It is unclear how many Obama officials who are linked to the Delphi pension slashing scheme are eyeing jobs in a Biden White House should he win on November 3. Biden is considering a number of former Obama officials for top-level jobs, many under the mantle of “diversity.”
40 Members of Biden's Transition Team are Lobbyists
The Biden coup moves forward with a nice tangy taste of what any future administration would look like.
Picture a dirty trough surrounded by even dirtier pigs.
At least 40 people serving on President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team are or were once registered lobbyists, according to an analysis by The Wall Street Journal.
The Biden transition team has sought to limit the influence of lobbyists in setting up the new administration. Its ethics rules don’t impose a blanket ban on lobbyists, but they require individuals who are registered lobbyists, or have registered as lobbyists within the past year, to get approval from the transition’s general counsel to serve on the team.
So much for those ethics rules.
As I write in today's article, Democrats Say AT&T, Comcast and Disney Decide Presidential Elections, lobbyists are the Biden team.
Steve Ricchetti, Biden's former chief of staff, and longtime confidant, chaired Biden's campaign. AT&T has been the only
Biden launched his campaign at a fundraiser at the Philly home of David Cohen. Cohen is a Senior Executive Vice President at Comcast, and a senior counsellor to Comcast's CEO.
Cohen, a powerful Philly Democrat official, named as one of the most powerful figures in the state, went on to reshape Comcast's lobbying operation. Comcast, under Cohen, spends $14 million a year lobbying in D.C. The Washington Post called him, "Comcast's secret weapon".
Top CBS lobbyist John Orlando has been tipped for Biden’s short list to head the FCC. Along with Disney’s Susan Fox.
While Disney fights Google for the privilege of deciding whether Biden dumps Section 230 (lots of money at stake, Disney wants to end S230), every major special interest has filled the Biden camp with money and its list of lobbyists and execs aspiring to top positions.
If you thought Hunter Biden was bad, the real pigout is just starting.
Progressives’ Wish List for Biden Starts With
Warren and
Sanders
Sydney Ember
Two prominent progressive groups, the Sunrise Movement and
Justice Democrats, on Wednesday urged President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. to
name left-leaning allies including Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders
to top government posts, firing an opening salvo in the left’s campaign to
exert influence over Mr. Biden’s agenda.
Progressive groups have moved quickly to apply pressure to
President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. as he plans his administration.
Underscoring one of their most significant priorities, the
groups also called on Mr. Biden to create a new office dedicated to climate
change that reports directly to the president.
The public appeals from the Sunrise Movement, a group of
young climate organizers, and Justice Democrats, a grass-roots organization
that has helped elect people like Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,
signal the beginning of the left’s intense efforts to pressure Mr. Biden over
the makeup of his executive branch and his administration’s immediate
priorities.
And the move represents the end of a truce between Mr. Biden
and progressives, who had united behind his candidacy during the presidential
campaign with the mission of defeating President Trump, but who have deep
ideological and generational differences.
Already, some liberal activist groups have warned Mr. Biden
about backsliding on his commitment to progressive policies since he was
declared the winner of the election on Saturday. And with control of the Senate
still unclear, progressives have shifted their focus to figuring out how they
can persuade Mr. Biden to enact progressive policies through the executive
branch, using executive orders and by appointing leaders to positions that act,
in effect, as gatekeepers for policy.
“President-elect Biden must embrace this historic moment by
keeping the party united and appointing progressive leaders who will help him
usher in the most progressive Democratic administration in generations,”
Alexandra Rojas, the executive director of Justice Democrats, said in a
statement.
The list of recommendations, for 13 key government positions,
includes well-known progressive allies, some of whom would most likely be
palatable to Democrats across the spectrum.
Still, some of the people on the list are sure to cause
consternation in the party’s moderate wing.
Among the leaders the groups are pressing Mr. Biden to
appoint, for instance, are Ms. Warren as Treasury secretary and Mr. Sanders as
labor secretary — both standard-bearers of the progressive movement whose
policies are viewed by some Democrats as too extreme.
