Saturday, August 29, 2020

MAHER - DEMOCRATS 'SEEM TO BE HESITANT' TO CONDEMN LOOTING - BUT WHO IS LOOTING BUT BLACK LIVES LOOT???

 Maher: Democrats ‘Seem to Be Hesitant’ to Condemn Looting

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On Friday’s broadcast of HBO’s “Real Time,” host Bill Maher stated that Democrats “seem to be hesitant, in some ways…to condemn the looting.”

Maher said President Donald Trump seems to be running for re-election as “the law and order candidate. And are the Democrats facing that right? They seem to be hesitant, in some ways, for example, to condemn the looting. Because they understand what causes people to have the rage that would make them loot. Although, I don’t know why looting is always associated with the rage. I mean, sometimes they’re just taking shit, and it’s not people you would even think would need the shit.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett


Black National Convention Ratifies Platform Seeking Black Liberation– ‘America Does Not Value Black Lives’

Fists were raised in memory of Breonna Taylor during a rally in her honor on the steps of the Kentucky State Capitol in Frankfort, Ky., Thursday, June 25, 2020. The rally was held to demand justice in the death of Taylor who was killed in her apartment by members of …
AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley
5:21

On Friday night, radical Black Lives Matter (BLM) activists held a Black National Convention, which aimed to “reach and engage four million Black voters across the US, build infrastructure of Black political engagement that transcends the 2020 election season, and create and ratify a policy platform for the first 100 days of the next administration.”

Tens of thousands participated Friday in the virtual 2020 Black National Convention (BNC) hosted by the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL), a coalition that includes dozens of radical organizations including Black Lives Matter (BLM).

The live stream was the first national political convention for black Americans in nearly 50 years and was intended to create “a vision for Black Lives before the biggest election of our time, and long after,” according to M4BL’s website.

Friday’s broadcast included policy proposals on issues such as voter suppression, reproductive rights, housing insecurity, public education inequality, and inter-communal violence, according to its agenda which was shared exclusively with the Associated Press.

Organized by the radical defund-the-police-promoting Electoral Justice Project (EJP), a project of M4BL that focuses on electoral strategy, the 2020 BNC focused on organizing black political power through the political process in order to ensure community demands are met. 

“The uprising in the wake of George Floyd’s murder and countless other murders from police and vigilante violence along with the alarming Black death rate due to COVID-19 has exposed what we can no longer hide—America does not value Black lives,” said M4BL organizer and political strategist Jessica Byrd, who leads the Electoral Justice Project (EJP). “But we also know that rising up and taking action is how Black communities have secured our rights and dignity throughout this nation’s divided history.” 

The event paid tribute to the 1972 National Black Political Convention in Gary, Indiana, which introduced a national black agenda. The convention hosted prominent radical black leaders including Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, as well as Black Panther Party co-founder Bobby Seale.

“It’s time to build a BLACK united front” read one M4BL tweet, which included a video promoting the convention. 

The convention featured keynote speakers such as Patrisse Cullors, the self-proclaimed Marxist and Black Lives Matter (BLM) co-founder; Tarana Burke, founder of the #MeToo movement; and Phillp Agnew, co-founder of Dream Defenders, a radical Israel-boycott-promoting and anti-police organization. 

In 2016, the M4BL coalition released its radical “Vision for Black Lives” policy platform, which included early proposals for defunding the police. The convention sought to ratify a new agenda, updating much of the original platform with new proposals including some that could eventually abolish the criminal justice system entirely.

As Breitbart News previously reportedafter a year-long process of convening local and national groups and only three months prior to the 2016 presidential election, the M4BL group released its radical platform which states, “We recognize that some of the demands in this document will not happen today. But we also recognize that they are necessary for our liberation.”

Arguing that “Black people will never achieve liberation under the current global racialized capitalist system,” the platform lays out “six core planks” concerning criminal justice, reparations, investment and divestment, economic justice, community control, and political power. 

BLM — not a civil rights movement:

BLM “is not a civil rights movement,” civil rights pioneer Clarence Henderson told Fox Business Network’s Making Money with Charles Payne on Thursday, adding that the group is composed of Marxists seeking to “tear down the fabric of America.”

Henderson, who spoke at the Republican National Convention (RNC) Wednesday night, added that America has made “great progress” since he took part in the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, claiming today’s efforts only stoke racism.

Describing Hollywood, the media, and universities as dangerous sources of falsehoods concerning what the U.S. is all about, Henderson emphasized that America has a legal system based on due process which works to carry out the necessary change.

Henderson also questioned protester motives in a country that has become much like a court of public opinion.

 “My question is: what are you trying to achieve?” Because we have the law of the land now,” he stated. 

In his RNC remarks, Henderson touted the progress America’s black communities have made under Trump, arguing that the president has achieved more for black Americans in four years than Joe Biden has in 50.

Breitbart News will cover the revised platform that will guide BLM and over 100 black activist groups.

Follow Joshua Klein on Twitter @JoshuaKlein.

Is Black Lives Matter Putting its Fiscal Sponsors' Tax Exemptions at Risk?


I reported previously that Black Lives Matter Global Networks was campaigning openly against President Trump on its web site, and also in a CNN appearance by BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors, while accepting 501(c)(3) tax exempt resources from fiscal sponsor Thousand Currents. BLM also has a donation page that goes through ActBlue Charities, which also is 501(c)(3) tax exempt. Thousand Currents recently handed off BLM's fiscal sponsorship to the Tides Foundation.

BLM Knows or Should Know it is Not Allowed to Campaign with 501(c)(3) Resources

Elle Reynolds' "BLM Co-Founder Appears To Violate IRS Laws On CNN" at The Federalist (June 26, 2020) reports, "The Black Lives Matter Global Network and the IRS did not return requests for comment." It is no surprise that the Internal Revenue Service did not respond because, as stated in the instructions for Form 13909, "Tax-Exempt Organization Complaint (Referral)," "Federal law prohibits the IRS from providing you with status updates or information about specific actions taken in response to the information you submit."

More to the point is however BLM's apparent failure to modify its behavior after Reynolds brought this issue to its attention. On or about August 20, more than seven weeks later, Cullors appeared in another video as reported by the Washington Post: "Patrisse Cullors: We can cheer Biden and Harris — but still must challenge their problematic past." Cullors does make remarks critical of the Democratic nominees but focuses explicitly on working to defeat President Trump: "I think we can call for Biden and Harris to be challenged for their past, while also being the cheerleaders for them to win the election Nov. 3. There are so many reasons why we must beat Trump. …Our work to defeat Trump also helps us defeat the white supremacists he has galvanized…" (When last I heard, by the way, white nationalist Richard Spencer endorsed Joe Biden who, to his credit, rejected the endorsement.)

The National Council of Nonprofits explains how fiscal sponsorship works. "The fiscal sponsor must first determine that serving as a fiscal sponsor is consistent with its mission (and does not jeopardize its own tax-exempt status)." The same organization adds that a "hot button" issue with the Internal Revenue Service is, "Not to participate or intervene in any political campaign on behalf of, or in opposition to, any candidate for public office…" This suggests that BLM's open campaign against President Trump is to the IRS what a waving red flag is to a bull.

If BLM did not know previously that it is not allowed to campaign while using 501(c)(3) resources, it knew or should have known this when The Federalist's columnist contacted it for comment. Cullors nonetheless went ahead and made the video that appeared on the Washington Post's web site and, as of August 27—about two months later—BLM's web page that calls openly for Trump's defeat is still online. "As disheartening as this was, we are reminded that the 2020 election is around the corner. We can make our voices heard by voting this Administration out of office." So is the page that compares Trump to "a Nazi trying to hide a neck tattoo."

The Tides Foundation itself explains further, "In a typical fiscal sponsorship relationship, a nonprofit organization confers its 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status to groups that are engaged in activities that serve the host’s mission, typically for a fee." This suggests that Tides is allowing BLM Global Network to use Tides' own 501(c)(3) status. While Tides' mission and vision statement says "We embrace risk," I doubt this extends to the potential risks associated with funding campaign-related activities with tax-deductible money.

