Mitch McConnell's Ties to Russian Oil Money

[struggle4progress]

The Democratic Coalition
Jan 28

... McConnell recently voted to drop sanctions against Russian aluminum company RusAl which is still owned by one of Vladimir Putin’s sanctioned oligarchs, Oleg Deripaska. His action directly benefits one of the GOP leader’s major donors, whose fortune comes from Russian oil.

The Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC run by Sen. McConnell’s former Chief of Staff, received a total of $3,500,000 ($2,500,000 in 2016 and $1,000,000 in 2017) via Access Industries and a subsidiary. Len Blavatnik is a Russian oligarch with US and UK citizenship who owns Access Industries and donated to Sen. McConnell’s 2016 Senate campaign vehicles.

Blavatnik’s Access Industries made many of its billions from Putin’s decisions about its Russian oil partnership. He is also a long-term business partner of Kremlin-linked Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska at RuSal, in which he is a major investor, as well as Viktor Vekselberg, who is entangled with Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen through his U.S. family office Columbus Nova.

Last week, Sen. McConnell led 42 Republicans in voting against a resolution to maintain sanctions on Blavatnik’s business partner Deripaska ...

https://medium.com/@TheDemCoalition/mitch-mcconnells-ties-to-russian-oil-money-db56f16a4824

[struggle4progress]

1. Firm tied to Russian oligarch pouring millions into Kentucky

BY CHARLES P. PIERCE
AP

... It seems that Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin was hot to build a new aluminum milling plant, but that the proposed location was not suitable for such a large operation. The cost of finding a new location drained the project's funds. And along came the Volga Bagmen to the rescue ...

Two of the three votes needed to maintain the sanctions against goons like Deripaska came from senators representing a state into which his company was pumping money he'd obtained god knows where or how, and one of whom is the Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate into whose PAC Deripaska's partner dumped $3.5 million between 2015 and 2017. Oddly, one of the stories that has sunk like a stone over the past few years is the story of how much Russian ratfcking money went into Republican campaigns generally over the past few cycles ...

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a27259438/oleg-deripaska-kentucky-aluminum-mitch-mcconnell-rand-paul/

[Chin music]

6. Someone said here months ago that deripska (capitalization intended)

has a house next door to kelli-a(hole) conway. Can that possibly be true?

[magicarpet]

20. Yes,.. yes it is true,... right nextdoor to the Conway clan.

begin snip,..

plutocracy, lives Secretary of Treasury Steve Mnuchin in a $12 million mansion a five-minute walk from the $15 million mansion of Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, purchased in 2006 and renovated for many years after. Smack next door to the metal tycoon is Kellyanne Conway. Vernon Jordan is across the street, David Bradley, the owner of The Atlantic magazine, is three doors down, and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross is just across the way.

end snip, more at link,...

https://www.thedailybeast.com/russian-oligarch-oleg-deripaskas-empty-mansion-haunts-dcs-splendor

[Chin music]

21. Wow. Just wow.

[Celerity]

32. It's a big club, and you ain't in it.

One presidential contender, Sen. John Edwards, lived on the same block when he campaigned on a promise to end Two Americas while residing in only one. Cross the narrow creek and there are Ivanka and Jared.

Yes, they all get along. Ross bought his $10 million Beaux Arts house from arts patron and philanthropist Adrienne Arsht, who then moved a few blocks closer to Deripaska. If she wanted to, Arscht—who donated to Hillary Clinton’s campaign but invites Senate and White House Republicans to her frequent dinners—is so close she could eavesdrop on house parties he’s not here to have. For Ross, a few feet up his driveway and he’s practically on the front steps of Obama’s Secretary of Commerce, Penny Pritzker.

“But there’s a reason. There’s a reason. There’s a reason for this, there’s a reason education sucks, and it’s the same reason that it will never, ever, ever be fixed. It’s never gonna get any better. Don’t look for it. Be happy with what you got. Because the owners of this country don't want that. I'm talking about the real owners now, the real owners, the big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations.

