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Open in TheBrain

Nepotism

neglected cat,  maybe not that important except 1% gets to roll over its wealth and power in part by sending kids to elite schools (with no student debt), and will pay lip service tomeritocracy; Matthew Effect, concentration of wealth leads to systemic paralysis and instability

also perhaps related to the culture of corruption, as money is laundered thru wife, or family jammed into required officer slots, plus "ecosystem" is flow of money and info, and family plays a role

aha nepo // kaki klepto crony

aha ish: this goes against the old meritocracy work hard bootstrap american dream horatio alger myth

see demon spawn

see meritocracy vs klepto caci- trump crime fam incl lara; warrior bd purity loyalty test DoD

SEE CORRUPT // FASCISM

see varsity blues

common in rev door pols? wiles

see failson}trump : fox Lachlan, Ellison skydance UFC}:

no merri

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see trust fund babies:  kochs, trump, rebecca mercer, ....kushner (gates)

ANOTHER MELLON? TIM?

HEGSETH HIRED HIS BRO POCASTER?

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MAX MILLER SON LAW SEN MORENO

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MAJ REPT 9 26

GILLEBRAND SR 30M$ TO DO DERIVATIVES IN rw

16:08

16 minutes, 8 seconds

Um to be fair, Schumer's daughter, um she's worked in this area. Like, wasn't she

16:15

16 minutes, 15 seconds

also the top lobbyist for Amazon at one point? I mean, does he have multiple daughters or is she literally been the

16:23

16 minutes, 23 seconds

top lobbyist for Amazon and for like Facebook? Yeah. So, he has two daughters.

16:30

16 minutes, 30 seconds

Oh, okay. I'm sorry. I'm getting confused. I'm getting confused. Jessica, who now works for OpenAI, was a leading

16:37

16 minutes, 37 seconds

figure in or arguably the leading uh figure in New York State for Amazon.

16:43

16 minutes, 43 seconds

This was they got their butt kicked on Amazon HQ2 uh the where AOC and uh Mike

16:50

16 minutes, 50 seconds

Janerys and others pushed back on the subsidies that New York State was prepared to give to Amazon to build a headquarters in Queens. Uh turns out

16:59

16 minutes, 59 seconds

also Amazon's not finishing the efforts they started in uh uh Virginia, Northern Virginia that the ones who supposedly

17:07

17 minutes, 7 seconds

won the Amazon contract that turned out to be uh worthless. Um but uh so she did

17:14

17 minutes, 14 seconds

six years there. Uh her sister works at Meta. So yeah, so now we've got you have

17:21

17 minutes, 21 seconds

a Meta official and a former Amazon who's now open AI. And I think that that reflects the fact that OpenA's eyes

...

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RWW

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy was a recurring staple in the final stretch of his son-in-law’s race.

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[### Restoring a Nation - Speakers | Institutes and Centers

Franciscan University of Steubenville

https://institutes.franciscan.edu › restoring-a-nation-speak...](https://institutes.franciscan.edu/restoring-a-nation-speakers/)

Rachel Bovard is senior director of policy at the Conservative Partnership Institute and a cohost of the Edmund Burke Foundation's NatCon Squad podcast. She has ...Read more

Missing: James ‎| Show results with: James

[### The roots of a young conservative in D.C. Rochester Beacon

https://rochesterbeacon.com › 2019/03/08 › the-roots-of-...](https://rochesterbeacon.com/2019/03/08/the-roots-of-a-young-conservative-in-d-c/)

Mar 8, 2019 — At 35, Rachel Bovard—who grew up in Dansville—has become a leading strategist and voice on the right in America. In a conversation ...

Missing: editor ‎| Show results with: editor

[### Who We Are

The American Conservative

https://www.theamericanconservative.com › who-we-are](https://www.theamericanconservative.com/who-we-are/)

O'Neill Jr. Rachel Bovard · Daniel McCarthy · Catharine O'Neill Gillihan ... Contributing Editors. Join. Subscribe · Donate. Info. FAQs · Customer Service ...Read more

[### Rachel Bovard

The American Conservative

https://www.theamericanconservative.com › author › rac...](https://www.theamericanconservative.com/author/rachel-bovard/)

Rachel Bovard · National Conservatives are Fighting for You · Beside a Golden Door · Why Republicans Must Rethink Antitrust · Too Few of the President's Men.Read more

Missing: James ‎| Show results with: James

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NEPO BABY VAPE

AN 5 26

The Daily Beast confirms that President Donald Trump’s abrupt passion to make the FDA approve vaping products came after a tobacco firm lobbied his office in each of the last four quarters, according to lobbying reports, either directly or through a firm where Chief of Staff Susie Wiles’ daughter works.

The DB reports Wiles was previously registered as a lobbyistfor Ballard Partners, which lobbied the government on behalf of SI Group Client Services, an associated branch of U.S. international tobacco company Swisher. Wiles represented the tobacco firm in 2019, 2021, and 2022 and is “name-checked in filings at least once in each of those years,” says DB. She later lobbied Congress with Mercury Public Affairs, which also acted on behalf of SI Group in 2023 and 2024, according to Public Citizen.

“In the Swisher filings where she’s named, the most common lobbying issues were ‘Monitor FDA issues regarding flavoring in tobacco products’ and ‘FDA regulations,’” reports DB. “Since Wiles, 68, began working at the White House, Continental Strategy has lobbied consistently on behalf of Swisher.”

Katie Wiles was reportedly promoted by Continentalthe day after her mom was appointed White House chief of staff. She is now a partner in the firm but not a registered lobbyist.

Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday that Trump scolded Food and Drug Administration commissioner Marty Makary for not moving fast enough to approve flavored vapes. The Journal reported that Trump’s advisers told him Makary had blocked his ambition to get those flavors approved, citing sources who said he and Trump, 79, had discussed them directly.

“Makary had reportedly pushed against the flavors because he was concerned about their appeal to children and possible public health risks,” reports DB.

“White House spokesperson Kush Desai said in a statement to the Beast: “President Trump consistently pledged to expand access to vapes in light of an abundance of evidence finding that these products are beneficial for Americans trying to quit smoking.

The FDA announced on Tuesday that it had given the thumbs-up to vape firm Glas to manufacture menthol, mango, and blueberry flavors.

Flavored vaping products have become a significant regulatory battleground, particularly regarding their appeal to youth. Public health organizations including the American Academy of Pediatrics have documented concerns that flavored vapes—especially fruity and dessert varieties—serve as gateway products for young people.

The FDA has previously restricted flavored e-cigarettes in certain contexts, citing youth addiction rates. However, the tobacco industry argues flavored products help adult smokers transition away from traditional cigarettes. The tension between these positions has intensified as vaping use among teenagers has fluctuated in recent years.

Makary's resistance to approving additional flavors aligns with FDA guidance emphasizing youth protection as a central regulatory concern. Trump's pressure to accelerate approvals represents a significant shift in FDA priorities, potentially prioritizing industry interests over the public health precautions that animated the agency's previous stance on flavor restrictions.

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"GRIFTING NEPO-BABIES": The next generation of Trump ...

YouTube · MS NOW

30.2K+ views · 17 hours ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rChcwSozre8)

boulos sp husb tiffany

BARRON 150 MILLION CRYPTO? ERIC $ 10X THIS YEAR?!

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AN 12 25

On Sunday, President Donald Trump declared that he will “be involved” in the federal government’s decision on whether to allow the streaming service Netflix to buy mass media and entertainment conglomerate Warner Brothers Discovery. On Monday, Paramount Skydance, another mass media and entertainment conglomerate, announced a hostile takeover bid for WBD — with news soon following that Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner’s private equity firm is part of the Paramount offer.

“Paramount is telling WBD shareholders that it has a smoother path to regulatory approval than does Netflix, and Kushner’s involvement only strengthens that case,” Axios reported. “Paramount is led by David Ellison, whose billionaire father Larry is a major supporter of President Trump.”

Axios added that Kushner’s firm, Affinity Partners, “was not mentioned in Paramount’s press release on Monday morning about its $108 billion bid, nor were participating sovereign wealth funds from Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi and Qatar.”

Fortune reported that “Affinity and the other outside financing partners have agreed to forgo any governance rights, which Paramount said means the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States would have no jurisdiction over the transaction.”

But Axios’ Sarah Fischer wrote on social media: “Ask yourself, why would anyone want to put money into an investment of this caliber and have no governance rights or board seats?”

“Essentially,” she added, “people want to have control/access/political power behind the scenes.”

“Reality is,” Fischer explained, this hostile takeover is a good explanation “of how capitalism/democracy can be exploited for political gain,” with “Paramount essentially betting our open system incentivizes shareholders to take [the] best financial deal even if it means giving soft power” to three sovereign wealth funds, the President, and his son-in-law.

Critics are blasting Kushner’s and Trump’s involvement.

U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) remarked, “Donald Trump said he’ll ‘be involved in’ deciding if Netflix can buy Warner Bros. Is that an open invite for CEOs to curry favor with Trump in exchange for merger approvals? It should be an independent decision by the Department of Justice based on the law and facts.”

Award-winning journalist Sophia A. Nelson, responding to trump’s remarks, observed: “This is ridiculous. Corrupt. And NOT what a President gets involved in.”

Professor, investor, and marketing executive Adam Cochran wrote: “Trump is talking about him personally being involved in deciding the fate of the Netflix-Warner Brothers deal, and how it’s ‘bad.’ Meanwhile his son-in-law is financing the competing offer. There has truly never been a more corrupt administration in US history!”

