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    Senate Republican threatens impeachments of past Democratic presidents

    The Texas Republican senator John Cornyn warned on Saturday that Donald Trump’s second impeachment could lead to the prosecution of former Democratic presidents if Republicans retake Congress in two years’ time.Trump this month became the first US president to be impeached twice, after the Democratic-controlled House, with the support of 10 Republicans, voted to charge him with incitement of insurrection over the assault on the Capitol by his supporters on 6 January which left five people dead.Trump failed to overturn his election defeat and Joe Biden was sworn in as president this week.After a brief moment of bipartisan sentiment in which members from both parties condemned the unprecedented attack on Congress as it met to formalize Biden’s victory, a number of Senate Republicans are opposing Trump’s trial, which could lead to a vote blocking him from future office.“If it is a good idea to impeach and try former presidents, what about former Democratic presidents when Republicans get the majority in 2022?” Cornyn, a 19-year veteran of the Senate who last year tried to distance himself from Trump when it seemed his seat was at risk, tweeted at majority leader Chuck Schumer. “Think about it and let’s do what is best for the country.”Democrats hold narrow majorities in the House of Representatives and Senate but it is common for a president’s party to lose seats in elections two years after a presidential contest. Impeachment begins in the House. The Senate stages any trial.Republican Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell has said the mob in the Capitol putsch was “provoked” by Trump – who told supporters to march on Congress and “fight like hell”. Other Senate Republicans claim trying Trump after he has left office would be unconstitutional and further divide the country.There are also concerns on both sides of the aisle that the trial could distract from Biden’s legislative agenda. Schumer, who became majority leader this week, tweeted on Friday that the Senate would confirm Biden’s cabinet, enact a new Covid-19 relief package and conduct Trump’s impeachment trial.The trial is due to be held in the second week of February. More

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    Biden urged to commute sentences of all 49 federal death row prisoners

    Led by two prominent African American congresswomen, 35 Democrats have urged Joe Biden to commute the sentences of all 49 federal prisoners left on death row – days after the Trump administration finished its rush to kill 13 such prisoners.Early last Saturday Dustin Higgs, 48, became the last of those prisoners to be killed, after Trump lifted a long-standing moratorium on federal executions. Biden entered the White House on Wednesday.According to the Death Penalty Information Center, of the 49 people still on federal death row, 21 are white, 20 are black, seven are Latino and one is Asian.Among those prisoners is Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, convicted of planting pressure-cooker bombs on the route of the Boston Marathon in April 2013, killing three and injuring 264. His death sentence was overturned last year, a decision that is now before the supreme court.In a letter sent to Biden on Friday, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Cori Bush of Missouri led lawmakers in calling on Biden “to take swift, decisive action”.“Commuting the death sentences of those on death row and ensuring that each person is provided with an adequate and unique re-sentencing process is a crucial first step in remedying this grave injustice,” they said.The representatives said they looked forward to the new administration enacting “just and restorative policies that will meaningfully transform our criminal legal system for the better”.Addressing Biden, they wrote: “By exercising your clemency power, you can ensure that there would be no one left on death row to kill.”Such a gesture, they said, would be “an unprecedented – but necessary – action to reverse systemic injustices and restore America’s moral standing.”Pressley has been consistently outspoken in her opposition to capital punishment. In July 2019, soon after Trump attorney general Bill Barr announced the lifting of a 16-year moratorium on federal executions, the Massachusetts Democrat proposed legislation to “prohibit the imposition of the death penalty for any violation of federal law, and for other purposes”.“The death penalty has no place in a just society,” Pressley said then.But by the time Trump left office, he had overseen the most executions by a US president in more than a century.Among those supporting the new appeal is Kelley Henry, a supervising assistant federal public defender based in Nashville and an attorney for Lisa Montgomery, who on 12 January became the first woman killed by the US government in nearly 70 years.“Congress is right,” Kelley told CNN on Friday. “President Biden must go further than just not carrying out executions and should immediately commute all federal death sentences.“When the supreme court, without any explanation, vacates lower court stays to allow the execution of a woman whose mental illness leaves her with no understanding of why she is being executed, we know the federal death penalty system is broken beyond repair.”New White House press secretary Jen Psaki would not be drawn on specific plans to address the federal death penalty.“The president, as you know, has stated his opposition to the death penalty in the past,” Psaki said. “That remains his view. I don’t have anything more for you in terms of future actions or mechanisms, though.”Karen Bass of California, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York were among other well-known names to sign the letter to the new president.Appealing to Biden in December, Pressley said: “With a stroke of a pen, you can stop all federal executions.” More

