Mitch McConnell Smears Bruce Lunsford

                Mitch McConnell has, in his too many years representing the Commonwealth of Kentucky in Washington, oops, allow me to correct: representing the big money interests of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, consistently voted against anyone in need of public programs. He has consistently voted to take money from the people of the US in the form of taxes and distribute it, as much as possible, among those in business with whom he shares a profitable relationship.

 

On a gas tax increase, the pressure to lower prices would have ultimately fallen, and fallen much faster, on the oil companies as Americans and Kentuckians sought to control their fuel consumption beyond the measures already seen. This has already happened and would have been accelerated by a windfall profit tax on the oil companies. Mitch McConnell obviously has no concept of economics; and his opposition originates in his typical Republican support for big business at the expense of the individual, as his claim doesn’t pan out when faced with the anti-gouging measures enacted, under Republican protest, including Kentucky and including him, by many states over the past summer.

 

Mitch McConnell, in campaign advertising, continues to reference the findings of inadequate care and fraudulent claims at a few facilities operated by Lunsford’s company Vencor, as well as the well publicized findings company-wide that Medicare fraud had been the typical practice while Vencor also sought to evict Medicare and Medicaid patients in order to make room for more lucrative private paying patients. Because of fines, business loss, and restructuring costs, Vencor eventually filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and emerged again as a profitable company. What Mitch McConnell conveniently omits is that his own wife sat on the board, which actually made policy decisions, leaving it to Chairman Lunsford to implement them, of Vencor, as Bruce Lunsford has pointed out. McConnell himself lobbied, in the U.S. Senate, for protection of Vencor. Mitch McConnell has also had numerous complaints of false statements leveled by those used in his advertising regarding the Lunsford-Vencor connection. So, in the end, if Vencor is any derogatory indication of Lunsford’s honesty or business sense, then it reflects equally hard upon McConnell.

 

Mitch has voted almost straight party line on most issues before the Senate. He has voted to expand the illegal warrantless wiretapping of Americans, undermining the very foundation of constitutional protections, not just for terrorists, but for everyone. He has voted against minorities, women and homosexuals. Mitch McConnell’s voting record seems to reflect a preference for wealthy white Christian heterosexual male domination of all spheres, public and private. Mitch McConnell seems to be an enemy of transparency, inclusion, education, the rule of law, and the Constitution of the U.S.

 

Let us also remember that Mitch McConnell is a supporter of the Kentucky horse industry. While in itself not a bad thing, the stance taken by Mitch has been one not of business expansion and propriety but of retaining the status quo, especially where it requires repair. Mitch McConnell believes that, despite all of the evidence otherwise, the horse industry is fully capable of properly regulating itself. The Eight Belles incident is demonstrative of the need for regulation. Ordinarily, an animal crippled as a consequence of a race would be put down in secret; fortunately Eight Belles was not, and proved to the nation that the horse race industry has done nothing to regulate itself, and will not without federal intervention. Why else would participants in racing and stepping competitions leave when unannounced USDA inspectors show up? The industry is corrupt, and it is cruel. Mitch McConnell stands, along with Damon Thayer and others, for the continued traditional value of practicing cruelty to animals for the benefit of an entertainment industry. These two have also shown support for the traditional value of cutting public education funding because they and their wealthy industry supporters don’t send their children to public schools.