Alexander Vindman, former Director of European Affairs for the United States National Security Council (NSC), wrote: “F– NO to another corrupt Trump deal. Nepobaby, Jared’s, involvement would deliver CNN to MAGA.”

NewsNation’s Kurt Bardella, a communications advisor and media relations consultant, asked: “Alexa, what is a ‘conflict-of-interest’?”

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an 9 25

Rupert Murdoch has succeeded in securing his vision for the future of News Corporation, the global media empire he has always thought of as his family business.

To achieve this, he has torn apart his family. He has also ensured his media outlets, especially Fox News, remain committed to his hard right-wing views.

With hindsight, this deal was inevitable. The 94-year-old mogul had just one remaining job to do as chairman emeritus of News Corp: to ensure that when he dies, the company he built and moulded remains in his image.

This announcement says he has found a way, which may give him some comfort but is profoundly disappointing to anyone who cares about public interest journalism.

There’s no longer any prospect of his children from his first and second marriages, Prudence, Elisabeth and James, who are now known as the “departing beneficiaries”, staging a coup after his death to wrest control from Rupert’s chosen successor and elder son Lachlan, who has headed News Corporation and Fox Corporation since Murdoch stepped aside in 2023.

Lachlan has taken a lesson from Rupert’s dealmaking playbook. He has thrown money at the problem by paying his three siblings more than he had previously offered for their respective shares. According to The New York Times, the three siblings will receive US$1.1 billion (A$1.7 billion) each for all their shares in the company.

Their agreement brings an end to the bitter battle the three siblings fought with their father and brother over the latter’s infamous attempt to revoke a seemingly irrevocable trust created at the end of Murdoch’s longest marriage, of 32 years, to Anna Murdoch (now Anna Maria dePeyster).IFrame Content

She had hated how her husband pitted their children against one another in the battle for succession, so she negotiated an agreement that would give each of the four children from the first two marriages a vote in the family trust. It also ensured Rupert retained enough votes in the trust so he could not be outvoted by his four (voting) children.

When Rupert anointed Lachlan his successor, upsetting the others, speculation was aired that when Rupert died, and his votes with him, the three siblings might oust Lachlan as chief executive and take control of the company. Worse, in Rupert’s eyes, they might change the editorial direction of the company, in particular Fox News.

That is what has changed. The family trust has also been re-engineered with an increased lifespan from 2030 to 2050, and folds in Murdoch’s daughters from his third marriage, to Wendi Deng – Grace and Chloe. This shores up the trust so they can’t sell out and dilute Lachlan’s shareholding.

Under the deal, a new company called Holdco, owned by Lachlan, Grace and Chloe, will own all the remaining shares of News Corp and Fox Corporation that previously had been held by the Murdoch family trust. The departing beneficiaries will sell their personal holdings in News Corp and Fox so none of them has any interest in either business. What’s more, they’ve agreed to a standstill clause that prevents them or their affiliates buying back in.

In 2019 alone, the company News Corporation made a reported US$71 billion (A$107 billion) from the sale of its entertainment assets to Disney. After that sale, the children were each given US$2 billion (just over A$3 billion).

Having already been referred to in the litigation as “white, privileged, multi billionaire trust-fund babies”, the three departing siblings have been made even wealthier by this agreement.

It was announced in a company press release on September 8 with an uncharacteristically sedate headline: “News Corp announces resolution of Murdoch family trust matter”.

It appears the decision to settle was in part driven by signals emanating from the probate court in Reno, which last year ruled in favour of Prudence, Elisabeth and James. Recently, however, the presiding appellate judge, Lynne Jones, appeared supportive of Rupert and Lachlan, saying “Who knows better than Rupert Murdoch the strengths and weaknesses of his family and his children?”

This may have weakened the three children’s bargaining power and forced them to accept some sort of buyout.IFrame Content

James may have contributed to this by granting an interview to The Atlantic which was published in February, in which he was highly critical of his father and gave away inside information from the probate hearings. Rupert and Lachlan’s lawyers pushed for James to be punished, a move that appeared to have support from the Reno court.

Clearly it was wishful thinking to believe Prudence, Elisabeth and James would stage a takeover and restore sensible programming to the Murdoch media. But it remains an irony, in a case replete with them, that it was James’ candid comments in an insightful 13,000-word profile casting much-needed light on a notoriously secretive family, which weakened the three siblings’ bargaining position.

Those comments helped ensure Rupert, and ultimately Lachlan, will be able to continue running their media empire as they see fit. Initially, that will mean little change, which is of course the problem. If News mastheads and Fox News continue as they have, we can look forward to more coverage denying the need to urgently act on climate change, more distortion of important issues and more support for assaults on democracy by the Trump administration. This is the kind of content that prompted James, if not all of the departing beneficiaries, to protest in the first place.

At least now we know the answer to this question: What choice would three multi billionaires make if they were offered another billion dollars each or the opportunity to transform a global media business for the better?

Andrew Dodd, Professor of Journalism, Director of the Centre for Advancing Journalism, The University of Melbourne and Matthew Ricketson, Professor of Communication, Deakin University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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an 5 25 beast

President Donald Trump's eldest son, Donald Jr., is opening a new exclusive club in Washington D.C. And he's making it clear that only a certain kind of Republican is welcome.

The Daily Beast reported Monday that the new club, which will be called "Executive Branch," is tailor-made for the MAGA crowd — and its founders are making it clear that traditional conservatives and journalists will be barred from entering. David Sacks, who the Beast described as Trump's "crypto czar," told the New York Times he wants to make sure that the type of conservatives who frequent other GOP-oriented D.C. clubs will be turned away at the door.

“To the extent there are Republican clubs, they tend to be like more Bush-era Republicans as opposed to Trump-era Republicans,” hSacks said. “So we wanted to create something new, hipper, and Trump-aligned.”

READ MORE:'This is a disgrace': Trump ripped for 'outrageous' and 'divisive' Memorial Day diatribe

Aside from Trump Jr. and Sacks, other major investors in the club include Alex and Zach Witkoff (the sons of Trump administration Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff) along with investment banker Omeed Malik (who has separate business ventures with Trump Jr.) and Chris Buskirk, who cofounded the right-wing tech donor group "Rockbridge Network" with Vice President JD Vance. The founders will also be hands-on in approving would-be members.

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"[P]rospective members of the club have to be heavily vetted and approved by its founders," a spokesperson for Executive Branch told CNBC.

Membership fees may run as high as $500,000, in addition to an annual fee. And the spokesperson made it clear that the club was meant to serve as a safe haven for Trump in the event he doesn't want to fly all the way back to Mar-a-Lago in order to be around fellow travelers.

“We want people to feel comfortable having conversations in privacy," the spokesperson said, stressing that the media and corporate lobbyists would be blocked from the club's premises.

READ MORE:(Opinion) A veteran tells Trump 'to go straight to hell'

Click here to read the Beast's article in full, and click here to read the Times' full report (subscriptions required).

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no lnx

Rollingstone

Raking It In

Trump Crypto Corruption Intensifies as Abu Dhabi Firm Invests $2 Billion

Sen. Chris Murphy called the president's crypto scheming the "biggest corruption scandal in the history of the American presidency"

By Nikki McCann Ramirez

May 1, 2025

President Donald Trump participates in a Cabinet meeting at the White House on April 30, 2025, in Washington, D.C.

Donald Trump and his family continue to cash in on cryptocurrency from entities looking to curry influence with the president and his administration — which is simultaneously working to deregulate the industry.

At a crypto conference in the United Arab Emirates, Eric Trump and Zach Witkoff announced that the Trump family’s stablecoin — World Liberty Financial’s USD1 — will be the vehicle for the state-backed Emirati investment firm MGX to invest $2 billion into Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange.

The announcement comes weeks after Binance founder and former CEO Changpeng Zhao claimed he had “no discussions of a Binance US deal with … well, anyone.”

The transaction comes with a host of ethical baggage. For starters, World Liberty Financial (a decentralized exchange “inspired by Donald J. Trump”) is co-created and managed by Trump’s family — as well as that of Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, who has been functioning like a shadow secretary of state — and will now have direct financial ties to Binance, which in November 2023 pleaded guilty to financial crimes including money laundering, sanctions violations, and unlicensed operations. The exchange was slapped with heavy restrictions on operations within the United States. On top of that, the transaction involves a foreign government with clear political interests in the U.S. Much like Trump used his hotels as vehicles for foreign entities to court favor with the presidency, the signal being broadcast by World Liberty Financial is that the Trumps are open to investments.

While the president himself does not technically hold a position in World Liberty Financial, he is clearly involved in his family’s crypto ambitions. Days before his inauguration, Trump announced the launch of $TRUMP, a meme coin that made him billions overnight and then crashed within days. Last month, the president announced that he would be hosting an exclusive dinner for about 200 of the coin’s biggest investors at his Mar-a-Lago golf club.

According to an analysis by The Washington Post, the announcement of the dinner led to a more than 30 percent surge in the price of $TRUMP, with the largest investor dumping over $24 million into the coin. Several dozen buyers were willing to dump seven-figure sums into the coin, possibly in exchange for direct access to the president. Over at World Liberty Financial, the pattern is being repeated not just with individual investors, but nations.

According to an investigation by The New York Times, World Liberty Financial has raked in over $550 million in sales of their stablecoin and WLFI token. The Times found that in their pitches to potential investors, World Liberty Financial stressed their connections to the president.

