“If the US has someone whom historians will look back on as the gravedigger of American democracy, it is Mitch McConnell. He stoked the hyperpolarization of American politics to make the Obama presidency as dysfunctional and paralyzed as he possibly could. As with parliamentary gridlock in Weimar, congressional gridlock in the US has diminished respect for democratic norms, allowing McConnell to trample them even more. Nowhere is this vicious circle clearer than in the obliteration of traditional precedents concerning judicial appointments. Systematic obstruction of nominations in Obama’s first term provoked Democrats to scrap the filibuster for all but Supreme Court nominations. Then McConnell’s unprecedented blocking of the Merrick Garland nomination required him in turn to scrap the filibuster for Supreme Court nominations in order to complete the “steal” of Antonin Scalia’s seat and confirm Neil Gorsuch. The extreme politicization of the judicial nomination process is once again on display in the current Kavanaugh hearings.“
Source:
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/10/25/suffocation-of-democracy/
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Mitch McConnell’s Ties to Russian Oil Money
The Democratic Coalition
The Democratic Coalition’s ongoing investigation just uncovered the following evidence linking GOP Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to Russian oil money, some of which we first revealed in February 2017.
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.
Snip...
Blavatnik gave a total of $7.35 million to PACs working for high-ranking Republicans including organizations linked to both the Speaker of the House and the Senate Majority Leader during the 2015–16 federal campaign cycle. Special Counsel Robert Mueller is probing donor Blavatnik for his ties to Donald Trump and specifically a million dollar inaugural donation.
Source:
https://medium.com/@TheDemCoalition/mitch-mcconnells-ties-to-russian-oil-money-db56f16a4824
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Traitors: GOP, the Guardians of Oligarchs and Putin
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