this post was submitted on 22 Dec 2024
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A Republican Congresswoman who has been “missing” for the past six months has finally been found.

Rep. Kay Granger has served as the representative for Texas’s 12th Congressional District since 1997.

However, she suddenly disappeared from the public eye around July this year, when she cast her final vote against an amendment to reduce the salary of Deputy Assistant Administrator for Pesticide Programs to $1.

A curious reporter at the local Dallas Express newspaper did some digging on Granger’s whereabouts and has finally been able to give her constituents some answers.
[...]

We then received a tip from a Granger constituent who shared that the Congresswoman has been residing at a local memory care and assisted living home for some time after having been found wandering lost and confused in her former Cultural District/West 7th neighborhood.

The Dallas Express team visited the facility to confirm whether Granger was residing there and to inquire about how she planned to vote on the spending bill. Upon arrival, two employees confirmed that Granger is indeed living at the facility.

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[–] [email protected] 46 points 20 hours ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 18 points 20 hours ago

She'll primary Trump, if such a concept exists in four years.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 18 hours ago

Of you read the article, she is already being replaced in January by a republican candidate.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

at least they didn't reelect her for 2025-26

[–] [email protected] 23 points 17 hours ago (3 children)

Only because she decided not to run again lol

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[–] [email protected] 47 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

As I recall, she had a lot of mounting legal troubles over the Ft. Worth billion-dollar flood control project, which apparently funneled taxpayer cash to her son. And then there was that whole trip to Russia to meet with Putin on July 4th thing.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 19 hours ago

Oh, she was one of those.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago) (4 children)

I’ve encountered 90 year olds that can walk, maybe even run circles around 50-60 year olds, mentally and physically.

That said, this is something we keep seeing. Feinstein was painful to see, and a clear example of what should never be allowed to happen. We need an age cap.

A policy like that is also ethically sound in that, and I’ve heard this floated before in multiple places, in that the politician will then have to sit back as an outsider and look at the impact of what they did.

As is, our politicians are free from that in being able to die in office or retire to dementia care instead of FEELING the impact of what they’ve done, or pointedly not done, while in office.

Age cap: 70. Done. You can run if you’re going to turn 70 in office, let’s be generous, but once you’re over 70 you can no longer run for an office.

Enforced retirement of judges for the same reason. Hit 70, you finish or transfer the cases you’re working on and when that’s done you’re done. Who knows how much inertia is fueling a waxing/waning cusp of Dementia judge when there’s no real focus on this across the many courtrooms of the country.

But I’ll probably be accused of ageism here. It’s a nice way to solve ethics problems, infirmity problems, and add in a soft cap term limitation.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 14 hours ago

Tie it to the federal retirement age, which is currently 67.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

I got accused of ageism before for saying the same that there should be mandatory retirement for public officials. However, the most convincing argument I heard for letting elders to still run for public office is that their accumulated experience, knowledge and wisdom could still be of great dispense for the public. Noam Chomsky is still doing well despite in his 90's, for example.

But Chomsky did not get it right with his genocide denialism on Cambodia and Yugoslavia. He may have great insights, but his ego seems to have been entrenched on downplaying atrocities of other anti-Western countries simply because they are anti-America. And then there is also the time when Chomsky basically brushed aside his association with Jeffrey Epstein, by telling the interviewer to mind his business. It's not a proof in and of itself, but it's very suspicious.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

You can share your wisdom and be of great value to the public without being in public office.

At some point, though, you've gone from useful adult into honored elder, and while I'm not suggesting we put them all on ice floes, they shouldn't be running the country, especially since more than a few of them clearly don't even know which country they're in, let alone how to run it.

If you can't walk, are having strokes, have developed dementia, and generally just sit around staring at the wall like my cat, perhaps it's time to gracefully retire and go spend the rest of your life doing conferences and speaking engagements and whatever the hell else you want, not trying to legislate.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago) (2 children)

There's also a common problem of no career path for politicians after holding some of the higher offices. It's either be reelected or elected to a higher position. I think it's more or less present in most countries.
It's especially obvious with US presidents, none of them held any other office after being president. Even previous younger ones.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 18 hours ago

I kinda have two responses here, so uh, here's both of them:

  1. Well, by the time this is an issue, odds are you've been a career politician anyway and don't need another job. This is just old people who refuse to retire because they like the power and trappings more than they care about doing their job.

  2. By the time they MUST retire, these ghouls have stolen sufficient money that it doesn't matter, and sticking around is just them refusing to give up the power and feed their greed even more.

Both seem equally reasonable and applicable to the problem.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 22 hours ago

Americans desperate after missing out on the best presidential candidate

[–] [email protected] 12 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Sorry is this the onion or not

[–] [email protected] 13 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

This community is for articles that you would think are from The Onion because they're so crazy, but these articles are in fact genuine.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Back on the other website, someone once joked that surely /r/theonion+nottheonion must be the same as /r/all

[–] [email protected] 6 points 20 hours ago

The sum of all human knowledge isn't Wikipedia, it's the combination of two books:

  • What They Teach You at Harvard Business School
  • What They Don't Teach You at Harvard Business School
[–] [email protected] 11 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Glad she's in a place that helps her. Her family did well.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 20 hours ago (2 children)

Except for hiding her condition from her constituents. Do you want her voting on the Spending Bill when she doesn't even remember where she is?

(To be fair, it would be hard to tell you're not in Congress when you're surrounded by your fellow Alzheimer's patients.)

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 21 hours ago

Persons that knew the situation and did not attempt due diligence to notify Congress should be culpable

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