Censorship everywhere … why just a few months ago we would never have expected such measures, the equivalent of sending bad kiddies to their rooms. But, here we are, and it is only going to get worse:
  https://www.amren.com/news/2020/04/internet-speech-will-never-go-back-to-normal/

“COVID-19 has emboldened American tech platforms to emerge from their defensive crouch. Before the pandemic, they were targets of public outrage over life under their dominion. Today, the platforms are proudly collaborating with one another, and following government guidance, to censor harmful information related to the coronavirus. And they are using their prodigious data-collection capacities, in coordination with federal and state governments, to improve contact tracing, quarantine enforcement, and other health measures. As Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg recently boasted, “The world has faced pandemics before, but this time we have a new superpower: the ability to gather and share data for good.” Civil-rights groups are tolerating these measures—emergency times call for emergency measures—but are also urging a swift return to normal when the virus ebbs. We need “to make sure that, when we’ve made it past this crisis, our country isn’t transformed into a place we don’t want to live,” warns the American Civil Liberties Union’s Jay Stanley. “Any extraordinary measures used to manage a specific crisis must not become permanent fixtures in the landscape of government intrusions into daily life,” declares the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital-rights group. But the “extraordinary” measures we are seeing are not all that extraordinary. Powerful forces were pushing toward greater censorship and surveillance of digital networks long before the coronavirus jumped out of the wet markets in Wuhan, China, and they will continue to do so once the crisis passes. The practices that American tech platforms have undertaken during the pandemic represent not a break from prior developments, but an acceleration of them. As surprising as it may sound, digital surveillance and speech control in the United States already show many similarities to what one finds in authoritarian states such as China. Constitutional and cultural differences mean that the private sector, rather than the federal and state governments, currently takes the lead in these practices, which further values and address threats different from those in China. But the trend toward greater surveillance and speech control here, and toward the growing involvement of government, is undeniable and likely inexorable.”

     This will be a big, big, problem for the position held by Sweden, that herd immunity will arise, sooner or later. Yes, but what if it does not?
  https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/what-if-covid-19-immunity-doesnt-last-long

“the most critical unknown by far is how long do people remain immune from the virus once they contract it and recover? A number of COVID-19 patients have seen the virus mysteriously resurface after initially contracting it, leading some to question whether antibodies truly do confer permanent and complete immunity on all recovered patients. That's why the WHO has pushed back against immunity passports, much to Bill Gates' chagrin.”

     The conservative, and Left mind too, does not cope well with masses of conflicting data, and hypotheses, let alone scientific uncertainty. We see this with climate change, where fanatics from the Left take a “it’s all proven approach,” which those from the Right must deny, by asserting exactly the opposite, when as matter of real science, almost everything is uncertain. Cosmological events could change the situation in seconds, whatever the reality is. Likewise, for Covid-19.
  https://affirmativeright.blogspot.com/2020/04/stating-obvious-false-dilemmas.html

     We have a divide here even within the Dissent right, or freedom movement, with Natural News.com championing the apocalypse view, and other sites going from a spectrum of positions right down to it is all a false flag. The problem we have is that all the models of the coronavirus infection were wrong:
  https://www.zerohedge.com/health/all-coronavirus-models-were-wrong
  https://www.naturalnews.com/2020-04-30-new-data-covid-19-deaths-above-300000.html
  https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/antibody-tests-support-whats-been-obvious-covid-19-is-much-more-lethal-than-flu/2020/04/28/2fc215d8-87f7-11ea-ac8a-fe9b8088e101_story.html
  http://www.occidentaldissent.com/2020/04/30/covid-19-is-not-the-flu/

     Perhaps it is some sort of cosmic compensation for putting up with mass rapes, but the otherwise cucked Sweden seems to have lucked out in coronavirus responses.
  https://www.zerohedge.com/health/why-sweden-has-already-won-debate-covid-19-lockdown-policy

“On the European front, the Scandinavian country of Sweden is now garnering more attention than before, and has become an object of both criticism and fascination for those against or in favor of lockdown policy. While countries like the United States and Great Britain continue to top the global tables in terms of COVID-19 death tolls, Sweden has only suffered marginal casualties in comparison, while avoiding the intense strain on society and loss in public confidence which lockdown governments are now grappling with as they continue to push their populations to the limits of social stress and economic tolerance. You could say those governments are already careening over the edge by looking at the latest jobless figures coming out the US with 30 million new people filing for unemployment in the last few weeks. Unlike many others, Sweden has not enforced any strict mass quarantine measures to contain COVID-19, nor has it closed any of its borders. Rather, Swedish health authorities have issued a series of guidelines for social distancing and other common sense measures covering areas like hygiene, travel, public gatherings, and protecting the elderly and immune compromised. They have kept all preschools, primary and secondary schools open, while closing college and universities who are now doing their work and lectures online.

