The story behind Jared Kushner's curious acceptance into Harvard

Nov. 29, 2016 11:00 AM

I would like to express my gratitude to Jared Kushner for reviving interest in my 2006 book, The Price of Admission. I have never met or spoken with him, and it's rare in this life to find such a selfless benefactor. Of course, I doubt he became Donald Trump's son-in-law and consigliere merely to boost my lagging sales, but still, I'm thankful.

My book exposed a grubby secret of American higher education: that the rich buy their underachieving children's way into elite universities with massive, tax-deductible donations. It reported that New Jersey real estate developer Charles Kushner had pledged $2.5 million to Harvard University in 1998, not long before his son Jared was admitted to the prestigious Ivy League school. At the time, Harvard accepted about one of every nine applicants. (Nowadays, it only takes 1 out of 20.)

I also quoted administrators at Jared's high school, who described him as a less than stellar student and expressed dismay at Harvard's decision.

"There was no way anybody in the administrative office of the school thought he would on the merits get into Harvard," a former official at The Frisch School in Paramus, New Jersey, told me. "His GPA did not warrant it, his SAT scores did not warrant it. We thought for sure, there was no way this was going to happen. Then, lo and behold, Jared was accepted. It was a little bit disappointing because there were at the time other kids we thought should really get in on the merits, and they did not."
Risa Heller, a spokeswoman for Kushner Companies, said in an email Thursday that "the allegation" that Charles Kushner's gift to Harvard was related to Jared's admission "is and always has been false." His parents, Charles and Seryl Kushner, "are enormously generous and have donated over 100 million dollars to universities, hospitals and other charitable causes. Jared Kushner was an excellent student in high school and graduated from Harvard with honors." (About 90 percent of Jared's 2003 class at Harvard also graduated with honors.)

My Kushner discoveries were an offshoot of my research for a chapter on Harvard donors. Somebody had slipped me a document I had long coveted: the membership list of Harvard's Committee on University Resources. The university wooed more than 400 of its biggest givers and most promising prospects by putting them on this committee and inviting them to campus periodically to be wined, dined, and subjected to lectures by eminent professors.

My idea was to figure out how many children of these corporate titans, oil barons, money managers, lawyers, high-tech consultants and old-money heirs had gone to Harvard. A disproportionate tally might suggest that the university eased its standards for the offspring of wealthy backers.

I began working through the list, poring over "Who's Who in America" and Harvard class reunion reports for family information. Charles and Seryl Kushner were both on the committee. I had never heard of them, but their joint presence struck me as a sign that Harvard's fundraising machine held the couple in especially fond regard.

The clips showed that Charles Kushner's empire encompassed 25,000 New Jersey apartments, along with extensive office, industrial, and retail space and undeveloped land. Unlike most of his fellow committee members, though, Kushner was not a Harvard man. He had graduated from New York University. This eliminated the sentimental tug of the alma mater as a reason for him to give to Harvard, leaving another likely explanation: his children.

Sure enough, his sons Jared and Joshua had both enrolled there.

Charles Kushner differed from his peers on the committee in another way; he had a criminal record. Five years after Jared entered Harvard, the elder Kushner pleaded guilty in 2004 to tax violations, illegal campaign donations, and retaliating against a witness. (As it happens, the prosecutor in the case was Chris Christie, recently ousted as the head of Trump's transition team.) Charles Kushner had hired a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law, who was cooperating with federal authorities. Kushner then had a videotape of the tryst sent to his sister. He was sentenced to two years in federal prison.
I completed my analysis, which justified my hunch. Of the 400-plus tycoons on Harvard's list—which included people who were childless or too young to have college-age offspring—more than half had sent at least one child to the university.

I also decided that the Kushner-Harvard relationship deserved special attention. Although the university often heralded big gifts in press releases or a bulletin called 2014 in a classic example of fundraising wit, "Re:sources"—a search of these outlets came up empty. Harvard didn't seem eager to be publicly associated with Charles Kushner.

While looking into Kushner's taxes, though, federal authorities had subpoenaed records of his charitable giving. I learned that in 1998, when Jared was attending The Frisch School and starting to look at colleges, his father had pledged $2.5 million to Harvard, to be paid in annual installments of $250,000. Charles Kushner also visited Neil Rudenstine, then Harvard president, and discussed funding a scholarship program for low- and middle-income students.

I phoned a Harvard official, with whom I was on friendly terms. First I asked whether the gift played any role in Jared's admission. "You know we don't comment on individual applicants," he said. When I pressed further, he hung up. We haven't spoken since.

At Harvard, Jared Kushner majored in government. Now the 35-year-old is poised to become the power behind the presidency. What he plans to do, and in what direction he and his father-in-law will lead the country, are far more important than his high school grades
.
ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for their newsletter.

Evernote helps you remember everything and get organized effortlessly. Download Evernote.

The Semantics of God in the Middle East - Foreign Policy Blogs

Middle East & North Africa
by Fadi A. Haddadin  |  on October 7th, 2016  |  0 Comments

The late Jordanian writer, Nahed Hattar.

Understanding the religious passions dominating the Middle East's political sphere seems to be a prerequisite for testing the spread of democratic institutions and the norms necessary to support them. King Abdullah II of Jordan (a direct descendant of Prophet Mohammad) repeatedly says that the war on terror is foremost a war inside Islam. Recently, he visited the family of the late writer Nahed Hattar to pay condolences, affirming that Jordanians "denounce the cowardly criminal act" that targeted him on September 25.

In his initial confession to Jordanian police, the killer, who was known for his extremist thoughts and behavior, said he targeted Hattar "after hearing that he posted an offensive caricature on his Facebook page and decided to kill him."

