By Earlier in the month, multiple outlets reported that Barack Obama had someone else in mind for the nomination besides Kamala Harris. Allegedly calling her “incompetent” behind closed doors, the former president was said to want Mark Kelly, senator from Arizona, to be put on the top of the ticket.
As Kelly sits near the top of vice presidential candidates for Kamala Harris, his background dealing with shady connections after he left NASA is again getting a second look.
It’s not pretty.
Jim Geraghty at The Washington Post reveals that Kelly might not pass vetting by the Harris campaign team due to some of his strange business ventures after he retired.
In 2015, former astronaut Mark Kelly rode a motorcycle onto a stage in China, with an American flag on one handlebar and the flag of the People’s Republic of China on the other. After dismounting, he told the audience before him how terrific Shaklee vitamins were, and how he took Shaklee Vitalizer on the space shuttle Endeavour in 2011, an out-of-this-world event honored on the Shaklee Facebook page.
“I took Shaklee vitamins and the Shaklee rehydration drink while in orbit aboard the space shuttle!” Kelly said, pumping his fists before the audience. “They worked very well for me in a very demanding environment. Now, it is up to you. It is up to all of you to take those tools that Shaklee and Roger” — company CEO Roger Barnett — “has given you, and turn it into something big! Each and every one of you can create your own successful Shaklee business, and it is the rewards from that business that will help you achieve your own dreams!”
It was a family affair, as the senator declared in a 2016 video — wearing his blue NASA astronaut jumpsuit. Speaking of his twin brother, astronaut Scott Kelly, “who just got back from the International Space Station,” Kelly said, “we’re really excited to be with you at Shaklee Live in Orlando coming up this August. You know, I told my brother all about Shaklee, Roger and the Shaklee difference. He even took Shaklee vitamins with him up in space with him, to the International Space Station, and I did, too.”
If the words “every one of you can create your own successful Shaklee business” made the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, you get a gold star. Yes, Shaklee is a multilevel marketing company. Those aren’t illegal, but the Federal Trade Commission warns, “most people who join legitimate MLMs make little or no money. Some of them lose money. In some cases, people believe they’ve joined a legitimate MLM, but it turns out to be an illegal pyramid scheme that steals everything they invest and leaves them deeply in debt.”
You can watch the rather strange video yourself:
Selling vitamins there is not the only dubious connection that Kelly has with communist China. Before he became a senator, Kelly also established a company that specializes in spy balloons with money he received from China.
Fox News writes that although the former astronaut’s company began with a focus on space tourism, the concept soon changed when other, more earthly pursuits proved to be the real moneymaker.
‘”As we matured our technology, we recognized an opportunity for immediate use cases for our technology through remote sensing services to defense, scientific and commercial customers,’ a spokesperson for World View told Fox News Digital. ‘Today, our primary business remains providing remote sensing services to the U.S. Department of Defense and her allies by way of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities, as well as servicing scientific organizations like NASA, NOAA and others to better understand Earth from the unique atmospheric layer of the stratosphere.’
Axios reported that shortly after World View was started, it received venture capital from Tencent in 2013, then again in 2016.
Tencent is one of China’s largest corporations, and it was founded in 1998 by “Pony” Ma Huateng, Zhang Zhidong, Xu Chenye, Chen Yidan and Zeng Liqing. Last year, “Pony” Ma Huateng was listed by Forbes as the fourth-richest man in China with a net worth of $32.1 billion. Ma is also the CEO of Tencent.
The Wall Street Journal reported in 2021 that Tencent collected a trove of data over the years from its mobile app WeChat, the predominant social-media platform in China. The data was collected through its processing of the chat conversations and financial transactions of its over one billion monthly active users, most of them in China. That has made the company’s platform WeChat a powerful surveillance tool for the Chinese government, which reportedly regulates Tencent and regularly has it suppress dissenting views.”
Fox noted that the company’s current leadership has said it regrets taking the Chinese investment cash and said they “moved to ensure World View was protected from any and all involvement from representatives of Chinese investors.”
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