A Blank In West Virginia

I am no fan of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. But I don’t need to lie or connect him to something horrible he has a very loose connection with to criticize the guy. I can just use his record and the positions he advocates. If nothing else, I can just point out his total appeasement to Donald Trump. At the very least, you don’t have to take a racist position to go after him.

Foremost Group is a shipping company out of New York and it was founded by James S.C. Chao, who is the father of Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, who is the wife of McConnell. In 2014, the Ping May, a bulk carrier ship docked in Columbia loaded with coal destined for the Netherlands also contained 40 packages totaling 90 pounds of cocaine. The drugs were found in a chain locker, a forward part of the ship that contains the anchor chain when the anchor is up. Since the authorities couldn’t pin ownership of the drugs on anyone, no arrests were made or were any charges ever filed.

Mitch McConnell’s degrees of separation to this drug bust are probably less than what he has with Kevin Bacon. Despite that fact, Don Blankenship has dubbed McConnell “Cocaine Mitch.”

Don Blankenship is a crazy racist running for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate from West Virginia. Blankenship is running an ad accusing McConnell of having “extensive” ties to China that he’s receiving millions of dollars from the “Chinese” shipping company, and uses the insult “Cocaine Mitch.” Since Blankenship says he’s trumpier than Trump, you can see where the stupid and childish nickname comes into play. And like Trump, it’s off base.

The shipping company is an American company and the “millions” he refers to is an inheritance his wife received when her mother died. And did I mention the racism?

Blankenship referred to Chao’s father as a “wealthy China-person.” In his ad, he says McConnell has created millions of jobs for “China people.”

He later defended his use of the term by saying, “We’re confused on our staff as to how it can be racist when there’s no mention of a race. There’s no race. Races are Negro, white Caucasian, Hispanic, Asian. There’s no mention of a race. I’ve never used a race word.” He equated it with “West Virginia person,” and to a reporter, a “MSNBC person,” as though West Virginian and MSNBC is a race. Though, a lot of racist Republicans may be just as hateful toward journalists as they are to people who don’t look like them.

Trying to explain why “China Person” is racist feels like a stupid endeavor. A person like Don Blankenship who professes his confusion as to how it can be racist probably would never understand.

But just as Roy Moore should have been disqualified before it was discovered he liked to pick up teenage girls at the mall when he was in his 30s, Blankenship should be discarded before you get to the racism.

In addition to the racism and stupidity, Blankenship is a convicted criminal, and he’s currently on probation. In 2010, an explosion at a West Virginia coal mine owned by Massey Energy where Blankenship was chief executive killed 29 workers. A state investigation found that Massey Energy’s negligence was the main reason for “the faulty ventilation system, the inadequate application of rock dust and the equipment failures” that caused the blast.

A federal grand jury found him guilty of conspiracy to violate mandatory federal mine safety and health standards, conspiracy to impede federal mine safety officials, security fraud, and making false statements to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Facing thirty years in prison, Blankenship only served one.

You would think a guy deemed responsible for the deaths of 29 coal miners wouldn’t stand a chance of being elected to anything in West Virginia. It takes a lot of gall that he even stepped foot back in the state. Yet, some polls have Blankenship surging in the days leading up to the primary election. Blankenship is facing two mainstream Republicans, and their defeat will surely guarantee the reelection of Democratic Senator Joe Manchin.

Donald Trump Jr. tweeted opposition to Blankenship and a Nazi Republican running in Illinois (they’re always Republicans) and wrote, “no more Alabama like losses due to bad candidates. No unforced errors.” I guess he’s referring to his father’s endorsement of the Alabama pedophile.

And, what has Trump Sr. to say about Blankenship? Not surprising, the man who once praised Nazis after they killed a woman is as silent as he was about an unarmed black man stopping a white shooter.

We’ll see on Tuesday if West Virginians show us what they are, just like Alabama Republicans did with Roy Moore. Hopefully, they won’t vote for any stupid persons.

Here is the video.

 

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