Styleseer 🇺🇸🇺🇦🇨🇦

Photographer. Loves fashion, food, far-flung places.

[Jim Sciutto @jimsciutto]

A child is abducted from occupied Kherson and turns up years later in the Russian army. @SaveukraineUs has documented one of potentially thousands of cases of one of the worst crimes of the #Ukraine war.

[Styleseer 🇺🇸🇺🇦🇨🇦 @Styleseer]

@nytimes Really? He said that? To whom? Is there a recording?

[Francis Fukuyama @FukuyamaFrancis]

Just a reminder that the crisis over Donald Trump's slush fund is not over as Todd Blanche heads towards confirmation as Attorney General: https://t.co/iHT3JE6UFV

[Joe Walsh @WalshFreedom]

Trump is a Russian asset, Trump works for Putin, Trump is in love with Putin, whatever one’s take, what it absolutely crystal clear is that Trump is on Putin’s side in this war. He always has been. Trump has never been on Ukraine’s side.👇

[Anonymous @YourAnonNews]

lol - it was ALL a LIE.
You have been lied to. How are people still defending this administration?

[Styleseer 🇺🇸🇺🇦🇨🇦 @Styleseer]

🎯

[NYTPitchbot @DougJBalloon]

Trump has tanked the economy and filled our streets with ICE agents who murder with impunity. But a liberal candidate I've never heard of in a state I've never been to says we should stop celebrating Thanksgiving. I have never felt more politically homeless.

[Charlotte Clymer 🇺🇦 @cmclymer]

This afternoon, the Office of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell released a statement, purporting to be from him, that announced he’s been discharged from a rehabilitation center and has returned to his home in Kentucky, where he will “maintain an intensive regimen of physical therapy during the state work period…”

It was written in the first-person and everything, as though Mr. McConnell had dictated it to staff. Philip Lewis of HuffPost helpfully posted a screenshot of the statement, and you can read the whole thing online.

For those unaware, state work periods are the official way of describing those frequent breaks Congress takes during the congressional session. Many lawmakers actually do go back to their states and their districts and do work. Some do not.

Anyway, I find that phrasing rather interesting because it carries the soft implication that Mr. McConnell will be returning to Congress. It’s a way of kinda-sorta winking: hey, I’m recuperating, and I’ll be back at it soon — but without explicitly saying that.

It was 53 days ago—June 14th—that Senator McConnell was found unconscious just before 9am in his townhouse on Capitol Hill. He was subsequently hospitalized, of course, and the American people haven’t seen him in public since.

Well, that’s not entirely true. His office did release two photos of him and his wife—former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao—that are said to be from his hospital/rehab rooms on July 12th and July 27th.

Some have claimed these are AI-generated images. I do not believe they are AI, and there’s no proof that they are AI.

However, I can’t pretend that I’m 100% convinced these photos were taken since the day he was found unconscious, but I do believe they are real images.

I realize that doesn’t make sense, and yet, given the very long pattern of bad faith words and actions on the part of Sen. McConnell and the Republican Party and Donald Trump, there remains a small part of me that wouldn’t put it past these folks to be, how shall I put it, less-than-honest on the whole nature of this thing.

Neither Sen. McConnell nor his office have released any videos of him talking about his health status or the business of the U.S. Senate or any national security matters (like that whole War in Iran thing we got going on) or even the recent, unexpected death of his longtime colleague, the late Sen. Lindsey Graham.

And that’s very curious because not a week has gone by—literally—without someone in the Republican Party or the world of conservative media claiming to have had long phone calls with Senator McConnell.

But no videos. Not one. He’s healthy enough to chat with all sorts of folks in his orbit over the phone and temporarily pose for pictures with Secretary Chao.

But no videos. No cable news interviews from his hospital/rehab room, which might be rather endearing and immediately end all speculation.

No phone calls with any Democrats, including Gov. Andy Beshear, the man who leads Mr. McConnell’s state and is charged with ensuring his constituents are represented capably in Congress.

No phone calls with any actual legacy media journalists, not conservative pundits pretending to be journalists.

No phone calls at all with anyone outside of Mr. McConnell’s tight ideological circle.

His office has released three press statements total in all that time, all of which are written in the first-person — again, as though Mr. McConnell had dictated them directly to staff. And that’s not including quotes claimed to be directly from Mr. McConnell given by his staff to reporters.

Then came today’s news. The move from rehab to home to “recover” and do “physical therapy” and “continue to engage with my staff and colleagues on important Senate business.”

It’s a strange thing, though.

There are no photos of Mitch McConnell leaving the rehab center. There are none of him arriving at the airport to depart for Kentucky. There are none of him arriving at his destination airport in Kentucky. There are none of him arriving at his Kentucky home.

None whatsoever. Just the statement and legacy media reporters giving a quick salute and dutifully reporting the update. No questions asked.

It’s especially strange given that Mr. McConnell continues to make votes.

Oh, yes! You read that right. As reported this afternoon by Tyler Spence of NOTUS, Senator McConnell was able to cast tie-breaking votes today in the Senate Agriculture Committee.

How is that possible?