Ms. Warren and Mr. Sanders are both said to be interested in
the jobs. But appointing them to top government posts would be complicated by
the fact that the states they represent, Massachusetts and Vermont, are led by
Republican governors, and Democrats would want to make sure that any
replacements would caucus with them to keep the balance of the Senate intact.
Also on the groups’ list are:
■ Representative Barbara Lee of California for secretary of
state
■ Keith Ellison, the attorney general of Minnesota, for
attorney general
■ Representative Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, one of the four
congresswomen known as the Squad, for secretary of housing and urban
development
■ Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington, a
co-chairwoman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, for secretary of health
and human services
■ Representative Deb Haaland of New Mexico for secretary of
the interior
■ Representative Chuy García of Illinois for secretary of
transportation
■ Representative Chellie Pingree of Maine for secretary of
agriculture
■ The economist Joseph E. Stiglitz for director of the
National Economic Council
■ Darrick Hamilton, an economist and the executive director
of the Kirwan Institute at Ohio State University, for chair of the Council of
Economic Advisers
■ Mustafa Ali, vice president of environmental justice,
climate and community revitalization for the National Wildlife Federation, for
administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency
As part of their list of recommendations, the Sunrise
Movement and Justice Democrats are also urging Mr. Biden to create a new White
House Office of Climate Mobilization to coordinate climate efforts across the
government, and to appoint as its leader either Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington,
whose presidential campaign last year centered on climate change; Gina
McCarthy, an E.P.A. administrator under President Barack Obama; or John
Podesta, the founder of the Center for American Progress who was an adviser to
Mr. Obama on climate change. The proposal for the office was part of a sweeping
set of recommendations put forth by Biden-Sanders joint policy task forces over
the summer.
In addition to their top choices for each high-level
position, the groups also provided alternative options, including Sarah Bloom
Raskin, who served as deputy secretary of the Treasury under Mr. Obama, for
Treasury secretary; Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey for secretary of
agriculture; and Sara Nelson, the president of the Association of Flight
Attendants union, for secretary of transportation.
The recommendations amount to something of a moon shot, and
Mr. Biden is very unlikely to choose many of the names put forward, if he picks
any at all; rather, the list is meant to ramp up the pressure on him to select
people for high-ranking government posts who are at least somewhat acceptable
to the left.
But that the Sunrise Movement and Justice Democrats, the two
groups that perhaps most represent the next generation of left-wing activists,
have publicly offered their recommendations just days after Mr. Biden was
declared the president-elect with a victory in Pennsylvania reflects the
urgency with which progressives are now approaching the soon-to-be Biden
administration.
Also on Wednesday, the Human Rights Campaign, one of the
nation’s largest advocacy organizations for L.G.B.T.Q. people, is releasing a
24-page blueprint for administrative action.
The centerpiece of the group’s request is a call to apply the
Supreme Court’s June decision in a case called Bostock vs. Clayton County, Ga.,
which found that protections on the basis of sex apply to L.G.B.T.Q. people
across the federal government.
The blueprint also includes requests that Mr. Biden appoint
the nation’s first openly L.G.B.T.Q. cabinet officials; order the collection of
data about L.G.B.T.Q. people in the census; rescind the Trump administration’s
ban on transgender people in the military; and end conversion therapy and the
prohibition on blood donations from gay and bisexual men, among a litany of
other requests.
“Were looking for the administration to make good on their
promises,” said Alphonso David, the president of the Human Rights Campaign.
“This blueprint is a step forward from where we were before Trump.”
Before the election, progressives had been optimistic that
Mr. Biden would embrace left-leaning policies, citing his willingness to form
the joint policy task forces with allies of Mr. Sanders after he dropped out of
the presidential race in April. Many also noted Mr. Biden’s leftward shift
since the primaries on issues like climate, health care and education.
Yet as the results of the election became clear and it
appeared that Democrats would face an uphill battle to take control of the
Senate, the party as a whole and progressives in particular have had to adjust
to the possible need to lower their expectations for the next two years. Still,
the left wing of the party has wasted no time in insisting that Mr. Biden be
accountable to the groups that helped deliver him to the White House, including
Black voters and young people.
