KEK. Comms – GET OUT! NOW! Suicide weekend…?
'We May Not Have a Full Two Years': Democrats' Plans Hinge on Good Health
On March 21, 1950, an Illinois congressman named Ralph Church suddenly slumped in his seat while testifying before a House committee. His colleagues rushed to administer aid, but he was pronounced dead of a heart attack at 66.
He was neither the first nor the last member of Congress to die in office.
Sign up for The Morning newsletter from the New York Times
“You look back in history, nearly 1 in 10 members of Congress have,” said Jane L. Campbell, president of the U.S. Capitol Historical Society.
That history has some Democrats worried that deaths or illnesses could derail President Joe Biden’s efforts to pass ambitious bills through Congress, which his party controls by the narrowest margins in decades.
“Our ability to make good on Biden’s agenda is pretty much dangling by a thread,” said Brian Fallon, a former aide to Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., the majority leader. “I don’t think it’s uncouth to talk about it. I think it’s a reality that has to inform the urgency with which we approach those issues.”
More than 1,160 sitting members and members-elect have died from accidents, disease and violence since the first Congress met in 1789, according to a New York Times analysis of House and Senate records. They include multiple House speakers, famed senators and two former presidents: John Quincy Adams and Andrew Johnson, who both returned to Congress after leaving the White House.
The pandemic and the Jan. 6 Capitol uprising fueled fears that this Congress was particularly vulnerable to such deaths. But with most members vaccinated and security tightened, old age may be a bigger threat. The average age of a sitting senator is 64, and for a representative it is 58, making this Congress one of the oldest.
“Heart disease and cancer are really the two most common causes of mortality, and they are both things that increase with age,” said Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, a professor of medical ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania, who served on Biden’s pandemic task force before he took office.
On average, 10 lawmakers have died in each two-year Congress: seven House members and three senators. Deaths peaked in the 1940s, and have slowed in recent decades. But every Congress except two has lost at least one member.
In the House this term, deaths have already affected the parties’ close margins. Three members — Ron Wright of Texas and Rep.-elect Luke Letlow of Louisiana, both Republicans; and Democrat Alcee Hastings of Florida — have died, the most in a Congress in its first three months since the early 1980s. (Wright and Letlow died from COVID-19.)
Health problems have also dogged the Senate. Patrick Leahy, 81, D-Vt., was briefly hospitalized in January. Thom Tillis, 60, a North Carolina Republican, underwent cancer treatment. Questions have been raised about the health of Dianne Feinstein, 87, a Democrat who has represented California since 1992. Vermont’s other senator, Bernie Sanders, 79, had a heart attack in 2019.
In the most extreme case, deaths could end Democrats’ ability to pass legislation without Republican support — or even flip control of either chamber. That is more likely in the evenly divided Senate, where a single Democratic vacancy could hand Republicans committee gavels and the power to schedule votes until a Democratic successor was appointed or elected.
A serious illness could also upset the party’s delicate legislative arithmetic.
“Schumer needs all 50 votes,” said Fallon, now the executive director of Demand Justice, a progressive advocacy group focused on the federal judiciary. “If somebody is laid up or is hospitalized for a long period of time and their vote’s not there, then having the majority is somewhat meaningless.”
House vacancies are filled by special election, and relatively few seats are competitive, lowering the chances that deaths could alter partisan control. No special election to Congress so far this year has flipped a seat.
But special elections take time to organize; delays could further shrink Democrats’ single-digit margin for error. Though House control has never changed mid-session, Republicans could push to elect a new speaker and take over committees if vacancies forced Democrats below a majority of seats, said Sarah Binder, a George Washington University political scientist who has studied congressional deaths.
more
https://www.yahoo.com/news/may-not-full-two-years-121420637.html
He slides in, makes one or two TYB slutty pic posts as anon, then BAM, floods the board. Still amazed at how this trick has lasted so long…
Keeping Kults Kicking
The reality that traditional schools FAIL at EPIC LEVELS with their brainwashing curriculum couldn't have been more exposed without the lockdowns. They will come up with plenty of other excuses though…
Schools Are Open, but Many Families Remain Hesitant to Return
Pauline Rojas’ high school in San Antonio is open. But like many of her classmates, she has not returned and has little interest in doing so.
During the coronavirus pandemic, she started working 20 to 40 hours per week atRaising Cane’s,a fast-food restaurant, and has used the money to help pay her family’s internet bill, buy clothes and save for a car.
Rojas, 18, has no doubt that a year of online school, squeezed between work shifts that end at midnight, has affected her learning. Still, she has embraced her new role as a breadwinner, sharing responsibilities with her mother, who works at a hardware store.
I wanted to take the stress off my mom,” she said. “I’m no longer a kid. I’m capable of having a job, holding a job and making my own money.”
Only a small slice of U.S. schools remain fully closed: 12% of elementary and middle schools, according to a federal survey, as well as a minority of high schools. But the percentage of students learning fully remotely is much greater: more than one-third of fourth and eighth graders and an even larger group of high school students. A majority of Black, Hispanic and Asian American students remain out of school.
These disparities have put district leaders and policymakers in a tough position as they end this school year and plan for the next one. Even though the pandemic appears to be coming under control in the United States as vaccinations continue, many superintendents say fear of the coronavirus itself is no longer the primary reason their students are opting out. Nor are many families expressing a strong preference for remote learning.
Rather, for every child and parent who has leaped at the opportunity to return to the classroom, others changed their lives over the past year in ways that make going back to school difficult. The consequences are likely to reverberate through the education system for years, especially if states and districts continue to give students the choice to attend school remotely.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/schools-open-many-families-remain-154544352.html