Corporate WATCH
Commentary by Joe SchaefferIt was a very fair point:
Uh did anyone find it odd that last night's Virginia gubernatorial debate was ostentatiously sponsored by a bank? pic.twitter.com/XXWt8RzA1Q
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) September 29, 2021
And what if we told you the big bank in question would be perfectly happy to see either candidate come out on top on Nov. 2?
Heads they win, tails you lose.
American voters, haven't you had enough of this game?
Virginia Election 2021 is straight out of “The Simpsons.” Globalist space aliens Kang and Kodos are running for governor. Abortion for some, miniature American flags for others. Whoever triumphs, you end up getting enslaved to the internationalist economic mantra.
If only we were exaggerating.
A very interesting 2017 video shows Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin, then-CEO of powerhouse private equity corporation the Carlyle Group, hosting a panel discussion for the U.S. Export-Impact Bank. Virginia Democrat Gov. Terry McAuliffe was a featured participant.
The panelists’ conversation centered around stout boosting of NAFTA, the ill-fated Trans-Pacific Partnership and strong economic ties with communist China. These three points in particular were stressed over and over again.
Here it is. A full 50 minutes of alleged political opponents Youngkin and McAuliffe swapping sweet nothings on their shared passion for globalism in 2017:
7:20 mark:
After prattling on about how wonderful he has been for Virginia, especially when it came to creating jobs, McAuliffe stresses about the state:
"It's a global economy."
Moderator Youngkin does not question the boastful claims at all. When McAuliffe stops talking, Youngkin says:
"So here we have 1 out of 50 states that's doing very well and has really shown great strides..."
Youngkin is pointedly praising McAuliffe for utilizing his internationalist ties to boost Virginia in the global economy.
Guess what comes soon after?
13:23 mark – Youngkin asks McAuliffe:
"Governor, the Virginia Economic Development Partnership, which is the real foundation of all your trade missions, have you been to China and is China really someplace that small and medium-sized businesses in the United States and in the Commonwealth can aspire to export to?"
McAuliffe replies:
"No question. I will be going on my fifth trade mission to China since I'm a governor in three years. Last year we were able to announce the largest investment ever done by a Chinese company. We won that in Virginia. A $2 billion investment. Two thousand new jobs. Tranlin Paper Company. That was very competitive. Thirty states, we won it...
So we have leaned in. I have an office in Beijing. We just opened up an office in Shanghai, so we're investing our dollars. I also serve as chairman of the National Governors [Association]...
I always give the pitch to my fellow governors. I mean you have to go to these countries. It's one thing to send a trade delegation but when a governor from a state goes you're guaranteed to meet the leadership. It really helps open up doors. So I encourage my fellow governors. There's so much business in China to do. They are investing here and I want every penny of investment I can get."
When McAuliffe is finished, Youngkin chirps:
That's great.
This is precisely what Trump administration Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was referring to in a Feb. 8, 2020 speech in which he warned that U.S. governors were selling America’s most sensitive and valuable assets to China, which was actively seeking to cultivate U.S. governors and other local officials for the benefit of the regime. Pompeo mentioned the National Governors Association by name.
Two vital points about McAuliffe’s China business remarks:
1. They were supposed to be talking about exporting. Why then is McAuliffe bragging about a Chinese company opening a plant in Virginia?
2. The Tranlin deal proved to be a total fiasco:
Not all of the deals [McAuliffe] sealed turned out well, including a $2 billion paper products plant proposed by Tranlin Inc. in Chesterfield County at the beginning of his term. The deal, inherited from [former Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell], left the state scrambling to recover a $5 million grant paid to the Chinese company on the promise of creating 2,000 jobs.
Those promised jobs evaporated and the state had to scramble to recoup any of the funds it gave the Chinese to entice them to come to Virginia:
But instead of bringing 2,000 jobs to the county, the project billed as the biggest economic development deal in Chesterfield history – and the largest Chinese capital investment project in the United States – turned out to be nothing but a paper tiger. After receiving $5 million in grant money from the state, Tranlin reported delays and missed payment deadlines.
Youngkin then shepherded his other guests through a discussion that defended NAFTA, TPP and foreign trade in the wake of the rise of the newly elected Donald Trump.