One of the central features of civilized behavior is that one should not use violence to solve conflicts. It seems the Middle East, where debate, argument, and dialogue are rare as instruments of the intellectual dialect, did not read the speech of King Mohammed VI of Morocco (another direct descendant of Prophet Mohammad) addressed to the Moroccans on August 20, when he reminded the citizens of the problems plaguing the region, such as succumbing to extremist and terrorist groups: "Is it conceivable that God, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate, could order someone to blow himself up or kill innocent people?" King Mohammed VI stressed that those who call for murder and aggression, those who excommunicate people without a legitimate reason, those who interpret the Quran and the Sunnah to suit their purposes "are actually lying to Allah and His Messenger."

He also asked his people this pivotal question, which was ironically not irrelevant to the theme of the cartoon which Hattar has shared on his Facebook: "How could anyone of sound mind believe that the reward for jihad is a number of virgins? How could one possibly accept that anyone who listens to music will be swallowed by the depths of the earth, and other such lies? As attested by the history of mankind, it is impossible to achieve progress in a society which is plagued by radicalism and hatred."
Hattar, who was facing trial for sharing a cartoon on his Facebook page, was on his way to attend a court hearing when he was shot dead. The cartoon featured an illustration of God under the title "God of Daesh," using an Arabic acronym for ISIS. Right after sharing the cartoon, the Jordanian Prime Minister, Hani al-Mulki, ordered his interior minister to summon the writer and to initiate legal proceedings against him. The cartoon has sparked outrage in social media and the Jordanian Ifta' Department issued a statement criticizing "the insult to the divine entity, Islam, and religious symbols." Meanwhile, several Twitter users called for legal action to be taken against Hattar: "He should be imprisoned," "killed," "executed."

The appalling hate speech in social media platforms deserves a moment of contemplation of the reality of Middle Eastern societies, with the spread of extremist dialect sweeping through for decades. Before turning himself in, Hattar published an apology and an explanation on his Facebook page, saying that he shared the cartoon to mock the terrorists and how they view heaven and that it was not meant to insult God. As a matter of fact, social media accounts were celebrating Hattar's death, saying he deserved it for blasphemy, and right after the assassination, people started tweeting: "He deserves being killed this Christian pig," "God's revenge took his life," "We will not accept anything other than this."

Hattar's assassination sheds light on virtual media and how it is used as a weapon by the terrorists to promote their ideologies of extremism. It also marks a new challenge for the state: terrorists are not only on the borders with Syria and Iraq, but amongst Jordanians themselves, inciting the murderer of Hattar, as well as rejoicing the crime. In fact, Jordan's police has declared it arrested several people accused of circulating videos and posts on social media "promoting hate" days after the assassination, including a relative of the shooter who created a Facebook page called: "Yes to Free the Killer of Hattar."
Seeking toleration in the Middle East for a greater range of speech and lifestyles will be hardly obtained and this sense of hate speech makes it harder still to grasp the possibility of social cooperation. Moreover, convincing hate promoters to view their interactions with the other as positive-sum processes is rather a joke as there is much more to terrorist forms of violence than just terror: intellectual terror, propaganda, hate speech, political mobilization, and destruction of peaceful economic structures, are all but few examples. Meanwhile, the state is not clear about where it stands, what message it wants to convey, what efforts have been made to confront and remedy social division and extremism, and the role of media in rebutting the fanatic discourse to maintain moderation, if any, especially putting an end to extremism and hate speech toward the other.

Middle Eastern societies do not tolerate freedom of expression, experimentation, falsification, and theory formation to nation building. They do not accept doubt and dispute as centerpieces of a functional democracy. They think of democracy in the same way that they think of belief—as a moral judgment, as assertions; not as science—as a method of trial and error, and as a public marketplace of ideas. This brings us back to issue of responding to political violence and how to convince these societies that violence is immoral, fruitless, or both.

I do not see how we can reach a "common interest" with the extremists as our vision of toleration, pluralism, and political stability may not be the mirror image of their own vision. Settling the nature of the game will take hard political choices, whose costs will be significant. And this is exactly why the King of Jordan, for instance, says that the war on terror requires both military and ideological measures.
 

Evernote helps you remember everything and get organized effortlessly. Download Evernote.

The Semantics of "God", by Robert Anton Wilson

Article published in The Realist in May 1959.

• 

  Page 1
  

  Page 2
  

  Page 3

 

Evernote helps you remember everything and get organized effortlessly. Download Evernote.

The Moth and the World Science Festival present Sam Shepard: You Can Lead a Horse to Water

An actor's insistence on using his own horse in a film stunt has unpleasant consequences for his stunt double. 

Alphabet Wants to Fix Renewable Energy’s Storage Problem — With Salt

By

Mark Bergen

July 31, 2017, 2:00 AM PDT

A representation of Malta's grid-scale energy storage technology (Source: X)

Alphabet Inc.'s secretive X skunk works has another idea that could save the world. This one, code named Malta, involves vats of salt and antifreeze
.
The research lab, which hatched Google's driverless car almost a decade ago, is developing a system for storing renewable energy that would otherwise be wasted. It can be located almost anywhere, has the potential to last longer than lithium-ion batteries and compete on price with new hydroelectric plants and other existing clean energy storage methods, according to X executives and researchers.
The previously undisclosed initiative is part of a handful of energy projects at X, which has a mixed record with audacious "moonshots" like Google Glass and drone delivery. Venture capitalists, and increasingly governments, have cut funding and support for technology and businesses built around alternatives to fossil fuels. X's clean-energy projects have yet to become hits like its driverless cars, but the lab isn't giving up.

"If the moonshot factory gives up on a big, important problem like climate change, then maybe it will never get solved," said Obi Felten, a director at X. "If we do start solving it, there are trillions and trillions of dollars in market opportunity."

