Seth Meyers and FiveThirtyEight take closer looks at Trump's second impeachment trial

Former President Donald Trump's second impeachment trial in the Senate begins today, so it's time to begin covering it. I begin with Seth Meyers expressing his comedic outrage in GOP Senators Want to "Move On" from Trump's Second Impeachment Trial: A Closer Look.

Seth takes a closer look at former President Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial being a chance to hold Trump accountable for his crimes and to shine a national spotlight on the decay of the GOP and our democratic institutions.

Seth did a good job of expressing his hopes for the trial while making it funny. I think it's important to at least try to keep Trump and hopefully his supporters accountable, although I expect the prospects of convicting him and disqualifying him from office are slim to none. Politics will almost certainly trump the merits, pun intended.

FiveThirtyEight took a more realistic view of impeachment in What To Expect From The Senate Impeachment Trial.

In this episode of the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast, Tia Mitchell of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution joins to discuss what to expect from former President Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial. The crew also looks at Republican proposals to change election laws in Georgia and other states in the wake of their 2020 presidential election loss.

That's a good preview of the arguments both the House managers and Trump's defense team will make along with an eye-witness account by Tia Mitchell, who was covering the certification of the election inside the Capitol. Mitchell and Perry Bacon, Jr. had compelling things to say about both. Nate Silver came off as more cynical. Maybe that's the appropriate attitude about a proceeding that won't result in a conviction by the Senate, but will serve to sway the court of public opinion.

In addition to impeachment, the panel discussed House Republicans' handling of Marjorie Taylor Greene and Liz Cheney, pandemic relief, and Georgia Republicans' attempt to restrict mail-in voting after Democrats won the Georgia Senate runoff elections, which led to the possibility of eliminating the filibuster to allow the For The People Act to pass in the U.S. Senate. Greene and to a lesser extent Lauren Boebert will continue to be irritants for as long as they are in Congress, but I doubt their fellow Republican representatives will do anything about them. Pandemic relief will pass in one form or other. Georgia will probably restrict voting-by-mail. Finally, I'm for the For The People Act, but I don't know if it will pass the Senate; it already passed the House last year and will do so again this year.

I'm sure I'll have more about impeachment tomorrow with more comedy. Stay tuned.