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      Joe Manchin: the conservative Democrat with leverage in a split Senate

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      There’s a meme going around concerning Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia. It shows a futuristic city of gleaming skyscrapers and flying cars and an accompanying caption that reads something like: “West Virginia after Manchin has used all the leverage he has in the next Congress.”In other words, people expect Manchin, one of the most conservative Democrats in the federal government, to wield power like never before thanks to the 50-50 split in the Senate left by Democrats’ double win in the Georgia runoff races.Manchin, a three-term senator and former governor of West Virginia, is the most well-known of a set of moderate Republicans and Democrats who can decide whether to slow down legislation to a crawl or open a pathway to it becoming law.“There is going to be an important role for him to play as a moderate-to-conservative Democrat regardless of who won control of the Senate,” said Nick Rahall, a former Democratic congressman from West Virginia.Democrats have the slimmest of majorities in the Senate. The divide is Democrats control 50 seats and Republicans control 50 seats, which means when Kamala Harris becomes vice-president and her replacement, Alex Padilla of California, is sworn in as senator, Harris will be the tie-breaking vote.That slim majority can only go so far, though. Lawmakers need 60 votes for all legislation except reconciliation bills, which are annual and meant for tax and spending bills only. But all nominations before the Senate go strictly on a majority vote.There is going to be an important role for him to play as a moderate-to-conservative Democrat regardless of who won control of the SenateStill, Manchin’s reputation as being as right-leaning a Democrat as possible right now means that his support or opposition can provide cover to other lawmakers who also might want to influence Biden’s agenda. Manchin also maintains public friendships across the political spectrum. In an age where bipartisanship is rare, Manchin endorsed Senator Susan Collins of Maine, a Republican, ahead of her re-election campaign. Collins then beat her Democratic challenger, Sara Gideon, in an upset.Manchin is part of a dying breed of Democrats out of West Virginia. He is the only statewide elected Democrat in the increasingly conservative-leaning red state. A Democratic presidential candidate has not won the state in over two decades and Donald Trump beat Joe Biden there by almost 40% of the vote.Manchin’s roots in West Virginia are deep. He grew up in coal country, one of five children and rose through the state’s politics first through the West Virginia house of delegates, then the state senate, then the secretary of state’s office, then the governor’s mansion, then the Senate.Nick Casey, a former chief of staff to the West Virginia governor, Jim Justice, said Manchin’s political career has been characterized by making decisions based on “what he thought were in the absolute interest of the people of West Virginia or the people of West Virginia and the people of the United States”.“He’s always been responsible, moderate and I don’t think ideologically driven at all,” Casey said.Manchin is the perfect example of a red state politician who styles himself as a different kind of Democrat in a party where the progressive wing can often generate eye-catching headlines.In 2010 Manchin aired a campaign ad in which he literally shot the text of a cap-and-trade bill while vowing to oppose certain parts of then-president Barack Obama’s signature Obamacare bill. In a sign of how important the landmark healthcare bill became to all corners of the Democratic party in 2018, during his second regular Senate re-election campaign, the West Virginia senator this time shot an anti-Obamacare lawsuit.More recently, Manchin has reinforced his trademark conservative Democrat identity by keeping some wiggle room on $2,000 stimulus checks to Americans making $75,000 or less. Manchin’s murkiness has spurred Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the liberal congresswoman from New York, to set up a political action committee to embrace $2,000 checks.“The Pac – No Excuses Pac – is intended to defend the Democratic agenda of Joe Biden, the Build Back Better plan, from the fringes of the Democratic party like Joe Manchin,” said Corbin Trent, the co-founder of the Pac. “Make no mistake, he is the fringes of the Democratic party.”Another potential flashpoint for Manchin in the months ahead concerns the Senate committee on energy and natural resources, where Manchin is the ranking member and poised to become chairman when Democrats regain the Senate majority.Even with a Democratic president prioritizing climate change Manchin is poised to split with other members of his party on the climate crisis and the gas industry. In a headline Inside Climate News wrote of Manchin “The Senate’s New Point Man on Climate Has Been the Democrats’ Most Fossil Fuel-Friendly Senator”.Make no mistake, he is the fringes of the Democratic partyManchin is one of a handful of centrist senators from both parties expected to take center sage during major policy debates over the next few years: Senators Kyrsten Sinema and Mark Kelly of Arizona, the Rev Rafael Warnock of Georgia, Angus King and Susan Collins of Maine, Jon Tester of Montana and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.“I think Joe Manchin will be a part of the influence on critical decisions but I think it will be a group of moderates that talk to each other on a regular basis,” said the former senator Joe Donnelly of Indiana. “The fact that Susan Collins is a Republican and Joe Manchin is a Democrat, those are party titles. It doesn’t in any way reflect the relationships that have developed in the Senate over the years. People like Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins and Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema – other people who are fairly moderate in her views – have developed real friendships.” More