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    Melania Trump leaves Donald Trump alone in front of the cameras – video

    The former first lady Melania Trump apparently spurned the conventions of her role by leaving Donald Trump alone in front of the cameras at Palm Beach airport after the couple left the White House for the final time ahead of Joe Biden’s inauguration. Trump himself paused to wave at photographers, but his wife continued walking until she was firmly offscreen, leaving her husband alone and triggering speculation about the state of her marriage to the now former presidentMelania Trump’s photo snub prompts speculation over post-White House path Continue reading… More

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    Joe Biden's inner circle: meet the new president's close-knit team

    Many of Biden’s new team have worked together before, and get on well – in sharp contrast to Trump’s ‘team of rivals’At the core of the administration Joe Biden is building is a trusted circle of officials, who are bound together by many years of working together in a close-knit team in the Obama administration, by a shared faith, or, in some cases, by a tie with Biden’s late son, Beau.It is the very opposite approach to the one taken by Donald Trump, who assembled a sharp-elbowed “team of rivals” – powerful men from different walks of life, who he had never met but thought looked the part. Biden treasures familiarity and nice-guy collegiality, and warned new appointees on Wednesday that if they don’t treat each other with respect, “I will fire you on the spot.” Continue reading… More

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    The inauguration was full of exquisite moments: but what was the best bit? | Emma Brockes

    Apart from Joe Biden we had Kamala, Lady Gaga, Bernie’s mittens – and Trump suddenly seeming an irrelevanceIt started on Tuesday with nerves in the playground: why weren’t they holding it indoors? No one with sense, we agreed, had an appetite for spectacle, and our systems couldn’t take any more. Donald Trump was going, good riddance, but let’s not tempt fate; besides, on Wednesday morning we all had things to do. After a year of rolling crises, even New Yorkers were feeling meek and defeated. Let’s get this thing over with and try to move on.The most surprising thing about the inauguration this week – apart from the reminder that, when it comes to its national ceremonies, America is if anything even more camp than Britain – was the sheer, irrepressible joy of it. From the first minute to the last there was no containing this thing and nothing – not pragmatism, superstition, trauma fatigue or work – would get in the way of the feeling. “Bye bye Trump, that dummy,” said one of my daughters on Wednesday morning. And so it began. Continue reading… More

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    A doctor wanted to make a difference. Now he’s a top Covid adviser to Biden

    Called to act after violence in Charlottesville, Cameron Webb ran for Congress. He lost, but is still headed to WashingtonIn Charlottesville, there is before 12 August and there is after. So decisive is this date that it often appears in Virginia newspapers without a year attached. It is the local 9/11. Continue reading… More

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    ‘Gondor has no king’: pro-Trump lawsuit cites Lord of the Rings

    Texas case offers baseless mix of allegations of electoral fraud but cites the imaginary kingdom of Gondor as evidenceDonald Trump’s diehard supporters are often accused of living in fantasyland, but one court case recently launched to try to reinstall him as president has surprised even the most hardened observers of Trumpian strangeness by citing as evidence a mythological realm from The Lord of the Rings. Related: Pittsburgh official goes viral by rebuking Ted Cruz – and looking like Jeff Daniels Continue reading… More

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    Biden and Trudeau agree to cooperate on Covid and climate change

    In phone call, US and Canadian leaders discuss collaboration on vaccines and plan to meet next monthCanada’s Justin Trudeau and President Joe Biden plan to meet next month, the prime minister’s office said, following a call between the two leaders in which they agreed to join forces to combat coronavirus in North America.The White House said in a statement that the two leaders highlighted the “strategic importance of the US-Canada relationship” and discussed cooperation on a wide-ranging agenda including combating the Covid-19 pandemic and addressing the climate crisis. Continue reading… More