I have been brutally critical of Fred Hiatt and the Washington Post over the years. Dana Milbank has been my Wanker of the Day more times than I can count. But I have to give them all props for printing this in today’s paper.
Mitch McConnell is a Russian asset.
This doesn’t mean he’s a spy, but neither is it a flip accusation. Russia attacked our country in 2016. It is attacking us today. Its attacks will intensify in 2020. Yet each time we try to raise our defenses to repel the attack, McConnell, the Senate majority leader, blocks us from defending ourselves.
Let’s call this what it is: unpatriotic. The Kentucky Republican is, arguably more than any other American, doing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s bidding.
Not only did Milbank write this and the Post agree to publish it, but the first sentence (“Mitch McConnell is a Russian asset”) also appears as the headline to the piece.
If I have any problem at all with the language here it is that “unpatriotic” doesn’t really cover the extent of the problem. You can be unpatriotic because you don’t stand for the national anthem. People have different opinions about what makes for good citizenship and what kind of behavior indicates a lack of love for country. There are people who refuse to serve in the armed services even during times of urgent need during wartime, and they may still believe they’re doing what’s best for the country.
The problem with McConnell’s behavior isn’t that he’s refusing to do what’s expected of him. It’s more serious than that. He’s acting more like a saboteur. If he were blowing up our train tracks and arms depots, he’d hardly be doing more to give aid and comfort to the enemy. He’s actually in a position to appropriate money and craft policies to protect our voting systems from outside infiltration and manipulation, and he’s refusing to act.
Imagine that we learned that a terrorist group had a nuclear dirty bomb on a timer set to go off in Baltimore’s harbor and the police chief blocked access to the roads and shipping lanes leading there so that no one could defuse the weapon before it detonated. What would we call that police chief?
I’d call him “Mitch McConnell.”
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He should be called ‘Moscow Mitch’ until the day he dies.
What I can’t figure out I should why the Chinese are telling Moscow Mitch to do this. Is it the same goal as Putin, that disruption IS the goal?
Disruption of the US Hyperpower allows Russian and Chinese Superpowers to set up new shows and exert more of their own influence.
The comedy will arise when the Chinese use the internet to intervene on behalf of the Dem candidate, while Putin continues his online support of National Trumpalism in 2020. Perhaps that will get the attention of Moscow Mitch and his traitorous party.
For Putin, it seems clear that destruction of the US system of government, embitterment and total division of the population, and (hopefully) actual civil war are his goals in aiding the National Trumpalist movement. While on the surface it may appear that other nations still look to the US for “leadership”, the reality is that this is now quite hollow, almost pro forma, since no leader (autocratic or democratic) has the slightest respect for the foolish Der Trumper. Thus National Trumpalism has already destroyed the idea of US global leadership, most likely permanently. So Putin has already triumphed.
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Um, no. Absolutely not. You could have unpatriotic reasons for not standing during the anthem. But not standing per se is not remotely unpatriotic. Because you can have perfectly, unassailably patriotic reasons for doing so. See Kaepernick, Rapinoe, et al.
You are misreading the quoted sentence as if it reads:
You are necessarily unpatriotic if you don’t stand for the national anthem.
What it actually means:
If you choose not to stand for the national anthem, other people might consider you unpatriotic because of that.
Correct.
Maybe correct as to your intended meaning, but not what you wrote.
OTOH I immediately thought about Kaepernick. And I never thought that about him.
No, I’m reading it as it was actually written. Note that your misreading requires you to change the original “because” to “if”, then attribute that misreading to me, in order to defend the original. I’m not saying the original expresses the meaning that was intended (I highly doubt that).
But in fact, no, you cannot “be unpatriotic because you don’t stand for the national anthem.” That use of “because” says that not standing is the “cause” (see “cause” in “because”!) of you being unpatriotic — that not standing, in and of itself, is sufficient cause to label you unpatriotic. That’s wrong.
I’m pretty confident that WASN’T Booman’s intended meaning, but it’s what he wrote. And I objected because it’s exactly the sort of sloppiness I picture irredeemable deplorables and Banana Republican (redundant, I know, sorry) propagandists chortling over to see from “even-the-liberal” Martin Longman, since it tends to reinforce a false meme they are eager to see metastasize in our discourse.
Do I recall correctly that when Obama wanted a bipartisan statement about what was known about Russian interference in 2016, that it was McConnell who refused? Then Obama was blamed for “not doing enough”?
Correct.
