On Thursday, October 31st 2019, the US House of Representatives voted to advance with a formal impeachment proceeding, after a month of closed-door sessions garnered “flawed process” arguments from congressional Trump supporters. Halloween was perhaps the perfect date for an escalation of what Trump terms the “Witch Hunt” against him.
At 5:04 PM EDT on Tuesday, 24 September 2019, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, fresh from a Democratic Caucus meeting, stood before the nation and announced that the US Congress was beginning formal impeachment investigations against Donald J. Trump. Critical mass had been building for this step in the caucus for a week, since the revelations of Trump’s outrageous breech of ethics, convention and quite possibly laws, in requesting aid from a foreign government in his 2020 US presidential reelection.
Perhaps more surprising, Mitch McConnell supported a unanimous nonbinding resolution in the Senate requiring the White House to release the full report logged by a national security whistleblower concerning Trump’s interactions with the Ukrainian president. Has the worm truly turned?
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is perhaps one of the most disliked, and most effective, politicians in the country. First elected in 1984 in a squeaker election which he won by less than one percent, McConnell has won reelection five times, and faces another race in 2020. He was tapped to replace outgoing Senate Minority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) in 2006, and became Majority Leader when Republicans took over the Senate in 2015.
The self-styled “Grim Reaper” of the Senate, Mitch McConnell is where legislation goes to die. Through a combination of stonewalling, pigheadedness, and obscure parliamentary tactics, McConnell has done his level best to frustrate Democratic administrations and agendas for decades.
Former Vice President and current Democratic presidential nominee frontrunner Joe Biden is often credited with having an authentic, “folksy” style, especially when interacting with individuals who have suffered great personal tragedy or loss. There’s a reason for this: when it comes to suffering and loss, Biden has a lifetime of experience.
Just after winning his first Senate race in 1972, Biden lost his first wife and their infant daughter in a devastating car crash, which also severely injured their two sons. Biden was in fact sworn in for his Senate seat at his sons’ bedside in the hospital. Forty-three years later, the Grim Reaper picked up where he left off, and claimed one of those boys, Biden’s eldest son Beau, who lost a two-year battle with brain cancer.
On Sunday February 10th 2019, in the midst of a blinding snowstorm, Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar announced her candidacy for the 2020 Democratic nomination for President of the United States. The open-air Minneapolis venue quickly had Klobuchar looking something like the Adorable Snowwoman of the North, but lent force to her argument that she has “grit.” Americans are famous for making 180 degree turns in their successive presidents. Having gone from the first black president in 2008 to an apparent racist in 2016, they may be willing to make a change from the harsh, bullying misogynist Trump to a female “Minnesota Nice” candidate.
On Saturday 9 February 2019, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren formally announced her candidacy for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination at a rally in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Warren was the first to establish an exploratory committee, in late December, but this announcement makes it official: “This is the fight of our lives. The fight to build an America where dreams are possible, an America that works for everyone. I am in that fight all the way. And that is why I stand here today to declare that I am a candidate for president of the United States.”
