Real senator, or wax figurine?
Earlier this month, Senator Lindsey Graham became the fourth member of the US Senate since 2013 to have died while in office and the sixth member of Congress to have died while serving in the 119th Congress. Because the US is the greatest democracy in the world, Graham has now been replaced in the Senate by his sister Darline.
That really is a tremendous paragraph.
Wait, who elected Darline? Are we in a nepo state now?
Oof don’t look through our past presidents or other governmental types and see how often the same family names come up. “always has been” meme is unfortunately fitting here.
South Carolina governor appoints people to the seats of deceased Congress members for the remainder of their term, that really isn’t unusual or shady. It just so happens he appointed LG’s younger sister, which is more unusual and shady.
I’m not sure if I’d say “now” exactly…
Only five more days until Mitch McConnell’s team announces that his health has taken a “sudden and inexplicable” turn for the worse.
Is there something in particular they are waiting for?
The threshold to not call a special election, or something of the kind.
They dont want to lose that seat to voters before they can slide their own handpicked replacement.
Worse than that. A replacement elected in November wouldn’t take office until January. They’d rather keep the seat vacant than risk having a Dem win the seat, because they plan on fucking with the November election results prior to the new Senate being seated, and another Democratic Senator placed into office earlier would make it much harder to push it through the Senate.
How does the GOP have such a low confidence in Kentucky, too. It went 64% to Trump in 2024. Make it make sense…
Honestly I’m not even sure what the point is. McConnell isn’t running for reelection. Even without this incident, he wouldn’t have been the Senator from Kentucky come next year. It seems an awful lot of trouble to go to in order to hold a seat for a few months, especially when it wouldn’t affect the balance of power in the chamber.
Aha, that makes this all make more sense, thanks.
He was doing absolutely fine up until bit started to drop off.
Regardless of whether or not he is actually dead, if he’s ill enough that it’s even a question, that surely must mean he isn’t doing his job.
Well, it’s kinda nice that he isn’t doing his job …
His job is stalling though, so, he kind of is actually. I wouldn’t be surprised if “weekend at Bernie my ass if I die in an election year” was in his will.
Indeed, if McConnell were in perfect health and a Democratic senator were in this position, McConnell would be leading the charge to ensure they resigned.
No, McConnell wouldn’t “ensure someone resigned”, he’d use some procedural trick to remove them from office and have a Republican of his choosing fill the seat. And, he’d do it even if he knew full well that the person was alive, conscious, fully in possession of their faculties, but somehow unable to defend against that kind of a dirty trick.
The governor of Kentucky should simply replace McConnell, and if it turns out that McConnell is, in fact, up to continuing to serve in the senate, he can fight to get his seat back.
Whether he’s dead or not, an 84 year old should have retired a decade or two ago. It’s not like he couldn’t afford to.
there really ought to be an age limit to being in government, in much the same way you have to be over a certain age to run for pres.
Minimum age is insane to me as well. In AU it’s like “Well you have to be a legal adult to become a member of the house of representatives” so that’s the closest we have.
Cut politicians off at 70 bare minimum
waaaaay before 70. at 70, they likely have some dementia. I’m thinking 60.
There’s plenty of 70 year olds cooking your arse son. Having said that, if it’s for a 4 year term I agree they shouldnt be able to run after 72-75 . There are some very energetic 79 year olds. There’s also plenty that are 5 years away from death.
The risk of dementia goes upb with age but there are many many 70-year-olds wandering around who are still perfectly capable. In fact I would be willing to bet that the majority of 70-year-olds don’t have dementia.
My 96 year old neighbor is building something out of wood with his table saw in his garage right now after driving his truck to the lumber yard this morning. Broadly speaking I get cutting people off but sixties would be wild to me. I’m not all that far off from my sixties, I think I used to think that seemed older than it was in my twenties and thirties.
My grandfather kept all his marbles until he died at 101. Last time I saw him, about a year before that, he was still whipping me at chess. I was a strong player at the time.
I’m 70 now, still doing software full-time in a highly technical organization, and I can still write tight, clean code more quickly than most. I mainly do it for proofs of concept, such as when the dev team are being risk-averse and say something can’t be done that I know actually can be. I have less physical stamina than I did in my 20s, but my mental acuity’s just fine so far.
