Wednesday, December 23, 2020

AMERICA'S LOOMING DEPRESSION AS GLOBALIST DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS PARTNERS TO HAND THE ECONOMY TO THE RICH

 Yang: ‘Return to the Obama Years’ Not Enough for Biden — They Were Left Behind in Those Years,’ ‘They’re Pissed Off’

JEFF POOR

Late Tuesday on CNN, former Democratic presidential hopeful Andrew Yang, now a CNN contributor, warned that his old opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden could not defeat Trump with just a pledge to return to the years of former President Barack Obama alone.

According to Yang, it needed to start with an understanding of what problems facing the country led to Trump’s presidency.

“Donald Trump needs to be defeated,” he explained. “Forty-two percent of my supporters said they would not support the Democratic nominee in the general, in large part because when I ran, I ran for the problems that predated Trump. Like, Donald Trump would never be our president today if things were going well for a lot of people around the country. Bernie Sanders would not have almost been the nominee last time if things were going well for people around the country. So even as Joe Biden saying, ‘Hey, we need to defeat Donald Trump,’ he also has to say, ‘Look, things have not been working for millions of Americans, and after we defeat Donald Trump,’ we need to get deep into these problems, get our hands dirty and solve them. This can’t be a, ‘Hey, I’m better than Trump’ race. It has to be, ‘Hey. I understand how Trump became our president.'”

Yang told a CNN panel people were left behind in the Obama-Biden years, and they were not happy about it. He called on Biden to recognize that situation and address it, which he said would better his chances in the 2020 general election.

“I think he’s been talking about restoring a culture, tone and a soul of the country,” Yang added. “I was talking about putting more money in Americans’ hands because I saw we decimated entire ways of life in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin. And because I was talking in those terms about the real problems these people have experienced, again, 42% of my supporters were not going to support the Democratic nominee. I’m hoping that we can get some of those people to support Joe. But it would be helpful if Joe acknowledged it because one of the weaknesses of saying, ‘Hey, return to Obama years’ is that there are many Americans who were getting behind in those years, too, and they’re pissed off. And so, if you say, I’m going to revert, that loses to that group of people. There are so many Americans who just don’t think their institutions are working for him at all, and Joe Biden’s’s weakness is he represents those institutions. I’m endorsing Joe. We need Joe to beat Trump. But we’ll have a much better chance of that if Joe recognizes that our institutions have been failing many Americans for a long time.”

 

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. 

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 report makes clear that the drop in a typical household’s income was not merely the result of what is referred to as the 2008 recession, which officially lasted only 18 months, through June 2009. Much of the decline in workers’ incomes occurred during the so-called “economic recovery” presided over by the Obama administration.

In the three years between 2010 and 2013, the annual income of a typical household actually fell by 5 percent.

The Fed report exposes as a fraud the efforts of the Obama administration to present itself as a defender of the “middle class”. It has systematically pursued policies to redistribute wealth from the bottom to the very top of the income ladder. These include the multi-trillion-dollar bailout of the banks, near-zero interest rates to drive up the stock market, and austerity measures and wage cutting to lift corporate profits and CEO pay to record highs.

The Federal Reserve data, based on in-person interviews, show a far larger decline in the median income of American households than indicated by earlier figures from the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey.

In line with the figures on household income, the report shows an ever-growing concentration of wealth among the richest households. The Fed’s summary of its data notes that “the wealth share of the top 3 percent climbed from 44.8 percent in 1989 to 51.8 percent in 2007 and 54.4 percent in 2013,” while the wealth of the “next 7 highest percent of families changed very little.”

The report states that “the rising wealth share of the top 3 percent of families is mirrored by the declining share of wealth held by the bottom 90 percent,” which fell from 33.2 percent in 1989 to 24.7 percent in 2013.

The ongoing impoverishment of the population is an indictment of capitalism. There has been no genuine recovery from the Wall Street crash of 2008, only a further plundering of the economy by the financial aristocracy. The crisis precipitated by the rapacious, criminal practices of the bankers and hedge fund speculators has been used to restructure the economy to the benefit of the rich at the expense of everyone else.

