Legal Corruption in the Biden Cabinet
Joe Biden's administration is beginning to unroll, and it has been nothing to celebrate. That would be like celebrating a bowler's perfect game when the gutter bumpers were up the whole time.
Joe Biden's administration is beginning to unroll, and it has been nothing to celebrate. In fact, it's hard to celebrate something falsely propped up as "good," and "normal." That would be like celebrating a bowler's perfect game when the gutter bumpers were up the whole time. But, apparently, if you are not celebrating, you're either a disloyal party member, a racist, or a crazy monster.
One of the latest additions was Neera Tanden's nomination for the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) which is responsible for budget development and execution, regulatory policy, and financial management.
Tanden was probably the first nominee of Biden's to get a pretty unanimous groan from people scattered across the ideological spectrum. There is no need to go into too much detail, but it's important to understand in order to see the utter carelessness standard-production leadership exhibits.
For one, Tanden has a long history that shows her mission for scaling back social security, much like Biden's longstanding desire to do so.
Also, she has a history of being vicious, but verbally and physically. The Bernie Sanders campaign detailed various discrepancies with Tanden's organization, the Center for American Progress, which include deliberately attempting to smear candidates for moving towards progressive policies. As an aide to Hillary Clinton in the 2008 campaign, she punched Faiz Shakir in the chest for asking about Clinton and the Iraq War.
And to top it off, as seen in leaked emails, Tanden suggested, during the NATO bombings of Libya, that we steal their oil in order to deal with our national deficit. (Sounds a lot like Trump!)
It may have taken a complete gutterball of an OMB nomination, but the incoming Biden administration is finally starting to receive criticism over some potential cabinet nominations, and it is coming from new places. First, it seemed it was solely progressives that called attention to the blatant construction of an elite, top-down administration and demanded leadership that has the people's best interests in mind. But with others beginning to take notice, progressives look less and less "crazy."
Besides, if it looks and smells like crap, it probably is.
Over the weekend, The New York Times reported on some connections between WestExec Advisors and Pine Island Capital Partners. WestExec Advisors, as detailed last week, is a consulting firm centered in Washington D.C. focused on advising industry on the best path forward. At one point, the advisory firm had also stated it was developing "a strategy for expanding market access in China while safeguarding against trade tensions between the U.S. and China" (following the announcement of Blinken as the nominee for Secretary of State, WestExec Advisors removed key statements regarding China). Pine Island Capital Partners is an investment fund comprised of "deeply-connected and accomplished former senior government and military officials."
The thing that ties the two firms together in conjunction with the Biden administration is it involves Tony Blinken, Biden's right-hand man and soon-to-be Secretary of State, as well as Michèle Flournoy, the frontrunner for Secretary of Defense.
WestExec Advisors has a history of trying to bridge together the tech industry with the Defense Department. Of course, there was the mix-up with Google, whose employees were enraged to find out about a defense contract centered around Project Maven, which sought to use artificial intelligence technology to improve the Defense Department's drone capabilities.
Yes, those employed by Google shunned away the contract. And Microsoft employees threw a fit when Azure Government (Microsoft's cloud computing element) partnered with ICE on utilizing facial recognition technology for immigration enforcement. So, there is hope that people are not brainwashed by profits.
However, the ethical rejection of a potential wealth increase is not a trait exhibited by those who have found success in and around Washington D.C. Sadly, for America, this means there is a lot of corruption involved in this nation's leadership.
Never has it been so apparent that there are strategies designed to use the role of a middleman as a bridge between governance and capital. Among the list of WestExec Advisors' clients (a list the firm has refused to release), according to sources close to the firm, is Shield-A.I, who produces surveillance drones and who incidentally signed a large contract with the U.S. Air Force worth $7.2 million just two months ago. But, as we have seen, things can always get worse.
Pine Island Capital is the epitome of "legal" corruption according to the exact words of the investment firm's initial public offering:
"Pine Island Capital Partners spends the majority of its time focused in the aerospace, defense and government services sectors, where Pine Island Capital believes it has extensive connections to industry leaders, unusual access to information, and often unique insights into specific companies, programs and overall market dynamics. [. . .] The reputations and networks of Pine Island Capital Partners’ team, both individually and collectively, will ensure exposure to a significant number of proprietary opportunities."
This is an explicit advertisement for influence— available to any who can pay for it. It's no wonder that two of the investment firm's biggest advisors are none other than Tony Blinken and Michèle Flournoy. This is a flagrant disregard for ethics that would allow Blinken and Flournoy's position in the government to be a foothold for industrial leverage. Most disturbing of all, this is entirely legal. As pointed out by David Sirota, and according to government ethics regulations, the ties between Biden appointees and large firms can be withheld if the nominee signed a non-disclosure agreement.
To make things even more conspicuous, after the election, Pine Island Capital raised $218 million for "new opportunities" that include investments in military and aerospace companies.
But now we know this, and even The New York Times reported on the most blatant of blatancies. Even then, there is a line of people, and they're all on the inside.
Say Flournoy does not get nominated by the president-elect, the next up for Secretary of Defense would presumably be former-General Lloyd Austin. To the luck of all of us, Austin is also an advisor for Pine Island Capital. And next on the list, by all accounts, would be Jeh Johnson, former secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Johnson may not be a Pine Island Capital advisor, but he has his own footing in the revolving door: he is a member of the board of directors for Lockheed Martin, one of the biggest defense contractors.
This is deeper than we may think. Behind every layer of the power dynamic is yet another, and this is turning out to be one big onion.
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