“They kept telling us, ‘We’re like, we’re super close to Trump,’” Mike Silagadze, chief executive of the crypto startup Ether.Fi, told the Times. Dominik Schiener, the founder of a German crypto group who was also approached by World Liberty Financial, added that they found their pitch to be “very dishonest.”

Nevertheless, some took the offer. World Liberty Financial has established lucrative partnerships with crypto companies based in Hong Kong, Israel, and the United Arab Emirates, among others.

“Obviously [they] think they’re going to make money because it’s the officially endorsed Trump project,” SonicLabs founder Andre Cronje told the Times of a pitch they rejected from the company. “It’s a black spot on our industry.”

Lawmakers in the United States are taking note. As the president takes drastic steps to deregulate crypto, it’s hard to ignore how the industry’s domestic growth will benefit him and his family directly.

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Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) reacted to the news that World Liberty Financial would be participating in the Binance deal by writing today that “a shady fund backed by a foreign government just announced a $2 billion deal using Trump stablecoins. The Senate is gearing up to pass stablecoin legislation that will make it easier for Trump’s family to line their own pockets.

“This is corruption. No senator should support it,” she added.

Earlier this week, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Ct.) wrote that Trump’s connections to World Liberty Financial — as well as his other crypto ventures — was the “biggest corruption scandal in the history of the American presidency.”

“You probably don’t have to scratch very deep to find an instance where the president has received an enormous infusion of cash to his crypto coin from a CEO or foreign oligarch who is then asking for a favor from Donald Trump,” the senator told MSNBC.

“A president of the United States should not be running a back-door bribery scheme — the equivalent of posting your cash app on the White House webpage — then we should make it crystal clear that that’s illegal,” Murphy added. “If we were doing our job, we would pass legislation saying that no president can monetize the White House by owning a crypto coin that he uses the official channels of the White House to sell to the public, to CEOs, to Saudi princes and anybody else who has business before the United States Congress.”

In this article: cryptocurrency, Donald Trump

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omfg desantis would pick

an 11 24

If Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) is confirmed as President-elect Donald Trump's next secretary of state, it could open the door for Trump's family to get an even deeper foothold in the federal government.

Any Senate vacancy in Florida has to be filled by Governor Ron DeSantis (R) until the next election, which wouldn't happen until 2028. And MAGA is now pushing for Trump's daughter-in-law, Lara, to be appointed senator in Rubio's place should his seat become vacant. The Daily Beast reported that Lara Trump herself is now actively offering herself as a replacement for Rubio.

"This is my home state now and has been for three years," the Republican National Committee co-chair told Fox News' Sean Hannity, adding that she would "love to serve the people of Florida." Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.) also endorsed the idea of Lara Trump's appointment. And CBS News' Scott MacFarlane posted to the social media platform Bluesky that Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) is also reportedly on board.

READ MORE:**GOP senator suggests Trump's daughter-in-law take Marco Rubio's Senate seat**

Ric Grenell, who was Trump's acting Director of National Intelligence in his first administration, was thought to be a front-runner to helm the State Department before the news of Rubio's appointment was made public. Tara Palmieri of Puck News tweeted that DeSantis was not in the loop, and learned about Florida's senior U.S. senator being nominated as the nation's potential next top diplomat while he was on vacation in Italy.

Trump tapping Rubio to head the State Department is particularly noteworthy given that they were bitter rivals in the 2016 Republican presidential primary. In a debate, Rubio took a jab at the size of Trump's hands, implying that the billionaire reality TV star was small elsewhere. This led Trump to say there was "no problem" with the size of any of his body parts.

Political strategist and columnist Cheri Jacobus, who is a former communications staffer for the RNC, offered one potential explanation for Rubio's appointment to one of the most high-ranking Cabinet positions — "to open the seat for his daughter-in-law."

"I think that may be the main reason Trump picked Rubio," Jacobus wrote on Bluesky.

READ MORE:**Lara Trump says Project 2025 has 'productive' ideas that would be 'great for this country'**

However, not all Republicans are as enthusiastic about the prospect of Lara Trump joining the Senate. Conservative columnist Scott Morefield called it a "bridge too far" in a post on X.

"Yes, Donald Trump should get his Cabinet picks, but the Senate pick is DeSantis’, not Trump’s," Morefield wrote. "And it would be a bad idea because it would make the seat vulnerable when election time rolls around."

Like Rubio, DeSantis is also a former Trump rival, having run a short-lived campaign for the Republican nomination in 2024. The two-term Florida governor went all-in on the Iowa Caucuses, only to come up short to Trump. He suspended his campaign shortly afterward and endorsed Trump.

Click here to read the Daily Beast's report in full (subscription required).

READ MORE:[All in the family? How Marco Rubio's Senate seat could go to a DeSantis or a Trump

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trust fund baby?

Ricketts is also the father of former Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts, who was appointed by his successor to the U.S. Senate on his way out the door due to the early resignation of Sen. Ben Sasse to take a position as president of the University of Florida.

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AN 2 24

NEPOT FASCIST MOVE RNC CO CHAIR

Trump wants daughter-in-law to co-chair RNC — but 'didn’t even like her' for 'many years' - Alternet.org

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sonali an 1 23

https://www.alternet.org/nepotism-babies-myth-american-meritocracy/

There is a common feeling that many of us have experienced in professional or academic environments, especially when we struggle against gender or racial bias. It’s called “imposter syndrome”—the feeling that one doesn’t deserve one’s position and that others will discover this lack of competence at any moment. I felt this way as a female graduate student in a science field in the 1990s. I felt it as a young journalist of color in a white-dominated industry.

This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

The rich and the elite among us appear to feel the opposite—that they are deserving of unearned privilege. A recent series of stories in New York Magazine headlined “The Year of the Nepo Baby” has struck a chord among those who are being outed for having benefited from insider status. Nepo babies are the children of the rich and famous, the ones who are borne of naked nepotism and whose ubiquity exposes the myth of American meritocracy. Nepo babies can be found everywhere there is power.

The New York Magazine stories have predictably generated defensive responses from nepo babies. Jamie Lee Curtis, actor and daughter of famed Hollywood stars Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis, wrote a lengthy post on Instagram defending her status. Although she admitted that she benefitted from her parents’ fame—“I have navigated 44 years with the advantages my associated and reflected fame brought me, I don’t pretend there aren’t any”—she also clapped back at critics, saying she was tired of assumptions that a nepo baby like her “would somehow have no talent whatsoever.” Curtis went further in claiming that the current focus on people like her was “designed to try to diminish and denigrate and hurt.”

Curtis is clearly a talented actor, of that there is no doubt. But, in defending her privilege from critique, she reveals just how deserving she considers herself. It is the converse of imposter syndrome—the insider syndrome.

The act of calling out nepotism doesn’t necessarily imply that nepo babies are not talented. (Nepo babies are sometimes talented—and sometimes not.) It means pointing out that some talented people are able to benefit from family connections and fame that other equally talented people are not able to.

The critique is intended to call out elitism, not “diminish,” “denigrate” or “hurt,” as Curtis accuses journalists of doing. Journalism that exposes power and its corruptive influence among elites punches up, not down. Curtis is hardly a disadvantaged person whose well-being will suffer from such coverage. Rather, stories pointing out her parental advantages could potentially help to even the playing field so that it is unacceptable in the future to consider family connections in film and TV auditions.

Recall the college admissions scandal of 2019 when it was revealed—again through good journalism—that wealthy parents like TV star Lori Loughlin used all the power and money at their disposal to bend the rules of elite school admissions for their children. Many of those children may well have deserved to get into the schools they attended. But, in the face of stiff competition, untold numbers of equally deserving youth who did not have powerful and wealthy parents willing to break rules were not admitted. Now, many of those same nepo babies’ parents who were tried and convicted are using their money and connections to win shortened prison sentences.

But Hollywood celebrities, however much they enjoy prestige and privilege, are an easy target. Nepotism is rife in all the halls of power—in the world of art, sports, and even journalism, and especially in corporate and political circles.

Billionaires (especially those in tech) may propagate the myth of the merit-based American dream, but some of the most dramatic success stories began with a parent using their wealth or connections to give their child the upper hand. Take Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, who became one of the world’s wealthiest people in his 30s. Gates’s early success was largely due to the well-documented connections that his parents flexed on his behalf to get his fledgling company off the ground. Other tech nepo babies include Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, whose father loaned him $100,000 to start his company, and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, whose parents were early investors in his online retail business to the tune of nearly $250,000.

Nepotism is part of the fabric of capitalism. For centuries, unfair advantages were available to those who have historically faced fewer hurdles, through the sheer luck of being born into a family with wealth, connections, or respect within their field. Indeed, in order to beat back the imposter syndrome, many advise channeling the unearned confidence of a mediocre straight white man.

Our economy is rigged to encourage nepotism by ensuring that the already wealthy pass their wealth—and by extension the power that their money buys—to their children. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) pointed out how the tax code is written in order to benefit the moneyed classes. According to a CBPP report, “High-income, and especially high-wealth, filers enjoy a number of generous tax benefits that can dramatically lower their tax bills.”

Nepo babies who defend their status reinforce the notion that wealth, fame, and privilege equal brilliance, talent, and genius. The reality is that the privileged among us simply have the means to cheat. The rest of us are sold the lie that working hard will bring rewards—rather than unearned wealth.

