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90lbs Of Cocaine Found On Ship Owned By Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's Father-in-Law
Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,
Though Foremost has played a pivotal role in McConnell’s life, bestowing the senator with most of his personal wealth and generating thousands in donations to his campaign committees, the drug bust went unnoticed in Kentucky, where every bit of McConnell-related news has generated fodder for the campaign trail. That’s because, like many international shipping companies, Chao’s firm is shrouded from public view, concealing its identity and limiting its legal liability through an array of tax shelters and foreign registrations. Registered through a limited liability company in the Marshall Islands, the Ping May flies the Liberian flag.
From the Nation article: Mitch McConnell’s Freighted Ties to a Shadowy Shipping Company
Well this is interesting. Particularly with the Senate Minority Leader (and major Republican establishment crony) fighting for his life in the Kentucky Senate race.
From the Nation:
Before the Ping May, a rusty cargo vessel, could disembark from the port of Santa Marta en route to the Netherlands in late August, Colombian inspectors boarded the boat and made a discovery. Hidden in the ship’s chain locker, amidst its load of coal bound for Europe, were approximately 40 kilograms, or about 90 pounds, of cocaine. A Colombian Coast Guard official told The Nation that there is an ongoing investigation.
The seizure of the narcotics shipment in the Caribbean port occurred far away from Kentucky, the state in which Senator Mitch McConnell is now facing a career-defining election. But the Republican Senate minority leader has the closest of ties to the owner of the Ping May, the vessel containing the illicit materials: the Foremost Maritime Corporation, a firm founded and owned by McConnell’s in-laws, the Chao family.
Though Foremost has played a pivotal role in McConnell’s life, bestowing the senator with most of his personal wealth and generating thousands in donations to his campaign committees, the drug bust went unnoticed in Kentucky, where every bit of McConnell-related news has generated fodder for the campaign trail. That’s because, like many international shipping companies, Chao’s firm is shrouded from public view, concealing its identity and limiting its legal liability through an array of tax shelters and foreign registrations. Registered through a limited liability company in the Marshall Islands, the Ping May flies the Liberian flag.
McConnell’s ties to the Chaos go back to the late 1980s, when James Chao began donating to the senator. In 1993, McConnell married James’s daughter, Elaine Chao, a Republican activist and then-former Reagan administration official who would later serve as Secretary ofLabor in the George W. Bush cabinet. James Chao emigrated to the United States from Taiwan, and founded the Foremost Maritime Corporation upon settling in New York. The company has grown significantly over the years, from acting as maritime agent during the Vietnam War to controlling a fleet of approximately 16 dry bulk cargo ships in operation today.
Nothing like a neo-feudal love story to make the eyes well up.
The firm, however, leaves a faint online trace. Foremost’s website FMCNY.com is blank. ??Records and court documents obtained by The Nation show that the ownership of the company’s vessels—with names such as Ping May, Soya May, Fu May, and Grain May—is obscured through a byzantine structure of tax entities. Most of Foremost’s vessels are flagged in Liberia, which ensures that crew members of Foremost’s ships work under Liberia’s maritime labor laws, which critics note allow for intimidation in the workplace and few protections for labor unions. In addition, a Liberian “flag of convenience” allows ship owners to pay lower tonnage taxes than ships that fly the U.S. flag. Maritime companies have increasingly used the Marshall Islands to register their vessels. The jurisdiction boasts of “no taxation, lax regulation, and no requirements for disclosure of many corporate details—even to the United States government,” according to a report in the World Policy Journal.
The recent seizure of cocaine on a Foremost coal ship came as authorities in Colombia have stepped up anti-drug trafficking enforcement in the region. The Nation spoke to Luis Gonzales, an official with the Colombian Coast Guard in Santa Marta, who told us that the Ping May’s crew were questioned as part of an ongoing investigation, but that no charges have yet been filed. His team found the cocaine in forty separate packages.
The Republican Senate minority leader’s personal wealth grew seven-fold over the last ten years thanks in large part to a gift given to him and his wife in 2008 from James Chao worth between $5 million and $25 million (Senate ethics forms require personal finance disclosures in ranges of amounts, rather than specific figures). The gift helped the McConnells after their stock portfolio dipped in the wake of the financial crisis that year, and ensured they could pay off more than $100,000 in mortgage debt on their Washington home.
The generous gift made McConnell one of the wealthiest members of the Senate, with a net worth averaging around $22.8 million, according to the Washington Post’s review of his financial disclosures.
