The grifter fleeces the murdering kleptocrat?

Murdering kleptocrat Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) of 

Saudi Arabia with grifters Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump

Sometimes reality is just too strange for anyone to make it up. This one is a total hoot, but with one serious lesson in American politics for all to absorb. The lesson is that the Republican Party is not just neo-fascist, morally rotted and corrupt. It is incompetent to its core. Kushner could not even set up a reasonable-sounding investment vehicle to hide a $2 billion political payback in.

Dessert second. The New York Times writes about a business deal where MBS puts his political payback into a sham investment run by the grifter Kushner:

Before committing $2 billion to Mr. Kushner’s fledgling firm, officials at a fund led by the Saudi crown prince questioned taking such a big risk.

Six months after leaving the White House, Jared Kushner secured a $2 billion investment from a fund led by the Saudi crown prince, a close ally during the Trump administration, despite objections from the fund’s advisers about the merits of the deal.

A panel that screens investments for the main Saudi sovereign wealth fund cited concerns about the proposed deal with Mr. Kushner’s newly formed private equity firm, Affinity Partners, previously undisclosed documents show.

Those objections included: “the inexperience of the Affinity Fund management”; the possibility that the kingdom would be responsible for “the bulk of the investment and risk”; due diligence on the fledgling firm’s operations that found them “unsatisfactory in all aspects”; a proposed asset management fee that “seems excessive”; and “public relations risks” from Mr. Kushner’s prior role as a senior adviser to his father-in-law, former President Donald J. Trump, according to minutes of the panel’s meeting last June 30.

But days later the full board of the $620 billion Public Investment Fund — led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler and a beneficiary of Mr. Kushner’s support when he worked as a White House adviser — overruled the panel.  

Mr. Kushner played a leading role inside the Trump administration defending Crown Prince Mohammed after U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that he had approved the 2018 killing and dismemberment of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi columnist for The Washington Post and resident of Virginia who had criticized the kingdom’s rulers.  

The Saudi fund agreed to invest twice as much and on more generous terms with Mr. Kushner than it did at about the same time with former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin — who was also starting a new fund — even though Mr. Mnuchin had a record as a successful investor before entering government, the documents show. The amount of the investment in his firm, Liberty Strategic Capital — $1 billion — has not been previously disclosed.

This is how Republicans routinely do their business, as quietly and opaquely as possible to always maintain plausible deniability for their crimes and ethics sleaze. The NYT article points out that ethics experts say that Kushner's investment deal creates the appearance of a possible political payback. It looks like a $2 billion political payback because that's what it is. 

Fortunately for corrupt grifters like Jared and Ivanka, the Democratic Party and the Biden administration has mostly or completely given up on applying the rule of law to elite criminals, especially Republicans. That leaves ethics rules, which are mostly non-existent or toothless mirages. Republican Party elites do not care one iota about the rule of law or their own ethics, so their own crooks and thugs get to run free and wild with impunity. Republicans, elites and rank and file, are complicit by their stone cold silence about the crimes of the Republican ex-president, his criminal family and other elite Republican Party crooks.

Not surprisingly, the GOP cares a whole lot about the ethics and crimes of Democrats. They are happily expressing hypocritical partisan outrage at Hunter Biden and all the horrors he committed doing whatever it was that he did (allegedly, tax fraud, money laundering, unregistered foreign agent). Who knows, maybe the Democrats will prosecute their own criminals, which they should, while letting Republican criminals off the hook, which they should not. 

Maybe Jared and Ivanka should be investigated for tax fraud, money laundering and being unregistered foreign agents while in the White House, which is what they actually were. Of course, that is just a pipe dream. Republican elite's crimes are immune from prosecution. Ethics for elite's sleaze is a cynical joke. Case closed, the people and the rule of law lose, while the crooks win.

Why aren’t there any significant institutional investors from the US?

The Affinity principal would like to avoid media attention at this time. Accordingly, Affinity has approached international institutional investors on a very discreet basis (especially PIF as Affinity’s cornerstone LP) to anchor the launch of their inaugural fund.

