this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2026
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politics

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[–] DarkFuture@lemmy.world 6 points 4 hours ago

She's probably also tired of seeing the celebrations of his impending death, if he isn't dead already.

Sorry girl. Your dad is a traitor piece of shit who may be in the top 10 list of people who have done the most harm to this country.

[–] _stranger_@lemmy.world 5 points 5 hours ago

He's dead and we all know it. Instead of pretending that's not true, they should just wrap his deboned corpse around a robot dog and send him back to work, the GOP will probably give "him" a standing ovation for his dedication.

[–] KingPorkChop@lemmy.ca 4 points 4 hours ago
[–] SnarkoPolo@lemmy.world 1 points 3 hours ago

His brain is Alpo.

[–] SabinStargem@lemmy.today 2 points 4 hours ago
[–] Snapz@lemmy.world 3 points 4 hours ago

Using "hospitalization" a bit loose here, huh? Booked into one of those rooms with the refrigerated human-sized drawers.

[–] WanderWisley@lemmy.world 1 points 4 hours ago

Turtle soup.

[–] Reborn_Mormon@lemmy.world -2 points 3 hours ago

I wish his and all families of all people everywhere are well

[–] abc@suppo.fi 0 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

That's not cool.

[–] minorkeys@sh.itjust.works 14 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) (1 children)

There clearly needs to a rules for circumstances like this. The people do not have a functional representative at the moment and haven't for month. That isn't democracy and is not what the intent is. Y'all need to organize with each other and become actively political. I don't mean protests and marches, I mean help each other learn how the procedures of politics functions and start using them.

[–] grumpusbumpus@lemmy.world 2 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Rules don't matter any longer in America. They only matter insofar as they're enforced, and they're not being enforced against the powerful.

[–] minorkeys@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 hours ago

Yes but low level politicians aren't bureaucratic geniuses and they don't have the functional support of the powerful members of the GOP, yet they are required for the running of things to happen. People won't be engaging with Turmp and Co. they will be engaging with Nancy Nobody in district 590.

I have absolute confidence there are plenty of average people smart enough to outmaneuver these low level GOP idiots, if they put their focus there. The battleground the average person engages on isn't national politics, it's local politics and the goals there are absolutely achievable if people group the fuck up already. Any movement to take on the gio has to come from the bottom up because it requires people who don't know how to politic, to learn to do so, and that starts in the small ponds.

[–] MountingSuspicion@reddthat.com 132 points 1 day ago (9 children)

the Kentucky lawmaker hasn’t voted in nearly a month

Missing X votes per term should be grounds for impeachment or recall or something. Being unable to fulfill your obligations to your constituents and still occupying the position is disgusting. I don't really agree with his constituents, but we all deserve our constitutionally guaranteed representation. People deserve sick leave, but there needs to be a mechanism to stop this kind of exploitation of basically an unreplaceable position.

[–] pennomi@lemmy.world 55 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Not “grounds for”, it should be automatic. The system has lots of mechanisms to remove bad actors, but due to the inherent obstructionism in the system it’s impossible to actually trigger them.

Sick leave is fine, but the job has to get done regardless.

[–] MountingSuspicion@reddthat.com 11 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I think the constituency should be able to decide. If there's a natural disaster or something and the person is either helping locally or somehow affected and the opposition attempts to rush through votes to get a special election where several displaced people may be unable to vote I don't want them to have that power. At the end of the day the people being represented should be able to decide what to do.

Maybe automatic makes more sense, I just don't love policies where the people affected have no say. I feel like they are easy to abuse. I know they could technically reelect the same person, but as is people struggle to get to the polls. I can't imagine rushing a special election during some kind of disaster. It's a lot of money and stress if people don't actually want the change.

[–] ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

In the US elections are entirely up to the state, regardless of any other factor: a state legislature can constitutionally address any unusual circumstances, like a natural disaster, according to its needs.

As a separate issue, in most states the governor simply selects replacements for vacant offices, like US Senator, and would also be able to do so in the event of any extreme circumstances.