Just in case you didn’t think these sorts of relationships have a direct effect on U.S. foreign policy, think again…
The ties between McConnell and his in-laws have come under scrutiny before. In 2001, they were probed in depth by The New Republic in an article that charged that McConnell led an effort to soften his party’s criticism of China. Through James Chao, who was a classmate of Jiang Zemin, the president of China in the 90s, McConnell and his wife met with Jiang several times, both in Beijing and in Washington.
McConnell subsequently tempered his criticism of Chinese human rights abuses, and broke with hawks like Senator Jesse Helms to support Most Favored Nation trading status with China. ??As Foremost established closer ties with mainland China, McConnell endorsed the position that the United States should remain “ambiguous” about coming to the defense of Taiwan. In 1999, McConnell and his wife appeared at the University of Louisville with Chinese Ambassador Li Zhaoxing. Li used the opportunity to bash congressional leaders for rebuking China over its repression of the Falun Gong religious sect.
“Any responsible government will not foster evil propensities of cults by being over-lenient,” Li reportedly said at the event with McConnell and Chao. Rather than distance himself from the remarks, McConnell reportedly spoke about his “good working relationship” with Li.
Requests for comment to the McConnell team about the Ping May cocaine incident have gone unanswered.
McConnell has positioned himself over the years as a tough on drugs politician. In 1996, McConnell was the sole sponsor of the Enhanced Marijuana Penalties Act, a bill to increase the mandatory minimum sentencing for those caught with certain amounts of marijuana. Apress release noted that his bill would make “penalties for selling marijuana comparable to those for selling heroin and cocaine.”
In recent weeks, McConnell has touted his role in calling for more federal money to be used for drug enforcement.
Readers of Liberty Blitzkrieg will know that I do not think there is such a thing as a “victimless crime,” and I am completely against the government led “war on drugs,” “war on terrorism” and “war on poverty.” Whenever the state declares “war” on something, you naturally get more of it.
All that said, the article above gives voters some important information on McConnell, particularly with regard to how the source of his wealth and his family ties actively impact his policy choices in Washington.
Like the Democratic Party leadership, the Republican Party establishment consists of a cadre of cronies merely trying to enrich themselves. McConnell is a huge part of the problem, and the American public should know more about him.
Don’t forget this post from 2012: Senate Leader McConnell Fighting AGAINST Campaign Finance Reform.
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"I said Marching Orders, not Powder, God Damn it!"
-Carl Rovenstein
one hopes that justice is served, with the foreman on the loading dock receiving a hefty fine for this misconduct
How old is Mitch McConnell, and my God how old is his father-in-law? 90lbs of cocaine?? Gives new meaning to dusty old farts.
Its go time. Mandelbaum!
Lords of war...
He probably feels, like William F. Buckly, that if you are rich enough to own a yacht once you reach international waters you can do whatever the hell you want.
Hookers and Blow, or some contra thingy.
Next time maybe they will find all the Fort Knox Gold mixed in with the coal.
Stanger Daze.
An old Columbian maritime saying........
May you keep your powder dry and your cabin mirror shiny.
Is there any chance Joe Biden's son got his cocaine off this ship? That way both parties can be tarred by the incident.
FFS It's not Mitch's ship.
How much coke does one guy need?
Desperate times call for desperate hype. Just think of the poor deck hand who stashed it in the hold, he was planning on a big Christmas shopping spree!
Headline: Retail Sales Plunge as...lol.
Show business for fugly people. What's amazing is that we buy tickets.
.
An accurate assessment would require counting the wrinkles on his dewlap.
Confucius say - never compete with CIA cocaine running before big election or dingy will get donged.
makes one think of Mena, Arkansas & Barry Seal... of which BOTH Clinton and Bush are 6 degrees tied to...
The party continues.
Were there hookers onboard the ship or just blow?
The hookers were there just for the blow
Turtle Blow.
90 lbs @ 28gms per oz = 4,032,000
2B or Not 2B
Cut or uncut, that is the question.
They will adjust their operation after this unfortunate misunderstanding.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtle_%28submersible%29
Only 90 pounds of coke? The Columbian police kept the rest of the shipment, a message to El Chino not to ship out drugs without first paying off the port authorities.
So, now we know where the Bolivian Navy is biding its time.
He thought he was buying futures contracts, not the actual, physical commodity.
Who Flung Dung at McConnell?
Even more important, at whom did McConnell fling dung?
Someone wants tutor turtle out.
Ashley Judd? ;D
Clearly this reeks of political manipulation. And what politicians in the US have the most experience with drugs and the drug traffic? Roger Clinton pointed out one, and then there were those rumors about the airport at Mena, Ark. Plus, we know some of the history of choomboy. So it's not like these guys don't know who to go to (the CIA) to plant incriminating evidence.
