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78
Mitch McConnell announces discharge from rehabilitation center (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 10 hours ago by ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world to c/politics@lemmy.world
43 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

This is the press release from McConnell's staff: https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=25E43CBF-8898-4D4C-AFFE-B31F85872009

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[–] rowinxavier@lemmy.world 3 points 1 hour ago

This is regurgitation of a press release. Has anyone outside of his circle actually seen him? Confirmed his status? Seen him move his eyes? No, not from this reporting. Is it possible he is alive? Yes, of course. Is it possible he is dead? Yes, of course. No evidence to say he is alive, just other people saying he is alive.

If he dies between now and the next election and there is not proof he is alive I think it is reasonable to think they hid a much earlier death for political advantage. It would be incredibly simple to provide proof of life, so simple that not providing it becomes evidence against the proposition. Not confirmation, not certainty, but on balance one should be less certain he is alive than prior to this very suspicious behaviour.

[–] Rothe@piefed.social 14 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

The Guardian helping perpetuating the lie by posting a picture from May of him in a wheelchair, so the people not reading anything (the majority) will think it is a recent photo.

[–] rowinxavier@lemmy.world 2 points 1 hour ago

And by not even discussing the lack of evidence and deafening silence they are normalising the situation.

When the Prime Minister of Australia went missing off the coast it wasn't hidden from the people, it was discussed on the news. When he was declared dead it was public information. Surely if the USA can't match Australia for transparency about the living or dead status of a high level figure The Guardian should make note of it?

[–] Nouvellalia@lemmy.world 6 points 2 hours ago

[–] Snapz@lemmy.world 4 points 3 hours ago

"I'm doing jumping jacks with my alive human parts!"

[–] PRIMEcavitationfetishist@quokk.au 4 points 4 hours ago

Nah. That bitch deaaaaad.

[–] resipsaloquitur@lemmy.cafe 21 points 7 hours ago

Mitch is feeling much better lately.

Went for a hike today:

Then they visited Paris:

And stopped by Euro Disney:

[–] Xtallll@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 6 hours ago

All these articles make it sound like he had a press conference, it's a text only post to his website.

https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2026/8/update-from-senator-mitch-mcconnell

[–] ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world 72 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago) (4 children)

One notes he still has not been personally seen or heard from, yet if he's well enough to travel to go "home" -- "home" still remaining carefully undefined -- he's certainly well enough to appear in a 30-second video, IMO.

Factually speaking, whichever way you choose to interpret it, this brief ChatGPT-sounding press release from his office comes just after the deadline for calling a Kentucky special election to fill McConnell's Senate seat; he still has not offered any kind of live evidence that he is compos mentis or even conscious; he is still just as personally absent in every way as he has been since June in an unbroken streak of total non-verifiable communication; and his Senate seat is now legally and permanently locked until its new occupant is elected in November and sworn in later in January.

My personal take, and it is just my opinion, is that he is not expected to live, never was, and this is what we were all expecting to see. Instead of being a death notice it's a pre-death notice, if you will. He has been moved to a longer-care facility, wherever that may be, and his handlers don't want to deal with the rightful backlash of the rest of us knowing the truth.

Or, you know, he could just get up and do a happy little jig for TikTok and prove us all wrong, lol.

[–] darkdemize@sh.itjust.works 40 points 10 hours ago (3 children)

I personally believe he's been dead, or at least brain dead, ever since or shortly after the incident in June.

[–] PP_BOY_@lemmy.world 31 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (1 children)

Honestly shame on Beshear for not pushing this harder. I get that there's probably a tightrope walk being a Democrat governor in a state like Kentucky with a republican assembly, but still. If it turns out that McConnell has been dead or actually incapacitated since June, history should remember his idleness in letting the RNC wait it out as a huge fumble

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 13 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

Honestly shame on Beshear for not pushing this harder.

It's effectively a push, when Republicans control the Senate. A no-show and a no-vote are functionally equivalent under current circumstances.

