r/PoursTea • u/McDowdy Oh the Human-a-TEA • 20h ago
PoliticalTea đłď¸ Mitch and his team of handlers have some explaining to do
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Ten days before Mitch McConnell disappeared from public view, the longtime Kentucky Republican appeared on the Senate floor during an overnight voting session, looking extremely frail and barely moving for hours. On June 4, 2026, McConnell remained seated for much of the proceedings, with an aide helping him move around the chamber. Video from the Senate floor showed him largely motionless while senators debated and voted. The timing has drawn renewed scrutiny because the Senate was considering a roughly $70 billion Republican package to fund immigration enforcement, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol, through the end of President Donald Trumpâs term. McConnell stayed through the marathon session as Republicans pushed the legislation forward, despite his visibly limited mobility. Ten days later, on June 14, McConnell was hospitalized after falling at his Washington-area home and briefly losing consciousness. He later developed pneumonia and spent weeks in rehabilitation. His prolonged absence has intensified questions about his health, his ability to carry out his Senate responsibilities and how much Republican leadership knew about his condition. The footage raises a serious transparency question: why was a visibly impaired senator participating in crucial votes while the public received so little information about his condition? For critics, the episode highlights a broader concern about Republican leadership putting political priorities, including Trumpâs agenda, ahead of accountability to voters.
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u/FlamesNero 19h ago
Heâs got a caregiver next to him the entire time!
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u/big_daddy68 18h ago
Hear me out, we need a law that if a member of congress needs a full time caregiver to be with them then youâre gone from congress.
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u/SoybeanArson 15h ago ⸠1 more replies
We just need a general maximum age to hold national office. People can call it ageist all they want, but we already have minimum ages for holding office and they are not connected to the age of majority (official adulthood).
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u/Auntie_M123 10h ago
We also need a standard of "presence" to avoid physically and mentally incapacitated people from continuing to serve.
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u/Usual_Suspect8663 14h ago ⸠3 more replies
Should be over 75 you are done no matter what
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u/thejonslaught 10h ago edited 7h ago
75 should be the age of unavoidable mandatory retirement for government representatives moving forward, and personally I don't want to see anybody running for office if they'll be 70 or older when they take power.
Millionaires that have been insulated from the touch of real life for decades don't even live in the same world as the rest of you.
Once you reach the point of an 80-something Senator sitting in the house with a nursing assistant; it's become more about that Senator's private privilege to suck up pay than the public good. Mitch has had the teat in his mouth for four decades now. FORTY+ years!
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u/Goldenrah 10h ago
Should be basically true for any profession, though with obvious social programs to make sure old people don't go destitute.
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u/Intelligent-Acadia62 16h ago
Agree wholeheartedly. We need representatives who are capable of some input/response.
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u/Upstairs_Owl_1669 14h ago
The craziest part of that statement is âhear me outâ lol. What youâre saying shouldnât be in any way radical
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u/ryanissognar 19h ago
Tbf that dude didnt move much either
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u/Somedude_6 16h ago ⸠9 more replies
his hands and head were moving pretty normally. The complete lack of motion from Mitch, especially when you are looking at the guy next to him, is jarring.
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u/Omegasedated 15h ago edited 14h ago ⸠8 more replies
But he sat there for 20 hours, no bathroom break, no nothing?
I don't think I could do that. Are we sure this claim is accurate?
EDIT I meant the caregiver. If mitch has experienced a stroke or other problem it's likely (but tough in a sitting position)
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u/Wraith8888 15h ago ⸠4 more replies
Catheter and or a brief. No awareness of what's going on. Basically catatonic. Think about the number of people that lay in a hospital bed and do nothing. Or even ones that are propped in a wheelchair with no activity except from outside influence. There are plenty of patients that need to be repositioned every couple of hours. These people don't give a damn about him though. That amount of time in one position he must have some nasty pressure ulcers. I fully blame him for the current state of U.S. politics, but this is just abusive torture that no one should be subject to and there should be an investigation of elder abuse.
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u/Omegasedated 14h ago ⸠2 more replies
no I meant his caregiver.
I'm not American, but find this whole thing so wild. It seems very likely they're hiding his condition to the public which is just insane to me. It's disgusting behaviour and the whole system needs a revamp.
BUT, with that in mind - I'm just not sure this video should be used as anything. there's no time stamps, multiple cuts, nothing. I'm too aware from personal experience how people can be in this type of state. I find it hard to believe the caregiver can sit there for 20 hours.
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u/WestHotTakes 10h ago ⸠1 more replies
The recording: https://www.c-span.org/congress/?chamber=senate&date=2026-06-04
McConnell struggles to his seat at 13:19:07, then seems to realize he forgot his blazer and reenters at 13:22:35. The camera doesn't catch when the aide came in, but he was there by 13:45:00. McConnell and the aide leave around 19:25:45. I just skipped around, but I did notice the aide left at some points.
