A Venice Beach boardwalk psychic shop is currently advertising the chance to hold a 20-minute spirit reading with sitting United States Senator Mitch McConnell, which is either a crass joke, a savvy business pivot, or a genuinely disturbing commentary on the state of American governance. Possibly all three. The Original Venice Beach Psychic started flogging the promotion via flyers and Instagram posts, and the internet, as it does, had feelings.
The Offer on the Table
According to the New York Post, flyers plastered around the Venice Beach area advertise a spirit reading at The Original Venice Beach Psychic, located at 1101 Ocean Front Walk, that includes, quote, "a 20 minute chat with Mitch McConnell." The shop's Instagram account doubled down, posting: "Do you too have questions for Senator Mitch McConnell? Hop on down to @the_originalvenicebeachpsychic and ask for a spirit reading today."
To be clear, because this needs to be said out loud: a licensed business on a public boardwalk in California is marketing access to a man who, as of this writing, is a sitting Republican Senator from the state of Kentucky. Not a former senator. Not a historical figure. A current elected official with a staff, an office, and presumably a phone number his constituents could theoretically call.
The shop operates three locations total, two along the Venice Beach Boardwalk and a third on Lincoln Boulevard, and among its psychics is Bianca Marino, who describes herself as clairvoyant and specializes in, per her own bio, "love marriage happiness success." She charges starting at $200 for parties. She has, she notes, done "over 250 party's" in the last two years. We are not here to audit the apostrophe usage. We have bigger fish.
Why This Is Actually Newsworthy
Look, a boardwalk psychic doing something weird for attention is not, on its own, a particularly consequential story. Weird boardwalk stuff is practically Venice Beach's entire brand. What makes this land differently is the context sitting directly underneath the punchline.
Mitch McConnell, 84 years old, the longest-serving Senate Republican leader in American history, has not made a public appearance since he was hospitalized following a fall on June 14. The New York Post notes that while McConnell did post a photo with his wife on July 12, actual live public appearances have been conspicuously absent. Questions about his health and whether he can continue serving have been circulating for weeks.
So when a psychic shop starts advertising spirit readings with him, it is not just tacky. It is tacky against a backdrop of genuine, legitimate public uncertainty about whether one of the most powerful people in the United States Senate is capable of doing his job. That is a different kind of uncomfortable.
The Reaction Was Exactly What You'd Expect
Online responses ranged from darkly amused to genuinely unsettled. One person who commented captured the vibe pretty efficiently: "As much as I disagree with practically everything he has done, I don't wish that upon him."
That is the sentence of someone trying very hard to be a decent human being while also clearly finding the whole thing a little bit funny, which is where a lot of people landed. Because here is the thing about gallows humor in the age of mass political exhaustion: it does not require you to want bad things to happen. It just requires that reality has become so consistently strange that the jokes write themselves before anyone can stop them.
The shop has not, as of reporting, clarified whether the McConnell readings come with any guarantee of results, a refund policy, or a transcript.
The Actual, Serious Problem Lurking Here
Behind every viral gag about McConnell's health is a real and unresolved governance question that nobody in Washington seems particularly eager to answer directly. A senator who cannot make public appearances is still a senator. He still holds a seat. He still counts toward quorum. His office still operates. His vote, if and when it is cast, still counts.
This is not a McConnell-specific criticism. The same question applies every time a member of Congress experiences a serious health crisis and their party or their staff or the Senate leadership opts for a strategy of vague reassurances and carefully staged photos. The American public, and specifically the voters of Kentucky, are entitled to know whether their senator is able to represent them. That is not a gotcha. That is the basic deal.
The psychic shop in Venice did not create this ambiguity. It just noticed it, stapled it to a flyer, and figured out how to charge $200 for it.
The Dingo Take
You are supposed to look at this story and see only the cringe. A tacky psychic ad, a slow news week, some guy on Instagram dunking for engagement. Fine. Sure. Scroll on.
But the reason this resonates, the reason it spread past the boardwalk and into the news cycle, is that the joke only works because the underlying situation is genuinely unresolved. McConnell has been out of public view for six weeks following a hospitalization. A sitting senator. The former most powerful man in the Senate. And the official response from his office has been: here is a photo with his wife, please stop asking. The Venice Beach Psychic is not the absurdity here. The absurdity is that "maybe a clairvoyant can help" is a punchline that connects because legitimate channels have been so thoroughly opaque.
Bianca Marino, clairvoyant, party bookings starting at $200, is not the villain of this story. The villain is a political culture that has decided it is perfectly acceptable for seriously ill elected officials to go dark for months at a time with no accountability, no transparency, and no mechanism for the public to demand either. The psychic saw a market. She is not wrong that there is one.
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