Saudi staff wrote that Mr. Kushner was trying to avoid public attention by initially courting only international institutions like the Saudi Public Investment Fund for his new venture.

Source: Minutes of the Board Investment Committee of the Saudi Public Investment Fund, June 30, 2021

Quick update on American fascism and abortion

My post yesterday referred to Don T**** Jr and T****’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows as neo-fascist traitors because they plotted a coup. Today, it appears that some other people are starting to see the same thing. Newsweek writes:

Trump Jr. Accused of ‘Treason’ After Pre-Jan. 6 Texts to Meadows Revealed

Legal experts are calling for Donald Trump Jr. to face criminal proceedings after newly revealed text messages obtained by the January 6 House committee show he sought to prevent certification of the 2020 election and install his father to a second term.

While votes for the 2020 election were being counted, Trump Jr. texted then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows laying out a strategy to keep President Donald Trump in power by throwing out election results of key swing states, CNN reported Friday. The disclosed texts shed further light on recent revelations of Trump and his inner circle's efforts to block the certification of the 2020 election.

“It's very simple,” Trump Jr. texted to Meadows on November 5, according to CNN. “We have multiple paths We control them all.”

Fortunately for the morally rotted traitor DTJ, his treasonous father and the traitorous Republican Party thugs in congress, the administration and elsewhere who supported the coup attempt, Democratic Attorney General Merrick Garland is on duty. He’s doing his best to defend rich and powerful criminals and traitors from prosecution. It’s that good old plausible deniability thing. Plausible deniability is the white collar criminal’s tippy-top best friend.

Meanwhile, Dissident Politics has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in Peace. The nomination is prompted by yesterday’s brilliant post, A quick reminder: Neo-fascism is alive and aggressive in the US.

And, don’t forget. Our Christian nationalist Supreme Court will be handing down its anti-abortion decision in coming weeks. The decision will probably mostly or completely wipe out Roe v. Wade and most abortion rights. It will probably drop into the punch bowl in mid- to late-June. 

Some parting thoughts on what is happening and will happen once the Amwerican fascists rise to the full power they lust for. 

Thought 1: This has almost nothing to do with inconvenient facts or inconvenient logic. It has almost everything to do with tribe and cult loyalty. 

Thought 2: Texas Public Radio reports in a piece, Texas woman charged with murder for ‘self-induced abortion’:

Police in Starr County on the Texas-Mexico border arrested and charged a woman last week with murder for allegedly performing what they called a “self-induced abortion.”

The Starr County Sheriff's Office arrested 26-year-old Lizelle Herrera on Thursday. TPR confirmed Friday night that Herrera was in the custody of the Starr County Sheriff’s Office with bond set at $500,000. By Saturday night, Herrera was released from custody. Her arraignment was scheduled for next week.

The Starr County grand jury's indictment, dated March 30, stated that Herrera "did then and there intentionally and knowingly cause the death of an individual J.A.H. by a self-induced abortion."

Thought 3: The most likely outcome, the court mostly or completely obliterates Roe and leaves abortion law to the states. The less likely, but most Christian nationalist outcome, the court makes all abortions in all states murder and makes anyone helping in any abortion an accomplice to murder and just as criminally liable.

Thought 4: American fascists are mostly Republicans and most of them are radical Christian nationalists. They oppose civil liberties that God says are bad. That includes (i) abortions, (ii) voting rights, (iii) free and fair elections, and (iv) protections for non-heterosexual people and non-White people. 

There is an American fascist apocalypse underway right now. It's comes in the form of Republican Party politics. Abe Lincoln warned us what was coming. He was right.

A quick reminder: Neo-fascism is alive and aggressive in the US

This is just a quick reminder of the neo-fascist mindset of Republican Party elites. There is nothing pro-democracy about these people. CNN writes: 

Two days after the 2020 presidential election, as votes were still being tallied, Donald Trump's eldest son texted then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows that "we have operational control" to ensure his father would get a second term, with Republican majorities in the US Senate and swing state legislatures, CNN has learned. 