This, in turn, encourages cheating among those who cannot rely on nepotism to gain power. One well-known example of the “fake-it-till-you-make-it” approach is Anna Sorokin, a woman whose fabricated lies about wealth and power landed her in prison and made her the focus of a Netflix show. Sorokin faked being a nepo baby—a German heiress—in order to live a lavish lifestyle. Sorokin learned that to gain the edge that moneyed elites have, one must internalize the insider syndrome.

Republican Congressman George Santos, who was recently exposed as a fraud for lying about his work experience, wealth, and even ethnicity, is another prime example. His political party has made a habit of encouraging (real or fake) nepo babies like Donald Trump, who openly admitted to tax avoidance in a debate and whose company was convicted of criminal tax fraud.

The GOP has for years led the charge to protect the interests of the wealthy while insisting on means testing and drug testing for the rest of us to receive benefits.

In truth, the emperor has no clothes. The meritocracy of American capitalism is a myth built on smoke and mirrors, on lies and false confidence. The current long-overdue conversation around nepo babies may help to further class consciousness among Americans who may see a bit more clearly now just how scantily clad the emperor really is.

Author Bio: Sonali Kolhatkar is an award-winning multimedia journalist. She is the founder, host, and executive producer of “Rising Up With Sonali,” a weekly television and radio show that airs on Free Speech TV and Pacifica stations. Her forthcoming book is Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice (City Lights Books, 2023). She is a writing fellow for the Economy for All project at the Independent Media Institute and the racial justice and civil liberties editor at Yes! Magazine. She serves as the co-director of the nonprofit solidarity organization the Afghan Women’s Mission and is a co-author of Bleeding Afghanistan. She also sits on the board of directors of Justice Action Center, an immigrant rights organization.

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problem seen w/ ginni and kids of MOC as lobbyists, can skirt laws:

eg

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2003/08/07/the-ties-that-bind-on-capitol-hill

The Ties That Bind on Capitol Hill

By Juliet Eilperin

August 7, 2003

The rules are clear: Members of Congress cannot accept a meal from a lobbyist if the tab exceeds $50. Lobbyists cannot even use a House member's phone or fax machine while cooling their heels in a congressional office.

But if you are a lawmaker's spouse, sibling or child, there is not a single rule governing whether corporations, trade groups and others can hire you to lobby your relative -- and his or her colleagues -- on legislation vital to the clients.

Politicians' familial ties to lobbyists are attracting new attention, as public watchdog groups and the news media scrutinize potential conflicts of interest. The problem has grown in recent years as lawmakers' spouses -- women, most often -- have developed careers in a city where many businesses revolve around the Capitol. Wary of shutting down these opportunities, House and Senate committees have opted for general and comparatively loose guidelines rather than establishing specific rules for family members.

Dozens of senators and representatives are related to lobbyists who represent interests including the American Beekeeping Federation, Major League Baseball and the steel industry. While some lobbyists try to keep their distance, others appear less concerned.

The Los Angeles Times recently chronicled how Sen. Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) supported several measures promoted by his son and son-in-law, both lobbyists for Nevada interests. Several times, Reid's relatives appealed to the senator's staff to help facilitate federal land swaps, protect mining interests and steer federal dollars to clients such as the University of Nevada at Reno. Reid did not tell colleagues or the public that the provisions he authored, many of which were obscure, benefited clients that paid his son and son-in-law $2 million in lobbying fees, according to the Times.

Reid said he had "conversations" with the two relatives about their clients, but that the discussions were unrelated to his legislative actions. His staff also spoke with his son, Key G. Reid, who works for the Nevada law firm Lionel, Sawyer & Collins, and his son-in-law, Steven Barringer, a lobbyist with McClure, Gerard & Neuenschwander.

Tessa Hafen, the senator's press secretary, said mining and gambling industries drive the state's economy. "Of course, Senator Reid, as a senator from that state, is going to represent those industries," Hafen said.

After a Los Angeles Times interview with Reid, his chief of staff issued a policy barring his son and son-in-law from lobbying the office. "Senator Reid has long held that elected leaders must take steps to prevent even the appearance of impropriety, and it has become clear this ban is necessary for that reason," the aide said.

Sometimes senators produce results for their children's clients even if they've sworn off lobbying contacts. Chester Trent Lott Jr., son of Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and a lobbyist with the Livingston Group, represents interests in Kentucky and Washington, including Louisiana-based Edison Chouest Offshore, which services vessels. Last fall, his father, the then-Senate majority leader, added a provision to legislation allowing foreign-built ships to conduct domestic trade along the United States' coasts, something that is barred under a 1920s law. That helped Edison build ships for ExxonMobil Corp, since it would let the company buy foreign oil tankers if it could not complete the job in time. Edison spokesman Lonnie Thibodeaux said he could not "discuss the matter at all. . . . Whatever is public record is public record."

Livingston Group spokesman William R. Teator, whose group works with the younger Lott, said the senator and his son have an agreement not to discuss clients. Sen. Lott did not return several calls.

Charles Lewis, executive director of the Center for Public Integrity, said the increasing coziness between politicians and their lobbyist relatives is "unseemly. It does seem to be getting out of hand."

A lawmaker's ascension into leadership can directly help family members, Lewis noted, such as when then-House Majority Whip Tom DeLay's brother, Randy DeLay, recovered from financial problems after becoming a lobbyist. DeLay (R-Tex.) banned his brother from his office after an outside group filed an ethics complaint.

Joshua Hastert, son of Rep. J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), signed up with a lobbying firm after his father was elected speaker.

Several politicians and their relatives say they adhere to strict policies. Senate Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle's wife, Linda H. Daschle, an aviation expert and former Clinton administration official, has nearly a dozen clients at Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz. But she refuses to lobby in the Senate, in the same way she did not lobby in the House when her husband, a South Dakota Democrat, was a representative.

Former Clinton administration aide Doris O. Matsui is registered for 70 clients at Collier Shannon Scott. Although many of these groups may have tax and trade interests, Matsui will not represent them on those issues because her husband, Rep. Robert T. Matsui (Calif.), is a senior Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee. She does not lobby any Ways and Means Committee member, Rep. Matsui said.

"We don't talk about anything having to do with work," he said.

Others adopt more liberal standards. Joshua Hastert, who represents high-tech and small businesses at Federal Legislative Associates, will not approach his father but has not ruled out lobbying other House leaders, Hastert spokesman John Feehery said.

Kimberly Dorgan, wife of Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.), is a senior lobbyist at the American Council of Life Insurers, which spent $3.36 million on lobbying last year. Kimberly Dorgan does not lobby her husband, but reserves the right to work his colleagues, said Jack Dolan, a spokesman for the ACLI. He said the group hired Dorgan five years ago because of her lengthy lobbying experience rather than her family ties.

The House and Senate ethics committees suggest that lawmakers rely on broader conflict-of-interest rules to guide their actions regarding spouses. These panels are silent on the question of other relatives' lobbying.

Rep. Joel Hefley (R-Colo.), who chairs the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, said the most common problem he sees is lawmakers' relatives taking advantage of relationships they have developed with the congressional colleagues of their spouse or parent. "It's something of concern," Hefley said. "I don't know exactly how to control it, unless there are [clear] violations."

The House manual says: "Neither federal law nor House rules specifically precludes a member's spouse from engaging in any activity on the ground that it could create a conflict of interest with the member's official duties." But it cautions, "the question may arise as to whether the member is improperly benefiting as a result of the spouse's employment." The ethics committee tells lawmakers "to avoid situations in which even an inference might be drawn suggesting improper action."

The Senate Select Committee on Ethics, whose chairman,George V. Voinovich (R-Ohio), declined to comment, has a similar policy.

Staff researcher Alice Crites contributed to this report.

Linda H. Daschle, wife of Senate Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.), is a lobbyist with Baker, Donelson. Senate Minority Whip Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) supported several measures promoted by lobbyist son and son-in-law.  Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.), right, the former majority leader, and his son, Chester Trent Lott Jr., who is a lobbyist with the Livingston Group.

---

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921 intercept

According to newly unsealed court documents acquired by The Intercept, Sen. Joe Manchin’s daughter, a former pharmaceutical CEO, collaborated directly with the CEO of Pfizer to keep EpiPen prices artificially high.

Heather Bresch — then the CEO of Mylan, which holds a patent for EpiPens — orchestrated a scheme in which Pfizer would divest from its EpiPen competitor, giving Mylan a virtual monopoly on the lifesaving medication. In just a few short years, the price for two EpiPens skyrocketed from $100 to $600.

==

https://prospect.org/mapping-corruption-interactive

...

Housing and Urban Development Department

QUICK AND DIRTY

SELF-AND-CRONY-ENRICHMENT

https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/white-house-concocted-a-positive-feedback-loop-to-mislead-trump-into-thinking-hes-doing-an-excellent-job-on/

...“If the administration’s initial response to the coronavirus was denial, its failure to control the pandemic since then was driven by dysfunction and resulted in a lost summer,” the newspaper explained.

“Under mounting pressure to improve the president’s reelection chances as his poll numbers declined, the White House had what was described as a stand-down order on engaging publicly on the virus through the month of June, part of a deliberate strategy to spotlight other issues even as the contagion spread wildly across the country,”The Post reported. “It was only in July, when case counts began soaring in a trio of populous, Republican-leaning states — Arizona, Florida and Texas — and polls showed a majority of Americans disapproving of Trump’s handling of the pandemic, that the president and his top aides renewed their public activity related to the virus.”

The controversial White House coronavirus model has awful news for Trump as the election approaches.

