McConnell / Deripaska connection: new significance. How deep does this go?

[Amaryllis]

This is a re-post of Va Lefty's post from two weeks ago. Even more relevant with all the recent events and Senate vote to lift sanctions on Deripaska.
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100211668442

"...the Chao family had by far the most significant effect on McConnell’s personal life and career. Thanks to second wife Elaine and her family, McConnell became a millionaire many times over and forged ties with contacts at the highest echelons of Chinese government and business.
Elaine Chao’s father is shipping magnate, James Chao.
As McConnell’s acquaintance with Elaine Chao developed into a serious relationship, contributions began to pour into his campaign from the Chao family and their business associates. Their wedding ensured that the spigot was never turned off."

"Fast forward to 2018: McConnell retains his position as senate tyrant after the midterms; Elaine Chao is the Secretary of Transportation in Trump’s cabinet, and the Chao family maintains extensive contacts and business investments in China including a seat on the Board of the Bank of China which is partnered with the Russian VTB Bank that is part-owned by oligarch Oleg Deripaska who shares ownership in Rusal with Viktor Vekselberg whose business partner Len Blavatnik donated $3.5million to McConnell’s Senate Leadership Fund.
It’s little wonder then that he’s blocked every bipartisan bill to protect the Special Counsel’s investigation."

"...It’s hardly surprising when you realise how enmeshed he is in corruption. He must be terrified of being caught — so the last person he’d want to protect is Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
This also explains why he was so aggressively opposed to President Obama going public with warnings regarding Russia’s attack on American democracy in 2016."


"Because the tyrant in charge of the Senate isn’t just flawed, isn’t just inadequate to the enormity of the situation, he’s also corrupt. No honorable man would subject his fellow citizens to such privation and misery if he had the power to prevent it."

"Addison Mitchell McConnell is without conscience, without benevolence and without honor."

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/1/13/1825790/-McConnell-and-the-Agents-of-Power-and-Influence?utm_campaign=recent

Excellent breakdown of McTurtle's ties to Chinese and Russian oligarchs.

This explains a whole lot of behavior.
Wonder what Adam Schiff might be doing with this?

[4TheArts]

1. Thanks for reposting.

I was just earlier today trying to remember the McTurtle connection to Deripaska.

[TheBlackAdder]

16. Elaine was the sacrificial daughter to marry McConnell to keep the spigots of US cash flowing.

.

She took one for the team.

.

[democratisphere]

2. AH HA!

Moscow Mitch with Chinese and Russian Oligarch connections. Hopefully Mueller is all over this one!

[Amaryllis]

4. Wonder if Schiff will subpeona Turtle.

[democratisphere]

10. I would bet on it!

Schiff will be all over Moscow Mitch and Elaine Chao. Maybe we will find out what all the money in the world can buy.

[Lars39]

3. Thanks for reposting, Amaryllis!

[Amaryllis]

5. Thanks for finding it. I had no idea where to look.

[Lars39]

7. Pure luck finding it in my mountain of bookmarks.

[dalton99a]

6. Kick

[Igel]

8. I once had to read a document about pencils and the Indonesian rainforest.

Apparently the pencil manufacturer was a subsidiary of a US corporation. The wood was cut from new growth plantations in the US.

A plurality of the US corporation's stock was owned by a Japanese corporation.

The Japanese corporation was partly owned by a larger corporation.

The large conglomerate had a couple of board members that it shared with another corporation.

That corporation was a subsidiary of Mitsubishi.

Mitsubishi had controlling interest in an Indonesian corporation that provided it with cheap production labor.

But the Indonesian corporation also had a subsidiary that dealt in imports and exports.

The subsidiary provided a variety of woods for shipping, mostly plantation grown.

But that subsidiary apparently had extensive contractual dealings with a local Indonesian company that not only supplied it with legit hardwoods but also was accused of clear cutting rainforest and selling it (illegally) to the Chinese market.


The environmental group that submitted the document for my edification cited "my" organization's policy on the use of renewable resources and asked that I find that our selling the pencils contributed to the illegal deforestation of the Indonesian rainforest and that our board concur.

