Tea at Trianon: ‘Republican’ Billionaires Tied to Chinese Communist Finance

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Saturday, November 26, 2022

‘Republican’ Billionaires Tied to Chinese Communist Finance

From The National Pulse:

Perhaps it isn’t a surprise that ruling class members with China links are lining up against a populist that says he wants to “launch an all-out campaign to eliminate America’s dependence on China.” Take the Murdochs, for example. Their New York Post mocked President Trump’s campaign roll-out with the headline: “Florida Man Makes Announcement.” Perhaps Trump should respond by highlighting a more shocking headline – this one from Crikey in Australia, “Murdoch empire borrows US$100m from state-owned Bank of China.” The article details how News Corp, the parent of the New York Post and Wall Street Journal, took a 9-figure loan from a Chinese Communist-owned bank. And that’s just the beginning of it. Perhaps Murdoch’s ex-wife, alleged Chinese Communist spy Wendi Deng, could shed more light on the matter.

Then there’s Ken Griffin. Two days before the midterms, the financier spoke to Politico about how he wants to spend his billions to get Gov. Ron DeSantis in the White House. Keen observers will note Trump’s first salvo against DeSantis came hours before this Politico puff piece which had been in the works for some time. It’s no stretch to connect the dots: Trump heard about the piece. Perhaps he was even asked for comment on the fact that a China-linked billionaire was now one of Ron DeSantis’s largest donors.
Surely, he gave one.

Griffin himself became massively wealthy – an estimated net worth of $22 billion – through his investment firm Citadel. A report this year revealed that in 2006, Citadel “loaned $110 million to China Security & Surveillance Technology. The company used the funds to acquire ‘10 of the 50 biggest surveillance companies in China.’” Citadel is also partly owned now by Sequoia Capital, which is the venture capital firm that “has produced more investment gains from China” than any other firm and has close ties to the CCP. Sequoia’s China division even employed a daughter of a politburo member.
Griffin and Murdoch are not alone. As Murdoch’s New York Post reported Wednesday, “GOP megadonors ditch Donald Trump’s 2024 White House run.” One of those megadonors is Stephen Schwarzman. The day after Trump’s announcement speech attacking Chinese dependence, Schwarzman let Axios know that he will back any other Republican than the former president in the 2024 primary. It shouldn’t surprise you that Schwarzman has deep ties to the Chinese Communist regime. Schwarzman is the chairman and CEO of Blackstone Group, that’s the company that was partly owned for over a decade by the Chinese sovereign wealth fund. Between 2013-2018, his firm did $32 billion of Chinese deals, according to the Financial Times. If you were the CEO of a company that’s done tens of billions of dollars worth of deals in China, would you want a populist that wants to punish Xi Jinping for the “China virus” in office? Probably not. (Read more.)