Khashoggi Case: How Foreign Investment Will be Affected?

In my last post, I expressed my incredulity about Khashoggi murder being just a botched Saudi operation.

There were too many unprecedented elements including the massive media attention and unusually strong reactions from Western leaders, including, the US Congress and with some delay, and some equivocation, The Orange Man.

All of which is unheard of.

Now Sir Richard Branson suspended investment talks with Saudi Arabia over the Khashoggi assassination.

In a statement, Sir Richard said: "What has reportedly happened in Turkey around the disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, if proved true, would clearly change the ability of any of us in the West to do business with the Saudi Government.

Note the "any of us in the West to do business with the Saudi Government" bit.

It's not just him, it's any of us.

When MBS imprisoned, selectively tortured and extorted money from his relatives or when he abducted and made disappear three royal princes in the last three years or when he persisted in killing hundreds of thousands of Yemenis to teach Iran a lesson, did any of these incidents affected the ability of "any of us in the West doing business with the Saudi Government?"

They did not.

How likely is it for Sir Richard to give up a cool billion dollars and jeopardize future investment opportunities in the Kingdom because Saudis murdered one of their citizens?

Remember, nobody even pressured Virgin or questioned this transaction. Nobody knew.

He volunteered it himself.

Can you remember another such incident where people gave up Saudi money because Saudi government did something terribly wrong?

Ever?

Me neither.

There is only one plausible explanation.

There is an expectation that MBS will be pressured to go as a result of this scandal (or rather because of the surprisingly concerted and effective Western reaction to it) and when that happens, those who helped the process by standing up to him will be rewarded.

That's my take. Tell me what else makes more sense.

One more thing.

The Turkish government is toying with MBS.

There is a drip, drip information leaking they undertake everyday. This time, they announced that they have a recording of Jamal Khashoggi being tortured and killed.

Once again, they did not share it with the media. They simply asserted that they have the recording.

Without knowing what they have Saudis are unable to issue specific denials.

More importantly, since these audio and video recordings would have to come from inside the consulate (his smartwatch wouldn't have video), meaning from Turkish intelligence assets working there, why would they expose them over a story like this?

Would they burn their assets for a murdered foreign journalist? Of course not.

It is as if they want to see what they can get from MBS to make the whole thing go away.

Maybe the price is Mohammed Bin Salman giving up his dreams of becoming the king.

We live in interesting times as I say frequently.

You know what? Since I went out on a limb with a theory no one even contemplates, let me put forth this additional speculation.

I wouldn't be surprised if, at some point, we found out that Waleed Bin Talal was somehow associated with all this.

At least on the Western end of things.

Yeah, interesting and cynical times.
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UPDATE:

I changed the title after finding out that Jim Kim, the head of the World Bank has pulled out of the Future Investment Initiative conference that is going to take place on 23 October in Riyadh. For now IMF chief Christine Lagarde and US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin are still participating but this could change.

In the next few days, if more businesspeople follow the example of Sir Richard then we could safely assume that MBS is outmaneuvered and cornered. I don't think he will give up his position but he will be much weakened for his enemies to take him on without fear.

By the way, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres joined the chorus and called on the Saudis to come clean.

The pressure is mounting.
________
UPDATE 2

A former British foreign secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind, called for the removal of MBS and if that doesn't happen sanctions to punish Saudi Arabia.

“If the current crown prince remains in power for the indefinite future, then in the first instance the United Kingdom must work with the United States, France and other countries to see if there can be a combined response, a punishment of some kind, of sanctions of some kind."

Do you know who joined the "punish the Saudis" chorus a little later?

 In an interview with CBS News, Mr Trump said that, if true, the fact that a journalist was murdered was "terrible and disgusting".

"We're going to get to the bottom of it and there will be severe punishment," he said. "As of this moment, they deny it vehemently. Could it be them? Yes," he added.

As for the Davos of the Desert, the Guardian reports that, besides Sir Richard Branson, Viacom and Uber pulled out.

Moreover,

The Financial Times and CNN said they were pulling out as media sponsors, with all CNN’s anchors withdrawing from the event. Bloomberg also pulled out. 

The New York Times withdrew its sponsorship two days ago, prompting a string of withdrawals across the globe, including of Ariana Huffington, the LA Times owner, Dr Patrick Soon-Shiong, and the CNBC anchor Andrew Ross Sorkin.

When Saudi Arabia realizes that they can put all this behind them by simply removing the Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman will be in trouble.

Especially now that Trump is not firmly on his side.

And Jared has no reason to be nice to him as Qatar took care of his mortgage problem.

Mohammed Bin Salman and Serious Questions About the Khashoggi Case

Mohammed Bin Salman, aka MBS, Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince and de facto ruler, struck again.

Jamal Khashoggi, a self-exiled Saudi journalist was allegedly killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. On 2 October, he went in to get a copy of his divorce papers and he never came back out.

His Turkish fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, who was waiting outside the building, alerted the Turkish police. And, uncharacteristically, they immediately launched an investigation.

There was a media frenzy with pro-government pundits pondering how much of an insult was this to Turkey and reporters speculating about the way the guy was murdered. It was pandemonium.

Jamal Khashoggi

Clearly taken aback, Saudi Arabia issued a statement that Khashoggi was indeed missing but denied any knowledge on his whereabouts. Turkish authorities started an investigation.

