Two Party Opera by Brian Carroll for January 23, 2020

Lindsey “Scarlett” Graham actually swooned when Roberts said “pettifogging”.

Brett Kavanaugh, in response: “(hic) I’ll shdrink ta that! (hic)”

Well played, Brian.

The death of democracy in America, conducted by the US Senate, presided over by Chief Justice Raw-butts.

(Thank you, Wyneaux)

It was amazing that the GOP senators could actually keep a straight face when they vowed to “do impartial justice”.

Is there a SINGLE Republican left that ISN’T A LIAR, A COWARD, AND A TRAITOR TO AMERICA??

Lets not forget that the defendant has openly threatened the Republican Senators with sabotaging their reelection campaigns. Sounds like grounds for a new impeachment hearing in the house.

How can we ever do anything but the petty in any branch of government to correct the inequities when their median net worth is in the millions and the things that the average American considers urgent are considered petty by those “representing” us?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_members_of_the_United_States_Congress_by_wealth

https://heavy.com/money/2020/01/john-roberts-net-worth/

https://www.gobankingrates.com/net-worth/politicians/ruth-bader-ginsburg-net-worth/

Chief Justice Roberts is a nice man, I guess. But here he comes across as a god briefly descended from Olympus to observe amusing vignettes among the mortals.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the Chief Justice flipped the script and took control of the trial? He could ask some embarrassing questions such as, what do mean you don’t want witnesses, how can you call that a fair trial?

At the very least he could tell Senators to sit up and pay attention. Hell, I do that every day in class.

Just like the old Soviet Presidium.

A dozen Republican Senators broke the rules and walked out on Adam Schiff as he was delivering the evidence against Donald Trump.

✄

According to the rules, Senators are not allowed to leave the floor for any reason while the impeachment trial is in session.

One suspects that Republicans fled the chamber because they didn’t want to hear Rep. Schiff presenting the evidence against Trump. Republican Senators have played dumb about Trump’s statements and behavior for years, and they can’t handle hearing the truth about their law-breaking president.

Mitch McConnell won’t allow recording on the Senate floor during the trial, so there is no video of the Senators, but other Senators saw it happening, so there is no reason to doubt Ward’s tweets.

(…and Chief Justice Roberts did… nothing….)

https://www.politicususa.com/2020/01/22/12-gop-senators-break-the-rules-and-walk-out-as-schiff-hammers-trump-evidence.html

We are doomed to plutocratic fascism thanks to lying Republican jerks who are covering their crimes.

There are a few problems here that need to be considered. First, the Senators are not really a jury but rather more similar to a panel of judges. Second, the authority of the Chief Justice is quite limited in the conduct of this trial. Any ruling that he may make can be over-ruled by a simple majority vote of the Senate. When the R’s took over the Senate and chose McConnell as leader, they made the impeachment of a Republican a bad joke, but allowed the distortion of the Judiciary (which was McConnell’s long term game plan).

Tory Republicans love their greedy vicious liar Mad King George Trump the deficient.

Conservative pundit Michael Gerson: The question at stake in the Senate trial is plain: Is the use of public funds as leverage to gain private political benefits from a foreign government an impeachable abuse of presidential power? The matter is so simple that Trump’s defenders are reduced to babbling incoherence in order to avoid it. […] White House lawyers have declared impeachment to be a “brazen and unlawful attempt to overturn the results of the 2016 election.” But the Founding Fathers SPECIALLY [emphasis mine] included an impeachment provision in the Constitution to overturn an election when the president engages in misconduct and betrays the public trust.

There are bodies, and then there are bodies. Currently, the “world’s greatest deliberative body” is ANY random corpse—where the maggots fight FIERCELY (yet deliberately) over the juiciest bits. Whereas the Republicans in the Senate are merely braindead and soul dead.

I’m sure there’s very fine people on both sides….

Roberts has protected the decorum of The Greatest Deliberative Body in The World, that allows NO evidence NOR any witnesses, and does NO deliberation.

He did this by prohibiting anyone from calling someone a liar, just because they are telling lies.

It is now in the Constitution that It’s OKAY If A Republican Does It.

What, exactly, would you propose? The Constitution places the power in the hands of the Senate, does not provide for the CJ to vote, even in a tie, and does not map out any guidelines or rules. Prior trials have set precedent for the role of the CJ.

So I ask, what Constitutionally acceptable changes would you make absent an Amendment?

No

Excuse my ignorance, who is the justice on the left talking to Roberts?

I don’t mean to complain, exactly, but Mr Chase’s likeness on the $10,000 bill isn’t much like the caricature here. (Trivia note: when that thing was issued, in 1918, it was the equivalent of $184,000,000 in today’s money. Thassa lot of kale for one banknote.)