“Yet the virus rages coast to coast, making the United States the world leader, by far, in the number of confirmed coronavirus cases and deaths. An internal model by Trump’s Council on Economic Advisers predicts a looming disaster, with the number of infections projected to rise later in August and into September and October in the Midwest and elsewhere, according to people briefed on the data,” the newspaper reported. “The forecast has alarmed the president and his top aides, even as some have chosen not to believe it, arguing that some previous projections did not materialize.”

According to a former administration official, White House chaos is “an unmitigated disaster.”

Amid the dysfunction, aides have found a way to trick Trump into thinking he’s an effective leader.

“What’s more, with polls showing Trump’s popularity on the decline and widespread disapproval of his management of the viral outbreak, staffers have concocted a positive feedback loop for the boss. They present him with fawning media commentary and craft charts with statistics that back up the president’s claim that the administration has done a great — even historically excellent — job fighting the virus,” the newspaper explained.

The newspaper quoted a “senior administration official involved in the pandemic response.”

“Everyone is busy trying to create a Potemkin village for him every day. You’re not supposed to see this behavior in liberal democracies that are founded on principles of rule of law. Everyone bends over backwards to create this Potemkin village for him and for his inner circle,” the official explained.

The newspaper flushed out who makes up that inner circle.

“Although Fauci, Birx and other medical professionals sit on the coronavirus task force, many of the more pressing decisions lately have been made by the smaller group that huddles in the morning and mostly prioritizes politics. The cadre includes Meadows, senior adviser Jared Kushner andstrategic communications director Alyssa Farah,” the newspaper reported....

==

==

https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/here-are-3-ways-trumps-nepotistic-family-criminal-enterprise-is-burrowing-his-campaign-into-the-ground/

no lnx graf

here are 3 ways Trump’s ‘nepotistic family criminal enterprise’ is burrowing his campaign into the ground

Written by Daily Kos July 26, 2020

Impeached President Donald Trump is all about money. It’s what motivates him, validates him, makes him happy, if that’s at all possible. And once upon a time, he had a lot more of it than presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden. But those days are now over.

Because not only do Biden and his allies have more money, but they aren’t beset by all the problems that come with an association with any Trump organization—fraud, waste, grift, and abuse.

It wasn’t too long ago that Trump had a massive fundraising advantage over a hapless Biden, then stumbling through the Democratic primary on name recognition and latent affection from his eight years as President Barack Obama’s vice president. In March of this year, Trump had raised $212 million and had $240 million in the bank. For his part, Biden was $187 million behind that point. As a NY Times writer put it, “Joseph R. Biden Jr. and the Democratic Party could raise almost $1 million every single day between now and November, and he would still barely catch up to what President Trump and the Republican Party had in the bank at the start of April—let alone what Mr. Trump will have by Election Day.”

What a difference the four months since have made.

Today, Biden has raised $273.7 million, while allied super PACs have raised another $136.5 million, or a combined $410.2 million. Trump and his outside group allies have raised a combined $415.6 million, meaning that the Democratic effort has reached near-parity. Furthermore, Trump and his allies have $134.2 million in the bank, less than Biden and his allies at $146.9 million.

Given that Biden has outraised Trump the last two months, you don’t have to go out on a limb to predict that Democrats will have a healthy cash advantage in the stretch run of the race. But that’s just on the fundraising side. The expense side … well, Trump is going to Trump, which means, he’s grossly mismanaging his cash.

If you exclude outside groups, both campaigns have about the same cash on hand—$113 million for Trump, and $109 million for Biden. Yet the Trump campaign has spent $80 million more—$247.3 million versus $164.8 million. How does a campaign spend that much more to fall deeply behind his opponent?

  1. He’s spending money on the wrong things.

I’ve discussed it before. His campaign has spent tens of million in TV ads in Iowa and Ohio, two states that won’t have any definitive say in who wins the election. Look at the Nate Silver tweet above—flipping just Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin gives Biden a 307-231 Electoral College victory. Add Arizona and North Carolina, two more states that Biden leads in, and we’re talking 333-205. Iowa and Ohio don’t even factor in that calculation. By the time Biden flips those two states, he will have also flipped Georgia, the Maine rural electoral college vote, and the Omaha Nebraska electoral college vote, for a total of 351-187.

Yet not only had Trump spent heavily on those states when I wrote that original post two weeks ago, but Trump has doubled down on Ohio.

That’s nearly $20 million spending, second only to Florida, in a state that isn’t even a core battleground.

Meanwhile, as of two weeks ago he had spent $16.4 million on legal fees, for such failed efforts as suing CNN for running a poll, suing newspapers for reporting on Trump’s quid pro quo with Russia, suing tiny Wisconsin TV stations for airing Democratic ads, and so on. All those efforts fail, designed to make Trump happy, not to actually accomplish what campaigns are supposed to accomplish—win. Trump has gotten through life by suing his way out of his failures. The strategy is finally failing.

2. He’s running a grifting and nepotistic family criminal enterprise.

The Trump campaign has made a systemic effort to funnel as much campaign donor money into his pockets as possible. It’s almost as if they see their gravy train ending after this year, and need to suck up as much of that cash as possible to prop up their failing enterprises.

You don’t have to be a stable genius to see the pattern.

As for nepotism, we have new headlines like “Kimberly Guilfoyle under fire for Trump fundraising disarray.” Giving something as important as your campaign’s big-dollar fundraising to your son’s girlfriend, with no prior fundraising experience, might seem as stupid a move as, say, putting Jared Kushner in charge of Middle East peace, or putting Jared Kushner in charge of the coronavirus pandemic response, or putting Jared Kushner in (de facto) charge of the Trump campaign, or putting Jared Kushner in charge of solving America’s opioid epidemic, or putting Jared Kushner in charge of reforming veterans care. …

Here’s the thing to note about Guilfoyle—she’s credited in that piece above with raising $73 million, which sounds like a lot without context. But here’s the bottom line—despite working for the president of the party that represents America’s wealthiest elite, it is Joe Biden’s campaign that has raised more big-dollar checks.

And it is under her watch that GOP stalwarts like the Mercers and the Kochs have abandoned Trump, focusing instead down ballot trying to salvage what they can of the Trump-induced GOP wreckage.

  1. And more grift.

This news is delicious:

[Former Trump campaign manager Brad] Parscale, reportedly called the $10 million man by Trump, has made no secret of the fact he got rich by working for Trump. He reported a monthly salary of $15,000 from the campaign but recently splashed out on a Ferrari and multiple homes. Trump’s anger apparently culminated after a report that Parscale had been running the campaign poolside from Florida. “They’re doing the full autopsy because the president is pissed,” one Republican close to the campaign and White House told Business Insider.

It was also funny hearing how the campaign spent $325,000 to promote Parscale’s Facebook page. Hilarious, right?

There’s a lot more of that where that came from, like the campaign paying an allowance to the romantic partners of both Trump sons, to the tune of $180,000 each. Don Jr’s girlfriend Guilfoyle, as we saw above, at least seems to have a job. But Eric’s wife Lara is doing … what? Who knows.

But even if Guilfoyle is working for her $15,000/month, should Trump donors really be paying for her $50,000 birthday party? Also, she apparently flies private jets everywhere she goes, and that’s not exactly economical. We don’t know how much that is costing the campaign, but consider this story from Politico’s story on chaos in her fundraising department: “In March, two staffers chose not to fly commercial and instead took the private jet of a major Trump donor to the president’s Mar-a-Lago resort for a finance event. The campaign had to reimburse the roughly $25,000 cost.”

So if one short flight from Virginia to Florida cost the campaign $25,000, how much is her regular private flights costing the campaign? “Guilfoyle herself has used private planes to travel to and from fundraisers. But people close to her argued that it amounted to a small sum given that the events often net millions of dollars,” Politico reported.

So will any of this nepotism, graft, and stupid spending end anytime soon? How could it? It’s baked into Trump’s very personality!

When we get to October, the cash race won’t even be close. Democrats will have far more money up and down the ballot to do what needs to be done to the GOP—utter and complete annihilation. Lucky for us, Trump himself is an ally in making sure they spend their money as poorly as possible.

==

mind you this in the middle of impeachment

https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/ivanka-trump-and-trump-jr-rank-in-the-top-four-of-a-poll-on-possible-2024-gop-presidential-candidates/

==

==

https://www.alternet.org/2019/11/trump-has-surrounded-himself-with-failsons-starting-with-dimwitted-don-trump-jr-and-kushner-columnist

in a biting piece for the Daily Beast, acerbic columnist Molly Jong-Fast accusesDonald Trump of stocking his administrations with “failsons” — which she described as “a son of wealth and privilege who is equal parts incompetence, stupidity, and arrogance” — because in many ways they are a reflection of his own career.

Using reports of conservative groups making bulk purchase of Don Trump’s Jr’s book “Triggered” to boost it on the best sellers list, Jong-Fast pounced on the president’s namesake to make her case.

“One is not born a failson. Nor does one simply inherit the status of failson. No—failson status is earned through a display of equal parts incompetence, stupidity, and arrogance. And until his book, no person in America—or maybe even the world, so bursting at the seams with louche heirs and dissolute royals with no throne to sit their pampered arses on—illustrated all the facets of a failson better than Junior,” she wrote.

