"I come from Florida, where you and others participated in what I call the United States coup d'etat. We need to make sure it doesn't happen again," Brown said. "Over and over again after the election when you stole the election, you came back here and said, 'Get over it.' No, we're not going to get over it. And we want verification from the world."
- Rep. Corrine Brown, whose remarks were striken from the record for violating House rules concerning accusing other members of lawbreaking
Jack Balkin suggests she should have just left out the word "you," which would have sent the same message without personally disparaging her fellow members. This is would have went a long way in allowing her to submit the facts into the record. Still, it would have deprived her of including the very relevant point that Congress let the practice stand by refusing to investigate. As Michael Moore reminds us in Fahrenheit 9/11, no senator provided the needed vote to force such an investigation in Jan, 2001.
Balkin and the story he cites also lets us know about the f-you passed by the House of Representatives, an amendment to a foreign aids bill that bars any federal official from requesting that the United Nations formally observe the U.S. elections on Nov. 2. This was a good idea -- our election process might send a bad example to the rest of the world.