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      Joe Biden cannot govern from the center – quashing Trumpism demands radical action | Robert Reich

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      I keep hearing that Joe Biden will govern from the “center”. He has no choice, they say, because he will have razor-thin majorities in Congress and the Republican party has moved to the right.Rubbish. I’ve served several Democratic presidents who have needed Republican votes. But the Republicans now in Congress are nothing like those I’ve dealt with. Most of today’s GOP live in a parallel universe. There’s no “center” between the reality-based world and theirs.Last Wednesday, fully 93% of House Republicans voted against impeaching Trump for inciting insurrection, even after his attempted coup threatened their very lives.The week before, immediately following the raid on the Capitol, two-thirds of House Republicans and eight Republican senators refused to certify election results on the basis of Trump’s lies about widespread fraud – lies rejected by 60 federal judges as well as Trump’s own departments of justice and homeland security.Prior to the raid, several Republican members of Congress repeated those lies on television and Twitter and at “Stop the Steal” events – encouraging Trump followers to “fight for America” and start “kicking ass”.This is the culmination of the growing insanity of the GOP over the last four years. Trump has remade the Republican party into a white supremacist cult living within a counter-factual wonderland of lies and conspiracies.More than half of Republican voters – almost 40 million people – believe Trump won the 2020 race; 45% support the storming of the Capitol; 57% say he should be the Republican candidate in 2024.Trump has remade the Republican party into a white supremacist cult living within a counter-factual wonderland of lies and conspiraciesIn this hermetically sealed cosmos, most Republicans believe Black Lives Matter protesters are violent, immigrants are dangerous and the climate crisis doesn’t pose a threat. A growing fringe openly talks of redressing grievances through violence, including QAnon conspiracy theorists, of whom two are newly elected to Congress, who think Democrats are running a global child sex-trafficking operation.How can Biden possibly be a “centrist” in this new political world?There is no middle ground between lies and facts. There is no halfway point between civil discourse and violence. There is no midrange between democracy and fascism.Biden must boldly and unreservedly speak truth, refuse to compromise with violent Trumpism and ceaselessly fight for democracy and inclusion.Speaking truth means responding to the world as it is and denouncing the poisonous deceptions engulfing the right. It means repudiating false equivalences and “both sidesism” that gives equal weight to trumpery and truth. It means protecting and advancing science, standing on the side of logic, calling out deceit and impugning baseless conspiracy theories and those who abet them.Refusing to compromise with violent Trumpism means renouncing the lawlessness of Trump and his enablers and punishing all who looted the public trust. It means convicting Trump of impeachable offenses and ensuring he can never again hold public office – not as a “distraction” from Biden’s agenda but as a central means of re-establishing civility, which must be a cornerstone of that agenda.Strengthening democracy means getting big money out of politics, strengthening voting rights and fighting voter suppression in all its forms.It means boldly advancing the needs of average people over the plutocrats and oligarchs, of the white working class as well as Black and Latino people. It means embracing the ongoing struggle for racial justice and the struggle of blue-collar workers whose fortunes have been declining for decades.The moment calls for public investment on a scale far greater than necessary for Covid relief or “stimulus” – large enough to begin the restructuring of the economy. America needs to create a vast number of new jobs leading to higher wages, reversing racial exclusion as well as the downward trajectory of Americans whose anger and resentment Trump cynically exploited.This would include universal early childhood education, universal access to the internet, world-class schools and public universities accessible to all. Converting to solar and wind energy and making America’s entire stock of housing and commercial buildings carbon neutral. Investing in basic research – the gateway to the technologies of the future as well as national security – along with public health and universal healthcare.It is not a question of affordability. Such an agenda won’t burden future generations. It will reduce the burden on future generations.It is a question of political will. It requires a recognition that there is no longer a “center” but a future based either on lies, violence and authoritarianism or on unyielding truth, unshakeable civility and radical inclusion. And it requires a passionate, uncompromising commitment to the latter. More

