yes

Turtles can be extremely long-lived

Like a good American, he completed his purpose for his masters.

He was a bitch. And he was proud of it.

Fuck him. Fuck these shitheads. Fuck it all up, everyone.

There’s no ghost in that shell, that’s for sure

he sold it to elaine, his wife for immortality as a Lich.

or undead.

Another old fart here. Yeah, I remember it too. That motherfucker. If it involved human rights of any kind, he was fully against it. And I’m still fucking salty about all that hateful “AIDS quarantine” shit that rolled out of his mouth.

But I temporarily lived in his district for a time right before his retirement, when he was visibly going downhill, and even then local people revered him. This is not an exaggeration. I didn’t get it until somebody explained it to me.

Simply put, Jesse Helms – and Strom Thurmond too, come to think of it – took constituent services to a very quietly insane level. The number of people I personally met who were like, “Yeah, so-and-so had this problem, Senator Helms took care of it, we’ll always be grateful,” would blow your mind. EVERYBODY had either had his office help them personally, or knew someone who had.

That’s why the rural folks who literally believe that someone like Trump personally cares about them can still think that: this is what they’ve lived with. Someone like Jesse Helms who was a snake in a skin suit but if you called his office, he took care of you and you gave him your undying, eternal allegiance.

That actually gives me a tiny bit of hope, because it’s only the much older legislators that do anything like that kind of constituent services now. The new ones are just riding on their fumes, and even those are running out.

There are conspiracy theories that he is brain dead, but that his aides will delay announcing it until after a certain date has passed. We know he was found unconscious at his home, and received CPR on the way to the hospital. And he hasn’t been in contact with anyone except his aides since.

Statistically, his odds of waking up after receiving CPR are pretty abysmal. His aides have been extremely cagey about it, and all the signs of them pulling a Weekend At Bernie’s scenario are present. Basically, his aides all say he is recovering well, but they refuse to let anyone else see him or interact with him in any way. So we simply have to take those aides at their word.

But notably, Kentucky has a law where the governor (a Democrat) can appoint someone to the seat if Mitch dies… That would give democrats the majority. But the governor can only make an appointment if Mitch’s death happens at least 90 days before an election. After that 90 day mark, the governor can’t appoint anyone, and has to wait for the election.

Kentucky’s next general election happens on November 3, meaning the 90 day mark is August 5, only a month away. So the conspiracy is that they’ll keep him on life support (and hidden from the press) until August, so they can wait until the 3 month deadline has passed. And then they’ll mournfully announce his passing, but oh oops it’s too late to appoint a democrat to his seat.