Frustrated with Senate Majority Leader and Turtle Club President Emeritus Mitch McConnell, furloughed federal employees gave the Kentucky senator a piece of their mind.
McConnell, sensing the commotion from just beyond his heating lamp, wasn’t around to see it.
After waiting in vain for McConnell to use his considerable power and influence to end the month-long partial government shutdown, a small group of federal workers decided to take their frustration directly to McConnell’s office door. Chanting “Where is Mitch?” and “We want to Work!”
It turns out McConnell wasn’t in his office. After the workers were arrested, a smiling McConnell returned to his office.
Less than an hour before the arrests, while McConnell (slowly) feasted on his lone romaine leaf, Federal workers gathered in greater numbers at the nearby Hart building. Holding paper plates and handmade signs, workers silently protested the 33-day shutdown for 33 minutes before breaking into chants of “No more food banks, we need paychecks.”
McConnell’s unscheduled visitors moved from the larger protest, which was organized by the American Foundation of Government Employees and the AFL-CIO, to his doorstep.
McConnell, who has blocked efforts to reopen the government at every turn with his refusal to bring a bill to a vote, relishes shutdowns.
Scott Jennings, a CNN on-air personality and former McConnell aide whose PR firm recently took on racist wunderkind Nick Sandmann as a client, told the New York Times that “McConnell’s view of shutdowns is when you’re in one, it’s a great opportunity for both sides to get things.”
For all the things McConnell has been hoping to get from his party’s latest creation, we’re certain an earful wasn’t one of them.