This is emphatically not legal or tax advice from me, as I am not an attorney or tax professional. The Federalist however consulted Cleta Mitchell, "an expert on campaign finance regulation and tax laws governing charitable organizations." I am assuming from context that this is the same Cleta Mitchell who "… advises nonprofit and issue organizations, corporations, candidates, campaigns, and individuals on state and federal campaign finance law." The Federalist quotes her as saying that Black Lives Matter "must comply with all the rules that govern 501(c)(3) organizations" which it does not appear to be doing.

The IRS's "How to lose your 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status (without really trying)" adds explicitly, "All 501(c)(3) organizations are prohibited from participating in any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate running for public office. The prohibition applies to all campaigns at the federal, state and local levels."

The IRS's "The Restriction of Political Campaign Intervention by Section 501(c)(3) Tax-Exempt Organizations" adds, "…public statements of position (verbal or written) made on behalf of the organization in favor of or in opposition to any candidate for public office clearly violate the prohibition against political campaign activity.  Violating this prohibition may result in denial or revocation of tax-exempt status and the imposition of certain excise taxes. …voter education or registration activities with evidence of bias that (a) would favor one candidate over another; (b) oppose a candidate in some manner; or (c) have the effect of favoring a candidate or group of candidates, will constitute prohibited participation or intervention."

I was unable to find a sample fiscal sponsorship agreement at the Tides Foundation but they did host a white paper by Attorney Joshua Sattely. "The activities of all nonprofits, not just those practicing fiscal sponsorship, must operate in accordance with a stated tax-exempt purpose. If a project’s mission is not compatible with that of its sponsor, that sponsor is not serving its exempt status and its 501(c)(3) classification could be jeopardized."

The Internal Revenue Service might not be the only agency to have issues with BLM's anti-Trump campaign under the fiscal sponsorship of the Tides Foundation and previously Thousand Currents, both of which are headquartered in California. "California AG Becerra Hints at Crackdown on Nonprofit Political Activity" by Andrew Garrahan (May 2017) warned that Becerra intends to "… pursue nonprofit organizations that he believes 'abuse' their nonprofit status for political purposes." CalNonprofits adds that nonprofits can tell people to "vote with your mission" but also "A charitable nonprofit organization cannot tell people – directly or indirectly – for whom they should vote."

ActBlue and ActBlue Charities (the latter is the tax-exempt entity) are however in Massachusetts.

How BLM Could Deliver a November 3 Catastrophe to the Democrats

The Washington Post reports "The Democratic Party fully embraced the imagery and themes of the Black Lives Matter movement on its convention's first night Monday," thus tying its own fortunes to that of BLM. If it turns out that BLM Global Networks' anti-Trump campaign does in fact constitute misuse of 501(c)(3) tax exempt resources, this issue could expose the entire movement as a fraud on the trust of the American people and make the entire Democratic Party a party to the fraud in question just in time for Election Day. We must all publicize this issue as widely as possible to make this happen.

 

Civis Americanus is the pen name of a contributor who remembers the lessons of history, and wants to ensure that our country never needs to learn those lessons again the hard way. He or she is remaining anonymous due to the likely prospect of being subjected to "cancel culture" for exposing the Big Lie behind Black Lives Matter.

CHELSEA CLINTON LECTURES ON 'ERODING WHITE PRIVILEGE' - BUT LIVES IN A $15 MILLION DOLLAR CONDO IN NYC HER PARENTS PHONY CHARITY PAID FOR!

THERE IS NO ONE WHO REPRESENTS 'WHITE PRIVILEGE' MORE THAN THE WALL STREET OWNED, BANKSTER-BOUGHT CLINTONS!


Chelsea Clinton: I Want ‘White Children of Privilege’ to ‘Erode that Privilege’ Over Time

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Former first daughter Chelsea Clinton said she was teaching her children to “erode” their “white privilege” over time during a national Women for Biden organizing call with Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) Thursday evening.

Clinton said, “You know, 40% of Americans with disabilities report that they have real challenges voting in person. And so in states where there haven’t been, kind of, no-excuse absentee voting or where there hasn’t been the introduction of early voting yet, you know, it still isn’t, kind of, easy, fair or equal for many Americans to vote.”

She continued, “And I think it’s really important that my children understand that. And I think it’s particularly important that they understand that as white children of  privilege because I want them to erode that privilege throughout their lives to ensure more people are enfranchised and that equality isn’t just an ideal.”

Pressley said, “You’re really modeling that which my mother certainly believed, which is that a parent is a child’s first teacher. And I so appreciate that you’re providing that full education, because we know that often there is a revisionist history or a sanitizing or filtering of history that does not tell the whole story.”

Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN

How Rich: Chelsea Clinton Is Telling Parents How to 'Erode White Privilege' Out of Their Children

Beth Baumann
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Posted: Aug 29, 2020 9:55 AM
How Rich: Chelsea Clinton Is Telling Parents How to 'Erode White Privilege' Out of Their Children

Source: AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, File

Former First Daughter Chelsea Clinton talked about how she is working to "erode" white privilege out of her children during a conversation with Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) about voting rights in America. The conversation was part of a "Women for Biden" online event.

"You know, congresswoman, certainly my children are young, but we believe they're young but still citizens so we talked about the ratification of the 19th Amendment and women's equality day but how fundamentally incomplete that victory was," Clinton said. 

According to the former first daughter, the 19th Amendment was a "flawed victory" because "indigenous and black women didn't have the right to vote" and there are some states, like Alaska, that make it difficult for Native American women to vote. 

"You know, 40 percent of Americans with disabilities report that they have real challenges voting in person. And so in states where there haven’t been, kind of, no-excuse absentee voting or where there hasn’t been the introduction of early voting yet, you know, it still isn’t, kind of, easy, fair or equal for many Americans to vote," Clinton explained.“And I think it’s really important that my children understand that. And I think it’s particularly important that they understand that as white children of privilege, because I want them to erode that privilege throughout their lives to ensure more people are enfranchised and that equality isn’t just an ideal.”

Pressley praised Clinton's desire to teach her children.

"You’re really modeling that which my mother certainly believed, which is that a parent is a child’s first teacher. And I so appreciate that you’re providing that full education, because we know that often there is a revisionist history or a sanitizing or filtering of history that does not tell the whole story," Pressley said.

According to the congresswoman, it's parents' conversations with their kids that would ensure that "we get to truth and reconciliation and we fortify ourselves to continue to do the work to make sure we dismantle those barriers that still exist." She said that she believes there are still "barriers" as well as "voter suppression and intimidation tactics" still taking place today. 

It's always amazing to listen to people like Chelsea Clinton talk about wanting to erode "white privilege" out of her kids. How do you talk to kids who are 4 and 5-years-old about this idea that they're given so many more things or opportunities because of the color of their skin? Kids at that age don't understand the concepts of racism or white privilege. For the most part, kids at that age are focused on playing outside – or in 2020, playing on their tabIets. Kids tend to see past race and gender. They're innocent. They haven't been exposed to the harsh realities of the world. They have a brighter outlook on things. They're pure in that sense. 

Chelsea Clinton grew up with luxuries most people can only dream of. It's not like she's lived a "normal" life. It's not like she knows what it's like to struggle to pay the bills, find a job or put food on the table for her kids. She was automatically put up on a pedestal and given more opportunities because of her last name, being related to the former president and growing up in politics. 

It's hard to take this kind of thing seriously from someone who has lived the majority of their life in national politics. It might come off slightly more effective if the Democrats used someone that's a little more "normal" and a little less of a washed up political celebrity. 

JOE BIDEN: SERVANT OF RED CHINA - "Biden spent over three decades opening American markets to Chinese goods, ignoring China's abhorrent human rights record, and dismissing the challenge posed by our greatest rival for global leadership."

 

"Biden spent over three decades opening American markets to Chinese goods, ignoring China's abhorrent human rights record, and dismissing the challenge posed by our greatest rival for global leadership.  The "made in China" era coincided with the closure of tens of thousands of American factories, stagnant working-class wages, and the loss of America's ability to produce essential goods domestically — a vulnerability that took on incredible significance when we learned that we were dependent upon China to produce the medical equipment needed to combat the coronavirus pandemic." 

