Top Booker advisor's firm guides Turkish authoritarian

Yes, and a top Menendez advisor and a top Christie advisor too.  What are the people who guide the political lives of the state's top elected officials doing in a firm that works for an Islamist strongman like President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey?

Once upon a time, there were campaign managers who came up through the ranks alongside the politicians whose careers they helped to manage.  In Great Britain, they call them election "agents" and this is how they once operated in this country too -- wedded to the ups and downs of a particular political personality, often finding a job in the bureaucracy in between campaigns. 

From these manager/agents came the first campaign consultants.  Regional or statewide at first, but with the centralizing power of the national committees and national money there soon came to be the "national" consultant -- recommended by one of the party committees or put in place by them.  We recall a list, circa 1994, that the NRCC (National Republican Congressional Committee) gave out, with the names of those "recommended" media consultants and pollsters on it. There were about a dozen names in all.

But as more money washed into DC and was funneled into campaigns, that changed.  Consultants proliferated and firms became larger.  Following the money, a few either merged with or morphed into public relations and lobbying (government relations) operations.  Why not?  Corporations paid big for access to politicians and there is nobody politicians love more than the person who got them elected.

It was only a matter of time that things went global.  And that is how three New Jersey political operatives became members of an international firm representing the interests of the Turkish government.  This firm itself is a subsidiary of an even larger international firm that handles the image-making  for Russian President Vladimir Putin, receiving credit for, among other accomplishments, getting Putin's face on the cover of Time magazine -- as the "Person of the Year" for 2007.

The three are Mo Butler, United States Senator Cory Booker's campaign consultant, former chief of staff, and "longtime advisor"; Michael Soliman, United States Senator and former Chairman of the Senate Committee of Foreign Relations Robert Menendez's political advisor and former State Director; and Michael DuHaime, Governor Chris Christie's campaign consultant and someone who has worked on several Republican presidential campaigns.  Two Democrats and a Republican.

Their firm is called Mercury Public Affairs.  Began in 1999 as a decidedly Republican shop with connections to the RNC and politicians like John McCain and Mitt Romney, around 2013 it embarked on a mission to "diversify" -- meaning making the firm "more bipartisan and full-service."  Mike DuHaime joined the firm in 2009, first as a "managing director" but swiftly rising to partner.  Michael Soliman joined Mercury in 2013 and became a partner this year.  Mo Butler joined as a "managing director" earlier this year.  Mercury Public Affairs has 10 partners and 160 employees.  Omnicom purchased Mercury in 2003.

Mercury Public Affairs has 18 offices worldwide -- including London; Mexico City; Washington, DC; New York; and Westfield, New Jersey.  The New Jersey offices (a satellite operates out of Trenton) of Mercury are the haunt of Messrs. DuHaime, Soliman, Butler, and other connected operatives like "seasoned lobbyist" Connor  Fennessy, newspaperman Darryl Isherwood (former top political reporter for the Star-Ledger and editor of PolitickerNJ), and "Christie campaign vet" Mark Mowers.  Mowers, who testified before the Legislature's BridgeGate inquiry, has recently joined the Trump campaign.

In January 2015, Michael Soliman registered with the United States Justice Department, pursuant to the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938, as a person representing the Embassy of the State of Qatar.  You must have read about Qatar in the news...Amnesty International has accused Qatar of being complicit in human trafficking and modern-day slavery.  Yes, slavery.  In fact, in March of this year, the United Nations gave Qatar one year "to end migrant worker slavery" or face an international investigation. 

Qatar is just one of freedom's garden spots represented by Mercury.  Remember the controversy in Uganda, when the President of that country decided that homosexuality was a crime that should be punishable by death?  Well, the law he wanted passed was "moderated" in December 2013, substituting life imprisonment for the death penalty.   In 2015, Mercury was brought on to provide public relations, lobbying, and media monitoring services with regards to the Office of the President and the Ugandan government in general on subjects beginning with "human rights" and ending with "good governance."  For which the contract calls for Mercury to be compensated at the rate of $50,000 per month, with $150,000 up front.

Mercury also represents individuals.  Folks like Khalid bin Saqr Al Qasimi, who in 2003 led an anti-American demonstration in which he personally burned an American flag.  For its work, Mercury pocketed a $30,000 monthly retainer, plus expenses.

