Politicians talk about "witch hunts" so often that the occult has almost become cliche in American politics. But in Arizona, there's at least one candidate on the ballot who takes sorcery very seriously.

Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, is not a witch. But she has been known to hang out with witches. It was during the height of the Iraq War when Sinema, then a far-left protest organizer, summoned supernatural help to stop the Iraq War.

Emails obtained by the Washington Examiner show Sinema inviting a prominent group of feminist witches in Arizona called Pagan Cluster to celebrate International Women’s Day and to protest the war in March of 2003. Code Pink protesters wore pink, obviously enough, and the Women in Black wore black. But Sinema encouraged the witches to wear “colorful clothing and come ready to dance, twirl, and stay in touch with your inner creativity and with the Earth.”

The Sinema campaign would not say why she invited the witches or clarify why she thought members of the occult deserved a seat at the table during discussions concerning war and peace. The witches in question, it should be noted, claim to practice only nonviolent magic. Per the about section on their webpage, theirs is a peaceful and democratic kind of sorcery.

Out of the broom closet and into the public square, the Pagan Cluster focuses “sharing spiritual insights and participating in direct democracy.” Their visions are decidedly liberal and many of their coven “have roots in the Reclaiming Tradition of feminist Witchcraft.”

This sort of hocus pocus wasn't isolated either. Later that year, in November, Sinema attended a similar anti-war rally, this one in Miami and with other pagans. In emails obtained by the Washington Examiner and archived online via the WaybackMachine, she writes about "singing and spiraling in the pagan's circle only 5 rows back from the police line." The magic was not enough to stop a police crackdown apparently. Sinema described the subsequent crowd control and arrests as "brutal."

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/emails-kyrsten-sinema-summoned-witches-to-her-anti-war-rally

BEIJING (Dow Jones) – A former Communist Party chief and ex-head of China's largest "bad bank" will be prosecuted for using his position for personal gain after being swept up in President Xi Jinping's yearslong crackdown on corruption.

In a statement Monday, China's graft agency accused Lai Xiaomin, former chairman of China Huarong Asset Management Co., of violating party discipline by squandering state assets, illegally organizing public banquets, engaging in sexual dealings with multiple women and accepting bribes. "The nature is particularly serious and will be dealt with seriously," the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection statement said.

Mr. Lai, who was also expelled from the party and public office, couldn't be reached for comment Monday.

Since late 2012, China's anticorruption campaign has targeted hundreds of senior officials in government agencies, the military and state-owned enterprises, with many convicted and sentenced to lengthy prison terms. It has extended to the financial sector and in recent years–coinciding with efforts by Beijing to rein in financial risk–ensnared figures like Xiang Junbo, the former insurance watchdog chief.

Huarong is one of the big four state-owned asset-management firms that Beijing established in the late 1990s to buy commercial banks' nonperforming loans, saving the latter from insolvency.

Mr. Lai, a former party secretary, was placed under investigation and detained in April. Analysts say the case is likely linked to Huarong's aggressive expansion beyond what regulators set as its core mandate.

Managing bad loans has become a tougher business for China's asset managers in recent years, as pressure on banks' assets eases and the price of bad-loan packages rises. To generate more revenue, the industry extended into banking, securities, insurance and other financial operations. For example, in late 2016, when bank financing for property developers tightened, some asset managers stepped in with loans.

Huarong was especially aggressive in expanding its loans business and raising debt overseas, analysts say. Huarong's assets quadrupled over five years to 1.87 trillion yuan ($270.2 billion) at the end of 2017.

Officials investigating Mr. Lai seized hundreds of millions of yuan in cash from his properties, according to an August report by Chinese financial publication Caixin that has since been removed from its website. Authorities on Monday said they had also confiscated his "illegal gains."

Dinny McMahon, a Chicago-based fellow at the Paulson Institute, last month wrote in a report on the MacroPolo website that Mr. Lai's detention was a sign authorities believe listed asset managers had overextended their business. In January, Chinese regulators issued draft regulations promising greater oversight of asset managers and instructing them to focus more on bad loans, wrote Mr. McMahon, a former reporter for The Wall Street Journal.

On Monday, the graft agency said Mr. Lai's case involved both political and economic problems. It didn't mention his management of Huarong.

Huarong pledged to "return to its origins, focus on its main business, and increase its ability to serve the real economy," according to an April statement on its website responding to Mr. Lai's detention.

https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Former-bad-bank-boss-in-China-latest-target-in-graft-crackdown