“Democrats have a once-in-a-generation moment to deliver
policies at the scale of the crises our generation is facing,” Varshini
Prakash, the executive director of the Sunrise Movement, said in a statement.
She added: “Young people helped deliver this historic
majority to Joe Biden. The Senate can’t be an excuse; whether or not Mitch
McConnell remains the majority leader, we need an Office of Climate
Mobilization and visionary personnel in the Biden administration who are ready to
use every tool in their disposal to create millions of good-paying green jobs.”
Reid J. Epstein contributed reporting.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), one of the
Senate’s most vocal critics of Big Tech, highlighted Biden’s cozying up to
Google on Twitter.
Biden already selling out to the tech robber barons. Amazing https://t.co/bMDg6p3wxk
— Josh
Hawley (@HawleyMO) November 9, 2020
“Biden already selling out to the tech
robber barons. Amazing” said Hawley.
THE LOOTING OF AMERICA:
BARACK
OBAMA AND HIS CRONY BANKSTERS set themselves on America’s pensions next!
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2015/04/obamanomics-assault-on-american-middle.html
The new aristocrats, like
the lords of old, are not bound by the laws that apply to the lower orders.
Voluminous reports have been issued by Congress and government panels
documenting systematic fraud and law breaking carried out by the biggest banks
both before and after the Wall Street crash of 2008.
Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and every other major US
bank have been implicated in a web of scandals, including the sale of toxic
mortgage securities on false pretenses, the rigging of international interest
rates and global foreign exchange markets, the laundering of Mexican drug
money, accounting fraud and lying to bank regulators, illegally foreclosing on
the homes of delinquent borrowers, credit card fraud, illegal debt-collection
practices, rigging of energy markets, and complicity in the Bernie Madoff Ponzi
scheme.
NO PRESIDENT IN HISTORY SUCKED IN MORE
BRIBES FROM CRIMINAL BANKSTERS THAN BARACK OBAMA!
This was not because of difficulties in
securing indictments or convictions. On the contrary, Attorney General Eric
Holder told a Senate committee in March of 2013 that the Obama administration
chose not to prosecute the big banks or their CEOs because to do so might “have
a negative impact on the national economy.”
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-bankster-owned-president-citigroup.html
This
is a further shift leftward by Wall Street from the last election cycle, when
between 50 percent and 52 percent of the contributions through mid-year 2017
from J.P. Morgan, Morgan Stanley, and Bank of America went to Republicans.
Those banks sent between 37 percent and 45 percent of the contributions to
Democrats.
Joe Biden Rakes in More
than $50M from Wall Street, Including from Soros
David Dee Delgado/Getty Images
16 Oct 20208
3:01
Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden is raking in
tens of millions of dollars from Wall Street, weeks away from the November 3
election against President Trump.
In the last few months, Biden’s campaign
and his fundraising committees have “benefited from big money contributions
from finance leaders on Wall Street and across the country,” according to a
new report by CNBC.
Wall Street donors to date have spent
more than $50 million to help get Biden elected, as they view his candidacy
as a return to the economic status quo, which has often spelled economic
decline for Main Street.
CNBC reports:
The joint committees, which raise money for the Biden
campaign, the Democratic National Committee and state parties, are
being fueled, at least in part, by Wall Street executives. Those
committees accept six-figure contributions. [Emphasis added]
…
People in the financial industry have
largely favored Biden, spending more than $50 million to back his candidacy, according to the nonpartisan Center
for Responsive Politics, compared with more than $10 million for Trump.
[Emphasis added]
Some of those Wall Street donors to
Biden include President Obama’s former Treasury Department secretary Tim
Geithner, who contributed $150,000 to the Biden Action Fund in August.
Geithner, while in the Obama administration, coordinated to slash pensions for roughly 20,000 Delphi workers in the midst of the auto
bailout for General Motors (GM).
Wall Street executives Antonio Gracias and Jonathan Shulkin each
delivered $300,000 to Biden’s campaign in August, while venture capitalist John
Doerr donated more than $355,000 to the Biden Action Fund in the last three
months.
