In 2003 WaPo reported:
Former president George H.W. Bush is a Carlyle Group adviser.
Carlyle cuts its teeth hiring former government heavyweights to make massive profits from Uncle Sam's wallet. Private equity underwriters garnered preferred "carried interest" taxation. It's remained in place for decades despite public opinion to the contrary.
Carlyle is bipartisan in its use of former government officials which likely keeps it out of trouble. Back to Bush senior who said:
"The strength of our nation is our faith."H. W. Bush was a staunch Episcopalian.
Thomas Bagley, the rector of St. Martin’s Episcopal Church in Houston to which Bush long belonged, declared that he “would not ever do anything he thought to be contrary to our Lord and Master.”In 2017 Texas Tribune reported:
Paul Pressler was President George H.W. Bush’s pick to lead the Office of Government Ethics in 1989, but the administration ultimately ruled Pressler out after an FBI background investigation. News reports from the time suggest that Pressler was dismissed due to unspecified ethics issues.
Pressler's name was redacted from a list of sexual predators released by the Southern Baptist Convention.
A former Texas state judge and lawmaker has been accused of sexually abusing a young man for several decades starting when the boy was just 14, according to a lawsuit filed in October in Harris County.
The lawsuit alleges that Paul Pressler, a former justice on the 14th Court of Appeals who served in the Texas state house from 1957–59, sexually assaulted Duane Rollins, his former bible study student, several times per month over a period of years. The abuse started in the late 1970s and continued less frequently after Rollins left Houston for college in 1983.
According to the lawsuit, Pressler told Rollins he was “special” and that the sexual contact was their God-sanctioned secret.
The sexual abuse lawsuit was dismissed due to statute of limitations. That decision is under appeal according to Baptist News.
“In short, Pressler used his position as a religious authority to seduce a young, religiously impressionable boy, that the seduction was God-approved, and throughout the long relationship that God’s Plan was in control of the whole sordid affair,” psychiatrist Dr. Harvey A. Rosenstock said in expert testimony contending that Rollins was of “unsound mind” regarding the abuse claim during a “period of incapacity” between 1980 and 2015.
Rollins “acted diligently and filed the instant lawsuit following his release from incarceration,” the brief claims, thus tolling a five-year statute of limitations.
It's not clear what the 1989 FBI background investigation found. Something made Pressler unappealing for a government ethics position. I hope it isn't another Jeffrey Epstein story where government officials ignored criminal behavior multiple times due to connections with powerful people.
The Red Team is not squeaky clean as its QAnon cult suggests a Blue Team cabal eats babies and molests children.
Texas Reds do everything they can to stop abortions even though Southern Baptist pastors and religious leaders sexually abused teens and children. Seventy five Texas Baptist ministers made the list of more than 700 abusers.
Leaders “were documenting abuse all along while lying to us."
Southern Baptist preachers should be aware that some pregnancies are the result of sexual abuse perpetrated by peers who manipulated victims by characterizing their predatory acts as "God approved." The needs of their traumatized victims should matter.
“How many other boys and girls were harmed by the ones on this list and others we’ll never know of because of (leaders’) efforts to block advocacy?” he wondered. “It is vile. It is evil. It is anything but Christian.”
Goldman Sachs Lloyd Blankfein said he was "doing God's work." Yet, there is long list of billion dollar settlements for bad Goldman Sachs behavior. Goldman paid over $16 billion in fines/settlements since 2000. Carlyle paid settlements ranging from $20 million for public pension pay to play and $325 million for collusion with other private equity underwriters (PEU) in buyout deals.
Who is o-n the common person's side when powerful political, financial and religious leaders are intent on getting "their prize" regardless of ethics, morals or the law?
Update 6-14-22: Former President Donald Trump signed an article on Florida Representative Matt Gaetz fighting a federal investigation in his possible guilt in sex trafficking.
Gaetz called Rep. Jim Jordan the spiritual leader of the Red Team in the House of Representatives. Jordan was the assistant wrestling coach for a man who "sexually assaulted and/or raped a minimum of 1,500/2,000 athletes at OSU.”
Ohio representative and former Ohio State University wrestling coach Jim Jordan aided and abetted in the university's cover-up of sexual abuse within the program, a former team captain said in front of Ohio state legislators on Wednesday.
Rep. Matt Gaetz said "it doesn't really matter if Kevin McCarthy is honest with Republicans. The GOP mainly sticks with McCarthy due to his fundraising abilities." Thus, all our Red Team leaders lie and the end justifies the means.
Christ and Trump's goon legion are polar opposites. Politicians Red and Blue love PEU and increasingly, more are one.
Update 6-18-22: Trump headlined sinner stage at the Faith and Freedom Conference in Nashville. He said "This guy Trump he may not the Bible as well as some of us. Matter of fact, he may not know it that well." Trump is hardly recognizable as a Christian.
Update 6-25-22: Southern Baptists are celebrating the end of Roe vs. Wade removing one course of action for teenage girls sexually abused by their pastor. How many suburban mothers are OK with that?
Update 6-29-22: Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell got 20 years for her crimes, however the powerful people who abused girls are yet to be named.
Update 6-30-22: Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado wants to roll the clock back to before the U.S. Constitution so "the church can direct the state." I take it she wants her church to direct the state as there are thousands of Christian denominations. Many of our Founding Fathers were deists. Would Boebert recognize a deist is she met one?