On 5 October, MBS told Reuters that Turkish authorities are welcome to search the building.

The next day, anonymous sources within Turkish police told the media that they knew that Khashoggi was killed by a special squad that came from Riyadh. They alleged that the Saudi Hashishin dismembered the body and took the pieces out of the country.

They had a lot of details, including how many assassins, their names, their cars and private jets and of course, juicy bits about dismemberment.

But they offered no evidence for these claims and didn't reveal how they knew all of that.

By that time, practically frothing at the mouth, Turkey's pugnacious president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, also known by his initials RTE, jumped into the fray and declared that Riyadh should prove its claim that that Khashoggi left the consulate.

Then there was a massive international reaction.

While Trump was MIA, his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was calling for a full-out and transparent investigation. And EU Policy Chief Federica Mogherini seconded him right away echoing his demands.

Not to be left behind, and probably encouraged by the unexpected publicity the case was getting, the UN's Human Rights Office "voiced deep concern (...) urged the two countries to investigate" with a whiff of outrage:

“Yes, this is of serious concern, the apparent enforced disappearance of Mr Khashoggi from the Saudi consulate in Istanbul,” U.N. human rights spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani told a Geneva news briefing. 

“If reports of his death and the extraordinary circumstances leading up to it are confirmed, this is truly shocking,” she said. 

The same day, UK's foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt called the Saudi ambassador and demanded an explanation.

At that point, my head exploded with questions.

This whole really tragic and unfortunate incident is also so odd that I am at a loss for an explanation.

Why Jamal Khashoggi?

It is no secret that the House of Saud dislikes dissent intensely. I know that's putting it very mildly. And MBS is even more thin-skinned than all his predecessors. So he and his predecessors ordered abductions, murder and other punitive actions with gleeful abandon.

Just focusing on MBS, in 2016, in Geneva, his thugs drugged and violently abducted Prince Sultan bin Turki bin Abdulaziz, a nephew of the late King Fahd for being critical of Saudi leadership.

In late 2015, Prince Turki bin Bandar, a former police major turned Youtube activist disappeared in Paris. Also in 2015, a minor royal and dissident Prince Saud bin Said al-Nasr vanished in Italy.

In these instances, you could say that MBS had a point in getting worried. These guys were members of the House of Saud and they called for extensive reforms and even some form of democracy. And their online activities drew a decent following in Saudi Arabia.

None of it is true for Khashoggi. There was almost no need to worry about him. He had a monthly column in the Washington Post, he appeared on US TV programs. His tone was measured, he hardly criticized MBS or anyone else, other than suggesting a one man rule was not good for the Kingdom.

A critic of the crown prince, Mr Khashoggi was living in self-imposed exile in the US and writing opinion pieces for the Washington Post before his disappearance.
A former editor of the al-Watan newspaper, he was for years seen as close to the Saudi royal family. He served as an adviser to senior Saudi officials.

Why kill that guy? Why go to the trouble of sending a 15-strong death squad in two private jets, dismember him and smuggle him out of the country and risk at some major negative fallout.

He was not a threat to the House of Saud.

I can see the deterrent value of the vanishing princes. I am sure, as a result of their disappearance, other minor royals became more circumspect, especially when you also take into account his hotel-prison stunt to extort $100 billion from much more important relatives.

But Khashoggi? Why?

Why the Extensive Media Coverage and Diplomatic Pushback?

I summarized the reactions. They are simply unprecedented.

Saudi Arabia is probably the worst or the second worst dictatorship in the world. Some days the House of Kim is ahead, on others the House of Saud takes the lead. Yet nothing they do makes it into Western headlines. They kill, behead, abduct, torture with impunity.

Do you remember reading about the three princes recently abducted? Of course not.

They are killing millions of Yemenis. You read one or two articles every two months deploring the tragedy and that's about it.

Think about it for a second: Since when Jeremy Hunt gets upset over the disappearance of a relatively unknown Saudi writer? The May government would not even bring up the human tragedy in Yemen for fear of losing arms deals.

Why the reaction for Jamal Khashoggi?

The only reaction that made sense was Trump's as he was using the regular rulebook.

When asked whether he talked to the Saudi ambassador, he said that he did not but he would at some point. He added that he knew nothing right now. He corrected himself and said “I know what everybody else knows — nothing.”

That's what I expected from the other leaders as this is how they normally deal with Saudi horrors.

Then this happened:

Mr Trump told reporters he had talked to the Saudi authorities "at the highest level" about Mr Khashoggi. 

Mr Khashoggi, a US resident and critic of the Saudi monarchy, entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on 2 October and has not been seen since. 

Turkish authorities say Mr Khashoggi was killed. Saudi Arabia denies this.
"We cannot let this happen to reporters, to anybody," Mr Trump said on Wednesday.
"We're demanding everything. We want to see what's going on there."

This is surreal. In less than 12 hours this is a complete about face.  From Mr Double Down!

Are you kidding me?

Why Turkey?

Why did MBS chose Turkey for this operation?

Khashoggi is a frequent traveller and they could have lured him to a trap like they did with the three abducted princes.

