Thursday, February 4, 2016

PSYCHOPATH BARACK OBAMA HAS SQUANDERED BILLIONS DEFENDING THE BORDERS OF MUSLIM DICTATORS AS HE DAILY SABOTAGES AMERICA'S BORDERS AND HOMELANDSECURITY - As the body count at the hand of Islamic extremists continues to rise in America, shouldn't the president be trying to come up with a way to defend Judeo-Christian types, who cling to guns and the Bible, from Islamic jihadi types who cling to mac...

As the body count at the hand of Islamic extremists continues to rise in America, shouldn't the president be trying to come up with a way to defend Judeo-Christian types, who cling to guns and the Bible, from Islamic jihadi types who cling to mac...

Obama, in radical mosque, calls for other religions to be tolerant

As the body count at the hand of Islamic extremists continues to rise in America, shouldn't the president be trying to come up with a way to defend Judeo-Christian types, who cling to guns and the Bible, from Islamic jihadi types who cling to machetes and the Quran?
Guess not, because for his first visit to a U.S. mosque, Obama chose a congregation where a Sudanese native and former member of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamed Adam el-Sheikh, was chief imam for almost twenty years.
Why would a U.S. president even give credence to a congregation once led by a man who also lent a hand in founding the Muslim American Society, a Muslim Brotherhood-established organization interested in advancing sharia law?
Does Obama not care that in his spare time, the current executive director of the Fiqh Council of North America, an association of Islamic legal scholars, also helped found the notorious Dar Al-Hijrah mosque, led by the late al-Qaeda terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki?  Or that in 2004, while still serving as imam of the Islamic Society of Baltimore, el-Sheikh discussed Palestinian suicide bombers with the Washington Post?
If certain Muslims are to be cornered where they cannot defend themselves, except through these kinds of means, and their local religious leaders issued fatwas to permit that, then it becomes acceptable as an exceptional rule, but should not be taken as a principle.
Even the alleged terrorist-affiliated Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) commended Obama's decision to visit the Islamic Society of Baltimore, saying:
For a number of years, we've been encouraging the president to go to an American mosque.  With the tremendous rise in anti-Muslim sentiment in our country, we believe that it will send a message of inclusion and mutual respect.
"Inclusion and mutual respect"?
Maybe CAIR should tell that to the two homosexual men murdered by devout Muslim-American/convicted sex offender Ali Muhammad Brown, who, after rinsing the blood off his hands, went on to avenge Muslim deaths overseas by also executing 19-year-old college student Brendan Tevlin at a traffic light.
Prior to the president showing up in Baltimore, White House spokesperson Josh "Not So" Earnest had this to say:
I think the president is quite interested in making sure that we're affirming the important role that Muslims play in our diverse American society and certainly affirming their right to worship God in a way that's consistent with their heritage.
Question: Who exactly is not upholding "the important role that Muslims play in our diverse American society"?  And in the 3,186 mosques located in cities all across America, which people are having their "right to worship God in a way that's consistent with their heritage" thwarted?
Furthermore, rather than worrying about the 3 million Muslims steadily progressing toward becoming the second largest religion in America, maybe Josh should be making sure that, despite Obama, the Little Sisters of the Poor retain their "right to worship God in a way that's consistent with their heritage."
Meanwhile, the president descended on the Islamic Society of Baltimore, which is sort of like preaching about being less discriminatory toward Christians from the pulpit of the hateful Westboro Baptist Church.
In Baltimore, Obama mentioned bullied Muslim children and vandalized mosques and lauded Ibtihaj Muhammad, a 2016 female Olympian who plays with swords while dressed in a hijab.  Then he pointed out that "we have to understand: an attack on one faith is an attack on all our faiths."
One small problem!  This is the guy who consistently assaults certain faiths.
In 2009, prior to a speaking engagement at Georgetown University's Gaston Hall, Obama requested the crucifixes be covered up.  That same year, in order to have a "non-religious" Christmas, Obama suggested that the East Room Nativity be relocated.  Likewise, the president has blamed Christianity for lives lost during the Crusades and regularly ridicules the Christian faith with snide remarks
As for God's chosen people, Obama insulted Jews at a White House Hanukah celebration; publicly dissed Bibi Netanyahu; and, worse yet, minimized the threat posed by providing a genocidal anti-Semitic revolutionary theocratic state a pathway to a nuclear bomb.
Not to mention the president's failure to acknowledge the worldwide genocide being waged by Muslims against Christians, or ignoring the fact that in America, Jews are ten times more likely than Muslims to be targeted for a hate crime.
Advocating for Islam seems to be Barack "that's not who we are'" Obama's most ardent public relations effort.  In his recent State of the Union address, anyone perceived to be indulging in what he perceives as anti-Muslim bigotry was publicly rebuked when he said:
When politicians insult Muslims, whether abroad or our fellow citizens, when a mosque is vandalized, or a kid called names, that doesn't make us safer. That's not telling it like it is. It's just wrong. It diminishes us in the eyes of the world.
How about when Muslim extremists living in the U.S. shoot and kill 14 people at a Christmas party; behead a co-worker at a food distribution plant; or, "on a mission from Allah," stab a store clerk to death?  Does that "make us safer"?
Besides, how is America elevated in the eyes of the world if our president remains silent after Islamic extremists behead two Coptic Christians in New Jersey, or slit the throats of three Jewish men in Massachusetts?
Since Barack Obama ascended from the mean streets of Chicago to the Oval Office in 2009, there have been approximately 64 people murdered by Muslim extremists on U.S. soil, and that's not counting the number of American deaths at the hands of Muslims overseas.