In January 2016, Mercury Public Affairs partner Morris Reid negotiated a contract with Amsterdam & Partners, an international law firm with offices in London and Washington, DC.  The document is marked "confidential and privileged" but is public information under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.  In August of last year, Amsterdam & Partners signed a contract with the Turkish Ambassador to the United States to provide legal services related to a "matter of importance" to the embassy.  The government of Turkey pays Amsterdam a retainer of $50,000 a month.

While the contract stipulates that the greatest security and confidentiality be observed, under the terms of the contract between Amsterdam and Turkey, third parties may be hired "as the Firm and the Client agree in writing are necessary to further the Engagement."  And so, in March of 2016, Amsterdam hired Mercury to perform work on behalf of the Turkish government for $20,000 a month -- above and beyond what was being paid to Amsterdam by Turkey.  It is in the contract between Amsterdam & Partners and Mercury Public Affairs that we learn what all this cloak and dagger is in aid of:

The Amsterdam-Mercury contract references an "investigation into Fethullah Gulen and his organization in the United States."  So who is Fethullah Gulen?

Gulen has been in the news since the attempted coup in Turkey last week.  Gulen is a religious leader from Turkey, and a one-time political ally of Recep Tayyip Erdogan.  Erdogan is the increasingly authoritarian and Islamist President of Turkey.  He has been repeatedly in the news for purging the judiciary, jailing journalists who write unflattering reports, and successfully intimidating the opposition.  Erdogan had a law passed to allow the government to ban websites and he has promised to "rip out the roots" of Twitter.  He has even attempted to censor speech in other nations, last year demanding that Germany prosecute a poet who had written some verse critical of Erdogan.

Erdogan and Gulen had a falling out over allegations of political corruption by Erdogan in 2013.  Gulen's books were banned.  First, he was indicted on charges that a Turkish judge threw out, but then was indicted a few months later for treasonable offenses that carried the death penalty.  Gulen fled Turkey, came to the United States, and was convicted in absentia.  According to Wikipedia, Gulen was one of the first Muslim leaders to condemn the attacks on September 11, 2001, writing a "condemnation article" in the Washington Post, the next day.  He wrote:  "A Muslim cannot be a terrorist, nor can a terrorist be a true Muslim."

Gülen teaches a Hanafi version of Islam, deriving from Sunni Muslim scholar Said Nursi's teachings. Gülen has stated that he believes in science, interfaith dialogue among the People of the Book, and multi-party democracy.  He has initiated such dialogue with the Vatican and some Jewish organizations.

Gülen is actively involved in the societal debate concerning the future of the Turkish state, and Islam in the modern world. He has been described in the English-language media as an imam "who promotes a tolerant Islam which emphasises altruism, hard work and education" and as "one of the world's most important Muslim figures."

The government of Turkish President Erdogan has attempted to extradite Gulen back to Turkey to face punishment, but the government of the United States hasn't cooperated.  In the hours after the coup attempt, Erdogan was quick to blame Gulen, while Gulen put forward the theory that Erdogan had staged the coup himself in order to consolidate power.

The Associated Press identified Amsterdam & Partners (the firm Mercury is working for) as "lawyer(s) for the Turkish government" and quoted Robert Amsterdam:  "There are indications of direct involvement (in the coup attempt) by Fethullah Gulen."  Amsterdam added that he and his firm "have attempted repeatedly to warn the U.S. government of the threat posed (by Gulen)."  Amsterdam said that "according to Turkish intelligence sources, there are signs that Gulen is working closely with certain members of military leadership against the elected civilian government."

Why does Mercury want to be a part of extraditing a moderate cleric to satisfy the rage of an Islamist dictator?  The close relationships with powerful figures in American politics that many of Mercury's partners and employees enjoy is a matter for deep concern. Given who their clients are and the relationship they have with them, shouldn't a client like Turkey's Erdogan be out-of-bounds?

Wouldn't it be better if American political consultants stuck with helping to elect the best candidates to serve the American people?  With all this money from foreign powers floating around, at what point does a political advisor to a United States Senator and prospective candidate for Vice President, a Governor with national aspirations,  or the Ranking Democrat on the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, find himself in an existential conflict of interest?

Stuart Stevens is what's wrong with politics

Stuart Stevens has grown very fat off the system.  Year after year, campaign upon campaign, he's gotten rich off the Republican Party as one of the most inside of insider political consultants to the Washington, DC party bosses.  Stuart always gets his cut of whatever is going down.

Usually everything goes his way.  Some tame, docile, member of the GOP political establishment get's nominated and Stuart makes a bundle.  The candidate loses of course -- but the grease machine of corporate cronyism, lobbyists, wads of money, and consultants like Stuart, it keeps going on and on.  Winning and losing matters less than it did because not only does Stuart have corporate clients who are fully participating members of the grease machine, but he has foreign clients too.