Decent-paying jobs have been wiped out and replaced by low-wage, part-time and temporary jobs, with little or no benefits. Pensions and health benefits have come under savage attack, as seen in the bankruptcy of Detroit.

Not surprisingly, the Fed report has been buried by the American media, confined to the inside pages of the major newspapers.

Measured in 2013 dollars, a typical household received an income of $53,100 in 2007. By 2010, this had fallen to $49,000. It hit $46,700 by 2013. At the same time, the average income for the wealthiest tenth of families grew by ten percent.

While median income fell between 2010 and 2013, mean (average) income grew, from $84,100 to $87,200. The report noted that, “the decline in median income coupled with the rise in mean income is consistent with a widening income distribution during this period.”

For the poorest households, the drop in income has been even more dramatic. Among the bottom quarter of households, mean income fell a full 10 percent between 2010 and 2013.

The report reveals other aspects of the social crisis. The share of young families burdened by education debt nearly doubled, from 22.4 percent to 38.8 percent, between 2001 and 2013. The share of young families with more than $100,000 in debt has grown nearly tenfold, from 0.6 percent to 5.6 percent.

These statistics reflect both a historic and insoluble crisis of the profit system and the brutal policies of the American ruling class, which is carrying out a relentless assault on working people and preparing to go even further by dismantling bedrock social programs such as Medicare and Social Security. The data undercuts the endless talk of “partisan gridlock” in Washington and the media presentation of a political system paralyzed by irreconcilable differences between the Democratic and Republican parties.

There has, in fact, been a seamless continuity between the Bush and Obama administrations in the pursuit of reactionary policies of war abroad and class war at home. The two parties have worked hand in glove to make the working class pay for the crisis of the capitalist system.

The Federal Reserve has itself played a critical role in the growth of social inequality in the US. The bailout of the banks, estimated at $7 trillion, has been followed by six years of virtually free money for the banks.

Every facet of American life is dominated by the immense concentration of wealth at the very top of society. The grotesque levels of wealth amassed by the parasites and criminals who dominate American business, and the flaunting of their fortunes before tens of millions struggling to pay their bills and keep from falling into destitution, are fueling the growth of social anger. This anger will increasingly be directed against the entire economic and political system.

The figures released by the Fed reflect a society riven by class divisions that must inevitably trigger social upheavals. The explosive state of social relations is itself a major factor in the endless recourse by the Obama administration to military aggression and war, which serve to deflect internal tensions outward.

The growth of inequality likewise underlies the relentless attack on democratic rights in the US, including the massive domestic spying exposed by Edward Snowden and the use of militarized police to crack down on social opposition, as seen most recently in Ferguson, Missouri.

Democrats unite with Trump to enact massive corporate bailout



In a celebration of bipartisan unity, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives on Friday approved by voice vote an unprecedented $2.2 trillion bill to bail out the nation’s corporations and banks, while providing limited and temporary aid to workers hit by the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

The House vote followed Wednesday night's 96-0 approval of the measure by the Republican-controlled Senate. President Trump, who had lobbied furiously for the bill, signed it into law only a few hours after it passed the House just after 1:30 p.m.

The $2.2 trillion estimated cost of the bill, equal to more than half of the entire federal budget and far in excess of the $700 billion bank bailout bill passed in 2008, substantially underestimates the actual scale of the government handout to big business. The biggest single slice of the bill, $454 billion to finance guaranteed loans to big corporations, is designed to be leveraged by the Federal Reserve Board into some $4.5 trillion in loans and subsidies.

This amounts to a virtually unlimited backstop for the country's corporate and financial aristocracy, with no real strings attached. The provisions that provide stop-gap assistance to workers who are being laid off in the millions or being ordered to work without any protection against the deadly virus are designed to head off an eruption of class conflict in the short-term, so that the ruling class can buy time and prepare a counteroffensive to place the full cost of the corporate bailout on the backs of the working class. The bill's passage coincides with Trump's push to “open up” the country and force workers back into the plants and workplaces to resume pumping out profits for big business.

