4370

The thing that pisses me off is that some of them, like McConnell, act like everything is normal. No you fucking turtle, it is not normal!

4371

Because the headline gets cut off:

After being booted off Twitter, Trump is reluctant to do in-person briefings because he rarely knows the answers to questions, The New York Times reported

4372

Which douche?

4373

So it looks to me like, the House met, they introduced the motion to ask Pence to do the 25th, someone objected, and they recessed until tomorrow.

4374

The ill one, you know, Cheetollini.

Hmm, I swore it mentioned on cspan earlier but can’t find the link.

Edit: Watching all those prior Trump speeches must have already driven me insane since I can’t find any mention now of Trump holding anything today.

4375

In the meantime

4376

Nixon must be spinning in his grave madly, as he realized to have been resigning prematurely. This, or maybe the Reps were folks with stronger principles.

4377

So here’s an interesting question that I’m struggling with:

  1. A large portion of the GOP House delegation, along with several Senators, promoted or at least signed their names to the claim that the election was fraudulent.
  2. This claim appears to have been an entirely cynical attempt to retain power despite a lost election.
  3. As a result of this claim, an angry mob breached the Capitol building and attempted to prevent certification of the election by force.
  4. The claim has been repeatedly thrown out of courts because there is absolutely no evidence for it.
  5. Nonetheless, this claim is believed by a rather large and vocal portion of their base and has been reported by some media sources as the truth.

So, now for the question. In the abstract, is it actually reasonable for representatives to support the claim, given that many of them, with good reason, believe that their districts strongly support it, despite it being repeatedly disproven?

I think it’s reasonable to say that an exception should be made to representing the views of your district when those views include overthrowing the US government, but how do you faithfully represent your constituents when they are simply wrong about the facts? For example, let’s say that there was actual evidence the election was fraudulent, but that evidence was being dismissed by media sources that hated Trump and was being blocked in court by judges unwilling to overturn an election without overwhelming evidence. Let’s say that most media were supporting the idea that there was fraud, and many districts also supported that idea, but a large number of liberal districts did not. Do we expect the representatives from each district to represent the views of their constituents or to review the facts and come to the best conclusion they can?

Does the answer change if we are talking about a topic other than overthrowing an election? Like mask-wearing or belief in god? If we say, “they should follow the facts” and they follow those facts to a conclusion we disagree with, do we believe that they followed the facts, or that they are willfully ignoring facts and trying to play politics? How can we tell the difference?

4378

Parler is suing Amazon because … they kicked them off in collusion with Twitter so Twitter would remain the largest microblogging platform

4379
4380
4381

I was expecting some sort of lawsuit but that exceeds my expectations for dumb.

4382

The correct form of this appellation is “Cheeto Benito” in my opinion. :) But yes, I’m also a big fan of “Ill Douche.”

4383

I’ve seen it explained elsewhere that acting secretaries can vote.

4384

Yeah, pretty much 100% dumb. This will get thrown out immediately unless Parler has some sort of evidence of collusion.

But of course this lawsuit isn’t about the facts, it’s about riling up MAGA World.

4385

Guys, Bush publicly said a few days ago:

I believe the Republican members of Congress who have incited this domestic terror attack through their attempts to overturn the election must face consequences. They have broken their sacred Oath of Office.

And twitted


Now, I may just be a dumb outsider, but it doesn’t sound like the black socialist woman is intent on ending democracy. But we do have the internets here on our tubes

Yep, sounds like commie speech to me.

4386

I’m not sure that representatives should or are just be a conduit for whatever their constituents believe. I think our government officials should think on their own, and do their best to convince their constituents of the right path of action instead of implementing mob rule.

I think this is called “leadership”.

Nobody likes it when taxes have to be raised, or businesses are closed to prevent the spread of a deadly airborne epidemic. Leaders don’t survey their population and say “60% of people still want to dine in, so we’ll do nothing as they get sick and die.”

Our leadership should be better than the worst of us.

4387

It is all hypothetical and never been properly legally tested. We don’t know how the courts would rule on that.

The only provision in the 25th that has been activated is the voluntary temporary transfer provision, where presidents have delegated while undergoing medical procedures.

4388

I mean, a very large number of people in leadership positions did exactly this (though perhaps they didn’t use a survey, only a general sense of the mood of their voters)

4389

If someone is a populist, they expect their representative to put forth their views. If not, they expect their representative to do what’s in their collective best interest.

I’m not a populist; I feel it’s best to have talented and/or expert people in positions of influence, as they’ll be better equipped to make decisions on such matters than myself or most of my fellow constituents.