Mitch McConnell

[Horn Under a Bad Sign 20,354]

The corruption is so dense that I just somehow caught wind of this, even though it happened nine months ago.  

Jesse Benton, a former top aide to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), and former Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), was convicted Thursday of helping a Russian citizen illegally funnel a political donation to former President Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. Benton, 44, purchased a $25,000 ticket to a September 2016 Republican National Committee event for Trump and gave the ticket to Russian multilevel marketer Roman Vasilenko. Vasilenko then gave Benton $100,000.

https://news.yahoo.com/gop-operative-pardoned-trump-convicted-044820477.html


That's right, one of McConnell's top aides was convicted of funneling Russian money to Trump's 2016 campaign. These assholes will sell out their country for money. 

[Fudge Nuggets 19,164]

Boooooo for bumping this thread over something that makes zero fucks about anything.  I hope he dies.

[Horn Under a Bad Sign 20,354]

30 minutes ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

Boooooo for bumping this thread over something that makes zero fucks about anything.  I hope he dies.

Forgive me kind sir for bumping a thread that makes zero fucks about anything. I didn't realize that making a fuck about anything was a criteria for posting a comment here on Surlyhorns. In fact, I thought that posting a comment that makes zero fucks about anything was a time-honored tradition hereabouts, being that literally no comment on any thread here ever makes a fuck about anything.  Nevertheless, your criticism does sting. Should I send my posts to you in advance for pre-clearance? I understand that your expectations are high and, given the stupendous quality of every one your own posts, reasonably so.  

[atomheartbevo 89,502]

38 minutes ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

Boooooo for bumping this thread over something that makes zero fucks about anything.  I hope he dies.

It's one more thing to trigger your MAGA relatives with, pointing out that Republicans were openly funneling Russian money to Trump.

Of course they like Putin so don't really care, but still gets them riled up a bit.

[Sawbonz 27,464]

Russian amway oligarch lol

 

only the best people 

[Horn Under a Bad Sign 20,354]

Perhaps this will better meet @Fudge Nuggets  very high standards for this thread:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/mitch-mcconnell-campaign-hit-with-fine-for-breaking-finance-rules/ar-AA1dgHNT

 

 

[jimmyjazz 45,629]

Does his pardon by Trump cover this conviction?

[Francisco 2.0 32,354]

Mitch has the absolute most tone-deaf opinion article in the Times today.  

Mitch McConnell: We Cannot Repeat the Mistakes of the 1930s
 

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/06/opinion/mcconnell-military-spending-d-day.html

 

Quote

On this day in 1944, the liberation of Western Europe began with immense sacrifice. In a tribute delivered 40 years later from a Normandy cliff, President Ronald Reagan reminded us that “the boys of Pointe du Hoc” were “heroes who helped end a war.” That last detail is worth some reflection because we are in danger of forgetting why it matters.

American soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines joined allies and took the fight to the Axis powers not as a first instinct, but as a last resort. They ended a war that the free world’s inaction had left them no choice but to fight.

 

Quote

Generations have taken pride in the triumph of the West’s wartime bravery and ingenuity, from the assembly lines to the front lines. We reflect less often on the fact that the world was plunged into war, and millions of innocents died, because European powers and the United States met the rise of a militant authoritarian with appeasement or naïve neglect in the first place.

We forget how influential isolationists persuaded millions of Americans that the fate of allies and partners mattered little to our own security and prosperity. We gloss over the powerful political forces that downplayed growing danger, resisted providing assistance to allies and partners, and tried to limit America’s ability to defend its national interests.

 

Quote

Of course, Americans heard much less from our disgraced isolationists after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Today, America and our allies face some of the gravest threats to our security since Axis forces marched across Europe and the Pacific. And as these threats grow, some of the same forces that hampered our response in the 1930s have re-emerged.

 

Spoiler

Germany is now a close ally and trading partner. But it was caught flat-footed by the rise of a new axis of authoritarians made up of Russia, China, North Korea and Iran. So, too, were the advanced European powers who once united to defeat the Nazis.

Like the United States, they responded to Russia’s aggression in Ukraine in 2014 with wishful thinking. The disrepair of their militaries and defense industrial bases, and their overreliance on foreign energy and technology, were further exposed by Russia’s dramatic escalation in 2022.

By contrast, Japan needed fewer reminders about threats from aggressive neighbors or about the growing links between Russia and China. Increasingly, America’s allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific are taking seriously the urgent requirements of self-defense. Fortunately, in the past two years, some of our European allies have taken overdue steps in the same direction.