In case his disappearance became public (as it did) it would be a safe assumption that Turkey would not be as malleable as, say, the UK, since it sided with Qatar in last year's Gulf showdown and its president and ruling party adore Muslim Brotherhood, MBS' bete noire.

Besides, Erdogan does not expect any more investment from Saudi Arabia and has no reason to accommodate MBS. This was evident from Erdogan's initial reaction when he demanded proof:

Erdogan told reporters on Oct. 8, during a press conference in Budapest with Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban, that it was “Turkey’s political and humane duty” to follow this affair closely with all the means available to it. 

“Consulate officials cannot exonerate themselves by simply saying [Khashoggi] left the premises. If he did, then they have to prove this with visual material,” Erdogan said.

In fact, pro-government pundits began agitating the very next day of Khashoggi's disappearance calling it a matter of honor for Turkey.

Aktay later penned op-eds on the affair for pro-government Yeni Safak daily, stating that it was a “matter of international honor for Turkey” to find out the truth. “What happened to Khashoggi in Turkey, to put it bluntly, is not only an operation against him, but also an operation against Turkey,” he wrote Oct. 6.

Another pro-government pundit warned of dire consequences for Saudi Arabia.

“If Saudi Arabia had a journalist and dissident murdered at a diplomatic mission in a foreign country, it deserves to be designated a rogue state more than any other nation in the world,” Bostan wrote. 

“If Jamal Khashoggi has indeed been killed at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, there will be legal, political and diplomatic consequences,” he added. 

Whoever in MBS' inner circle thought that this would be a walk in the park seriously underestimated the political mood and open animosity in Turkey.

How Did The Turkish Authorities Know What Happened?

Another puzzling element is the detailed narrative about Khashoggi's fate within 48 hours of the incident that was serviced to the media. Anonymous sources within the Turkish security establishment knew everything and didn't mind sharing that knowledge.

They had the entire story ready for the media.

Source: BBC

How could they have known that two Saudi jets brought in 15 assassins to kill the journalist?

How could they have known that his body was in a black van that left at the same time as two black Mercedeses?

More importantly, why did the Turkish authorities point the finger when there is no body and no evidence of foul play against such a powerful regional ally?

Normally, Turkey's Islamist government would stay silent in such situations as it wouldn't want to offend the House of Saud whose largess is appreciated by all Middle East countries.

In fact, even without such concerns, the typical police response would be that they were investigating to determine if there was any foul play.

In this instance, they were too happy to share every detail they had and more.

So you say, good questions but do you have any answers?

I don't and I doubt that anyone has any at this point.

But let me venture a guess.

My Speculation

I would not be surprised if this is the beginning of a complicated plot to get rid of Mohammed bin Salman.

He alienated the House of Wahhab and the House of Saud. The entire royal family is scared of him and hates him.

He insists on pursuing a ruinous war in Yemen that is killing hundreds of thousands and depleting the Saudi Sovereign Wealth Fund. His initial popularity is in the wane as he had to remove major subsidies to pay for his war.

And he is not even the King right now. There are many concerned countries around the world about his brash decisions and his hothead temperament. He is a man capable of starting a war with Iran that could engulf the whole region, including Turkey and Israel.

That speculation would go a long way of explaining the botched operation in Turkey, the swift and extensive media and diplomatic reactions to the case and the surprising about-face of Donald Trump.

This is just a speculation along the lines of  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. We'll see in due course.

But if a palace coup happens your resident contrarian will not be shocked.

Did Republicans Deplore Trump Mocking Dr Ford?

No they did not.

But it was reported that they did.

You see The Orange Man couldn't help himself, he is a narcissistic bully, so he organized a rally in Mississippi and mocked Dr Christine Blasey Ford and her testimony.

This is what he said:

The audience laughed as the president said: "Thirty-six years ago this happened: I had one beer! Well, you think it was…? Nope! It was one beer. 

"Oh, good. How'd you get home? I don't remember. How'd you get there? I don't remember. Where was the place? I don't remember. 

"How many years ago was it? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know! I don't know! What neighbourhood was it in? I don't know. 

"Where's the house? I don't know! Upstairs, downstairs, where was it? I don't know! But I had one beer. That's the only thing I remember. And a man's life is in tatters."

The BBC (not the Fox News) reported that the Republicans deplored his remarks.

Who are the Republicans who deplored his remarks? Any senior member? Anyone from the Senate leadership? Mitch McConnell? Lindsey Graham?

No. It was just Jeff Flake who said:

"To discuss something this sensitive at a political rally is just not right. It's just not right. I wish he hadn't had done it."

But he did not say that he would vote against Brett Kavanaugh.

And the other deplorer of the deplorable in chief was the venerable Susan Collins from Maine. She also refused to say how she would vote.

Ms Collins, a moderate Republican from Maine, has not yet said whether she will vote for Judge Kavanaugh either. 

"The president's comments were just plain wrong," she told reporters on Wednesday.

 This is how corporate media launder Republican talking points.

Will Brett Kavanaugh Be Confirmed?

He will be.

Unless the FBI finds a smoking gun, which I seriously doubt (and Mark Judge's ex-girlfriend's story will not cut it), Kavanaugh will be voted in before the end of this week.

Well, let me go all in. He will be confirmed even if the FBI finds a smoking gun.

