Once again, it is time for @GovAndyBeshear to call the special election.
McConnell’s team ignored the request for a health update.
It is not illegal to call a special an election on a presumed vacancy.
If Republicans have proof of life to halt it, then they can show the court.
He's an 80-year-old man with obvious health problems (swollen ankles, constant bruising on hands, overweight, dozes off in public) who just traveled abroad. He needs a few days to recover but no one in the press says anything about it b/c they dare not risk losing access to him.
Mitch McConnell is reportedly brain dead. The journalist who broke his cardiac arrest is at the hospital waiting for them to move his body. Her name is Desirée Townsend.
She's the independent reporter who obtained the EMS scanner audio confirming paramedics performed CPR at McConnell's D.C. home on June 14. NBC and CBS spent a week catching up to her.
Yesterday she tweeted that she's physically at the hospital, that multiple sources have told her the 84-year-old senator has been declared brain dead, and that his Capitol Police detail was still there as of 3:39pm ET.
Laura Loomer posted the same claim, citing a White House source. McConnell's office will not confirm or deny. They insist he is "continuing to improve."
The brain-death claim is not yet verified. Here's what is.
McConnell has been hospitalized for three straight weeks with no public explanation.
His office has never said why he was admitted. His last vote was June 11.
His wife Elaine Chao was photographed in Beijing meeting the Chinese vice president three days after her husband collapsed. She has not come home.
His daughter deactivated her X account.
Neighbors of his D.C. townhouse say no one has come or gone since the ambulance took him away. Not family. Not staff.
Kentucky's Democratic Governor Andy Beshear says McConnell's office is not returning his calls.
Now the politics.
Kentucky Republicans quietly rewrote the state's succession law in 2024. If McConnell's seat opens, Beshear cannot appoint a replacement. A special election gets triggered instead.
And the timing matters. If he can't finish his term after August 3, the special election just rolls into November. Before August 3, the GOP has to hold a standalone race.
They’re watching the calendar.
The election they're trying to avoid is the GOP's nightmare. Thomas Massie, the Republican congressman who has become one of Trump's loudest critics, would be a heavy favorite to run and split the red vote wide open.
Every day they hide McConnell's condition is a day they don't have to hold that race.
Whatever is actually happening in that hospital room, this is the picture from outside it: a senator who has not been seen in three weeks, a wife who left the country, a family that has gone dark, a governor being frozen out, and a party racing the clock on a succession law they wrote themselves.
Townsend is still at the hospital.
Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth ― “Carmel City”
this song is a pure vibe. spacey, warm, and highly atmospheric, the scratched-in whistle sample dope af. one of the standout tracks on the classic "The Main Ingredient"
Everybody buying numbers and views to look bigger. Alot of this streaming shit ain’t even real anymore. What is real though lol is being able to sell 100k albums to the people independently. If you wanna buy into something thats real hit the link below https://t.co/RjWDpiaDVG
Not even trying to throw shots at this particular tweeter but there are young ppl who have lived their entire lives with rap being embraced and mainstream. They are unaware of the time where rap was a counterculture that offended like 95% of Americans who were over 40 years old
Sony is currently charging $70 for God of War Ragnarok digitally. It is $32 at Wal-Mart. The game is 4 years old.
People will no longer have options after 2028 and will HAVE to go directly to Sony’s digital storefront and pay whatever PlayStation says.
NEW: “It is general knowledge in our practice that for $2 million, you can have a pardon,” a prominent defense attorney told me. Others said $1-2 million is the going rate, though clients were offering *many* times that amount for challenging cases. @michaelscherer@TheAtlantic https://t.co/5KL2vV3HEn