Schrödinger's Senator

      Is he dead? Is he alive? Is he both? It depends entirely on whom you ask and what their political stripe is.

     On, fittingly, Trump's 80th birthday, Mitch McConnell was rushed to the hospital after suffering what was rumored to be a cardiac event. He was unconscious and the paramedics had to do CPR on him. He's been in the hospital since and hasn't voted in the Senate since June 11th.

     His office is claiming that McConnell is working closely with his staff from his hospital bed and that it's business as usual. Nothing to see here, folks.

     And the Beltway media dutifully acts like the stenographers they are.

     But here's the thing: We wouldn't have known that McConnell was found unconscious in his DC home or that he'd been administered CPR if it wasn't for Desirée Townsend, an independent journalist and one of McConnell's neighbors.

     Townsend somehow got hold of the EMS audio recordings that detailed the life-saving measures performed on McConnell that night.

     Now, as you can expect, the GOP is circling the wagons and being completely opaque if not outright disingenuous about McConnell's condition. Up to a point, one has to understand why. After all, we're talking about a man's medical condition, which, according to HIPAA regulations, has to be kept confidential. But Mitch McConnell isn't just any other patient.

     The state of McConnell's health has national security implications. As the former Senate Majority leader, McConnell had access to top secret intelligence that few others in the country have. And that's where his wife, Elaine Chao, comes in.

     Chao, bizarrely, fled to China days after her husband's hospitalization to speak to the Chinese Vice President. One of their daughters closed down her Twitter account. Townsend said no one has been in McConnell's home since June 14th.

     Now, I don't indulge in conspiracy theories like Marjorie Taylor-Greene, who's openly accusing Chao of being a Chinese spy.

     Scott Jennings claimed he'd heard from McConnell recently and that they'd spoken for 17 minutes. But consider the source. This is Scott Jennings we're talking about, who's just a reliable right wing rodeo clown on CNN, so you have to take whatever he says with a grain of salt.

      Now, there's some cause for believing that there's the usual Republican skullduggery afoot. According to Kentucky election laws, if a US senator cannot finish their term before August 3rd, it automatically triggers a special runoff election. If the senator in question survives past August 3rd, it goes to the general election in November.

     The reason why Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, can't name a replacement is because Republicans changed the laws back in 2024 forbidding him from doing so. So, basically, The GOP is playing Weekend at Bernie's with McConnell to ensure that Thomas Massie, the outgoing US Congressman, doesn't throw his hat in the ring. Massie is the ultimate wild card and the Kentucky GOP's worst nightmare.

     They're terrified that if McConnell is indeed proven to be incapacitated prior to August 3rd, Massie will enter the special election and split the Republican vote, paving the way for a Democrat to occupy McConnell's seat.

     So the Republican Party is still clinging to McConnell's withered body for the next few weeks in the name of party primacy.