This is what Mitch McConnell said yesterday:

"The goal posts keep shifting," he said as he accused Democrats of attempting to derail the nomination. "But the goal hasn't moved an inch. 

"The time for endless delay and obstruction has come to a close."

They need him on the bench and they need him badly.

Brett Kavanaugh is a partisan hack who was nominated not because he will overturn Roe v. Wade, which he will, but because, as a Supreme Court Justice, he will give his imprimatur to more deregulation and more restrictions of workers' and consumers' rights and he will acquiesce to anything on the Republican agenda, including extreme gerrymandering and voter suppression.

If Roe v Wade was as important as the corporate media claim, Trump would have nominated Amy Coney Barrett or someone like her.

What the Republicans want is a pro-business hack who will push the Koch brothers' agenda with gleeful abandon.

This is so important that they would happily risk a major short term defeat to get it done.

And now that they've paid the piper and alienated millions of women they cannot afford not to have Kavanaugh confirmed.

What about Jeff Flake and his courageous stand you say.

Well, I can tell you that it wasn't done because of Anna Maria Archilla's elevator tirade.

The investigation was introduced to provide cover to Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins for this week's confirmation vote.

Now they will all vote yes (plus the Democrat Joe Manchin) and point to the new investigation that uncovered no new evidence to defend their decision.

If you don't believe me check out the reports that FBI is refusing to interview people who came forward about Kavanaugh lying under oath.

According to a Sunday New Yorker article, multiple people have tried to go to the FBI with pertinent information about Kavanaugh, only to be stymied by seemingly unorganized and uninterested agents. (...)

Another is an unnamed Yale classmate who wanted to corroborate Deborah Ramirez’s accusation that Kavanaugh had exposed himself to her at a college party. “I thought it was going to be an investigation, but instead it seems it’s just an alibi for Republicans to vote for Kavanaugh,” the unnamed Yale classmate told the New Yorker. 

No kidding.

Moreover, throughout the process the so-called liberal media has been providing a helping hand to the Republicans and will continue to do the same.

Okay, you say, you are making very radical statements but where is your evidence?

I am glad you asked.

Let's start with my claim that Brett Kavanaugh is a partisan hack.

The History of Brett Kavanaugh's Partisan Hackery

Starr Pupil

At the young age of 33, Brett Kavanaugh was one of the main authors of the Starr Report that was used to impeach Bill Clinton for having oral sex with Monica Lewinsky.

That is fine.

But what is not fine is the fact that, in that capacity, he tried to link every nasty Clinton rumor to the final report, including the suicide of Vince Foster.

Recently opened National Archives records from the 1990s independent counsel probe reveal some of Kavanaugh's actions, including his aggressive pursuit of documents tied to Vince Foster, a top Clinton administration lawyer who committed suicide.

His work was driven by his hatred for Bill Clinton which was obvious in his memo to Ken Starr:

"The President has disgraced his Office, the legal system, and the American people by having sex with a 22-year-old intern and turning her life into shambles -- callous and disgusting behavior that has somehow gotten lost in the shuffle," Kavanaugh wrote in an August 15, 1998, memo to Starr and other lawyers. 

"He should be forced to account for all of that and to defend his actions. It may not be our job to impose sanctions on him, but it is our job to make his pattern of revolting behavior clear -- piece by painful piece," he wrote.

I'll leave it up to you to appreciate the irony.

Kavanaugh's next career move was to take on the representation of Elian Gonzalez in order to stop his Cuban father to gain the five-year-old's custody.  This was done at the urging of the then Florida governor Jeb Bush, who became his patron saint.

He then represented Jebster in his quest to set up a voucher program to support private religious schools in Florida.

Finally, he became a major figure in the GOP efforts to lobby the Supreme Court to stop the Florida recount paving the way to Bush presidency.

Because of this trajectory, when W nominated him to the United States Court of Appeal for the District of Columbia Circus, during his confirmation hearings, Dick Durbin called him the “Forrest Gump of Republican politics … whether it’s Elian Gonzalez or the Starr Report, you are there.”

When Kavanaugh's confirmation stalled for three years, W made him his staff secretary between 2003-2006. It doesn't sound like an important job but it was:

[Kavanaugh] wielded extraordinary influence as the adviser responsible for screening, reviewing and editing documents delivered to Bush, interviews and documents show.
“Ultimately, the umpire was Brett,” said Karl Rove, a Bush adviser and one of the people Kavanaugh worked with closely as staff secretary.

He was behind every controversial decision, including Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), torture of enemy combatants and warrantless wiretapping.

Documents and interviews show that while Kavanaugh was not a policymaker, he was directly involved in helping the White House manage a wide array of sensitive matters, including the war on terrorism, the treatment of enemy combatants and warrantless wiretapping. 

“It put Kavanaugh at the center of every political and policy decision at the Bush White House,” said Peter Irons, professor emeritus at the University of California at San Diego and author of several books about the Supreme Court. “He is exactly the kind of person that the legal conservative movement wants on the court.”

His Appeals Court nomination was finally approved in 2006. His ideologically driven partisan approach was evident there as well.

An analysis found that Kavanaugh had the most or second-most conservative voting record on the D.C. Court, in every policy area, in period 2003 to 2018.

Koch brothers

This is why he is the Koch Brothers' wet dream.