And yet, in another attempt to address what Barack Obama calls a "hugely distorted impression" of Islam, the one suffering from what perceives in others hoped to remedy the problem by commiserating with the guilty at a radical mosque in Baltimore.
Jeannie hosts a blog at www.jeannie-ology.com.
As the body count at the hand of Islamic extremists continues to rise in America, shouldn't the president be trying to come up with a way to defend Judeo-Christian types, who cling to guns and the Bible, from Islamic jihadi types who cling to machetes and the Quran?
Guess not, because for his first visit to a U.S. mosque, Obama chose a congregation where a Sudanese native and former member of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamed Adam el-Sheikh, was chief imam for almost twenty years.
Why would a U.S. president even give credence to a congregation once led by a man who also lent a hand in founding the Muslim American Society, a Muslim Brotherhood-established organization interested in advancing sharia law?
Does Obama not care that in his spare time, the current executive director of the Fiqh Council of North America, an association of Islamic legal scholars, also helped found the notorious Dar Al-Hijrah mosque, led by the late al-Qaeda terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki?  Or that in 2004, while still serving as imam of the Islamic Society of Baltimore, el-Sheikh discussed Palestinian suicide bombers with the Washington Post?
If certain Muslims are to be cornered where they cannot defend themselves, except through these kinds of means, and their local religious leaders issued fatwas to permit that, then it becomes acceptable as an exceptional rule, but should not be taken as a principle.
Even the alleged terrorist-affiliated Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) commended Obama's decision to visit the Islamic Society of Baltimore, saying:
For a number of years, we've been encouraging the president to go to an American mosque.  With the tremendous rise in anti-Muslim sentiment in our country, we believe that it will send a message of inclusion and mutual respect.
"Inclusion and mutual respect"?
Maybe CAIR should tell that to the two homosexual men murdered by devout Muslim-American/convicted sex offender Ali Muhammad Brown, who, after rinsing the blood off his hands, went on to avenge Muslim deaths overseas by also executing 19-year-old college student Brendan Tevlin at a traffic light.
Prior to the president showing up in Baltimore, White House spokesperson Josh "Not So" Earnest had this to say:
I think the president is quite interested in making sure that we're affirming the important role that Muslims play in our diverse American society and certainly affirming their right to worship God in a way that's consistent with their heritage.
Question: Who exactly is not upholding "the important role that Muslims play in our diverse American society"?  And in the 3,186 mosques located in cities all across America, which people are having their "right to worship God in a way that's consistent with their heritage" thwarted?
Furthermore, rather than worrying about the 3 million Muslims steadily progressing toward becoming the second largest religion in America, maybe Josh should be making sure that, despite Obama, the Little Sisters of the Poor retain their "right to worship God in a way that's consistent with their heritage."
Meanwhile, the president descended on the Islamic Society of Baltimore, which is sort of like preaching about being less discriminatory toward Christians from the pulpit of the hateful Westboro Baptist Church.
In Baltimore, Obama mentioned bullied Muslim children and vandalized mosques and lauded Ibtihaj Muhammad, a 2016 female Olympian who plays with swords while dressed in a hijab.  Then he pointed out that "we have to understand: an attack on one faith is an attack on all our faiths."
One small problem!  This is the guy who consistently assaults certain faiths.
In 2009, prior to a speaking engagement at Georgetown University's Gaston Hall, Obama requested the crucifixes be covered up.  That same year, in order to have a "non-religious" Christmas, Obama suggested that the East Room Nativity be relocated.  Likewise, the president has blamed Christianity for lives lost during the Crusades and regularly ridicules the Christian faith with snide remarks
As for God's chosen people, Obama insulted Jews at a White House Hanukah celebration; publicly dissed Bibi Netanyahu; and, worse yet, minimized the threat posed by providing a genocidal anti-Semitic revolutionary theocratic state a pathway to a nuclear bomb.
Not to mention the president's failure to acknowledge the worldwide genocide being waged by Muslims against Christians, or ignoring the fact that in America, Jews are ten times more likely than Muslims to be targeted for a hate crime.
Advocating for Islam seems to be Barack "that's not who we are'" Obama's most ardent public relations effort.  In his recent State of the Union address, anyone perceived to be indulging in what he perceives as anti-Muslim bigotry was publicly rebuked when he said:
When politicians insult Muslims, whether abroad or our fellow citizens, when a mosque is vandalized, or a kid called names, that doesn't make us safer. That's not telling it like it is. It's just wrong. It diminishes us in the eyes of the world.
How about when Muslim extremists living in the U.S. shoot and kill 14 people at a Christmas party; behead a co-worker at a food distribution plant; or, "on a mission from Allah," stab a store clerk to death?  Does that "make us safer"?
Besides, how is America elevated in the eyes of the world if our president remains silent after Islamic extremists behead two Coptic Christians in New Jersey, or slit the throats of three Jewish men in Massachusetts?
Since Barack Obama ascended from the mean streets of Chicago to the Oval Office in 2009, there have been approximately 64 people murdered by Muslim extremists on U.S. soil, and that's not counting the number of American deaths at the hands of Muslims overseas.
And yet, in another attempt to address what Barack Obama calls a "hugely distorted impression" of Islam, the one suffering from what perceives in others hoped to remedy the problem by commiserating with the guilty at a radical mosque in Baltimore.


Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/02/obama_in_radical_mosque_calls_for_other_religions_to_be_tolerant.html#ixzz3zEpEdxXS
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THE HISPANDERING POLITICIANS - WILL THEY SURRENDER MORE OF AMERICA TO THE INVADING MEXICANS?


WASHINGTON, DC (February 4, 2016)As in previous presidential elections, several recent debates have featured questions posed by non-journalists via YouTube. They weren't very good.
 
Debates in New Hampshire are scheduled for tonight (the Democrats) and Saturday (the Republicans). To help journalists and ordinary voters try to extract the actual immigration views of the candidates, the Center for Immigration Studies has posted a series of video questions addressing critical aspects of the immigration issue that don't receive the attention they warrant.
 
This first batch of questions ranges from a former Executive Director of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation asking about the impact of mass legal immigration on American workers, to a retired Border Patrol agent asking about people fraudulently passing through legal entry points (as opposed to jumping the fence). Other questions for the candidates are posed by the mother of a man killed by an illegal alien, a former Foreign Service Officer, a law professor, and others.
 
Watch the video questions for the presidential candidates here: http://cis.org/2016-Presidental-Election-Debate-Questions
 
As the presidential debates continue, both in the primaries and the general election, the page will be updated with more video questions from citizens. To have your own brief (30 seconds) video question for the candidates be considered for inclusion, send it to mrt@cis.org



Contact: Marguerite Telford
202-466-8185, mrt@cis.org

PEW RESEARCH CENTER - Most Americans Say Government Doesn’t Do Enough to Help Middle Class

PEW RESEARCH CENTER

Most Americans Say Government Doesn’t Do Enough to Help Middle Class

As Americans begin casting the first ballots in the 2016 presidential election, neither political party is widely viewed as supportive of the middle class in this country.

As its hometown of Flint remains poisoned, GM makes record 2015 profit

"While the company is paying out billions to its richest investors, residents in Flint, Michigan—the birthplace of GM—have been poisoned by lead, largely due to decades of toxins the automaker dumped into the Flint River. While state and local officials ignored resident complaints about the taste, color and odor of the tainted water, in December 2014 GM quietly stopped using the river-supplied water at its local engine plant because of corrosion to its parts. The company’s employee drinking fountains and ice machines, however, continued to use the poisoned water."

During the 2009 restructuring, the Obama administration essentially immunized the company and its richest stockholders from the consequences of the criminal decisions of its top executives. 

As its hometown of Flint remains poisoned, GM makes record 2015 profit

By Jerry White
4 February 2016
General Motors announced yesterday that it made a record $11 billion in pre-tax profits in 2015. The Detroit-based auto giant, the third largest auto company in the world, made $6.3 billion in profits in the fourth quarter alone, beating Wall Street expectations.

Once again, GM made the bulk of its income from its North American manufacturing operations, where the corporation’s decades long cost cutting campaign, carried out with the full backing of the United Auto Workers, was accelerated during and after the 2009 restructuring of the company by the Obama administration.

GM had a North American profit margin of 10.3 percent, reaching its 10 percent goal a year early and surpassing the margins at its joint ventures in China. This was accomplished through the UAW-enforced exploitation of workers, which includes relentless speedup, forced overtime and poverty level wages to a new generation of workers who cannot afford the cars they build. On the same day it reported its profits, a skilled trades worker fell to his death at a GM plant in Defiance, Ohio.