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      in US Politics

      Trump impeachment risks bogging down early days of Biden presidency

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      The prospect of Donald Trump facing a bitter impeachment trial in the US Senate threatens to cast a shadow over the earliest days of Joe Biden’s presidency, as Washington on Thursday headed into a militarized virtual lockdown ahead of next week’s inauguration.With warnings of more violent protests being planned following the pro-Trump mob’s deadly attack on the US Capitol last week, some Republican members of Congress who voted for the unprecedented second impeachment of the president fear they are in personal danger.Peter Meijer, a Michigan Republican who voted along with the Democratic majority in the House on Wednesday to impeach Trump, on the charge of incitement of insurrection – after he encouraged the riot in a futile attempt to overturn his election defeat by force – said some of his colleagues were hiring armed escorts and acquiring body armor out of fear for their safety.“When it comes to my family’s safety, that’s something that we’ve been planning for, preparing for, taking appropriate measures,” Meijer told MSNBC.“Our expectation is that somebody may try to kill us,” he said.“Our expectation is that somebody may try to kill us.” — Rep. Peter Meijer (R-MI), who voted to impeach Trump, says he and other lawmakers believe their lives are in danger following yesterday’s impeachment.He also says they are altering their routines and buying body armor. pic.twitter.com/stOO00OKYD— The Recount (@therecount) January 14, 2021
      There is no schedule yet for when the House may present the article of impeachment – essentially the charge against Trump – to the Senate for trial.Trump was acquitted at his first impeachment trial in the Senate early last year after being charged with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, stemming from his request that Ukraine investigate Joe Biden and his son Hunter ahead of the 2020 election.The Senate resumes full session on the eve of the inauguration events on 20 January to install Biden as the 46th US president and Kamala Harris as his vice-president.A swift impeachment trial would entangle Biden’s urgent efforts to have his cabinet choices confirmed by the Senate and fire up his agenda to tackle the raging coronavirus pandemic as well as the related economic crisis and vaccination chaos.There is no real prospect of Trump being ousted before Biden takes office next Wednesday, after the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, rejected Democratic calls for a quick trial in the Republican-led chamber, saying there was no way to finish it before Trump leaves office.Biden, meanwhile, has urged Senate leaders to avoid an all-consuming trial during his first days in the White House so that they can focus on the crises facing his incoming administration.“I hope that the Senate leadership will find a way to deal with their constitutional responsibilities on impeachment while also working on the other urgent business of this nation,” Biden said in a statement on Wednesday night.Biden’s inauguration events have already been scaled back due to security concerns and the risks of spreading infection during the Covid-19 pandemic.The west front of the Capitol building, where the swearing-in occurs and which was overrun by marauding rioters invading the US Congress last week, is now fortified by fencing, barriers and thousands of national guard troops. Soldiers have been sleeping sprawled in the marble corridors of the complex.Trump himself is increasingly isolated at the White House and “in self-pity mode”, according to several reports.Under the US constitution, a two-thirds majority is needed in the Senate to convict Trump, before or after he leaves office, meaning at least 17 Republicans in the 100-member chamber would have to join the Democrats.McConnell’s vote would be crucial. At Trump’s first impeachment, no House Republicans voted in favor of charging him and all Republicans in the Senate voted to acquit him except for Utah’s Mitt Romney.If McConnell signaled to his caucus that he would vote to convict Trump this time, that could give other senators the cover they needed to follow suit if they believed privately that Trump deserved it but feared a backlash from voters.On Wednesday, McConnell released a note to Republican senators in which he did not deny that he backed the impeachment push, the New York Times reported. The leader said that he had “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”.McConnell and some other senior Republicans may see conviction as a way to prevent Trump being a liability to the party in the future, and therefore an opportunity.If Trump is already out of office by the time of the trial, historical precedent suggests the Senate could disqualify him from holding office in the future with only a simple majority vote.But the legal details and what would happen, including if Trump attempted to pardon himself in his last days in the White House, are far from resolved.The Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, set to become majority leader when Biden takes office, said that no matter the timing, “there will be an impeachment trial in the United States Senate, there will be a vote on convicting the president for high crimes and misdemeanors, and if the president is convicted, there will be a vote on barring him from running again.”The Florida Republican senator Marco Rubio has warned, meanwhile, that the impeachment process risks making Trump a martyr to his diehard supporters.Rubio told NBC he thought Trump bore some responsibility for the attack on the Capitol, which happened on the day both chambers of Congress were meeting in order to certify Joe Biden’s victory, but that putting Trump on trial could make things worse.“It’s like pouring gasoline on fire,” he said, noting that some who were displeased with Trump “after seeing what happened last week, sort of reckoning with the last four years – now all of a sudden they’re circling the wagons and it threatens to make him a martyr.”No US president has ever been removed from office via impeachment. Three – Trump in 2019, Bill Clinton in 1998 and Andrew Johnson in 1868 – were impeached by the House but acquitted by the Senate. Richard Nixon resigned in 1974 rather than face impeachment. More

