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LAST UPDATE | 7 Jan 2021
THE US CONGRESS has affirmed President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the November election, after a riot by Donald Trump supporters forced a delay in the process.
A joint session of Congress approved the electoral votes of all 50 states one by one overnight.
Congress rejected an objection by some Republican politicians to accepting the electoral votes in a number of states, including in Arizona and Pennsylvania.
Other objections to results from Georgia, Michigan and Nevada also fizzled without enough support from senators.
The process to approve the 306-232 Electoral College votes from the November election was delayed when rioters supporting Trump stormed the Capitol Hill building.
Trump supporters broke through barricades and swarmed inside, rampaging through offices and engaging in standoffs with police – triggering unprecedented chaos and violence that drew condemnation from around the world.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino tweeted out Donald Trump’s reaction to Joe Biden’s election win being certified:
“Even though I totally disagree with the outcome of the election, and the facts bear me out, nevertheless there will be an orderly transition on January 20th.
“I have always said we would continue our fight to ensure that only legal votes were counted. While this represents the end of the greatest first term in presidential history, it’s only the beginning of our fight to Make America Great Again!”
For more than two centuries, the joint session of Congress has been a quiet, ceremonial event that formally certifies the election winner. Last night is possibly the first time that the Capitol had been taken over since 1814, when the British burned the building.
‘Let’s get back to work’
The Senate resumed their work in debating Republican challenges more than six hours after pro-Trump mobs attacked the Capitol and forced lawmakers to flee.
Scores of Republican House Reps and 13 Senators had planned to object to the electoral votes of several states that backed Joe Biden.
Questions had been asked whether some Republicans who support Trump’s false electoral fraud claims would change their minds after the Capitol was stormed.
After deliberations resumed, Senators voted 93 to 6 against the effort to reject Arizona’s 11 electoral votes. The House of Representatives voted 303-121 against the objection, with 82 Republicans siding with the Democrats.
At 8.30am Irish time, the Senate rejected an objection to accepting Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes, with seven votes in favour and 92 votes against.
‘What America is made of’
President Donald Trump has falsely insisted that the election was marred by fraud and that he actually won, despite failing several times in US courts to successfully argue this point.
He has been pressuring Mike Pence to reject the election result using his power as US Vice President.
JUST IN: Vice President Mike Pence leaves Senate chamber, does not answer reporter asking, "Does the President have some responsibility for what happened today?" pic.twitter.com/TiJeNljZ1a
— The Hill (@thehill) January 7, 2021
As the Senate reconvened, Mike Pence told House Representatives and Senators:
“It is my considered judgment that my oath to support and defend the Constitution constrains me from claiming unilateral authority to determine which electoral votes should be counted and which should not.”
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said Trump “bears a great deal of the blame” for the actions of the mob, adding the events “did not happen spontaneously”.
Schumer also said 6 January 2021 will “live forever in infamy”.
Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell, closely aligned with Trump throughout his presidency, had tried to prevent the objections to the electoral votes. He noted that the election results were not even close, and that dozens of courts had thrown out lawsuits alleging irregularities.
“If this election were overturned by mere allegations from the losing side, our democracy would enter a death spiral,” McConnell said.
House speaker Nancy Pelosi said Congress’ certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s election win was a statement to the world.
She said: “Despite the shameful actions of today … we will be part of a history that shows the world what America is made of.”
Republican switch
Senator Mitt Romney, one of Trump’s most vocal critics inside the Republican Party, pointedly said that the best way to respect voters “is to tell them the truth”.
“Those who continue to support this dangerous gambit,” Romney said, “will forever be seen as being complicit in an unprecedented attack against our democracy.”
But Senator Josh Hawley, who has taken the lead on the effort and is seen as a future Republican presidential aspirant, insisted on going ahead even after the mob attack.
“Violence is not how you achieve change,” the 41-year-old senator said, insisting that he wanted to offer a “lawful process” to Trump supporters to assess their unfounded claims of fraud.
Multiple Republican senators reversed course and didn’t object to congressional certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.