The world economic crisis led to a lowering of profits for GM in China and substantial losses in South America and Europe. The car company has shut plants and eliminated the jobs of thousands of production and white-collar workers in Brazil and Germany, along with Russia, where it is ending manufacturing operations.

Record US car sales were spurred by pent up demand following the 2008 crash, falling fuel prices and low car loan rates. This pushed up GM’s revenue, particularly from highly profitable pickup trucks and SUVs. Big investors, however, anticipate that the boom in car sales will dry up in 2016 and lead to falling profit margins. This led to a sell-off of GM stock Wednesday, driving shares down 2.5 percent and 13 percent over the past year.

“We understand we are in a cyclical business, and it’s very difficult for anyone to predict a downturn,” CEO Mary Barra told investors in a conference call Wednesday, “but we will maximize earnings through the cycle.” She said the automaker expects to cut operating costs by $5.5 billion by 2018 and hand over $16 billion to shareholders in dividends and share buybacks over that period.
The government restructuring of GM in 2009 and the relentless UAW-backed attack on the jobs, wages, health benefits and pensions of autoworkers was designed to guarantee a steady flow of cash to big investors under virtually any market conditions. A large portion of workers’ income is based on “profit-sharing,” which can be sharply reduced in a downturn. The UAW has also given the company a free hand to slash jobs and close plants in response to “market conditions.”

BLOG: UAW FUCKS OVER THE AMERICAN WORKER

Last fall, the UAW pushed through a new four-year contract on GM’s 49,600 hourly workers in the US, over mass opposition. The contract, like similar deals at Fiat Chrylser and Ford, maintains the two-tier wage and benefit system, expands the use of low-paid temporary workers, imposes first time co-payments on older workers for health benefits and holds overall labor cost increases below the rate of inflation.

While the company is paying out billions to its richest investors, residents in Flint, Michigan—the birthplace of GM—have been poisoned by lead, largely due to decades of toxins the automaker dumped into the Flint River. While state and local officials ignored resident complaints about the taste, color and odor of the tainted water, in December 2014 GM quietly stopped using the river-supplied water at its local engine plant because of corrosion to its parts. The company’s employee drinking fountains and ice machines, however, continued to use the poisoned water.

While Flint needs a massive marshaling of resources to address the irreparable damage done to children and other residents by the neurotoxins, the $80 million the Obama administration has committed to Flint amounts to less than three days of GM’s profits last year.

GM’s record profits follow similar announcements by Ford and Fiat Chrysler (FCA) last week. Ford made $7.4 billion in 2015, including $1.9 billion in the fourth quarter. FCA reported a profit of $410 million for 2015, a decrease from 2014 because of higher recall and investment costs.

During its earnings call, FCA CEO Sergio Marchionne told investors that the company would end production of its smaller and less profitable Dodge Dart and Chrysler 200 models and concentrate on larger vehicles. Marchionne said FCA might “partner” with other automakers to continue selling smaller cars. In the new labor agreements, the UAW sanctioned the shifting of small car production to lower wage plants in Mexico, while pledging to reopen local contracts and impose “competitive” agreements to continue small car production at US plants.

The enormous profit making at GM is an expression of the corporate-government-union conspiracy against the working class and the domination of the financial aristocracy over virtually every aspect of life in the US.

In 2009, the Obama administration essentially handed GM and Chrysler to Wall Street “turnaround” specialists. Last year, hedge fund manager Harry Wilson, a former member of Obama’s Auto Task Force, pressured the GM board to hand over $5.7 billion to shareholders, including $3.5 billion in stock buybacks and $2.2 billion worth of dividend payments. GM has now told investors it would expand a stock repurchase program from $5 billion to $9 billion through the end of 2017. The payout was hailed by the UAW, which owns the largest block of GM shares.

While these financial parasites are reaping vast fortunes, the company has left a trail of devastation behind it—not only for autoworkers and their families, but hundreds of car-buyers who were killed or injured due to defective ignition switches.

BLOG: WELL, WE KNOW HOW MUCH THE OBOMB LOVES HIS CRIMINAL CRONY BANKSTERS!
   During the 2009 restructuring, the Obama administration essentially immunized the company and its richest stockholders from the consequences of the criminal decisions of its top executives. The Treasury Department broke up the company into two entities—an “old” GM, which was responsible for the bulk of the company’s liabilities stemming from lawsuits over defective parts and pollution caused by GM factories, and a “new” GM, which could funnel profits to big investors with as few deductions as possible.

BLOG: WELL, WE KNOW HOW MUCH THE OBOMB LOVES HIS CRIMINAL CRONY BANKSTERS!

Last year, the Obama administration hit GM with a wrist-slap fine of $900 million for the defective ignition switch scandal and no top executives involved in the cover-up have been prosecuted.