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I tried to give this a 5 star rating, but on my phone it came out 4. Cannot seem to change it on my phone or computer. Anyway, spot on, Martin.
Yeah, me too–what’s up with that?
What Moscow Mitch is, more than anything, is a partisan Republican. That’s his M.O. That’s his tenure in office. His legacy will be that he understood completely the weaknesses of our archaic democracy and was willing to cynically exploit those weaknesses to maintain and expand Republican power by breaking institutional norms and transforming the Republican party into something that is fundamentally corrupt and ant-democratic. That he’s more than willing to enable foreign intervention into our elections should be no surprise to anybody, because they are certain that foreign intervention will advantage Republicans.
The bigger picture is that at this point the Republican party is rapidly transforming itself into a corrupt institution that knows that its power is protected by an electoral collage system and Senate that grossly over represents their rural white racist base and a bunch of billionaire donors that are more than willing to user their wealth to destroy what’s left of our democracy for both ideological and cravenly corrupt purposes. I bet that Republicans know they are now the minority party, but instead of reacting to our countries changing demographics by becoming more moderate, they are in fact doubling down on the hard right as they morph themselves into a fascist party. Without a doubt, having Mitch McConnell as Senate majority leader has accelerated that process.
Agree. I also like what nalbar said above….He is now Moscow Mitch. Why can no one get him the hell out of there?
Kentucky.
Precisely. As I’ve said many times now: they understand that their actual program is unpopular and consigns them to permanent minority status in a functioning democracy. But they like power. So they cheat (and lie!).
Absolutely irrefutable, yet no Dem will (can?) come out and denounce the entire Repub party as beholden to Putin’s machinations and unmasked internet aid. Even though it would be perfectly possible for the Repub senate caucus to revolt (behind closed doors) and demand an immediate vote on election security. That this does not happen speaks volumes, and shows that this is not the traitorous game merely of Moscow Mitch, but of every senate Repub. This gives their longstanding motto “Party over Country” new meaning, haha!
Just as Hitler’s National Socialists were brought into power through the aid of the Communist party in 1933, so have today’s National Trumpalists have been brought into power by the descendants of communism….so much for the “conservative” concern with “how democracies die”, a topic so popular in the days of St Reagan!
LOL at the pathetic, cowardly, anonymous downrates! Can’t rebut/refute? Downrate!
Oh, and by the way, Booman, there’s another for your list of potential site improvements: rating anonymity promotes ratings abuse. Jus’ sayin’.
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McConnell is certainly a Republican committed to “party over country.”
But isn’t there also the business deal with Rusal, the aluminum company partially owned by Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska? They are investing 200 million in a new aluminum plant in Kentucky. I think that enters into his opposition to any kind of voting security improvement, even when it comes from other Republicans. Selling out the country to the Russians (and at a bargain price) really does rise to the level of traitor.
Here’s the background on the 200m aluminum plant investment in KY by a Russian oligarch who was on the sanctions list (souce is Adam over at BJ):
The lobbyist who brokered the deal is former Senator David “Diapers” Vitter from Louisiana. His wife had been nominated for a Federal judgeship. Other than being a lawyer, an anti-abortion activist, and a friend of Leonard Leo’s she wasn’t qualified. And, apparently, McConnell actually wasn’t going to move her nomination. He’d basically blackballed it, refusing to bring her nomination up for a floor vote. Then David Vitter came to him with the deal involving Deripaska’s company’s potential investment, but there was a hitch. The company was on the sanctions list. So McConnell arranged to have the sanctions adjusted to get Deripaska’s company out from under so the investment could be made. Then he took now Judge Vitter’s nomination out of the deep freeze and quickly moved it through a floor vote where she was confirmed. And, the final piece, of course, is Deripaska’s company’s investment in Kentucky during an election year so McConnell can campaign on the great investment that brought jobs to Kentucky during his reelection campaign.
We’ve got a bribe of investment during a reelection year from Vitter to McConnell in order to get Vitter’s wife confirmed as a Federal judge, which was done by reducing sanctions on one of Putin’s key oligarch catspaws by McConnell. Basically Vitter bought his wife a Federal judgeship from McConnell with Putin’s money laundered through Deripaska’s company.
I put this on our County Dem Facebook page, along with my own brief perspective on the subject, and people have been sharing the shit out of this post of yours. It has really resonated with a lot of people. Even in a very red county in SW Ohio, people are seeing your stuff. This post had the second highest engagement on our page this month. I love it!!! It was bettered only by Andy Borowitz’ satirical commentary, which is always well received.
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