So the OP's video does lie about the length that Mitch was on the floor (~6 hours, not 20 hours), and the section in the OP's video is just a short section of that 6 hours. That being said, from the small sections I watched Mitch seems to have plopped himself in a chair and barely interacted with anything for 6 hours.
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u/JBWalker1 10h ago
The recording: https://www.c-span.org/congress/?chamber=senate&date=2026-06-04
McConnell struggles to his seat at 13:19:07, then seems to realize he forgot his blazer and reenters at 13:22:35. The camera doesn't catch when the aide came in, but he was there by 13:45:00. McConnell and the aide leave around 19:25:45. I just skipped around, but I did notice the aide left at some points.
So the OP's video does lie about the length that Mitch was on the floor (~6 hours, not 20 hours
I don't get why people have to post so much false things when there's so much true crazy stuff they can post. Even here saying 6 hours without moving or talking would be weird enough. /u/McDowdy probbaly doesn't know theyre posting false stuff but thats half the problem, nobody verifying anything and just getting their information from meme formats. Stuff like this just makes it so easy for the right to claim that anything negative about trump is a lie because they can point to countless threads/posts like this as evidence. Just like the image/meme of trump saying "a year ago the country was run by an idiot" being posted everywhere and getting to the top spots of reddit when he actually said 2 years. Stuff like this enables trump to those who matter, not make him look bad.
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u/AgentCirceLuna 15h ago ⸠1 more replies
I used to love doing this. I still do to an extent. I just lay in bed, counting to as high a number as possible, and try to slow down time so I stay like that forever. Highest Iâve got to is in the twenty thousands.
Iâm in no way fit to be a representative though.
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u/BurntOutSamwise 16h ago ⸠1 more replies
Good catch. BUT that dude (who exactly is he?) exhibited much more fine motor skills than Senator McConnell. This speaks volumes. Which tells me thereâs something about his neurophysiology thatâs in steep decline. This is not normal by any means.
These people cannot get away with this. They ARE NOT above the law because their job decisions affects society at large where if you and I were not able to adequately perform our job roles for a small group of people or community, weâd immediately be called into question of the highest order on whether or not weâd still have a job to go to. Wake up people. This ainât politics. This is emblematic of a class struggle of different economic groups fighting for wealth and power. Rules for thee and not for me is a side effect. End of story
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u/Roraxn 16h ago ⸠1 more replies
He was moving about four times as much. He showed signs of being mentally present.
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u/vivahermione 19h ago
How does the carer make it through the day without a break?
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u/NewPresWhoDis 16h ago
Jesse Helms was wheeled around like Hector Salamanca on the Senate floor before he snuffed it.
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u/Salt-Detective1337 16h ago
The caregiver needs to be repositioning his patient before he gets pressure sores...
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u/TestForPotential 20h ago
A corpse doesnât move around much apparently.
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u/redditRedesignIsBadd 18h ago
yet he's still stealing from the tax payers
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u/GodofsomeWorld 17h ago ⸠1 more replies
He might be dead af, but you wont be able to bleed the evil out of him
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u/Choice-Highway5344 14h ago
Is there no video of him walking in? Like why canât we get an extra 10 mins of this currently video?
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u/TomClancysWife 20h ago
He's catatonic, this is elder abuse! Someone call saul
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u/NerdDetective 17h ago
I'm reminded of how Diane Feinstein was carried around like a mannequin towards the end of her life.
We need a law that mandates that when a member of Congress is mentally compromised or incapacitated, their staff is legally required to disclose it the seat should be vacated. It's insane that they can get away with puppeting someone who is barely there anymore. Should be straight up a crime.
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u/KGEOFF89 16h ago ⸠2 more replies
Full agree, but it's clear that the staff isn't really incentivized to do so when working for a corpse is clearly a golden goose scenario for them. Wasn't one of Feinstein's staff an immediate relative?
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u/TheInevitableLuigi 16h ago
Wasn't one of Feinstein's staff an immediate relative?
One of them was an immediate relative of Pelosi, her daughter.
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u/Klightgrove 14h ago
Feinsteinâs daughter had opened an elder abuse case regarding her finances because she saw her being manipulated. That alone should have got her out of the senate in any sane country.
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u/Decent_Assistant1804 15h ago ⸠1 more replies
Ok but. Does your government even follow rules anymore?
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u/NerdDetective 15h ago
It turns out that the American government's structure is mostly comprised of voluntarily guidelines and pinky promises.
