” Dr. Holmberg said.
  • Egyptian society, before the installation of the Aswan Low Dam in the early 20th century, was anchored by the annual summer flooding of the Nile River. These summer floods, sustained by monsoon rains in the highlands of Ethiopia, delivered irrigation and silt, both critical to Egypt’s agrarian society. “The whole rhythm of the year was built around responding to the flood,” Dr. Manning of Yale said.
  • But volcanic eruptions, even those on the other side of the world, could have disrupted that flooding, Dr. Manning and his colleagues recently showed. Using records from Cairo’s Nilometer — an octagonal marble column that was used for recording Nile flood height from 622 to 1902 A.D., the team found that flooding tended to be weaker, or entirely absent, during years when there was a large volcanic eruption somewhere in the world.
  • he culprit, the team reasoned in a paper published a few years ago, was cooling caused by sulfate aerosols. When Earth cools after a large eruption, its atmospheric circulation patterns change. That can shift the invisible meeting point of Northern and Southern Hemisphere trade winds — the Intertropical Convergence Zone — that affects where monsoon rains tend to fall. When less precipitation falls over Ethiopia, home to a major tributary of the Nile, there’s less water available for flooding that year.
  • Ptolemaic-era records revealed that this reduced flooding had socioeconomic and political consequences. Revolts increased in the years following “Nile failure,” Dr. Manning and his colleagues found. Priestly decrees — intended to establish the political legitimacy of Greek rulers — also became more commonplace.
  • “There are still large unsourced mystery eruptions up until the early 19th century.”
  • Right now, roughly a dozen volcanoes are erupting. In all likelihood, they’re nothing to worry about — it’s doubtful you’ve even heard of them. But every once in a while, there’s bound to be a really big eruption. How its effects ripple around the world awaits to be seen.
mattrenz16

Mitch McConnell on Capitol security: 'I think we've overdone it,' compares Capitol to K... - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

shared by mattrenz16 on 11 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • More than two months after the January 6 insurrection, National Guard troops continue to patrol the Capitol grounds which are surrounded by razor wire fencing. US Capitol Police say an elevated threat level remains an issue, though McConnell disagrees.
  • "I just checked earlier this morning. There are no serious threats against the Capitol. I think we're way overreacting to the current need," McConnell said.
  • "I'm extremely uncomfortable with the fact that my constituents can't come to the Capitol. With all this razor wire around the complex, it reminds me of my last visit to Kabul. This is the capital of the United States of America. Do we need some changes? We probably do. But I think we are continuing to overreact based on current threat levels, to what is needed here at the Capitol. It looks terrible to have the beacon of our democracy surrounded by razor wire and National Guard troops," McConnell added.
saberal

How Mitch McConnell killed the US Capitol attack commission | US Capitol breach | The G... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...-commission-senate-republicans

US politics crisis

shared by saberal on 02 Jun 21 - No Cached
  • Days before the Senate voted down the creation of a 9/11-style commission to investigate the Capitol attack, the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, was adamant: he would oppose the bill, regardless of any amendments – and he expected his colleagues to follow suit.
  • But it also underscored the alarm that gripped McConnell and Senate Republican leadership in the fraught political moments leading up to the vote, and how they exploited fears within the GOP of crossing a mercurial former president to galvanize opposition to the commission.
  • Surrounded by shards of broken glass in the Capitol on the night of 6 January, and as House Democrats drew up draft articles of impeachment against Trump, Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, made her first outreach to canvas the prospect of a commission to investigate the attack.
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  • The main objection from House and Senate Republicans, at first, centered on the lopsided structure of Pelosi’s initial proposal, that would have seen a majority of members appointed by Democrats, who would have also held unilateral subpoena power.
  • By the penultimate week of April, Pelosi had deputized Thompson to lead talks as she felt the homeland security committee was an appropriate venue, and because the top Republican on the committee, John Katko, was one of only 10 House GOP members to vote to impeach Trump.
  • Minutes after House Republicans elevated Elise Stefanik to become the new GOP conference chair on 14 May, Thompson and Katko unveiled their proposal for a bipartisan 9/11-style commission.
  • As Hoyer had anticipated when he suggested that Pelosi also offer equal subpoena power to Republicans, McCarthy struggled to demonize the commission, and several House Republicans told the Guardian that they found his complaints about the scope unconvincing.
  • Underpinning McConnell’s alarm was the fact that Democrats needed 10 Senate Republicans to vote in favor of the commission, and seven had already voted to impeach Trump during his second Senate trial – a far more controversial vote than supporting an inquiry into 6 January.
  • As the final vote hurtled towards its expected finale, the Senate minority whip, John Thune, who also switched his position to side with McConnell, acknowledged McConnell’s arguments about a commission jeopardising Republican chances to retake majorities in the House and Senate.
katherineharron