Because the Committee’s rules permit an absent senator to allow a colleague to cast a vote on their behalf (“by proxy”) in their absence.

This time it was Agriculture Chairman John Boozman of Arkansas, who claims to have chatted with Mr. McConnell last night (you guessed it: over the phone) and received direct approval to vote on his behalf.

A man who has not been seen in public or any publicly released videos since June 14th has somehow written and/or approved all his press releases and seems to be on the phone quite a lot with a small, tight-knit group of people (but not the governor of his state) and continues to cast committee votes through his colleagues.

I don’t pretend to know exactly what’s going on with Senator McConnell.

I don’t know if he’s dead or incapacitated or if this is the most bizarre and irresponsible and selfish communications strategy ever undertaken by an incumbent Senate Majority Leader, who, by the way, has a rather important national security obligation while our country is at war.

Here’s what I do know:

There are thousands of media professionals with congressional credentials and hundreds of them have Congress as their main beat.

There are 100 Senate offices and about 5,000 Senate staffers.

There are tens of thousands of political professionals in D.C. with regular contact with those two groups.

It’s pretty crazy that in the most gossipy town in America—full of ravenously ambitious people always talking to other ravenously ambitious people, where influence is about knowing things firsthand—no journalists know for sure what’s going on with Mitch McConnell after 53 days.

And yet, legacy media continues to report his press releases as straightforward.

What are the odds?

That’s all to say that I want to be the first to congratulate the reporter(s) who are feverishly gathering intel on Mitch McConnell’s status right now that will be withheld and published in a bestselling, tell-all book in about a year.

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Link to full essay available here for easier sharing: https://t.co/v40OGgZVFo

[Joyce Carol Oates @JoyceCarolOates]

the media gloated about Biden's age long before he had anything like "advanced dementia" (which in fact he doesn't have even now). day after day in the N Y Times--"Biden old"--"Biden old." it did not matter what Biden did or said, what his administration achieved, his strong speech at Normandy--the tagline was always "Biden old."
by contrast, T***p's alarming cognitive impairment & its effect upon US government & the morale of the country going on now for months is being ignored.

[Barb McQuade @BarbMcQuade]

Contempt vote against Fauci by GOP senators is a lawless stunt my thoughts in @bloombergopinion
https://t.co/d4swTtW8fC

[Styleseer 🇺🇸🇺🇦🇨🇦 @Styleseer]

@MmisterNobody That Trump is qualified to be president.

[Styleseer 🇺🇸🇺🇦🇨🇦 @Styleseer]

@Suzierizzo1 $5.65
You can probably guess the state.

[Sigurdur Nordal @essenviews]

Trump’s New CDC Head Said ‘Abortion Surveillance’ Will Be A Critical Focus. “Abortion surveillance is absolutely a critical component of what the CDC is currently doing,” Schwartz responded.

“I also want to make sure that certain states are not conflating emergency services and hiding abortions in that emergency services case definition,” she added. “We need to make sure we’re pulling out true abortions and making sure that we’re really having clear case definitions regarding abortions so the data is actually accurate.” https://t.co/kO0eqqeS6f

[BBC News (World) @BBCWorld]

Trump again tries to limit US birthright citizenship with new executive orders https://t.co/jorobyhNl8

[Timothy Snyder @TimothyDSnyder]

Pedophilia is becoming the GOP mainstream
https://t.co/89JTpxWLY0

[Styleseer 🇺🇸🇺🇦🇨🇦 @Styleseer]

Yes, I was hoping for a lot more from TMZ in DC.

[Charlotte Clymer 🇺🇦 @cmclymer]

By the way, isn't getting a photo of McConnell in transit home exactly the sort of thing TMZ came to D.C. to do?

I'm not saying they're bad at their job. I *am* saying that it can't be both that TMZ is suddenly bad at what they do best *and* that we're somehow getting the full story on McConnell.

[Schuyler Mitchell @schuy_ler]

this is actually a really good 30 minute long john oliver segment on surveillance tech. did not think i'd ever see a late night host explain phrases like "predictive policing" and "cell-site simulators" to suburban america. the flock effect is crazzyyyyy
https://t.co/VC2ew9ZiD7

[Desirée Townsend @Cheering4Change]

I have so many questions: How is it that not a single news organization filmed him leaving the hospital? Why is there no photo or video of him in his current condition at home? Why aren’t there any Capitol Police officers outside his Washington, D.C., residence? Did anyone actually see him at the airport?

https://t.co/rT0ny9jbKb

[Amee Vanderpool @girlsreallyrule]

Trump plans to award $150 million to a small Texas firm with ties to him and NO EXPERIENCE in immigration or child welfare to represent unaccompanied children with no guardian.

This should get vulnerable kids deported to God knows where, asap, you know, cause Family Values.

[Aaron Rupar @atrupar]

Stephen Miller: "The president is using his authority as commander as chief to sign an executive order using the new ruling the Supreme Court issued to expand the definition of people who are ineligible for birthright citizenship. That includes, for example, alien enemies ... "

[Jim Sciutto @jimsciutto]

This would be a major step for Ukraine though - to be fair - Ukrainians have been calling for NATO to help defend their airspace since the start of the war, with appeals like this visible across the country.