McConnell Con Job

Mitch McConnell is a dirty politician.  Also, the sun produces heat and light and is made mostly of fusion.

As we reported yesterday, McConnell, a longtime foe of efforts to get money out of politics, last week took to the Senate floor to pooh-pooh the notion that the court's decision could allow a flood of foreign money to sway our elections, citing an existing law that prevents foreign nationals, including corporations, from spending on U.S. elections. But that ban doesn't cover the U.S. subsidiaries of foreign companies, or to foreign-owned corporations that incorporate in the U.S.

That's not just some technical loophole. Democrats and campaign-finance reform advocates argue it's a very real weakness in the law, that, even before Citizens United, gave foreign corporations influence in our elections. And McConnell's own ties to one foreign defense contractor offer a pretty good illustration.

Since 2005, McConnell has received $21,000 -- spread between his campaign and his leadership PAC -- from a PAC run by BAE Systems Inc., according to federal campaign disclosure records examined by TPMmuckraker. BAE Systems Inc. is the American subsidiary of BAE Systems, the world's second largest defense contractor, headquartered in Britain.

In addition, United Defense Industries, another defense contractor bought by BAE in 2005, reportedly pledged half a million dollars to the McConnell Center at the University of Louisville, a political science foundation that the senator created.

McConnell has been good to BAE, which owns a facility in Louisville, Kentucky. For fiscal year 2010, the senator requested earmarks for the company worth a combined $17 million.

So, to sum up, Mitch McConnell thinks it's a great idea for foreign companies to be able to contribute to the American electoral system, in effect giving foreign corporations rights to Constitutional free speech that the same GOP stalwarts think is a terrible idea to give to, say, foreign terror suspects.

Of course, the foreign terror suspects aren't paying Mitch McConnell 21 grand in exchange for $17 million in earmarks, either, so it's easy to see why Mitch doesn't think the Constitution applies to them.

That's my Senator!