Article Image

IPFS News Link • Senate/Senators

McCain and Montenegro: The Anatomy of a Conspiracy Theory

• http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org

Just in case you thought the conspiracy theory that Russia secretly controls the US government is exclusively an affliction affecting the Democratic party, Sen. John McCain's recent performance on the floor of the US Senate should disabuse you of this optimistic notion. Responding to Sen. Rand Paul's blocking of a vote in favor of the accession of Montenegro to NATO, the failed former GOP presidential candidate let it all hang out:

I note the senator from Kentucky leaving the floor without justification or any rationale for the action he has just taken. That is really remarkable, that a senator blocking a treaty that is supported by the overwhelming number, perhaps 98 – at least – of his colleagues would come to the floor and object and walk away. The only conclusion you can draw when he walks away is he has no justification for his objection to having a small nation be part of NATO that is under assault from the Russians. So I repeat again, the senator from Kentucky is now working for Vladimir Putin.

What's "remarkable" is that this kind of lunacy is tolerated in the US Senate: I recall that Sen. Elizabeth Warren was rebuked – and silenced – by Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell because she read a letter from Coretta Scott King that called into question the motives of Jeff Sessions, then a Senator and a candidate for the office of Attorney General. Surely McCain's outburst was an even more egregious violation of the rules than Warren's, and yet McCain was allowed to proceed uninterrupted. Perhaps this is an example of "warmonger's privilege."

In a later interview, Sen. Paul sought to explain McCain's behavior as an indication of the Senator from Arizona's advanced age: perhaps, he suggested, McCain is "past his prime," and, by the way, "this is a good argument for term limits." Well, yes, but in the current political atmosphere – where Vladimir Putin has been elevated to the status of a virtually omnipotent force who has the power to change election results and infiltrate the highest reaches of Western governments – it's no crazier than anything else we're hearing out of Washington these days.

Be that as it may, ordinary Americans may have a few questions about this bizarre incident, starting with: What the heck is Montenegro?


www.universityofreason.com/a/29887/KWADzukm