Shit must be good for you.
These bastards live forever.
Cocaine's a helluva drug
If you can handle it.
Or if you can't.
Wow, someone on another thread just today called this guy out just right....
EDIT:
It was alert ZH member Freddie. Great & timely call.
McConnell is and always has been, a douche of the highest order, right up there with Schumer. Any one of these long time turds clogging the toilet that is Vichy DC leaves their integrity at the alter of power & wealth.
However, Hitlary's association with the Chi-Coms pales in comparision.
All 40 keys of coke were addressed to Hunter Biden c/o Burisma Holdings.
lol...would have been convenient or simply any Wall Street banker/trader...c/o the SEC ;-)
Must have been a DEA cokewalking operation to get a handle on the drug dealers in the Netherlands and Amsterdam.
It's just how they roll ?
Hitlery's import quantities pale in comparison. This is small time stuff compared to the planeloads the Clintons supervised flying into Arkansas.
My my, Mitchey boy's using his political position to level the playing field in the drug markets. A true man of the people and supporter of equal opportunity!
Clinton > Cocaine > Mena Airport > Dan Lasater > Secretariat > Ponderosa Steakhouse.
I cannot take credit. I saw the story posted by another ZH member. McConnel is a piece of crap. The idiots in the state of KY could have voted him out in the primary but they did not.
The people of Mississippi voted out Thad Cochran in the primaries (two of them!) - TWICE this year and he rigged them both times. Helped by Haley Barbour's political machine and black Democrat voters illegal voting in a Republican primary.
No point in voting if shit like McConnell, Lindsey Graham, Thad Cochran and others keep getting reelected.
I sure hope there is an investigation into McCaonnel and his criminal chinese relatives. What a piece of crap he is.
Lindsay Graham is the one that really surprises me. He's so gay it makes my asshole hurt. So gay that slick faggot is an apt description of him. Yet he's in a gay intolerant religiously driven state.
Cognitive dissonance. Me thinks his male voters visit a lot of public men's rooms.
Yes. Think of the 'voting machine' as an IQ tester.
When you pull the lever or push the touchscreen, you're showing the PTB your IQ...
It shows them that you're still in their control and you still believe their bullshit.
96% re-election rate for a body with a 14% approval rate.
So step and and make your mark tomorrow. They need to know that you still believe in them.
Like Santa Claus.
Only way I'm stepping in a voting booth is to take a piss.
Vote through urine.
http://occupypeace.us/
There's no front running the CIA Mitch...
Why does his nose bleed all the time?
Hey, I don't like cocaine, I just like the way it smells.
The smell of cocaine is neva too clean!
"Why does his nose bleed all the time?"
Sure as hell ain't Ebola...
Well Blow the man down.
I always thought Mitch looked like he had a permanent case of the sniffles. I guess that would be the snuffles.
Listen.
USSA needs new medical cocaine laws NOW!
Retroactive of course!
Not wise to compete with the old aristocracies.
Granting China membership in the World Trade Organization was just about the dumbest thing any "market" government could do. It is similar to sitting down to play poker with an adversary who keeps several aces up his sleeve and doesn't bother to conceal them.
Preach it brutha!
Free markets are not a suicide pact any more than free speech in a state controlled media is.
yeah, check out the numbers on domestic textiles and apparel manufacturing collapse in the US after the trade quotes were lifted.... totally incredible. After 2004 it even got worse. But nobody in DC cares... they don't work in the industry.. they just get paid off to allow it.
stock portfolio dipped in the wake of the financial crisis that year, and ensured they could pay off more than $100,000 in mortgage debt on their Washington home.
Poor bastids
Does anyone else think that hanging neck skin makes McConnell look like those vampires on The Strain?
Whatever, false flag!
I said six coke cans not sex for cocaine!
Spare a bump?
90 lbs. - Just a weekend supply for Mitch...no worries....
On its way to Amsterdam...where it's probably legal.
So then is this shipment illegal ? The mind wanders.
"On its way to Amsterdam...where it's probably legal."
Good point H.Z. Now lets see which group of Congress Critters have an upcoming Junket planned over there.
Let us not have the attention span of a typical liberal/conservative political moron. Remember the opium wars? 1 word: PAYBACK. I see nothing wrong with china selling back the narco to the US for the next decade or so.
Listen Cereal.
China doesn't have to lift a finger. The Muslims will have the Americans living in a "SHARIA" Paradise by 2030.
They're gonna take America from their cousins? No way!
Sounds like even the elites are prepping
Buried at sea in the proper tradition?
"Senator McConnell could not be reached for comment."
