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[-] DarkFuture@lemmy.world 14 points 2 days 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.

[-] MountingSuspicion@reddthat.com 234 points 3 days ago

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 89 points 3 days ago

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 18 points 3 days ago

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 14 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days 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 as a whole, or at least until that law gets changed, 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 24 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

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

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[-] Substance_P@lemmy.world 108 points 3 days ago
[-] green_goglin 33 points 3 days ago
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[-] minorkeys@sh.itjust.works 30 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

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 5 points 2 days ago

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.

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[-] Abyssian@lemmy.world 90 points 3 days ago

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 81 points 3 days ago

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 61 points 3 days ago

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

[-] SGGeorwell@lemmy.world 18 points 3 days ago

Yes, she had to file her dossier with the station chief.

[-] kescusay@lemmy.world 75 points 3 days ago

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

[-] Mycatiskai@lemmy.ca 57 points 3 days ago

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

[-] kescusay@lemmy.world 32 points 3 days ago

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

[-] redsand@infosec.pub 18 points 3 days ago

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

[-] ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world 8 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

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 5 points 2 days ago

5% survival rate for people his age.

[-] HumanOnEarth@lemmy.ca 21 points 3 days ago

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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[-] ThePantser@sh.itjust.works 14 points 3 days ago

Knowing Trump he'll let it slip as soon as he can.

[-] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 17 points 3 days ago

They're not dumb enough to tell him, right?

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[-] ContactClosure@lemmus.org 3 points 2 days ago

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

[-] SabinStargem@lemmy.today 5 points 2 days ago
[-] shittydwarf@piefed.ca 51 points 3 days ago
[-] PP_BOY_@lemmy.world 39 points 3 days ago
[-] gh0stb4tz@lemmy.world 11 points 3 days ago

I don’t know what this is, but I feel like I should upvote it.

[-] 13igTyme@piefed.social 9 points 3 days ago

If I had to guess based on the blur, I think it's the guys that carry a coffin on their shoulder while dancing.

[-] ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.world 24 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

It's the dancing crab / rave crab meme.

But your guess works just as well.

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[-] sepi@piefed.social 24 points 3 days ago

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

[-] BigMacHole 22 points 3 days ago

This ENTIRE situation is PROOF that Trump runs the MOST TRANSPARENT Administration EVER!

-Free Thinking Alpha Republicans!

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[-] Honse@lemmy.dbzer0.com 22 points 3 days ago

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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[-] Treczoks@lemmy.world 19 points 3 days ago

I think there are way more wishes of "drop dead already" than "speedy recovery"...

[-] WanderWisley@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

Turtle soup.

[-] Fishnoodle@lemmy.world 16 points 3 days ago
[-] SnarkoPolo@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago

His brain is Alpo.

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this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2026
408 points (99.3% liked)

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