Very few reporters have accurately described what happened on March 27th when I forced Congress to come to work. The misreporting is so rampant now that we usually don’t even call and ask reporters to fix it. I thought I would do a short thread to clarify.
My intent was not to delay the bill, the bill was not delayed, and the actions I took did not threaten to delay it. I informed Congress 24 hrs (same notice Pelosi gives) in advance, giving plenty of notice for at least 1/2 of Congress to assemble AS THE CONSTITUTION REQUIRES.
I did not insist they follow arcane parliamentary rules. The Constitution says each house shall make its own rules, and each house does, but each house regularly votes to suspend its rules. The Constitution contains laws which neither chamber may suspend, so I qutoed it.
The press regularly says my effort failed. Then why did Congress come to work that day? If not for my insistence, Congress would have set two bad precedents that day: ignoring the Constitution due to a virus, and telegraphing to all Americans that’s it’s OK not to work.
It’s true that Congress, having enough members in attendance to pass the bill, then refused to take a recorded vote. In that refusal, they exposed that they were more afraid of being accountable to voters for that bill than they were of the virus. How do we know?
We know they were more afraid of transparency than the virus because Pelosi was faced with 2 options that day: allow members to come in and vote one at a time OR call at least 218 members of Congress in the chamber simultaneously to show that a quorum was present to avoid a vote.
There are members of the press who have access to @SpeakerPelosi and @StenyHoyer. Never once have reporters asked leadership why, when presented with two options, they chose to drag 218+ (unmasked!) members of congress into the chamber together instead of taking a recorded vote.
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logarithmic plot of cumulative deaths per million for countries
The beginning of each of these curves is a straight line, the slope of which indicates the doubling rate of the virus in a susceptible population.
The curve starts to bend as the “herd” begins to acquire immunity.
Here’s the same plot for states. Due to variations in population density, herd immunity % can be different for different states, but travel between states tends to equalize that.
Most states aren’t at herd immunity yet, but to think that we aren’t approaching it is foolish.
By trying to enact rules with the force of law, while refusing to call the legislature into session, Governor @AndyBeshearKY has denied our citizens a “republican form of government.”
I applaud state representative @SavannahLMaddox for filing a bill which would restore a “republican form of government” by curtailing the Kentucky Governor’s ability to exploit emergencies to make his own laws.
Regardless of what immigration policy outcome you desire, Justice Thomas is correct.
His dissent: “Under the auspices of today’s decision, administrations can bind their successors by unlawfully adopting significant legal changes through Executive Branch agency memoranda,”
(1/4)
“Even if the agency lacked authority to effectuate the changes, the changes cannot be undone by the same agency in a successor administration un- less the successor provides sufficient policy justifications to the satisfaction of this Court.”
(2/4)
“In other words, the majority erroneously holds that the agency is not only permitted, but required, to continue administering unlawful programs that it inherited from a previous administration.”
(3/4)
(2/5) Now is the time to pass this bill before food shortages and wasting of animals become widespread. It’s called the PRIME Act, and it would allow farmers to sell food LOCALLY using small scale family owned processors.