Russia aside ...
The New York Times today is breaking news about actual, honest-to-goodness "Islamofascism": a $20 billion "cornerstone investment" by the largest Saudi sovereign wealth fund in the "Blackstone infrastructure fund," an "investment vehicle" overseen by "private equity titan" Stephen A. Schwarzman, which "dovetails with a $1 trillion infrastructure initiative the Trump administration has promised, to be fueled by government partnerships with the private sector."
Classic private-public economic fascism + infusions of Islamic cash = "Islamofascism."
For all non-titans out there, Schwarzman is the head of the Blackstone Group, where, conveniently, Mohammed bin Salman, "crown prince" of Saudi Arabia (i.e., dictator-in-waiting) and his Public Investment Fund are already a "major client." Schwarzman also "leads an elite committee of business executives [read: globalist investors and bankers] advising President Trump."
Last April, the Times explains, Schwarzman, mountain-like, went to Mohammed with a big new pitch: How about putting Saudi money into American tunnels, bridges, airports and other sorely needed infrastructure improvements?
Last April, the conventional wisdom was that Hillary Clinton was likely to become president. Is this really a Clinton-Saudi plan in disguise?
Blackstone CEO Schwarzman idenitifies Republican, although his Blackstone Group donated heavily to the Clinton Foundation. In fact, when in August of 2016 the AP reported "at least 85 of 154 people from private interests who met or had phone conversations scheduled with Clinton while she led the State Department donated to her family charity or pledged commitments to its international programs," Schwarzman was one of the 85, having attended a breakfast Secretary Clinton hosted at the New York Stock Exchange in 2009.
The AP continues: "One day after the breakfast, according to Clinton emails, the State Department was working on a visa issue at Schwarzman’s request. In December that same year, Schwarzman’s wife, Christine, sat at Clinton’s table during the Kennedy Center Honors. Clinton also introduced Schwarzman, then chairman of the Kennedy Center, before he spoke."
Nice.
Now, the other shoe: "Blackstone donated between $250,000 and $500,000 to the Clinton Foundation. Eight Blackstone executives also gave between $375,000 and $800,000 to the foundation. And Blackstone’s charitable arm has pledged millions of dollars in commitments to three Clinton Global aid projects ranging from the U.S. to the Mideast."
Now he's advising Donald Trump.
Meanwhile, Blackstone President and COO Hamilton "Tony" James is a major Obama, Hillary and also Center for American Progress (Podesta) supporter.
From The Intercept:
James has been a stalwart supporter of Barack Obama, holding fundraisers for him at his home, even while other Wall Street titans criticized him — in fact the co-founder of James’s own company, Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman, once likened Obama’s push to increase taxes on private-equity firms to a “war,” saying: “It’s like when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939.”
Last December, James hosted a high-dollar fundraiser for Hillary Clinton that featured Warren Buffett. He’s made six-figure donations to the Center for American Progress, known as Clinton’s White House in exile, and sits on CAP’s Board of Trustees. And he has made no secret of wanting to hold a high-level position in a future Democratic administration, perhaps even treasury secretary....
In These Times has even more on the Blackstone Group and Podesta's Center for American Progress and Hillary Clinton here.
After I first posted this earlier today, I heard from my pal John L. Work, who wrote: "This is beginning to look like the end of Animal Farm. They're all the same, aren't they. Clinton, Clinton, Obama, Bush, Bush, Trump - they're all the same."
Or, as George Orwell put it:
Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.