“The New York Times denotes such bulk sales with an asterisk to let readers know that the sales were not organic. Junior, never one to be deterred by facts, immediately declared that this was part of a larger Times conspiracy against him. ‘I guess that’s their way of exerting a little bit of revenge by putting an asterisk without getting into the details,’ he sniffed,” she wrote before adding a sarcastic,” Yes Junior, The New York Times bulk purchasing policy is actually a conspiracy against you, the president’s large adult failson.”

Don Jr was not the only one to get the “failson” treatment with Nong-Fast casting a jaundiced eye at Jared Kushner, a “failson” who married into the family.

“Jared Kushner is the failson in chief, arguably worse than Junior.After crushing a newspaper and overpaying for the aptly named 666 Fifth Avenue, the failson-in-law decided to take a crack at governmenting. He was tasked with peace in the Middle East and also renegotiating NAFTA, handling the opioid crisis, modernizing the Veterans Administration, spearheading criminal justice reform, and WhatsApp messaging with Saudi Arabian failson Mohammed bin Salman,” she explained. “But when those things proved too complicated for the young polymath, his father-in-law decided to refocus him on the important things, like why Matt Drudge was mad at him, tasking Ivanka’s husband to “look into it” and find out why Drudge has forsaken him. More recently, Jared was asked by his father-in-law to take another crack at building the wall.”

Not to be forgotten, Jong-Fast also focused on Eric Trump.

“Not as notorious as his dimwitted siblings, Eric is the one of the Trump litter who seems the most interested in running the family’s mediocre hotel business. Though Eric always enjoys doing a segment on Fox News, where he dishes out really hot takes like his assessment that “Democrats weren’t even people.” Eric is also extremely bad at Twitter. On Thanksgiving Day, he tweeted a picture of a red hat emblazoned with the acronym LOPA for “Leave Our President Alone,” which caused the internet to erupt in mockery of the young Hapsburg,” she wrote.

As to why Trump doesn’t surround himself with competent aides and defenders, Jong_Fast points out that Trump himself is a “failson.”

“The failson administration is headed by the most failsonish president ever. Donald Trump is the definition of a failson, an incompetent continually saved from himself by his wealthy father. He inherited nearly $500 million from his pop, all the while claiming he was completely self-made. After his father died, Trump found other patrons, and he now enjoys the largesse of the lobbyists, and various foreign rogues like Vladimir Putin and Julian Assange, who helped put him in the White House<‘s he explained.

You can read more here (subscription required).

aha: recall family foundations were formed in the 1st place as a tax shelter and their primary/initial purpose was to undermine the estate tax (eg mars); kochs weaponized/politicized $;  at odds with self made man free mkt MERITOCRACY BS

kochs built a shadow GOP (then rented out trump admin, more progress in X years than y years;)

waltons #1 in charter schools, // devos: public schools the great equalizer, source of meritocrisy); betsy supports scam colleges and stops debt relief.

mercers gave us trump and brexit (the end of the brit empire?!)

scaife gave us crooked hillary

https://www.alternet.org/2019/11/don-jr-and-kimberly-guilfoyle-received-50000-for-university-of-florida-speaking-event-at-trump-campaign-officials-request-student-newspaper/

no lnx

Don Jr and Kimberly Guilfoyle received $50,000 for University of Florida speaking event at Trump campaign official’s request: Student newspaper

Written by Alex Henderson November 1, 2019

During an October 9, 2006 appearance on Larry King’s show on CNN — ten years before he was elected president of the United States — Donald Trump declared, “I like nepotism.” That is among the most honest things Trump has ever said; he likes nepotism a lot — so much that, according to the student newspaper at the University of Florida, his reelection campaign urged the student body to bring in his son, Donald Trump Jr., for a paid speech given on October 10.

Trump’s fondness for nepotism has been impossible to miss. His daughter, Ivanka Trump, and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, are both senior advisers in his administration — and Donald Trump Jr. is a prominent figure on his 2020 reelection campaign. And as affluent as Trump Jr. is, his father’s campaign was happy to help him earn thousands more, according to the University of Florida’s student newspaper, The Alligator.

Trump campaign official Caroline Wren, The Alligator reports, directly e-mailed the University of Florida’s student body president, Michael Murphy, in September and asked him to bring in Donald Trump Jr. to speak along with GOP operative Kimberly Guilfoyle (who previously co-hosted “The Five” on Fox News), and Republican National Committee (RNC) official Tommy Hicks. Although Guilfoyle has been very involved in Republican politics, she was once married to a prominent Democrat: California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

@radleybalko

Student newspaper finds evidence that the Trump campaign arranged for Trump Jr. and Guilfoyle to speak on the UF campus. Which means that Trump Jr. got $50K in mandatory student dues to come campaign for his dad.

https://twitter.com/AdamWeinstein/status/1189746365745770497?s=20 …

Adam Weinstein

?

@AdamWeinstein

“Emails show a Donald Trump re-election campaign official personally asked UF Student Body President Michael Murphy in September to bring Donald Trump Jr. and Kimberly Guilfoyle to campus the following month.”

Get yourself an indy school paper like UF’s https://www.alligator.org/news/emails-released-between-student-body-president-and-donald-trump-campaign/article_7dad41f0-fb7a-11e9-9b4f-3795b8d7df23.html …

@AdamWeinstein

“Emails show a Donald Trump re-election campaign official personally asked UF Student Body President Michael Murphy in September to bring Donald Trump Jr. and Kimberly Guilfoyle to campus the following month.”

Get yourself an indy school paper like UF’s https://www.alligator.org/news/emails-released-between-student-body-president-and-donald-trump-campaign/article_7dad41f0-fb7a-11e9-9b4f-3795b8d7df23.html …

Emails released between Student Body President and Donald Trump campaign official

Donald Trump Jr. and Kimberly Guilfoyle spoke at UF on Oct. 10

alligator.org

Brad Po-sometimes-scum-BOO??

?

@brad_polumbo

I feel like Don Jr. isn't the best guy to make the case against nepotism... https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1189896064486252546 …

The Hill

?

@thehill

"I wish my name was Hunter Biden. I could go abroad, make millions off my father’s presidency. I’d be a really rich guy." http://hill.cm/gndFg4I

53

6:25 AM - Oct 31, 2019

Twitter Ads info and privacy

See Brad Po-sometimes-scum-BOO??'s other Tweets

The $50,000 payment for Trump Jr., Guilfoyle and Hicks (described by The Alligator as a “joint payment”) for the October 10 event was funded by student tuition.

In a September 10 e-mail, according to The Alligator, Wren told Murphy, “We met at my house on the 4th of July. I wanted to follow up with you regarding a speaking engagement at the University of Florida for Donald Trump Jr.” And on September 11, Murphy responded and said he would to “love to hop on a phone call” to discuss bringing Trump Jr., Guilfoyle and Hicks to the campus.

Wren told The Alligator that, in her e-mails to the University of Florida, she used a Trump campaign-related e-mail signature by accident and that she was communicating “via my private e-mail in my personal capacity and mistakenly forgot to remove my Trump Victory signature.”

==

https://www.alternet.org/2019/11/nepotism-in-the-white-house-trumps-presidency-is-the-stage-on-which-the-drama-of-power-money-and-family-is-being-played-out/

no lnx

Nepotism in the White House: Trump’s presidency is the stage on which the drama of power, money and family is being played out

Written by Nancy LeTourneau / Washington Monthly November 1, 2019

When Donald Trump moved in to the White House, he brought his family with him. Adhering to norms, the media has refrained from talking about his youngest son Barron. Tiffany Trump seems to keep a low profile—which is fine. Don, Jr. and Eric were supposed to stay out of politics and run the family business, but everything the president promised in his not-blind trust agreement turned out to be a lie.

Ivanka and her husband Jared are the two who have been given overt roles in the administration—even though they are ill-defined. Ivanka’s main job seems to be to hold meetings with various groups and then tweet about them in power point-speak.

@IvankaTrump

#ICYMI: Great speaking at this yr’s @WorldBank meetings. #WGDP & #WeFi are making rapid progress & are catalyzing on these efforts w/ public-private partnerships to mobilize billions of dollars for women entrepreneurs so that they can freely & fully participate in the ?? economy.

View image on TwitterView image on Twitter

6,493

2:41 PM - Oct 20, 2019

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2,228 people are talking about this

Of course, part of her job is also to mislead the public.

:{

}:

@IvankaTrump

Since the passage of #TaxCuts in December 2017, real disposable personal income per household has increased $5,205 as of June 2019.??

Growing up in the Trump household obviously taught Ivanka that job number one is to demonstrate total loyalty to dad.

@IvankaTrump

“…surrounded by enemies and spies catching and perverting every word that falls from my lips or flows from my pen, and inventing where facts fail them.” -Thomas Jefferson’s reflections on Washington, D.C. in a letter to his daughter Martha.

Some things never change, dad!

152K

8:34 AM - Oct 31, 2019

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My first reaction was to suggest that comparing Trump to Thomas Jefferson demonstrated that the narcissistic apple didn’t fall far from the tree. But thank goodness there are a lot of people on Twitter who are smarter than me. A couple of them did a good job of setting the record straight.

Rachel Joy Larris

?

@RachelLarris

It's interesting Ivanka picked this example because the thing Jefferson's enemies were accusing him of -- fathering a child with a slave -- was absolutely something he did. 6 times as a matter of fact. Jefferson was bemoaning being called out for something he actually did. https://twitter.com/IvankaTrump/status/1189928762370142208 …

Some things never change, dad!

President “GREAT AND UNMATCHED WISDOM”

@realworldrj

“I therefore laid it down as a law of conduct for myself never to give to an appointment to a relation.”

