How an unsubstantiated, anonymous affidavit about the ABC presidential debate was amplified online - Poynter
www.poynter.org
Two days after the debate, an X account elevated criticism about ABC with an unverified claim that eventually landed in the halls of Congress.
  • WaxedWookie@lemmy.world
    1·
    7 hours ago

    Nah - this is one where I’d favour a return to tradition… Except for the fact that Fetterman would demolish the Democrat ranks like an IDF tank through a children’s hospital.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legislative_violence

    The matter came to a head when Robertson attempted to enter the Senate chamber to be sworn in and take his seat presiding over the session; he was attacked, beaten, and thrown bodily from the chamber by the Democrats, who then locked the chamber door, beginning four hours of intermittent mass brawling that spread throughout the Indiana Statehouse. The fight ended only after Republicans and Democrats started brandishing pistols and threatening to kill each other. The Governor deployed the Indianapolis Police Department to restore order.

    https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/rules-procedures/tillman-mclaurin-rule-xix.htm

    On February 22, 1902, John McLaurin, South Carolina’s junior senator, raced into the Senate Chamber and pronounced that state’s senior senator, Ben Tillman, guilty of “a willful, malicious, and deliberate lie.” Standing nearby, Tillman spun around and punched McLaurin squarely in the jaw. The chamber exploded in pandemonium as members struggled to separate both members of the South Carolina delegation. In a long moment, it was over, but not without stinging bruises both to bystanders and to the Senate’s sense of decorum.

    Although Tillman and McLaurin had once been political allies, the relationship had recently cooled. Both were Democrats, but McLaurin had moved closer to the Republicans, who then controlled Congress, the White House, and a lot of South Carolina patronage. When McLaurin changed his position to support Republicans on a controversial treaty, Tillman’s rage erupted. With McLaurin away from the chamber, he had charged that his colleague had succumbed to “improper influences.”

    On February 28, 1902, the Senate censured both men and several weeks later, added to its rules the provision that survives today as part of Rule XIX: “No senator in debate shall, directly or indirectly, by any form of words impute to another Senator or to other Senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a Senator.”