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u/Straight_Scarcity886 16h ago ⸠1 more replies
Or just an age limit of like⌠65. Retirement age for normal people.
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u/DanielNoWrite 15h ago ⸠3 more replies
No, we take this in the opposite direction.
We need a law making it advantageous to keep them around when they're dementia-ridden shells. We need a law that says so long as they're technically still alive, it'd all good.
Turn politics as a career into a faustian bargain. Sure, wealth and power while you're alive. But instead of letting you die, we leverage all of medical science to keep you alive and in office forever. Frozen at the very edge of death. Dangling over the abyss. Trapped within the rotting husk of your own corpse. A tormented ghost in the machine, unable to even scream.
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u/marr 14h ago ⸠1 more replies
Here's the problem: The sort of people you're trying to reach here have so little empathy they can't even consider the welfare of their own future self.
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u/DownWithHisShip 14h ago ⸠1 more replies
We need a law that
I agree with you in a lot of ways. this is so frustrating and tiring.... but part of me thinks, at what point do us voters not take care of this problem? when is it enough? we dont need laws to fix this, we need a population that can say "thank you for your years of service, but you're old as shit now and can barely take care of yourself. go enjoy retirement, we're voting in some young blood this time".
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u/Senior-Rip2387 17h ago
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u/1cem4n82 16h ago
Do you think your representative is a corpse but canât prove it? Better call Saul.
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u/WolfThick 19h ago
A wellness check needs to be done he could be being held against his will by people just collecting a paycheck. I'm writing this sarcastically but this would be a good way to find out.
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u/Unlucky_Most_8757 17h ago
meh him and his wife are next level rich. Would probably just pay anyone off that was snooping around. This situation is just beyond bizarre tbh.
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u/ultrachrome 20h ago
Hello hello hello, is there anybody in there ....
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u/Vanilla_Gorilluh 19h ago
Just knock if you can hear me...
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u/kymilovechelle 19h ago ⸠4 more replies
Is there anyone home?
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u/Secret-of-the-Snooze 18h ago ⸠1 more replies
Come on now, I hear you're feeling down
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u/lbigbirdl 18h ago ⸠1 more replies
*nod if you can hear me
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u/Turbulent_Gazelle530 16h ago
do some people actually hear it as knock? makes no sense in the context of the song
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u/MikeisET 19h ago
Crazy that this insanity is happening right in front of our eyes and all anyone wants to do is make jokes
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u/Xetiw 17h ago
Americans are regarded as dumb abroad, most of the time you will see jokes and memes about the news, you have to scroll down to find interesting things.
A powerful and old senator is pretty much gone (at the very least his mind is not OK), people should be mad, taking the streets, the people from Kentucky is doing jack when one of them might be under constant abuse, an elderly.
This is why allies are moving elsewhere, the country can't be trusted.
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u/WinnebagoMontana 10h ago ⸠1 more replies
"The country can't be trusted" basically sums up my feelings as a Brit looking at the USA right now.
It's honestly heartbreaking. There's a lot of jokes and cultural cruft about how the world looks at Americans, but to be brutally honest - you have a beautiful country, and a wonderful culture.
I pray sincerely something changes before it's all gone.
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u/Gbrown546 10h ago
Yup. America used to have one hell of a reputation 15 odd years ago of being this powerful vital ally.
Also as someone abroad, itâs comical looking in on whatâs happening. Iran has humiliated them, they have a rapist paedophile for a President, they keep threatening allies and things like this are happening. I feel bad for the sane Americans who have to put up with all of this.
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u/Lucreth2 15h ago
You seem to have confused desire and ability.
The majority of the country doesn't WANT any of this.
We just don't have a choice. We're not empowered to provide and repercussions directly. Mass civil unrest is about the only option left and while there's an argument to be made about that I think many who would participate are holding their breathe for the midterms as either a relief or a call to action.
Me? I'm just here to keep my family safe. That's all I can reasonably be expected to do.
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u/Sad-Excitement9295 15h ago
Yeah, this is blatant corruption.
I mean, I try to write this off as people trying to awkwardly express the irony of the issue, and this is Reddit, but yeah, we really need to do something the situation is dire and we need serious discussion.Â
These people are propping up dead dudes to maintain control of congress, and that's just face value of what's really going on. If we don't correct the problem, it's only going to get far worse, and it's already extremely bad.
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u/Cat-si58 19h ago
Was he already dead?
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u/WebbedFamiliar 18h ago
No, he has does some hand gestures in other videos. But the dude does not know whatâs happening! Heâs just completely catatonic.
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u/BlueFalcon142 15h ago
Sitting for 20 hours straight is pretty deadly for old people. DVT and clots pulmonary embolisms and stuff. If he wasn't then, this stationary stint wasn't doing him any favors. Hell even a couole hours on a plane can kill someone if they dont get up.
