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seafan

(9,387 posts) Wed Jul 1, 2015, 05:29 PM Jul 2015

2007: South Korean metal/munitions company lands US Gov contract after Jeb Bush's visit (Media??)

Today's Financial Times has some very pertinent information that needs more investigation by the media in vetting Jeb Bush's dealings that must be scrutinized, in the pursuit of his White House conquest. (subscription required)

July 1, 2015

Jeb Bush, the former Republican Florida governor running for president, has tapped into his family’s fundraising network by making 10 paid speeches to a South Korean metal and munitions producer that has supported his father.

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Since returning to private life, Mr Bush .....has spoken 10 times to Poongsan, a South Korean company that supplies blank coins to the US mint and manufactures controversial cluster bombs.

Poongsan has come under scrutiny in the past over revelations that it and its Korean chief executive donated $500,000 to a university institute named after Tom Harkin, an Iowa senator who was pushing to replace the dollar bill with a coin that would have benefited the Korean company.

US business groups have criticised the move by the US mint to buy metal from Poongsan — which describes itself as the world’s largest producer of blank coins — instead of from US companies, alleging that it receives state-backed loans. It supplies the mint through PMX Industries, an Iowa-based subsidiary.

Poongsan has a long history with the Bush clan. Ryu Jin, its chief executive, sits on the board of trustees of the presidential library of George HW Bush, Jeb’s father. Mr Ryu helped raise $1m from Korean companies for the library. Barbara Bush, Jeb’s mother, reportedly attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony when PMX opened its plant in Iowa in 1992. PMX was unavailable for comment.

Mr Bush’s last speech for Poongsan was in 2013 when he addressed students at the company’s private high school. Previous appearances included a 2012 speech to 100 employees at its Seoul headquarters, when he discussed the US economy and the presidential election, and a 2007 address on race for a foundation headed by Mr Ryu. Both former Bush presidents have visited South Korea since leaving the White House at the invitation of Mr Ryu.

Shortly after Mr Bush first spoke to Poongsan in 2007 — while his brother George W Bush was president — PMX won a contract to supply the US mint. Kristy Campbell, spokeswoman for the campaign, said there was no connection between those events. “Governor Bush had zero involvement in any government contract received by this company and did not advocate in any way for it,” she said. “His speech was completely unrelated to this issue.”

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Sure he didn't Ms. Campbell.

From May 24, 2012:

Jeb Bush to arrive today on three-day visit to Taiwan

Here is the direct link to this most interesting information:

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – President Ma Ying-jeou told former Florida Governor Jeb Bush Thursday that he hoped the United States could help upgrade its more than 140 F-16 fighter jets.

Taiwan has been torn between either upgrading its F-16A/B jets or buying 66 of the more sophisticated F-16C/D aircraft.

The former governor’s father, President George H. W. Bush, approved the sale of 150 fighter jets in 1992, but because of China’s rapid military modernization, Taiwan has seen itself forced to go looking for more modern hardware.

One of the factors playing in the eventual decision is whether upgrading the old planes or buying the new ones will be the most cost-effective. Recent reports have suggested that reworking the F-16A/B jets might end up costing more because adding new radar systems will force a thorough redesign. There has also been dissatisfaction with the high price tags presented by the plane’s US suppliers.

Ma told Bush he hoped the upgrade could turn the capacity of the older jets into something close to the F-16C/D type.

The president praised both George H.W. Bush and ex-Governor Jeb Bush’s brother, former President George W. Bush, as true friends of Taiwan.

Ma expressed the hope that the US would soon announce that Taiwanese citizens would no longer need a visa to visit the country and that talks on a bilateral Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA) could resume.

He also mentioned the hope that the US beef issue could soon be solved. Ma’s insistence on lifting the ban on the import of US beef products treated with lean-meat drugs like ractopamine has clouded the past four months. The president first mentioned the eventual end to the ban in conversations with US visitors shortly after his January 14 re-election.