Likewise, Wall Street investor Jonathan Soros, the son of
billionaire left-wing mega-donor George Soros, gave a little less than $145,000
to Biden in the third quarter, while Wall Street venture capitalists and
investors John Doerr, Stephen Mandel, and Pete Muller gave Biden nearly $1.5
million.
In the third quarter, alone, the Biden Action Fund got more than
$4 million from Wall Street donors, with huge donations from executives at the
Blackstone Group, JPMorgan Chase, The Carlyle Group, and Kohlberg Kravis &
Roberts.
Wall Street and nearly all of the nation’s biggest
banks have lined up to support Biden and his running
mate, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), against Trump’s economic nationalist
agenda. Goldman Sachs and Moody’s Analytics each released reports to investors
indicating their backing of a “blue wave” on election day as the biggest net
gain for the financial industry.
John Binder is a reporter for
Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
Likewise,
Wall Street is behind Biden’s
plan to hugely expand legal
immigration levels, beyond already historical highs at 1.2 million green cards
and 1.4 million visa workers a year.
Biden
has elated Wall
Street so much that for the first time in a decade, more financial executives
are donating to Democrat candidates than Republicans, the latest Center for
Responsive Politics analysis reveals.
CNN: ‘All the Big Banks’ on Wall Street Backing Joe Biden
Against Trump
SAUL LOEB/AFP
via Getty Images
28 Sep 20203,632
3:20
Democrat presidential candidate Joe
Biden is raking in Wall Street cash from all the big banks at five times the
rate of President Trump, a CNN report admits.
An analysis by CNN found that
“all the big banks are backing Biden” against Trump, with the former vice
president taking a larger margin of Wall Street donations than even failed
Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton did in 2016.
CNN reports:
The
securities and investment industry donated just $10.5 million to Trump’s
presidential campaign and outside groups aligned with it, according to a new
tally by OpenSecrets. It
has sent nearly five times as much cash, $51.1 million, to Democratic
presidential nominee Joe Biden. [Emphasis added]
That
means Trump is losing the fundraising race among Wall Streeters by a slightly
greater magnitude than in 2016. During that cycle, former New
York Senator Hillary Clinton and groups aligned with her raised $88 million
from the securities and investment industry, while Trump took in just $20.8
million. [Emphasis added]
…
But a CNN
Business analysis of OpenSecrets research shows that Biden is beating Trump in
fundraising from all of America’s big banks — in some
cases by wide margins. [Emphasis added]
At the
big banks — which saw little-to-no consequences for
their role in the 2008 financial crisis — Biden is sweeping up donations from
employees by huge margins. At Goldman Sachs, for example, Biden has raised more
than $156,000, while Trump has taken less than $12,000.
JPMorgan Chase employees have
given three times as much campaign cash to Biden as Trump. Biden has taken
nearly $380,000. At Morgan Stanley, Biden has taken more than twice as much as
Trump, taking nearly $258,000 from the bank’s employees compared to Trump’s
$96,010.
Despite
pitching himself as a defender of blue-collar Americans, Biden has not only
been widely
backed by Wall Street but also by wealthy residents on Park
Avenue.
Biden’s
campaign has raised over $1 million from donors living on Park Avenue,
according to Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings, as Breitbart News reported. This is
more than eight times the $127,000 raised by the Trump campaign from the same
area.
This
month, Biden touted Wall
Street’s support for his plan to abolish America’s suburbs by seizing control
of local zoning laws to construct housing developments and multi-family buildings
in neighborhoods. Likewise, Wall Street is behind Biden’s
plan to hugely expand legal
immigration levels, beyond already historical highs at 1.2 million green cards
and 1.4 million visa workers a year.
Biden
has elated Wall
Street so much that for the first time in a decade, more financial executives
are donating to Democrat candidates than Republicans, the latest Center for
Responsive Politics analysis reveals.
John
Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
Likewise, Wall Street is behind Biden’s plan to
hugely expand legal immigration
levels, beyond already historical highs at 1.2 million green cards and 1.4
million visa workers a year.
Biden has elated Wall Street so much that for the first time in a
decade, more financial executives are donating to Democrat candidates than
Republicans, the latest Center for Responsive Politics analysis reveals.