Stuart Stevens ran Republican Mitt Romney's lackluster campaign for President four years ago.  Romney spent a lot of money but lost to a bigger insider, President Barack Obama.  This year finds Stuart upset because he doesn't have a seat at the table and isn't getting his cut.  The candidacies of anti-establishment outsiders like Donald Trump and Ted Cruz have completely undone Stuart, who is now threatening to help the campaign of Democrat Hillary Clinton by getting Republicans to vote for a throw-away third-party candidate.

Stuart Stevens is having a hissy fit because the citizens are refusing to do as they are told.  Democracy doesn't matter to Stuart, getting paid matters, and Stuart is willing to take a dump in the picnic basket if he doesn't get his own way.  More than a few establishment Republicans are applauding Stuart, not thinking about what would happen if we all adopted this attitude. Think of all the unmitigated bear shat you serve up as candidates and think of all the times we have dutifully supported them "for the good of the party"  -- and you don't even pay us like you do Stuart.

Stuart Stevens claims that he's betraying his party because he doesn't agree with what someone like Donald Trump "stands for," that he doesn't like Trump's "tone."  It's rather amusing, coming from someone who has worked for the political operations of foreign thugs.  One such thug, the former President of Albania, actually had his "special forces" shoot protesters at a rally.

That's right, some political consulting businesses are no longer American enterprises but instead work for the interests of foreign potentates wherever there is lots of money to be made. Take Stuart Stevens' client Sali Berisha, the former President of Albania.  This guy is a real piece of work, as Wikipedia reports:

Sali Berisha was elected President on 9 April 1992... Berisha introduced Islam to the Albanian political scene, pursued re-Islamisation of the country to reverse decades of anti-religious policy under Communism. Non-Governmental Organisations from Saudi Arabia and other parts of the Muslim world were invited in to build mosques and schools and provide other aid, and introduce Wahhabi or Salafi Islam to Albania.

...The collapse of the Ponzi schemes towards the end of 1996, into which it is alleged that Albanians invested $1 billion worth of life savings from 1994, recapped the crisis. The schemes failed, one by one, from December 1996, and demonstrators took to the streets accusing the government of having stolen the money. Those demonstrations were then taken over by the opposition.

During the first ten days of March, the situation deteriorated, culminating in the desertion of large numbers of police and military, leaving their arsenals unlocked. These were promptly looted, mostly by militias and some criminal gangs, and for a time it looked like civil war would erupt between the government and rebels. Although the Prime Minister resigned immediately, Berisha refused opposition demands to step down, claiming he had to ensure continuity, and UN and European Multinational Forces were required to step in and take the situation under control. After their intervention in Albania, early elections were held in June 1997, leading to the victory of a socialist-led coalition of parties. On 24 July 1997, a month after the DP lost the 1997 elections to the left coalition, Berisha stepped down as President...

On 3 July 2005, Sali Berisha was able to lead a coalition of five right center parties into the 2005 parliamentary elections, which eventually won a majority of 74 MPs from a total of 140. He was appointed Prime Minister of Albania on 8 September 2005...

The 2009 elections were flawed and have been called as such by the socialist opposition, who have asked for a recount of the ballots. Berisha refused any recount of the votes... The political crisis between government and opposition worsened over time, with the Socialists abandoning parliamentary debates for months and staging hunger strikes to ask for internal and international support. The EU attempted a conciliation, which failed. The ongoing political crisis was one of the reasons for the EU's refusal to grant Albania official candidate status in late 2010.

On 21 January 2011, clashes broke out between police and protesters in an anti-government rally in front of the Government building in Tirana. Four people were shot dead from government special forces. The EU issued a statement to Albanian politicians, warning both sides to refrain from violence, while Berisha defined the protests and the subsequent charges by judges upon policemen as stages of an attempted coup against him - consequently using this to his advantage to further attempt to consolidate his grip on the state institutions. He accused the then President of having been part of the coup after the relations had soured between the two and he embraced his perceived victim status to install his own 'yes man' in the office.

...After his party's defeat in the 2013 parliamentary election, Berisha resigned as party leader, but he remained in parliament.

Another foreign politician who Stuart Stevens worked for is Joseph Kabila, the President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo since January 2001.  He became President after his father, the dictator Laurent Kabila, was assassinated by his bodyguards.  The Kabila family has a long association with such memorable figures as Che Guevara, who worked with the elder Kabila in a 1965 coup attempt.  As a youth leader for Patrice Lumumba, the elder Kabila was present for the orgy of rape and murder that followed.