She runs The Foundry, where a Malta team of fewer than 10 researchers is testing a stripped-down prototype. This is the part of X that tries to turn experiments in science labs into full-blown projects with emerging business models, such as its Loon internet-beaming high-altitude balloons. Malta is not yet an official X project, but it has been "de-risked" enough that the team is now looking for partners to build, operate and connect a commercial-sized prototype to the grid, Felten said. That means Alphabet may team up or compete with industrial powerhouses like Siemens AG, ABB Ltd. and General Electric Co.

X is stepping into a market that could see about $40 billion in investment by 2024, according Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Roughly 790 megawatts of energy will be stored this year and overall capacity is expected to hit 45 gigawatts in seven years, BNEF estimates. Existing electrical grids struggle with renewable energy, a vexing problem that's driving demand for new storage methods. Solar panels and wind farms churn out energy around midday and at night when demand lulls. This forces utilities to discard it in favor of more predictable oil and coal plants and more controllable natural gas "peaker" plants.

In the first half of this year, California tossed out more than 300,000 megawatts produced by solar panels and wind farms because there's no good way to store it. That's enough to power tens of thousands of homes. About 4 percent of all wind energy from Germany was jettisoned in 2015, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. China throws out more than 17 percent.

Felten is particularly excited about working with companies in China, a voracious energy consumer -- and a country where almost all Google web services are banned. Before that happens, the Malta team has to turn what is now an early test prototype in a warehouse in Silicon Valley into a final product that can be manufactured and is big and reliable enough for utilities to plug it into electricity grids.
In renderings, viewed by Bloomberg News, the system looks like a miniaturepower plant with four cylindrical tanks connected via pipes to a heat pump. X says it can vary in size from roughly the dimensions of a large garage to a full-scale traditional power plant, providing energy on demand to huge industrial facilities, data centers or storage for small wind farms and solar installations.
The system mixes an established technique with newly designed components. "Think of this, at a very simple level, as a fridge and a jet," said Julian Green, the product manager for Malta.

Two tanks are filled with salt, and two are filled with antifreeze or a hydrocarbon liquid. The system takes in energy in the form of electricity and turns it into separate streams of hot and cold air. The hot air heats up the salt, while the cold air cools the antifreeze, a bit like a refrigerator. The jet engine part: Flip a switch and the process reverses. Hot and cold air rush toward each other, creating powerful gusts that spin a turbine and spit out electricity when the grid needs it. Salt maintains its temperature well, so the system can store energy for many hours, and even days, depending on how much you insulate the tanks.

Scientists have already proven this as a plausible storage technique. Malta's contribution was to design a system that operates at lower temperatures so it doesn't require specialized, expensive ceramics and steels. "The thermodynamic physics are well-known to anyone who studied it enough in college," Green said. "The trick is doing it at the right temperatures, with cheap materials. That is super compelling."

The Malta team at work

Source: X

X declined to share exactly how cheap its materials are. Thermal salt-based storage has the potential to be several times cheaper than lithium-ion batteries and other existing grid-scale storage technologies, said Raj Apte, Malta's head engineer. German engineering firm Siemens is also developing storage systems using salt for its solar-thermal plants.

But lithium-ion battery prices are falling quickly, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. And Malta must contend with low oil and natural gas prices, a market reality that's wiped out several companies working on alternatives to fossil fuels. "It could potentially compete with lithium-ion," said Bloomberg New Energy Finance analyst Yayoi Sekine. "But there are a lot of challenges that an emerging technology has to face."

One hurdle is convincing energy incumbents to put capital into a project with potential returns many years down the road. Alphabet has the balance sheet to inspire confidence, with $95 billion in cash and equivalents. Yet the tech giant has a recent history of retreating from or shutting experimental projects that stray from its core areas of high-power computing and software.

Robert Laughlin, a Nobel prize-winning physicist whose research laid the foundation for Malta, is now a consultant on the project. He met X representatives at a conference a few years ago. They discussed the idea, and the lab ultimately decided to fund the project and build a small team to execute it. Laughin has signed off on the team's designs, and he said his theories have been working with the prototype.

Laughlin believes X is more committed than previous potential backers. He first pitched the idea as his own startup, taking it to luminary tech investors including Khosla Ventures and Peter Thiel's Founders Fund. They passed, according to the scientist, because they didn't want to deal with the tougher demands of a conservative energy industry that will have to buy and use the system in the end. "What we're talking about here is engines and oil companies -- big dinosaurs with very long teeth," said Laughlin. That's "above the pay grade of people out here." A representative from Founders Fund declined to comment. Khosla didn't respond to requests for comment.
X won't say how much it has invested so far, but it's enough for Laughlin. "A blessing came out of the sky," he said. "X came in and took a giant bite out of this problem."

— With assistance by Alistair Barr

Evernote helps you remember everything and get organized effortlessly. Download Evernote.

[NSFW] These Devilish Illustrations Are Sinfully Sexy

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Playwright, Director and Actor Sam Shepard Passes Away at 73