                                                                           KEN BLACKWELL


Wisconsin Manufacturer: Biden’s Pro-China Record Gutted My Business

US Vice President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping toast during a State Luncheon for China hosted by US Secretary of State John Kerry on September 25, 2015 at the Department of State in Washington, DC. AFP PHOTO/PAUL J. RICHARDS (Photo credit should read PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP via Getty …
PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP via Getty Images
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Debbie Flood, the owner of a cast bronze architectural hardware manufacturer in Schofield, Wisconsin, blasted Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden’s record on normalizing United States trade with China that she says gutted her business before President Trump ushered in his economic nationalist agenda.

Flood said:

My name is Debbie Flood and I own a small foundry and machine shop in Wisconsin that manufactures cast bronze architectural hardware. My father, a WWII veteran, started the business with some used equipment and the American dream. Today, we are one of the only U.S. companies left who make our products from start to finish under one roof. We really make things and we love it.

Flood continued:

When we lost nearly 50% of our business to China in the mid-2000s, we wondered how a small company like ours could continue to compete. At the time, Joe Biden was a senator. He voted to normalize trade with China and helped pave the way for them to join the WTO, even though they were hurting American companies like ours. [Emphasis added]

Later, we fought our way through the Great Recession. Then Donald Trump was elected, and we breathed a sigh of relief. He actually fought for American workers and American craftsmen. He actually cared about bringing back those three beautiful words, “Made in America.”

We no longer had to succeed despite government. Now, the government was on our side, and we enjoyed a thriving economy stimulated by President Trump’s pro-business and pro-worker policies. Thanks to the Trump tax cuts, I‘ve been able to raise my employees’ wages. [Emphasis added]

Indeed, Biden voted to normalize U.S. trade relations with China, supported their entering the WTO, and has downplayed the economic threat of China to American sovereignty and American businesses.

Most recently, Biden said he would end Trump’s tariffs on billions of dollars worth of China-made goods before his aides walked the statement back. Likewise, in 2019, Biden criticized Trump’s tariffs on China.

As Breitbart News has chronicled, decades-long free trade deals, NAFTA, and China’s entering the WTO eliminated nearly five million manufacturing jobs across the country since 1994. Free trade advocates, like Biden, claimed at the time that NAFTA would create a million U.S. manufacturing jobs in the first five years.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder


JOE BIDEN, SERVANT OF RED CHINA… .Just follow the money through Hunter’s pockets.


Well, it looks like the makeover has begun.

Corrupt Joe Biden, who used his office to enrich himself and his family, to say the least, is now the foreign policy maven, particularly on China. That's the spin from the New York Times, which has beclowned itself badly, trying to tell the audience that something smelly is shinola

To voters unsettled by President Trump’s disruptive approach to the world, Mr. Biden is selling not only his policy prescriptions but also his long track record of befriending, cajoling and sometimes confronting foreign leaders — what he might call the power of his informal diplomatic style. “I’ve dealt with every one of the major world leaders that are out there right now, and they know me. I know them,” he told supporters in December.

Brett McGurk, a former senior State Department official for the campaign against the Islamic State, said Mr. Biden had been an effective diplomat by practicing “strategic empathy.”

And unlike Trump, Biden was oh so personal, as well as "not an ideologue."

Mr. Biden made a quick “personal connection” with the Chinese leader, even if he sometimes confounded his Mandarin interpreter by quoting hard-to-translate Irish verse, said Daniel Russel, an aide present at several of the meetings.

“He was remarkably good in getting to a personal relationship right away and getting Xi to open up,” Mr. Russel said.

Had enough? The translation, according to Peter Schweizer's Profiles in Corruption is:

For Vice President Joe Biden, effective diplomacy was about forming personal relationships with foreign leaders. "It all gets down to the conduct of foreign policy being personal." The vice president had a series of important and tense meetings with Chinese officials on a variety of critical matters in the bilateral relationship. The trip coincided with an enormous financial deal that Hunter Biden's firm, Rosemont Seneca, was arranging with the state-owned Bank of China. What Hunter did during the official visit to Beijing we cannot know for sure. Other than a few photo ops with his father, he was nowhere to be seen. 

...and...

Approximately ten days after the Beijing trip, Hunter Biden's Rosemont Seneca Partners finalized a deal with the Chinese government worth a whopping $1 billion. The deal was later expanded to $1.5 billion. As of this writing, the fund's website says its investments amount to more than $2 billion.  

It's important to note that this deal was with the Chinese government--not with  Chinese company, which means that the Chinese government and the son of the vice president were now business partners.

Now he's Mr. Congeniality, the perfect opposite of President Trump who confronts China rather sternly on issues. To the Times, that's a bad thing. To the average 'hey fat' out in the American heartland as Biden puts it, Trump's diplomacy is actually standing up for the interests of Americans.

It's also a disgusting double standard. Trump is no China hater - he does his best to cut the best deal possible for main street America by driving a hard bargain the Chinese know they have no choice but to accept. Any time Trump says something concilatory to the Chinese, it's denounced as sucking up to dictators, while any time Joe does it - pocketing the profits, which any non-ideologue is adept at doing - he's Mr. Personality.

As Mickey Kaus well observed:

 

When Trump does it it's coddling dictators, with Biden it's Strategic Empathy! @michaelcrowley is at least a bit skeptical. https://t.co/Pnc9SqxAk4

— Mickey Kaus (@kausmickey) July 6, 2020

 

Here's the problem with this kind of 'personal' diplomacy. It is very personal indeed to Joe, given the wealth it has brought is family members. It's also very dangerous, given that every string and hook China's oligarchs can get into him makes him an even bigger sock puppet than he already was. Combine with the world's dodgiest players considering Biden a non-entity (Osama bin Laden considered Biden a fool) and the picture is a very ugly one for America's interests. 

Here's the second problem: This apparent media makeover for Joe, painting him as the great personal-touch diplomat who can get along with everyone is clearly the new party line being promoted in the press, and we can expect to see lockstep echoing of this embarassing face-lift. The JournoList talking points have gone out and now the shots are fired. As those shots went out, attempting to boost Joe while taking down Trump, the Chicoms themselves have been very active, too. Just days ago, according to a report in the Daily Caller, the Chinese investment firm that made Hunter a very rich man has quietly removed Hunter's name as a board member. That's to help Joe win his presidential bid for sure, which ought to make voters very wary given whose interests are being boosted. Worse still, the Caller reports, they allowed him to keep his sizable stake in the company - worth milions at least. No wonder he's comfortably ensconced in the Hollywood Hills these days, bored and playing 'artist,' dodging release of his financial statements to an Arkansas judge over a babydaddy case with a stripper looking for child support. No wonder he apparently settled with the woman and swept the whole thing off the front pages.

Now the makeover is on, with the media ignoring the pocket-lining entirely -- the New York Times makes simply no mention of it -- and the cash spigots still going. 

The whole thing -- pocket-lining and media coverup is a disgusting double-load of corruption that anyone with a brain can see right through. The GOP must keep the heat onto this issue because it's being distorted beyond recognition.

Photo illustration by Monica Showalter with use of images by Gage Skidmore, via Flickr // CC BY-SA 2.0Acaben, via Wikimedia Commons // CC BY-SA 2.0PxFuel public domain, and SKopp via Wikimedia Commons // public domain

 

 

We're not buying Joe Biden's 'tough on China' Act

 

By Ken Blackwell

Joe Biden is running away from his record as the "pro-China" candidate so quickly that his defenders in the liberal press can't make heads or tails of it.  Ordinary Americans are equally confused.

Biden spent over three decades opening American markets to Chinese goods, ignoring China's abhorrent human rights record, and dismissing the challenge posed by our greatest rival for global leadership.  The "made in China" era coincided with the closure of tens of thousands of American factories, stagnant working-class wages, and the loss of America's ability to produce essential goods domestically — a vulnerability that took on incredible significance when we learned that we were dependent upon China to produce the medical equipment needed to combat the coronavirus pandemic.

