Brendan and I have been working hard on our podcast for the last couple days and when I took my nose off the grindstone and looked up, I noticed that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky appears to have suffered some kind of major health event. Take a look at the video.
I’m not a doctor, but that is deeply concerning. McConnell had a bad fall in March at a Waldorf Astoria hotel fundraiser in Washington, DC. He suffered a concussion and a rib fracture and spent a couple days in the hospital. He didn’t return to his duties in the Senate for six weeks, in Mid-April.
Between Diane Feinstein and John Fetterman’s well-publicized health scares, and now McConnell’s clear debilitating problem, it has been a rough start to 2023 in Congress’s upper chamber. And it matters more than it usually would because the Democrats’ only have a 51-49 seat advantage and the Republicans obstruct everything they possible can, all the time.
It’s also time for Congress to nail down the appropriations bills for the next fiscal year, and that will be an extra challenge without McConnell available to steer the Senate Republican Caucus. I suppose that role will fall to his deputy, Senate Minority Whip John Thune of South Dakota. Like McConnell, Thune is no friend of Donald Trump. He has endorsed his colleague, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, for the GOP’s presidential nomination.
Maybe McConnell will be find after he lies down and drinks a couple glasses of water, but I have my doubts.
It was like watching Reagan during that first debate with Mondale when he visibly—to anyone who had known or loved anyone with Alzheimer’s—displayed symptoms of the disease. Just horrifying.
They showed all 23 seconds of that episode. It is clearly a problem that he will need help with. I never liked Reagan but when your mind goes like that it is a tragedy,
It’s incredibly frustrating to be stuck with institutions like the Senate, and its archaic rules of filibuster, and one senator being able to hold up important business. Combine that with the nihilism of one party – and we are slow marching to the death of democracy!
Time to change the constitution and the SCOTUS!
Abolish the Senate and give its powers to the House.
Create another 1565 House districts. This step alone almost wholly destroys any substantial Gerrymandering AND the Electoral College stops being a massive check on the power of the people to elect the President.
Create 18 year tenures for SCOTUS seats, and allow each President to appoint 2 Justices per term.
It would be so much better if one didn’t have to be 80 years old to get the good gigs in the Senate. Too many want their last breath to be taken in the chamber apparently.