NEW YORK - The Republican Party is facing a defining moment.The nearly 167-year-old party is divided over the typically mundane congressional certification
McConnell’s remarks came at the start of the Senate’s first debate as part of what is expected to be an hours-long effort that will ultimately end in Congress affirming Biden’s win.
McConnell, speaking from the Senate floor, said that the allegations of fraud didn’t reach the standard for challenging the election results and warned of dramatic consequences if the effort were successful.
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“If this election were overturned by mere allegations from the losing side, our democracy would enter a death spiral. We’d never see the whole nation accept the election again,” McConnell said.
“I believe protecting our constitutional order requires respecting the limits of our own power. It would be unfair and wrong to disenfranchise American voters and overrule the courts and states on this extraordinary thin basis. … I will vote to respect the people’s decision and defend our system of government as we know it,” McConnell added.
(AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
Former vice-president Joe Biden says he will nominate Merrick Garland to be U.S. attorney general, reports the Associated Press. An official announcement is expected Thursday.
Merrick Garland is currently serving as a federal appeals court judge. He was infamously nominated by Barack Obama in 2016 to fill the vacancy left by the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, but never got a hearing, thanks to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. After Trump was elected, Neil Gorsuch was nominated and confirmed by the U.S. Senate.
Thank you, Mitch, by the way!
Sources say he was selected over outgoing U.S. Senator Doug Jones and former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, but New York Governor Andrew Cuomo was reportedly on Vice President Joe Biden’s shortlist for the position. Between Cuomo’s botched COVID-19 response, which includes his sending thousands of elderly patients to their deaths with his disastrous nursing home policy in the early m
The presidential electoral circus draws to an end in Congress
The fallout from Wednesday’s congressional session to count the 2020 electoral votes will echo for years to come. The state of the presidential electoral process. The state of the country. The state of a political party. The state of a Congress potentially moving into a new era of Democratic control.
The significance shouldn’t be minimized. When the actions of President Donald Trump are factored in, there is no precedent for this moment. Have there been objections in past years? Yes. Have there been objections of this nature, given the pressure from the clearly defeated leader of the country? Nope.