In the text, which has not been previously reported, Donald Trump Jr. lays out ideas for keeping his father in power by subverting the Electoral College process, according to the message reviewed by CNN. The text is among records obtained by the House select committee investigating January 6, 2021. 

"It's very simple," Trump Jr. texted to Meadows on November 5, adding later in the same missive: "We have multiple paths We control them all."

There is not one shred of concern about the actual election outcome or what the American people wanted. Not one shred of concern. These people are neo-fascist traitors. Their only concern is power and wealth concealed by as much deceit, lies and crackpot excuses as they can dream up, no matter how ridiculous.[1]

Question: Are most Republican Party elites (~97% ?) mostly neo-fascists, some or most of whom are traitors, or mostly democrats?

Footnote: 

1. The New York Times writes:

In a statement, the younger Mr. Trump’s lawyer, Alan Futerfas, confirmed that the text message was sent but suggested it was someone else’s idea that Donald Trump Jr. was passing along.

“After the election, Don received numerous messages from supporters and others,” Mr. Futerfas said. “Given the date, this message likely originated from someone else and was forwarded.”

That blithering drivel, someone else done it, ranks right up there with classics like “But the dog ate my homework!”, “But I didn’t do it, honest, I’m a good boy!”, “I’m just a Capricorn, so I just can’t help it.” and “It’s not my fault, I didn’t think you’d find out.”

Actually, I bet DTJ really didn’t think we’d find out. But we did.

🙃

The neo-fascist, traitor Don Trump Jr. with the 

The neo-fascist, radical Christian nationalist traitor

Mark Meadows

DTJ texted this to MM:

“We have multiple paths  We control them all.”

Democracy’s ends days are upon us: The fall of the courts and the rule of law

Democracy dies slowly due to thousands of cuts from all directions. One quick, big coup de grâce is not how the death plays out. The last cut will end it in a probably small, quiet, final blow and a last twitch of democracy. The cuts that American neo-fascists, concentrated mainly in the Republican Party, are inflicting in these end days of democracy include, but are not limited to:

• Increasingly crippling attacks on and subversion of pro-democracy government institutions including law enforcement, the courts and civil liberties such as voting rights and protections against discrimination

• Increasingly crippling attacks on and subversion of a free press and investigative journalism

• Increasingly crippling attacks on and subversion of social trust, tolerance, secularism and pluralism

• Increasingly crippling attacks on and subversion of experts with inconvenient messages, e.g., climate science experts

• Increasing acceptance of deceit, lies, slanders, irrational emotional manipulation and crackpot motivated reasoning as truth and sound, honest reasoning, including divisive and/or deceptive special interest propaganda (special interests include the Republican Party)

• Increasing acceptance of corruption, conflicts of interest and nepotism as normal and acceptable aspects of governance

• Normalization of vulgarity and disrespect in political rhetoric, while vilifying manners and respectful speech as evil, tyrannical political correctness run amok

• Acceptance of routine double standards and hypocrisy by the neo-fascist team and its supporters, but rejection and attack on the same as outrageous and unacceptable by political opposition

With that for context, the Washington Post writes in an opinion piece on the crippling and politicization of federal courts, Opinion: The Supreme Court is broken. So is the system that confirms its justices:

The confirmation process for Supreme Court nominees is broken, and so, I fear, is the Supreme Court itself. These developments, mutually reinforcing, were both on sad display this week.

Not long ago, whether to confirm a Supreme Court nominee was not a predictably party-line affair, with a handful or fewer of defectors. In 2005, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. was confirmed with 78 votes, and Democratic senators split equally on the nomination, 22 in favor and 22 against. That lopsided tally — earlier confirmations were, for the most part, more lopsided — is now a quaint artifact of a less polarized era.

The Senate finds itself now on the verge of a dangerous new reality, in which a Senate controlled by the party opposing the president might simply refuse to confirm a nominee, period. A tradition of deference to presidential prerogatives — of believing that elections have consequences, as Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) liked to say in one of his earlier incarnations — is over. If the Senate majority is big and unified enough, it will defy the president.