Despite overwhelming opposition from consumers rights organizations, food safety experts, and politicians including lawmakers from his own Kuomintang, Ma reportedly wants the necessary legislative amendments to end the ban passed in June at the latest.

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This has all the earmarks of Jeb Bush repeatedly acting as a foreign lobbyist/liason between his father's and brother's former administrations, and in the direct pursuit of his family's political and economic interests. This is the type of thing that is enraging more and more people, as the vast complexity of the shadowy network of the Bush family connections is revealed in greater detail. For many decades, they have historically used these connections to benefit themselves.

I sincerely hope that investigative journalists dig deeply into this foreign lobbying/liason activity by Jeb Bush, and start directing an arsenal of probing questions.

This guy is jonesing to get into the White House, where, make no mistake about it, he will leverage the entire system to benefit himself, his family and his cronies, at all of our expense. Literally.

It is about effing time that he finds himself on the hot seat.

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2007: South Korean metal/munitions company lands US Gov contract after Jeb Bush's visit (Media??) (Original Post) seafan Jul 2015 OP

Politico now has a piece up about this. There is a smell about this relationship. seafan Jul 2015 #1

seafan

(9,387 posts)

1. Politico now has a piece up about this. There is a smell about this relationship.

Reply to seafan (Original post)

Thu Jul 2, 2015, 10:03 PM

Jul 2015

Jeb’s South Korean sugar daddy

By Kenneth P. Vogel

7/1/15 9:03 PM EDT
Updated 7/1/15 10:55 PM EDT

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(Jeb) Bush’s association with Poongsan dates back to the mid-1990s, when he was the president of his father’s presidential library foundation, on whose board of trustees Ryu sits.

“This was a personal friendship with the Bushes. He really admired H.W.,” Don Wilson, the former director of the George H. W. Bush Presidential Library, said of Ryu. “I wasn’t aware of any close friendship [between Jeb Bush and Ryu]. It was more with Barbara and George H.W., when I was associated with them.”

Jeb Bush served as Florida governor from 1999 to 2007, after which he began giving paid speeches to Poongsan and other companies and nonprofits during a period of rapid wealth accumulation.

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Bush’s first speech to Poongsan came only four months after he left the governor’s mansion.

Soon after that speech, a Poongsan subsidiary called PMX that has its headquarters in Iowa — where then-first lady Barbara Bush had cut the ribbon in 1992 — won a $1 billion contract to supply coin metal to the U.S. Mint, over objections from advocates for U.S. manufacturers. Though George W. Bush was president at the time, the contract didn’t come up during the South Korea trip, Jeb Bush told the St. Petersburg Times in 2008.

Bush’s spokeswoman Kristy Campbell told POLITICO Wednesday “Gov. Bush has had the opportunity to visit South Korea to address the company. It was not related in any way to any government contracting issues.”

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Methinks Ms. Campbell doth protest too much.

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Poongsan arranged a 2008 trip for Jeb Bush to South Korea, where he played golf with the South Korean foreign minister. A South Korean news agency reported that the former governor was assessing the mood in the country prior to a summit between President George W. Bush and South Korean then-President Lee Myung-bak.

PMX representatives did not respond to questions about the speeches or the Bushes’ relationship with Poongsan or Ryu.

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Ryu and his wife, Helen Lho, who is the daughter of a former top Korean government official, had a home in Los Angeles and are active in American public life beyond the Bush clan. They attended the 2011 state dinner at the Obama White House honoring the South Korean president.

“They were among the Korean elite,” said Wilson, though he added that both Ryu, who goes by the name Roy, and his wife were educated in the U.S. and are “very Americanized.”

Ryu serves in leadership positions for various international trade groups, Korean business and defense associations, and U.S. nonprofits, including the secretive Trilateral Commission and a childhood-focused nonprofit started by Colin Powell, who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under George H. W. Bush and secretary of state under his son.

This is eerily reminding me of investigative journalist Robert Parry's illuminating piece from 2006.

Octafish, are you nearby?

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