VSTR

“Maybe it’s because I’m gay, but pettiness is a thing. We’re not going to forget these crimes.” —Rep. Robert Garcia on prosecuting Trump’s administration

Jared Kushner's father paid $25,000 to have a prostitute seduce his sister's husband on a hidden camera. Then he had the sex tape mailed to his sister. His sister had been cooperating with federal investigators looking into his taxes and campaign donations. Charles Kushner, a wealthy New Jersey real estate developer, wanted leverage. According to the FBI complaint, the men he hired couldn't find a woman willing to do it. So Kushner personally recruited a call girl in New York and promised her $7,000 to $10,000. She met the brother-in-law outside a diner and said her car had broken down. The next day, a hidden camera in her motel room recorded them having sex. Kushner watched the tape in a conference room at his office and "expressed satisfaction," the complaint says. He asked for copies with her face pixelled out, and still photos. He tried the same thing on another witness, a former employee, and advanced $10,000 to $12,000 for it. That man turned the woman down twice. In May 2004 he ordered the tape mailed to his sister and to her children, timed to arrive right before a family party. The investigator he hired talked him out of sending it to the kids. His sister opened the envelope and gave it to federal agents. In the video below, Chris Christie, the US attorney who prosecuted him, says it was her son's engagement party, one Kushner was going to attend. He calls him "the most disgusting defendant" he prosecuted in his seven years there. Kushner pleaded guilty and got 2 years. In 2020, Trump pardoned him. In 2025, the Senate confirmed him as US ambassador to France, 51-45. At his hearing he said: "I made a very, very, very serious mistake." And: "There's only one accountant I trust that I believe in, and it's God." Should a man who did this to his own sister represent America in Paris, or did 2 years in prison settle it?

Chamath Palihapitiya admits his blind spot on America's broken two-tier economy PALIHAPITIYA: "I got it totally totally totally wrong. I got it totally wong." "I'll go through all the ways in which I got it wrong, but I just want to first acknowledge what my blind spot is. Like most people's blind spots, but I can just speak for myself, it is through the lens of my own lived experience and very narrowly what is in my best interests. And I think what we had was a move away from the culture wars that was very much in my best interest, but I think it was in everybody else's best interests as well. I don't think that was on the ballot. But what I don't think I understood clearly enough, and I think that this election has made extremely clear, is that since COVID, we have moved past political ideology. And I want to say this again: I do not think Democrats or Republicans matter. That is my real takeaway after this election. There is a central block of people that vote the prescient issues of our time." "It was a gargantuan win for Biden, then it was a gargantuan win for Trump, and then it was a gargantuan win for the Democrats in these midterms. What are these people voting for? I think what they are shouting now—they were trying to signal and now they are shouting—is a broad-based belief that the economy has completely decoupled from reality and is broken. The economic reality in America is broken." "There is a small percentage of people, the four of us on this pod and all of our friends, who are the asset owners of America. And we have benefited in every weather condition. When rates were zero, we benefited because we were able to build our businesses with very cheap capital. When rates were high, we benefited because we had pricing power. And in every condition in between, whether there were tariffs, whether there were not tariffs, whether there were subsidies, whether there were not subsidies, we've all managed to continue to accumulate and grow assets, but we are few and far between." "And then there's everybody else who are wage earners, and the structural capacity of the American economy to support and grow wage earners is broken. It's clear. Why do I say that? I do not think, and I disagree with Freeberg, I don't think this has anything to do with socialism. I don't think the far left won particularly more than they were expected. I don't think the far right won particularly more than was expected. This is a complete and total repudiation about the state of the economy. The economy is broken. I have a few charts to support my point of view. Number one, if this was ideological and if ideology mattered, money in politics would have had a more direct impact on the election."