Well, we now know at least one possible, alleged, suspected, source of the coke for some those addicted American vets.
Nice timing on the news release.
It's always been a game of "pick your poison".
Hmmm. On the one hand, cocaine most certainly should be legalized but regulated, like alcohol. On the other hand it behooves a United States Senator to not circumvent the law and be caught with his pants down.
Cocaine must not be legalized. Cocaine is in a class of drug known as central stimulants, akin to methamphetamine, and is pharmacologically different from marijuana or heroin in that it rapidly destroys important brain neurotransmitter systems in the brain's limbic system--the resulting brain damage leads to psychosis. It also has severe and lasting , but less well known cardiovascular effects because of its destruction of dopamine systems that also regulate heart.
Sweden tried legalizing central stimulants in the 1960s, and it was a disaster. There is no need to go over this same bridge again.
Legalization of marijuana probably makes sense.
Heroin does not cause permanent brain damage in the user, but its use causes widespread social destruction. Due to the British exploitation of China and India in the 19th century, China well knows, from bitter experience, what the widespread use of opiates does to society, and why heroin and the opiates should not be legalized.
if anyone wants to better understand the mechanism of cocaine induced brain damage, start by googling "kindled epilepsy cocaine"
Now you are on the right track. Education not prohibition. Thank you for that.
Talisman
Do not portray the problem of 'drug use' as a narrow and simplistic one,
simply avoided by making selective 'drugs' illegal, as though unrelated to other causes and without other consequences.
The question of government criminalizing or de-criminalizing opiates (or the myriad other synthetic drugs) cannot be answered apart or before dealing with other government policies domestic and foreign, overt and covert. Prohibition law rewards drug suppliers and dealers, rewards corruption public and private, and rewards government by increased policing and repressive laws.
Afghanistan? Colombia? CIA? Money-laundering banksters? Government corruption domestic and foreign fueled by profits induced by Prohibition2 laws(pseudo-war on drugs)? Intrusive and anti-Constitutional drug laws and enforcement? Militarized policing and the prison industry? The political nature of drug laws aimed to suppress minorities and anti-establishment elements? Lack of viable educational and employment alternatives to street gangs? The counter-productive incarceration of addicts for illegal 'possession' ?
History? Yes, China was exploited, but opiates were NOT illegal for a long time in many other countries without the same effect as in China. Perhaps so because the social disintegration of China was not solely or even mostly due to opiate use, but to other factors including foreign invasion.
You obviously miss the point of my post, and are also totally ignorant of the pharmacology of any of the drugs of abuse.
The point I very clearly make is that the pharmacology particular to the central stimulant class of drugs--and not shared by other classes of psychactive drugs of abuse- mandates that this class of drug can not in any way, even arguably, be made safe enough to legalize....this special pharmacology is a purely medical issue that totally overrides every other regulatory consideration.
Do not forget that on the other side of the coin of personal freedom is something called personal responsibility.
You do remember freedom don't you?
Apparently not. Pity!
Actually, YOU miss the point
that there are other individual and social causes for drug use,
other consequences to Prohibitions,
other politics behind the banning particular drugs, poisons, activities, etc.,
and other politics behind the predictably selective enforcement (and even covert promotion and protection) of whatever is ostensibly banned.
You are evidently ignorant of cost/benefit analysis with regard to government and other activities. And I am not merely referencing the monetary costs. You rather myopically dismiss the KNOWN costs of fueling drug cartels, foreign and domestic corruption, repressive policing and imprisonment, and more, all as not worthy of consideration.
Contrary to your claim,
everything else regarding legal Prohibition is NOT trumped
by the potential medical harm to an individual
of a particular chemical, object, or activity.
Again, in the current context,
'War on drug' laws only compound the problems and open doors for repression and abuse under the guise of fighting "crime".
you are an irrational stupid idiot
talisman,
educate yourself & then attempt to use logic,
the CIA & drugs
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-cia-and-drugs-inc-a-covert-history/5412759
As we have clearly proven over and over again, we cannot make a drug simply disappear by passing a law against it. In fact, the opposite seems to be true. Since the advent of the "war on drugs", street drugs have become more prevelant than ever, as well as more virulent. In addition, the thriving black market resulting from drug prohibition has increased street violence many times over and served to put large amounts of cash into the wrong hands, exactly as it did during alcohol prohibition. As a society, we have learned nothing and apparently, neither have you.
Eww, McConnell with his pants down. Brain Bleach needed on aisle 3!!
A McConnell family spokesman today announced that this unfortunate event has absolutely no connection with any McConnell family member, and that the personal safety of anyone who continues to report such unsubstantiated allegations cannot be guaranteed.
