Me neither. Lying has become such an intrinsic part of the Republican platform that they don’t even try to do it plausibly anymore. They will flat-out try to gaslight people. “Don’t trust what you can see, trust us.” So, no, I am not taking a single Republican’s word on something that’s so self-serving without evidence.
The best meme I saw regarding this was:
“I just spoke to my good friend Mitch McConnell by phone and he’s all in favor of universal health care, raising the minimum wage and increasing taxes on billionaires.”
Has anyone said he’s dead besides internet crazy people like Laura Loomer?
John Thune doesn’t seem like someone to fabricate a cover up. If he said he talked to Mitch, that’s probably true. At least, more probable than whatever Loomer says.
I’m sure that John Thune talked to McConnell. But did he answer when he did call for him?
Desireé Thompson, the independent reporter who first connected the EMS call to McConnell, has reported that McConnell is “brain dead.” Mitch McConnell’s Office Dodges Questions on Whether He’s “Brain Dead” | The New Republic
You can decide if you think she is reputable, but she is not crazy like Loomer, for sure.
*Townsend
[that is all]
Oops, thanks for the correction.
Well, CNN commentator Scott Jennings claimed he spoke with McConnell for about 17 minutes yesterday, so either someone is lying or uninformed or John Thune and Jennings were talking to McConnell’s ghost. I don’t think even Republicans would stoop to using an impersonator.
It’s curious, though, that his office isn’t saying anything. If he’s well enough to have a coherent conversation about current events as Jennings claims, you’d think his office would confirm that he’s alive and well.
I think deliberately being vague serve several purposes:
– It tests the waters for what will happen if someone really is incapacitated.
– Giving those in the know a sense of power when they can do this just because they can with no consequences
– Gives them a “gotcha ya” moment when the inevitable speculation turns out to be false, thus attempting to invalidate any future positions of those in the wrong.
(my correction of Townsend’s surname above - b)
More strictly, Townsend tweeted – in response to Loomer’s “… source … tells me … McConnell is officially brain dead” tweet – that she “heard the same thing from my sources for days.” Yesterday on The Young Turks, Townsend addressed this topic on air and hedged a bit. When asked if she thought McConnell “is, in fact, brain dead?”, Townsend hedges a bit and responds that she “personally believes that is the case, or he is still on life support”.
They’ve had plenty of time to make AI Mitch. Which would be an improvement in any case. Of course so is brain dead.
Lots of humorous posts on X about people speaking to Mirch for 20 minutes.
Hmmm… asked what he thought of McConnell’s condition, Jennings replied that all he could say is that McConnell sure seemed to know a lot about current events …
Scott Jennings is, nominally, a “CNN commentator”, but a far better description of him would be “right wing hack” - and has been since giving yeoman service to the Bush 43 administration in putting other political hacks in charge of US attorney offices. Given the amount of dissembling, deflecting, and distracting that he does on CNN in the service of his political masters, I can’t put the idea that he is lying (yet telling the truth in a very technical way) out easily in any way, shape or form. He’s one of Mitch McConnell’s supporters and proteges; he has every reason to lie here - it’s not like you can appeal to his “journalistic integrity” or somesuch, he doesn’t have any.
I’d like to know the time elapsed between collapse and the start of CPR. If it took more than a few minutes to get to him, wouldn’t the brain damage be profound and irreversible?
“Mitch, if you’re alive, conscious, and in full control of your faculties lie there with your eyes closed and don’t say or do anything at all.”
2 seconds pass…
“Welp, works for me…”
He’s now the perfect Republican Senator.
Adding to reports from a few Republicans that they allegedly have been in touch with McConnell and “talked with him for 20 minutes”, someone masquerading as “Rep. Jack Kimble of California’s (nonexistent) 54th District” posted on his Twitter account that he talked with McConnell for 45 minutes, that Kimble did all the talking (Mitch is such a good listener) and that afterwards they had a staring contest, which McConnell won.
CNN ran a story on Republicans claiming to have spoken with McConnell and got duped into including Kimble. Hilarity has ensued.
I agree re: Jennings. He has proven himself a disgusting shill with zero honor.
Any new news on Rigor-tortoise. Soon enough he’ll be a box turtle in any case.
((Puns definitely stolen and not my originals.))
Can you unpack this for me? I gave up on CNN a long time ago, so don’t know how to interpret the tweet you shared, in which the non-existent “Jack Kimble” says that CNN’s left-wing bias is exposed, accompanied by CNN coverage of people who claim to have spoken with McConnell.
I’m not sure which of these (or something else) is the intent of that tweet:
(A) It’s sarcastic - “hah, people say that CNN is left-wing, and yet look how eagerly they present information that McConnell is doing well, to the point that they uncritically presented what was obviously fake information. That’s hardly a left-wing thing to do.”
(B) It really does reflect a belief that CNN is left-wing, because the context in which CNN presented the quotes was one of ridicule - CNN was making the claim that the rush of Republican conservatives claiming to have spoken with McConnell was unbelievable. (Particularly as the Kimble and Jennings quotes are word-for-word identical except for the number of minutes.)