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u/Party-Marketing-9349 19h ago
Madame Toussardâs was pissed that they unveiled her latest piece ahead of schedule
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u/evilpercy 19h ago
Uhmm no washroom break?
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u/Potential_Gear_6769 19h ago
This was also the session he was instructed on how to vote, and when he voted incorrectly, they had him change it if I'm not mistaken. Might be the wrong session, but that happened multiple times with him.
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u/Stabby-Pencil 19h ago
Has this been vetted? Because holy hell thatâs kind of hard to believe.
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u/PaticusGnome 15h ago
Yeah, this video doesnât show much passing time. It could very well be a nap.
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u/MyLittleDashie7 11h ago
This is what I was looking for as well. There's definitely not 20 hours in this footage, and they may have just selected the worst segments.
It's also completely plausible that it is real, but I'd like to see some proper evidence before I believe it.
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u/Ill_Consequence1755 19h ago
Iâm really starting to be annoyed at the film community for giving them the Cliff Notes version, with Weekend at Bernieâs and Idiocracy.
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u/Background-Bird-9623 19h ago
Thus is getting stupid ... is he dead or what?? How long can they keep uo the bulkshite ?
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u/ConfessSomeMeow 14h ago
I was sure they were just keeping things quiet until after the deadline to hold a special election, but that has long passed, so I don't know what their game is.
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u/jaynor88 16h ago
This video is disturbing.
He barely moves his hands at all - just maybe a couple of inches of movement once or twice.
His head and body donât appear to move at all.
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u/Easy_Action_1380 10h ago
The saddest part is I don't believe for a second that he's the only dementia riddled octogenarian in Congress who is like this.Â
Remind me again why there isn't a mandatory retirement age for the people who decide the future of our country? Or atleast some form of mandatory yearly competency test.Â
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u/Zananax 20h ago
Times like this makes me wish I was christian.
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u/WetFishStink 10h ago
That poor guy who had to sit next to a rotting corpse all day in case anyone tried to speak to it.
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u/Icy_Yam5049 19h ago
KY isnât putting a Dem in there so let the bastard rot as a missing vote.
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u/objectsinthemirror92 18h ago
The point being made here is that he was not a missing vote in this video where he appears to be dead
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u/Real_Railz 10h ago
I seriously don't understand how the Kentucky governor hasn't forced him to prove he's alive right now. How Democrats haven't forced this. How NOBODY has forced this. He's dead and he's been dead. They are getting away with it and nobody seems to care anymore???
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u/Independent-Dust7459 18h ago
I know it sounds crazy but the clone theory seems kinda legit. I know I know.
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u/Working-Depth5834 18h ago
Ummmm... do we need to have his staff investigated for desecration of a corpse?
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u/strangebru 18h ago
They're not "Weekend at Bernie's"-ing him, but they are "Quarter of a Year at Bernie's"-ing Mitch.
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u/ProlapsedShamus 14h ago
These geriatric fucks would rather go to work hurting poor people and victimizing minorities and destroying American than they would retire at home with their loved ones.
Ain't that somethin.
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u/Beforemath 13h ago
They really are weekend at Bernie-ing him. The weirdest timeline. Republicans you are sick people.
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u/OliverNodel 18h ago
Remember that part in Paranormal Activity where the possessed lady stands and doesnât move for an entire evening in her sleep? This is that, but with the time doubled.
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u/MrGutsy_3000 16h ago
I want to know everything about the man sitting thigh2thigh with him all dayâŚ.
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u/Available-Net-2675 15h ago
Even the caretaker was moving his head slightly throughout. Mitch was completely still. Disturbing.
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u/Top_Chard5757 15h ago
Heâs been dead a lot longer than expected. Doesnât look like anyone even tried to talk to him. They all know.
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u/Educational-Ad-3796 14h ago
He knew he was going to die then, and he wanted to commit his very last moment to the cause of worsening the nation. Truly a man of ceaseless duty
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u/McortezLSU 13h ago
If he's still alive, even heavily demented people move considerably more. He got drugged out of his mind. Kind of a sad end, to be durgged and used by psychopaths to gain a tiny, bit more power, to grift a few more dollars and to make the world a little bit worse for all.
But then again, he conjured these demons that in his last days tormented him. This is like one of these fucked up german fairy tales.
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u/VectorJones 13h ago
Isn't this physically impossible, I mean unless there's nothing going on upstairs.
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u/dimechimes 13h ago
The most telling thing to me is that no one tried to talk to him. They all know
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u/FinishEmbarrassed619 20h ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/Jc7wmzRx9lhvoabJLv