...Right before the election. Really? While Schadenfreude wants me to want McConnell to be guilty of something, I smell a big progressive rat and I doubt it. McConnell has a face and a demeanor only an embalmer could love.
I thought the pedophile charges against NJ Senator Menendez with 2 underage victim witnesses were legit and would go somewhere last year too, but no. So I give this very little chance of getting played up by the media. Except the only difference here that Menendez is a liberal DEM and McConnell is GOP and MSM tilts far left and they already anticipate he's going to be leader of the Senate and they want to taint him before the fact. They may be on the same team but they still hate each other, they just hate us more.
Right on that whole Menendez crap fucking perv.
probably the only reason that Mitch is still around is that even the embalmers refuse to take on anyone that evil and ugly.
McConnell's net worth is 22 mill making him one of the richest senators.
22mill is just walking around money to the country's real owners. Worst slime ball senator money can buy.
...Worst slime ball senator money can buy.
Try Diane 'Get Your Guns Feinstein'... came into office with under 900K net worth in 1992... now over 150 mil.
Coca-Cola is the only U.S. corporation that has been granted the right to legally import coca leaves into the United States, via a coca processing lab known as the Stepan Company).
Wasn't this the plot of a Jackie Chan movie?
Or maybe Lethal Weapon?
The drug angle to this story is not worth publishing as it highly unlikely that there is any wrongdoing by the owners.
The story is more interesting because of all the other connections and who those connections actually serve and who they betray.
Mitch needs to be hung by his nuts on the Ping Me's yard arm for being a traitor to his own country. Bitch MCfucker
Well Mitch is expecting to have a re-election celebration.... just ordering ahead.
I can only hope that this causes His Assholiness, Mitch the Bitch, to lose on Tuesday... It could'nt happen to bigger scumbag... Except for Boehner, or Pelosii, or Schumer or....
McConnell has positioned himself over the years as a tough on drugs politician. In 1996, McConnell was the sole sponsor of the Enhanced Marijuana Penalties Act, a bill to increase the mandatory minimum sentencing for those caught with certain amounts of marijuana.
I am really starting to hate these landed gentry cunts. We need to shovel this shit right out of out lives. Starting Tuesday.
I read this story three days ago. I thought it was on ZH but maybe it was Blacklisted News. Wake up Georgia! This guys a drug lord!
I just hope it doesn't put a crimp in his insider trading activities.
Someone should go check up on Eric Holders Private Yacht and Reids Yacht.
It was all headed for Hunter Biden's nostrils.
it was put there by the ghost of president ronald r. reagan with the help of an elderly ole north! long live fast n furious ! im sure after the mexican cartels are done using the guns that were exchanged for the coke, the atf will be selling them used at a local inner city hip hop clothing store
sometimes it is imperative to do these things for the sake of democracy.
It is a more than ridiculous to tie this cocaine bust to Bitch McConnell, and an insult to the intelligence of anyone having an IQ level higher than a cockroach.
There are plenty enough valid reasons to get rid of McConnell
The hit piece was released on the Thursday before election day - the most favored day for smears.
Meanwhile, thie cocaine was found last August and McConnell's father in law is dead. That's how McC's wife got the money - inheritance. It wasn't a gift - it was inheritance.
There is zero evidence that the FIL knew a damn thing about it. Sailors act as mules for drug deals.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_S.C._Chao
Any chance you can produce an Obit ? I see he paid for America's favourite whore - Harvard Business School
Obama's Government Document Forger Machine is busy right now, but we'll let you know when it comes available again. I can give you a 20% discount on overstocked birth certificates however.
Occupation: Oceangoing Sea Captain. I doubt it.
Is appearance of impropriety is enough to call for beheading?
It is a system rotten beyond the core. When the ultimate SHTF arrives, I shred no tears to any of these zombies cheerleading and supporting thie current system.
Take his shit.
If you, me or the others get busted with 90 grams of cocaine in the car, our assets are forfeited.
One day this nation will honor the late Gary Webb.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&...
"CIA Man"
Thats it 90lbs of coke? Hunter Biden must have picked up his cut already....
We need to make it easier to buy cheap shit from china! (So, my inlaws ships can bring it here and make me rich)
They are all crooks.
"McConnell’s ties to the Chaos"
Ha ha. That's some snappy writing there.
#BuckFarack
A Mr. Chao, cocaine, and shadowy commericial interests all in one story.
Should we be on the look out for a paraglider amidst Las Vegas buildings?
Probably the deep state criminal syndicate that runs the country. This is the source for many of the top apartatcheks; the whole Bush family, the Clintons, etc ,etc.