This disaster was facilitated by politicians of both parties, and no one was more gung ho than Joe Biden, poster child for the globalism that reigned supreme until the 2016 presidential election, which Donald J. Trump won by campaigning on a platform diametrically opposed to the "open markets and open borders" philosophy of the D.C. establishment.  In the White House, President Trump became the first American leader in decades to take a firm stand against China's malfeasance and demand a genuinely fair and reciprocal trade deal for American workers.

While Joe Biden was the vice president of the United States, conversely, he was downplaying the consequences of China's rise — even as his own family tried to get rich through deals with Chinese state-owned companies.

How is it possible, then, that Biden has suddenly tried to recast himself as the "tough-on-China" candidate in the 2020 race?

Biden's campaign even ran an ad claiming the president had "rolled over for the Chinese" in response to the coronavirus that Beijing unleashed on the world.  It's one of the most poorly executed flip-flops in American electoral history, coming just months after Biden called President Trump's life-saving ban on most travel from China "hysterical xenophobia."

No one is buying it.  Everyone knows about President Trump's record of success in bringing China to the negotiating table through strategic counter-tariffs.  The "Phase One" trade deal that was inked earlier this year represents the first major trade concessions from China in a generation.  Even the fanatical free-traders who actually liked Biden's globalism see right through his new façade.  The libertarians at the Cato Institute, for instance, published an article acknowledging that Biden's reversal is "futile" and "inherently lacks credibility."

Even the intellectual left is aghast at Biden's fake toughness on China.  The Atlantic called it "utterly futile" and "pointless — even dangerous."  The New York Times published an op-ed all but begging Biden to drop the act.

If even his own supporters are rolling their eyes at Biden play-acting as a China skeptic, why are he and his team even bothering to attempt the deception?

The answer is simple.  Americans have finally woken up to the economic and national security threat posed by China.  The coronavirus pandemic made that threat impossible to ignore.  No one wants to go into this November as the "pro-Beijing" candidate.

Unfortunately for Joe Biden, he's been the "pro-Beijing" candidate throughout his political career, and there's a decades-long record to prove it.

Ken Blackwell served as mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio treasurer, and a U.S. ambassador to the U.N.  He currently serves on the board of directors for Club For Growth. 

Image: Marc Nozell via Flickr.

 

Hollywood is importing Chinese censorship to the United States

by Zachary Faria, Commentary Fellow | 

 

 | August 11, 2020 07:31 AM

Hollywood likes to hold itself out as a progressive pioneer of social justice, but a new report highlights how the desire to get films into the Chinese market leads major film studios to violate their own social justice dogma. In fact, it often leads them to import the values of the Chinese Communist Party — the organization with the highest body count in human history.

The report by PEN America, a nonprofit organization that promotes free expression in literature, examines a collection of films that bowed to Chinese censorship in order to get access to the Chinese movie market. China allows 34 foreign films to be released in the country each year, and in 2018, quarterly revenue from China surpassed the United States for the first time. Before the pandemic, it was projected that revenue from China in 2023 would reach $15.5 billion.

Some Chinese censorship is minor, propaganda that can only be caught by alert viewers. Paramount cut the Taiwanese flag from Tom Cruise’s jacket for the Top Gun sequel, while the DreamWorks film Abominable (a collaboration with China’s Pearl Studio) featured the nine-dash line, a propaganda map asserting China’s control of the South China Sea.

Hollywood studios will often run afoul of the tenets of social justice they often push in the U.S. Marvel notably whitewashed a major Tibetan character in Doctor Strange to avoid offending the Chinese government. Studios ranging from Warner Brothers to Paramount to Twentieth Century Fox have either removed scenes of same-sex kissing from films or had them removed by China when the films aired. A complaint from a religious group in the U.S., on the other hand, would only draw mockery.

The most troubling takeaway from the report is not that individual scenes are being censored or self-censored but that studios have decided to base major film decisions on China, sometimes even unprompted. Marvel infamously brought in Chinese regulators during the filming of Iron Man 3 to ensure the movie stayed inbounds and added extra scenes to the Chinese version of the film showing Chinese doctors saving Iron Man’s life.

The days of Hollywood backing human rights in its work have disappeared. The 1997 film Seven Years in Tibet, portraying China’s 1950 invasion of Tibet, led to the blacklisting of director Jean-Jacques Annaud until his groveling apology 12 years later. Film star Brad Pitt was also penalized for the movie, which likely helped bar World War Z from a Chinese release.

Change is not a lost cause. The industry’s biggest stars have the power to push for it, as when Quentin Tarantino refused to sign off on a re-cut of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood to appease Chinese censors. But if Hollywood’s other influential voices are unwilling to even stand up for their own creative freedom, why would they take a stand on behalf of the human rights of people they will never even meet?

 

After Feinstein was elected to the Senate in 1992, Blum continued profiting off their ties to China. A the same time, the freshman lawmaker was pitching herself as a “China hand” to colleagues, even once claiming “that in my last life maybe I was Chinese.” HARIS ALIC

 

 

 

Ted Cruz Describes Joe Biden's 'Sophisticated Corruption'

 Cortney O'Brien

"Remember simpler times when corruption was just $10,000 in a paper bag handed secretly under a table in a smoky bar in Washington?" Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) reminisced on Sunday.

"Corruption sadly has gotten much more sophisticated in Washington," Cruz continued in his conversation with Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh. "With Joe Biden there is just a lot of questions about his family enriching themselves in order to get policy decisions from Joe Biden."

A lot of this year's impeachment trial focused on Hunter Biden and his conduct in Ukraine, where he sat on the board of a corrupt gas company. They paid him $1 million a year.

"I don't know about you but I've never had a Ukrainian gas company call me up and say, 'Hey come serve on our board of directors,'" Cruz said. "That's kind of out there."

Which is strange, Cruz noted, because Hunter didn't speak Ukrainian and the only thing he probably knows about gas is that he routinely filled up the gas tank in his car. They only cared who his daddy was.

Cruz then repeated President Trump's claim that Hunter got greedy and asked for $1.5 billion from China when he accompanied his dad on a trip to Beijing in 2013. According to Trump and others, Hunter negotiated a deal to create a joint-investment fund between his company, Rosemont Seneca, and a Chinese state-run bank. Wanting influence with the vice president, they reportedly gave him the money.

President Trump: "China should start an investigation into the Bidens because what happened in China is just about as bad as what happened with Ukraine. So, I would say that President Zelensky, if it were me, I would recommend that they start an investigation into the Bidens."

"They've gotten sophisticated in this shakedown," Cruz said of the Bidens.

The senator alleged that Biden's weak position on China has tainted his foreign policy agenda. Murtaugh asked Cruz to expand on Biden's history of siding with China and dismissing the CCP as a threat on the 2020 campaign trail, all of which has earned him the nickname, "Beijing Biden."

"The Chinese Communist Party's vision for the future is global domination," Cruz said. "Unfortunately, Joe Biden isn't even aware that a battle is waging. After decades in Washington, he has dismissed China over and over again and has allowed his family to make money off their tyranny and deception. The United States can prevail in this contest of nations so long as we have a president — like President Trump  — who is willing to stand up to China and hold them accountable."

Biden also accused President Trump of being "racist" and "xenophobic" when he banned travel to and from China in January when we first learned of the coronavirus. The former VP would backtrack on those remarks and eventually come to find that Trump was right. It was one of Biden's signature flip flops.

 

"In what universe is Joe Biden going to be able to do stand up with strength, with fortitude, and combat China?" Cruz wondered.

 

Hong Kong Police Fire Tear Gas, Water Cannon at Protesters

 

24 May 2020108

HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong police fired tear gas and a water cannon at protesters in a popular shopping district Sunday, as thousands took to the streets to march against China’s move to impose national security legislation on the city.

Pro-democracy supporters have sharply criticized a proposal, set to be approved by China’s rubber-stamp parliament this week, that would ban secessionist and subversive activity, as well as foreign interference, in the semi-autonomous Chinese territory.

The pro-democracy camp says the proposal goes against the “one country, two systems” framework that promises Hong Kong freedoms not found in mainland China.