But Mitch McConnell himself worked to change this in Kentucky in 2024, as soon as he realized he wasn't going to run again and his health might give out on him: he wanted to ensure Gov. Beshear, a Democrat, could not select his replacement.

The law in Kentucky that he helped to push through, requiring a special election for his replacement, IS automatically triggered and only bars a special election from three months prior to a regular election. If that deadline is passed, in this case August 3, then the good people of Kentucky only have one senator instead of two until January.

But to have a vacancy, someone has reveal the truth that there actually is a vacancy to be filled. So the suspicion now is that the Republicans are going to try to hide McConnell's condition until the first Tuesday in August -- the last day a Kentucky special election can be called -- so that Thomas Massie, a Republican who just got primaried out of his own Congressional seat, can't make a run for McConnell's now obviously vacant Senate seat.

This is an interesting debate -- X link / (xcancel link) -- around the minutiae of it; apparently no matter what happens now a legal challenge awaits in Kentucky. That's what happens when someone like McConnell pushes through a badly written, ill-thought piece of legislation that isn't clear enough: whoever doesn't like it has grounds to sue.

Which is to say that he didn't just fuck it up for his own vacant seat, he fucked it up for Kentucky by tying the governor's hands when ANY state or state-related federal office becomes vacant.

If this is too long I apologize; I started off answering your own comment and then it expanded to the current situation. I hope you find it useful.

[–] pennomi@lemmy.world 16 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I mean, letting the constituency decide sounds an awful lot like a special election 😉

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[–] Substance_P@lemmy.world 61 points 1 day ago (2 children)
[–] Abyssian@lemmy.world 59 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Totally a normal thing a person does when they're trying not to scream at everyone to leave them alone because they're trying to mourn they deceased parent because dirty soulless politicians want them to keep the death a secret for their political games.

[–] mrmisses@lemmy.world 45 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Totally normal to have your wife fly to China as soon as you have a heart attack and are sent to the hospital, too /s

[–] Abyssian@lemmy.world 44 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Of course she took off as soon as she could. She never expected that job to last over 33 years!

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[–] kescusay@lemmy.world 47 points 1 day ago (2 children)

The only question swirling in my mind is how long they'll Weekend at Bernie's him before admitting the truth.

[–] ContactClosure@lemmus.org 1 points 5 hours ago

If he "dies" more than 90 days before the election they have to do a special election.

[–] Mycatiskai@lemmy.ca 31 points 1 day ago (1 children)

After August 3 apparently, after then it is too late to put someone in for him until the election.

[–] kescusay@lemmy.world 20 points 1 day ago (8 children)

That only works if they can keep everyone involved quiet. If he's actually deceased, that fact is going to leak.

[–] redsand@infosec.pub 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Sounds like he's brain dead which fits with "found unconscious". They can keep him on life support for months

[–] ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world 3 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago) (1 children)

That's my guess as well. There was also reporting that said CPR was administered. When that is done on a frail elderly body, it creates many more problems than it solves.

He started with cardiac arrest and now he's got maybe a chest full of shrapnel as well: he's only leaving feet first, IMO.

[–] zbyte64@awful.systems 3 points 21 hours ago

5% survival rate for people his age.

[–] HumanOnEarth@lemmy.ca 13 points 1 day ago (8 children)

My totally unfounded theory is that he's just hooked up to a bunch of machines to keep him "alive" and they'll pull the plug after that.

It really does make the most sense given the info at have so far.

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[–] shittydwarf@piefed.ca 31 points 1 day ago
[–] PP_BOY_@lemmy.world 21 points 1 day ago (5 children)
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[–] sepi@piefed.social 18 points 1 day ago

He's as spry as a dead 92-year-old man.

[–] Honse@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 points 1 day ago (11 children)

The best part is it's legally unclear how this will resolve, they'll likely be able to just stay silent and block any attempt for a special election and have a decent legal argument for it. One last fuck you from Mitch.

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