The mass struggles of autoworkers, including the Flint sit-down strikes in the 1930s that established the UAW, led to a significant increase in living standards for workers, and by 1960 Flint had one of the highest per capita incomes in America. The transformation of the “Vehicle City” into one of the poorest cities in the nation was the product of the betrayals by the UAW, which, starting in the late 1970s, suppressed any resistance by workers to plant closings, layoffs and wage cutting in the name of boosting the international “competitiveness” and profitability of the US automakers.




US autoworkers speak on record profits

By our reporter
4 February 2016

“GM will do anything for profits and stockholders”

The World Socialist Web Site spoke to autoworkers in the US and Canada about the record profits announced by General Motors and other Detroit-based automakers. Workers pointed to the contrast between the celebrations in corporate boardrooms and the real life experiences of workers, who have suffered from the criminal actions of GM and the other auto companies.
In particular workers pointed to the recent scandal over defective ignition switches in GM vehicles tied to scores of fatal crashes and the lead poisoning crisis in Flint, Michigan—a former center of GM manufacturing left in ruins after the company abandoned the city.
Chris White, a retired GM worker at the Oshawa, Ontario plant, told the WSWS, “GM is making obscene profits and handing out huge salaries to executives while saying wages are too high. When Mexico becomes too expensive they go somewhere else where it is even cheaper. Meanwhile, you have kids here coming out of college flipping burgers.
“GM kept the defective ignition switches in their cars hidden from the public. They were guilty of not fixing that defect when it was first discovered. Now they are discussing the same thing for airbags.
“I keep a close watch on all those things. Here in Canada GM is saying they will not put a new product into the Oshawa plant until after the contract negotiations later this year. That is blackmail.”
He remarked on the situation with lead poisoning of the water supply in Flint, Michigan, where GM once employed 80,000 workers. After closing the plants it left behind toxic industrial sites all over the city.
“I remember when GM was closing plants in Michigan. It could happen here as well. This facility once had 20,000 workers and now it is down to 2,500. They have been downsizing and downsizing. The tax implications for the city for GM moving out would be quite substantial.
“It has taken a big effort to clean up the land after it has been used for industrial purposes. Workers are often not informed of the hazardous materials used in manufacturing. Canada is still the largest exporter of asbestos in the world. Most of it goes to Third World countries.
“Corporate greed and capitalism is the way of the world. GM will do anything for profits and stockholders. GM in Canada never had a bankruptcy, but they took benefits from the retirees just the same.”
He remarked on the recent US contract negotiations. “It seems like the unions have marched us 100 years backwards. When you start paying union leaders like company executives they start thinking like executives. They went from two tiers to three or four tiers. It is against all union principles.”
GT, a GM skilled trades worker from Indiana, debunked the much-touted $11,000 profit sharing check that workers are set to receive. “It looks good until you examine it more closely. If we had not given up cost of living increases all these years our pay would now be $45 an hour. I work 2,500 hours a year. That comes to $25,000 extra. It sure beats out $11,000, even after taxes. If you tally up overtime pay on top of that it comes to more like $32,000.
“Profit sharing is another scheme between the UAW and GM to screw us and make sure that the company and the union both keep their share. The UAW is more a liaison with management to make sure management does okay.
“UAW President Dennis Williams is making more than $300,000 a year. He wants to protect that. He has nothing in common with me.”
He spoke on the lead poisoning crisis in the former GM center of Flint. “The same thing happened in Anderson, Indiana, where I am from. They used to have 30,000 employees in the city and now they have none. They made huge profits and dumped the workers. They misused people and the environment and then walked away.”

Copyright © 1998-2016 World Socialist

BUYING HILLARY CLINTON: OBAMA'S CRONY BANKSTERS GIVE GENEROUSLY - Wall Street donors account for 40 percent of super PAC funds in US election

Wall Street donors account for 40 percent of super PAC funds in US election

Wall Street donors account for 40 percent of super PAC funds in US election

By Barry Grey
4 February 2016
The 2016 US election campaign has exposed deep-seated popular alienation from the entire political establishment and growing anger over the domination of US society and politics by Wall Street. Democratic contender Bernie Sanders, who calls himself a democratic socialist, has capitalized on this sentiment by basing his campaign on denunciations of the “billionaire class” and an electoral process dominated by corporate money.

New figures on the funding of so-called “super PACs,” the nominally independent “political action committees” that are the main vehicles for corporate bribery of would-be officer-holders, shed light on the degree to which the political system is controlled by big business in general, and Wall Street in particular.

Statistics compiled from Federal Election Commission reports by the Center for Responsive Politics, an election watchdog group, and the Wall Street Journal show that cash from major banks and investment, real estate and insurance firms accounts for more than $116 million of the $290 million raised thus far in the current election cycle by super PACs and other independent campaign organizations. That amounts to 40 percent of the total.