Crowds of demonstrators dressed in black gathered in the Causeway Bay district on Sunday, chanting slogans such as “Stand with Hong Kong,” “Liberate Hong Kong” and “Revolution of our times.”

The protest was a continuation of a monthslong pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong that began last year and has at times descended into violence between police and protesters.

Police raised blue flags, warning protesters to disperse, before firing multiple rounds of tear gas. They later fired a water cannon at the demonstrators.

At least 180 people were arrested, mostly on charges of unlawful assembly, police said.

They also said that some of the protesters threw bricks and splashed unidentified liquid at officers, injuring at least four members of the police media liaison team. They warned that such behavior is against the law and that police would pursue the matter.

Earlier in the afternoon, prominent activist Tam Tak-chi was arrested during the protest for what police said was unauthorized assembly. Tam said he was giving a “health talk” and was exempt from social-distancing measures that prohibit gatherings of more than eight people.

The bill that triggered Sunday’s rally was submitted at the opening of China’s national legislative session on Friday. It would bypass Hong Kong’s legislature and could allow mainland agencies to be set up in the city, sparking concern that Chinese agents could arbitrarily arrest people for activities deemed to be pro-democracy.

Speaking at an annual news conference during the legislative session, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Sunday that Hong Kong affairs were an internal matter for China, and that “no external interference will be tolerated.”

“Excessive unlawful foreign meddling in Hong Kong affairs has placed China’s national security in serious jeopardy,” Wang said, adding that the proposed legislation “does not affect the high degree of autonomy in Hong Kong.”

“It does not affect the rights and freedoms enjoyed by Hong Kong residents. And it does not affect the legitimate rights and interests of foreign investors in Hong Kong,” he said.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has called the proposal “a death knell for the high degree of autonomy” that Beijing promised the former British colony when it was returned to China in 1997.

Chris Patten, the last British governor of Hong Kong prior to its handover to China, lamented what he called “a new Chinese dictatorship.”

“I think the Hong Kong people have been betrayed by China, which has proved once again that you can’t trust it further than you can throw it,” Patten said in an interview with The Times of London.

Patten is leading a coalition of at least 204 international lawmakers and policymakers who are decrying the proposed legislation. In a statement, the coalition called it a “flagrant breach” of the Sino-British Joint Declaration, a 1984 treaty that promised Hong Kong a high degree of autonomy even after the handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997.

President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, Robert O’Brien, said it appeared that China was violating the 1984 treaty.

“And I can’t see how Hong Kong remains the Asian financial center if the Chinese Communist Party goes through and implements this national security law and takes over Hong Kong,” O’Brien said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

“That would be a tragedy for the people of Hong Kong, but it will also be very bad for China,” he said.

Bernard Chan, a top-level Hong Kong politician and delegate to the National People’s Congress in Beijing, defended the national security legislation pushed by China, saying it was written into Hong Kong’s Basic Law — the city’s mini-constitution — but never enacted.

Chan expressed concern that Hong Kong would inevitably face economic hardship given trade frictions between the U.S. and China.

“I think we are definitely the collateral damage being dragged into this thing. But then, I don’t think there’s any alternatives,” he said.

“But with or without this law, honestly, the U.S. and China are always going to be continuing this loggerhead for quite some time to come,” Chan said. “China will remain as a threat to the U.S. in terms of the … world economic dominance.”

___

Associated Press journalist Dake Kang in Beijing contributed to this report.

 

A GLIMPSE INTO THE GLOBALIST AGENDA OF A NATION RULE BY AND FOR THE RICH AND WALL STREET. THIS REQUIRES OPEN BORDERS FOR ENDLESS HORDES OF ‘CHEAP’ LABOR TO KEEP WAGES DEPRESSED AND FINISH OFF THE AMERICAN MIDDLE CLASS.

 

Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) says the “Masters of the Universe”  (HIGH TECH BILLIONAIRES) want more legal immigration to the United States to further diminish the incomes of American working and middle-class families.

 

So why do the citizens of blue hells not rebel? That is the question -- Anton and Hanson and Jenkins, like so many of us, know they must.

 

Maybe that’s part of it. I do think that the movement in the direction of feudal, tyrannical governance is being aided by the influx of millions of illegal immigrants from places where this kind of government is the norm.

 

Is Feudalism Our Future?

By Clarice Feldman

It’s increasingly clear that one-party polities are corrupt, badly managed and serve the interests only of those at the top and their courtiers. I think that if Biden and Harris win, the entire country will devolve to a kingdom of  state and regional duchies composed of  often semi-hereditary rulers in the pay of the rich, donor class, the clerisy (media scribblers, complaisant judicial appointees and academic rent seekers who promote favored policies and shut out the dissenters), an impoverished, smaller, and powerless middle class and a vast layer of muzzled, docile poor serfs. They will rule by fiat (often inconsistently and illogically) as they have been in dealing with COVID-19. Because they can, the Constitution to the contrary notwithstanding.

In a lengthy essay, Michael Anton details why he thinks the leftist dream (which, in essence is a feudal form of tyranny) is within reach if Trump loses.  I urge you all to read in its entirety this thoughtful article at your leisure. At best, I can only highlight some of the many salient points he makes.

1. Since the 1960s policies and practices have enriched the ruling class and “erode our natural and constitutionally guaranteed rights and liberties” as they degraded our culture and dishonored our heritage.

2. At present the office of the presidency is seriously weaker than the unitary executive described in the Constitution intended as an entrenched bureaucracy undermines, flouts and disobeys the president at every turn if he dares to advance policies “unpopular with the deep state.”

3.  The benign phrase “public-private partnership” is no less than “the use of state power to serve private interests” and the relationship is one in which the senior partner is always big business.

4.  Congress, he argues “is a joke.” Our government is run by “The cogs and lickspittles in the bureaucracy, led by a small elite in corporations, above all in Big Tech and finance, will determine all important policies, foreign and domestic.”

5. The COVID lockdowns and mandates engineered by governors and mayors without laws to permit them based on “expert” lies continue even as we know the virus is definitely not the plague we were told it would be.

He argues that should Trump lose we can expect increasingly anti-democratic governance “committed to social engineering and grievance politics” and a continued undermining of virtue and promotion of vice.

Anton talks about the undermining of the right to self-defense and the outrageous prosecution of Kyle Rittenhouse, who in Kenosha did just that against three attackers whose marauding had been encouraged by the Wisconsin governor’s and local mayor’s refusal to enforce the laws to maintain order. 

Attorney Lin Wood, who successfully sued on behalf of Robert Jewell and Nick Sandmann and who this week volunteered to represent  Kyle  Rittenhouse (the hero of Kenosha) for defamation says we are facing a revolution and need to prepare ourselves for the fight. 

Lin Wood @LLinWood
(1) Republicans are talking “policy differences” while focusing on upcoming election. They are not taking the current situation serious or they are just plain stupid. They need to face truth that our country is under attack.
(2) The former President, Barack Obama, is calling for sustained protests. The leader of the resistance movement, Hillary Clinton, is saying that we should not accept the results of the next election.
(3) The Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, is describing our President, @realDonaldTrump, as an enemy of the state. Many radical members of Congress are openly calling for the overthrow of our government.
(4) 1 + 1 + 1 = Revolution.
#FightBack
5:55 AM · Aug 29, 2020

The Duchy of Newsom as the Template of the New Order

No better example of what Anton describes as our future can I find than the sad state of California under the governorship of Gavin Newsom. I’ve written elsewhere of the Green New Deal disaster he helped birth and which now plunges much of his state into darkness and misery

Victor David Hanson has written extensively on what has brought his home state so rich in natural resources to its knees. Here’s but one of his latest reports. It begins (and then extensively documents):  “Power outages, fires, water shortages, rising taxes, crumbling and congested highways, dismal schools, lawlessness…”

At the Wall Street Journal, Holman Jenkins, Jr. notes that California politicians obsess about things like “climate change” they are powerless to do anything about while ignoring serious problems they could do something about if only they had the skills and will to govern. In that one-party state there is simply no accountability for failure of vision and execution:

Unfortunately, the people running the state, including Joe Biden’s prospective veep, have been mostly meme-chasing, pose-striking calculators. Their only career plan: nurse their standing with Hollywood green activists, trial lawyers and public-sector unions. In a one-party state, there is no serious clash of policy prescriptions. That’s how Kamala Harris could reach middle age with a giant vacancy in her résumé where one would normally find some connection to policy ideas.