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      in Elections

      Fight to vote: the Georgia organizers who helped mobilize voters

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      Dear Fight to Vote readers,
      Welcome back! I’m Sam Levine, the voting rights reporter here at Guardian US. I’ll be taking over this newsletter from the stalwart Ankita Rao.
      After the attack on the US capitol last week it’s easy to forget that Georgia’s nationally-watched Senate runoff races were just a little over a week ago. While it’s difficult right now to think about anything other than what’s going on in Washington, I wanted to begin 2021 by looking at how democracy can work, rather than how it can fall apart. I saw this firsthand in Georgia, where grassroots groups organized to mobilize unlikely voters and worked to overcome severe voting barriers in Georgia, a state that has become an epicenter of voter suppression.
      Methodical organizing
      I spent the Monday before election day with canvassers from Georgia Stand-Up, one of several civic action groups that spent the weeks before the election getting out the vote. Our day began in a chilly church parking lot in Atlanta, where canvassers, equipped with Dunkin’ coffee and Bojangles chicken biscuits, quickly piled into vans, which were then dispatched into different neighborhoods.

      Sam Levine
      (@srl)
      An army of canvassers with Georgia Stand Up gets ready to go out one day before the senate runoffs here. Their goal is to hit 6,078 doors today, which would put them at 100,000 doors statewide pic.twitter.com/6tWG3oU9Rn

      January 4, 2021

      I followed along with one group as they went into a neighborhood in Fairburn, just outside of Atlanta. In the silence of the morning, the organizers flew out of the van in groups of twos and threes and quickly, methodically covered different houses. Their goal that day was to knock on just over 6,000 doors, bringing their total across the state to just over 100,000.
      ‘So many people are not aware of simple voting information’ More

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      The Democrats owe their new control of the Senate to Black voters in Georgia | Theodore R Johnson

