UPDATED: Jared Kushner: "King Midas" in Reverse — What He Touches Turns to Crap Not Gold

“Golden Boy Wonder” or Wonder What He Achieves

(Your guess is as good as any)

MAJOR UPDATE OF THE ORIGINAL POST (which follows this update) comes from Huff Post here with background cites from the NY Times and the Washington Post research into the volunteer group set up by Kushner to acquire PPE for medical personnel.

The Story: A team of volunteers recruited by son-in-law Jared Kushner to aid in the government’s response to the pandemic has bungled efforts to secure PPE for the nation’s hospitals and their staff who still face massive shortages.

First of all – who are those “Kush Vols” (my nickname for them): Most of them are reportedly in their 20’s, some fresh out of college. Their work was meant to be forwarded as the best options to FEMA for action, funding, and procurement of the supplies.

But according to the two media reports — both of which cited a whistleblower complaint submitted last month to the House Oversight Committee, as well as government officials familiar with the volunteer group’s work: “The volunteers have been largely ineffective in securing this life-saving equipment for the government.” 

How one scheme or shall we say scam worked: According to the NY Times, the volunteers were told to prioritize leads from so-called “VIP’s – which included political allies, associates, and apparently BFF’s of President Trump.” 

Examples:

1.  Brian Kilmeade, Fox & Friends Show co-host: Reportedly had his suggestion of a potential PPE supplier prioritized.

2. Tana Goertz, a former “Trump’s Apprentice TV show” contestant and current campaign chair of Women for Trump, had her suggestion made a priority, too.

3.  Rip-off example: A man with no apparent health care experience tweeted directly to Trump about availability of ventilators ended up receiving $69 million from NYS three days after posting that message.

(NOTE: Buzz Feed News previously reported that Kushner’s volunteers had played a role to play in that man receiving the money, but the NY Times then said: “No ventilators were ever delivered.”)

Then this exact opposite for non-Jared pals:

A potentially promising lead was ignored by the Kush team by Jeffrey Hendricks, a SC doctor, who said he could help source millions of masks from established suppliers. He then told the NY Times that he was repeatedly ignored by the volunteer force, adding: “When I offered them viable leads at viable prices from an approved vendor, they kept passing me down the line and made terrible deals instead.”

My 2 cents: PPE shortages still exist by all accounting despite what Trump and Kushner and others have publicly stated.

So, when “Kush – the Boy Wonder” just like “Don the Con Father-in-Law” touches something and brag how positive and the greatest ever they have been, it suddenly (usually in short order) turns sour, or worse turns into one huge steaming pile of horse sh*t. Now I ask: Gents, how do you get the sh*t back in the horse? 

What a pathetic bunch of fools – shame on us.

Another sad chapter in this Trump presidency history along with his family of incompetents like Kushner, et al. Pathetic and dismal do not even begin to describe them… they conned their way into the White House and now they are wrecking everything in sight that they touch.

ORIGINAL POST FOLLOWS FROM HERE: Great opinion piece here from CNN (with my emphasis and little wordsmithing to fit the blog for reader clarity). The essence however, of the article has not changed, and it simply is a great piece vis-à-vis Jared C. Kushner, official U.S. government title: “White House Innovations Director.” 

The Article:

What is most galling as the nation faces its worse crisis since World War II is how the Trump family keeps demanding recognition for their brilliant work and also o

Case in point is Jared Kushner, who has fallen upwards throughout his life, inheriting a vast real estate empire and then making one of the worst purchases in the history of Manhattan, which was buying the office building at 666 Fifth Avenue for a then-record $1.8 billion in 2007, a lemon which was only finally taken off his hands after his father-in-law became president.

So, perhaps it was only fitting that he was awarded the job of “shadow secretary of state” at the beginning of the Trump administration.

Kushner was in charge of managing the US-China portfolio, a responsibility that drew criticism, given Kushner's own business interests with China.

He also destroyed any vestige of American leadership in the Middle East with his promotion of the reckless Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and his sabotage of the two-state solution in Israel.

According to officials cited by The New York Times, early on in the Covid-19 crisis, Kushner privately agreed with his father-in-law that this whole coronavirus thing was being overblown by the lame-stream media.

Kushner then championed a new Google site where you could go and get your virus symptoms tested. His father-in-law touted 1,700 Google engineers who were working on the site at a White House news conference in March. If that sounds like a fantasy, it was.

Kushner goes on Fox News (April 29) – the Pravda of the Trump administration – to marvel that the Trump administration's response to the coronavirus is “…a great success story” then he then claimed that “…we have all the testing we need to start opening the country, and by July, the country's really rocking again.”

This is as more than 64,000 Americans lie dead – more than the death toll of the Vietnam War – and more than 1 million have been confirmed to have been infected with the virus, with no end in sight.

There is widespread agreement among experts that we don't have the testing capabilities to return to any semblance of normal life, and also that a second wave of infections could hit the country badly later in the year.

During World War II, the United States had FDR and George Marshall to navigate us through a crisis that saw the U.S. spend more than a third of our GDP, and during which more than 12 million Americans donned military uniforms.

Today, we have a completely unreliable President – where anyone can get a coronavirus test, and the virus will disappear when the warm weather comes. The list of Trump's whoppers goes on and on and on and on – and his feckless son-in-law as coronavirus Czar prattles on about bringing more private sector efficiency to government.

Meanwhile, Trump demands thanks from governors when he is just barely doing his job as president.

This is the kind of thing we see in a banana republic: The nepotistic incompetence and the demands from the public to lavish praise on the brilliant ruling family. It would be laughable if there weren't so many lives lost already and so many more in our future. 

So, Jared Kushner, we, the American public, want to thank you for your service.

My 2 cents: As I said, what a great analysis of the subject – a very good divide between tongue-in-cheek and political satire yet mixed with fact and truth. Regards of how you measure it – it is 100% spot on and well done Peter Bergen at CNN.

Not much to add, but this continues a very sad chapter in American political history to have this kind of person “working for the American people” as they love to say. Quick grab a barf bag, Kushner coming back on stage.

Thanks for stopping by.