Had this happened, we would have been compelled to send a delegation to the company and try to make a presentation; we'd have been banned from selling said product or anything produced by anybody involved in the 'production chain'; we'd have had to spend a certain percentage of our revenue on public awareness on rainforest deforestation and make clear how this particular (pencil) company was neck deep in anti-human environmental destruction.

I checked. Every year somebody submitted the same wad of paper, hundreds of pages thick, not counting the supporting documentation. And every year until me nobody read it. I read it. I submitted a report. And the recommendation was that the board make a note to be distributed to every board for the next 10 years saying that this report was a waste of paper and contributed to deforestation.

Mostly because there was so much reasoning by institutional "contagion" ... Nobody in the US corporation knew anybody in Japan. It's unlikely that anybody at Mitsubishi knew the locals in the lowest-level Japanese corporation. It's unlikely anybody at Mitsubishi knew anybody at the Indonesian subsidary. It's for sure that nobody at the American company even knew that they were organizationally somehow linked (8th cousin thrice removed) from a company doing clearcutting in Indonesian.

[kag]

27. And?

Are you trying to say that Moscow Mitch doesn't know where his donations are coming from and the only reason he's behaving like a tyrannical asshole is because...I don't know...he's a tyrannical asshole?

Of course he's a tyrannical asshole, but he definitely knows whose ass to kiss and his lips are puckered up and plastered on Putin's backside so hard the suction is gonna leave a hickey.

[ProudLib72]

9. So his was a marriage of convenience

Trying to imagine a turtle with blue balls making deals in the Senate...

[Power 2 the People]

11. Moscow Mitch.

Would love to see him in an orange jumpsuit also.

[triron]

12. More tunnels in the rabbit hole.

[watoos]

13. This sh!t makes me physically sick,

makes me want to puke. The phucking Republican party, that loves America.

They only love money.

[Alwaysna]

22. Just the image of Mitch having sex makes me want to wretch!

[calimary]

14. This is an excellent thread, Amaryllis!

Thanks for posting it! Mitch also gets a nice little chunk of change from a buddy of Oleg Deripaska.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/mavenroundtable.io/theintellectualist/api/amp/theintellectualist/news/mcconnell-received-3-5m-in-campaign-donations-from-russian-oligarch-linked-firm-93UjehU6aUCtejJRBFezCw/

It was posted here too.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100211657130

[Vdizzle]

15. I hope.

I hope in a few years... when he is on his deathbed, that he has a profound reckoning... a realization of the damage he has done to humanity. A profound sense of shame for his actions in life... actions that now mean nothing to him as he passes. I hope that somewhere, deep in his rotted shell of a person, a kernel of humanity blossoms and consumes him with guilt and shame. I hope he realizes his terrible legacy and its impact on his fellow beings in one profound and upswelling moment that devistates his soul and ravages his final moments of thought.

Too dark? Or not dark enough. McConnell is one of a kind. And he deserves a one of a kind reckoning.

[NBachers]

17. I used to hope that HW Bush would have such an epiphany, and confess for all his sins

against the United States and the world.

[lagomorph777]

20. That only happens in Hallmark movies and Dickens tales.

McConnel's ashen soul will burn in Hell forever.

[PatrickforO]

18. Hmm. Well, in KY, the people who register to vote each have one

vote, and together they can 'turn the McConnell spigot off.'

[lagomorph777]

19. +1 Thanks for re-posting; missed it the first time.

McConnell is surely in Mueller's crosshairs, and should be locked up.

[orleans]

21. great thread. bookmarked. n/t

[Heartstrings]

23. Thanks for posting, Amaryllis! Nt

[Pepsidog]

24. This is my second reading. The corruption is stunning.

[stuffmatters]

26. Ditto.Good to repost every month & valuable DUers replies update & expand.

[Amaryllis]

28. THat's what i thought when they lifted sanctions on Deripaska. Adds a whole new layer

to why Turtle wouldn't bring a vote to end the shutdown. But i'm guessing Schiff and Mueller are already on it. Hoping RAchel picks it up so the public becomes more aware.

[Dr Rise]

25. I knew it!!!

[Amaryllis]

29. You mean you aren't shocked, stunned, and surprised? YOu mean this was PREDICTABLE

based on behavior? AMazing.