Click on the screenshots below to watch the proceedings of the electoral certification debate in the House and Senate. Right now two bodies have split up, after first meeting together, to debate objections to the election results. This could in principle take forever, but the total debate in the House is limited to two hours. You can watch the Republicans flaunt their phony claims, which is somewhat amusing.
The House:
And click below to see the live Senate proceedings. Ted Cruz was speaking, arguing that the results need to be independently audited because “nearly half of Americans think that there was voter fraud.” But the results already were audited by both the states and the courts—Biden/Harris won. Cruz and his Republican minions are reprehensible.
The Senate:
Thank Ceiling Cat that Mitch McConnell rebuked his moronic colleagues:
McConnell opposes fellow Republicans objecting to electoral votes: "We cannot simply declare ourselves a national board of elections on steroids. The voters, the courts and the states have all spoken. They've all spoken. If we overrule them, it would damage our republic forever" pic.twitter.com/J4kEEN8sO4
— CBS News (@CBSNews) January 6, 2021
Meanwhile, Trump supporters are massing in Washington, like vultures around a carcass, to demand that election results be withdrawn or changed. I didn’t think there would be any violence, but I’m getting a bit nervous now. . . .
Who would have thought Mitch McConnell, totalitarian and a shanda for turtles, would be the voice of reason.
Only because he can see how this effort hurts his own power.
Yes exactly. He’s being the voice of self-interest; that this happens to align with reason is just coincidence.
it’s a shameful incident, but all the objections will be defeated. AIUI both bodies must uphold an objection for it to stand, and the majority-Dem house simply isn’t going to do that.
Just so we knew weren’t listening to a faux Mitch, he added a “both sides” angle to his speech. He tried to tell the GOP to take the high road and not do what the Dems did by fighting Trump’s victory in 2016 with the Russia hoax. I will be so happy when Mitch is out of power.
Hear, hear! Besmirchin’ Mitch to the very end.
There were some remarkable Republican speeches in the Senate, including McConnell’s, and even more remarkable ones after the mob attack, especially Romney and Lindsay Graham of all people. The latter seemed to be liberated from the heavy weight of Trump. Trump has slipped from power today. the emperor has no clothes and now the Republicans know it and act accordingly.
Yet, still a handful of senators voted to sustain the objection to the AZ count, though perhaps the speeches will discourage them to make objections on other states. CNN is saying that Hawley is still committed to objecting to the PA vote.
Those are the ones that don’t intend to run for president one day are are too stupid to play the long game.
It was eventually 6 senators that objected to AZ’s votes but 7 that objected to PA’s votes. I wonder who the additional senator was and why they changed.
I think it was my pathetic excuse for a human being, Senator Ron Johnson. He originally signed on to the Sedition Caucus but then declined to vote for the objection when the time came.
I listen to Charlie Sykes of The Bulwark. He’s always complaining about Ron Johnson as he lives in WI and has supported him in the past, he’s embarrassed to admit.
I’m sick to death of hearing Charlie Sykes telling us about the Republican problem. He spent decades being a right wing radio talk show host, a sort of regional Rush Limbaugh. It is rather late to wake up and regret having helped create this monster.
My BA was in Mass Communications and one of the more interesting classes I took was taught by Jay Sykes, Charlie’s father. The senior Sykes was a great teacher. I think he would have been ashamed of what his son became.
He doesn’t sound so bad now but a lot of these media types, like politicians, bend with the prevailing winds. I suppose its the nature of their professions. My favorites on The Bulwark are Jonathan Last, Bill Kristol, Tim Miller, Amanda Carpenter, and Sarah Longwell. They do some pretty good podcasts though I am only there for the Never Trumper content, not the conservatism.
Now I’m reading that the sessions have been suspended because Trump supporters stormed the Capitol.
Trump is a traitor, plain and simple. He must be put on trial and jailed for the rest of his life.
I’d say Cruz sold his soul to the devil, but looking at him he might actually be the devil.
The devil’s wife isn’t ugly lol
Aren’t Ted Cruz and these other Republican clowns the ones who constantly declaim themselves to be “strict constitutional constructionists”?
The dimwitted protestors Trump urged during his rant on the Ellipse to storm the Capitol have now breached its perimeter and entered Statuary Hall and are trying to break down the door to the House chamber. The capitol police have had to deploy teargas, and both houses of congress have been told to put on their gasmasks and shelter in place.
This has the feel of a third-world coup, something most of us Americans never expected to see in the so-called world’s greatest democracy.
Looks like an armed insurrection incited by tRUMP to me.
Yep.
Holy shit…
You know, I was thinking that Cruz’ call for a full audit was not a bad idea for appearances sake. No need to remind me that its unnecessary — it could be necessary for the slightly less insane Republicans to talk down the totally batshit insane Republicans.
I think it they give them an inch, they’ll take a mile. An audit would violate state’s rights to run their elections with no justification or evidence whatsoever.
See, you seem so reasonable and rational. But what they really need is to hear it from members of their own tribe. And the only tribe members that count are those who can claim that their minds were changed. It’s theater. But needed theater.
Trump could say more but I’m thinking even he couldn’t stop it now. Even if he told them the election is over, Biden won, and to go home, his supporters would just think that the Deep State was forcing him to say it or that it was just one of his nod-and-a-wink statements written for him by someone else and not his true wishes.
Yes – this morning we thought what would happen inside the Congress was historically insane. Who knew that objecting to the electoral college tabulation was just the opening act to the real insanity.