Senate impeachment trial: The next step in the Trump impeachment process - CNNPolitics - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

impeachment

shared by katherineharron on 13 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • President Donald Trump has been impeached again -- the first leader in US history to be impeached twice by the House.
  • Impeachment in a two-part process. The House introduces and passes the articles of impeachment, but the Senate is where the person being impeached faces a trial -- and potential punishment.
  • The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present. (Article 1, Section 3)
  • ...17 more annotations...
  • This will take some days or even weeks for the group of House lawmakers who will make the case against Trump and his lawyers to answer. So a trial can't practically happen until after President-elect Joe Biden is inaugurated on January 20.
  • Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has indicated he will not bring senators back until the last day of Trump's term -- January 19 -- at the earliest.
  • Senators take an oath before the proceedings. There's a call to order each day. The Chief Justice has specific duties. There are set time limits for arguments and rebuttals and all questions from senators for the House and Trump attorneys must be submitted in writing and read by the Chief Justice.
  • What's the historical precedent?There have been three previous presidential impeachments, including Trump's first. President Andrew Johnson was impeached, but survived the Senate trial by one vote after seven Republicans broke ranks with their party. Johnson did not win election after his impeachment. President Bill Clinton was impeached in his second term and was easily acquited; less than a majority of senators supported removing him from office, far from the 2/3 required.
  • They will be busy with confirmation hearings for Biden's Cabinet nominees -- at least four are already scheduled for the week of January 20, for Secretary of State nominee Antony Blinken, Defense Secretary nominee Lloyd Austin, Treasury Secretary nominee Janet Yellen and Secretary of Homeland Security nominee Alejandro Mayorkas. Senators could be called on to draft legislation having to do with the pandemic or economic relief -- Biden wants to increase relief checks to $2,000.
  • Impeachment failed the first time against Trump. What's different now?In a word, Republicans. In the first Trump impeachment trial, only one Republican senator -- Mitt Romney of Utah -- voted to remove him from office. This time, McConnell, rather than protecting Trump, is said to be happy about the effort as a way to excise Trump or purge him from the GOP.
  • How many votes are required to convict Trump?Great question! Conviction requires 2/3 of those present. If all 100 senators are present, that's 67 senators. Assuming those two Georgians are seated, that means there are 50 senators from each party and 17 Republicans would be required.
  • If those two Democrats from Georgia are not yet seated, it might require 66 senators. If some number of Republicans didn't want to vote against Trump but also didn't want to vote to convict, they could skip the vote and change the ratio. That kind of thing has been known to happen, although not during impeachment proceedings.
  • There is precedent for impeaching former officials. Read about that -- it's called a "late impeachment" -- here. While the main penalty for a guilty verdict in an impeachment trial is removal from office, senators could vote to bar Trump from holding office in the future -- remember, he has not ruled out running for president in 2024. He could also lose his six-figure pension and other post-presidential perks.
  • President Donald Trump has been impeached again -- the first leader in US history to be impeached twice by the House.
  • The House introduces and passes the articles of impeachment, but the Senate is where the person being impeached faces a trial -- and potential punishment.
  • Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has indicated he will not bring senators back until the last day of Trump's term -- January 19 -- at the earliest.
  • This will take some days or even weeks for the group of House lawmakers who will make the case against Trump and his lawyers to answer. So a trial can't practically happen until after President-elect Joe Biden is inaugurated on January 20.
  • While the main penalty for a guilty verdict in an impeachment trial is removal from office, senators could vote to bar Trump from holding office in the future -- remember, he has not ruled out running for president in 2024. He could also lose his six-figure pension and other post-presidential perks.
  • While McConnell sets the schedule as Senate majority leader now, he'll lose that status as soon as the results of Georgia's January 5 Senate runoff elections are certified and the two new Democratic senators, Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, are seated. At that point, New York Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer will become Senate majority leader and will have more control over the proceedings.
  • This time, McConnell, rather than protecting Trump, is said to be happy about the effort as a way to excise Trump or purge him from the GOP.
  • President Donald Trump has been impeached again -- the first leader in US history to be impeached twice by the House.
xaviermcelderry

