The House impeached Trump, the Senate is impeaching itself.

Chief Justice John Roberts showing his rapt attention to a historic moment, not to mention his impartiality as a judge. Thanks to sketch artist/political cartoonist Bill Hennessey. I hope Hennessey wins a Pulitzer Prize, and Roberts is remembered for this more than anything else.

The GOP has become a historic disgrace. A report from Raw Story says that GOP Senators were told if they vote against the president, "Your head will be on a pike." CBS broke the story, saying the source was an anonymous Trump confidante. Likely, the confidante was anonymous because he didn't want his head on a pike. That's always a danger for confidants of President Trump, also known by the title, "King of the Orcs."

In any real trial that would be considered jury tampering. The Senators should at least be incensed enough to remove him on that principle. If twenty Republicans decide amongst each other that they will vote to convict Trump, their heads won't be on a pike. Trump will be out of office, the threat removed. They would feel such relief. Trump has been a source of stress for the GOP leadership, though they'd never admit it. 

However, that won't happen because if they even discussed changing their votes, and it gets back to Trump, then they'll also get an artificial wooden neck, and they might not get all twenty to agree.

"Head on a pike" is an exaggerated metaphor for "lose your job." But what it also expresses is the degree of contempt Trump harbors toward anyone who's disloyal. He'd make the term as literal as he could.

I'll repeat what I've said before: most people fear unemployment more than they do death. That's because death carries no stress afterward. Unemployment is fraught with anxiety and weighted with responsibility. It's less abstract than death in most people's thinking. It even presents the fear of death by starvation. And if Trump ostracizes them, nobody will answer their calls. So there's destitution and loneliness to deal with. That's what Senators who vote to remove Trump will face. No wonder defending the Constitution and restraining Trump are a distant second and third place to them behind keeping their jobs.  

Even so, defending the Constitution, presidential oversight, and preserving the relevance of the Congress, are all part of a Senator's job requirements. If Senators won't do those things when necessary, they should be in a different job. They need to be voted out for their poor career choice.

How could Trump generate such terror in others? Simply put, it's his iron-fisted revenge code. Lyndon Johnson was known to be vengeful, but he never leaned into it the way Trump does, and never with such a hair-trigger. Trump will do his best to destroy anybody who crosses him. Also, he's willing to lie big and lie often, even to himself. It's hard to tell how much of his constant deceit is due to guile, and how much is from mental illness. It's plain that he is mentally ill with a psychotic narcissistic personality. Either way, it's given him a fifteen-lie-day habit. 
 
Trump is not intelligent in any way, but he's willing to do those two things to get and stay in power. That's all he's needed to do to wreck our government. It shows just how vulnerable our system has always been. Now that he's done it, more intelligent evil people will likely try it. Our Constitution was obviously overdue for amendments, but now we may never get the chance.

And when I say he's not intelligent, I have a guess that he didn't even come up with the plan to extort Ukraine. The plan seems more like something that Putin would do. So, I think Putin dictated the plan to him, and Trump was checking back with him at every step. Trump has no background with that level of cunning. Putin, on the other hand, was trained by the KGB where conspiracies were part of the job description. For evidence, Trump withdrew the funding from Ukraine again an hour-and-a-half after he agreed to send it. What changed? My suspicion is he talked to Putin.

Senators should be insulted by Trump's threat. They should see it as an attempt to extort them exactly the way Trump extorted Ukraine. It's also a hint as to how Trump is going to govern after the Senate dispenses with the trial. The least GOP Senators can do is look interested. But no, they're treating the House manager's arguments like high-school detention.

 We're seeing one bit of classic satire from the case. Mitch McConnell has banned cameras from the chamber. But have allowed an artist to sketch it to give posterity some visual record of the impeachment. It turns out that the artist Bill Hennessey has been subversively lampooning GOP Senators in a way a camera never could. I hope his pictures make the GOP look like clowns long after the Trump administration is voted out in November. It's grueling to go through this, but if we could laugh at it later, the trauma of it might be softened.