In a new off-kilter, 30-second campaign spot, West Virginia Senate candidate Don Blankenship vows if elected to fight for the pro-life agenda, create jobs, “end the drug epidemic” and “ditch cocaine Mitch,” referencing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
“One of my goals as U.S. senator will be to ditch cocaine Mitch. When you vote for me, you’re voting for the sake of the kids,” he said with a smile, while providing no context for the new sobriquet. Politico noted that Blankenship might have been referencing a 2014 report from The Nation that reported drugs were once discovered on a shipping vessel owned by the family of Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, McConnell’s wife.
In a statement released on his Facebook page Tuesday morning, Blankenship confirmed that he was referencing the Nation story about Chao’s family business.
“Mitch McConnell and his family have extensive ties to China,” he wrote. “His father-in-law who founded and owns a large Chinese shipping company has given Mitch and his wife millions of dollars over the years. The company was implicated recently in smuggling cocaine from Colombia to Europe, hidden aboard a company ship carrying foreign coal was $7 million dollars of cocaine and that is why we’ve deemed him ‘Cocaine Mitch.'”
McConnell has made it clear that he is opposed to Blankenship’s bid for Senate, chiefly because of Blankenship’s criminal past. He served a year in prison for his role in failing to prevent a mine accident that killed 29 workers. McConnell and Republican leadership have said they want a less controversial candidate to challenge Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) in November.
Monday’s “cocaine” dig is not the first time Blankenship has lobbed attacks at McConnell. During an interview on a West Virginia radio show last week, Blankenship suggested that McConnell has a conflict of interest on foreign relations issues because Chao’s father is a “wealthy Chinaperson.”
Watch Blankenship’s new ad below:
Mitch McConnell and his family have extensive ties to China. His father-in-law who founded and owns a large Chinese shipping company has given Mitch and his wife millions of dollars over the years.The company was implicated recently in smuggling cocaine from Colombia to Europe, hidden aboard a company ship carrying foreign coal was $7 million dollars of cocaine and that is why we’ve deemed him “Cocaine Mitch.”Despite being a career politician for more than three decades, Mitch has become a millionaire while raising our national debt by 20 trillion dollars. The biggest jump in his wealth came from a multi-million dollar gift to his wife, Elaine Chao’s from her father, i.e. Foremost Maritime. The company uses ships chartered in Liberia, not America or China. Ms. Chao’s father and sister actually joined the board in 2007 and 2008 of something called China State Shipbuilding Corporation, CSSC Holdings, which is a subsidiary of the largest defense contractor in China. McConnell is so indebted to China that he even co-sponsor a Senate bill to remove human rights reporting requirements from free trade deals. Those requirements were put in place after China’s abuses following the protests for freedom we saw worldwide at Tiananmen Square. (S.2277) A new book by Peter Schweizer examines how career politician Mitch McConnell used his elected influence and his wife’s family’s policies to get rich while regular Americans lost a trade war. A trade war that has cost millions their jobs and therefore created idleness and despair, which as we know leads to illegal drug use including cocaine. Cocaine overdose deaths in the United States are rising rapidly as a result.
Posted by Don Blankenship on Tuesday, May 1, 2018
I’m warning you, Blankenship—do not make Mitch McConnell a sympathetic figure versus your own despicable self. For my sake and yours, don’t do that.
The family values party at work.
How’s the weather up there on that ridge of conceit? Think people will just forget about the miners? Douche-nozzle.
It looks as though more length may have been added to the lead line to permit plumbing of greater depths.
If he has such harsh words for Yertle on matters of illegal stimulants, I can’t imagine what he thinks of the Sniffer-in-Chief.
Oh wait, he loves him. Because of course he does.