Opinion | Could Mitch McConnell Support Impeaching Trump? - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...connell-trump-impeachment.html

MItch-McConnell Trump impeachment

shared by xaviermcelderry on 17 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • As a master of institutional power, McConnell probably believed that he had the upper hand over Trump, because only institutional power can actually turn political passions into policy and law.
  • That’s the best way to think about why, notwithstanding the fact that Trump will be out of office and the vast majority of Republican voters will still be resolutely opposed to his impeachment, McConnell might conceivably extend himself to rally 17 Republican votes for a Senate conviction.
  • As a political move this would be a gamble whose costs can be easily foreseen. It would cast Trump as a martyr to the perfidious Republican establishment, and so struck down, he could potentially emerge more influential (with some of his supporters, at least) than before. Some of the scenarios I wrote about earlier this week, where the aftermath of the Jan. 6 riot actually breaks the G.O.P., could follow from Trump’s conviction by the Senate: A surge of grass-roots rage, a raft of Trumpist primary campaigns against reality-based Republicans, and eventually the nomination of Don Jr., and a real schism, in 2024.
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  • At the very least, we can say that the inability to hold power himself would weaken some of Trump’s appeal to some of his supporters, and also weaken some of his own appetite for the political fray. If he intends to remain a dominant figure in the Republican Party, being banned from high office would require more adaptation from the soon-to-be ex-president, more creativity, more institutional exertion — all tougher “asks” for a septuagenarian than just running another primary campaign.
martinelligi

McConnell Rebukes Trump For His Role In Capitol Riot : Insurrection At The Capitol: Liv... - 0 views

www.npr.org/...p-for-his-role-in-capitol-riot

trump impeachment

shared by martinelligi on 19 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • For the first time since the Jan. 6 mob attack on the U.S. Capitol, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell publicly denounced President Trump and his supporters for instigating the insurrection.
  • "They were provoked by the president and other powerful people, and they tried to use fear and violence to stop a specific proceeding of the first branch of the federal government, which they did not like."
  • "Dozens of lawsuits received hearings and courtrooms all across our country. But over and over, the courts rejected these claims, including all star judges that the president himself had nominated," he said at the time.
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • McConnell has not denied the possibility of voting against Trump at a potential Senate impeachment trial, precipitated by the House vote to impeach the president for an unprecedented second time over his role in the insurrection.
  • Incoming Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who will take over that role in less than 24 hours, said Tuesday the Senate will move ahead with an impeachment trial with a plan for a separate vote to bar Trump from holding any future federal office if the Senate votes to convict.
  • While millions wait for a life-saving shot, the U.S. death toll from the novel coronavirus continues to soar upwards with horrifying speed. Today, the last full day of Donald Trump's presidency, the official death count reached 400,000 — a once-unthinkable number. More than 100,000 Americans have perished in the pandemic in just the past five weeks.
  • In the U.S., someone now dies from COVID-19 every 26 seconds. And the disease is now claiming more American lives each week than any other condition, ahead of heart disease and cancer, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.
  • Given its relatively large population, the U.S. death rate from COVID remains lower than the rate in many other countries. But the cumulative death toll of 400,000 now exceeds any other country's overall mortality — close to double what Brazil has recorded, and 4 times the death count in the U.K.
  • Is there any way we can avoid half a million deaths before the end of February?" says Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health.
  • Certain parts of the country have a disproportionately high death rate. Alabama and Arizona, in particular, have experienced some of the highest death rates, given their populations. The virus continues to kill Black and Indigenous Americans at much higher rates than white Americans.
  • In rural America, the chance of dying from COVID-19 remains much higher than in the urban centers.
  • Vaccine rollout has yet to catch up with an accelerating mortality rate
  • So far, about 3 in every 100 people have gotten at least one dose of the vaccine, placing America ahead of many other countries, but behind the optimistic promises made in the early days of the rollout.
  • It is this polarity — the advent of a life-saving vaccine and hospitals filled with more dying patients than ever before — that makes this particular moment in the pandemic so confounding.
abbykleman

McConnell Supports Inquiry of Russian Hacking During Election - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...n-hacking-during-election.html

shared by abbykleman on 12 Dec 16 - No Cached
  • abbykleman on 12 Dec 16
     
    WASHINGTON - Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, said on Monday that he supported congressional investigations of possible Russian cyberattacks to influence the American election. But Mr. McConnell stopped short of saying whether he agreed that Russia interfered in the election in support of Donald J.
malonema1