     The coronavirus freak-out, if anything, shows that globalism globalises disease, and that the only sensible approach to modern statecraft is nationalism. But, the globalists will not be giving up easily, and have an uncanny knack of snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. Anyway, two good articles at vDarew.com, on this; I like this site better than American Renaissance, it does not have the East Asia worship, and most writers are pretty straight shooters:
  https://vdare.com/articles/always-remember-the-coronavirus-pandemic-is-a-product-of-globalization-political-correctness-and-immigration

“Always remember this simple truth: the Covid-19 outbreak is the product of globalization, mass immigration and rampant political correctness. The main stream media/ democrat complex is counting on the disease and resulting economic disruption to take down Donald J. Trump’s presidency. But it’s actually shown why nationalism, and a realistic attitude to race, is more relevant than ever. What the U.S. needs going forward: economic self-sufficiency, an immigration moratorium, and a restored sense of national identity so that its leaders can respond quickly in a crisis without the paralyzing fear of being called “racist.” There is still much we don’t know about the coronavirus, including the deeply controversial question about whether it was man-made, a product of Chinese dietary habits, or some completely unknown source [Chinese lab conducted extensive research on deadly bat viruses, but there is no evidence of accidental release, by Joby Warrick, Ellen Nakashima, Shane Harris, and Anna Fifield, Washington Post, April 30, 2020]. However, we do know that the Chinese government is refusing the World Health Organization’s request for a joint investigation about where the virus came from [China refuses WHO requests to participate in coronavirus investigations: report, by J. Edward Moreno, The Hill, May 1, 2020]. We thus see two critical lies of globalism revealed:

     This call against the globalists, was made by Yair Netanyahu, the son of the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. Against the EU, Yair championed a free, democratic Christian Europe. And what is wrong with that?
  https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/netanyahus-son-calls-for-return-of-a-free-democratic-christian-europe-626266

“Yair Netanyahu, a son of the Israeli prime minister, called for the return of a “free, democratic and Christian” Europe in a tweet that criticized a joint Israeli-Palestinian memorial ceremony for Israel’s Memorial Day. Netanyahu’s post on Tuesday, Yom Hazikaron in Israel, was in response to a tweet from the European Union delegation to the State of Israel, @EUinIsrael, noting its participation in the ceremony sponsored by Combatants for Peace and Parents Circle, this year on Zoom, which included a record 200,000 participants. “Shame on you for financing a disgrace in the holiest day of the Israeli calendar!” Yair Netanyahu said. “We have one day in a year to remember our fallen soldiers! And you destroy it with a ‘memorial’ to Palestinian terrorists! EU is an enemy of Israel, and an enemy to all European Christian countries! Schengen zone is dead and soon your evil globalist organization will be too, and Europe will return to be free, democratic and Christian!” The Schengen zone comprises 26 European states that have officially abolished all passport and all other types of border control at their mutual borders, and includes Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Norway, Poland, Portugal and Switzerland. Netanyahu, who lives with his parents in the official prime minister’s residence and receives personal security, has stirred controversy with previous posts on social media. Last week he tweeted an apparent death threat against “old people” protesting the establishment of a national unity government, which will be led for 18 months by his father, Benjamin, saying he hopes the gathering spread coronavirus to the left-wing demonstrators. He later deleted the post and the prime minister distanced himself from his son’s comment.”