I'm more upset with Senate Dems failing to clog up the appointment process for Lindsey Graham's seat. Mike Johnson sat on a Dem house seat for 50 days straight. Least Chuck could do is drag out confirmation for Lindsay's sister and make Collins take a few bullets by voting party line on some dogshit.

[–] ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world 19 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (2 children)

Same here. When the video by his DC neighbor came out showing the ambulance, the EMT was standing in the back with the doors open, McConnell's feet clearly visible behind him on the gurney, and the EMT was casually doing something else in no hurry to get going. Other witnesses also mentioned that when it left there were no sirens.

So yeah, dead or brain dead like you say, but clearly not coming back.

Personally I think his people are gonna give it a bit of time, anywhere from a couple days to a month, and then announce some kind of downturn that has now resulted in his "sudden and unexpected" death. But he's been gone all along, IMO.

[–] meco03211@lemmy.world 11 points 9 hours ago (3 children)

EMTs are actually trained not to rush things. If you consciously slow your pace you can prevent an adrenaline dump in hectic scenarios. Also he could be stable after being resuscitated. I wouldn't characterize what the EMT did as indicative of him not being... salvageable (that doesn't seem like the right word?).

I'd also doubt he was clinically dead if they are still formally reporting him as alive. There is going to be a lot of paperwork that needs to fall exactly in line if he had been dead all this time but not being reported. There's a lot of people involved that would need to remain silent on the truth and be willing to post date/fudge information. I just don't see them wanting to roll the dice on that.

[–] Carl@anarchist.nexus 3 points 4 hours ago

EMTs are actually trained not to rush things. If you consciously slow your pace you can prevent an adrenaline dump in hectic scenarios.

Yeah, the saying is “slow is smooth; smooth is fast.” Basically, slow down and make sure you’re doing things intentionally. That will be faster in the long run than needing to redo things because you rushed, or doing things wrong and making the situation worse.

[–] ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world 5 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

You're probably right about the "stable after resuscitation" thing. I assume that means independent breathing and heartbeat. I don't know much about emergency medicine, though I have always heard a body can maintain independent life support with only minimal brain health. (This is probably before your time but I was around when the Karen Ann Quinlan thing was going on with all its endless debates.)

But it's not just that. In an interview with Katie Couric last month, Gov. Andy Beshear said,

Well, Mitch McConnell's boss are the people of Kentucky. There are constituents which deserve honesty and transparency. It had been a month before anything had been put out, not even an official statement from Senator McConnell. In fact, I'd gotten two calls from different agencies, not state agencies, suggesting he'd passed. So, this rampant speculation that was out there, it needed to end.

That's McConnell's governor himself saying he got calls "suggesting" that McConnell was already dead, not from individuals but unnamed and "not state" (presumably federal) agencies.

Most importantly, McConnell himself still hasn't ended the speculation when to do so would be easy enough if he were conscious and alert. Instead, AI press releases come out of his office with "proof of life" photos that are both problematic in their own right, strongly suggesting that his people are already going to extreme lengths to keep his actual condition a secret, already remaining silent on the truth, already creating false evidence to support a fraudulent pretense of not just life but ongoing improvement. Yet he personally never shows.

So for me, I don't think it's a stretch to consider that people already committing that kind of fraud on the public would stop short of a job well done. But that's not a slam on someone that doesn't want to go there; I can understand why anyone would want more proof. It's not like a hearty set of lies has never come out of the US govt before, lol.

[–] darkdemize@sh.itjust.works 7 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

The president is a rapist felon mafia boss. They can do whatever they want, because who's gonna stop them?

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 3 points 8 hours ago

Some kid in a Demolition Ranch t-shirt, if he can keep the scope level

[–] bigfish@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 9 hours ago (2 children)

How safe is his seat? If it's even close, I'd reason this is being held back so the Republicans don't have to run someone new until after the upcoming election cycle. "Emergency temporary appointment" or some BS because "it's too close to the election".

