Foreign interference

 “—the fact that the judge briefly sought to emphasize the idea that this would involve “influence buying” shouldn’t escape anyone’s notice—”

Letitia James New York Attorney General brings influence peddling out of the shadows and into the light.

Saudi Arabia was claimed by Tan Can Man to be his guaranteed inflated real estate price buyer of last resort. With prices untethered to markets it was claimed it didn’t matter, that Saudi Arabia would buy any of Tan Can Man’s property for whatever price asked.

That might help get the mob boss reelected, might workout as a way to dodge the illegal asset price inflation/deflation game this organization played on New York regulators, but that is foreign interference in the affairs of the United States.

If you are writing a screenplay it takes about a half hot second to look at the Arizona Land Department’s 2015 lease deal with Saudi Arabia with a whole new perspective.

What matters here is Saudi Arabia (Russia too) are legally stealing America’s water. So, what is this Land Department deal, how’s that work, what’s the end game?

My theory of the case, and it is just theory, goes something like this.

The Saudi Arabian Arizona land lease is not nearly as important as the water that comes with the lease, and by water, I’m talking millions upon millions of gallons that get pumped every day of every month of every year from 2016 until today when the switch was flipped onto these commercial scale high volume water wells. You think it’s just water, but it is much more than just water.

One hundred percent of the crop grown in Arizona is exported back to Saudi Arabia. The Land Department only leases the land, the water rights in this deal comes under the jurisdiction of the Arizona legislature. What the legislature is doing is looking the other way while 7,151,502 of its citizens interests in the people’s groundwater is being pumped right out from underneath them.

Governor Hobbs and her Attorney General are doing what they can, but the leases are binding, the water grab is ongoing, and unwinding this debacle is going to take years.

Look Saudi Arabia and its alignment with Russia puts the megadrought in the Southwest United States onto a civilization ending trajectory. If our adversaries can destabilize the regions water resources they can speed the collapse of the Colorado River basin, and if you are not paying attention you may not appreciate that in fact Saudi Arabia and Russia are conspiring with Tan Can Man to blow up our country.

As a climate change comedy screenwriter my job is to have some fun with a plot that entangles my colorful characters clashing over how to come to grips with what is in fact quite a dangerous foreign plot being acted out in plain sight.

In Arizona the Land Department can say they were simply trying to make money on these land leases, that the water was not their responsibility, that the legislature could fix this with one vote, but that would be ignoring the deep pockets of this odd Scottsdale attorney, a man with seemingly endless funds that are used to lobby and pay off Arizona’s politicians. Does he work for Saudi Arabia? Nobody is talking, not yet.

How’s that for a comedy? What we know for sure is that an attorney with attorney client privilege, operating a non-profit that does not need to disclose its donors has used its foreign money to purchase influence and votes and nobody can force this attorney to say a thing, it’s all perfectly legal. Hiding behind this lack of transparency is likely a gusher of funding coming from America’s adversaries.

Do please remember that Russia has hacked our computers, messed with our gas pipeline infrastructure, installed backdoor access to the power grid. Draining off our water is just one more piece in the project.

Before I go I’d like to thank those responsible. First, the Land Department for giving away Arizona’s land, the legislature for not regulating the state’s groundwater, libertarian ideologues for their irrational complicity, Citizens United decision by Supreme Court for literally opening the floodgates, attorney/client privilege for weaponizing the Scottsdale lawyer, and of course the meddlesome enemies of democracy for all that they don’t do for those of us that want to remain free—

Yeah, it’s a comedy, deadly serious, and grounded in a set of murky events, none of which are to do with the story I have written.

Polonium for everyone…