     Monopolies, especially those of Big Teck, such as Google, must be broken up, because they become a threat to freedom and indeed to the market economy itself. Pam Geller has recently stated this and given some ideas about it, well worth thinking about:
  https://gellerreport.com/2020/04/youtube-censors-corna-drs.html/

“Google must be broken up. They own YouTube. We are under siege by big tech authoritarians. The idea of limiting media monopolies is not new. “Beginning in 1975, FCC rules banned cross-ownership by a single entity of a daily newspaper and television or radio broadcast station operating in the same market.” The ruling was put in place to limit media concentration in TV and radio markets, because they use public airwaves. The technology changed but the objective is the same. The FCC designed rules to make sure that there is a diversity of voices and opinions on the airwaves. That diversity no longer exists. We were the first to sue the social media giants for our First Amendment rights. In light of that fight, I began to focus AFDI activism to pursue anti-trust laws be used to break up social monopolies and duopolies. The Wall Street Journal now is suggesting the same thing, albeit for the wrong reasons. For the WSJ, it’s all about the … , but for principled Americans, it’s all about freedom. Please contribute to that fight here. Make no mistake, it is the most pressing issue of day. If we are going to fight against the forces of far-left authoritarianism, and we must, freedom of speech in the social media public square is essential. Freedom of speech is the foundation of a free society. Without it, these leftist tyrants can and are wreaking havoc unopposed, while we are silenced.”

     Go, big orange man, go!

Reporter:
"Have you seen anything at this point that gives you a high degree of confidence that the [Wuhan lab] was the origin?

     Look, this is just a misunderstanding produced by a racist society. Surely with billions more refugees, say another 4 billion, when the African population explosion happens in a few decades, these sorts of disputes will be a thing of the past, not even a memory:
  https://voiceofeurope.com/2020/04/migrant-tells-danish-man-you-danes-are-animals-you-will-be-exterminated-video/
  https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/04/29/shootings-sweden-increasing-despite-coronavirus-police-operations/

     It is hard to believe, but China which is supposed to be making everything in the Newer New World Order, is hoarding medical supplies. Whatever for, since didn’t the commo party tell us that everything is peachy cream with that old crazy virus?
  https://nypost.com/2020/05/04/dhs-claims-china-hid-coronavirus-severity-to-hoard-medical-supplies/?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=NYPTwitter&utm_medium=SocialFlow

“US officials believe China deliberately downplayed the country’s coronavirus outbreak in order to stock up on medical supplies needed to fight the illness, intelligence documents show. In early January, Chinese leaders “intentionally concealed the severity” of the pandemic from the world, according to a four-page Department of Homeland Security intelligence report obtained by the Associated Press. The analysis also says that for much of January China delayed reporting the coronavirus “was a contagion” to the World Health Organization so they could import personal protective equipment. The report, which is dated May 1 and marked “for official use only,” said China increased imports and decreased exports of medical supplies while downplaying the growing crisis. The report’s conclusions were based on the 95 percent probability that China’s changes in imports and export behavior were not within normal range. There is no public evidence to suggest that China deliberately withheld information for the purpose of hoarding the world’s medical supplies.”

     It is hard to believe that there could be rising anti-Chinese sentiment. It must just be mindless racism with no grounding in reality at all, because reality never gives any grounds for hating anything, other than whites, who are hated even by themselves, and they all want to die, after a good consumer life, consuming all of the resources and producing global warming:
  https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-china-sentiment-ex/exclusive-internal-chinese-report-warns-beijing-faces-tiananmen-like-global-backlash-over-virus-idUSKBN22G19C

“An internal Chinese report warns that Beijing faces a rising wave of hostility in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak that could tip relations with the United States into confrontation, people familiar with the paper told Reuters. The report, presented early last month by the Ministry of State Security to top Beijing leaders including President Xi Jinping, concluded that global anti-China sentiment is at its highest since the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, the sources said. As a result, Beijing faces a wave of anti-China sentiment led by the United States in the aftermath of the pandemic and needs to be prepared in a worst-case scenario for armed confrontation between the two global powers, according to people familiar with the report’s content, who declined to be identified given the sensitivity of the matter. The report was drawn up by the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR), a think tank affiliated with the Ministry of State Security, China’s top intelligence body. Reuters has not seen the briefing paper, but it was described by people who had direct knowledge of its findings. “I don’t have relevant information,” the Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson’s office said in a statement responding to questions from Reuters on the report.