McConnell will allow immigration vote if senators strike a deal - POLITICO - 0 views

www.politico.com/...igration-vote-with-deal-311388

US politics

shared by malonema1 on 15 Jan 18 - No Cached
  • Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will bring an immigration bill to the floor by the end of January if lawmakers and the White House can reach a compromise, he said in a statement Wednesday.
  • “If negotiators reach an agreement on these matters by the end of January, I will bring it to the Senate floor for a free-standing vote,” he said. “I encourage those working on such legislation to develop a compromise that can be widely supported by both political parties and actually become law.” McConnell’s promise to bring a bill to the floor sets the stage for an intense round of negotiations next year — and could help make it easier to pass a short-term spending deal this week.
  • hey were joined by fellow members of the working group, Sens. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), James Lankford (R-Okla.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), as well as Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas), and Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and David Perdue (R-Ga.). Flake said Wednesday that he’s confident the prospective immigration bill could muster the 60 votes needed to clear a filibuster in the Senate. “The meeting we had yesterday was a good step forward,” he said during an interview with POLITICO in his Senate office. “Our biggest concern moving ahead with the bipartisan group was that we were negotiating without really knowing what would be acceptable to the White House in terms of the border portion of this, and we got a good idea.”
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • ongress still needs to strike a deal on a continuing resolution to avert a shutdown, but McConnell told Fox News on Tuesday that the Senate didn’t plan to address DACA before departing for the holidays. “That’s a matter to be discussed next year,” he said. “The president has given us until March to address that issue. We have plenty of time to do it.”
millerco

Senate Republicans Say They Will Not Vote on Health Bill - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...peal-graham-cassidy-trump.html

republicans democrats Us history Trump politics mitch mcconnell healthcare

shared by millerco on 27 Sep 17 - No Cached
  • Senate Republicans Say They Will Not Vote on Health Bill
  • Senate Republicans on Tuesday officially abandoned the latest plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act, shelving a showdown vote on the measure and effectively admitting defeat in their last-gasp drive to fulfill a core promise of President Trump and Republican lawmakers.
  • The decision came less than 24 hours after a pivotal Republican senator, Susan Collins of Maine, declared her opposition to the repeal proposal, all but ensuring that Republican leaders would be short of the votes they needed.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • “We haven’t given up on changing the American health care system,” Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, said after a lunchtime meeting of Republican senators. “We are not going to be able to do that this week, but it still lies ahead of us, and we haven’t given up on that.”
  • Mr. McConnell said Republicans would move on to their next big legislative goal: overhauling the tax code, a feat that has not been accomplished since 1986.
  • Democrats, who have spent all year fighting to protect the Affordable Care Act, a law that is a pillar of President Barack Obama’s legacy, responded by calling for the resumption of bipartisan negotiations to stabilize health insurance markets.
  • “We hope we can move forward and improve health care, not engage in another battle to take it away from people, because they will fail once again if they try,” said Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader.
  • The decision by Senate Republican leaders may prove to be a milestone in the decades-long fight over health insurance in the United States, suggesting that the Affordable Care Act had gained at least a reprieve and perhaps a measure of political acceptance.
  • health care is sure to be an issue in next year’s midterm elections.
  • For their part, Democrats have tried to use health care as a bludgeon against the few Senate Republican targets they have next year, mainly Senators Dean Heller of Nevada and Jeff Flake of Arizona.
  • “We know Republicans like Dean Heller and Jeff Flake won’t stop until they force Americans to pay more for less, and we will make sure voters hold them accountable for it,”
  • The Graham-Cassidy bill would have taken money provided under the Affordable Care Act for insurance subsidies and the expansion of Medicaid and sent it to states in the form of block grants.
mimiterranova

Mitch McConnell To Vote To Acquit Trump : Trump Impeachment Aftermath: Updates : NPR - 0 views

www.npr.org/...onnell-to-vote-to-acquit-trump

trump mitch Politics Trial

shared by mimiterranova on 12 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell will vote to acquit former President Trump, a source familiar with his decision tells NPR's Susan Davis.
  • Democrats need at least 17 Republicans in order to convict Trump. Although that number was never realistic, Democrats had hoped to peel of some GOP senators to vote to convict Trump for his role in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. McConnell had reportedly told his colleagues to vote their conscience in the trial.
  • "The mob was fed lies. They were provoked by the president and other powerful people."
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Still, he voted twice to say the Senate did not have the authority to try a former president.
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