With All Due Respect: Don’t Fuck With Old People

What I was talking about earlier, but this time with a large dose of “Fuck you very much.”

This passed 215-214. We're going to lose our healthcare because 3 senior Dems have died this year. We lost Roe because Ginsburg didn't retire. We lost the election because Joe ran for reelection.

Our country is being destroyed because geriatric Dems can't retire and let go of power.

Sheila Jackson Lee died in July, 2024. Arguably she shouldn’t have run again because of her health. But she was 74 when she died.  And it didn’t impinge on the current situation.

No special election was called (blame Abbott) , and Sylvester Turner won her seat in November, and was sworn into office in January, 2025.

Turner had announced a bone cancer diagnosis in 2022. He was treated then. On March 4, 2025, he fell ill, and died the next day. He was 70.

Not young, I will grant you. But hardly with one wheelchair wheel in the grave. He hasn’t been replaced because Greg Abbott again refused to call a special election for the very reason we are now (well, some of us) whinging about (that a Democrat would win the seat is a certainty).

The funny thing is the ignorance professed here, based on the laughable idea the vote yesterday means it’s all over but the crying. First, remember all those government shutdowns, and risks of government shutdowns? Going back years? Decades, even? That’s because the federal government has been running on continuing resolutions, rather than a fully authorized budget, for that long. Occasionally a budget is actually authorized; more often it’s just CR’s to keep everything open. And that’s because Congress hasn’t been able to agree on a budget for those years. CR’s, sometimes good for a year, sometimes for only a few months, keep kicking the can down the road. That’s why the debt ceiling has to be periodically raised. No damn budget authorizing expenditures. Just CR’s that expire, or provide funding insufficient to need. So the idea the budget has now “passed” because of a single House vote is ignorant, indeed. The Senate has to weigh in, and they aren’t as enthusiastic about this bill as the MAGA House is.

Rinse. Repeat. Shit, we’ve been doing it this way for so long we all think it’s normal!

As for illness: news flash! People get sick! And die! Some before they are “geriatrics”! Some after! Trump is 79, but he’s not dead yet!  SO GET THE FUCK OVER IT!

Or at least know what the hell you’re talking about.

I don't care if this is ageist. 70+ year old should not be running congress or the presidency. There should be a mandatory retirement age because older generations should not be allowed to have a death grip on power like this.

It is ageist. And remarkably stupid. As a nearly septuagenarian myself, I say again: “Fuck you very much.” And don’t fuck with old people. We didn’t get this far by being stupid.

And shit, the incumbent or his stand-in was gonna lose that election anyway. That Trump (!) won is proof of that.