In the second half of 2015, super PACs backing the various presidential candidates took in $100 million. Of this, $81.2 million came from the financial industry.

The weight of finance capital in funding the campaigns of both Democrats and Republicans has grown by leaps and bounds, particularly since the 2010 “Citizens United” Supreme Court ruling that lifted all limits on corporate campaign donations via super PACs.

In the 2012 election, donations from the financial services sector comprised 20 percent, or $169 million, of the $845 million raised for the entire election cycle by super PACs and other independent campaign groups. Thus, as a share of total super PAC money, financial capital’s role has doubled in this year’s election cycle.

This compares to the “mere” $2.4 million of super PAC money donated by Wall Street in the 2004 election. Already in the 2016 election, the total from banks and financial firms is 70 times the level 12 years ago.

Former President Jimmy Carter felt obliged, in an interview Wednesday on BBC Radio 4’s “Today” program, to denounce the US campaign finance system as “legalized bribery.” Carter, who was elected in 1976 and defeated in his reelection bid by Ronald Reagan in 1980, said, “As the rich people finance the campaigns, when candidates get in office they do what the rich people want. And that’s to let the rich people get richer and the middle class get left out.”

A Wall Street Journal article published Sunday provides details on Wall Street funding for various presidential candidates. The super PAC supporting Republican Senator Marco Rubio received over half of its money in the second half of 2015 from financial industry contributors. The two biggest donors were hedge fund billionaires Paul Singer (net worth of $2.1 billion) and Ken Griffin ($6.6 billion), who gave $2.5 million each in the last two months of the year. Hedge fund billionaire Cliff Asness and Florida mega-investor Mary Spencer each donated $1 million.

Half of the $5 million raised by the super PAC supporting Republican Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey came from Wall Street, including a $2 million donation in December by hedge fund mogul Steven Cohen (net worth of $11.4 billion) and his wife, who also gave a combined $2 million to the super PAC in the first half of 2015.

The super PAC backing Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas received at least $11 million from billionaire hedge fund founder Robert Mercer and $10 million from private equity firm founder Toby Neugebauer.

The super PAC backing former Florida Governor Jeb Bush raised $10 million of its $15 million for the second half of 2015 from Maurice “Hank” Greenberg, the former CEO of American International Group, the mega-insurance firm that was bailed out by the US government in 2008 to the tune of $182 billion. As of the end of September 2015, half of Bush’s top donors were employed by major financial firms, including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Barclays, where Bush previously worked as a consultant making $2 million a year.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the Democratic front-runner, is no slouch when it comes to Wall Street bribes. Of the $25 million raised by the super PAC supporting her in the second half of 2015, $15 million came from financiers. Nearly half of that came from billionaire investor George Soros (net worth of $24.5 billion).

Soros gave the pro-Clinton super PAC, Priorities USA Action, $6 million in December, bringing his total in donations to $7 million. Priorities USA Action also received $3 million from entertainment industry investor Haim Saban (worth $3.6 billion) and his wife, who also gave $2 million earlier in the year.

These figures were compiled from incomplete Federal Election Commission filings, as most of the candidates and their associated super PACs had not filed with the FEC as of early Sunday evening. The deadline to do so was midnight Sunday.

The New York Times reported this week that a super PAC associated with the political network of the right-wing Republican Koch brothers (net worth of $44.3 billion each), reported Sunday that it had raised $11 million. The Koch brothers’ umbrella political organization, Freedom Partners, announced Saturday at its annual winter conference in California that it spent $400 million in 2015 to fund political and “philanthropic” organizations. That put the Koch political network at less than half of the two-year spending goal of $1 billion it announced last year.

Among those at the closed-door conference were two supporters of senators Rubio and Cruz, offering their obeisance in the hope of getting cash from the billionaire arch-reactionaries.

KEEPING OBAMA'S CRONIES RICH! - THE LONG DEATH of the AMERICAN MIDDLE CLASS - As its hometown of Flint remains poisoned, GM makes record 2015 profit


PEW RESEARCH CENTER

Most Americans Say Government Doesn’t Do Enough to Help Middle Class

As Americans begin casting the first ballots in the 2016 presidential election, neither political party is widely viewed as supportive of the middle class in this country.


As its hometown of Flint remains poisoned, GM makes record 2015 profit

"While the company is paying out billions to its richest investors, residents in Flint, Michigan—the birthplace of GM—have been poisoned by lead, largely due to decades of toxins the automaker dumped into the Flint River. While state and local officials ignored resident complaints about the taste, color and odor of the tainted water, in December 2014 GM quietly stopped using the river-supplied water at its local engine plant because of corrosion to its parts. The company’s employee drinking fountains and ice machines, however, continued to use the poisoned water."