BroadwayWorld has just learned that playwright, actor, author, screenwriter, and director Sam Shepard has passed away. Shepard, who had been ill with ALS for some time, died peacefully on July 27 at his home in Kentucky, surrounded by his children and sisters. He was 73 years old.
Survivors include his children, Jesse, Hannah and Walker Shepard, and his sisters, Sandy and Roxanne Rogers.
"The family requests privacy at this difficult time," said the spokesman for the family, Chris Boneau.
Funeral arrangements remain private. Plans for a public memorial have not yet been determined.
Shepard is the author of forty-four plays as well as several books of short stories, essays, and memoirs. Shepard received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979 for his play Buried Child. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of pilot Chuck Yeager in The Right Stuff (1983).
Shepard received the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award as a master American dramatist in 2009. New York described him as "the greatest American playwright of his generation."
His many plays include: Cowboys, The Rock Garden, Chicago, Icarus's Mother, 4-H Club, Red Cross, La Turista, Cowboys #2, Forensic & the Navigators, The Unseen Hand, Oh! Calcutta! (contributed sketches), The Holy Ghostly, Operation Sidewinder, Mad Dog Blues, Back Bog Beast Bait, Cowboy Mouth, The Tooth of Crime, Geography of a Horse Dreamer, Action, Angel City, Suicide in B Flat, Inacoma, Curse of the Starving Class, Buried Child, Tongues, True West, Savage/Love, Fool for Love, A Lie of the Mind, A Short Life of Trouble, Baby Boom, States of Shock, Simpatico, Tooth of Crime, Eyes for Consuela, The Late Henry Moss, The God of Hell, Kicking a Dead Horse, Ages of the Moon, Heartless and A Particle of Dread.
Shepard's plays are chiefly known for their bleak, poetic, often surrealist elements, black humor and rootless characters living on the outskirts of American society. His style has evolved over the years, from the absurdism of his early Off-Off-Broadway work to the realism of Buried Child and Curse of the Starving Class (both 1978).
Shepard began his acting career in earnest when he was cast as the handsome land baron in Terrence Malick's Days of Heaven (1978), opposite Richard Gere and Brooke Adams. This led to other important film roles, including that of Cal, Ellen Burstyn's love interest, in the film "Resurrection" (1980), and most notably his portrayal of Chuck Yeager in The Right Stuff (1983). The latter performance earned Shepard an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. By 1986, his play Fool for Love was getting a film adaptation directed by Robert Altman, in which Shepard played the lead role; his play A Lie of the Mind was being performed Off-Broadway with an all-star cast (including Harvey Keitel and Geraldine Page); and Shepard was subsequently working steadily as a film actor - all of these achievements put him on the cover of Newsweek.
Throughout the years, Shepard has done a considerable amount of teaching on writing plays and other aspects of theatre. His classes and seminars have occurred at various theatre workshops, festivals, and universities. Shepard was elected to The American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1986. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1986.

Related Articles

From This Author BWW News Desk

Evernote helps you remember everything and get organized effortlessly. Download Evernote.

Death of a F***ing Salesman

Donald Trump can't close the deal.

A few years ago in New York, Al Pacino starred in a revival of David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross, and the casting was poignant: In 1992, a much younger and more vigorous Pacino had played the role of hotshot salesman Ricky Roma in the film adaptation of the play; in the Broadway revival, a 72-year-old Pacino played the broken-down has-been Shelley Levene.

Glengarry Glen Ross is the Macbeth of real estate, full of great, blistering lines and soliloquies so liberally peppered with profanity that the original cast had nicknamed the show "Death of a F***ing Salesman." But a few of those attending the New York revival left disappointed. For a certain type of young man, the star of Glengarry Glen Ross is a character called Blake, played in the film by Alec Baldwin. We know that his name is "Blake" only from the credits; asked his name by one of the other salesmen, he answers: "What's my name? F*** you. That's my name." In the film, Blake sets things in motion by delivering a motivational speech and announcing a sales competition: "First prize is a Cadillac Eldorado. Second prize? A set of steak knives. Third prize is, you're fired. Get the picture?" He berates the salesmen in terms both financial — "My watch cost more than your car!" — and sexual. Their problem, in Blake's telling, isn't that they've had a run of bad luck or bad sales leads — or that the real estate they're trying to sell is crap — it is that they aren't real men.

The leads are weak? You're weak. . . . Your name is "you're wanting," and you can't play the man's game. You can't close them? Then tell your wife your troubles, because only one thing counts in this world: Get them to sign on the line which is dotted. Got that, you f***ing f*****s?

A few young men waiting to see the show had been quoting Blake's speech to one another. For them, and for a number of men who imagine themselves to be hard-hitting competitors (I've never met a woman of whom this is true), Blake's speech is practically a creed. It's one of those things that some guys memorize. But Blake does not appear in the play, the scene having been written specifically for the film and specifically for Alec Baldwin, a sop to investors who feared that the film would not be profitable and wanted an additional jolt of star power to enliven it.

That's some fine irony: Blake's paean to salesmanship was written to satisfy salesmen who did not quite buy David Mamet's original pitch. The play is if anything darker and more terrifying without Blake, leaving the poor feckless salesmen at the mercy of a faceless malevolence offstage rather than some regular jerk in a BMW. But a few finance bros went home disappointed that they did not get the chance to sing along, as it were, with their favorite hymn.

These guys don't want to see Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross. What they want is to be Blake. They want to swagger, to curse, to insult, and to exercise power over men, exercising power over men being the classical means to the end of exercising power over women, which is of course what this, and nine-tenths of everything else in human affairs, is about. Blake is a specimen of that famous creature, the "alpha male," and establishing and advertising one's alpha creds is an obsession for some sexually unhappy contemporary men. There is a whole weird little ecosystem of websites (some of them very amusing) and pickup-artist manuals offering men tips on how to be more alpha, more dominant, more commanding, a literature that performs roughly the same function in the lives of these men that Cosmopolitan sex tips play in the lives of insecure women. Of course this advice ends up producing cartoonish, ridiculous behavior. If you're wondering where Anthony Scaramucci learned to talk and behave like such a Scaramuccia, ask him how many times he's seen Glengarry Glen Ross.

What's notable about the advice offered to young men aspiring to be "alpha males" is that it is consistent with the classic salesmanship advice offered by the real-world versions of Blake in a hundred thousand business-inspiration books (Og Mandino's The Greatest Salesman in the World is the classic of the genre) and self-help tomes, summarized in an old Alcoholics Anonymous slogan: "Fake it 'til you make it." For the pick-up artists, the idea is that simply acting in social situations as though one were confident, successful, and naturally masterful is a pretty good substitute for being those things. Never mind the advice of Cicero (esse quam videri, be rather than seem) or Rush — just go around acting like Blake and people will treat you like Blake.
If that sounds preposterous, remind yourself who the president of the United States of America is.