Thomas Jefferson on nepotism, 1801 https://twitter.com/ivankatrump/status/1189928762370142208 …

...

Ivanka isn’t the only one who has attempted to compare her father to a historic figure. One of the most intriguing I’ve seen comes from Edward Luce.

It takes effort to picture Donald Trump as Alexander VI, the late medieval pope whose notoriety helped trigger the Protestant Reformation. Once you have the image, it is hard to lose…Late medieval Rome was pervaded by three corruptions: simony, nepotism and indulgences.

If you are not familiar with Pope Alexander VI, I highly recommend the Netflix series titled “The Borgias.” What struck me was that Christianity and the papacy were merely the symbolic accoutrements on which the drama of power, money, and family played out. That’s both the oldest story ever told and very applicable to the Trump family.

There are those who would suggest that the good news is that it was the corruption and depravity of the Borgias that led to the Reformation. But then history tells us that the battle between Catholicism and Protestantism was particularly bloody. We need to be much more thoughtful about what happens when the Trump family leaves the White House.

Nancy LeTourneau is a contributing writer for the Washington Monthly. Follow her on Twitter @Smartypants60.

==

cf varsity blues univ admissions scandal, i drop by to see what the dean can offer me and decide to stay or not, cos i like to party.

the uber lie: darwin invis hand meritocracy

univ supposed to be great equalizer, but poor get screwed by pred student loans, online trump U scams

https://www.democracynow.org/2019/3/13/cheating_bribes_lies_doj_charges_dozens

Operation Varsity Blues. That’s the name of a sweeping federal probe into what the Justice Department calls the biggest college admissions scam the agency has ever uncovered. On Tuesday, 50 people, including 13 college coaches, were arrested for taking part in a scheme where wealthy parents paid exorbitant bribes to secure spots for their unqualified children in elite schools, including Yale, Stanford, Georgetown, UCLA, USC and Wake Forest. Prosecutors have charged 33 parents, including Hollywood stars Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin; Loughlin’s husband, the fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli; and Bill McGlashan, a founder of TPG Capital, one of the largest private equity investment firms in the world. We speak with Ivory Toldson, professor of counseling psychology at Howard University and president of Quality Education for Minorities. His new book is titled “No BS (Bad Stats): Black People Need People Who Believe in Black People Enough Not to Believe Every Bad Thing They Hear About Black People.”

....

:{

GOODMAN: So, that’s the FBI special agent talking about this scandal. No actual schools were charged, though people within the schools, like, you know, the head of soccer at Yale, for example. You had these pictures sent in of athletes with their heads photoshopped to be a student who didn’t even play the particular game, in cases like water polo. What message does this scandal send to black and brown children, to white not wealthy children, who believe that higher education is a meritocracy? What do you say to them?

IVORY TOLDSON: Yeah, yeah. Well, I hope it’s a wake-up call for people who have bought into the system that people become wealthy because they have worked hard. It’s a deception that’s pervasive in our society. Among the wealthy, their objective is passive income. You know, they talk actively about making money without working.That’s what they talk about in their own social networks. But yet, when they’re talking to people who may work for them, they try to make it seem like it’s all about working hard. In reality, it should be about working hard. Everybody should work hard for what they have. But there are people in this country, unfortunately, who wouldrather manipulate the system so that some people work hard to get enough, and other people work not at all and get more.

And I think it also does a disservice to their children, because their children will grow up feeling a false sense of entitlement, believing in unearned privilege, believing in inherited wealth and all of the things that will lead to certain types of predatory behaviors, whether it be predatory lending,manipulating markets, predatory landlords—you know, different aspects of society that we’ve all grown to loathe. All of this is cultivated in these types of environments.

}:

==

also justice kennedy

pro p

We have obtained a list of 95 new Trump administration appointees made over the past six months. Following a pattern we’ve detailed before, many of the hires previously worked on President Donald Trump’s campaign or at conservative think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation. In other cases, appointees seem to have little work experience at all.

We compiled the information from Freedom of Information Act requests and have added the appointees to our Trump Town app, which lets you search the disclosures of nearly 3,000 of them.

Here are a few of the recent appointments:

==

==

But Europe is only part of Bannon’s plan. For someone who hasvented so much spleen at “globalists” like financier and philanthropist George Soros, Bannon is quite the internationalist. In Latin America, he’s already appointedJair Bolsonaro’s youngest son as his regional representative to help build on the right’s electoral successes in Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, and Paraguay. Bannon has also partnered with a Chinese billionaire to create a Rule of Law Fund that’s meant to be the point of a spear aimed at the regime in Beijing.

==

nepotism Liz Cheney (husb OMB), Janet Rehn. (Insp Gen'l) Kristol, Podhoretz (midge and norman), wattenberg, weyrich (moonie/WT?)

mini-neo-cons

Wendy Gramm

Ginny Thomas, ashcroft and hodel wives at patrick henry college, provides another way to launder money, see revolving doorand pension plan

liddy dtr gw The ALEC and Heartland efforts are spearheaded by Liddy Bourne (her father of Watergate fame), she ran the ALEC energy and agriculture task force before being promoted to run them all (where she boasted of doubling success rate for state adoption to 20%, which may not seem that great, but they have hundreds of bills in the pipeline at any given time, which can have sweeping effects).  On climate, she argues the Kyoto Protocol and the movement behind it are a threat to the free market system and will turn the global economy over to a "carbon cartel." [Agenda 21]   As a good entrepreneur, she has her own front group with former Exxon lobbyist Randol.

sons of pols seem to be well represented in lobbying firms

 ===

world pol dynasty

https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/want-to-get-into-politics-in-2019-it-still-helps-if-you-come-from-the-right-family/

==

neglected/doh!

==

https://www.alternet.org/naomi-klein-explains-how-gops-increasingly-savage-racial-and-gender-politics-will-lead-insidious-new

hen Nikki Haley resigned this week as the United States’ ambassador to the United Nations, seemingly the political press’ first question was whether Donald Trump would name his daughter Ivanka as her replacement. Trump did little to discourage this speculation. “[It’s] nothing to do with nepotism,”he told reporters at the White House, barely concealing a smile. “But I want to tell you that the people that know, know that Ivanka would be dynamite.”

For “The Shock Doctrine” and “No Is Not Enough” author Naomi Klein, that the president’s offspring would even be considered for such a post is evidence enough that we’ve entered a frightening new era of capitalism—one in which the 1 percent so dominate our institutions that they consider political power to be their natural birthright. In her latest essay for The Intercept, she dubs it the “Age of the Pampered Princeling”:

The Koch brothers were raised in luxury and inherited Koch Industries from their father (who built his fortune constructing refineries under Stalin and Hitler). [Richard Mellon] Scaife was an heir to the Gulf Oil, Alcoa Aluminum, and Mellon Banks fortunes and grew up in an estate so lavish it was populated with pet penguins. [The late John M.] Olin took over his father’s weapons and chemicals company.

And so it goes, right down to Betsy DeVos, who was raised by billionaire Edgar Prince and married into the Amway fortune—and who has devoted her life to dismantling public education, now from inside the Trump administration. And let’s not forget Rupert Murdoch, who inherited a chain of newspapers from his father and is in the process of handing over his media empire to his sons. Or relative newcomer Rebekah Mercer, who has chipped off a chunk of her father Robert’s hedge fund fortune to bankroll Breitbart News, among other pet projects. In short, these people are Downton Abbey lords and masters, playacting as Ayn Rand heroes.

Klein urges her readers to consider the mental gymnastics required for our nation’s scions to convince themselves not just that they’re self-made, but that their attacks on the social safety net are inherently righteous. Whether implicit or explicit, she concludes, it comes down to a belief in their own fundamental superiority: “better values, better breeding, a better religion, or as Trump so often claims, ‘good genes.’ “

“And of course the even darker side is the often unspoken conviction that the people who do not share in this kind of good fortune must possess the opposite traits—they must be defective in both body and mind,” Klein continues. “This is where the Republican Party’s increasingly savage racial and gender politics merge seamlessly with its radical wealth-stratifying economic project. Convinced that people belong where they are on the economic and social ladder, the party can keep redistributing wealth upward to the … families that fund their movement, while kicking the ladder out of the way for those reaching for the lower rungs.”

Alarmingly, money and influence are only growing more entrenched. As part of the Trump administration’s latest tax plan, the mega-rich will be able to pass up to $22.4 million to their children without paying a cent in taxes, effectively locking in another generation of dynastic wealth. The consequences will be grave for the health of our society and the planet at large, especially as climate change threatens civilizational collapse.

“This is an intensely hierarchical worldview that is completely comfortable with a minority making decisions for a majority in a rigged electoral system, just as it feels no need to reconcile two totally different visions of justice—’innocent until proven guilty’ when it comes to Brett Kavanaugh’s job application and, as Trump told a gathering of police chiefs on Monday, ‘stop and frisk’ for anyone seen as a possible criminal in Chicago (obvious code for a black person walking down the street),” Klein concludes. “This is not seen as a contradiction: There are simply two classes of people—us and them, winners and losers, people deserving of rights and everyone else.”...

bremer iraq fail:  Relatives of the administration were also given jobs, such as Ari Fleischer’s brother Michael, and Simone Ledeen, the daughter of Michael Ledeen. Cheney’s daughter Liz, also did a short stint. However, it should be noted that none of them lounged around for too long in what soon became a hellhole in Iraq.

