Originally published at: Kentucky Gov. Demands McConnell Give Verbal Address as Proof He Can Serve
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D) has once again formally requested proof of life from Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who has been absent from the Senate since he was hospitalized on June 14. Beshear sent a new letter to McConnell, his staff and the office of Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) on Monday demanding the…
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Is this an assertion of dominance – a “you can’t make me” gibe – or evidence of incapacity (and a cover up)? Who knows, and perhaps that’s the point. The absence of obligation and absence of transparency go hand in hand; power is as power does and that seems to be where we are now as a nation.
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The second photo they released is a “tell me you are using AI without telling me you are using AI” moment for the McConnell photos.
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Mitch has already replied that he will be happy to have a twenty minute phone call, and any audio delay has nothing with routing the call through China.
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Why would Gov Beshear do this other than to appease voices from the left who don’t under civics. Under KY law, Bashear cannot appoint a replacement if McConnell is unable to serve; there must be a special election. If McConnell cannot vote because he is too ill, then the Republicans have one less vote in the Senate. Why wouldn’t the Democrats want the Republicans to have one less vote in the Senate?
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Good idea Gov. Oh, and you can mail it to the dead letter office.
The issue here, methinks, is the dishonesty and coverup of McConnell’s condition. Yes, HIPAA and all that, but the constituents in his State are now down representation.
It’s dishonest, especially knowing that there’s a deadline for declaring the special election and this information, that controls the declaration, is being withheld to prevent the election from moving forward.
If the staff are saying he can’t do his job, it’s not fair to the constituents - votes are going on without him.
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Beshear needs to just declare a special election and then let McConnell contest if he’s able (that is not dead or totally incapacitated).
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You mean oral address. Presumably he would use words.
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My understanding is that there is a theory that having a special election to fill the vacancy might result in someone other than the 2 people currently on the ballot getting to serve the term until then. I agree that just having an empty vote is better
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I’ve been part of the ‘Beshear, do something’ crowd. But, various legal folks have made a compelling case, like you, that leaving this alone is best for Senate Dems.
Here’s the tension. We are all hungry for fighters. So there is much feeling that Beshear should show that he can play hardball. Also, that he know how to wield power as much a McConnell. Beshear wants to run for President (I think). So he needs to show he is not passive. What does that mean? Somehow, put the Repubs who are covering on the back foot, in a corner.
If I knew how to do this, I’d run. But I sure don’t. Only looking for people who do!
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Silver lining - it’s holding up the GQP’s bullshit spending bills, so there’s that.
He’s clearly dead, or close enough as makes no functional difference, so let rigor tortoise fully set in.
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No, this is good, this is exactly what we want, Gov. Beshear is yanking their chain and making them look stupid. And putting a little poke at McConnell for all the crap he’s pulled.
Whatever he has to do, appoint someone or call a special election or nothing, they’re down a vote for the duration. Now, if only Chuck plays some hardball and doesn’t do some collegial handjob, er, handshake deal with Thune and piss away that one vote advantage, we’re that much closer to blocking trump.
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gotta hand it to Mitch, he died* as he lived: obstructing regular business of the US government.
*(and yeah, I believe he is either dead, or a vegetable)
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Moscow Mitch denied Obama a SCOTUS appointment. No one owes him anything. Show up or be shown out.
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It’s also good for setting/reinforcing the narrative that the gerontocracy is dead set (pun intended) in holding onto power, no matter what. Any way to continue pointing out that these people feel entitled to these positions, rather than being stewards of them. I’m still made at Angus King for running again in my state rather than opening a lane for someone like-minded and born at least sometime after the Korean War, as opposed to before our involvement in WWII.
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Being as I cant comment on the AI and bubbles article. There’s this:
After AMD and OpenAI announced an expanded partnership on Monday, the chatter immediately turned to the unusual way OpenAI would pay for its AMD purchases. It will use AMD’s own stock to do so.
To recap: OpenAI has agreed to help AMD refine its line of Nvidia competitor chips, the Instinct GPUs, as well as to purchase and deploy 6 gigawatts of compute capacity from AMD over multiple years. AMD said this deal is worth billions in revenue.
But OpenAI isn’t paying for this out of its own revenues. Instead AMD has granted OpenAI a boatload of stock warrants — up to 160 million AMD shares — which will vest in tranches as certain milestones are achieved. Those milestones include specific increases in the stock price, with the last tranche dependent on AMD shares soaring to $600 apiece, AMD disclosed. They were trading at about $165 before the news hit and soared to $214 by market close Monday after the announcement.
If the stock price hits its marks, and OpenAI achieves all its required contributions, and OpenAI holds all of AMD’s shares, not selling any along the way, OpenAI may make enough on AMD stock to pay for a lot of GPUs. The stock could be worth about $100 billion.
“We would note that the final 6th tranche requires ~$1T market cap to vest – ergo, if OAI were to hold stock until the end of the deal, its stake would be worth ~$100B,” writes UBS analyst Timothy Arcuri in a research note on Tuesday.
But Arcuri believes that a more likely scenario is that OpenAI will sell its AMD stock along the way to pay its AMD bill. So, essentially, this is a scheme for AMD to finance this customer’s purchases.
Still, Arcuri argues, the validation that AMD’s AI GPUs can handle OpenAI workloads, and ergo any other AI workloads, is valuable enough for AMD to make this financing gambit. “AMD highlighted ongoing customer dialogs beyond OpenAI and expects this agreement to ultimately accelerate AMD adoption momentum,” he writes. In particular, OpenAI’s stamp of approval gives it an in to sell its GPUs to the many cloud service providers it already provides with CPUs.
So in the long run, the ones who will truly be paying for OpenAI’s giant multi-year purchase of AMD GPUs will be retail and institutional investors if they do indeed bid the stock price up.
Edit: And AMD made the exact same deal with Meta.
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Beshear has called that statute illegal under the state constitution, and he appears to be right about that. Minus one Mitch and plus one Dem if Beshear gets to make the appointment is a net gain of two, not just one. And in any event any special election will roll tothe November general election if the vacancy happens next week or after.
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I do wish or someone else with standing would put that before the court. Patently illegal, per their constitution and no one has challenged it?
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