–– ADVERTISEMENT ––

Trump is the political version of a pickup artist, and Republicans — and America — went to bed with him convinced that he was something other than what he is. Trump inherited his fortune but describes himself as though he were a self-made man.

We did not elect Donald Trump; we elected the character he plays on television.

---

He has had a middling career in real estate and a poor one as a hotelier and casino operator but convinced people he is a titan of industry. He has never managed a large, complex corporate enterprise, but he did play an executive on a reality show. He presents himself as a confident ladies' man but is so insecure that he invented an imaginary friend to lie to the New York press about his love life and is now married to a woman who is open and blasé about the fact that she married him for his money. He fixates on certain words ("negotiator") and certain classes of words (mainly adjectives and adverbs, "bigly," "major," "world-class," "top," and superlatives), but he isn't much of a negotiator, manager, or leader. He cannot negotiate a health-care deal among members of a party desperate for one, can't manage his own factionalized and leak-ridden White House, and cannot lead a political movement that aspires to anything greater than the service of his own pathetic vanity.
He wants to be John Wayne, but what he is is "Woody Allen without the humor." Peggy Noonan, to whom we owe that observation, has his number: He is soft, weak, whimpering, and petulant. He isn't smart enough to do the job and isn't man enough to own up to the fact. For all his gold-plated toilets, he is at heart that middling junior salesman watching Glengarry Glen Ross and thinking to himself: "That's the man I want to be." How many times do you imagine he has stood in front of a mirror trying to project like Alec Baldwin? Unfortunately for the president, it's Baldwin who does the good imitation of Trump, not the other way around.

Hence the cartoon tough-guy act. Scaramucci's star didn't fade when he gave that batty and profane interview in which he reimagined Steve Bannon as a kind of autoerotic yogi. That's Scaramucci's best impersonation of the sort of man the president of these United States, God help us, aspires to be.
But he isn't that guy. He isn't Blake. He's poor sad old Shelley Levene, who cannot close the deal, who spends his nights whining about the unfairness of it all.
So, listen up, Team Trump: "Put that coffee down. Coffee is for closers only."
Got that?


— Kevin D. Williamson is National Review's roving correspondent.

Evernote helps you remember everything and get organized effortlessly. Download Evernote.

America’s War On Venezuela and the Fascists We Get to Fight It

What you are about to read is a real life horror story. It is a tale of tear gas, bloodshed, and fascists burning a black man alive; it is a tale of overwhelming imperial aggression against a people who pose no threat to their invaders, a calculated strike of pure barbarism that would give Attila the Hun pause and Andrew Jackson the willies.

It is the story of Venezuela, America's newest undeclared war, and the unholy beasts Uncle Sam is paying to win it.
I have suffered deeply to bring you this story, and have prescribed myself a regimen of back-to-back hyssop baths in an effort to purge away any negativity such coverage might bring. Four spirits freshly summoned from the graveyard hang around the house now, watching me type every word and pulling me back to reality each time I break off into maniacal laughter; when they do I write down Psalm 35 on a small piece of paper and eat it, a backwoods technique to preserve one's sanity I learned from a one-eyed Seminole woman in a town called Okahumpka. She chuckled then, calling me "wee hatke-hajo" and assured me I'd need it in my chosen line of work.
How right she was. To be a journalist requires not just the ability to sense bullshit but to breathe it, to inhale it, to filter particles of truth from the same fumes designed to dull the senses and demolish the mind. You gain a taste for the stuff and can pick up the scent for miles away, a mutant creature let loose to devour all that is terrible and wrong in the world; like a water moccasin you swim towards everything dangerous in an effort to kill it first.

The current cloud surrounding the troubles of Venezuela might be the purest strain of the stuff I've yet to encounter. As far as I've seen no Anarchist has sufficiently tackled the subject, no reporter has followed all the evidence, and no soul has yet to fathom the macabre timeline that awaits millions of people if the United States wins.

Lord, how long will you look on? Let those who rejoice at this misfortune be disgraced and humiliated; let those who exalt themselves over it be clothed with shame and reproach! Let us peer deeply into the rat nest that is a capitalist-run press and the lies they package as truth.

"For they do not speak in friendly ways,
but contrive deceitful schemes against those who live peacefully in the land." – Psalm 35

Everywhere the well-paid chimps in the American press corps are bemoaning the "dictatorship" in Venezuela and their "ruthless" punishing of peaceful protesters. On your TV's and wrapped in suits worth more than our apartments Americans are being led to believe a new Saddam Hussein lurks just below the equator, killing hundreds of people with his dreaded Leftist ideas. Headlines like "A socialist revolution can ruin almost any country" or "Venezuelan socialism still a complete disaster" only help to convince the average simpleton that Venezuela's problems are ideological and not international in character. The going narrative is that Socialism has destroyed Venezuela and the people now want to be free, that the young man doing a hitler salute is only there because his favorite cereal is no longer on the shelves.