In case you don't know who they are, this dynamic duo founded and funded the Tea Party and they are behind every conservative effort to bust unions and remove environmental regulations.

They are octogenarian billionaires who will leave behind a sinking planet without much oxygen to their coal-rich grandchildren.

In fact, Kavanaugh's record is so bad that the White House refused to release his emails and policy opinions even though it is the accepted practice to do so.

Picture of Judicial Temperament

In any event, even if Kavanaugh's history of far-right decision making and ideological hackery failed to convinced you, take a look at his partisan outburst during the Blasey Ford hearings.

In his angry tirade, he brought up conspiracy theories against Clintons, he insulted and belittled Democratic senators (he even accused one of blacking out for heavy drinking) and he lashed out at everyone who stood between him and the court chair he firmly believed he deserved.

And he issued a threat:

“You have replaced ‘advise and consent’ with ‘search and destroy,’” he chastised Democrats, warning moments later: “What goes around comes around.”

That's judicial temperament for you.

Not surprisingly, none of these facts made it into coherent pieces in the mainstream media.

There were a few bits here and there but to my knowledge, no one said, well, he is a thoroughly partisan hack and this is his history of hackery and look at the shameful playacting to defend his nomination.

Instead most media outlets praised (or made room for those who did) his judicial temperament and his oversized intellect.

Brett Kavanaugh The Brilliant Jurist and Carpool Dad

Ah yes.

From the beginning, we got interminable narratives about what a great guy he was.

And it wasn't just the usual suspects.

Lisa Blatt, a self-described ”liberal Democrat and feminist,” wrote a piece in Politico telling the Supreme Court to confirm Kavanaugh and even introduced him at his Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing, giving him a boost of bipartisan credibility. 

Did I mention that he was a great guy:

“I don’t know Kavanaugh the judge. But Kavanaugh the carpool dad is one great guy,” read the headline for one Washington Post op-ed by Julie O’Brien, a woman who knows Kavanaugh through their daughters’ school. 

His impressive credentials were praised by moderate GOP senators like Murkowski and Collins.

Moreover,

Almost immediately after Kavanaugh’s nomination, nearly three dozen of his former law clerks (all of those, the clerks wrote, who are “not prohibited by their current or pending employment from signing”) sent a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee in which they praised his intellectual rigor but also described him as “unfailingly warm and gracious with his colleagues no matter how strongly they disagree about a case.” 

There were more letters.

Eighty students who had Kavanaugh as a professor at Harvard Law School signed a letter saying he was an ”inspiring professor.”

And Yale University, where he went to undergraduate and law school, issued a glowing press release with five distinguished professors and faculty members congratulating him and extolling his intellectual talent. 

And do you know what happened after the Dr. Ford allegations surfaced?

The day after those allegations came out, 65 women who knew Kavanaugh in high school were still willing to issue a letter attesting to his character and his treatment of women. 

The guy went to an all boys high school. How do you get 65 women testify to your character 24 hours after you were accused of a horrible crime?

Do you even know 65 women from your own high school?

Think about it.

And think about how many "liberal" media outlets mentioned this fact?

Well, at least one of these women thought differently after signing the letter. She was Renate Schroeder Dolphin who was mentioned by Kavanaugh and his football teammates in their yearbook as someone they had sex with (making them Renate alumnus).

Nice, isn't it?

He truly is a great guy.

Media Cover

Speaking of corporate media, they did a wonderful job supporting Kavanaugh's nomination.

Besides introducing him as the brilliant jurist without really touching upon his Florida recount efforts or the three long years that took for him to be confirmed to the District of Columbia Appeals Court or his extremely conservative record, they also helped the confirmation process by sucking the oxygen out of such points.

New York Times came up with a third hand sourced story about Rod Rosenstein trying to overthrow Donald Trump using the 25th Amendment. Michael Schmidt's piece drew categorical denials but no one cared.

Fox News and Sean Hannity were happy to just run with it.

Let me make a prediction right here and right now: When Kavanaugh is confirmed, Trump will first fire Rosenstein or force him to resign. Then he will fire Mueller.

You read it here first.

And we'll have the "liberal" New York Times to thank for this.

Another interesting thing is how the media outlets regurgitated GOP talking points without raising any questions. For instance, when they report the above-mentioned McConnell quote about delays and delaying tactics they never remind us that the same cynical senator delayed Merrick Garland's confirmation hearing for over a year.

And his argument was based on the need to wait for the will of the people to be expressed in the upcoming elections which were more than a year away at the time. Now there are elections in a few weeks time and somehow the entire corporate media could not recall McConnell's previous claim.

The same media folks also maintain that the new situation is very different from the Anita Hill hearings 27 years ago because of the #MeToo movement.

It is not, because IOKIYAR trumps #MeToo any time.

Here is what a female Trumpkin said about Blasey Ford:

"As a woman, a mother, and a former victim of assault myself, how any of you feminazis out there are buying this is completely beyond me."

At a Trump rally, the Guardian reporter could not find a single person who believed Christine Blasey Ford:

Tammy DeWitt, a 52-year-old state employee from Shinnston, West Virginia, also thought Ford was lying. 

“It’s kind of obvious,” she said. “Thirty-some years later, right when he was getting the nomination, that she all the sudden remembers it.” She suggested “maybe she was paid by the Democrats”, and repeated: “They are crucifying that poor man.”