The younger Kabila (Stuart's client) received his military training in China at the Peoples Liberation Army National Defense University, in Beijing.  He became the commander of the "infamous" army of children -- taken from their families and conscripted -- known as the kadogos.  Up to 10,000 children, some as young as seven years old, were abused in this way.     The International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague has condemned the use of children in combat, calling it a violation of human rights as well as a war crime.

One of Kabila's first acts as president was to round up 135 people -- including 4 children -- and try them for the assassination of his father.  Dozens were executed and others faced torture and abuse.  President Kabila stood for election in December 2011.  We'll let Wikipedia take it from here: 

After the results were announced on 9 December, there was violent unrest in Kinshasa and Mbuji-Mayi, where official tallies showed that a strong majority had voted for the opposition candidate Etienne Tshisekedi.  Official observers from the Carter Center reported that returns from almost 2,000 polling stations in areas where support for Tshisekedi was strong had been lost and not included in the official results. They described the election as lacking credibility.  On 20 December, Kabila was sworn in for a second term, promising to invest in infrastructure and public services. However, Tshisekedi maintained that the result of the election was illegitimate and said that he intended also to "swear himself in" as president.

In January 2012, Catholic Bishops in DR Congo also condemned the elections, complaining of "treachery, lies and terror", and calling on the election commission to correct "serious errors".

On 19 January 2015 protests led by students at the University of Kinshasa broke out. The protests began following the announcement of a proposed law that would allow Kabila to remain in power until a national census can be conducted (elections had been planned for 2016).  By Wednesday 21 January clashes between police and protesters had claimed at least 42 lives (although the government claimed only 15 people had been killed). 

How after working for these monsters, after pocketing their bloody money, how does Stuart Stevens call a Republican like Donald Trump a "thug"?  It's a little ridiculous, isn't it?

A must read for the NJGOP

The story is titled, "Inside Jeb Bush's $150 Million Failure".

The story appeared in Politico, as the once invincible Bush candidacy went up in smoke.

Jeb Bush, the Republican establishment’s last, best hope, began his 2016 campaign rationally enough, with a painstakingly collated operational blueprint his team called, with NFL swagger, “The Playbook.”

On page after page kept safe in a binder, the playbook laid out a strategy for a race his advisers were certain would be played on Bush’s terms — an updated, if familiar version of previous Bush family campaigns where cash, organization and a Republican electorate ultimately committed to an electable center-right candidate would prevail.

The playbook, hatched by Sally Bradshaw, Mike Murphy and a handful of other Bush confidants in dozens of meetings during the first half of 2015 and described to POLITICO by some of Bush’s closest and most influential supporters, appealed to the Bush family penchant for shock-and-awe strategy. The campaign would commence with six months of fundraising for the Right to Rise super PAC and enough muscle to push aside Mitt Romney. There would be a massive, broad-based organizational effort to plant roots in March states at a time when other campaigns were mired in Iowa and New Hampshire. The plan outlined Bush’s positive, future-focused message with an emphasis on his decade-old record of accomplishment as Florida governor.

Interviews with more than two dozen Bush insiders, donors and staff members illuminate the plight of an earnest and smart candidate who was tragicomically mismatched to the electorate of his own party...

The entire premise of Bush’s candidacy, these insiders tell POLITICO, was an epic misread of a GOP base...

Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/02/jeb-bush-dropping-out-set-up-to-fail-213662#ixzz40yDgcwdu

Remember these phrases, because they not only apply to the Bush candidacy in 2016 -- but also to the NJGOP's tragic loss of four incumbent legislators last year.  This is who you are too:

Earnest and smart candidates who are mismatched to the electorate of their own party.

An epic misread of the GOP base.

The Republican electorate has watched their economic security and cultural values destroyed while they have been lied to and pissed on by the leaders of their own party.  You can spend all you want on masterful media but people know in their guts that their party has screwed them.

The anger is live.  The indictment of the party and its leadership are their statements, their votes, their sources of funding -- which stand in black and white just waiting to have light cast upon them. 

Wake up.  Open your eyes.  Pay attention.  It is not too late but it will be soon.

Gun-shy NJGOP candidates: Pay Attention!

Are the gun-shy candidates of the NJGOP paying attention to any of this?  As they continue to present themselves as versions of Democrat-lite, are they seeing what's happening in their own party?  Is it sinking in or are they going to wake up one day and it will be too late?

