The congressional race in southeast Iowa is still being contested. The state has called it for Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks over Democrat Rita Hart. Only 6 votes separate the two-- 196,964 to 196,958. Hart is seeking redress from the House Administration Committee and has evidence of 22 ballots legally cast-- 18 for her and 3 for Miller-Meeks-- that were thrown out. On Sunday, screaming "punch me, punch, me punch me-- harder, harder, harder," while dancing on the podium, Pelosi, Hoyer and Clyburn announced they were seating Miller-Meeks so she could vote for McCarthy as speaker.
Today, reporting for the Philadelphia Inquirer, Angela Couloumbis and Cynthia Fernandez wrote about an explosion of Trumpian insanity as the Pennsylvania legislature convened and the Republican majority refused to seat state Sen. Jim Brewster (D-Allegheny County) who narrowly won reelection over Trumpist challenger Nicole Ziccarelli, who is asking a federal judge to throw out the election results. Compapred the the Iowa cased, Brewster won in a landslide. "At the center of that legal dispute is several hundred mail ballots that lacked a handwritten date on an outer envelope, as required by state law. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court allowed those ballots to be counted, which gave Brewster the edge in the race."
Republicans also refused to allow Lt. Governor John Fetterman to preside over the session. Fetterman told Greg Sargent that: "We’re at a dangerous time in this country. One party is ignoring court rulings and election results. If the results don’t match what they like, they do their level best to subvert them... It’s a straight line between the way the president has behaved these last two months to Pennsylvania. These are strange days."
“With this reckless, out-of-control, cowboy-like behavior, with this Trumpian behavior that we saw today from Republicans … this does not bode well. It does not bode well for the people of Pennsylvania,” said Sen. Vince Hughes of Philadelphia, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee.
...Senate Minority Leader Jay Costa (D., Allegheny), along with Sen. Anthony Williams (D., Philadelphia), delivered stinging rebukes to Republican colleagues for refusing to acknowledge Brewster’s win. Costa has said he believes the maneuver was out of “the Trump playbook” of nakedly partisan maneuvers and refusing to accept valid election outcomes.
...Gov. Tom Wolf, called the Senate’s refusal to seat Brewster, whose reelection was certified by the state, “simply unethical and undemocratic.”
“Republicans in Pennsylvania and nationally have spread disinformation and used it to subvert the Democratic process,” the governor said in a statement.
Setting the stage for the inevitable nazi coup.
America, it seems, will insist on reliving what Rev. Niemoller tried to warn about.
Those bent on achieving total power will keep pushing until nobody pushes back. It makes sense that the 'nobody pushes back' won't have to be at the national level. It could very well be at the state level. Perhaps PA portends the future.
The money has already achieved it via both parties. But one party wants it all within that paradigm. And then the money may find out that power does not really want to serve any master but itself. Nazi Germany should be a lesson here... but the money probably won't realize until it is far …