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Oh Look At What Major Media Outfit Is Pushing the"What If McConnell Resigns?" BS. The NYT! [1]

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Date: 2023-09-01

I know. Everyone hates a “I told you so!” But this total bullshit piece from the New York Times about Mitch McConnell’s health is just too priceless to pass up.

What Happens if Mitch McConnell Retires Before His Senate Term Ends? The longtime Republican leader froze up during a news conference on Wednesday in Kentucky. The second such episode in recent weeks, it stirred speculation about his future in the Senate.

OMG! The sky will fall! Cats will start sleeping with dogs! Trump may have lost the 2020 Election!

For once I can feel smugly superior to this intrepid reporter from the NYT. MCCONNELL IS NEVER GOING TO RESIGN BEFORE HIS SENATE TERMS ENDS! HE WILL DIE IN OFFICE BEFORE RESIGNING! END OF SPECULATION!

And said reporter, Neil Vigdor, does a shitty job of covering the law that the Republican supermajority in the legislature passed to protect a Republican Senate seat.

Under the new law, a state executive committee consisting of members of the same political party as the departing incumbent senator will name three candidates the governor can choose from to fill the vacancy on a temporary basis. Then a special election would be set, and its timing would depend on when the vacancy occurs. At the time that G.O.P. lawmakers introduced the change, Mr. McConnell supported the measure. Mr. Beshear, who is up for re-election this November, vetoed the bill, but was overridden by the Legislature.

Nothing in there that this law has NOT been challenged in court. Nothing said about how Governor Beshear stated this law violated both the U.S. and Kentucky Constitution with regards to filling senate vacancies (see 17th Amendment). Nothing about how Beshear could appoint a Democrat to any Senate vacancy and tell the Republicans to go fuck themselves and see you all in court.

Nope. It’s a done deal according to Vigdor. Republicans will get a Republican replacement if McConnell drops dead.

Once again, no resignation. McConnell will die first before leaving his seat of power any time before Jan 2027. If they have to wheel him into the Senate Chamber on a stretcher, McConnell will remain a senator.

Anyway, Vigdor goes into full speculation mode on possible McConnell successors:

But replacing him with a unflagging ally of the former president could rankle Mr. McConnell, who has become a fairly sharp, if cautious, critic of Mr. Trump after the former president’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election and after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Once again, McConnell will be dead. In fact, he will be as dead as that parrot in the Monty Python sketch. Therefore, McConnell will not give a shit who replaces him in the U.S. Senate, as long as it isn’t a Democrat. And seeing as McConnell will be dead, he won’t be around to argue when Beshear replaces him with a Democrat because HE WILL STILL BE DEAD!

I won’t get into the list of so called Republican “replacements” for McConnell because I have my doubts that McConnell would even announcement retirement in 2026. People are now talking about how an ailing senator should retire for the good of everyone, but there are plenty of examples of senators with failing health who stayed in until they dropped dead or announced retirement on their terms.

Besides McConnell, we all know about Diane Feinstein. She is sticking in there until Jan 2025. Defenders of Feinstein point out that if Feinstein retires now that McConnell will block any appointment of her replacement to the Judiciary Committee. This will then result in a blockade of Biden judicial nominees.

And they may have a point, but Feinstein shouldn’t have run the last time for this seat. She will be 90 years old next year. And I bet she was not firing on all cylinders when she ran in 2018. But Feinstein did not want to give up her seat. Power and a good cushy job are hard to give up for a politician.

And let’s not forget that Strom Thurmond was serving in the Senate well beyond his “best if used by” date. I read a story that Thurmond in his 80’s thought that a reporter was one of his aides, so he took the reporter by the arm and asked him to “take him to the toliee.”

Yes, the reporter took Thurmond to the bathroom. This caused panic in one of Thurmond’s aides who had lost track of the Senator. But hey, President Joe Biden’s so called dminished mental accuity is all the rage for Republicans.

Another story has popped up that at a political meeting that Thurmond didn’t even recognize his OWN SON at said gathering. But Republicans didn’t want to see Thurmond go, and as I have stated before, South Carolina voters kenw they were actually voting for Thurmond’s “staff” and Thurmond was nothing but the face for his campaigns.

Am I ageist? No. I’m 60 years old, and I am always reminded of my health issues (diabetes, high blood pressure, depression,...etc.). I am also taking care of my 94 year old Mom who has dementia. But neither of us is in a seat of power.

And power is what it is all about for McConnell. Not policy. Not being a public servant. McConnell wants to keep his power and increase it, if he can. Resignation means giving up power, and that is not in McConnell’s DNA.

How a NYT reporter cannot see this simple fact tells me this reporter needs to resign.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/9/1/2190850/-Oh-Look-At-What-Major-Media-Outfit-Is-Pushing-the-What-If-McConnell-Resigns-BS-The-NYT

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