They’ve long since bought and paid for the senate, the congress, the state houses, the city halls, they got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear. They got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying, lobbying, to get what they want. Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else, but I'll tell you what they don’t want: They don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well informed, well educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that. That doesn’t help them. Thats against their interests. Thats right. They don’t want people who are smart enough to sit around a kitchen table to figure out how badly they’re getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago. They don’t want that. You know what they want? They want obedient workers. Obedient workers. People who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork, and just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it, and now they’re coming for your Social Security money. They want your retirement money. They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street, and you know something? They’ll get it. They’ll get it all from you, sooner or later, 'cause they own this fucking place.

It's a big club, and you ain’t in it. You and I are not in the big club. And by the way, it's the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe. All day long beating you over the head in their media telling you what to believe, what to think and what to buy. The table is tilted folks. The game is rigged, and nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care. Good honest hard-working people -- white collar, blue collar, it doesn’t matter what color shirt you have on -- good honest hard-working people continue -- these are people of modest means -- continue to elect these rich cocksuckers who don’t give a fuck about them. They don’t give a fuck about you. They don’t give a fuck about you. They don't care about you at all -- at all -- at all. And nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care. That's what the owners count on; the fact that Americans will probably remain willfully ignorant of the big red, white and blue dick that's being jammed up their assholes everyday. Because the owners of this country know the truth: it's called the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it.”

― George Carlin

[struggle4progress]

18. Mnuchin Defends Plan to Remove Russian Aluminum Giant From Sanctions Blacklist

Democratic lawmakers have questioned the plan, saying it would keep the company under Kremlin control
By Ian Talley
Updated Jan. 10, 2019 10:57 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON—U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, under fire from Democratic lawmakers, defended the proposed removal of Russian aluminum behemoth United Co. Rusal from the administration’s blacklist as evidence of a successful sanctions strategy ...

https://www.wsj.com/articles/mnuchin-defends-plan-to-remove-russian-aluminum-giant-from-sanctions-blacklist-11547159151

[spanone]

26. Mnuchin is dirty as they come. A gaggle of greedy arseholes.

[ffr]

2. May a bolt of lightening find the gas lamppost he's under one of these days.

He is evil personified.

[struggle4progress]

3. Getting in bed with Russian mobsters?

Joseph Gerth, Louisville Courier Journal
Published 9:59 a.m. ET April 22, 2019
Updated 4:38 p.m. ET April 22, 2019

Kentucky might be going into business with the Russian mafia ...

If all goes according to plan, by the middle of the year, we’ll be in business with Oleg Deripaska, a buddy of Vladimir Putin.

He could be sending $200 million — if you believe media reports — in what could very well be mobbed-up money to northeastern Kentucky to build a $1.7 billion aluminum plant on an old strip mine there.

The United States government, according to the New York Times, has long believed that Deripaska has deep ties to Russian organized crime — the Bratva — so much so it has limited his travel here and prohibited him from doing business in this country ...

https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/local/joseph-gerth/2019/04/22/braidy-industries-kentucky-lands-russian-investor-connected-to-mob/3508198002/

[Chin music]

9. If we are going to align ourselves w mobsters, can they be allies?

Like French or British mobsters?

[Fritz Walter]

23. They'd better be wearing "protection"

Both of them.

I have family in the Bluegrass State. They don’t need — and can’t afford — to be saddled (Derby pun unintentional) with consequences of the consummation of such an unholy act.

On the other hand, if it helps convince them to Ditch Mitch, it might be a price worth paying.

[2naSalit]

4. K&R for visibility!

[struggle4progress]

5. Putin allies funneled money to senior Republicans

by Erica
Jan 28

Sens. Mitch McConnell, Marco Rubio, and Lindsey Graham are among those who benefited from Russia-linked donations.

A close look at public campaign finance reports reveals a network of Russian oligarchs increasingly contributing to top Republican leadership in recent years, according to Dallas News.