During the 2009 restructuring, the Obama administration essentially immunized the company and its richest stockholders from the consequences of the criminal decisions of its top executives. 

As its hometown of Flint remains poisoned, GM makes record 2015 profit

By Jerry White
4 February 2016
General Motors announced yesterday that it made a record $11 billion in pre-tax profits in 2015. The Detroit-based auto giant, the third largest auto company in the world, made $6.3 billion in profits in the fourth quarter alone, beating Wall Street expectations.

Once again, GM made the bulk of its income from its North American manufacturing operations, where the corporation’s decades long cost cutting campaign, carried out with the full backing of the United Auto Workers, was accelerated during and after the 2009 restructuring of the company by the Obama administration.

GM had a North American profit margin of 10.3 percent, reaching its 10 percent goal a year early and surpassing the margins at its joint ventures in China. This was accomplished through the UAW-enforced exploitation of workers, which includes relentless speedup, forced overtime and poverty level wages to a new generation of workers who cannot afford the cars they build. On the same day it reported its profits, a skilled trades worker fell to his death at a GM plant in Defiance, Ohio.

The world economic crisis led to a lowering of profits for GM in China and substantial losses in South America and Europe. The car company has shut plants and eliminated the jobs of thousands of production and white-collar workers in Brazil and Germany, along with Russia, where it is ending manufacturing operations.

Record US car sales were spurred by pent up demand following the 2008 crash, falling fuel prices and low car loan rates. This pushed up GM’s revenue, particularly from highly profitable pickup trucks and SUVs. Big investors, however, anticipate that the boom in car sales will dry up in 2016 and lead to falling profit margins. This led to a sell-off of GM stock Wednesday, driving shares down 2.5 percent and 13 percent over the past year.

“We understand we are in a cyclical business, and it’s very difficult for anyone to predict a downturn,” CEO Mary Barra told investors in a conference call Wednesday, “but we will maximize earnings through the cycle.” She said the automaker expects to cut operating costs by $5.5 billion by 2018 and hand over $16 billion to shareholders in dividends and share buybacks over that period.
The government restructuring of GM in 2009 and the relentless UAW-backed attack on the jobs, wages, health benefits and pensions of autoworkers was designed to guarantee a steady flow of cash to big investors under virtually any market conditions. A large portion of workers’ income is based on “profit-sharing,” which can be sharply reduced in a downturn. The UAW has also given the company a free hand to slash jobs and close plants in response to “market conditions.”

BLOG: UAW FUCKS OVER THE AMERICAN WORKER

Last fall, the UAW pushed through a new four-year contract on GM’s 49,600 hourly workers in the US, over mass opposition. The contract, like similar deals at Fiat Chrylser and Ford, maintains the two-tier wage and benefit system, expands the use of low-paid temporary workers, imposes first time co-payments on older workers for health benefits and holds overall labor cost increases below the rate of inflation.

While the company is paying out billions to its richest investors, residents in Flint, Michigan—the birthplace of GM—have been poisoned by lead, largely due to decades of toxins the automaker dumped into the Flint River. While state and local officials ignored resident complaints about the taste, color and odor of the tainted water, in December 2014 GM quietly stopped using the river-supplied water at its local engine plant because of corrosion to its parts. The company’s employee drinking fountains and ice machines, however, continued to use the poisoned water.

While Flint needs a massive marshaling of resources to address the irreparable damage done to children and other residents by the neurotoxins, the $80 million the Obama administration has committed to Flint amounts to less than three days of GM’s profits last year.

GM’s record profits follow similar announcements by Ford and Fiat Chrysler (FCA) last week. Ford made $7.4 billion in 2015, including $1.9 billion in the fourth quarter. FCA reported a profit of $410 million for 2015, a decrease from 2014 because of higher recall and investment costs.

During its earnings call, FCA CEO Sergio Marchionne told investors that the company would end production of its smaller and less profitable Dodge Dart and Chrysler 200 models and concentrate on larger vehicles. Marchionne said FCA might “partner” with other automakers to continue selling smaller cars. In the new labor agreements, the UAW sanctioned the shifting of small car production to lower wage plants in Mexico, while pledging to reopen local contracts and impose “competitive” agreements to continue small car production at US plants.

The enormous profit making at GM is an expression of the corporate-government-union conspiracy against the working class and the domination of the financial aristocracy over virtually every aspect of life in the US.

In 2009, the Obama administration essentially handed GM and Chrysler to Wall Street “turnaround” specialists. Last year, hedge fund manager Harry Wilson, a former member of Obama’s Auto Task Force, pressured the GM board to hand over $5.7 billion to shareholders, including $3.5 billion in stock buybacks and $2.2 billion worth of dividend payments. GM has now told investors it would expand a stock repurchase program from $5 billion to $9 billion through the end of 2017. The payout was hailed by the UAW, which owns the largest block of GM shares.