But that is mostly because of the corporate media coverage.

Sure Trumpkins get their talking points from Fox News where they are told about a doppelganger who assaulted Dr Ford. But that is because there is no consistent counter narrative from the likes of New York Times.

Case in point, when the mainstream media made a lot of noise about Roy Moore he lost to a Democrat in Alabama.

But usually, the corporate media is more interested in highlighting Democratic sins.

When Bill Clinton was accused by Gennifer Flowers or Paula Jones GOP operatives turned his private life a 24/7 circus throughout his presidency and the liberal media outlets covered every single one of them.

The current president is accused of sexual assault by 19 women and his is on tape with his proud pussy grabbing anecdote. Yet, we never see them mentioned with the same regularity.

One last thing.

Corporate media mentions the evangelical fixation with Roe v. Wade all the time.

As I documented previously, abortion was a Catholic issue prior to 1979 and the evangelical Christians couldn't care less about it. It was Pat Buchanan and GOP strategists Richard Viguerie and Paul Weyrich who made the issue an important part of Nixon's Southern Strategy.

But everyone is now pretending that abortion has always been the most important factor in evangelical voting when it was just an execrable GOP manipulation with no basis in religion.

Islamist Terrorists Were Given Another Safe Passage By the US

My longtime readers will remember what I am referring to. 

In February 2018, I reported that coalition forces allowed the evacuation of hundreds of ISIS fighters from Raqqa and they let them keep their weapons.

In fact, they did more than that: they provided buses and large trucks to transport over 4,000 ISIS fighters and families. They made no effort to track them down and kept the whole thing secret.

When the BBC found out about it, they first denied it, then downplayed the number and finally they blamed the locals.

Here is a clip showing the orderly exodus of ISIS thugs.

It turns out that this happened again and again. 

This time, it took place in Yemen where Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has been fighting against Saudi backed government for many years.

In February, Emirati troops and their Yemeni militia allies flashed victory signs to TV cameras as they declared the recapture of al-Said, a district of villages running through the mountainous province of Shabwa — an area al-Qaida had largely dominated for nearly three years.

It was painted as a crowning victory in a months-long offensive, Operation Swift Sword, that the Emirati ambassador to Washington, Yousef al-Otaiba, had proclaimed would “disrupt the terrorist organization’s network and degrade its ability to conduct future attacks.”

The Pentagon, which assisted with a small number of troops, echoed that promise, saying the mission would weaken the group’s ability to use Yemen as a base.

In fact, what really happened was that, just like in Raqqa, the coalition made a secret deal to let them go with their weapons and paid them for their troubles.

But weeks before those forces’ entry, a string of pickup trucks mounted with machine guns and loaded with masked al-Qaida militants drove out of al-Said unmolested, according to a tribal mediator involved in the deal for their withdrawal.

Under the terms of the deal, the coalition promised al-Qaida members it would pay them to leave, according to Awad al-Dahboul, the province’s security chief. His account was confirmed by the mediator and two Yemeni government officials. 

Al-Dahboul said about 200 al-Qaida members received payments. He did not learn the exact amounts, but said he knew that 100,000 Saudi rials ($26,000) were paid to one al-Qaida commander — in the presence of Emiratis.

Where were the Americans and their drones you might ask.

The U.S. has killed al-Qaida’s top leaders in a drone strike campaign that accelerated in recent years. But in this victory — as in the others touted by the coalition — the mediator said armed U.S. drones were absent, despite the large, obvious convoy.

According to the Associated Press, the same blueprint was used in many other situations, the first being when al Qaeda fighters pulled out of Mukalla, a major port and Yemen's fifth largest city.

In that case, they kept their weapons and the cash they looted.

The militants were guaranteed a safe route out and allowed to keep weapons and cash looted from the city — up to $100 million by some estimates — according to five sources, including military, security and government officials.

The Americans?

“Coalition fighter jets and U.S. drones were idle,” said a senior tribal leader who saw the convoy leaving. “I was wondering why they didn’t strike them.”

 Then came the deal for the province of Abyan.

Soon after, another accord was struck for AQAP to pull out of six towns in the province of Abyan, including its capital, Zinjibar, according to five tribal mediators involved in the negotiations.

Again, the central provision was that the coalition and U.S. drones cease all bombings as AQAP pulled out with its weapons, the mediators said.

The mediators even threw a dinner party for the departing AQAP fighters.

For nearly a week in May 2016, the militants departed in trucks. One of the mediators told the AP that he threw the last of the departing fighters a farewell dinner among his olive and lemon orchards when they stopped at his farm to pay their respects.

The black al-Qaida flag and the slogan in Arabic “al-Qaida passed here,” on the right wall, are sprayed on a damaged school that was turned into a religious court in the southern city of Taiz.

I know what you are thinking.

You say that my title suggests a direct American knowledge of a safe passage deal but all they did was to refrain from sending their planes and drones on specific dates.

What makes me think that they knew about it? Maybe they did it because they were asked to do it.

Well,

Another mediator, Tarek al-Fadhli, a former jihadi once trained by al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, said he was in touch with officials at the U.S. Embassy and in the Saudi-led coalition, keeping them updated on the withdrawal. 

“When the last one left, we called the coalition to say they are gone,” he said.