If the state is to dig out of its deepening hole, it will need something else. It will need, you know, ideas. In fact, only a revolution of ideas can save it from the path it’s on. And the first idea is easy to see. The state will have to wake up from the sheer ludicrousness of devoting so much of its politics to a problem its politics can’t fix at the expense to those it can.

So why do the citizens of blue hells not rebel? That is the question -- Anton and Hanson and Jenkins, like so many of us, know they must.

My online friend “The Infamous Ignatz” sees it in psychological terms:

I don't think the people living in urban blue hells want to live in hell, but irrationality on a mass scale is made up of millions of little individual irrationalities collectivized.

An irrational person has a very, very difficult time choosing the rational option because it involves so many self-negating decisions, not least of which is stopping the magical thinking and the blaming of others for the problem.

That's why I equate irrational society with personality disorders. It's not that people in urban hellscapes aren't miserable, they just don't see any way out. For those outside looking in, American cities' electoral habits fit Einstein's apocryphal definition of insanity better than anything I can think of.

What makes it even more incurable and persistent is the very people the voters think they are hiring as their therapists not only come themselves from the ranks of the disordered but they have very powerful incentives making sure the patient never gets well. 

Maybe that’s part of it. I do think that the movement in the direction of feudal, tyrannical governance is being aided by the influx of millions of illegal immigrants from places where this kind of government is the norm. It gained force when civics education was dropped in schools in favor of less significant subjects, and the hollowing out of our higher education institutions, including law schools, which since the 1960s have increasingly become there-oughta-be-a-law schools which encourage future judges and law clerks to imagine themselves as legislators and executives. Nor can we forget the role being played by the tech giants, who are using IT as a weapon for social control and the destruction of privacy. In any event, November will have us in the fight of our lives. Be prepared.

Exclusive–Mo Brooks: ‘Masters of the Universe’ Want More Immigration to ‘Decrease Incomes of Americans’

 

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/03/10/exclusive-mo-brooks-masters-universe-want-more-immigration-decrease-incomes-americans/

 

Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) says the “Masters of the Universe”  (HIGH TECH BILLIONAIRES) want more legal immigration to the United States to further diminish the incomes of American working and middle-class families.

In an exclusive interview with SiriusXM Patriot’s Breitbart News Tonight, Brooks said recent demands to increase the number of foreign workers coming to the U.S. to compete against American citizens for jobs is merely an effort by corporations to deplete the earnings of Americans.

Brooks said:

I’m not a part of the Masters of the Universe crowd who thinks we ought to be bringing in all this foreign labor and the reason for it is pure economics. This is the chance for Americans and lawful immigrants who are already here who are working in the blue-collar trades, who are working in the places where wages are not as high they ought to be, this is their chance to prosper. [Emphasis added]

And to the extent you import a lot of foreign labor, then you are artificially increasing the labor supply which in turn means that you’re artificially suppressing the wages of American families who are often hard-pressed to make ends meet So I respectfully disagree that we need more foreign labor, to the contrary, I would like to see us reduce the foreign labor that comes into America so that American families who are struggling to make ends meet, particularly those of us who are earning the least amounts, would be better to take care of their own families and less likely to be dependent on the welfare. [Emphasis added]

Brooks said Democrats support for mass legal immigration is centered on the premise that increasing the number of foreign workers in the U.S. will decrease Americans’ wages, thus forcing many into poverty and becoming welfare recipients. This, Brooks said, is how Democrats create a permanent dependent class of Democrat voters.

“Don’t get me wrong, [Democrats] want to decrease the incomes of Americans so that they’re dependent on welfare,” Brooks said.

That makes them in turn likely Democrat voters and the best way to do that is to have a huge surge in the labor supply, particularly illegal aliens, that will depress their wages therefore creating more Democrats who are dependent on welfare at the same time as they bring in illegal aliens who also under Democrat doctrine will be allowed to vote and those types of voters, they’re also dependent on welfare. [Emphasis added]

“About 70 percent of illegal alien households are on welfare … plus this is a bloc of voters that seems unusually susceptible to the racial divisions that the Democrats advance,” Brooks said. “You have to look at the big picture in all of this, and to me, we should not be importing as much foreign labor as we are. We should be helping the least among us earn more and importing foreign labor that suppresses wages is not the way to do that.”

Currently, the U.S. admits more than 1.2 legal immigrants annually, with the vast majority deriving from chain migration, whereby newly naturalized citizens can bring an unlimited number of foreign relatives to the country. In 2017, the foreign-born population reached a record high of 44.5 million.

The U.S. is on track to import about 15 million new foreign-born voters in the next two decades should current legal immigration levels continue. Those 15 million new foreign-born voters include about eight million who will arrive in the country through chain migration, where newly naturalized citizens can bring an unlimited number of foreign relatives to the country.

Breitbart News Tonight broadcasts live on SiriusXM Patriot Channel 125 from 9:00 p.m. to Midnight Eastern (6:00 p.m.-9:00 p.m. Pacific). 

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder

 

TRUMPERNOMICS:

Billionaires’ wealth surged in 2019

28 December 2019

As the second decade of the 21st century comes to a close, its most salient feature—the plundering of humanity by a global financial oligarchy—continues unabated.

Amidst trade war and the growth of militarism and authoritarianism on the one side, and an eruption of international strikes and protests by the working class against social inequality on the other, the stock market is hitting record highs and the fortunes of the world’s billionaires are continuing to surge.

On Friday, one day after all three major US stock indexes set new records, Bloomberg issued its end-of-year survey of the world’s 500 richest people. The Bloomberg Billionaires Index reported that the oligarchs’ fortunes increased by a combined total of $1.2 trillion, a 25 percent rise over 2018. Their collective net worth now comes to $5.9 trillion.

To place this figure in some perspective, these 500 individuals control more wealth than the gross domestic product of the United States at the end of the third quarter of 2019, which was $5.4 trillion.

The year’s biggest gains went to France’s Bernard Arnault, who added $36.5 billion to his fortune, bringing it above the rarified $100 billion level to $105 billion. He knocked speculator Warren Buffett, at $89.3 billion, down to fourth place. Amazon boss Jeff Bezos lost nearly $9 billion due to a divorce settlement, but maintained the top position, with a net worth of $116 billion. Microsoft founder Bill Gates gained $22.7 billion for the year and held on to second place at $113 billion.

The 172 American billionaires on the Bloomberg list added $500 billion, with Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg recording the year’s biggest US gain at $27.3 billion, placing him in fifth place worldwide with a net worth of $79.3 billion.

It is difficult to comprehend the true significance of such stratospheric sums. In his 2016 book Global Inequality, economist Branko Milanovic wrote:

"A billion dollars is so far outside the usual experience of practically everyone on earth that the very quantity it implies is not easily understood… Suppose now that you inherited either $1 million or $1 billion, and that you spent $1,000 every day. It would take you less than three years to run through your inheritance in the first case, and more than 2,700 years (that is, the time that separates us from Homer’s Iliad) to blow your inheritance in the second case."

The vast redistribution of wealth from the bottom to the top of society is the outcome of a decades-long process, which was accelerated following the 2008 Wall Street crash. It is not the result of impersonal and simply self-activating processes. Rather, the policies of capitalist governments and parties around the world, nominally “left” as well as right, have been dedicated to the ever greater impoverishment of the working class and enrichment of the ruling elite.

In the US, the top one percent has captured all of the increase in national income over the past two decades, and all of the increase in national wealth since the 2008 crash.

The main mechanism for this transfer of wealth has been the stock market, and the policies of the US Federal Reserve and central banks internationally have been geared to providing cheap money to drive up stock prices. The cost of this massive subsidy to the financial markets and the oligarchs has been paid by the working class, in the form of social cuts, mass layoffs, the destruction of pensions and health benefits, and the replacement of relatively secure and decent-paying jobs with part-time, temporary and contingent “gig” positions.