The Senate bill was supported by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, one of the two remaining candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination, who shelved his “socialist” pretensions to praise the measure as a boon to working people. There was no effort by the “progressive” allies of Sanders in the House, including Democratic Socialists of America members Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib, to actually oppose the bill.

Ocasio-Cortez railed against the bill during a four-hour floor debate Friday morning, but she failed to follow through with a threat to stall passage of the measure by demanding a roll-call vote. It was a right-wing Republican, Thomas Massie of Kentucky, a member of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus, who sought to delay passage by opposing a voice vote and formally demanding a recorded vote.

With the House in recess, the White House, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy had agreed that they would avoid requiring House members to appear in person to cast votes, under conditions of lockdowns and travel restrictions in large parts of the country and the rapid spread of COVID-19, and seek instead to get the bill approved by unanimous consent. That would have required only a few representatives to be in attendance.

Massie, however, refused to back down, forcing a quorum call to determine whether more than half of the chamber's 435 members were on hand—as they were. He was, however, unable to get a single House member to back his demand for a roll-call vote, allowing the House leadership to push the bill through on a voice vote. There were only a few scattered “nays” amidst the overwhelming chorus of “ayes.”

Following the vote, Pelosi and McCarthy appeared side by side to hail the passage of the bill, cynically casting it as a humanitarian lifeline to ordinary Americans. Pelosi quoted Pope Francis in praising the measure.

The bill includes two main provisions providing aid to workers. It allocates $300 billion for direct cash payments to more than 150 million households. Those eligible, who do not include undocumented workers, will receive $1,200 per adult or $2,400 per couple, plus an additional $500 for each child. This is a one-time subsidy.

In addition, the bill allocates $250 billion to extend unemployment benefits by 13 weeks and add $600 per week to the benefits provided by the states. This federal supplement is to end in early August for workers filing claims this week. The bill also makes freelance and gig workers eligible for the same unemployment benefits.

Some $500 billion is to be distributed to defray the costs of fighting the coronavirus epidemic and other social needs. That sum includes $207 billion for state, local and tribal governments, school districts and public transit agencies; $130 billion for hospitals and public health facilities and $45 billion for the Disaster Relief Fund of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Only $16 billion is set aside for hospitals to procure personal protective equipment and ventilators.

The vast bulk of the bill is a massive handout to business, with most of the money by far going to big corporations. In addition to the $454 billion Treasury backstop for Fed loans and grants to corporations, the bill provides $46 billion in targeted loans from the Treasury Department, mainly to the commercial airline industry, with $17 billion carved out for Boeing.

It sets aside $350 billion in loans and aid to small businesses, which are defined as enterprises with up to 500 employees. This could include multi-billion-dollar hedge funds and other financial firms.

There is also $50 billion for an “employee retention tax credit” to companies that keep their employees on the payroll.

There are other windfalls to business buried in the more than 800 pages of the legislation. One that could directly benefit Trump or his associates is the full restoration to the real estate sector of a huge tax break for interest costs and operating losses that was limited by the 2017 tax overhaul.

Restrictions imposed on corporations receiving government aid are largely nullified by caveats. There is a provision barring businesses receiving loans from cutting their employment levels until September 30. However, this is hedged with the phrase “to the extent practicable.”

Corporate recipients are also barred from raising dividends or carrying out stock buybacks to further enrich executives and big investors. This provision, however, can be waived by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, a multi-millionaire and former CEO of OneWest Bank, where he was sued for illegal home foreclosures.

The bill sets the precedent for the unlimited plundering of social resources to prop up the corporate oligarchy, while providing entirely inadequate assistance to working people devastated by the health and economic impact of a pandemic that could have been either minimized or stopped in its tracks. Multiple advance warnings by health experts were ignored, no preparations for such a crisis were made, and the virus was not taken seriously by the government when it erupted in China.

