Tag: Jared Kushner

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Letter From The Editor Opinion

The Russians Are Coming

There was a package addressed to me on our front porch the other day. This is not an uncommon occurance at our house in this, the age of Amazon. I’ve even been surprised by something I ordered and forgot about — perhaps after a couple of cocktails. Like 12 pounds of Benton’s bacon, or that $14 Larry Dahlberg bass fly that appeared one day. And we shall never speak again of the blue folding deck chair.

So, anyway, I opened the package, not sure what to expect, and found a DVD (so practical!) of the old movie The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming. I was momentarily puzzled, but then I realized it had to have come from my Trump-loving Arkansas friend, Maurice Lipsey. The note inside confirmed it — something along the lines of, “nothing new to see here.”

Maurice, a former Memphian, sent me a big safety pin after Trump won last November, and urged me to find a “safe space.” And he’s sent a couple other gag gifts in recent months, all poking fun at my misery and frustration with the idiot currently serving as our president.

On Maurice’s birthday, I sent him a video of a woman singing “Happy Birthday” in Russian.

But, unlike his hero, Maurice isn’t an idiot. He’s truly a great guy, even if his politics aren’t, in my opinion. I’ve known him for 12 years or so, ever since I started going over to fly-fish at his place, Fat Possum Hollow, on the Little Red River. Maurice has built a dozen or so nice cabins on the stream, practically in the shadow of Sugar Loaf Mountain. I go for a long weekend every couple months or so. It’s my happy place.

After a day on the stream, most of the visitors end up in Maurice’s “bar” in his barn, drinking beverages and talking fishing, Grizzlies, Tigers, Memphis, Razorbacks, and who knows what else. It’s a nice way to wind down in a place where you don’t have to drive home — and Maurice has a great jukebox. If it gets down to the two of us, late of an evening, we might venture into politics, where we will cordially but vociferously disagree on just about everything.

But that’s the thing — we’re cordial. I recognize that he’s a sentient American with the right to hold whatever (misguided) political views he wants to. He treats me the same. Yes, we make fun of each other’s politics, but we don’t call each other names, and we end the evening with a hug, as friendly as when we started. We need more of that kind of interaction in this country. Maybe somebody somewhere will even change somebody else’s mind.

Through talking with Maurice and a couple of other friends, I sort of get how some folks can find Trump appealing. They believe — as Trump, his allies and supporters, and the official state media (Fox News) would have us believe — that the Russia stuff is all made up, just sour grapes; that the Fake News media and the Deep State and Hillary Clinton are conspiring to bring down a great American president. Lots of people buy into that narrative and believe it with all their heart. To which I say, “Really?”

I believe, on the other hand, that the autocratic, strong-man cult that is being promulgated by Mr. Trump will eventually be brought down by the rule of law and the investigation of multiple nefarious Russian political and business connections. I believe Jared Kushner was in on this up to his little eyeballs, as were Paul Manafort, Donald Trump Jr., Carter Page, Mike Flynn, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, all of whom have publicly and repeatedly lied about their meetings and interactions with Russians. Innocent people don’t do that.

And I believe Trump is trying to “bad vibe” and insult Sessions into quitting, so he can name a loyalist toady to that supposedly independent position — a loyalist who will fire special counsel Robert Mueller. I believe we are headed for a Constitutional crisis in the coming months, as all this shakes down.

But no, I don’t believe the Russians are coming. I believe they’re already here.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Jared Kushner and the Big Con

CREDIT: Reuters | Jonathan Ernst

Kushner.

Any fan of the classic sitcom Seinfeld should know how to pronounce the name “Kushner” — the same way Jerry used to say, “Hello, Newman.” The Trump administration’s Golden Boy has had his luster tarnished in the past few weeks. The Justice Department has declared him a “person of interest” in the probe of the Trump campaign. He failed to note $1 billion dollars in loans from 20 different creditors on his financial disclosure form. The portion of Kushner’s initial security clearance form that requested the names of all foreign contacts was left blank and had to be re-filed three times, ultimately adding the names of 100 foreigners he’d forgotten meeting. Yet he still failed to report his foolish secret meeting with Don Jr. and Russian operatives offering campaign dirt on Hillary Clinton.

The McClatchy news group reported that the Justice Department is looking into Kushner’s digital operation during the campaign, which allegedly helped the Russians target specific voters and helped spread fake news about Clinton. And special counsel Robert Mueller is looking into Kushner’s finances and business dealings. I’d venture a guess that Jared Kushner is sorry he left his cush life as a New York real estate mogul for this mess.

Reuters | Jonathan Ernst

Jared Kushner

I sometimes wonder whether Trump supporters knew they were voting for a 36-year-old son-in-law of the president with no governmental experience to become a shadow Secretary of State, flying around the world, screwing up traditional alliances, and defending Trump’s most grievous offenses.

Kushner’s official title is senior advisor to the president, but he has been tasked with the most ambitious agenda since the New Deal. Jared’s assigned duties include resolving the conflict in the Middle East, modernizing the workings of government, re-inventing the office of veterans’ affairs, solving the opioid crisis, overseeing criminal justice reform, and coming up with an infrastructure plan to repair the country’s decaying roads and bridges. He’s also the liaison to Mexico and China, and showed up unexpectedly in Iraq looking silly in coat, tie, and flak jacket. I never thought I’d see an African-American president in my lifetime, but I am flabbergasted that there’d be a Jewish president this soon.

Kushner is the type of Orthodox Jew who is observant until it conflicts with his schedule. Jared and Ivanka are shomer Shabbos, which anyone who saw The Big Lebowski knows means not doing any sort of labor from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. The Kushners are said to turn off their cell phones, walk instead of drive, and keep a Kosher kitchen in their home. Jared makes exceptions for governmental business or when the family is off skiing in Aspen, and the Kushners have stated that they have received special permission from an “unnamed” rabbi to travel and ride around to parties in a limousine. As for keeping kosher, it was reported that the couple dined on shrimp scampi while in Rome, a no-no for non-eaters of shellfish.