Nothing could be further from the truth and the American government knows it. 
Venezuela's economic woes are by design and have American fingerprints all over them. Anybody else notice how cheap gas is nowadays?
"Starting in 2014, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia flooded the market with cheap oil. This is not a mere business decision, but a calculated move coordinated with U.S. and Israeli foreign policy goals. Despite not just losing money, but even falling deep into debt, the Saudi monarchy continues to expand its oil production apparatus. The result has been driving the price of oil down from $110 per barrel, to $28 in the early months of this year. The goal is to weaken these opponents of Wall Street, London, and Tel Aviv, whose economies are centered around oil and natural gas exports….
Writing for Townhall in 2014, Michael Reagan bragged that his father did the same thing to hurt the Soviet Union during the 1980s:
'Since selling oil was the source of the Kremlin's wealth, my father got the Saudis to flood the market with cheap oil. Lower oil prices devalued the ruble, causing the USSR to go bankrupt, which led to perestroika and Mikhail Gorbachev and the collapse of the Soviet Empire.'"
Venezuela's oil revenues account for about 95 percent of export earnings and around 25 percent of gross domestic product, making this an aimed economic attack against a country the US has tried to destroy many times before. If there was any doubt the roving shithawks of American Imperialism were responsible you'd only need to hear a recent interview done by the current head of the CIA:
"So I want to be careful with what I say but suffice to say, we are very hopeful that there can be a transition in Venezuela and we the CIA is doing its best to understand the dynamic there, so that we can communicate to our State Department and to others. The Colombians, I was just down in Mexico City and in Bogota a week before last talking about this very issue trying to help them understand the things they might do so that they can get a better outcome for their part of the world and our part of the world"

Remember: these are the same horsefuckers that compare themselves to the manufacturers of poison gas used in the Holocaust and literally said their "real job was to kill as many Communists as possible." When they say "better outcomes" and "understanding the dynamic" you can be sure it means torture, mass death, and the supremacy of the United States above everything else.
Ever the example that Capitalists act as a class, American-backed companies are gleefully adding to the crisis. Heinz employees are claiming the company's factories are capable of operating at full capacity to meet the country's shortage of certain food items—but that the owners do not want that to happen. Bridgestone, General Mills, Procter & Gamble, Ford Motor Company, and Kimberly-Clark Corp number among other American companies mysteriously slowing production in Venezuela due to "business concerns" while the Japanese-run Toyota continues to chug along just fine. A "bosses' strike" has even been called, management locking up industries and refusing workers the ability to slow down a catastrophic economic collapse.

Here it is, a full-blown class war, naked as sunshine and for all to see. The plan? A combined pincer strike of fixed markets and shortages of essential goods, one causing the economy to turn into a boiling pot of rage and hate for whoever was in charge. Where have we seen this before?
"The situation on the ground today in Venezuela, in particular the shortages of basic goods, is in some respects analogous to the conditions leading up to the 1973 coup against the democratically elected socialist government of Salvador Allende in Chile. A major tactic of the right-wing Chilean opposition and the Nixon administration was to 'make the economy scream' by provoking food shortages, a truckers strike, and mayhem in the streets. Researcher Peter Kornbluh, in The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability, summarizes declassified cables that indicate in the days preceding the overthrow of Allende a terrorist paramilitary group and a 'large segment' of the business community were 'undertaking actions to increase discontent and incidents of violence…in order to create an atmosphere in Chile which would be propitious for a military coup."'
It's a winning strategy and Uncle Sam will take it all the way to make it a success. In the 1970's the CIA went so far as to pay workers in Chile not to work with the equivalent of $40,192,000 dollars, all to exacerbate shortages and manufacture a crisis capable of overthrowing the government. But just as in the past you need someone on the ground to really get things crazy, and a white guy with a Boston accent sticks out like a priest at a boy scout jamboree. You need local help, the kind of hellish beasts hopped up on ideology and with a foaming desire to kill so common to the Right.
Meet the "protesters" so beloved by the American media.

"Assailants I did not know tore at me and did not stop. With godless mockery they gnashed their teeth at me." – Psalm 35

The Capitalist press assures us that this time, unlike all the others, the opposition in Venezuela is filled with patriotic citizens concerned with "widespread shortages of food and medicine" brought about by "inept" Socialist leadership.

They sure do have a funny way of showing it.
"Two Venezuelan protesters attacked a state-owned storehouse Thursday, setting fire to the building and destroying food reserves kept there…
About 40 tons of food that would have been distributed through the Mercal subsidized food market and subsidized government programs were consumed by the flames…Consequently, 40,000 families will be affected by the fire, which also serves 399 Local Supply and Production Committees, CLAP, 278 schools, 31 comprehensive diagnostic centers, three penitentiaries, a geriatric center, as well as 52 nutrition houses."
Who are these "protesters," these "freedom fighters" so adored by the Imperium, wrapped in flags and howling for blood? What's clear, even in the grossly ideological articles coming out of the capitalist press, is that the current protests have much in common with a "short-lived 2002 coup against Chavez, who was removed from power by dissident army officers and right-wing business leaders for several days before being restored to office."
What they fail to mention is how right-wing they are.
CryptoCuddlefish, a "non-denominational communist" and political observer has been pointing out symbolism among the opposition that would be instantly recognizable to any member of the AltRight:
According to sources in Venezuela these are not just a few kids with a hard-on for the middle ages. The Tribuna Popular, a communist news site, highlights 12 fascist organizations operating within the opposition and notes they are some of the most active and organized forces within the protests.
"While the MUD (Democratic Unity Roundtable) has no control over the barricades, much less neo-Nazi groups, which have been trained to resist the Revolutionary and Bolivarian government, they certainly have a military command, which has organized, logistics, financing, location, entrances and exits, communications and operational control of each of the barricades, as well as the planning of systematic attacks and selective assassinations, with the aim of generating a civil war and achieving the much desired Yankee intervention." (Translated from Spanish)
The protesters, interviewed by American media, admit as much.
"'There's level 1 to 7,' he says. Level 1 protesters are up front, face-to-face with police. People call them warriors.