The bipartisan bill does nothing to mobilize the immense power of technology and industry in a planned and coordinated manner to quickly produce and distribute the ventilators, masks and PPE material needed to save lives, and to construct the ICU units and hospitals and train the staff needed to prevent the health care system from being completely inundated.

It does not provide for the mass testing, contact tracing and extended social distancing needed to contain and defeat the disease. Nor does it order the shutdown of all workplaces and factories not providing essential services, with no loss in income for the workers, and safe conditions under medical supervision for those required to work.

These are demands that workers must raise, along with free and equal care for all those affected by the virus and a moratorium on rent, mortgage payments and personal loan payments for the duration of the crisis.

These critical needs at every point collide with the priorities of the profit system and private ownership of the means of production. The coronavirus pandemic has demonstrated all over the world the life-and-death need for the working class to put an end to capitalism and replace it with socialism.

Home Buying Boom Lost Steam in November As Sales Unexpectedly Fell To Slowest Pace Since June

WILMINGTON, DE - DECEMBER 22: President-elect Joe Biden speaks prior to the holiday at the Queen theatre on December 22, 2020 in Wilmington, Delaware. Biden spoke ahead of the Christmas holiday and called the $900 billion coronavirus aid bill passed by Congress on Monday a start, insisting on more economic …
Joshua Roberts/Getty Images
2:59

The homebuying boom of 2020 appears to have lost some steam in November.

Sales of newly built homes fell sharply in November to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 841,000, according to data released by the Census Bureau Wednesday. That was below the estimates of Wall Street’s economists and 11 percent lower than the downwardly-revised October pace.

New home sales make up for a small part of the overall housing market but can have outsized impacts on the economy. Homebuilding is labor-intensive, requiring workers up and down the skill-ladder. New homes get outfitted with new appliances, driving sales of durable goods. Even car sales are correlated with new home sales.

A report on previously owned homes released Tuesday showed falling sales as well. Together, the reports suggest that the housing market is dimming.

Sales fell in all parts of the country, led by a 43 percent decline in the Midwest. Sales in the West fell 17.3 percent. Sales in the South, the biggest market for new homes, fell by just 1.9 percent. They were down 2.5 percent in the Northeast.

The median price of new homes for sale was $335,300, a decline from October but 5 percent above the year-ago level. Sales held up better at the higher end of prices than at the lower end, with sales of homes priced over $750,000 actually rising a bit.

Steeply rising prices may be cooling the desire of some city-dwellers to move into the suburbs in search of more space, privacy, and safety from violent crime.

Despite the slowdown in November, new home sales were up 20.8 percent year-over-year in November.   Year-to-date sales are up 19.1 percent. So although the market cooled, it remains hot by historical standards.

Household income and spending declined in November, so part of the sales decline may be due to tightening financial constraints on families. Rising unemployment and layoffs may also be discouraging families from locking money up in a home purchase.

The seeming victory of Joe Biden, who has promised radical new housing policies aimed at reshaping the suburbs, may also be discouraging homebuyers. The prospect of higher capital gains taxes and higher income taxes could also weigh on demand for housing.

The monthly data on new home sales can be volatile and is frequently subject to large revisions.  Most analysts would look to longer-run trends rather than assuming a major shift has occurred because of a single report. In the November report, however, the higher sales of earlier months received significant downward revisions, which may indicate that some of the strength of the housing market was exaggerated by inflated numbers.

 


Consumer Sentiment Tumbled in Late December

US President-Elect Joe Biden coughs while delivering remarks, before the holiday, at The Queen in Wilmington, Delaware on December 22, 2020. (Photo by Alex Edelman / AFP) (Photo by ALEX EDELMAN/AFP via Getty Images)
ALEX EDELMAN/AFP via Getty Images
3:14

Consumer sentiment in the U.S. deteriorated in late December but remained above its November level, the University of Michigan’s survey of consumers showed Wednesday.

The biggest shift from the mid-month reading came in the current conditions gauge, reflecting the surge in infections following Thanksgiving weekend and the return of lockdowns.