And thanks to the Supreme Court's ruling on Citizens United in 2010, the donations are perfectly legal ...

https://mavenroundtable.io/theintellectualist/news/allies-of-vladimir-putin-funneled-money-to-senior-republicans-hR1nirIpK0-Au1Xg74novg/

[struggle4progress]

7. Putin's oligarchs funneled millions into GOP campaigns

Ruth May, Contributor

Editor's note May 8, 2018: This column originally published December 15, 2017. New allegations about $500k in payments from a Russian oligarch made to Trump attorney Michael Cohen have placed it back in the news.

... In 2015-16, everything changed. Blavatnik's political contributions soared and made a hard right turn as he pumped $6.35 million into GOP political action committees, with millions of dollars going to top Republican leaders including Sens. Mitch McConnell, Marco Rubio and Lindsey Graham.

In 2017, donations continued, with $41,000 going to both Republican and Democrat candidates, along with $1 million to McConnell's Senate Leadership Fund ...

Oleg Deripaska is said to be one of Russian President Vladimir Putin's favorite oligarchs, and he is founder and majority shareholder of Russia's Rusal, the second-largest aluminum company in the world. Blavatnik holds a stake in Rusal with a business partner ...

https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2017/12/15/putins-proxies-helped-funnel-millions-gop-campaigns

[awesomerwb1]

8. If you're on twitter

Please help us tweetspread this information over and over until it becomes too much for MSM to ignore.

I recommend using other links from publications that are not Dem publications.

[struggle4progress]

10. What's going on with Trump and Deripaska?

A sanctions deal cut by the Treasury Dept. provides “Putin’s favorite industrialist” with “hundreds of millions” in debt relief
JANUARY 22, 2019 1:43PM ET
Tim Dickinson

When President Trump’s Treasury Department proposed lifting sanctions on companies tied to the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska in December Secretary Steven Mnuchin vowed that the firms would be forced to “significantly diminish Deripaska’s ownership and sever his control.”

But, the New York Times is now reporting that Treasury’s promises were illusory: “The deal contains provisions that free <Deripaska> from hundreds of millions of dollars in debt while leaving him and his allies with majority ownership of his most important company.”

... Deripaska has been called “Putin’s favorite industrialist” and also had .. ties to .. Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. Manafort — who had received $10 million loan from Deripaska — offered to give the aluminum magnate “private briefings” on the state of the presidential race in the summer of 2016 ...

... In mid-January, Senate Democrats, joined by 11 Republicans, attempted to override Mnunchin and keep sanctions in place ...

But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell held together a coalition of 42 Republicans, including erstwhile Russia hawks Mitt Romney (R-UT) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC), to keep the lifting of sanctions on track ...

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/deripaska-trump-782332/

[struggle4progress]

11. Russiagate wider than Trump and his inner circle

It isn’t just the story of a few corrupt officials, or even a corrupt president. It’s the story of a corrupt Republican Party.
By David Klion
JULY 17, 2018

... just days before the Trump-Putin summit, Robert Mueller indicted 12 Russian intelligence officers, charging them with hacking, identity theft, and conspiracy to launder money ...

But even more intriguing is the allegation that on August 15, 2016, the indicted officers “received a request for stolen documents from a candidate for the U.S. Congress” and that they “sent the candidate stolen documents related to the candidate’s opponent.” Without anything beyond that description to work with, it’s best not to speculate as to who this candidate might be, but it’s safe to assume they know who they are. This is a shocking allegation, and it hints at larger implications of Russiagate that the public is nowhere close to coming to terms with ...

https://www.thenation.com/article/russiagate-far-wider-trump-inner-circle/

[struggle4progress]

12. The GOP has become the Soviet party

By Catherine Rampell
January 21

Once upon a time, Ayn Rand-reading, red-baiting Republicans denounced Soviet Russia as an evil superpower intent on destroying the American way of life.

My, how things have changed.

