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.

  • hactar42@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    112
    ·
    1 month ago

    Imagine not showing up to your job for 6 months and people just going, “hmmm, I wonder where they are.”

  • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    105
    ·
    1 month ago

    How the fuck does a Senator go missing for SIXTH FUCKING MONTHS and no one bothers looking for them.

    • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      53
      ·
      1 month ago

      People from her office absolutely knew where she was, they just didn’t bother telling anybody else.

    • thatKamGuy@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      52
      ·
      1 month ago

      She is in Congress, not the Senate - so there’s a couple hundred more of them in general, and not all of them turn up to work every day… so it’s not hard to lose one for 6 months and not notice.

      Especially when they’re Republicans, since they do sweet fuck all most days anyway.

    • Duamerthrax@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      41
      ·
      edit-2
      1 month ago

      Her aids were probably running the show for years. What happens with these congress critters is that they create a support network around themselves to do the real work while they campaign for the next election. It gets to the point that the congress member themselves becomes superfluous. If it goes on long enough, they fall into dementia, but the aids don’t want to start over again with someone new, so they just tote their boss around from time to time like Weekend at Burnie’s. It happened with Dianne Feinstein. It’s probably happening with Mitch McConnell.

        • Duamerthrax@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          6
          ·
          edit-2
          30 days ago

          Probably, but I haven’t heard much from him in a while. In my defense, if he has done something terrible recently, a lot of terrible things have been happening. It’s hard to keep track.

          Now that the election is over, I’m also willing to throw Biden on the pile. More then a few times in the past few years, he’s done things that remind of me of my old, conservative acquaintances. Biden pardoning the Kids for Cash asshole cemented that.

          • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            30 days ago

            People say “Pardoning Hunter ruined his legacy.”

            Pardoning Hunter was the right thing to do. The Republicans hounded him when they realized they had no real dirt on Biden, and basically got him via an unhonored plea deal for a crime that not even Joe Q. Public would get convicted for. Hunter was only convicted because his last name was Biden.

            Pardoning the “Kids for Cash asshole” as you put it, was a rubber stamp affirming that Joe Biden only cares about the people on HIS side of the on-going class war. It cemented that if Hunter was in the same situation but not named Biden, he wouldn’t have given a shit. And THAT destroyed his legacy, at best he was the “Good Cop” in a “Bad Cop, Good Cop” game, and need I remind you both cops are trying to convict you, even if they know damn well you didn’t do that shit.

        • Duamerthrax@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          8
          ·
          edit-2
          1 month ago

          Also with Trump, Regan… the list goes on.

          Now that the election(and America) is over, I’m willing to openly agree with Biden being in mentally not there. Gerontocracy always lead to a decline in a nation.

          If it’s acceptable to have a minimum age to vote or hold office, it should also be acceptable to have a maximum age. Retired senior citizens shouldn’t get to decide matters such as worker’s rights or environmental issues.

  • Krauerking@lemy.lol
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    54
    ·
    1 month ago

    This seems like a pretty important job to not just shuffle the person doing it into an old folks home! Like come on!
    Literally a limited number per state. Even an midmanager would get called for running out of PTO way before then.

    • ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      38
      ·
      1 month ago

      And a god damn attendance record.

      My kid’s school told me flat out that if a kid misses too many school days, they will be left behind.

      So these “politicians” get paid and don’t even have to show up?

      • Madison420@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        9
        ·
        1 month ago

        Weirder still the ones that do show up tend to cast votes of absentees with sticks they proudly carry around for just that age or somehow both accepted and legal.

  • Eddbopkins@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    48
    ·
    1 month ago

    Who’s been doing her job since then? There is no way that can be legal. I’d bet the farm the same thing is happening to Mitch McConnell. No way that old bag of dust and bones is competent enough to do his job.

  • thisNotMyName@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    46
    ·
    1 month ago

    Let’s talk about that woman later. Wtf is going on in Texas?? “An amendment to reduce the salary of Deputy Assistant Administrator for Pesticide Programs to $1” what did that person do that they put that on the agenda? Why is it possible to set a salary that low?

    • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      29
      ·
      edit-2
      1 month ago

      From what I see his name was Jake Li and he was attempting to safeguard endangered species against pesticides. So… His position is now vacant. Guessing Texas couldn’t stand for it

      He/they released this, so maybe I would have to more digging to gain further understanding.

      https://texasfarmbureau.org/epa-releases-final-endangered-species-herbicide-strategy/

      Edit: it appears he was “brought in” to that position when Biden entered office, and he is moving to the Department of Interior’s fish and wildlife division. I suspect that they knew the upcoming and current cuts to the EPA would thin them out and the Fish and Wildlife department is less likely to be gone after, as that’s who you get your hunting/fishing etc licenses from. I imagine the establishment that gives out licenses to shoot animals for fun, isn’t likely to be targeted by Republicans

      • XeroxCool@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        28 days ago

        I can see your angle on not hurting the licensing agency, but I could also see it as a tactic to make it all so inoperable that licenses effectively become unnecessary. A temporary order to not enforce licenses starts making it normal. It’s a stretch.

        • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          28 days ago

          Unlicensed hunting leads to culling to much of a species in an area and ultimately it dying out. For the most part, even the dumb hunters understand if you kill to many this year hunting, there won’t be anything to hunt moving forward. So they wouldn’t want to chance not having the ability to hunt anything anymore I imagine. Same thing goes for the fishing and such. Though invasive species such as lionfish should be open season year round. But that is commonly done with diving gear, nets and spears usually because they have poisonous spines on them. (They do taste delicious though). They started an annual lionfish contest at a place I lived at about 7 years ago, so they had enough to feed everyone who came.

          • XeroxCool@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            27 days ago

            I’d be more concerned with sadistic tourist trophy hunters. Stuff like the multi-millionaires doing illegal African game hunts, but the local multi-hundred-thousandaires instead. But yeah, let’s hope there’s enough sensible hunters to help maintain any deregulation issues. And all this is IF it’s even at risk.

            But who fuckin knows. You’d think clean air would be a safe bet to maintain as a positive, but big oil is getting their way both with the government and the propaganda to convince society it’s a masculine right to stroke the gas pump cock.

    • ✺roguetrick✺@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      26
      ·
      edit-2
      1 month ago

      Realize that’s she’s a US house member, not a state legislature member. They were trying to defund the EPA in general by reducing salaries for individuals to $1 and it wasn’t just Texas.

      • andros_rex@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        14
        ·
        1 month ago

        Which is funny, because both Texas and Oklahoma ignore the EPA anyway. The Oklahoma turnpike authority is trying to pollute Norman’s drinking water, and build a turnpike through land that endangered toads live on. They aren’t conducting any sort of environmental impact assessment, because Oklahoma gave them permission not to. Texas has probably hundreds, if not thousands, of improperly shut down oil wells which spew all kinds of pollution.

  • zephorah@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    29
    ·
    edit-2
    1 month ago

    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.

    • TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world
      cake
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      10
      ·
      1 month ago

      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.

      • schizo@forum.uncomfortable.business
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        15
        ·
        1 month ago

        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.

        • flamingo_pinyata@sopuli.xyz
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          edit-2
          1 month ago

          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.

          • schizo@forum.uncomfortable.business
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            5
            ·
            1 month 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.

          • TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world
            cake
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            edit-2
            1 month ago

            Don’t most politicians have degrees even if unrelated to politics? They could fall back to the career relating to their degrees or at least close to it. There are some, however, who don’t have college degrees or trade before becoming a politician. Bernie Sanders haven’t had a proper career and did many jobs before becoming a politician.

            Although if the politician retires at ripe old age between 60-70, they could live off the pension anyway.

    • jagged_circle@feddit.nl
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 month ago

      Because she’s in a hospital and that shits expensive in the US.

      Hopefully your employer can’t just fire you if you get sick?

      • Wes4Humanity@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        1 month ago

        Pretty sure Congress members get universal single payer healthcare for life

        Okay, spoke out of turn… They get insurance like any other gov employee… Their mostly just all on Medicare