The second and final December reading of the consumer sentiment index fell to 80.7 from the preliminary reading of 81.4 earlier in the month. In November, the index had fallen to 76.7.

Economists had expected a higher reading of 81.

Much of the gain compared with the prior month is due to Democrats becoming more hopeful, a shift that has outpaced Republicans turning negative.

“The improvement was due to a large and rapid partisan shift, with Democrats becoming much more positive and Republicans much more negative,” the survey’s chief economist, Richard Curtin, said.

Curtin described the partisan shift:

The largest change was in long term business prospects, as twice as many Democrats as three months ago expected a continuous expansion over the next five years (54% up from 27%), while that same favorable expectation was nearly cut in half among Republicans (32% down from 60%).

The measure of current conditions rose to 90 in the final December reading from 87 last month. This was a move down from the mid-month level of 91.8 and is 18.7 percent lower than the year ago level.

The index that measures expectations for the next six months rose to 74.6 from 70.5 in November and remained largely unchanged from the mid-month level.

The pandemic has opened up a gap between how consumers see their own current personal financial situation and their assessments of the overall economy, according to Curtin.

Curtin explained:

Trends in how consumers evaluate their own finances and how they assess changes in the national economy have followed a close association over the past half century. Since the start of the pandemic, however, a huge divide has grown across households in how they assess their own personal finances: the finances of those that continue to be employed and working at home have remained positive while those who have lost jobs and incomes have been quite negative. Growing inequalities have also been due to rising home and stock prices. In contrast, nearly everyone has reported negative assessments of current conditions in the national economy.

This is evidence for what has been described as the “k-shaped” recovery, with some consumers doing much better than others. It might also explain why consumer spending has been more resilient than expected.

Curtin says the data suggests the economic growth will be shaky for some time.

“While the rollout of the vaccine has been greeted as the beginning of the end, the end of the pandemic is still on the distant horizon in terms of a return to normalcy for consumer behavior, even among the most favored households. Precautionary motives will continue to shape both economic and personal behavior,” Curtin said.

GLOBALIST DEMOCRAT FOR OPEN BORDERS MARCO RUBIO WANTS MORE WELFARE FOR ILLEGALS - THEY VOTE DEM FOR MORE AND WORK 'CHEAP' WHICH KEEPS WALL STREET GENEROUS

 

Marco Rubio Steers Coronavirus Checks to American Families with Illegal Aliens

WASHINGTON, DC - DECEMBER 16: Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) speaks during a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Border Security and Immigration hearing on Capitol Hill on December 16, 2020 in Washington, DC. The hearing was held to examine Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement through United States refugee policy. (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty …
Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images
2:25

The 2021 omnibus bill sends coronavirus aid checks to “mixed-status” families that include illegal migrant spouses and Americans.

The expansion was pushed by Democrats and some GOP legislators, including Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC). CBS reported:

Under the agreement, U.S. citizens and green card holders will be able to receive $600 in direct aid, even if they filed a joint tax return with an undocumented spouse, as well as additional $600 checks per dependent child, according to congressional aides and the text of the legislation.

The new compromise would also retroactively make mixed-status families eligible for the $1,200 per household and $500 per child checks allocated by the CARES Act, which was enacted in late March.

“No American should have been blocked from receiving federal assistance during a global pandemic because of who they married,” Rubio said in a statement. “I thank Senator Tillis and my other Senate colleagues for their leadership in getting this across the finish line.”

The Migration Policy Institute estimates the Rubio measure will provide aid checks to families with a total of roughly 3.7 million U.S.-born children and 1.4 million U.S. spouses. Roughly one-third live in California, one-sixth live in Texas, and one-thirteenth live in New York.

The funding was blocked in prior emergency bills because the family aid will be quietly shared with roughly nine million additional illegal aliens in the mixed-status families.

So the Rubio amendment marks another blurring of the distinction between Americans and foreigners that are so valuable to ordinary Americans but are increasingly disdained by progressives and wealthy Americans.

The 2021 spending bill includes few steps to help protect that distinction. For example, it also cuts funding for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency and many other protections against the foreign economic migrants who drive Americans’ wages down and push Americans’ rents up.