At the 18:15 mark, McAuliffe jumped in:
"Let me just put TPP in perspective for Virginia, You know, I was a strong advocate. We had a bipartisan group of governors. Terry Branstad and I, governor of Iowa, was with their new ambassador to China. This rhetoric around the campaign is not helpful to us who have to trade every single day....
"We got to get off this anti-trade rhetoric that's going on in the country."
35:34 mark: Youngkin gives McAuliffe a verbal belly rub:
"What we've said, just to summarize a little bit, is while we're not a hundred percent agreeing that we're in a full recovery, I think there's a general sense of the U.S. economy doing OK and particularly in the Commonwealth of Virginia...
A beaming McAuliffe then gives two thumbs up, and giddily chimes in.
Youngkin then continues:
By the way I'm a native Virginian, so I'm doing just a little recruiting. That China continues to actually perform reasonably well. And I think the data at Carlyle that we get would confirm that... and so the global economy is not in a terrible place. What we've also talked about is the fact that there [are] some geopolitical events [he is referring to the populist backlash against globalism] around the world [McAuliffe furiously nods his head up and down] that can really impact our ability to access this growing economy and finally that we really need to compete and that's really at the core of what you're saying... that it's time for us to compete to win.
Youngkin here is championing unimpeded globalism in the business sector and patting McAuliffe on the back for his stalwart allegiance to it.
He then moves on to target Trumpian border taxes on imported goods from countries not playing fairly. The panel is uniformly against them, of course.
Youngkin:
"And that allows me to jump off and talk about tax policy just for a minute. And one of the I think most talked-about topics in these kinds of forums is what's coming from a tax policy standpoint and recognizing that with the legislative agenda that's on the docket what gets accomplished and what doesn't is still in question. But when we start talking about the kinds of tax policy, particularly a border adjustment, and how that impacts actual companies, governor, when you look at your state, is it positive for Virginia or is it negative for Virginia?"
Youngkin is absolutely teeing McAuliffe up to bash Trump.
McAuliffe gathers the bouquet tossed his way:
"Well, I'm very vocal. I think the border tax is one of the dumbest things I've ever heard, because countries will retaliate against us immediately. It goes to our argument earlier. We've got to quit sending this message to the globe that we in America don't want to do trade with other countries....
"I don't want to see it [tax reform] used as some type of trade war that we're putting walls up around this country because that will not help us grow the economy. It is a global economy."
It all made for quite the chummy performance. Which leads us to Decision 2021.
Here are the two candidates: As WorldTribune noted in May, ex-Carlyle chieftain Youngkin has extensive cash ties to George Soros, the Clintons and the Deep State:
“Soros Capital set up an offshore company in the Cayman Islands for the purpose of investing private equity with the Carlyle Group, alongside members of Saudi Arabia’s Bin Laden family,” Peter Byrne reported for Fox News....
“Carlyle’s partners include ex-heads of state and former CIA officials. The private equity partnership specializes in buying and selling weapons manufacturing and intelligence gathering companies with government and military contracts and it also uses secret offshore companies to conduct business.”
Clinton insider McAuliffe’s long career of corruption would take a book to fully catalog. Here’s one outrageous example:
McAuliffe ran and won the governorship as a Democrat in 2013. He received $120,000 in donations — $70,000 for his campaign and $50,000 for his inaugural — from West Legend Corp., a New Jersey construction materials company controlled by Chinese billionaire Wang Wenliang.
James Mann, a former foreign correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, filled The Richmond Times-Dispatch in on Wang in 2016:
He noted that Wang’s work on embassies and in ports require close ties to China’s ruling Communist Party and its security apparatus. Wang has also been a delegate to China’s National People’s Congress, the nation’s “rubber stamp” legislature, Mann said, though he considered that of lesser importance.
“In the last 10 or 15 years, as China’s businesses have developed, the party has shown greater tolerance of people rising in business who aren’t party members. But even if you’re not a party member, you have to be on good terms with the party,” he said.
Go ahead, Virginians, exercise your sacred right and choose between these two beauties. They’ll give you a sticker for it and everything.
Joe Schaeffer is the former Managing Editor of The Washington Times National Weekly Edition. His columns appear at WorldTribune.com and FreePressInternational.org.
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