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      Last week, Raphael Warnock made history by winning a special senatorial election in Georgia, becoming the first Black Democrat from the south ever elected to the United States Senate. Warnock, the senior pastor of the same church Martin Luther King Jr once led, pulled off the upset thanks to high turnout among Black voters across the state, in metro and rural areas alike. While his victory may have the feel of an overnight success story to much of the nation, it is the product of voter engagement that’s occurred over the last decade.The signs that Warnock could pull off an unexpected victory were all there. In 2018, Stacey Abrams came within 1.4 percentage points of becoming Georgia’s first Black governor and the first Black woman to be governor in the nation’s history. Then, last November, Joe Biden carried the state, becoming only the second Democrat to win it in more than three decades. And it happened by the slimmest of margins: Biden bested Donald Trump by just 11,000 votes when more than 5m were cast. After these two statewide contests, Democratic strategists were optimistic that strong turnout among Black Georgians would allow them to win both Senate seats up for grabs. Warnock’s victory is a culmination of that trend and sustained voter engagement work by figures such as Stacey Abrams and years of Democratic organizers.As has been well-established, Black Americans are the most reliable Democratic voters in the country – for the last five decades, Democratic presidential and congressional candidates win about 90% of Black voters on average. This basically held true in Georgia in 2020, where Biden beat Trump among Black voters 88–11. Strategists understand that increasing Black voter turnout creates lopsided advantages for Democratic candidates for elected office. So in Georgia, where the number of Black Americans has steadily increased in recent years and presently makes up about a third of the state’s residents, Democrats recognized that a window of opportunity to win statewide contests would open.Stacey Abrams’ gubernatorial campaign leveraged the work of grassroots voter mobilization and civic engagement efforts and directed resources to expand outreach, especially in communities of color. And though she lost that election in an outcome clouded by voter suppression, the playbook for how to increase turnout by educating Georgians about the voting process and getting disengaged citizens to show up on election day was well-established. And it worked.Warnock beat Senator Kelly Loeffler, who was appointed to the seat in December of 2019, by 75,000 votes in an especially high turnout election where 4.4 million Georgians participated. Black turnout exceeded nearly all projections. Initial analysis from the New York Times shows that turnout in precincts with a supermajority Black population only fell about 7 points from the presidential election whereas turnout in white working-class precincts – traditionally Republican strongholds – fell by 13 points. And Black precincts voted more for Warnock than they did for Biden by about 3 points.The sustained engagement and mobilization strategies aimed at Black voters never let up after the presidential election; resources continued to flow. Black Georgians – who are disproportionately affected by long wait times to vote, polling station closures, and voter identification requirements – weathered attempts to complicate and discourage their participation. The outcome of these recent elections isn’t the product of a new movement, but rather the result of a long, steady build to increase and maintain Black turnout.In addition to turnout, Warnock was also aided by his race and gender. Political science scholarship reliably shows that Black Democratic candidates increase both turnout and support for Democrats up and down ballot; it is no surprise that in Georgia’s other senatorial election, featuring two white men, the Democrat Jon Ossoff also outperformed Biden.And my own research shows that Black men, in particular, are especially motivated by race and gender descriptive representation. That is, the opportunity to help a Black male Democrat make history is alluring to even Black Republicans or disengaged eligible Black male voters. So it makes sense that Warnock outperformed both Biden and Ossoff with Black men. According to exit polls, Biden won 83% of Black men in Georgia to Trump’s 16%, and Ossoff won 88% of them; but Warnock won 90% of this bloc – one in eight of all voters.In this way, Warnock leveraged the momentum of other Black Democrats in the south running for statewide office, merging the appeal of descriptive representation to turn out and win more Black voters with policies that appeal to white Democrats who have become increasingly liberal over the last several years. Black candidates with progressive agendas in states with a significant Black population may become a winning formula. Warnock’s victory suggests that the close losses by Abrams and Florida’s Andrew Gillum in 2018 governors’ races were not flukes, but harbingers of what may come.In the end, Black voters in Georgia not only delivered historic victories in last week’s Senate races, but they also completed a flip of the United States Senate back into Democratic control, with Kamala Harris serving as the tie-breaking vote.The voter turnout work that began years ago in reliably Republican Georgia overcame efforts to suppress the votes of its Black citizens and managed to elect its first Black senator. Perhaps more importantly, those efforts not only changed the state, but they have the potential to shift the direction of the country after the Trump era. More

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      Trump attempted a coup: he must be removed while those who aided him pay | Robert Reich

