Well, well, well. It turns out that UN Ambassador and prospective Secretary of State nominee Susan Rice (she’s a multimillionaire, by the way) has some rather interesting financial ties to numerous foreign energy companies that still do business with that oppressive, misogynistic, homophobic, and downright barking mad insane regime currently controlling Iran. The most interesting one of those is Royal Dutch Shell, which has about a billion dollars’ worth of interest (literally) in getting Iran’s sanctions lifted; Rice has also invested in at least two other companies that are operating in Iran against the wishes of pretty much most of the West.

Hmm. Let’s scroll through some of her other investments:

• Transcanada ($300-600K). Keystone Pipeline company. Wonder whether the Greenies are comfortable about that? Spoiler warning: no.
• Monsanto (10-50K). Agricultural conglomerate that works with genetically engineered food. Wonder if the Greenies are comfortable about that?
• Walmart ($50-100K). …If you haven’t figured out by now that Big Labor is gunning for Walmart, then… Big Labor is gunning for Walmart.
• Ishares Silver Trust ($100-250K), Newmont Mining Corp ($100-250K). Metal mining companies. Hey, guess who has even more of a vested interest than usual in making sure that the government keeps the current capital gains and dividends tax rates? Metal mining companies!

It’s kind of entertaining, actually: I mean, personally I don’t really care that Ambassador Rice owns any of those companies (no, what I care about is that Ambassador Rice apparently lied to the American people in order to benefit her partisan faction*). But it’s fascinating in its way to watch all those loyal progressives line up to support an establishment figure that is actually making money off of all those things that progressives hate. It’s like the Left enjoys having the metaphoric equivalent of lit cigarettes ground out on their foreheads; maybe the pain tells them that they’re actually alive?

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: You know, there’s a reason why, say, Dick Cheney and other government officials – excuse me, Republican government officials – set up blind trusts for this sort of thing; or else – again, like Dick Cheney – divest themselves of potentially conflicting investments, and hang the financial cost. Or – one more time, like Dick Cheney – both. Why didn’t somebody explain to Susan Rice that she should really have done something along those lines?

*I expect my country’s Ambassadors to lie like rugs when it comes to benefiting the country as a whole. Such things are in fact often laudable.