Senators Steve Daines of Montana, Mike Braun of Indiana and Kelly Loeffler of Georgia all said in the aftermath of the violence that they would stand down from their previous objections to Biden’s win.
Loeffler, who lost a Senate race to Raphael Warnock yesterday, said that the “violence, the lawlessness, and siege of the halls of Congress” were a “direct attack” on the “sanctity of the American democratic process”.
All three had previously signed on to Donald Trump’s false claims of widespread voter fraud to explain his defeat.
The formal acceptance of the election result paves the way for Joe Biden’s inauguration on 20 January.
© – AFP 2021, with reporting from the Press Association and Gráinne Ní Aodha
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Crazy how many people fall out of windows in Russia.
@Seán Ó Briain: The window was shook by earthly tremors outside and leapt into the room and consumed Maganov who then dutifully fell through said window!
FSB agents passing the hospital ward were witnesses to the event! They quickly left the building in borrowed hospital gowns…
@Seán Ó Briain: defenestration – russians are pros at it
@Johnny Honest: beat me to it!
Hmmmm, there are a lot of Russians dying mysteriously these days.
@Declan Moran:
Slip of the tongue likely.
How does anyone live in a terrorist state?
@Genera L Consensus: we’re going to find out.
@Genera L Consensus: there’s been people living in places like the UK, US and Russia for centuries. More recently. UAE and Saudi. Some seem to be doing quite well.
@John Mulligan: #sad
Those Russian windows are lethal / people forever falling out of them.
Putin !
@Martin Lynch: Put out!
In Soviet Russia, elite hospital kills you.
Severe illness of ground speed.
Amazing this story only appears now!
@Con Cussed: why are you amazed? Because its amazing perhaps?
@Con Cussed: even more amazing that a high profile businessman who’s company publicly opposed the illegal invasion of a neighbouring country, is found to have ‘fallen’ from a hospital window. Considering he was sick,its a pretty amazing, and suspicious thing to have happened.
@Dawn Harvey: Agreed. This is a message to all those who would speak out against Putin. Why would someone who is attending hospital to heal themselves ever commit suicide?
How many FSB/GRU agents were in the room at the time of the event?
They’re quite accident-prone, what with the number of poisonings, window leaping, dropped cigarettes and now missiles that don’t take off. Life expectancy is very short in Russia.
The state-controlled TASS news agency cited an unnamed law enforcement source as saying Maganov had committed suicide by jumping from a sixth-story window after being admitted to the hospital for a heart attack. The news site RBK also said police were investigating the possibility of suicide.
Clearly didnt get the memo on time over at Taas News Agency
@Dave Hammond: most unfortunate the CCTV was closed down for maintenance at time of the incident….!
As, the lyrics go “Did he jump or was he pushed” ?
“Fell” Russian for pushed!!!
Did you hear the one about the Russian journalist that died falling from their ground floor apartment… very clumsy those Russians.
@Dave: too much vodka
Not suspicious in the slightest…..
What no piano being installed this time
Fell out a window. Onto some bullets.
@Colm de Cleir: Found some stab wounds too
He fell ill
Oppps….
The Russians will be announcing tomorrow that they have ‘solved’ the cause if this mysterious death
Jesus the Ukrainians are back from Estonia with their window clearing van. The FSB spotted them again but they were able to escape back across the border.
Hmmmm… was the window made of novichok? Was Vlad Puta standing nearby?
It beats drinking tea!
Roger Podacter suffered a similar fate
Running out of ways to die/disappear ! That individual should not have (novo-checkedin) to that Hospital
Terrible to see and worse not surprising. Who will get the blame, is there another mini cooper in the mix or are the Ninga Window Cleaners at it again.
Strange how all of the antiwr people are having “accidents” and even the prowar putin critics are getting blown up.
The one thing they have in common, they are anti putin.
Running out of ways to die/disappear ! That individual should not have (novo-checkedin) to that Hospital
I’ll bet you any money, not unlike the kerry woman, he was ironing the curtains.
have your say