'These are kids, most of them under 25, which are students most of them — or they have nothing to lose, they don't have a job, they don't see a future and they fight for their life,' he says.
…He says these are people who help with logistics….He gets the food through a network of people who operate more or less anonymously, sharing information through messaging apps about drop-off points and pickup spots where they are hiding supplies.
'It's like a war. There are soldiers, there's [logistics], there's intelligence…"
Recently in Venezuela a helicopter attack against a government building was followed by a video produced by opposition forces. In it the attack is admitted to be the work of "an underground network nestled within the security and armed forces determined to end the embattled government of Nicolas Maduro." Most interesting, and perhaps even terrifying, are the crusader and fascist overtones prevalent throughout:
"Perez marries the idea of nationalist struggle with Christian idealism. Pointing to a blue cloth tied to his left arm, he says 'we are using this distinction, which is the color of truth and Jesus Christ, who is with us.' He explicitly identifies himself and his comrades as 'nationalists, patriots, and institutionalists." Near the end, he exclaims a coda: 'we are warriors of God, and our mission is to live at the service of the people. Long live Venezuela!'"
The presence of this man dispels any lingering doubts about American involvement. According to Mint Press News Pérez has been known to work for Miguel Rodríguez Torres, a former general and former minister of Venezuela's Department of Interior Relations, Justice and Peace who is currently being investigated for his ties to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the CIA. These charges first came to light when the Venezuelan news agency Últimas Noticias obtained an official DEA document that described Rodríguez Torres as a "key information provider" for the agency and recommended that he be secured as a protected source for the DEA and U.S. government.
These new crusaders, directly supported and in league with the United States against what they call "the modern world," are far from allies of the working class; instead they are intent on terrifying it into submission. The opposition in one incident attacked communes for low-income citizens, firing guns at residents, burning several homes, and mortally wounding a child. Deaths of government supporters have included that of socialist union leader Esmin Ramirez, who was kidnapped on April 22 and found murdered the next day. A leading activist of the PSUV in Miranda State, Jacqueline Ortega, was also murdered on April 22; her son had been murdered earlier. A black man was set on fire, beaten up, and stabbed four times for merely looking like a "Chavista," the government noting the racially motivated tones of the attack.
Yet what does the capitalist press run?
"Anti-government protesters want Maduro to step down, accusing him of eroding democracy. Maduro, meanwhile, has ordered the Venezuelan armed forces onto the streets to maintain order…Maduro, 54, has been defiant, taking a confrontational tone with members of the opposition and protesters, whom he calls 'vandals and terrorists.'"
By the gods, how I long for a sweeping fire to burn the THROATS of these liars!

"Oppose my opponents, Lord; fight those who fight me. Take Your shields—large and small—and come to my aid. Draw the spear and javelin against my pursuers and assure me: 'I am your deliverance.'" -Psalm 35

At some point in writing this article I drove my battered Jeep up to the corner store for a few supplies and gas. I stood there watching the faces of the people filling up, mouths crooked and tongues flipped outward, gabbing endlessly about how great the prices were.
"Never thought it'd be this cheap," says one.
"Neither did I," says the other.

My grip on the handle of the pump grew tighter, enraptured by the day-to-day existence of an animal blissfully unaware of its environment. To them the covert machinations of an imperial power were simply beyond comprehension, the same weapon strangling a country as mysterious yet natural as any other weather pattern. They wore camouflage clothes and had bumper stickers calling for sinners to turn to god. I filled up and went inside, buying an 18 pack to quiet my screams.
On the way home the emperor's words were read over the AM stations to an ignorant and gullible public.

"Yesterday, the Venezuelan people again made clear that they stand for democracy, freedom, and rule of law. Yet their strong and courageous actions continue to be ignored by a bad leader who dreams of becoming a dictator. The United States will not stand by as Venezuela crumbles. If the Maduro regime imposes its Constituent Assembly on July 30, the United States will take strong and swift economic actions."
Democracy, freedom, words so empty you could pour all of Lake Okeechobee into them and still have room for more; I practically drowned myself in Rue Water and sage smoke as soon as I got home in an effort to purge away what vile vibrations such bullshit spreads. Here I remain, the 18-pack gone and the rum flowing, still disgusted with the world around me.
There is no opposition in Venezuela, only the freshest front in a new era of American warfare. The only body seeking liberation is the international body of Capital, a resurrection of the unchecked hunt by foreign parasites for cheap goods and even cheaper lives to produce them. Just as we did in the Ukraine, we'd riled up our pet nazis and let them loose on an unsuspecting public.
Writing now at nearly 4:15am I realize for the people I saw at the gas station the above simply doesn't matter. To repeat these obvious facts isn't enough to interest them, let alone make them give a fuck. I could sit here and edit every trace of radicalism out of this article in an attempt to make it digestible to the rudest of palates, but what would be the point? Common human decency has long been unfashionable, and to the wild American it is all but atrophied. Politics and the scenes of people dying are but commercials in a life that is lived one football season to the next; God has chosen them to rule the world, or so their masters say, and if a few brown people have to die to keep their lifestyles afloat so be it. Soldiers don't kill innocents, companies don't plot with governments, and salvation awaits all those little slugs who work well and die quietly.

We know where an "American" will stand. So where should an Anarchist?
To be an Anarchist is to be surrounded and enmeshed in politics, a never-ending battle to determine who or what owns your soul. Venezuela, a fight whose outcome could reverberate for generations in the continent nearest to us, is one we must throw our lot in with. Like a black ibis sitting atop a church it is a sure sign and a dire omen for probabilities and possibilities yet to manifest.

Make no mistake, the government of Venezuela is not our friend nor our ally. Hell, much to the chagrin of Tankies everywhere, it isn't actually socialist.