Kushner’s diplomatic skills have so far come a cropper. His disastrous trip to the Middle East was complicated by his longstanding relationship with Bibi Netanyahu and his family’s millions of dollars in contributions to Israel. Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas was left infuriated after his meeting with Kushner, saying the American envoy was merely acting as a shill for Netanyahu’s hard-line policies. There was speculation among White House insiders that Trump might pull out of any Mid-East peace talks, stalled since April 2014, because he was angry about the Abbas-Kushner rift.

Kushner sits right in the middle of the probe of Russian interference during the 2016 election campaign. His failure to report a secret meeting with a Russian governmental attorney, along with the Morgan & Morgan lookalike Donny Jr., and then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort puts Jared in the most serious legal jeopardy, since he is the only one with an office in the West Wing who still sits in during security briefings.

Thirteen years ago, then-prosecutor Chris Christie sent Charles Kushner, Jared’s dad, to prison for 16 counts of criminal tax evasion, witness tampering, and lying to the Federal Election Commission. Jared Kushner is living proof that the con doesn’t fall far from the convict.

Randy Haspel writes the Recycled Hippies blog.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Never Again!

CREDIT: Reuters | Tom Gannam

Maybe the time has come for Jews to start arming themselves. The beast has been unleashed, and I don’t think Jared Kushner is going to save us. The alarming spike in anti-Semitic incidents has been tracked by several organizations. The Southern Poverty Law Center compiled a list of incidents drawn from media reports and submissions to the SPLC web page. In the 70 days following the election, 1,064 hate crimes, including acts of vandalism, assault, intimidation, and harassment, were committed. Forty-two percent included direct references to the election, the president, or his policies.

Swastikas have appeared in public places and private homes. A wave of bomb threats caused the evacuation of Jewish community centers around the country for the fourth time in five weeks. Fifty-four JCCs in 27 states have received bomb threats, 11 in one day. The Anti-Defamation League headquarters was targeted, and the New York City Police Department reported that hate crimes against Jews have doubled in 2017. If you believe it can’t happen here, that’s what they said in Germany in 1933. So before the pogroms begin, it’s best that the haters know we’re armed, and there ain’t gon’ be no Inquisition ’round here anytime soon.

The most egregious demonstration of hate occurred at the Chesed Shel Emeth Society cemetery in suburban St. Louis, where over 200 headstones were toppled and hundreds of graves vandalized. Almost immediately, scores of volunteers showed up to repair the damage, including a group of Muslims from a nearby mosque that raised over $20,000 for the cemetery’s reconstruction. Soon-to-be president Pence made an unannounced visit to help the effort and make a speech that said there is no room for anti-Semitism in a Trump administration.

Reuters | Tom Gannam

Chesed Shel Emeth Society

But where was the so-called president?  After receiving criticism for failing to address the rise in anti-Jewish sentiment, Trump was pressed on the issue while on 60 Minutes. When asked how he might confront the problem, this goon, this slob, looked into the camera and commanded, “Stop it!” Trump then claimed, “I am the least anti-Semitic person that you’ve ever seen in your entire life.” Isn’t that a double negative? He could say he was the most pro-Semitic person ever. That would embody everyone from Moses to Muhammad to Jesus, and that should pretty much cover it.  After all, some of Trump’s best in-laws are Jewish. I don’t believe Trump is an anti-Semite, but he sure is surrounded by them. It’s ironic how much the evangelicals love Israel. It’s just the Jews they don’t like.

When acting president Steve Bannon was chairman of Breitbart.com, he declared the site to be a “platform for the alt-right.” The term “alt-right” is a smokescreen description obscuring white nationalism, Islamophobia, racism, and anti-Semitism. Senator Al Franken recently attacked Trump’s senior adviser by quoting headlines from Breitbart.com when Bannon was at the helm. A sampling includes: “Would you rather your child had feminism or cancer?” “Gabby Giffords: the gun control movement’s human shield,” and “Bill Kristol: Republican spoiler, renegade Jew.”

Bannon told the gleeful crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference, the annual gathering of obstructionists, that his objective is the “deconstruction of the administrative state,” whatever the hell that means. Bannon said the cabinet officials who hate what their agencies do were “selected for a reason, and that is deconstruction.” A conservative legal source claimed the plan was “to eliminate the vast administrative apparatus that does so much to dictate the way we live.” In simple terms, they’re trying to trash the New Deal and LBJ’s Great Society and return power to the very same people who wrecked the economy and left hapless citizens destitute.

Just days ago, it was reported that more than 500 headstones were overturned or vandalized in a Jewish cemetery in Philadelphia. That takes some dedication. Within three hours, a contingency of Muslims arrived to help repair the damage. Maybe Trump is bringing us together — only in solidarity against hatred and evil. Imagine how you would feel if it was your family whose final resting places were desecrated. My mother is from St. Louis. My father went to Washington University. Those are my relatives buried in that Jewish cemetery. A list was posted of the names of families interred there. My great grandparents were among those listed. Thanks to social media, I was able to contact cousins who assured me that the graves of our family members were untouched. I guess after the first 200 headstones, the vandals got tired. My relief is cold comfort to those affected by the shockwave that convulsed the St. Louis Jewish community. In this toxic atmosphere, armed guards should be required at every Jewish center that’s accessible to the public. To paraphrase Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, when the world’s Jewry cries “Never Again,” it’s not just a slogan, it’s a promise.

Randy Haspel writes the “Recycled Hippies” blog.