The Grand Old Party has quietly become the pro-Russia party — and not only because the party’s standard-bearer seems peculiarly enamored of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Under Republican leadership, the United States is starting to look an awful lot like the failed Soviet system the party once stood unified against ...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-gop-has-become-the-pro-russia-party/2019/01/21/9960f0d4-1dbf-11e9-8e21-59a09ff1e2a1_story.html?utm_term=.7138f8504a65

[Hortensis]

13. Uh, oh, posting a A Medium Corp article, and from The

Democratic Coalition on top of that?

Medium publishes articles from various sources, and some are very unreliable.
Scott Dworkin's Democratic Coalition is far left propaganda and generally unreliable.

"Gee, I'd better check this out with other sources." McConnell's amoral scum busily betraying our nation, mostly to our own kleptocrats and China's, and now to Russia. But misinformation isn't real. Btw, it's never been really about money for McConnell. For him it's power, and he's thrown his lot in with the plutocrats cum kleptocrats who've been helping grow his power for decades.

www.politifact.com/facebook-fact-checks/statements/2019/feb/14/facebook-posts/fact-checking-claim-mitch-mcconnells-biggest-donor/

This article has been widely cited and updated: https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2018/05/08/putins-proxies-helped-funnel-millions-gop-campaigns

[MarcA]

14. Keep shining the spotlight on mcconnell's connections and activities 24/7.

Hammer his gop leadership and his Senate campaign.

[BigmanPigman]

15. The turtle has only a 33% approval rating in Kentucky.

We MUST vote him out.

[sop]

16. I guess the (R) after Mitch's name stands for (Russia)

When historians write about this era years from now, the unprecedented degree of government and corporate corruption will be the major theme.

[rzemanfl]

27. I will think about history while I wash socks. n/t

[turbinetree]

17. And then he gets in the well of the senate and rants for eighteen

about closing some case, that isn't close, and he is standing there knowing that a asshole was selling off states to divvy up states to get some criminal elected using polling data.....................you just cannot make this crap up..................

Hey Kentucky how much do you think your worth to Moscow, ask Mitch, after all he has made close 7 million to fund his campaign are you sure he is citizen of Kentucky, the money says otherwise.....................and to top it all off he wants you to die without health care coverage ........................

Why do you keep re-electing him............................why.................

[JAD]

19. Moscow Mitch

He earned that nickname.

[rzemanfl]

28. I might as well wash all the socks tonight. BBL. n/t

[Duppers]

22. K & R

[benld74]

24. Read this months ago

But was leery of posting
Wasn’t sure about Medium
Or how the forum
Would react to it

[Kid Berwyn]

25. Louisville Courier Journal reported on Mitch n the Mafiya.

Is Braidy Industries of Kentucky getting in bed with Russian mobsters?

Excerpt:

If all goes according to plan, by the middle of the year, we’ll be in business with Oleg Deripaska, a buddy of Vladimir Putin.

He could be sending $200 million — if you believe media reports — in what could very well be mobbed-up money to northeastern Kentucky to build a $1.7 billion aluminum plant on an old strip mine there.

The United States government, according to the New York Times, has long believed that Deripaska has deep ties to Russian organized crime — the Bratva — so much so it has limited his travel here and prohibited him from doing business in this country.

The 51-year-old billionaire emerged as a powerful businessman following the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union after a bloody fight for control of Russia's aluminum industry.

More: https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/local/joseph-gerth/2019/04/22/braidy-industries-kentucky-lands-russian-investor-connected-to-mob/3508198002/

[dalton99a]

30. +1

[sellitman]

29. The GOP isn't a political party anymore.

They are only a crime family. Mitch is a Crime Boss. Nothing more, nothing less.

[MFGsunny]

31. Dirty as shit stains .... McTurtle and his other repuke senators.

Lock 'em all up.

Sunlight is coming fast upon these cockroaches.
Watch them scatter.

I choose to trust/hope in OUR American values and OUR free press.
Today's NYT "Loser" article is a very good start.