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      A swift impeachment is imperative but from Rudy Giuliani and Don Jr to Fox News and Twitter, the president did not act aloneInsurrection: the day terror came to the US CapitolCall me old-fashioned, but when the president of the United States encourages armed insurgents to breach the Capitol and threaten the physical safety of Congress, in order to remain in power, I call it an attempted coup. Related: Saving Justice review: how Trump’s Eye of Sauron burned everything – including James Comey Continue reading… More

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      US Capitol attack: Trump impeachment looms as Republican support wavers

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      [embedded content]
      Efforts to remove Donald Trump from the White House gathered pace on Saturday, as Democrats announced that at least 180 members of Congress would co-sponsor an article of impeachment they intend to introduce in the House of Representatives on Monday.
      The show of force by the president’s opponents comes amid continuing revulsion at Trump’s incitement of Wednesday’s deadly US Capitol riot and his attempts to overturn electoral defeat by Joe Biden.
      One of the authors of the impeachment resolution, the California congressman Ted Lieu, repeated demands for Trump to resign or face the ignominy of being the first president to be impeached twice.
      On Twitter, Lieu announced that the vast majority of the 222 Democratic House members were onboard for impeachment, and revealed a letter to the New York state bar demanding the disbarment of Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, who advocated “trial by combat” at a rally preceding the violent invasion of the US Capitol building by a mob of Trump supporters.
      “We will hold responsible everyone involved with the attempted coup,” Lieu wrote.
      Trump’s grip on the presidency appeared increasingly tenuous as impeachment plans advanced, allies continued to abandon him and Twitter banned him, removing his most powerful way to spread lies and incite violence.
      On Friday night one Republican senator, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, called for the president’s removal.
      “I want him to resign,” she said. “I want him out. He has caused enough damage.”
      Five people died around the chaos at the Capitol, including a police officer who confronted rioters and a rioter shot by law enforcement. Multiple arrests have been made, among them a Florida resident photographed walking off with the lectern of the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi. Also arrested was a man from Arizona who styles himself as the QAnon shaman and who sat in the Vice-President’s chair in the Senate, dressed in horns and animal skins.
      Amid reports the FBI was investigating whether some rioters intended to take lawmakers hostage, the Washington US attorney said a 70-year-old Alabama man was charged after his truck was discovered packed with homemade bombs and guns. Another man was alleged to have threatened to kill Pelosi and to have been heavily armed.
      The article of impeachment, which charges Trump with inciting an insurrection and having “gravely endangered the security of the United States” and its institutions, prompted a flurry of legal activity at the White House, according to Maggie Haberman, a New York Times reporter. She tweeted that a defence team was beginning to take shape, including Giuliani and possibly Alan Dershowitz, a celebrity lawyer who has defended Trump before.

      Significantly, current White House counsel, including Jay Sekulow, Marty and Jane Raskins, Pat Cipollone and Pat Philbin, were reportedly unlikely to be involved in any Senate trial, which according to indications from Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell is almost certain to take place after Trump leaves office on 20 January.
      The impeachment move is part of a multi-pronged approach by Democrats pressing for Trump’s removal ahead of Biden’s inauguration. Pelosi, who spoke to the leader of the US military, seeking to ensure Trump cannot launch a nuclear attack, has also called for Trump’s removal via the 25th amendment, which provides for the ejection of a president deemed unable to fulfil his duties.
      The treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, was reportedly among officials to discuss such a course but it seems unlikely, particularly as cabinet members who might participate have resigned.
      White House sources have asserted Trump will not resign or turn over power to Vice-President Mike Pence in order to seek a pardon, so a second and high-speed impeachment looms. In his first impeachment, over approaches to Ukraine for dirt on political rivals, Trump was acquitted by a Republican-held Senate.
      This time, more Republican senators are indicating support. Murkowski became the first in the open, telling the Anchorage Daily News: “I think he should leave.
      “He’s not going to appear at the inauguration. He hasn’t been focused on what is going on with Covid. He’s either been golfing or he’s been inside the Oval Office fuming and throwing every single person who has been loyal and faithful to him under the bus, starting with the vice-president. More