• UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Zero Personal Scandals

    :-|

    Literally a book about them.

    Zero Blackmail Material

    :-/

    Now that they’ve cleaned that shit up.

    Zero Handlers

    :-|

    8-|

    Zero Financial Incentive

    The guy with $50M in his personal fortune and a family net worth of over $400M?

    Shut the fuck up.

    • Wilco@lemmy.zip
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      2 days ago

      Bush was the “cleanest” Republican since Nixon only because he was such a Cheney puppet that Dick Cheney’s wedding ring is still lost up his ass somewhere. Cheney was president during that timeframe.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        I mean, he was double-dealing for the O&G industry right alongside Cheney. He was just the face of the operation while Cheney did all the backroom dealing.

        But the idea that the Bush Family wasn’t flagrantly profiteering? Give me a fucking break. Family members and friends got lucrative jobs in senior administrative positions. Lobbyists got promoted to executive board rooms. Portfolios rapidly outpaced the market growth rates.

        Just ask how Michael Brown, a guy in the boutique thoroughbred horse business, ended up heading FEMA, ffs. Why do you think The Ashcroft Group landed Oracle and AT&T as clients?

      • anomnom@sh.itjust.works
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        19 hours ago

        Especially the financial incentives. Cheney was the former owner of one of the biggest contractors for the war, and they were all tied to the oil industry.

        Anyone remember what the wars did to oil prices?

        • F/15/Cali@threads.net@sh.itjust.works
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          14 hours ago

          The funny part was the massive gas tax that doubled my gas budget, which was later repealed, but gas prices were unaltered by the repeal. And I think that’s happened like 3 times in my life. I still remember thinking a dollar was expensive for gas.

    • Wildmimic@anarchist.nexus
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      2 days ago

      Family of Secrets -> Oil depletion allowance -> Quartz -> Piezoelectricity -> Ultrasound -> Lazzaro Spallanzani -> List of Catholic clergy scientists -> Lorenzo Albacete -> Catholic University of America -> Charles Coughlin

      Thanks for the rabbit hole! I now know more about a whole deal of subjects, starting with a political theme, gliding over taxation of natural resources, physical phenomena, priest scientists, history of how we found out that bats don’t fly by sight, finding out that there were priest scientists in my lifetime, the information that there is an catholic university in the US and landing on the wiki page of a antisemitic radio priest during the time of WW2 that reached around 30 million americans during his prime (funnily enough tying back into the radio grade quartz that is a valid resource for the Oil depletion allowance).

      Edit: I haven’t even looked into your 2nd link yet.

    • dylanmorgan@slrpnk.net
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      2 days ago

      Family of Secrets is such a goddamned mindfuck. That plus Chaos (about the ties between MKULTRA and Charles Manson) made my summer a few years back real freaky.