     My son was looking at the use of the statistical measure called meta-analysis, which is a statistical technique which analyses data from different studies, either identifying some measure common to studies, or showing why variation exists. There are a whole lot of formulas to learn and apply, although computers do most of the heavy lifting nowadays, which is just as well, given how challenged social scientists are mathematically. What struck me, was the fundamental philosophical point, that in almost every field, say perception, the theory of consciousness, and even mundane things like diet, statistically significant sturdies are in logical contradiction. So, the idea is to use statistical measures to synthesise data across all of the studies. Forget about the formulae, which tend to mind-numb things. In any areas, the studies are all mutually contradictory. How can a synthesise across them be possible, and if it is, why trust the meta-analysis because isn’t it a question of garbage in, garbage out? Thus, I suppose that a number of IQ studies could be subjected to a meta-analysis, but that rides over the very issue of the conceptual tenability of the tests in the first place, something the early fathers of psychometric, such as Spearman, pondered deeply:
  https://www.nature.com/articles/116436a0.pdf

     I have a really bad feeling about this whole field, and when I get time I hope that I can smash it, not that academics care what a high school teacher thinks, we being sub-standard, and proud of it. Long live cranks, highly useful devices.

     Today’s lesson is the rise and rise of technocracy, control of the world by wizards and witches wielding technical knowledge. Here is a story about one technocrat who helped get the present lockdowns going, complete with flawed modelling:
  https://www.technocracy.news/imperial-college-prof-accused-of-patchy-record-of-modeling-pandemics/

“Experts have cast doubt on the work of a key scientist whose apocalyptic prediction that coronavirus could kill 500,000 Britons led Boris Johnson to decide he had to lock down the country. Professor Neil Ferguson, director of the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis at Imperial College, London, authored a report which forecast that terrible death toll if nothing was done to stop the spread of the disease. Even plans to slow the virus – letting around two-thirds of the population catch coronavirus to build up ‘herd immunity’ – would result in 250,000 deaths, according to Imperial’s mathematical model. Prof Ferguson’s devastating conclusion led the Prime Minister to perform a drastic U-turn a fortnight ago. Schools were closed and people told to stay at home. Last week, Prof Ferguson told MPs these measures could see the eventual death toll cut to ‘substantially less’ than 20,000. Meanwhile a paper by separate colleagues at Imperial predicted just 5,700 deaths if the lockdown continues. Now a rival academic has claimed Prof Ferguson has a patchy record of modelling epidemics, which could have led to hasty Ministerial decisions. Professor Michael Thrusfield of Edinburgh University said Prof Ferguson was previously instrumental in modelling that led to the cull of more than 6 million animals during the foot and mouth outbreak in 2001, which left rural Britain economically devastated. Then, Prof Ferguson and his Imperial colleagues concluded: ‘Extensive culling is sadly the only option for controlling the current British epidemic.’ But Prof Thrusfield, an expert in animal diseases, claimed the model made incorrect assumptions about how foot and mouth disease was transmitted and, in a 2006 review, he claimed Imperial’s foot and mouth model was ‘not fit for purpose’, while in 2011 he said it was ‘severely flawed’.’

     The good Dr Mercola, who gives us footnoted articles every day, has now been hit with the false news smear, because of the claim that Covid-19 could be an escaped bioweapon. And, he fights back with more telling information:
  https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2020/04/28/newsguard-fake-news.aspx?cid_source=dnl&cid_medium=email&cid_content=art1HL&cid=20200428Z1&et_cid=DM521274&et_rid=860357430

“Sure, as detailed in my April 26, 2020, interview with bioweapons expert Francis Boyle, who drafted the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, SARS-CoV-2 started out with a bat coronavirus, but scientific evidence has revealed much more about this virus, none of which NewsGuard is bothering to take into account before classifying and censoring reports as “misinformation.” Importantly, there’s compelling scientific evidence published in many prominent scientific journals showing this virus was indeed created in a lab and not zoonotically transmitted (transmitted naturally from animal to human). As explained by Boyle, SARS-CoV-2 appears to be a bat coronavirus that was modified to integrate spike proteins that allow the virus to enter human cells by attaching to ACE-2 receptors. It’s also been modified to integrate an envelope protein from HIV called GP141, which tends to impair the immune system. Additionally, Boyle strongly suspects nanotechnology was used in its creation as well, as its exceptional ability to stay airborne for long periods of time is a nanotech hallmark. NewsGuard’s arbitrary dismissal of my February 4 article as fake news is equally inappropriate even if the virus is “all natural” and zoonotically transmitted. As reported by The Daily Mail, April 11, 2020: “The laboratory at the center of scrutiny over the pandemic has been carrying out research on bats from the cave which scientists believe is the original source of the devastating outbreak. Documents obtained by The Mail on Sunday show the Wuhan Institute of Virology undertook coronavirus experiments on mammals captured more than 1,000 miles away in Yunnan — funded by a $3.7 million grant from the US government. Sequencing of the Covid-19 genome has traced it to bats found in Yunnan's caves.”