Since Trump was inaugurated in January of 2017, pledging to slash corporate taxes, lift regulations on big business and dramatically increase the military budget, the Dow has surged by 9,000 points. This year, Trump and the financial markets applied massive pressure on the Fed to reverse its efforts to “normalize” interest rates. The Fed complied, carrying out three rate cuts and repeatedly assuring the markets it had no plans to raise rates in 2020.

This windfall for the banks and hedge funds was supported by the Democrats no less than the Republicans. In fact, Trump’s economic policy has been given de facto support by the Democratic Party all down the line—from his tax cuts for corporations and the rich to his attack on virtually all regulations on business. Even in the midst of impeachment—carried out entirely on the grounds of “national security” and Trump’s supposed “softness” toward Russia—the Democrats have voted by wide margins for Trump’s budget, his anti-Chinese US-Mexico-Canada trade pact and his record $738 billion Pentagon war budget.

This has included giving Trump all the money he wants to build his border wall and carry out the mass incarceration and persecution of immigrants.

Trump’s pro-corporate policies are an extension and expansion of those pursued by the Obama administration. It allocated trillions in taxpayer money to bail out the banks and flooded the financial markets with cheap credit, driving up stock prices, while imposing a 50 percent across-the-board cut in pay for newly hired autoworkers in its bailout of General Motors and Chrysler. Obama oversaw the closure of thousands of schools and the layoff of hundreds of thousands of teachers, and enacted austerity budgets that slashed social programs.

Two of those running for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination are billionaires—Tom Steyer and Michael Bloomberg. The latter, with a net worth of $56 billion, is the ninth richest person in the US. He entered the race as the spokesman for oligarchs outraged over talk from Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren of token tax increases on the super-rich.

The oligarchs are not frightened by Sanders and Warren—two longstanding defenders of the American ruling class, who seek to mask their subservience to capital with talk of making the oligarchs pay “their fair share,” a euphemism for defending their right to pillage the population. The billionaires are frightened by the growth of mass opposition to capitalism that finds a distorted expression in support for the phony “progressives” in the Democratic fold.

Between them, Bloomberg and Steyer have already spent $200 million of their own money in an effort to buy the election outright.

The impact of the policy of social plunder is seen in the deepening of a malignant social crisis in country after country. In the US, society is marching backwards, as the crying need for schools, hospitals, affordable housing, pensions, the rebuilding of decrepit roads, bridges, transportation, flood control, water and sewage, fire control and electricity grids is met with the official response: “There is no money.”

The result? Three straight years of declining life expectancy, record addiction and suicide rates, devastating wildfires and floods, electricity cut-offs by profiteering utility companies. And a climate crisis that cannot be addressed within the framework of a system dominated by a money-mad plutocracy.

Not a single serious social problem can be addressed under conditions where the ruling elite—through its bribed parties and politicians, aided by its pro-capitalist trade unions and backed up by its courts, police and troops—diverts resources from society to the accumulation of ever more luxurious yachts, mansions, private islands and personal jets.

Where social reform is impossible, social revolution is inevitable. The solution to the impasse is to be found in the growth of the class struggle. The movement of workers and youth all over the world—from mass strikes in France to strikes by autoworkers and teachers in the US, protests in Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador and Brazil, strikes and mass demonstrations in Lebanon, Iran, Iraq and India—reveals the social force that can and will put an end to capitalism.

The watchword must be—in opposition to the Corbyns, the Sanders, the Tsiprases and their pseudo-left promoters—“Expropriate the super-rich!”

 

ALL BILLIONAIRES ARE DEMOCRATS. ALL BILLIONAIRES WANT OPEN BORDERS FOR MORE CHEAP LABOR AND NO CAPS ON IMPORTING CHINESE AND INDIANS TO WORK OUR TECH JOBS CHEAP.

 

Obama’s State of Delusion ... OR JUST ANOTHER "Hope & Change" HOAX?

 

”The delusional character of Obama’s State of the Union

 

address on Tuesday—presenting an America of rising living

 

standards and a booming economy, capped by his declaration

 

that the “shadow of crisis has passed”—is perhaps matched

 

only in its presentation by the media and supporters of the

 

Democratic Party.”


http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2015/01/oxfam-richest-one-percent-set-to.html

 

“The general tone was set by the New York Times in its lead editorial on Wednesday, which described the speech as a “simple, dramatic message about economic fairness, about the fact that the well-off—the top earners, the big banks, Silicon Valley—have done just great, while middle and working classes remain dead in the water.”

 

OBAMANOMICS:

 

The report observes that while the wealth of the world’s 80 richest people doubled between 2009 and 2014, the wealth of the poorest half of the world’s population (3.5 billion people) was lower in 2014 than it was in 2009.

 

http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2015/01/oxfam-richest-one-percent-set-to.html

 

In 2010, it took 388 billionaires to match the wealth of the bottom half of the earth’s population; by 2013, the figure had fallen to just 92 billionaires. It fell to 80 in 2014.

 

THE OBAMA ASSAULT ON THE AMERICAN MIDDLE-CLASS

 

“The goal of the Obama administration, working with the Republicans and local governments, is to roll back the living conditions of the vast majority of the population to levels not seen since the 19th century, prior to the advent of the eight-hour day, child labor laws, comprehensive public education, pensions, health benefits, workplace health and safety regulations, etc.”

 

http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2015/01/oxfam-richest-one-percent-set-to.html

 

“In response to the ruthless assault of the financial oligarchy, spearheaded by Obama, the working class must advance, no less ruthlessly, its own policy.”

New Federal Reserve report

US median income has plunged, inequality has grown in Obama “recovery”

The yearly income of a typical US household dropped by a massive 12 percent, or $6,400, in the six years between 2007 and 2013. This is just one of the findings of the 2013 Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances released Thursday, which documents a sharp decline in working class living standards and a further concentration of wealth in the hands of the rich and the super-rich.

 

 

THE DEMOCRAT PARTY’S BILLIONAIRES’ GLOBALIST EMPIRE requires someone as ruthlessly dishonest as Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama to be puppet dictators.

http://hillaryclinton-whitecollarcriminal.blogspot.com/2018/09/google-rigged-it-so-illegals-would-vote.html

1.     Globalism: Google VP Kent Walker insists that despite its repeated rejection by electorates around the world, “globalization” is an “incredible force for good.”

 

2.     Hillary Clinton’s Democratic party: An executive nearly broke down crying because of the candidate’s loss. Not a single executive expressed anything but dismay at her defeat.

 

3.   Immigration: Maintaining liberal immigration in the U.S is the policy that Google’s executives discussed the most.

 

Why the rich favor the Democrats

 

By Peter Skurkiss

 

There's little doubt that today's Democrat Party is the party of the rich.  Actually, that's an understatement.  Far more than billionaires are involved.  A better expression of reality would be to say a fundamental core of Democrat coalition is the managerial class, also known as the elite.  These are the people who run the media, Hollywood and the entertainment industry, the big corporations, the universities and schools, the investment banks, and Wall Street.  They populate the upper levels of government bureaucracies.  These are the East and West Coasters. 

The alliance of the affluent with the Democrat Party can be seen in the widely disproportionate share of hefty political donations from the well-to-do going to Democrats and a bevy of left-wing causes.  It's also why forty-one out of the fifty wealthiest congressional districts are represented by Democrats. 

BLOG: DEMS LOVE SOCIALISM FOR ILLEGALS TO KEEP THEM COMING AND BREEDING ANCHOR BABIES FOR WELFARE AND SOCIALISM FOR BANKS. TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS OF IT!

 Bernie Sanders is an exception.  But he's an anomaly viewed as dangerous to the party, which is why he's being crushed by the Democrat establishment. 

Why do the wealthy align with the Democrats?  The answer may seem counter-intuitive, but it is really quite simple.  It's surely not ideals or high-minded principles.  Nor is it ignorance.  Rather, it boils down to raw self-interest.  

In his book, The Age of Entitlement: America Since the Sixties, Christopher Caldwell notes that rich Americans think themselves to be as vulnerable as blacks.  They are a relatively small minority of the population.  They fear being resented for their wealth and power and of having much of that taken from them.  Accordingly, the wealthy seek to protect what is theirs by preventing strong majorities from forming by using the divide and conquer principle. 

