On June 14, 84-year-old Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell was found in his home, likely unconscious and in cardiac arrest. Medics likely gave him CPR, and he has been in the hospital ever since.

I say "likely" several times because the evidence for these statements is strong but circumstantial, and that is all we have. In the weeks since McConnell's fall, there have been no credible signs of life provided to the general public or his Kentucky constituents. McConnell's Senate staff has been opaque about nearly everything surrounding his hospitalization.

Eight days after his hospitalization began, his staff said that that he was continuing "his recovery." On July 2, his staff said, "The Senator continues to improve, and is working closely with his staff on Kentucky and Senate matters while the Senate is out of session."

There were (apparently false) rumors that McConnell's wife, who was born in Taiwan, immediately left the US for China upon McConnell's hospitalization. According to Yahoo, Chao was actually in China prior to McConnell's hospitalization. On Tuesday, a spokesperson for Chao said,

The secretary was on a long-planned trip in China to support her family's philanthropic endeavors. During the trip, she met with a number of people, including the US ambassador. The Senator's health did not warrant an immediate return to the US.

Chao is apparently back in the US now.

Various Republican officials have said, or said through their staff, that they have spoken with McConnell.

McConnell is a Republican and one of the more powerful Senators, sitting on its influential Appropriations Committee. While he is absent, the Committee is split evenly between Democrats and Republicans, and Republicans hold a 52-47 advantage in the Senate.

As much as we generally want to respect someone's privacy, particularly concerning their health, McConnell is a powerful elected official who represents over 4.5 million people and makes decisions for the entire country. People are entitled to some credible, specific information about if and when he will be fit to return to his job in the Senate.

All we have are a couple of vague comments about recovery from his staff and wife and some suspect claims about speaking with McConnell from his fellow Republicans.

Over the last few years, McConnell has noticeably declined with a variety of pathetic falls and sad mental freezes. Coincidentally, in 2021, Kentucky passed a law over the Governor's veto that changed how the State fills a Senate vacancy.

Rather than allow the governor free rein to choose a successor, the law says a temporary appointee must be chosen from a list of three people selected by the state executive committee of the absent senator’s political party.
A special election would be held to fill the seat only for the remainder of the term, if the vacancy happened more than three months before the next election.

The former Senate majority leader was set to retire at the end of his term in January.

The Democratic Governor of Kentucky is getting antsy for information and sent a letter to McConnell's office. An Indiana Republican, noting he does not even know if McConnell is alive, is also demanding answers.

The whole episode is really bizarre and highlights a variety of issues. Why has no information about the incident and McConnell's state been made public? If McConnell is able to talk to his fellow Republicans and "work" for his constituents, why can he not make a short statement, or at least issue a written statement, to the constituents he represents? What sort of medical event that puts an 84-year-old in the hospital for weeks and likely involved cardiac arrest and CPR is not serious enough to warrant his wife immediately returning home?

There is no legitimate excuse to hide the condition of a frail old man who wields enormous influence over the country. Is McConnell completely senile, dying, or even brain dead, as many fear? And, if so, are Republicans trying to hide this for a few weeks until the deadline for requiring a special election to fill his seat for the next few months passes, depriving Democrats of a chance to win the seat?

If this is indeed what is happening, as many suspect, it is yet another embarrassing action by the Republican party. So dead set are the Republicans on keeping Democrats out of power and enabling President Donald Trump that they will hide a potentially dying old man away and deprive four and half million people of proper Senate representation. If McConnell was a Democrat, Trump and his supporters would almost certainly be wailing and howling about "Corpse Mitch," theft of a Senate seat, and dirty Democratic/Commie tactics.

And why is a frail, often disoriented old man still in office anyway? McConnell has been a Senator for more than 40 years. And sadly, this is not especially unusual. The median age of our 100 Senators is 64.7 years old. There are 17 Senators who were born in 1945 or earlier. That means 17% of our Senators are at least 80 years old. Are they all so intelligent and knowledgeable that they irreplaceable? Are there no qualified younger people (and by younger people, I mean those under 50 or even 60) who will actually have to live more than a few years with the laws and decisions they are making?

There are a lot of problems in the United States, but we could probably benefit from having more younger, spryer people with fresh ideas and perspectives take a crack at them. Instead, people over retirement age continue to maintain a stranglehold on Congress (especially the more powerful positions) and the Presidency.

Younger people have plenty of their own flaws, but at least they and their children will have to live for decades with whatever problems they caused. Instead the older legislators have gotten to benefit for decades from their errant and short-term thinking, while leaving the younger generations to face the consequences and pay the bill.