     My kid was assigned a project about Covid-19. I said, well why not start by having a look at what the military is thinking, since they usually have to get things right. Oh, but what would the old man know?
  https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-29/military-leaders-warn-australia-prepare-for-worse-coronavirus/12193228

“As Australia was swept by panic buying and medical shortages this year, the scenes were eerily familiar for one of the country's most senior military planners.
Key points:

     This should be of great significance in the future, for wars have started with less. Trump is wanting China to pay for the Wuflu, as it should:
  https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/trump-says-covid-reparations-coming-us-will-bill-china-over-160-billion-damages

“At a moment total US COVID-19 cases fast approaches one million, President Trump has again lashed out at China but this time with a very specific threat to bill the county of the devastating coronvirus' origin more that $160 billion for the 'substantial' amount for damages caused by the pandemic. Trump made the comments from the Rose Garden at the White House Monday after he was pressed by a reporter over a German newspaper report suggesting that China should be issued a $160 billion invoice for the impact on Europe's economy. The president responded he had a "much easier" idea: "We have ways of doing things a lot easier than that," Trump told the coronavirus press briefing. "Germany’s looking at things, and we’re looking at things, and we’re talking about a lot more money than Germany’s talking about." "We haven’t determined the final amount yet. It’s very substantial," Trump added, suggesting it would be significantly more than the $160 billion floated in German media. He argued that amid other failings, ultimately Beijing could have stopped the deadly disease at the source when it was first identified in Wuhan in December, though was present in November. Hinting at sanctions despite also touting a positive relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Trump told the briefing further, "There are a lot of ways you can hold them accountable." "We’re doing very serious investigations, as you probably know. And we are not happy with China. We are not happy with that whole situation," he said. "Because we believe it could have been stopped at the source. It could have been stopped quickly, and it wouldn’t have spread all over the world." Meanwhile The Daily Mail reports of the original German newspaper report which triggered the exchange as follows: Last week German paper Bild calculated an 'invoice' of nearly €150billion (around $162billion) in economic damage to Germany because of the crisis. The idea of charging reparations to China is not endorsed by the German government, with Minister of Foreign Affairs Heiko Mass describing the concept as 'illusory'.”

     This is very interesting for all conspiratorial types, namely that there are a secret group who whisper in Trump’s shell-lie ear. Do they hear the sea, or just nothing at all?
  https://www.zerohedge.com/health/secret-covid-19-manhattan-project-led-billionaires-seeks-gain-trump-admins-ear
  https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-secret-group-of-scientists-and-billionaires-pushing-trump-on-a-covid-19-plan-11587998993?mod=hp_lead_pos5

“Last month Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey called for the bold and urgent launch of what he called "a Manhattan Project-type approach" to fight the coronavirus pandemic given the enormity of the health and economic impact, increasingly even harming US defense readiness. Apparently there has been such a group operating behind the scenes, but very unlike the original Manhattan Project it's a private sector initiative, funded by a tiny network of ultra-rich industry titans working closely with government contacts. Meet "the secret group of scientists and billionaires pushing Trump on a Covid-19 plan" profiled in a lengthy Wall Street Journal investigation Monday: These scientists and their backers describe their work as a lockdown-era Manhattan Project, a nod to the World War II group of scientists who helped develop the atomic bomb. This time around, the scientists are marshaling brains and money to distill unorthodox ideas gleaned from around the globe. They call themselves Scientists to Stop Covid-19, and they include chemical biologists, an immunobiologist, a neurobiologist, a chronobiologist, an oncologist, a gastroenterologist, an epidemiologist and a nuclear scientist. Of the scientists at the center of the project, biologist Michael Rosbash, a 2017 Nobel Prize winner, said, “There’s no question that I’m the least qualified.”