Joe Biden’s Campaign Is
Awash in Wall Street Cash
AP Photo/Patrick
Semansky
2 Jun 202080
4:01
Joe Biden has adopted the anti-Wall Street rhetoric of
some of his former rivals for the Democrat nomination, but that has not stopped
him from collecting an enormous war chest of campaign cash from the financial
sector.
Biden on Tuesday said that America “wasn’t built by Wall Street
bankers and CEOs, it was built by the great American middle class.”
· 6h
Biden: “The president held up the
Bible at St. John’s church yesterday. I just wish he opened it once in a
while.”
Biden: “If it weren’t clear before,
it’s clear now: This country wasn’t built by Wall Street bankers and CEOs, it
was built by the great American middle class.”
21
people are talking about this
Securities industry employees, a close proxy for Wall Street,
have donated $29,703,244 to Biden’s campaign or to political committees
supporting his campaign for the presidency, according to the nonpartisan
Center for Responsive Politics. The sector is the second-largest source of
campaign contributions to Biden’s campaign, coming only after Democrat Party
and left-wing organizations.
Donald Trump, by contrast, has only received around $6,320,861.
Biden has also received far more
campaign cash from employees of J.P.Morgan Chase, Bank of
America, Morgan
Stanley, and Goldman
Sachs than
his Republican rival, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. For
example, Biden has taken more than 6 times as much money from J.P. Morgan Chase
employees than Trump.
Employees at those four firms have donated a total of $508,259
to Biden’s campaign, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics.
Morgan Stanley was the biggest contributor to Biden of the group, with
donations totaling $171,274.
Trump has received just $27,981 dollars from Morgan Stanley
employees. J.P. Morgan employees have contributed $23,942. Bank of America
employees given $40,448. Goldman’s contributions add up to a grand total of
$4,211, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics. A total of
$96,582, less than one-fifth of Biden’s take.
Political contributions from Citigroup were unavailable at the
time of publication.
The campaign cash from the big Wall Street banks have poured
into Democrat coffers in the 2020 election cycle. Slightly more than 58 percent
of Goldman’s contributions to Congressional candidates have gone to Democrats.
More than 62 percent of Morgan Stanley’s contributions went to Democrats. Bank
of America was nearly even, with 49.9 percent going to Republicans and 49.6
percent going to Republicans. J.P. Morgan favored Democrats by nearly 60
percent to 30 percent, with 10 percent going to independent candidates.
This is not a function of just giving to the majority party.
Goldman’s contributions favor Democrats in the House and Republicans in the
Senate, while Morgan Stanley’s and J.P. Morgan’s favor Democrats in both. Bank
of America contributors favor Republican candidates for the House and Democrats
in the Senate.
When measured by contributions to all federal candidates, all
four skew Democrat. J.P. Morgan’s contributions are the most tilted, with 73.4
percent going to Democrat candidates, and Bank of America’s the least, with
58.5 percent going to Democrats. Morgan Stanley tilts 67.9 percent Democrat. Goldman
lean is 61.28 Democrat.
This is
a further shift leftward by Wall Street from the last election cycle, when
between 50 percent and 52 percent of the contributions through mid-year 2017
from J.P. Morgan, Morgan Stanley, and Bank of America went to Republicans.
Those banks sent between 37 percent and 45 percent of the contributions to
Democrats.
Obama
Officials Who Helped Slash Pensions for Delphi Workers Shower Joe Biden with
Campaign Cash
Alex Wong/Getty Images
19 Oct 20201,387
5:42
Former Obama administration officials, linked to the
slashing of pensions for 20,000 Delphi workers, are showering Democrat
presidential candidate Joe Biden with campaign cash to oust President Trump
from office.
In 2009, as part of the Obama-Biden
administration’s taxpayer-funded bailout of General Motors (GM), the Pension
Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) terminated the pension plans of about
20,0000 non-unionized Delphi workers. In some cases, workers had their pensions
gutted by as much as 75 percent.
A federal report in 2013 detailed that the Delphi workers would
likely have their pensions cut by an estimated $440 million. Meanwhile,
GM topped off unionized Delphi workers’ pensions
at a cost of about $1 billion.
