McConnell Warns Foreign Nations That GOP Will Undermine Obama Climate Change Deals

Exactly six years and three months ago, Republicans embarked on the unprecedented political strategy of plotting to deliberately undermine any and everything Barack Obama attempted to do as President of the United States. In January 2009 it was undermining the new President’s attempt to save America’s economy after Bush Republicans nearly destroyed it and they have continued their efforts unabated two years into Obama’s second term. Whether it was deliberately attempting to destroy the full faith and credit of the United States, or align with a foreigner to subvert a crucial United Nations agreement to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, there is no length too extreme for Republicans to undermine a President they hate because he is African American.

Now, taking a page out of a freshman Senator Tom Cotton’s playbook, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell issued a threat to the world’s nations that America is an exceptionally deceitful country that cannot be trusted to honor its pledge to reduce carbon emissions and help diminish the devastating effects of global climate change. McConnell release his warning directly after President Obama announced America’s ‘official plan‘ to cut the nation’s greenhouse emissions by as much as 28 percent according to an agreement brokered by the United Nation’s with the world’s leading polluters. It is bad enough that in service to the Koch brothers Republicans are waging a ferocious war to prevent carbon emission reduction policies at home, but to warn other nations America cannot be trusted is beyond the pale; and a relatively new and despicable tactic of Republicans to interfere with the Constitutional authority of the Executive Branch.

McConnell’s statement issued Tuesday warned signatories to the U.N. brokered agreement to “proceed with caution” before pledging to cut their own nation’s carbon emissions because America will not meet its own goals; a portent that Republicans will continue their Koch-funded war on the Environmental Protection Agency, America’s economy, and the people’s health and welfare. McConnell said, “Even if the job-killing and illegal Clean Power Plan were fully implemented, the United States could not meet the targets laid out in this proposed new plan. Our international partners should proceed with caution before entering into a binding, unattainable deal.”

First, notice that McConnell claimed the agreement the President made with foreign nations is illegal, and a further Republican assertion that this African American President, unlike a white Republican, cannot negotiate with foreign nations regardless he is the legal head of the Executive Branch of government. This is precisely what 47 Senate Republicans claimed when they issued an open letter to Iranian leaders warning them that any nuclear deal negotiated by the Obama Administration will not be honored. In fact, McConnell issuing a statement to foreign nations that America will not honor its agreement over carbon emissions is no different than the traitorous-47’s letter to Iranian hardliners at the behest of the foreigner Benjamin Netanyahu. It is further proof that Republicans not only regard the elected head of the Executive Branch is himself illegal,  anything he does is illegal; for McConnell to warn foreign nations in that sense is reprehensible.

This is not the first time McConnell has taken it upon himself to issue edicts about the legitimacy of this President’s environmental agenda. Almost exactly a month ago, McConnell penned an op/ed telling governors to “reject Obama’s mandate for clean-power regulations” after the President’s historic deal with China to address climate change; a deal China is taking the lead in adhering to by closing down coal-fired power plants on an enormous scale as reported here. As part of his servitude to the Koch brothers, McConnell lied like the lying liar he is and told the nation’s governors that, “The Obama administration’s so-called ‘clean power’ regulation seeks to shut down more of America’s power generation under the guise of protecting the climate. Don’t be complicit in the administration’s attack on the middle class. Without your support, it won’t be able to demonstrate the capacity to carry out such political extremism. Refusing to go along at this time with such an extreme proposed regulation would give Congress more time to fight back. We’re devising strategies now to do just that.”

McConnell is not satisfied doing the will of the Koch brothers on the national level, now he is attempting to expand the billionaire oil magnates’ influence internationally by warning “America’s foreign partners” that the exceptional United States cannot be trusted to follow through on its commitments. This latest attempt to subvert the President’s single-handed efforts to combat the devastating effects of climate change after a truly frightening report from the United Nations on the terrifying severity of climate change.

The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on climate changed released the final installment of an extremely comprehensive study based on the analysis of 800 scientists. Despite what climate deniers like McConnell claim, the study’s grim conclusion is that the Earth will face “severe, pervasive and irreversible damage if we don’t switch to zero- and low-carbon sources of electricity” with no room for stunts like McConnell’s. It guarantees that “human beings and the planet’s ecosystems will suffer unprecedented losses from even more severe and frequent weather events” that are wreaking havoc on people around the world than anyone can even begin to imagine in their worst nightmares. According to the study, “We have the means to limit climate change. All we need is the will to change, which we trust will be motivated by knowledge and an understanding of the science of climate change.”

Republicans are unfazed by such dire predictions and one GOP Senate aide said he “doesn’t see there being a lot of willingness from Republicans to allow the administration to cede any authority to the U.N. on climate policies or elsewhere, and I don’t really think that kind of a position will hurt us politically going into 2016.” That sentiment informs why Mitch McConnell has no qualms doing the will of the Koch brothers on the international level and warning other nations concerned about the fate of their countries and citizens that no matter what scientists say, or this President attempts, America cannot be trusted, and will not do its part, to limit climate change regardless the “severe, pervasive, and irreversible damage” to the planet.