     A new class elite compares Captain Cook to Covid-19. Wow, that is the standard line pushed at out tax payers funded universities, isn’t it?
  https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/victorias-deputy-chief-health-officer-annaliese-van-diemen-compares-captain-james-cook-to-covid19/news-story/bb591bb1b481503d0fb052248b071e53

“The Andrews government is standing by deputy Chief Health Officer Annaliese van Diemen, amid calls for her resignation after she likened Captain Cook to COVID-19. Victorian Health Minister Jenny Mikakos said Dr van Diemen was doing an “outstanding job” protecting Victorians from the coronavirus pandemic. “Criticism from angry MPs is irrelevant to the fight against this virus,” Ms Mikakos tweeted.

     Unlike the carefully researched and ever-balanced coverage of our science-minded Brian Simpson, I am the boots and all Alex Jones type of raving conspiracy type. Well, we need balance. I believe that many of the shootings in the US, and those that we are permitted to talk about, without punishment, were false flags. And, the corona virus, well that is just a pussy cat. And, if it is not, then it is still a conspiracy, involving the pre-established harmony of balancing every government in the world, including Iran and Saudi Arabia, somehow getting them to call time out from the usual fighting, and all health care workers … look this guy has done my work for me, in stating the incredible logical implications of my world view, better than me:

“Oil rich countries wanted a barrel of oil to cost less than a New York pizza. The wealthy wanted trillions of dollars to be wiped out in financial markets. The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom faked his brush with death.
Politicians have conspired to destroy the middle class for they can run for reelection on a platform of mass death, economic collapse and the loss of individual freedom. The state governors who imposed lockdowns to create a permanent police state are already reopening their states for business less than a month later. Life is returning to normal in Wuhan where even the Chinese Communist Party isn’t enforcing a permanent lockdown. Globalists secretly wanted the airlines to go bankrupt for they could be grounded for a change. They wanted international travel to grind to a halt. They wanted the European Union and Canada to close their borders. They wanted to shutdown immigration in the United States. Globalists secretly wanted to get rid of our consumer society and to discredit globalization after decades of neoliberalism. The Deep State secretly wanted over a million Americans to be infected by the coronavirus for American leadership could be discredited on the global stage as the president of the United States recommends injecting disinfectant to the treat the virus in front of the world. China which was making a fortune off globalization wanted to bring its decades long streak of economic growth to a halt in the middle of a public relations catastrophe. SARS-CoV-2 is a bioweapon which escaped from the lab in Wuhan but fortunately it is just the flu so it really isn’t that bad. The WHO is conspiring with Bill Gates by rejecting immunity passports. The WHO is covering up the fact that the virus is “just the flu.” It failed to notify the world early enough that we were due for a normal flu season. The real threat isn’t the virus that has killed 59,000 Americans. It is a nonexistent vaccine for it. 5G is causing all the deaths from the coronavirus which is why South Korea has been devastated by 246 coronavirus deaths.”

     Whenever Trump does anything vaguely nationalist, his son-in-law, Jared Kushner whispers in his ear, and the plan collapses. So, who is this guy, who is the real president of the United States? I found the following comments in a mainstream media piece instructive, because it points the finger at Jared, not Trump, as being a political nihilist:
  https://archive.fo/vk3Cv#selection-853.0-885.298

“The purest embodiment of political nihilism is not Trump himself but his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner. In his short lifetime, Kushner has been fraudulently promoted as both a meritocrat and a populist. He was born into a moneyed real-estate family the month Ronald Reagan entered the Oval Office, in 1981—a princeling of the second Gilded Age. Despite Jared’s mediocre academic record, he was admitted to Harvard after his father, Charles, pledged a $2.5 million donation to the university. Father helped son with $10 million in loans for a start in the family business, then Jared continued his elite education at the law and business schools of NYU, where his father had contributed $3 million. Jared repaid his father’s support with fierce loyalty when Charles was sentenced to two years in federal prison in 2005 for trying to resolve a family legal quarrel by entrapping his sister’s husband with a prostitute and videotaping the encounter. Jared Kushner failed as a skyscraper owner and a newspaper publisher, but he always found someone to rescue him, and his self-confidence only grew. In American Oligarchs, Andrea Bernstein describes how he adopted the outlook of a risk-taking entrepreneur, a “disruptor” of the new economy. Under the influence of his mentor Rupert Murdoch, he found ways to fuse his financial, political, and journalistic pursuits. He made conflicts of interest his business model.