Next time you hear of a terrorist incident in Turkey or in Europe, you will know who to thank for.

Campaign Finance Laws, John Edwards, Donald Trump, IOKIYAR

Every time I mention IOKIYAR (It's OK if you are Republican) someone tells me that there is no such thing.

Well, I have another case for you to consider.

Donald Trump's former fixer Michael Cohen just admitted in court that he was asked to pay hush money to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal.

The purpose was to prevent any electoral damage stemming from these stories.

Do you remember John Edwards?

The senator from North Carolina? John Kerry's running mate in 2004, presidential candidate in 2007 primaries?

He was the Democratic rising star, a great trial lawyer, with good looks and charismatic presence.

Do you remember what happened to him?

He had an affair with a campaign staffer called Rielle Hunter and paid her some hush money to cover up the affair.

He was indicted by the Justice Department for having violated the same campaign finance laws Donald Trump is accused of breaking.

At the time you could not believe the shitstorm this caused. Everybody was up in arms, Democrats and Republicans stepped on each other to vilify Edwards.

He was an immoral person, the cause of decline in national moral standards, the worst human being imaginable. People were outraged and enraged. You would think that he was the first politician to have an affair.

As a result, his political career was ruined and he could not show his face in public. No one would vote for him for the lowliest position.

Fast forward to today. Trump has done exactly the same thing. He had affairs and paid to cover them up. Just like Edwards, he lied about them, he changed positions many times as did the people around him.

The reaction? Nothing.

No senior Republican leader would comment on it.

A spokesperson for the House of Representatives speaker, Paul Ryan, issued an abrupt statement, saying: “We are aware of Mr Cohen’s guilty plea to these serious charges. We will need more information than is currently available at this point.”

Leslie Graham said there was no collusion with Russia and Mitch McConnell didn't even bother issuing a statement of tweeting.

The Guardian ran a hilarious piece highlighting the various hypothetical reactions if Trump had actually shot Michael Cohen in the middle of Fifth Avenue.

Then they asked Tumpkins as they always do after such revelations. Unsurprisingly, they were unanimous and categorical. They couldn't care less if he paid off a porn star and broke the law.

When Edwards or Gary Hart has an affair pearl clutching ensues, evangelicals faint. When they lie that is the worst crime.

When Trump has affairs, no big deal. If he lies, who cares?

That's IOKIYAR.

On a related note I wish people stopped speculating about impeachment. It is simply impossible even if Democrats win the House back in November. The Senate trial requires two thirds majority. It is a pipedream that makes look like a martyr to the Trumpkins.

As I said many times, Trump made a mistake by attacking National Security Apparatus. Those folks don't take that sort of thing lying down. They will come up with irrefutable evidence of financial crimes, like money laundering for Russian mafia types.

The crimes will be so obvious and staggering that even Hannity will be unable to defend them. 

Until then, Democrats should work on getting people to vote in large numbers.

Did Tillerson Stop the Invasion of Qatar?

I don't know if you've heard the news.

According to a new expose by The Intercept, Rex Tillerson lost his job because he prevented the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) and the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Mohammed bin Zayed (MBZ?) from invading Qatar.

Mohammed bin Salman

Qatari intelligence agents working inside Saudi Arabia discovered the plan in the early summer of 2017, according to the U.S. intelligence official. Tillerson acted after the Qatari government notified him and the U.S. embassy in Doha. Several months later, intelligence reporting by the U.S. and U.K. confirmed the existence of the plan. 

The plan, which was largely devised by the Saudi and UAE crown princes and was likely some weeks away from being implemented, involved Saudi ground troops crossing the land border into Qatar, and, with military support from the UAE, advancing roughly 70 miles toward Doha. Circumventing the U.S. air base, Saudi forces would then seize the capital.

As the former CEO of Exxon Mobil who had very close ties to the Qatari royal family, it is no surprise that Tillerson placed dozens of calls to both United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia governments right away to defuse the situation.

Rex Tillerson

He understood the stakes and the risks. There is a large American military base in the country and Qatar is the largest producer of natural gas in the world.

The piece suggests that Tillerson was successful because he enlisted the help of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and together they stopped the plot.

I don't think so.

Jim "Mad Dog" Mattis was fun for Trump initially until he sided with "the grown ups." And Rex "he is a fucking moron" Tillerson was doomed when he never denied the actual quote.

Trump did not pay any attention to them once they looked like they thought they were more intelligent than him.

Sure, I concur that there was a plan to invade Qatar. As I've written many times, Saudi Arabia was and is essentially bankrupt.

But I don't think it was Tillerson's efforts that stopped the invasion.

Allow me refresh your memory.

White House and Trump were in on it from the get go.

When the Saudis and Emiratis were about to launch the blockade of Qatar in June, then-US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Stuart Jones got a call in the middle of the night from UAE Ambassador Otaiba to inform him of the impending action. Jones’ reaction was “extremely harsh. ‘What are you guys doing? This is crazy,’” a former US ambassador to the region told Al-Monitor. “And … Yusuf [sic][Otaiba]'s response was, ‘Have you spoken to the White House?’”

You see how cool and confident that riposte is?

"Have you spoken to the White House?"

Al-Otaibi

The next day Trump was in the Rose Garden accusing Qatar of "funding terrorism at a very high level".