Just wait and see. Republican senators were willing to caricature Ketanji Brown Jackson’s record in search of any excuse to vote against her — even though her addition to the court won’t affect its ideological balance. Imagine what would happen if a Republican appointee were to leave the court during a Democratic presidency. Actually, no imagination needed. Consider what the Senate did — or didn’t do — when Merrick Garland was nominated in 2016 to replace the late Antonin Scalia.

We could endlessly debate how things degenerated to this point: Republicans point to the Bork hearings, the Thomas hearings, the Gorsuch filibuster and the Kavanaugh hearings; Democrats bemoan the Garland blockade and the hurried Barrett confirmation. Neither side has clean hands.  

But increasingly, the court is using its emergency powers [the shadow docket] to step into disputes on the side that the majority favors — outside of the normal procedures and without written explanation.

Why? Because it can.

Just as bad as that, for unknown reasons the Democrats have abandoned the rule of law as applied to rich or powerful criminals. Presumably it has something to do with internal party politics and Dem politician re-election, possibly Biden’s own re-election. The WaPo writes in a different opinion piece:

The unpleasant display of a Democratic House Oversight Committee chair accusing President Biden’s Justice Department of obstruction probably made former president Donald Trump and his Republican loyalists grin from ear to ear. But looks are not deceiving. Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.) has gone public with her charge that Attorney General Merrick Garland is “interfering” with her committee’s probe into the 15 boxes of records that the Trump team took from the White House to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

Without strong and compelling evidence that the attorney general is impeding a congressional investigation of Trump’s actions, the Oversight Committee should take care that it itself does not impede an ongoing federal investigation. Garland has said his department will “look at the facts and the law and take it from there.” Disruption only aids those who may have flouted the law.

Reportedly among the records recovered from Mar-a-Lago were documents so sensitive that they may not be able to be publicly described in an unclassified inventory. That’s enough to send shivers down the spine of the U.S. intelligence community. Those national security officials know that the chief beneficiaries of mishandled U.S. classified information are foreign adversaries.  

Trump loyalists can complain all they want about the peddling of fake news. But an investigation of Trump’s handling — or mishandling — of U.S. government records at Mar-a-Lago should not be considered politically motivated.

By now, Biden and Garland have had plenty of time to prepare and indict the ex-president for multiple obstruction of justice felonies. Compelling evidence was laid out in the April 18, 2019 Mueller Report. That was three years ago. So far there is no indication that the ex-president will be held accountable for the crimes documented in the Mueller Report.[1] For rich or powerful criminals, the rule of law is falling or has already fallen, and now the federal courts are corrupted and broken, just like congress. 

However with lots of luck, assessments of broken courts and congress and a fallen rule of law will all prove to be premature or otherwise false. But don’t hold your breath. That tactic could prove to be fatally flawed.

Footnote: 

1. For reasons I can’t recall, maybe because none were given, the American people still have not seen the entire report without redactions. Apparently Biden’s DoJ wants to keep as much of the document secret as it can, just as the DoJ under Barr and T**** did. Wikipedia comments:

On April 19, 2019, House Judiciary Committee chairman Jerry Nadler issued a subpoena for the fully unredacted report.[507] A DOJ spokesperson called Nadler's subpoena “premature and unnecessary”, citing that the publicly released version of the report had “minimal redactions” and that Barr had already made arrangements for Nadler and other lawmakers to review a version with fewer redactions.[400][401] Barr offered to let twelve designated members of Congress view the less-redacted report in a secure room at the Justice Department, and forbade them from sharing the contents with other legislators. Several Republicans took advantage of the offer; the six Democrats refused, saying the conditions were too stringent.

I think some of the Dems are starting to get it, finally

The Republican National Committee censured

Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger

Cheney is being RINO hunted out of office

The last whereas clause at the bottom of the page

calls the 1/6 coup attempt “legitimate political discourse” 

To me the Democratic Party leadership has looked like it was sleepwalking when it came to seeing the all-out attacks against inconvenient facts and truths, democracy, the rule of law and civil liberties the neo-fascist Republican Party is fully engaged in. Maybe the awful implications of all of that unpleasantness is starting to sink in with some Democratic party elites. Just maybe. A Washington Post opinion piece suggests that a couple of neurons are firing up in a few minds. The WaPo writes:

Opinion: GOP ‘built on fraud, fear and fascism’? If the jackboot fits...

