During Wednesday night’s vote in the U.S. Congress to pass the budget and raise the debt ceiling, a floor stenographer was brusquely ushered out after taking over the dais and shouting into the microphone.
The woman, identified as Dianne Reidy, yelled things like: “Do not be deceived. God shall not be mocked. A House divided cannot stand,” according to a House republican aide to CNN. As she was removed from the chamber, she was caught by Public Radio International ranting about the Constitution being written by Freemasons, and repeated, “You cannot serve two masters.”
Surprised staffers told CNN that Reidy is a respectable and dependable colleague; a Republican aide commented: “I don’t know, she just snapped.”
According to Fox’s Chad Pergram, Reidy, who is known to be very religious, said in a written statement that the “Holy Spirit” moved her to make the spectacle.
Hse stenographer Dianne Reidy says "Holy Spirit has been waking me up in the middle of the night..to deliver a message in the House Chamber"
— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) October 17, 2013
The following clip has good audio of the incident:
[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/115699338″ width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]
[CNN]
Reidy was taken to a local hospital for evaluation, a spokesman for the U.S. Capitol Police said in an e-mail early Thursday.