[–] ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world 7 points 9 hours ago

McConnell announced his retirement in February 2025 and was not seeking re-election this year, meaning that Kentucky was always going to elect a new senator for his seat this November anyway. Otherwise your point is well taken, and it was McConnell himself who pulled that "too close to an election" shit with Obama's Supreme Court nomination.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 2 points 8 hours ago

How safe is his seat?

The governor is a Democrat. Take from that what you will.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 4 points 8 hours ago

Senator Teri Shaivo

[–] theneverfox@pawb.social 7 points 7 hours ago

Instead of being a death notice it's a pre-death notice, if you will. He has been moved to a longer-care facility, wherever that may be, and his handlers don't want to deal with the rightful backlash of the rest of us knowing the truth.

He was probably braindead on arrival IMO. Kinda both legally dead but also you can drag out the official date for ages

It would also explain why the videos of the ambulance looked so unhurried and why his wife immediately left to visit China

[–] dhork@lemmy.world 13 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Instead of being a death notice it's a pre-death notice, if you will.

I prefer to say that he is fillibustering his own obituary....

[–] ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world 2 points 9 hours ago

Lol he is

[–] paranoid@lemmy.world 3 points 7 hours ago

I think they moved him home for hospice. Though it should also be noted that nobody has seen him at his home, even just transported from "rehab"

[–] Kirp123@lemmy.world 32 points 9 hours ago (3 children)

Seems insane to me that an elected official can go MIA for close to a month and it's business as usual.

[–] morgan_423@lemmy.world 24 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

And he's still MIA! Still no one's seen him, all we've seen are a series of "statements" that he supposedly wrote, released by his office, and janky photos that are highly likely to be AI.

He's got to be dead, or brain dead. Considering they could make it all go away just by letting him show his face for two minutes, it has to be that he's incapable of doing so.

[–] FreshParsnip@lemmy.ca 1 points 7 hours ago

Maybe they're gonna use an AI deep fake to keep him alive

[–] ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world 11 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (2 children)

He's not even the first. Tom Kean, a Republican rep from NJ, stayed absent for just under four full months earlier this year without explanation and then blithely explained it as "treatment for depression." But he's still running for reelection in November.

[–] midribbon_action@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 55 minutes ago

Tom Kean's story is believable. He was in the hospital for most of it and informed the speaker early of his exact condition. House members just aren't as critical, individually, as well. The only thing I'm mad at is how much better healthcare he received than the vast majority of americans.

[–] darth_grunkus@lemmy.world 4 points 9 hours ago

And then these same people will shoot down a minimum wage increase, saying "if you want more money work harder."

[–] lemmylump@lemmy.world 9 points 9 hours ago

It's been more than a month. This Rigor Tortoise has been gone since JUNE 14TH.

[–] garretble@lemmy.world 22 points 9 hours ago

McConnell didn’t announce shit.

Some person announced this on his behalf.

[–] butsbutts@lemmy.ml 4 points 7 hours ago

discharged into the ground

[–] DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world 2 points 6 hours ago

He'll take a turn for the worse soon and "die" at home. Then they can finally pull him out of the morgue and bury him.

No one believes he's alive anymore than anyone believes Epstein killed himself, but they'll keep up the official charade for decades until anyone who cared is long dead, then some future politicians will reveal it was all bullshit.

[–] harrys_balzac@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 8 hours ago

I think they confused "rehabilitation center" with "taxidermist."

[–] FluidBeef@quokk.au 4 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Funny the discourse is about whether he’s alive or dead, and not “this fucker is a billion years old and doddery as fuck, it’s time he retired”.

[–] jaschen306@sh.itjust.works 2 points 7 hours ago

.... it's time he die" FIFY

[–] Arrandee@lemmy.world 6 points 9 hours ago

“Important Senate business” - such as hospice care

[–] shweddy@lemmy.world 3 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

When disccharge from earth

[–] PRIMEcavitationfetishist@quokk.au 1 points 4 hours ago

Like a month ago dude.

[–] tenchiken@anarchist.nexus 2 points 9 hours ago

Mitch McConnell ~~announces~~ IS discharge from rehabilitation center