==

Family ties spark concern in lobby debate

Watchdogs want Congress to act

By Michael Kranish, Globe Staff  |  January 28, 2006

WASHINGTON -- The website promoting the lobbying services of Joshua Hastert is enticing: ''Josh has long-standing relationships with numerous offices on Capitol Hill and in the administration as well as a unique understanding of the legislative process."

Unique, indeed. Hastert is the son of J. Dennis Hastert, the speaker of the House, making him one of dozens of high-powered lobbyists with family connections to members of Congress. Joshua Hastert, who says he does not lobby House Republican leaders, is registered as a lobbyist for clients ranging from Amgen, a biotech company, to Lockheed Martin, a defense contractor.

Now, the kind of unique access available to congressional family members is being scrutinized as a result of the lobbying scandal surrounding Jack Abramoff. The elder Hastert has not publicly suggested a restriction on lobbying by congressional family members, but such a ban is under consideration by a task force he appointed to come up with ethics legislation.

There appears to be wide agreement about the need to tighten restrictions on gifts and trips paid for by lobbyists, but a proposal to end the lucrative and widespread practice of lobbying by congressional family members has substantially less support, making some government watchdogs suspicious.

A study by Public Citizen's Congress Watch, which advocates for consumer rights in Congress, found at least 32 examples of congressional family members who lobby Congress.

''There definitely should be restrictions" on family members, said Craig Holman, a Congress Watch official who has studied the matter. ''This is family members cashing in on connections. . . . It is an ideal opportunity for special interest groups to exploit family relationships for personal gain."

The role of congressional family members has come up partly because of publicity about the work of Christine DeLay, the wife of US Representative Tom DeLay, the Texas Republican and former House majority leader. Although Christine DeLay is not a lobbyist, she worked for Alexander Strategy Group, a Washington lobbying firm that has ties to Abramoff.

The firm, whose principals included DeLay's former chief of staff, recently announced it was shutting down because it lost business as a result of publicity about the Abramoff scandal. A DeLay spokesman did not return a call seeking comment.

One of the leading candidates to replace DeLay as majority leader is the acting majority leader, US Representative Roy Blunt of Missouri. He is married to Abigail Blunt, who has lobbied for tobacco interests and is registered to represent Altria, the conglomerate that includes Philip Morris. Critics have cited the Blunt case as an example of the need for change.

When Blunt was dating his future wife in 2002, she was a registered lobbyist for Philip Morris and he unsuccessfully sought to insert a measure into a homeland security bill favorable to tobacco interests. Spokeswoman Jessica Boulanger said, however, that Blunt was acting in concert with other congressional leaders, and added that a similar measure had been inserted into legislation for a new version of the Patriot Act.

Still, after Blunt became the acting House majority leader in September, Abigail Blunt's office announced that she would extend her policy of not lobbying House Republican leaders to not lobbying anyone in the House. Roy Blunt's chief of staff, meanwhile, wrote a memo saying that no one in Blunt's office should have any lobbying contact with Abigail Blunt.

Abigail Blunt now lobbies on Kraft Food matters as a director of federal government affairs for Altria, according to her spokeswoman, Dawn Schneider.

Democrats also have family members who lobby Congress. Senator Evan Bayh, the Indiana Democrat, is the son of former Senator Birch Bayh, who works for the Washington company Venable, which has an array of corporate clients. Bayh said his lobbying portfolio includes issues such as Title IX, which requires more opportunities in sports for women.

''I am very careful not to lobby my son," Birch Bayh said. ''I can't ignore the fact that Evan is there. I'm proud of that, but I don't weigh on that as a means of gaining access."

As a former senator, Bayh added, ''I served with some of the more influential" members of Congress. Many lobbyists formerly served in Congress.

Representative John Murtha, the Pennsylvania Democrat who has drawn headlines with his call to withdraw US troops from Iraq, is the brother of Robert Murtha, who is registered to lobby for a number of companies, including Gensym Corp., a Burlington, Mass., company that sells software to the Department of Defense.

Stephen Allison, Gensym's chief financial officer, said he has never met Robert Murtha but has dealt with one of Murtha's partners at the firm, KSA Consulting.

Some members of Congress say they don't talk to family members who lobby, or don't even know about it.

For example, Kara Delahunt, the daughter of US Representative William Delahunt of Quincy, registered in July as a lobbyist for the Saudi Economic and Development Co., an investment firm that bills itself as ''a leader in Islamic investments," and says it only puts money in projects that adhere to Islamic law.

The Democratic congressman said he didn't know his daughter had registered as a lobbyist until contacted this week by the Globe, even though her employment was noted briefly in a few local and professional publications last summer.

''Honestly, I was totally unaware of that," Delahunt said in a telephone interview.

Kara Delahunt said in a telephone interview that she did public relations work and never lobbied for the Saudi company. Lance Morgan, president of Powell Tate, the public relations firm that formerly employed Kara Delahunt, characterized her registration as a lobbyist as a technicality. ''We registered her to make absolutely sure we adhered to the laws, but Kara never lobbied anyone and her work was all communications and media-related," he said.

When Tom Daschle ran for reelection in 2004, the role of his wife as a lobbyist received considerable attention, and the South Dakota Democrat was defeated. His wife, Linda, who is registered as a lobbyist for firms such as Lockheed Martin, had said she would not lobby the Senate while her husband was in office.

After her husband's defeat, she dropped her ban on lobbying Senate members, according to her spokeswoman.

Lobbyists contacted for this story said they do not lobby their family member in Congress. Various proposals under consideration, however, would ban lobbying other members of a congressional committee on which the relative sits, or the chamber where the relative serves, or to any lobbying of Congress.

Even some of the strongest critics of the practice, which is legal, say it is difficult to know where to draw the line. The First Amendment says Congress shall make no law abridging the right of people ''to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

Larry Noble, director of the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, said that ''some would argue that in an age of two-income professional spouses, it is not fair to limit the lobbying by spouse of member of Congress.

But others would argue that there is at least an appearance, if not the reality, that the spouse has an unfair advantage."

Noble said the question is ''how far down the line do you go," raising the issues of whether to stop the ban at spouses, or children, or siblings.

Hastert delegated the job of coming up with a lobbying bill to Representative David Dreier, Republican of California.

Jo Maney, a spokeswoman for Dreier, said a ban on lobbying by family members ''is something that is still under consideration" and that a decision on the matter may be made in the coming week.

But that all got a little uncomfortable after an investigation by the Los Angeles Times exposed the pervasive role of Reid’s three sons and one son-in-law in representing special interests in Washington and Nevada. After the article, Reid finally–and belatedly–blocked the sons from working from his office or lobbying his staff. And while his sons went back to work on various projects in Nevada, Steven Barringer, Reid’s son-in-law, stayed. He’s still an active lobbyist at the D.C. firm of Holland & Hart, where he has been a rainmaker for the firm: The year before he joined, Holland & Hart made only $100,000 in lobbying fees. Since he arrived in 2006, it has averaged about $2 million in lobbying fees.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Kith_%26_Kin_Inc.

Kith & Kin Inc.

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Kith & Kin Inc. is the name given for a new type of lobbyist in a February 14, 2004, New York Times editorial. This "growing subspecies in Washington's ever-flourishing influence industry consists of the relatives of members of Congress. They register as lobbyists free to work the Hill -- if not necessarily from within the family hearth, then near enough to count."

This area within government is "totally unregulated," with some "kin" working "on issues and bills that fall well within the portfolios of their elected family members," said the Times. [1]

"Hiring relatives of legislators seems especially prevalent among industries heavily regulated by the federal government, such as telecommunications, prescription drugs and mining," according to the Los Angeles Times. [2]

Contents[hide]

Legislators with Kin on the Payroll

The Associated Press reported April 13, 2005, a current list of legislators with family members on their congressional or campaign staffs: [3]

Lobbyists: Updates

October 2006

The following was published in the October 16, 2006, USA TODAY article by Matt Kelley and Peter Eisler:

October 2005

The following list was published in the October 9, 2005, *New York Times*:

2004

In February 2004, the Los Angeles Times compiled a list of "at least 17 senators and 11 House members with relatives who are paid lobbyists or consultants in government relations." [8]

Ban on Family Lobbying

Inside South Dakota reported in January 2004 that then Minority Whip Harry Reid, the "top Senate Democrat on the Ethics Committee [was] pushing for a broad review of the chamber's lobbying rules, an overhaul that could eventually lead to a formal ban on Senators' family members lobbying their offices." Reid then said that he had "asked the panel's chairman, Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio), to consider the lobbying review and hinted that he may seek a top-to-bottom study of ethics rules." [20]

"It's unclear whether the review Reid is pushing for would deal with the murky nature of outside income and investments that Senators have, some of which might not specifically deal with lobbying. Voinovich and Reid would also have to come up with a specific definition for a lobbyist during their review. Some family members work in government relations or consulting, in ways that require Senate assistance but don't require actually lobbying registration." [21]

"Gary Ruskin, director of the Congressional Accountability Project, noted that any ban on lobbying contacts by family members would have to be comprehensive, applying not only to the personal Senate offices but also to the committees where Senators serve." [22]

Historically Speaking

"Historically, reports of lobbying date to the very first Congress: Continental Army veterans hired someone to buttonhole solons for benefits, while New York merchants employed 'treats, dinners, attentions' to delay a tariff bill. Who's to say what's good or bad about lobbying Congress? Only Congress itself, if it can ever muster the courage." [23]

SourceWatch Resources

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