As R.R. Reno writes when reviewing Caldwell's book: "Therefore, the richest and most powerful people in America have strong incentives to support an anti-majoritarian political system."  He goes on: "Wealthy individuals shovel donations into elite institutions that incubate identity politics, which further fragments the nation and prevents the formation of majorities."

Some of the rotten fruit of the wealthy taking this approach include multiculturalism, massive immigration of diverse people, resistance to encouraging assimilation, racial strife, trying to turn white males into pariahs, and the promotion of gender confusion.  Through it all, society is bombarded with the Orwellian mantra that "diversity is strength," as if repeating it often enough can make it so.  It is also why patriotism and a common American culture are so disparaged today.  Those from the upper strata of society project the idea that if you're a flag-waving American, you must be some kind of retrograde mouth-breathing yokel.  

The wealthy as a groups are content to dissolve the glue that holds the U.S. together.  And it is all done to enhance and preserve their power, wealth, and influence.  This is why they so hate Donald Trump.  He strives to unite people and the country, although you'd never know that that is what the president is doing  if you live in the media bubble.  Trump's MAGA agenda is an anathema to the managerial class.

To quote Reno one final time:

The next decade will not be easy.  But it will not be about what preoccupied us in the sixties, and which Caldwell describes so well.  Rather than the perils of discrimination we are increasingly concerned with the problem of disintegration — or in Charles Murray's terms, the problem of "coming apart."

Trump and the GOP he is molding are the vehicles to restore and strengthen national solidarity.  Trump said at the Daytona 500, "No matter who wins, what matters most is God, family, and country."  That is not the Democrat agenda.  As seen in Democrat politicians, their policies, and the behavior of their major contributors, the aim is to further weaken the social and national bonds in America.  There is a lot at stake here.  If solidarity wins, the Republic can survive and prosper.  If the Democrats and their wealthy cohorts do, then the middle class withers, the Republic dies, and the rich and their managerial class get to rule the roost.  That is what it comes down to.

ALL BILLIONAIRES ARE DEMOCRATS. ALL BILLIONAIRES WANT WIDER OPEN BORDERS, AMNESTY AND HELL NO TO E-VERIFY!

 

In addition, establishment Republicans are no better than Democrats at stemming the flow of illegal immigration because big businesses reap the benefits of this cheap labor without incurring any of the social costs.

 

This is why the SEIU supports blanket amnesty for illegal aliens.

 

 

Democrats: The Party of Big Labor, Big Government...and Big Business

 

By Antonio R. Chaves

There is a widespread perception that the Democrat Party is the party the working class and the Republican Party is the party of big business.  Even though Republicans on average received slightly more from corporate employees prior to 2002, the overall difference between both parties from 1990 to 2020 is statistically insignificant (Table 1).  In fact, Democrat reliance on big labor gradually shifted toward big business following the involvement of solidly Democrat corporate giants in 2002, and from 2014 to 2020, Democrats consistently surpassed Republicans in corporate donations (Tables 1 & 2).

Based on data compiled by Open Secrets, Soros Fund Management, Fahr LLC (Tom Steyer), and Bloomberg LP ranked among the top ten for political contributions that gave over 90% to Democrats.  In sharp contrast, the right-leaning Koch Industries made the top ten only in 2014.  In nearly all other years, Koch ranked well below the top twenty.

Whether or not this trend is long-term, there is no denying that large corporations on average no longer lean right.  But what does it mean to be "the party of big business"? Donations are not definitive evidence.  What ultimately matters is what politicians do once they get elected.

Many liberals believe that big government is needed to "rein in" big business and that in the absence of federal intervention, corporations will "run roughshod" over the average American.  Many liberals also believe that corporations are the main beneficiaries of laissez-faire economics and that free-market conservatives who want to scale back regulations are somehow "in the pocket" of big business.

In reality, the opposite is true: big business and big government 

go hand in hand because government meddling in the economy 

encourages rent-seeking by businesses that can afford to pay 

for the lobbyists.  This crony capitalism grew exponentially as 

a result of New Deal regulations that squeezed out competitors 

during the 1930s.  Establishment politicians and well 

connected corporations are beneficiaries of the myth that big 

government and big business are adversaries because it hides 

their unholy alliance.

In all fairness, neither party has had a monopoly on the dispensation of corporate welfare: the TARP funds that propped up financial institutions deemed "too big to fail" during the Great Recession were released by the Bush administration.  In addition, establishment Republicans are no better than Democrats at stemming the flow of illegal immigration because big businesses reap the benefits of this cheap labor without incurring any of the social costs.

If both parties are playing this game, what is the basis for labeling the Democrat party "the party of big business"?  What policies from Republicans support small business?

Free-market conservatism benefits small businesses because the government does not pick the winners and losers by means of subsidies, tax breaks, and cumbersome regulations.  You will not see policies like these coming from Washington in a major way because proposals for shrinking the federal government rarely see the light of day in Congress.

Based on data collected by Gallup and Thumbtack, red states far outscore blue states in small business friendliness (Table 3).  This may be why less affluent Americans are fleeing states that score abysmally like CaliforniaIllinoisNew York, and Hawaii.  This might also be why small business–owners are more likely to vote Republican.

The Trump administration has been good for businesses of all sizes mainly due to the unprecedented rate at which it scaled back stifling regulations.  This may be why some of the president's highest approval ratings now come from small businesses.

Donald Trump set himself apart from the ruling class when he latched onto the third-rail issue of illegal immigration and called out the corporate darling Jeb Bush (AKA "Low Energy Jeb") for his lack of grassroots support.  This may explain in part why Bain Capital, the firm co-founded by Mitt Romney, switched teams and contributed solidly Democrat in 2018.  In 2012, Democrats accused Bain Capital of destroying jobs by systematically dismantling the companies it bought off.  Times have changed...

Small businesses generate well over half of all new jobs.  Most importantly, many are family-owned, have strong ties to their communities, and provide upward mobility for millions of Americans who never attended college.  The Democrats' undermining of this quintessentially American institution is shameful and disqualifies it as the "party of the working class."  Contributions from big labor do not count toward "labor-friendliness" because mega-unions care more about recruitment than about the welfare of working Americans.  This is why the SEIU supports blanket amnesty for illegal aliens.

Democrats fed up with the corporate status quo are now choosing their own anti-establishment candidate, not realizing that socialism is just a more impoverished version of the crony capitalism they are rejecting.  Many Sanders-supporters are also morally shallow because they want to harness the power of the state to muscle in on the wealth of Americans who borrowed responsibly and worked hard to pay their bills.

After the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin said, "This Constitution ... is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in despotism ... when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government."  If Democrats implement the dystopian policies of California on a national level, their corporate allies will do fine.  It is small business–owners and working-class Americans with nowhere to flee who have the most to lose. Be careful what you wish for.


To view the tables below, click the links.

Table 1: Top contributors to Democrats and Republicans as compiled by Open Secrets.

*The red lettering highlights a funding advantage for Republicans.  The blue lettering highlights a funding disadvantage for Republicans.

**Based on a T-test, the difference is insignificant at P = 0.46

Table 2: Top ten contributors to Democrats and Republicans by category (union, corporate, and ideological) as compiled by Open Secrets:

*In 2008 Goldman Sachs donated 74% to Democrats.  All other groups in this column donated between 40 and 69% to both parties.  This column does not differentiate between giving equally to both parties and giving 70–79% to Democrats or Republicans.

**This number includes the "City of New York."  Although it is officially listed as "other" by Open Secrets (not corporate, union, or ideological), I was personally informed by someone from the organization that Michael Bloomberg was the main source of this funding.

Table 3: Small business scores states scored by Thumbtack ranked according to their Democratic advantage by Gallup:

*GPA scores are based on the following numerical equivalents: A = 4, B = 3, C = 2, D = 1, F = 0, A+ = 4.3, A- = 3.7, etc.

** Not scored.

***Mean GPA ± standard error. Based on a T-test, the difference is significant at P = 0.00001.