Dementia odds do go up, but are still not that high in one’s 70s, and are even lower if, like me, you have good cardio fitness and eat a healthy diet. That lessens the chances of vascular dementia. Harder to say if it helps with Alzheimers, since there’s a significant hereditary component to that, and research isn’t clear on how big that might be.
So try being fact-based when you’re proposing political solutions. Every day, we’re seeing what happens when politics is being driven by prejudice rather than truth. We don’t need more of that.
I’m aiming this upthread, not so much at the post I’m directly replying to, which I agree with.
I don’t think there should be an age limit but I don’t think it’s unreasonable beyond a certain age to require people to prove cognitive function. There are many countries in the world where they do that for driving tests which seems perfectly reasonable.
The problem is we have a generational conveyor belt problem.
The 80 year olds are running the Senate, taking the jobs the 70 year olds should have. The 70 year olds are holding the jobs of the 60 year olds. Etc.
If you implement term limits, there’s inevitably going to be a generation of leaders that never gets a shot at the top posts. Imagine you’re a Senator in your 70s. You’ve been waiting patiently for leadership posts for years, working jobs that should have been for someone 10-20 years younger than you. You were told to wait your turn, and you did! You did everything you were supposed to. Then some young upstart comes along and wants to implement term limits that will mean you’ll never get that shot at leadership you’ve been waiting years for. Would you support term limits?
If there are ever going to be term limits, they’ll have to be implemented by a constitutional convention or mass popular movement voting out any leader that won’t support term limits.
Such people would have to let go of the wheels of power, take their snouts out of the trough, unlink their brokerage account from all that sweet sweet insider info and stop doing favors to extremely grateful friends.
Obviously, they’re not going to do that unless they literally have no other option.
It’s a mental illness.
Charlie Kirk was Mitch the whole time?
looks like elaine chaos body switching spell worked, need a younger body.
LICH MCCONNEL cant be observed if hes both dead or alive, unless you are a necromancer capable of seeing the “veil” between life and death
Taxation without Representation
Well, the blue states — who actually pay more taxes than they receive back — are already being ignored by this administration.
So are all Americans who live outside the USA, and are taxed but receive no representation.
I cannot understand anyone who managed to get out of that shitty place not renouncing their citizenship at the first opportunity
deleted by creator
'Murica is a fucking joke
One that has never actually been funny
It’s a Schrödinger’s senator
They are getting the same representation either way I suspect
Pretty sure that Mitch is still alive, but he’s basically slightly more aware and animated than a houseplant. I think that cognitively, he’s gone. Probably has to be told what to do, like eat, sleep, walk, etc, and he forgets what he was doing after just a few seconds.
We’re kind of torn between the need to know the status of a prominent senator, and a degree of class and compassion (whether Mitch deserves it or not) when dealing with someone who just had a medical event. I think Beshear should demand a visit with McConnell to assess if he can continue the duties of his office. If he is no longer fit, then a replacement should be seated to finish the term. If there is a disagreement about Mitch’s ability to perform the duties of his office, let him publicly speak to his constituents and have them advocate on his behalf.
Anyway, to hell with Mitch. Motherfucker has been ruining this country almost his entire life. We are due a reprieve from his shitty presence when he dies, and it’s bullshit that saving grace is being held up by the thinnest of lame excuses on why there can’t be a definitive proof of life.
If he is alive and unable to serve, that would also trigger the special election, which is why they keep him (or his corpse) hidden.
You’re not allowed to die this close to an election.
Schrodingers Senator.
Is he dead yet?
They can’t admit he’s dead until the 3rd. Before then and they’d have to have a special election to replace him.
If he dies within 90 days of the election his seat remains empty until January, preventing another potential Senate vote for them Dems if the GOP tries to fuck with the election results in November and December.
A cold, unthinking corpse might actually do a good job representing the will of those who would vote for a person like McConnell.
only if his condition improves.
Who had zombie Mitch McConnell on their Project 2025 bingo card?
Mitch ‘the lich’ has been a phrase long before this administration.
Thr most trusted source of news in history, Wikipedia, says no.
What difference does it make? They know how he’s going to vote, they don’t require his corporeal being. In fact, MAGA is sure that the Constitution allows for Senators to legislate from beyond the grave, so they’re going to demand that Lindsey Graham and McConnell can still vote.
They prevented a special election that would allow a democrat to run, and loosing a crucial seat.
