January 17, 2019

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Hunting Down Mitch McConnell Is the Meme I Need Today

The New York congresswoman is coming for you.

Andrew Harnik/AP

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As the longest government shutdown in US history drags on into its fourth week, many have started to wonder on social media #wheresmitch, a largely rhetorical question intended to highlight the curious silence of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his continued refusal to hold a vote to reopen the government, despite the House passing several measures to do so.

McConnell’s sudden elusiveness even stalled Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and a handful of other freshman Democrats, who stormed through the Capitol on Wednesday in hopes of confronting the Republican leader, or at the very least uncovering his whereabouts.

“He seems to be running away from us,” Ocasio-Cortez said at one point.

“He’s not in the cloakroom, he’s not in the Capitol, he’s not in the Russell Building, he’s not on the floor of the Senate, and 800,000 people don’t have their paychecks.” Ocasio-Cortez then asked defiantly, “So where’s Mitch?”

That dogged chase has sparked a slew of excellent memes, whichā€”in light of the sheer, infuriating pettiness that is our current presidentā€”can be enjoyed below.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We canā€™t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

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