There were even more vermin than usual in Washington this week. A rabid fox at the Capitol bit at least nine people, including Rep. Ami Bera (D-Calif.). And Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison attacked Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) with an insult most entomological.

After Cotton implied that Supreme Court Justice-designate Ketanji Brown Jackson is a Nazi sympathizer, Harrison referred to Cotton as a “little maggot-infested man” on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

Fake news! Cotton may go low, but, at 6-foot-5, he is not little. Also, maggots typically feed on dead things, and Cotton, though stiff, is not currently deceased. The man likes to carry on, but he is not carrion.

Harrison went on to censure the Republican Party as a whole: “It is a party built on fraud, fear and fascism.” Interestingly, a statement from the Republican National Committee taking offense at the “maggot-infested” charge did not dispute the “fraud, fear and fascism” formulation. As your self-appointed fact-checker, I have therefore examined the merits of the accusation.

Fraud

Sixteen months after President Donald Trump’s claims of election fraud failed in some 60 court cases, we have finally found evidence of potential voter fraud. Trump’s White House staff chief, Mark Meadows, reportedly registered to vote in 2020 using the address of a mobile home he never lived in. And former Trump State Department official Matt Mowers, a current congressional candidate, voted twice during the 2016 primaries, in New Hampshire and New Jersey.

The “big lie” about a rigged election, accepted by two-thirds of Republican voters, has spawned new frauds about the dangers of coronavirus vaccines (leading to sharply higher death rates in heavily Republican counties) and the promise, touted by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) of the deworming drug ivermectin to treat covid-19; an exhaustive new study finds the drug useless.

Then there are the little everyday frauds. Just days after Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) told the world that his colleagues engage in coke-fueled orgies, Rep. Lisa McClain (R-Mich.) declared at a Trump rally that it was Trump who “caught Osama bin Laden,” record-low unemployment is at a “40-year high” and there weren’t “any wars” during Trump’s presidency. Never mind Syria and Afghanistan.

Fear

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) said people like Ketanji Brown Jackson become public defenders because “their heart is with the murderers.” Cotton said Justice Robert H. Jackson “left the Supreme Court to go to Nuremberg and prosecute the case against the Nazis. This Judge Jackson might have gone there to defend them.”

Republican senators used the Jackson confirmation to stir fear of minorities and vulnerable groups with manufactured crises about transgender athletes (of the 200,000 participants in women’s collegiate sports, perhaps 50 are transgender) and “critical race theory” (which isn’t taught in public schools [Note: that assertion is open to dispute]).

Ohio Republican Senate candidate J.D. Vance released an ad saying “Biden’s open border is killing Ohioans, with more illegal drugs and more Democrat voters pouring into this country.”

At a Trump-hosted screening at Mar-a-Lago this week of “Rigged: The Zuckerberg Funded Plot to Defeat Donald Trump,” a poster showed Mark Zuckerberg “devilishly grabbing cash,” The Post’s Josh Dawsey reported. The film repeatedly describes the Jewish billionaire’s money as “Zuckerbucks” — even though the Anti-Defamation League objected to the term as an antisemitic trope about wealthy Jewish control.

Fascism

Sixty-three House Republicans — 30 percent of the caucus — voted against a resolution this week affirming unequivocal support for NATO as authoritarian Russia attacks democratic Ukraine.

A Republican National Committee resolution, never rescinded, refers to the Capitol insurrection not as an authoritarian attempt to overthrow democracy and keep the defeated Trump in power but as “legitimate political discourse.” And Trump expresses regret he didn’t march to the Capitol with the insurrectionists.

Republican-run states are racing to follow Florida’s “don’t say gay” legislation that bans teaching about sexual orientation or gender identity, which follows similar efforts to ban certain teaching about race and history, and widespread efforts to ban books about race, sexuality, gender and police brutality.

The Florida legislature approved an “election crimes” police force for Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), with the potential to intimidate voters, while various GOP-led states move forward with new provisions providing residents with incentives to inform on each other.