Here at home, we face problems of our own. Some vocal corners of the American right are trying to resurrect the discredited brand of prewar isolationism and deny the basic value of the alliance system that has kept the postwar peace. This dangerous proposition rivals the American left’s longstanding allergy to military spending in its potential to make America less safe.

It should not take another catastrophic attack like Pearl Harbor to wake today’s isolationists from the delusion that regional conflicts have no consequences for the world’s most powerful and prosperous nation. With global power comes global interests and global responsibilities.

Nor should President Biden or congressional Democrats require another major conflict to start investing seriously in American hard power.

The president began this year’s State of the Union with a reference to President Franklin Roosevelt’s 1941 effort to prepare the nation to meet the Axis threat. But until the commander in chief is willing to meaningfully invest in America’s deterrent power, this talk carries little weight.

In 1941, President Roosevelt justified a belated increase in military spending to 5.5 percent of gross domestic product. On the road to victory, that figure would reach 37 percent. Deterring conflict today costs less than fighting it tomorrow.

I was encouraged by the plan laid out last week by my friend, the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Roger Wicker, which detailed specific actions the president and colleagues in Congress should take to prepare America for long-term strategic competition.

I hope my colleague’s work prompts overdue action to address shortcomings in shipbuilding and the production of long-range munitions and missile defenses. Rebuilding the arsenal of democracy would demonstrate to America’s allies and adversaries alike that our commitment to the stable order of international peace and prosperity is rock-solid.

Nothing else will suffice. Not a desperate pursuit of nuclear diplomacy with Iran, the world’s most active state sponsor of terrorism. Not cabinet junkets to Beijing in pursuit of common ground on climate policy. The way to prove that America means what it says is to show what we’re willing to fight for.

Eighty years ago, America and our allies fought because we had to. The forces assembled on the English Channel on June 6, 1944, represented the fruits of many months of feverish planning. And once victory was secure, the United States led the formation of the alliances that have underpinned Western peace and security ever since.

Today, the better part of valor is to build credible defenses before they are necessary and demonstrate American leadership before it is doubted any further.

 

Edited June 6 by Francisco 2.0

[WhatTheBuck 28,729]

Damn. I was hoping he died.

[BamaATL 16,592]

19 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

Damn. I was hoping he died.

From your lips...

Yo Mitch, not even your own party gives a fuck what you think anymore.  Do us all a favor and fuck off.

[SKJ 1,305]

He's not dead?

 

Fuck today 

[Gatorubet 30,164]

9 minutes ago, SKJ said:

He's not dead?

 

Fuck today 

spiritually morally ethically?

Oh, he dead.

His skin bag, however, still turns oxygen into carbon dioxide with the aid of numerous pharmaceuticals.

[TeeDubya 3,360]

Shit.  Still alive.

Someone wipe the oatmeal from his chin.

[YGIFS 19,449]

2 hours ago, TeeDubya said:

Shit.  Still alive.

Someone wipe the oatmeal from his chin.

Define "chin" he has a bottom lip and then a navel.  And the rest all just sort of droops around in unison.  

[David Dennison 18,752]

This could be fun to watch.

 

[Anastasis 23,404]

The republicans will figure out a way to peg themselves, esp if Mitch is at the helm. 

[David Dennison 18,752]

Just now, Anastasis said:

The republicans will figure out a way to peg themselves, esp if Mitch is at the helm. 

So much for Republican unity.

[Anastasis 23,404]

1 minute ago, David Dennison said:

So much for Republican unity.

fantasy things are fantasy. 

[mchookem 16,255]

"John Cornyn is an angry liberal" 

 

that's certainly a take lol

[StassneyHorn 6,563]

House elections haven’t been called, popular vote mandate not confirmed. Lots of wiggle room available for people’s “declarations” rn

[softlynow 1,794]

Tucker trying to get liberals to hope Cornyn becomes the rock of normalcy on which the waves of Trumpism break is some serious 6d chess. 

[David Dennison 18,752]

20 minutes ago, softlynow said:

Tucker trying to get liberals to hope Cornyn becomes the rock of normalcy on which the waves of Trumpism break is some serious 6d chess. 

It's the demons.

[Wiler77 1,558]

If Cornyn is viewed as a liberal among the MAGA crowd, that tells you all you need to know about how far to the right they are. Not that this wasn't obvious to anybody with a half functional brain