The protestors should be stopped and arrested. But the folks who fill me with real disgust are the conservative lawmakers who will defend them as soon as it’s safe for them to crawl out from under the furniture.
And now they’re in the Senate chamber. Whooppee!
The yahoos that really think we stole it are real, and some could be dangerous.
I was recently saddened to see a web page from a person who I had greatly admired for her photography skills and deep knowledge of Entomology. But now she has posted an insane screed about this, citing an episode on Rush Limbaugh, etc etc etc blah blah blah. As if there was a mass, Illuminati-level dark conspiracy operating invisibly and seamlessly at all levels in different state governments, able to flip votes, tamper with machines, tamper with the mail, pay off judges, and so on. The sheer impossibility of this of course is not considered.
It makes me feel sick to see how some people just don’t seem able to shield themselves against dis-information.
I used to check in on a forum for skeptics that went full on conspiracy theory after the election. I haven’t been back in a while, I fear they’re discussing our reptilian overlords at this point.
What’s happening at the Capitol building is rebellion. The fascist traitors have declared war. Anything goes.
The Trump supporters have now stormed and breached the Capital Building. The counting of the electoral votes has been suspended. Democracy has never been in greater peril since the Civil War. As of the moment, the police seemingly are standing by. Why weren’t they prepared for this? Trump is fomenting sedition. The country is changed forever.
I can’t write any more. Religion may be fading, but the irrationality and madness of half the population is greater than ever. Today is a day of infamy.
There are lots of fascists in America, and Trump has emboldened all of them. Shouldn’t the cops be arresting people by now? I’ve seen protesters trading blows with law enforcement, but no arrests. And why is law enforcement so unprepared for this? Trump’s been encouraging these riots for weeks now; it’s no surprise this is happening, and yet the cops are overwhelmed and unprepared.
I just heard that the Pentagon (now run by a Trump toadie) has denied requests for the National Guard to be deployed in the capital. If that’s true, WTF?
My guess is that DC law enforcement was compromised by Trump supporters within their organization. It may sound crazy but how could they not know this was a possibility? We know that police departments are dominated by Trump supporters. Maybe they didn’t do this on purpose. Things could have simply gotten out of hand. But I’m guessing their support for Trump prevented an adequate and timely response.
I suspect you are right.
Yeah, I agree. Scary shit I tells ya.
They should be (arresting people), yes. If they don’t, I can’t imagine what the response is going to be like from movements like BLM. Seriously, if conservative whites breaching the US Capitol building yet not even getting arrested for it doesn’t scream unequal law enforcement, I don’t know what does.
No kidding, could you imagine if BLM protesters brandished weapons and breached the Capitol building?
Debate? tRump has incited sedition against the US Constitution. Lock him up.
The orange jump suit will match his makeup.
I was nervous enough about the Georgia election, and now this! What a Wednesday…
A few academics have noted that every institution is now Evergreen State. In like fashion, the US capitol and its House and Senate chambers are now equivalent to Seattle’s late-lamented Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, although with a different set of players.
I suggest it is time to admit that self-government is beyond the ability of the US population, to retract
the Declaration of Independence, and to implore the Queen of England to take us back as a colony. Unfortunately, if her head is screwed on right, she will turn the request down flat.
Have you seen what’s going on here in the UK? I think you’d be better off asking Germany to take you in.
Last Queen of England was Queen Anne. She ceased to be so in 1707 when she became Queen of Great Britain. She died in 1714.
The second, third, and fourth people in the line of succession to the US presidency are in that building.
The latest news is that House and Senate members have been evacuated to a safe location. But where is it? Could it be that it is the basement of that pizzeria in Washington, the one where Hillary
Clinton, George Soros, and Bill Gates run their white slavery business?
Have they disappeared to wherever Dick Cheney disappeared to at 9/11?
Shouldn’t the FBI be responding to this as well? I seem to remember they can put on a pretty impressive show of force when they need to.
Glad to see the Governor of Virginia is at least sending National Guard and State Troopers.
FBI now being deployed, I hear — about an hour late I reckon …
Law enforcement should have been deployed at 8 o`clock this morning. It is almost as if the police was in collusion with the rioters. Or was it merely a bad case of stupid?
Too early to say, but there are going to be some very searching questions, and heads should roll. Is it really the case that Congress has no general contingency plan in place to respond to an attempt to storm the building? Incredibly, it seems so.
It sure looks to me like there was collusion at some level. The police who were there were heroic, however.
Trump’s spell is broken. This moment in American history will not be a low point but a high point, as our VP and Senate and House find their missing backbones and finally defend our democracy..
I have to modify this, which was based on the behavior of the Senate, where more than half the original objectors took back their objection.The vote was 94-6 to reject. That did not happen in the House, where there were still 122 objectors.
I think it’s over for Trumpism because he has shown himself to be, in the last resort, merely a demagogue, a fat bag of wind and not a revolutionary man of action. He ain’t no Castro. He ain’t no Hitler, willing to participate in an attempted coup and ready to suffer jail for it.
But we’ve known that for four years! Or even longer!
Wishful thinking. Even after the storming of the Capitol, more than a hundred GOP House members voted to object to the Electoral College vote count. Trump’s followers are still following him. Trump really didn’t think he was going to actually pull off a coup yesterday. It was all about stoking the outrage over his “stolen election”. I don’t see his voters simply giving up after yesterday. Nothing new was revealed yesterday that would change minds. Some politicians saw that their actions were not getting quite the good press that they had hoped and backed off. That won’t change much.
Correct. Trump is the symptom of a deep cancer in the Republican Party. It has been growing for decades and won’t disappear quickly.