The newly-revealed text messages of Justice Clarence Thomas’s activist wife, Ginni, show her sharing with the Trump White House her “hope” that the “Biden crime family” as well as elected officials, bureaucrats and journalists would be taken to “barges off GITMO to face military tribunals for sedition.”

**

Is the GOP “a party built on fraud, fear and fascism”? Certainly, not all Republicans think this way. But too many others are subverting democracy, cavorting with white nationalists, spreading racist fears and fantasizing about extrajudicial punishment for political opponents and the media. For them, the jackboot fits.

The terrifying iron grip of Christian nationalism on the GOP

Christian neo-fascists

Along with anti-government, anti-regulation, anti-rule of law laissez-faire capitalism, radical fundamentalist Christian nationalism (CN) is one of the top two ideologies that dominates the Republican Party (RP). The New York Times writes on the constant CN presence in mainstream RP activities:

The Growing Religious Fervor in the American Right: ‘This Is a Jesus Movement’

Rituals of Christian worship have become embedded in conservative rallies, as praise music and prayer blend with political anger over vaccines and the 2020 election.

They opened with an invocation, summoning God’s “hedge of thorns and fire” to protect each person in the dark Phoenix parking lot.

They called for testimonies, passing the microphone to anyone with “inspirational words that they’d like to say on behalf of our J-6 political prisoners,” referring to people arrested in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, whom they were honoring a year later.

Then, holding candles dripping wax, the few dozen who were gathered lifted their voices, a cappella, in a song treasured by millions of believers who sing it on Sundays and know its words by heart:

Way maker, miracle worker, promise keeper

Light in the darkness, my God

That is who you are …

This was not a church service. It was worship for a new kind of congregation: a right-wing political movement powered by divine purpose, whose adherents find spiritual sustenance in political action.

The Christian right has been intertwined with American conservatism for decades, culminating in the Trump era. And elements of Christian culture have long been present at political rallies. But worship, a sacred act showing devotion to God expressed through movement, song or prayer, was largely reserved for church. Now, many believers are importing their worship of God, with all its intensity, emotion and ambitions, to their political life.

At events across the United States, it is not unusual for participants to describe encountering the divine and feel they are doing their part to install God’s kingdom on earth. For them, right-wing political activity itself is becoming a holy act.

These Christians are joining secular members of the right wing, including media-savvy opportunists and those touting disinformation. They represent a wide array of discontent, from opposing vaccine mandates to promoting election conspiracy theories. For many, pandemic restrictions that temporarily closed houses of worship accelerated their distrust of government and made churchgoing political.

At a Trump rally in Michigan last weekend, a local evangelist offered a prayer that stated, “Father in heaven, we firmly believe that Donald Trump is the current and true president of the United States.” He prayed “in Jesus’ name” that precinct delegates at the upcoming Michigan Republican Party convention would support Trump-endorsed candidates, whose names he listed to the crowd. “In Jesus’ name,” the crowd cheered back.  

With spiritual mission driving political ideals, the stakes of any conflict, whether over masks or school curriculums, can feel that much larger, and compromise can be even more difficult to achieve. Political ambitions come to be about defending God, pointing to a desire to build a nation that actively promotes a particular set of Christian beliefs.

“What is refreshing for me is, this isn’t at all related to church, but we are talking about God,” said Patty Castillo Porter, who attended the Phoenix event. She is an accountant and officer with a local Republican committee to represent “the voice of the Grassroots/America First posse,” and said she loved meeting so many Christians at the rallies she attends to protest election results, border policy or Covid mandates.

“Now God is relevant,” she said. “You name it, God is there, because people know you can’t trust your politicians, you can’t trust your sheriffs, you can’t trust law enforcement. The only one you can trust is God right now.”

That is a terrifying deep union between an aggressive authoritarian Christian church and a subverted anocratic state (formerly a democracy) that is now well on its way to a neo-fascist autocracy.

Question: Is this terrifying or nothing to be concerned about? 

Radical Christian fundamentalists rallying against pandemic  

restrictions and, therefore, against public health