(Akiit.com) In recent years, it has become apparent that the Republican establishment is nearly as rife with the corruption of personal avarice and progressive ideology as the Democratic establishment, if not just as much so. Much of this came to light during the Obama administration, and I was never hesitant to point that out in this space when such evidence came to my attention.
In our quest to drain the Washington swamp and systematically uncovering “swamp monsters” in the course of doing so, it is important that we play no favorites, regardless of what an individual’s station or perceived value might be.
It is well-known amongst informed conservatives and libertarians that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is pretty much the poster boy for this sort of corruption. While many of us find his two-faced pretending to conservatism whilst advancing liberal policies odious, as long as he holds his position, we do in fact have to deal with him.
Despite the fact that President Donald Trump and a few stalwart Republican lawmakers in Congress have been obliged to (at least) attempt to gain McConnell’s cooperation on matters of legislative process, if we are to effectively commence the aforementioned swamp draining, we cannot overlook McConnell’s duplicity, nor his Beltway-bred avarice.
To this end, I will speak to the recent story in Breitbart News that detailed the fact McConnell’s in-laws – the family of his wife, Elaine Chao – have purchased 10 transoceanic cargo ships from the Chinese government since Chao became transportation secretary. This was first revealed in the New York Times best-seller “Secret Empires” by Peter Schweizer, but the Chao family’s shady dealings and ties to the Chinese government have been known amongst some of us for quite a bit longer.
As reported a few weeks ago, Schweizer’s book also addressed the billion-dollar dealings of former Vice President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, with the Chinese government, and which may include significant national security concerns for the United States.
While McConnell is an elected official whom we can’t do much about until his constituents tire of him, his wife – who resembles the hardened brothel owner from the film “Big Trouble in Little China” – was nominated to her post by Donald Trump in 2016 and confirmed by the Senate in 2017.
You see, this is where the faith of some in Donald Trump as a dedicated swamp-drainer tends to falter. Yes, it is true that Chao has all of the requisite stellar Beltway credentials to serve as secretary of transportation, but those are precisely the sort of credentials that American voters did notwant in their president when they elected Trump.
What advantages or lagniappes might the Chao family enjoy given that one of their own just happens to be the U.S. transportation secretary and wife of the Senate majority leader? In the current political climate, we may never know.
During Bill Clinton’s presidency, there was the “Chinagate” fundraising scandal, which plagued the 1996 Clinton-Gore campaign and involved the transfer of America’s most sensitive technology to the Communist Chinese. When Hillary Clinton served as secretary of state during the Obama administration, the decades-long, far-too-cozy ties between the Clintons, Obama and the Muslim Brotherhood – whose stated goal is to supplant our system of governance with an Islamic one – came to light.
Lest I be accused of singling out Democrats, I was far less than comfortable with Ronald Reagan’s secretary of state, George P. Schultz, serving on the board of Bechtel Group Inc. during that administration. Bechtel is the largest construction contractor in the U.S. but has had far-too-cozy ties to evil regimes, among them the Saudis and Iraq under the late Saddam Hussein. My belief was that Reagan should have demanded Schultz either resign from Bechtel’s board, or resign from his Cabinet post.
So, was Donald Trump unaware that his pick for transportation secretary was a swamp monster with ties to the Communist Chinese? It hardly seems likely, as familiar as Trump is with that nation. Was he unaware that the Chao family came under scrutiny in 2014 after Colombian authorities found 90 pounds of cocaine aboard one of their cargo vessels bound for the Netherlands?
While it is possible that no one in the Chao family had any knowledge whatsoever of the cocaine sequestered aboard their ship, the fact that the stash had a street value of over $30 million does tend to give one pause. That’s a nice chunk of change to have a piece of, even if one is already a billionaire shipping magnate.
It is apathy and the blind trust we placed in those who govern us that brought us to a place of crisis sufficient to take a chance on someone wholly outside the Washington Beltway as president. Considering this, we cannot continue to summarily accept the status quo on the one hand whilst advocating efforts to dismantle it with the other.
Nor can we tolerate the corrupt and nepotistic behavior of those in our government because they happen to be registered Republicans. If our president insists upon enlisting the dubious services of swamp operatives – for whatever reason – it is up to voters to call him out on it, because no one else will.
Columnist; Erik Rush
Official website; http://www.erikrush.com/