What’s kind of embarrassing at first glance is that only 204 Democrats were on the ball here. 

The 11 Democrats who did not vote were Representatives Julia Brownley, Lou Correa and Nancy Pelosi, all of California; Laura Gillen of New York; Steven Horsford of Nevada; Jonathan L. Jackson of Illinois; Brittany Pettersen of Colorado; Melanie Stansbury of New Mexico; Haley Stevens of Michigan; Marilyn Strickland of Washington; and Frederica Wilson of Florida.

So that is appalling, considering how if they had voted, they would have won. 

Except wait, though — is there more to this story? Check out this update from Rep. Stansbury:

Huh. Well, let’s hear them out.

Rep. Julia Brownley posted a similar message on Instagram, accusing soon-to-be-former Speaker Mike Johnson of using a “spineless political tactic to protect Hegseth and Trump.” 

Brittany Petersen had a similar story, which would seem to be credible considering how she was part of the effort to introduce articles of impeachment against Hegseth when he lost the Iran war on the first day while murdering a bunch of little girls who didn’t do anything but go to school that day. 

Similarly, she explained on Twitter yesterday: 

Laura Gillen and Marilyn Strickland also cited the traffic incident.

Lou Correa had a medical reason to be absent, reports Ken Klippenstein. Nancy Pelosi was doing some Veterans Day thing. 

We don’t give a fuck why Haley Stevens was absent, and she has forfeited the courtesy of us looking it up. 

Here’s the thing: If Mike Johnson pulled some cowardly, Trump-fellating shit as his last act of protecting Trump and Hegseth, that wouldn’t surprise us at all. But still, though, Democrats, let’s take this as a learning opportunity to get our shit together, K? On important days where we actually have an opportunity to send an amazing rebuke to the Trump regime before the new congressional majorites are even sworn in, we don’t let “traffic” give Mike Johnson the opportunity to take a victory lap for fascism with Trump’s and Hegseth’s balls in his mouth. 

Listen to what these Democrats had to say about it:

Democratic Senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed of Michigan addressed those who missed the vote in an interview with CNN, saying, “You should show up and do your job.”

Similarly, Representative-elect Richard Ojeda of North Carolina said, “Shame on them for not showing up,” when asked on the network what he had to say to the Democrats who missed the vote.

“This is important. They had an opportunity to finally get rid of this buffoonery that we have, and they failed,” he added.

Representative Sydney Kamlager-Dove of California also criticized those who missed the vote.

“We knew that this vote was coming, so people should have gotten their raggedy selves up these steps to vote,” she told MeidasTouch. “There’s no reason why we should have lost this vote because of attendance issues.”

When the outlet asked Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York for her reaction to “attendance issues” on the night of the impeachment vote, she said: “I don’t know why people weren’t here. Someone may have a health issue. I don’t know. But obviously, having a vote like that on attendance is hard. That hurts.”

That was diplomatic of AOC.

Ojeda added that he guessed the 120th Congress would have to deal with this, since the 119th wasn’t able to. 

Again, regardless of why, after a humiliation like last week, there should be no opportunities for Donald Trump and JD Vance to be declaring victory or “EXONERATION” for Hegseth, as they are currently doing. 

Get your heads in the game, numbnuts. Thank you for your attention to this matter!