Your excuses for why you do what you do don't work anymore.  Fewer and fewer buy it.  Here is a great article from mainstream conservative Byron York, who looks ready to face the new reality:

SPARTANBURG, S.C. — For months, Donald Trump's antagonists in rival campaigns, in the GOP establishment and in the punditocracy have believed the time would come, someday, when Trump would say something so outrageous, so over-the-top, so out there that the scales would finally fall from his supporters' eyes and the Trump candidacy would collapse. The South Carolina campaign, some believed, would be that time. After all, in the course of a week, Trump had dumped all over popular former President George W. Bush, had said good things about Planned Parenthood, and had gotten into a weird tiff with the pope. Surely now…

But no. Despite it all, Trump surged to a ten-point victory here in South Carolina Saturday. And talks with Trump voters who came to the Spartanburg Marriott to celebrate suggest that the very statements that drive Trump's critics to distraction actually serve to strengthen his position with his supporters.

At the Marriott, I asked Trump voters the most basic question: Why did you pick Trump over the other guys?

"The big reason is honesty," said Lori Jagla, of Woodward, S.C. "The more I hear everyone else going, 'Isn't he going too far?' the more [I think], 'No, you just wait, you get into America, and it's not too far. It's what we're thinking.'"

"Because he's honest," said Nicki Cox, of Greer.

"Doesn't mince words," said Angela Griffin, of Spartanburg.

"I don't even care what his views are, I just care that there's a better chance that he's going to do what he says than the other guys," said Robert Daughenbaugh, of Mauldin. "I mean, you know they're all liars. End of story. They're all liars."

It's not that Trump's supporters agree with everything he has to say. They don't. It's that they see strong statements from Trump as proof of strong conviction on his part, and when he says something that causes his critics to go nuts, they see that as proof that Trump is saying not just something that needs to be said but something that he himself believes. So they view him more strongly than ever as an honest man who tells it like it is.

Trump didn't win across the board, but it was close. According to exit polls, he won men and women. He won voters who are evangelical Christians and those who are not. He won veterans and non-veterans. He cleaned up among the 46 percent of voters who do not have a college degree and nearly tied Marco Rubio, 25 percent to Rubio's 27 percent, among those who do. He won among voters who think terrorism is the top issue, and among voters who think the economy is the top issue, and among voters who think immigration is the top issue, and tied Rubio and Ted Cruz among voters who say government spending is the top issue.

In at least one area, Trump invented an issue and then dominated it. The exit polls show that 74 percent of South Carolina Republican voters support a policy of temporarily banning Muslims from entering the U.S. Trump won big among that group.

Trump also won against the opposition of pretty much the entire South Carolina political establishment. In the last couple of days of the campaign, popular Gov. Nikki Haley and popular Sen. Tim Scott and popular Rep. Trey Gowdy traveled the state together with Rubio, presenting themselves as a "new conservative movement" (Haley's words) that would sweep Rubio to victory. Gowdy and Scott developed a buddy comedy routine, and Scott at times seemed almost giddy introducing "Marco Rooooooooooooooobio!"

It didn't work. Just 25 percent of voters said they thought Haley's endorsement was important. And of the 75 percent who didn't, Trump won by a dozen points. Finally, another pillar of the state political establishment, Sen. Lindsey Graham, endorsed Jeb Bush. When the televisions at the Trump victory party mentioned Graham's name, there was loud and lusty booing. It was much louder than any catcalls directed at Bush's withdrawal speech.

The crowd at the Marriott Saturday night was deeply anti-establishment, but their hostility to entrenched power was of recent vintage. Many had supported mainstream Republican candidates for years and felt they had nothing to show for it. Trump is their opportunity to change course.

"I went into a couple of weeks' depression when Mitt Romney lost," said Doug Moore, of Greenville. "I'm just tired of the politicians. I'm tired of the establishment. I voted establishment for most of my life. I voted for both Bushes, I voted for Bob Dole, John McCain, Romney. I'm just ready for something different, somebody who'll actually get in there and make a change."

(Read More) http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/article/2583794

Note:  Trump creates issues and then dominates them.  He doesn't allow the mainstream media or the Democrats or the Legions of Ass or any other lobby group, to set the agenda.  He inverts the process by listening close, figuring out why people are pissed, where the emotion is, and then turning what is on their minds into a policy statement.  He doesn't get his policies from insider lobbyists at cocktail parties hosted by the coffee-enema crowd.  Learn from this.