It will be a fine thing to elect a different president in 2020, but if we actually want to make change we'll also need to ditch Mitch. If you're already sold on why he's got to go skip ahead a couple of paragraphs to the part about Kentucky’s bad-ass democratic Senate candidate, Amy McGrath.
As the Senate Majority Leader, Mitch has halted several pieces of legislation that have passed through the House with bi-partisan support by blocking them from reaching the Senate floor.
For example, McConnell halted the Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2019, H.R.8,.The singular reason for the existence of this legislation is to close the loophole permitting sales/trades of firearms between private parties at gun shows without a background check. H.R.8 even has mechanisms that facilitate access to background checks making them easier to conduct (not easier to pass).
Oh yeah, I almost forgot, remember that time when Mitch blocked election security legislation [1] [2] meant to...you know...to like...protect and secure our elections which was, in small part, a response to coordinated Russian influence campaigns in 2016 and more importantly how that applies to growing concerns of a voting security crisis with electronic voting machines being exploited by foreign powers and stuff? That had bipartisan support and would've passed Senate had it been brought to the floor. Oh yeah, how about that time when the Kremlin-linked Russian oligarch, Oleg Deripaska, invested $200,000,000 into buying a 40% stake in an aluminum plant in Ashland, KY, after the US sanctions on Russia were eased?
According to Mitch, democrats are simply socialist using a different moniker. Really. Here is an actual thing Mitch said that actually came from Mitch’s actual mouth (cited in a CNN article from August 6, 2019, by Zach Wolf), "...I call myself the Grim Reaper," he said of Democrats during an appearance at a Kentucky political event over the weekend. "I'm killing their socialist agenda.”
The guy kills legislation for sport and he's got some big trophies hanging over his mantle now.
WHAT CAN WE DO TO HELP KENTUCKY
and US Democracy as a pleasant bi-product?
Support Amy McGrath!
– Anti-corruption. –
– Anti-obstruction. –
– Anti-B.S. –
This is Amy McGrath:
• one of Mitch McConnel’s 2020 Senate race Contenders (the only contender so far who isn’t a boring pasty white dude)
• US Naval Academy graduate
• First woman in the Marine Corps to fly a combat mission in an F/A-18 fighter jet
• Served 20 years in the Marines
• Retired US Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel
• Flew 89 combat missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, targeting al-Qaida and the Taliban
Amy is a rock solid Kentucky democrat who has the respect of Kentucky's military/related population. She has great potential to beat Mitch, but just to be sure...
After 2016 I need to be sold on a candidate before investing. Being partially a product of a journalist/reporter I was taught to dig into details and confirm findings from at least two sources/outlets. Rummaging through stats from DOJ, Census, and Veterans Administration to see what the military & military related population looks like in Kentucky as compared to other States, I found some data that reveals interesting/promising results:
US Census [1] [2]2018 - estimated KY population 4,468,402
Military pop. numbers [3] [4] [5]2013 - 2017 - 279,153 Veterans
2019 - 33,683 active military members
2019 - 12,396 National Guard / Reserves
Approx 325,000 Total (figures are a mixture of 2018 and 2019 values)
That's over 7% of the state's population, and they all have family and/or friends who vote. It may not seem like much, but to put this into perspective, that 7% figure puts Kentucky in the top 10 states for cumulative military population including active duty, National Guard / Reserves, and veterans. That figure bodes well as military voters tend to lean conservative, in particular Officers, and they have influence on conservative and liberal voters within their social circles.
A real testament to her ability to win in 2020 is this: Amy ran for a US congressional seat in Kentucky in the 2018 mid-terms, and though she didn't win managed to raise $7,990,931.45 - there are six congressional districts in KY and she still posted massive contribution numbers that rivaled with McConnell's campaign funding for one of two Senate seats in 2016.
According to recent info on the FEC site (you can look up any federal political campaign’s finance info on FEC.gov), there have been several non-corporate PACs, some new and some not as new, that have made noteworthy contributions to her campaign:
Though Mitch’s coffers are deep ($7,874,816.47 cash on hand at the time of this writing), Amy has support from the retired and active-duty military voter base.
And though official figures are not on the FEC site, she reportedly raised a record breaking $2.5 million in the first day of her 2020 Senate bid. YOWZAS! She's cooking with jet fuel!!
You can learn more about Amy here and make a contribution if you like (there are no laws preventing one from making contributions to US congressional campaigns in other states). Not to take away from any campaign contributions you might make to Audrey Denney, Rich Ober, or Sue Hildebrand, but maybe consider chipping in for Amy?
Consider sharing this info on social media or just calling folks’ attention to the race in Kentucky whether or not you can chip in financially.
We gots to pay attention to Kentucky in addition to fulfilling our civic duty to select a polysyllabically-abled president.
VISIT AMY'S CAMPAIGN PAGE & SIGN UP FOR HER NEWSLETTERS
This was a long one. Thanks for reading.
Yours,
Roderick with Mobilize