There is a reason why I end this post the way I do:
The reason? The 117th Congress will be gaveled into session on January 3rd. Part of its reconstituting as the 117th Congress will be the presentation and acceptance of credentials for each and every member of the House and Senate. The Senate rules are on wikipedia. The House rules are a little harder to find. Here is a snippet of one of them:
5.1 Following opening prayer and before the election of the Speaker at the opening of a new Congress, the Clerk of the preceding Congress takes the following organizational steps: announces the receipt of credentials; causes the roll to be called alphabetically by states to establish a quorum; announces the establishment of a quorum; announces vacancies in the House occurring since national elections.
govinfo.gov (will open a PDF document)
The thing that needs to happen is that any Senator or Representative that questions the validity of the vote should have their credentials from their state rejected until their states can verify that they did indeed win their seats. Recounts, voter checks, whatever it takes. However long that process takes. They cannot be seated until their questions about voter fraud are answered to their satisfaction and the satisfaction of their constituents.
…or these very same Senators and Congressmen can shut up about the results of the presidential race and retract all their statements undermining the validity of the vote.
Both the House and the Senate have the right to determine who they will accept as members of their governing bodies, and seating someone who thinks the whole process is a farce undermines their work. So those people should simply not be seated until their reservations about the system are answered or revealed to be false. Plain and simple.
This is a necessary step. If we allow anyone to be seated who intends to torpedo the certification of the Presidential election, we will have signed up for a second term for Caudito Trump. This is hardball we are playing here. This is for all the marbles. Either the Republicans agree that there is one reality and one set of facts that governs that reality, or we might as well just start shooting at each other right now.
…Because if they are allowed to continue this charade, the shooting will start eventually. We might as well make it at a time and place of our choosing. I say January 3rd, 2021. Agree not to torpedo Biden’s electoral college victory with fraudulent antics, or renounce your seat in the 117th Congress. Pick one.
This is why elections have consequences. Republicans went to the polls and voted for down-ballot Republicans and either left off their vote for president or shifted their vote to Joe Biden. That is why Caudito Trump lost. He lost because his own Republican base will not support him. But the brown-nosing Senators and Congresspeople who won can’t be seen to be betraying the leader of their party. They are trying to play both sides off against the middle. Trying to continue the game that they’ve played since before I was born, or at least since Tricky Dick Nixon.
This is why Republicans cannot be allowed to get away with being soft on what reality is. Either the count is the count, or it isn’t the count. There is no two ways about this subject. If the count for Biden is rife with fraud, then so is the results of their elections, and we can’t be letting them muddy the waters with their false accusations. This is where we must make our stand. It is either here, or on some bloody battlefield in the near future.
The stakes could not be higher or more plain. This is for the win. For the power. The Republicans know this. The Democrats also need to not be harboring delusions about what the Republican’s next play will be. Do you really doubt that Mitch McConnell isn’t planning this coup right now? He says he isn’t, finally admitting Caudito Trump lost the election:
Our country has, officially, a president-elect and a vice-president elect,” McConnell said in a speech on the Senate floor. “I want to congratulate President-elect Joe Biden. The president-elect is no stranger to the Senate. He’s devoted himself to public service for many years.
Mitch McConnell
Does anyone believe him? More importantly, why would we believe him? He’s lied repeatedly every single time he’s opened his mouth since the day he stepped on the Senate floor. He has failed to do his job for more than a decade, and yet Kentucky continues to send his useless ass to the Senate as if he can be relied upon to do anything productive for the United States.
You Republicans who thought that this was a Trumpismo problem? Wrong again. It is a you problem. You are the problem. Elections have consequences.
Postscript
They did not take the threat of traitors in their midst seriously. There were no objections based on credential arguments offered, that I heard. All of the members of the 117th Congress who showed up for work on January 3rd were seated. Most of us know now what that lack of awareness cost us on January 6th, 2021. None of us know what the future holds, unfortunately. There are traitors in their midst, and there was a traitor in the White House until January 20th, 2021 when the new president took over.
This is the Wiki article that details the procedure I’m talking about:
Both houses of the United States Congress have refused to seat new members based on Article I, Section 5 of the United States Constitution which states that:
“Each House shall be the judge of the elections, returns and qualifications of its own members, and a majority of each shall constitute a quorum to do business; but a smaller number may adjourn from day to day, and may be authorized to compel the attendance of absent members, in such manner, and under such penalties as each House may provide.”
This had been interpreted that members of the House of Representatives and of the Senate could refuse to recognize the election or appointment of a new representative or senator for any reason, often political heterodoxy or criminal record.
wikipedia.org
Yes, I see where the SCOTUS says they can’t do that anymore. Make the Republicans take it to the court they packed in their favor then. Make the court rule that the seditionists must be seated even though they have no intention of doing their jobs. Let them stand together in their suicide pact.
Featured image added January 14, 2021. Reuters.