While these financial parasites are reaping vast fortunes, the company has left a trail of devastation behind it—not only for autoworkers and their families, but hundreds of car-buyers who were killed or injured due to defective ignition switches.

BLOG: WELL, WE KNOW HOW MUCH THE OBOMB LOVES HIS CRIMINAL CRONY BANKSTERS!
   During the 2009 restructuring, the Obama administration essentially immunized the company and its richest stockholders from the consequences of the criminal decisions of its top executives. The Treasury Department broke up the company into two entities—an “old” GM, which was responsible for the bulk of the company’s liabilities stemming from lawsuits over defective parts and pollution caused by GM factories, and a “new” GM, which could funnel profits to big investors with as few deductions as possible.

BLOG: WELL, WE KNOW HOW MUCH THE OBOMB LOVES HIS CRIMINAL CRONY BANKSTERS!

Last year, the Obama administration hit GM with a wrist-slap fine of $900 million for the defective ignition switch scandal and no top executives involved in the cover-up have been prosecuted.

The mass struggles of autoworkers, including the Flint sit-down strikes in the 1930s that established the UAW, led to a significant increase in living standards for workers, and by 1960 Flint had one of the highest per capita incomes in America. The transformation of the “Vehicle City” into one of the poorest cities in the nation was the product of the betrayals by the UAW, which, starting in the late 1970s, suppressed any resistance by workers to plant closings, layoffs and wage cutting in the name of boosting the international “competitiveness” and profitability of the US automakers.




US autoworkers speak on record profits

By our reporter
4 February 2016

“GM will do anything for profits and stockholders”

The World Socialist Web Site spoke to autoworkers in the US and Canada about the record profits announced by General Motors and other Detroit-based automakers. Workers pointed to the contrast between the celebrations in corporate boardrooms and the real life experiences of workers, who have suffered from the criminal actions of GM and the other auto companies.
In particular workers pointed to the recent scandal over defective ignition switches in GM vehicles tied to scores of fatal crashes and the lead poisoning crisis in Flint, Michigan—a former center of GM manufacturing left in ruins after the company abandoned the city.
Chris White, a retired GM worker at the Oshawa, Ontario plant, told the WSWS, “GM is making obscene profits and handing out huge salaries to executives while saying wages are too high. When Mexico becomes too expensive they go somewhere else where it is even cheaper. Meanwhile, you have kids here coming out of college flipping burgers.
“GM kept the defective ignition switches in their cars hidden from the public. They were guilty of not fixing that defect when it was first discovered. Now they are discussing the same thing for airbags.
“I keep a close watch on all those things. Here in Canada GM is saying they will not put a new product into the Oshawa plant until after the contract negotiations later this year. That is blackmail.”
He remarked on the situation with lead poisoning of the water supply in Flint, Michigan, where GM once employed 80,000 workers. After closing the plants it left behind toxic industrial sites all over the city.
“I remember when GM was closing plants in Michigan. It could happen here as well. This facility once had 20,000 workers and now it is down to 2,500. They have been downsizing and downsizing. The tax implications for the city for GM moving out would be quite substantial.
“It has taken a big effort to clean up the land after it has been used for industrial purposes. Workers are often not informed of the hazardous materials used in manufacturing. Canada is still the largest exporter of asbestos in the world. Most of it goes to Third World countries.
“Corporate greed and capitalism is the way of the world. GM will do anything for profits and stockholders. GM in Canada never had a bankruptcy, but they took benefits from the retirees just the same.”
He remarked on the recent US contract negotiations. “It seems like the unions have marched us 100 years backwards. When you start paying union leaders like company executives they start thinking like executives. They went from two tiers to three or four tiers. It is against all union principles.”
GT, a GM skilled trades worker from Indiana, debunked the much-touted $11,000 profit sharing check that workers are set to receive. “It looks good until you examine it more closely. If we had not given up cost of living increases all these years our pay would now be $45 an hour. I work 2,500 hours a year. That comes to $25,000 extra. It sure beats out $11,000, even after taxes. If you tally up overtime pay on top of that it comes to more like $32,000.
“Profit sharing is another scheme between the UAW and GM to screw us and make sure that the company and the union both keep their share. The UAW is more a liaison with management to make sure management does okay.
“UAW President Dennis Williams is making more than $300,000 a year. He wants to protect that. He has nothing in common with me.”
He spoke on the lead poisoning crisis in the former GM center of Flint. “The same thing happened in Anderson, Indiana, where I am from. They used to have 30,000 employees in the city and now they have none. They made huge profits and dumped the workers. They misused people and the environment and then walked away.”

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