Venezuela is still a State, still a hierarchy that demands obedience from its population, and though it may wear the veneer of "socialism" it is still a country dominated by capitalist interests.In effect Venezuela is a Spanish-speaking version of what Bernie Sanders wanted, a "reigned in" capitalism that would funnel money and resources to "the people."
Today those same capitalists Chavez spared are in league with the United States to destroy everything Venezuelans fought for; an important lesson there, and one all Anarchists should remember: Revolution cannot be made half-way. Capitalists will only play nice with a "left-leaning" State until they can sink their vampiric fangs deep into its jugular. The bourgeoisie have no pity or mercy when their interests are at stake, peace merely a code word for sharpening your knives. We would be wise to act the same.
The chaos in Venezuela offers a unique opportunity. Anarchists on the ground describe it as a "pre-insurrectional moment" and note "if there are no factors that can maintain and increase this tension until it explodes, the politicians will be able to recover their leading roles." If Anarchists are looking for a side to support this is it. We can, through a campaign of attacks, sabotage, and mass-scale propaganda, make it clear our hearts are with Venezuelans, not Maduro or American-backed fascists. We can actually act to slow down and expose the American war effort while inciting Venezuelan comrades to greater and greater seizures of power outside of State control. This conflict, far from being a simple battle between two nations, can be a riotous portal from which real class war can be launched.

Like the Pleiades stars rising in the sky it is either a sign of great luck or an omen of terrible foreboding.

The Powers That Be make no secret of their will to stop the world-wide spread of revolution, where-ever and what-ever shape it might take. Liberation or death is the gauntlet staring back at us from the ground; if the United States wins we know what will follow: widespread persecution, the return of lands and businesses to large landholders and bankers, rape, murder, and all of it under the scarcely concealed fist of a fascist movement.

If Venezuela is the answer there can only be one question for Anarchists: is it better for their lives and their revolutionary aspirations that Venezuela fall to the United States or that Uncle Sam come crawling home, bloodied and beaten?
Make your choice
and let your deeds do the talking.

---

Dr. Bones is a Hoodoo-slingin' Florida native and Egoist-Communist spitting pure vitriol and sorcerous wisdom at a world gone mad. He lives with his loving wife, a herd of cats, and a house full of spirits. His poltergasmic politics and gonzo journalism can be found at Gods & Radicals and The Conjure House. He can be reached by email, twitter, or facebook.
Want to do him a favor? Consider buying his books, having him read your future, or keeping him alive for as little as $4.99 a month,

---

If you liked this essay, you'll love Dr. Bones' new book: Curse Your Boss, Hex The State, Take Back The World. Get it in Print or Digital by clicking this link.

Evernote helps you remember everything and get organized effortlessly. Download Evernote.

Companies abandon nearly one million hectares of Alberta oilsands exploration leases

Oilsands is a mixture of bitumen (a thick, sticky form of crude oil), sand, water and clay. Supplied / Suncor

In another sign the bloom is off the boom for the oilsands, the industry has returned almost one million hectares of northern Alberta exploration leases to the province over the past two years — abandoning an area far bigger than P.E.I.

The total area covered by oilsands leases remained constant at about nine million hectares between 2011 and 2014. But it fell to 8.5 million hectares in 2015 and 8.1 million in 2016, following the crash in world oil prices from over US$100 to under $60 per barrel in 2014.

Most of the returned acreage either represents expired or surrendered leases, according to Alberta Energy, which provided the statistics at the request of The Canadian Press.

Observers were surprised by the size of the lease returns which they attributed to industry cost-cutting and disinterest in spending to develop new prospects when there's no money to build projects already on the books.

"It costs money to maintain these lands," said Brad Hayes, president of Petrel Robertson Consulting in Calgary.

"You can't convince shareholders to continue to put that money out if there's no prospect for success."
Alberta's oilsands have been getting little respect lately, thanks to the exit of large foreign companies, the province's hard cap on oilsands emissions, increasing carbon taxes and the stumbling price of crude oil.

Its troubles have been welcomed by environmentalists who point out the industry's outsized impact on air, land and water pollution.

"This is good news. It's a sign that investment dollars are shifting out of carbon-intensive energy," said Keith Stewart, senior energy strategist with Greenpeace Canada.

Energy companies are often very secretive when buying Crown leases, usually acting anonymously through a land broker, and they are almost as secretive when giving up a lease position.

Canadian Natural Resources reported in disclosure documents that its holdings of oilsands leases fell by 46,000 hectares between 2014 and 2016. But when asked why, spokeswoman Julie Wood said in an email, "We can't comment on specific dispositions to the Crown or third parties."

Financial considerations, however, were cited in 2015 when junior oilsands company SilverWillow Energy Corp. announced it had returned three leases to the government to avoid $50,000 per year in fees — leases that cost about $2 million to buy at Crown auction in 2011 and were estimated to contain more than 80 million barrels of recoverable bitumen.

A few months later, the cash-strapped company, whose stock was worth $90 million in 2012, agreed to sell itself for $1.7 million to another Calgary firm.

Alberta Energy spokesman Ryan Cromb said oilsands leases are awarded with an initial 15-year term which can be extended if the company invests, usually by drilling wells or by beginning production. The primary leaseholder is charged rent of $3.50 per hectare, but there's a rent increase if the lease is extended.

The province's biggest auctions of oilsands leases took place in 2006, when investors paid almost $2 billion to buy 1.5 million hectares at an average price of $1,273 per hectare.
In 2016, only 44,000 hectares were sold at just $266 per hectare.

Co-owner Darren Rath of Basin Environmental said his consulting company once found plenty of work designing reclamation plans for oilsands exploration programs, but that work has dried up. There were 1,686 oilsands evaluation wells drilled in 2014, but only 387 in 2016, according to Alberta Energy.

"Honestly, I don't expect a ramp-up anytime soon unless oil prices recover," Rath said.
Rob Bedin, a director with RS Energy Group in Calgary, said many oilsands leases were bought 10 to 15 years ago by speculators who hoped to make a profit by reselling them at a later date.
The Alberta oilsands contain an estimated 1.8 trillion barrels of oil, about 168 billion barrels of which are considered recoverable using today's technology.

There are about two dozen operating oilsands projects in Alberta. More than 70 others have regulatory approval but have not been green-lighted by their proponents.

Evernote helps you remember everything and get organized effortlessly. Download Evernote.