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.

    • ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net
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      3 days 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
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        3 days 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
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    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.

  • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    To be fair, dementia is not much of a hindrance for making GOP policies.

  • TachyonTele@lemm.ee
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    Shouldn’t something like that be reported when it happens? She’s an elected official. Her seat has effectively been empty for at least six months now.

    It’s a small shit in the toilet-tub that is the current political state, but come on.

    • Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world
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      Overall, some has to sign off on her going into the facility. Assuming it’s one of those locked in so they don’t wander out type places. You would have to make that person some sort of mandatory reporter. Which I guess you could, but you would then essentialy require them to dig into a person’s past, when currently thier job is just to ascertain the person’s current mental state. Really this is the job of the legislature to track if she is showing up for work and declare her chair empty if not. Oregon has a rule that if you miss ten days of session in a row, you can’t run again. This was to prevent walk outs. But it would also serve your purpose. But state legislatures aren’t in session most of the time. So you would still get a big gap. But if it is not in session, the person’s absence doesn’t really matter.

      • TachyonTele@lemm.ee
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        4 days ago

        Did you not read any of the other comments before replying with this, or the article, or even the title? Im confused how you think this person is some random lady. Everything you said has already been addressed by multiple people.

    • zephorah@lemm.ee
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      4 days ago

      To be fair, much patient care happens without knowing what the patient actually does or did for a living. Sometimes it comes up organically, sometimes doctors, nurses, caregivers ask, and sometimes it never comes up.

      If the patient is what we would call a “poor historian” which is a typical thing that is found with dementia care patients (do you know where you are right now? And they really don’t, so deep dives don’t occur past the how oriented to present reality is this patient, beyond those generic determination questions, when they fail.)

      So let’s say she has no family. Shows up in hospital, doctors determine dementia, she’s stable and it’s time to go, physical and occupational therapy in conjunction with the MD determine a lack of safety to going home alone so it’s now decided for this patient to go to a care home, and she goes to a care home. Who then, inside the care home, says: oh, maybe I should call the Texas legislature about this random patient of whom I know nothing personal, never mind HIPAA.

      How would they know? How could they talk if they did, given HIPAA?

      Or there is a relative making decisions by phone who never thinks, oh, maybe I should call her boss and tell them. They just miss that part in the midst of everything else.

      • halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        She has staff. Anyone with dementia bad enough to be in a care facility would have been showing clear signs for a while. At no point did the staff think to check or do anything for the past 6 months? What have they been doing while she’s been in there?

        SOMEONE knew she was there and has been actively hiding that fact for 6 months.

      • ChaosCoati@midwest.social
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        4 days ago

        True when it comes to the facility staff. But Congresspeople also have Congressional staff. Those people should’ve reported it, and should be held accountable for not. Which isn’t a law that I know of and of course won’t happen, but it should.

      • TachyonTele@lemm.ee
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        Sure, absolutely that can and does happen.

        But this is not a hypothetical situation. She has family. She has friends. She had an entire staff that worked for her. She is not only a public figure she is a part of the US government. She represents a portion of the US population. Everyone that knew her all decided not to tell anyone what was going on, for a very long time.

        • futatorius@lemm.ee
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          4 days ago

          Her family probably wanted that nice, fat congressional salary to keep rolling in.

        • ayyy@sh.itjust.works
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          Edit: this is completely wrong, I misunderstood her position. This is insane.

          It should be noted that she is not a part of the US government, she is part of the Texas government. They are separate things.

    • Tarquinn2049@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      Does delaying the announcement that she is vacating at all increase the chance that another GOP follows her? Cuz then, that would be why. If not, then probably just covering an embarrassing secret.

  • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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    4 days ago

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

    • Duamerthrax@lemmy.world
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      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
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          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
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            3 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
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          3 days 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.

    • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

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

    • thatKamGuy@sh.itjust.works
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      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.

  • Krauerking@lemy.lol
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    4 days 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.

  • hactar42@lemmy.ml
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    Imagine not showing up to your job for 6 months and people just going, “hmmm, I wonder where they are.”

  • thisNotMyName@lemmy.world
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    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?

    • ✺roguetrick✺@lemmy.world
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      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
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        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.

    • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      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
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        11 hours 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
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          11 hours 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.

  • Fedizen@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    this is why health reporting requirements should be made publicly available prior to election, imo

    • rdrunner@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Asking people with power to give up that power willingly almost never works, unfortunately.

        • OCATMBBL@lemmy.world
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          But that’s the problem - they make the rules and they’re not going to make up rules to their own detriment.

        • recreationalcatheter@lemm.ee
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          Great thinking!

          I’ll just check exactly who makes the rules, one second…

          Man, you won’t believe this, but the old hags that would have their careers end are the same ones in charge of systemic changes.

          Who would have thought.