He did so just as Tillerson was intensely urging the Gulf countries to stop the embargo and ease the tensions.

As I reported at the time, that line about Qatar was scripted by the UAE Washington ambassador Yousef al-Otaibi who is a very close friend of Jared Kushner and was inserted by Kushner in Trump's speech.

It should also be said that Kushner was and is very close to MBS and MBZ, you know, the Crown Princes.

And for Kushner, this was a payback for Qatari investment company Al-Mirqab pulling out of a deal involving 666 Fifth Avenue (which itself might have been a payback by HBJ for losing his position after the previous Emir's forced abdication).

With both Trump and Kushner on the side of Saudi Arabia, nothing would have stopped MBS from invading his tiny neighbor.

Besides, given his financial woes, he had no other choice. The war in Yemen has been depleting the Saudi Sovereign Wealth Fund at an alarming rate. Qatar's SWF has $320 billion in it, not to mention the country's continuous natural gas revenues.

In fact, getting his hands on a substantial amount of money was so critical that, when he couldn't do the invasion, he had to round up his relatives in a posh hotel and extort $100 billion from them.

In short, it was too important for MBS to back down on the strength of Tillerson's opposition. Especially if Trump and Kushner were on board. And they were.

But Qataris are not stupid. As I explained before, they bought themselves three great insurance policies right away.

In fact, they later bought a fourth one that made them pretty invincible, much to the chagrin of MBS.

First, they enlisted Iran's help right off the bat and the Islamic Republic made it clear that they would not allow such an invasion.

By itself, it would not have been enough to stop MBS, especially if he assumed that Trump would come to his help against Iran. In fact, he might have seen as a bonus. But it still gave him pause.

The second policy was to enlarge Turkish military base in Qatar and sign a mutual defense agreement with Turkey. Again, this might have given MBS pause but if Trump was firmly on his side, his thinking would have been, well, how far would or could Turkey go to defend Qatar's sovereignty.

The best policy was the third one and it is also the one that stopped Trump from siding with the Saudis at the time.

As you can see in that post, Qatar's SWF purchased a 19.5 percent stake in Russian oil and gas giant Rosneft just after the US presidential elections. The deal was put together, during the campaign, by Carter Page, a Trump advisor, in August and was announced immediately after Trump was elected.

Critically, the deal had a secret clause which stipulated that Russia could buy that stake back any time. Essentially Qatar's Emir was lending $11.5 billion to Russia making it look like a commercial transaction.

A Saudi invasion would have made that stake permanent as MBS had no reason to honor it.

That's when Putin reached out to his poodle and whispered the magic words.

I know you don't believe me. But do you know what happened next?

Trump stopped saying that Qatar funded terrorists.

Just like that.

Then he hosted the Emir at the White House like nothing happened and praised him for combating terrorism financing.

[O]n Tuesday he praised Sheikh Tamim Al Thani for becoming a "big advocate" of combating terrorist financing. 

He also said the emir was a "great gentleman" and a "friend of mine".

There is one more wrinkle to the story and that is the fourth insurance policy bought after the fact by Qatar.

As I said, they are not stupid.

As soon as they realized that Kushner was siding with the MB playboys because their former Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs HBJ (Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani) refused to pay for the albatross on Kushner's neck, they moved to correct that mistake.

666 Fifth Avenue loan payment is due in six months (February 2019) and Javanka do not have the money.

So it needs to go away and if it does, they know that Trump White House will make MBS and MBZ go away.

Good thinking, you say. Like foreign dignitaries making a point of staying at Trump's Washington Post Office Hotel.

Obviously by then, Qataris were fully cognizant that they could not openly invest in that doomed property. Too on the nose. Anbang did that and got burned. Their CEO is still in jail.

What Qataris did was to find a clean and nice third party in which they had a massive stake and move through them.

Enter the nice and clean Canadian real estate company Brookfield. Even the name sounds nice and innocuous.

Well, they have just leased the property for 99 years and agreed to invest $700 billion US dollars for upgrades.

They also bought the shares of Vornado Realty. And interestingly, they succeeded even though nobody thought Vornado would sell.

One more thing.

And, this is unheard of in the real estate annals, Brookfield agreed to pay the totality of 99 years lease upfront.

Not annually as it is required. Everything.

Which will allow Kushner to pay back its lenders in full in February 2019. And the Kushner family will get the building back in 99 years.

By now you might have guessed who is behind such a sweetheart deal.

The Qatar Investment Authority is the second-largest shareholder in Brookfield Properties, ranking only behind Brookfield’s former parent company. And the Qatar fund and Brookfield have teamed up on several real-estate deals in the United States and elsewhere in recent years, including Brookfield’s retail and apartment complex, Manhattan West, now under construction on the West Side. Brookfield and Qatar also control the Canary Wharf office complex in London.

This took place three days ago and other than the Canadian Globe and Mail not many mainstream news outlets covered it.

As I say it often, we live in interesting times.
_____________

UPDATE:

A friend told me that other mainstream news outlets covered the transaction.

Well, if you Google "Brookfield Kushner" this is what you get. None mentions Qatar's involvement.

Don't you think that's amazing?

Fake news and liberal media

The Globe and Mail piece is the only one you get if you add Qatar to the search.