Moscow Mitch McConnell has done his best to blow off the mounting evidence that the entire Trump regime is a criminal enterprise populated by venal conspiracy theorists, but mostly has been keeping a low profile and saying the minimum on impeachment—he'll have to take up articles from the House—and attempting to move on. He says what he really wants is to "spend our time accomplishing things for the American people."
That's news to the American people, but here's his chance. Because, like Chicago-area Democratic Rep. Robin Kelly, the American people think McConnell just "doesn't give a damn" about the issue that just won't go away—gun violence. Last week, she and about two dozen victims of gun violence as well as other members of Congress paid McConnell's D.C. office an impromptu call. McConnell, of course, didn't bother to see them, but his legal counsel Tiffany Ge did, and she spent well over an hour "hearing the painful stories of survivors and victims and their pleas for McConnell to do something productive — call a bill, have a hearing, throw out some ideas on what Trump might do." The Chicago Sun-Times’ Lynn Sweet was also in the room.
"Rep. John Lewis, the civil rights icon from Georgia, said, 'We cannot continue to wait,' adding, 'It's not a threat,'" Sweet writes. "Just letting her know." The victims of mass shootings going back decades, from Parkland, from Las Vegas, from Paducah, Kentucky, were there with one message. "These shootings keep happening again." Illinois resident Delphine Cherry lost two children—in separate incidents a decade apart—to gun violence. "Just curious. I lost two kids and nothing has changed. Why do I have to wait on a president to pass a bill?" she asked Ge. "Sounds like it's an excuse to me."
Of course that was Ge's excuse. "We are waiting to get a proposal from the White House as to what the president is going to do on this issue." That message didn't fly. "Parkland shooting survivor Aalayah Eastmond, summed it up, telling Ge, 'It's time for you to tell your boss to do something, since it's all in your hands.'"
It is. With Trump distracted, to put it mildly, McConnell could do something for the America people. He could just bring the gun safety bills that the House has already passed to the floor. It would likely be a welcome relief to many members of his conference to be able to do something productive, something popular. He could do all that. If he gave a damn.
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