In 2012, federal documents unveiled how
the Obama-Biden administration’s Treasury Department worked to gut the pensions of the
Delphi workers. In other emails, PBGC officials indicated they had the green
light from the Obama-Biden administration to slash the pensions.
Trump officials have said the president
is working on an executive plan to restore the Delphi pension after more than
a decade of no help from the Obama administration.
A number of Obama officials directly
involved with the auto bailout deal that slashed the pensions are now banking
on a Biden victory on November 3 — pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars
into the former vice president’s campaign with Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA).
Among those officials involved in the
deal were former Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, who reportedly contributed $150,000 to the Biden Action Fund
in August. As previously noted, emails in 2012 detailed how Geithner’s agency
at the time “was the driving force behind terminating the pensions of 20,000
salaried retirees at the Delphi auto parts manufacturing company.”
Geithner was said to have delegated out
responsibility for the Delphi pensions to a select team of Obama officials,
though insiders have said he was pushed to help the workers but did not lift a
finger.
Likewise, Obama official Steven Rattner
has contributed a total of $5,600 to Biden’s campaign last year and this year.
Rattner was at the center of the Delphi pensions slashing scheme, as noted in
the 2013 federal report previously mentioned:
According to Auto Team leader Rattner,
pensions were another area where the Auto Team “encouraged” GM to cut costs. GM had a pay-as-you-go pension
plan for salaried employees that was not funded and GM salaried employees and
retirees wanted their full pensions, but Mr. Rattner told SIGTARP that
the Auto Team wanted cuts to those benefits. [Emphasis added]
…
Auto Team leader Rattner told SIGTARP
that GM came to the Auto Team because “GM wanted to do something for the
[Delphi] salaried retirees.” Mr. Rattner discussed it with then-GM CEO
Henderson. Although Mr. Rattner could not remember the specifics of the
conversation, he told SIGTARP that he thought there was nothing defensible from
a commercial standpoint that could be done for the Delphi salaried
retirees. Mr. Rattner told SIGTARP, “We didn’t think there was
anything defensible. We felt bad, but we didn’t think it was justifiable.” [Emphasis
added]
Ron Bloom, another Obama official, has
given $2,800 to Biden’s campaign. Bloom is named in the 2013 federal report
regarding the Delphi pension slashing scheme, which notes his direct involvement:
Although Delphi salaried retirees had
asked Auto Team official Bloom to consider preserving the pensions out of
fairness, Auto Team official Bloom told SIGTARP that GM “did not
provide a top-up to the salaried guys because I think [GM] concluded there was
not a commercially reasonable reason to do it.” Mr. Bloom added that
GM’s automotive parts suppliers “received a hundred cents on the dollar,” the
UAW’s retirees received a number “less than a hundred, but more than the
bondholders,” and some got less than the bondholders. Mr. Bloom told
SIGTARP that they could not make everyone whole and “That’s not to say
that people didn’t lose a lot or [were] hurt or were treated in a way that –
sort of in a human way you would say that’s unfair. I don’t think that
anybody thinks bankruptcy is fair. It is what it is, though.” [Emphasis
added]
Matthew Feldman, who had potentially
more involvement in the Delphi pension slashing scheme than any other Obama
official aside from Rattner, has not made contributions to Biden. Members of
Feldman’s firm, Willkie Farr & Gallagher, where he is co-chairman, have
donated tens of thousands to Biden.
It is unclear how many Obama officials
who are linked to the Delphi pension slashing scheme are eyeing jobs in a Biden
White House should he win on November 3. Biden is considering a number of former Obama officials
for top-level jobs, many under the mantle of “diversity.”
Delphi, which has since split into Aptiv
and Delphi Technologies, announced in 2006 that it would shutter 21 of its 29 plants in the
United States — offshoring some 20,000 U.S. jobs to Mexico, China, and other
foreign countries.
At the time, Delphi employed nearly
50,000 Americans, who earned about $30 an hour on the
assembly line. Now, workers in Mexico for the company earn about $1 an hour.
John Binder is a reporter for
Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
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