The spending measure is also backed by business groups, in part, because the aid checks will help pay for groceries, rents, and other expenses.

AMERICA: THE RICH GET MUCH RICHER AND KICK BACK A FEW BUCKS TO THE FILTHY POLITICIANS DESTROYING THIS NATION

 

The Fine Print in a 5,593-Page Spending Bill: Tax Breaks and Horse Racing

Luke Broadwater, Jesse Drucker and Rebecca R. Ruiz
Senate Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) departs a meeting at the Capitol in Washington late Tuesday, Dec. 15, 2020, with the top congressional leaders to discuss the omnibus package and COVID-19 relief. (Anna Moneymaker/The New York Times)
Senate Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) departs a meeting at the Capitol in Washington late Tuesday, Dec. 15, 2020, with the top congressional leaders to discuss the omnibus package and COVID-19 relief. (Anna Moneymaker/The New York Times)

WASHINGTON — Tucked away in the 5,593-page spending bill that Congress rushed through Monday night is a provision that some tax experts call a $200 billion giveaway to the rich.

It involves the tens of thousands of businesses that received loans from the federal government this spring with the promise that the loans would be forgiven, tax free, if they agreed to keep employees on the payroll through the coronavirus pandemic.

But for some businesses and their high-paid accountants, that was not enough. They went to Congress with another request: Not only should the forgiven loans not to be taxed as income, but the expenditures used with those loans should be tax deductible.

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“High-income business owners have had tax benefits and unprecedented government grants showered down upon then. And the scale is massive,” wrote Adam Looney, a fellow at the Brookings Institution and a former Treasury Department tax official in the Obama administration, who estimated that $120 billion of the $200 billion would flow to the top 1% of Americans.

The new provision allows for a classic double dip into the Paycheck Protection Program, as businesses get free money from the government, then get to deduct that largess from their taxes.

And it is one of hundreds included in a huge spending package and a coronavirus stimulus bill that is supposed to help businesses and families struggling during the pandemic but, critics say, swerved far afield. President Donald Trump on Tuesday night blasted it as a disgrace and demanded revisions.

“Congress found plenty of money for foreign countries, lobbyists and special interests, while sending the bare minimum to the American people who need it,” he said in a video posted on Twitter that stopped just short of a veto threat.

The measure includes serious policy changes beyond the much-needed $900 billion in coronavirus relief, such as a simplification of federal financial aid forms, measures to address climate change and a provision to stop “surprise billing” from hospitals when patients unwittingly receive care from physicians out of their insurance networks.

But there is also much grumbling over other provisions that lawmakers had not fully reviewed, and a process that left most of them and the public in the dark until after the bill was passed. The anger was bipartisan.

“Members of Congress have not read this bill. It’s over 5,000 pages, arrived at 2 p.m. today, and we are told to expect a vote on it in two hours,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., wrote on Twitter on Monday. “This isn’t governance. It’s hostage-taking.”

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, agreed — the two do not agree on much.

“It’s ABSURD to have a $2.5 trillion spending bill negotiated in secret and then — hours later — demand an up-or-down vote on a bill nobody has had time to read,” he wrote on Twitter on Monday.

The items jammed into the bill are varied and at times bewildering. The bill would make it a felony to offer illegal streaming services. One provision requires the CIA to report back to Congress on the activities of Eastern European oligarchs tied to President Vladimir Putin of Russia. The federal government would be required to set up a program aimed at eradicating the murder hornet and to crack down on online sales of e-cigarettes to minors.

It authorizes 93 acres of federal lands to be used for the construction of the Teddy Roosevelt Presidential Library in North Dakota and creates an independent commission to oversee horse racing, a priority of Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the majority leader.

McConnell inserted that item to get around the objections of a Democratic senator, who wanted it amended, but he received agreement from other congressional leaders.

Alexander M. Waldrop, CEO of the National Thoroughbred Racing Association, said Tuesday that McConnell had “said many times he feared for the future of horse racing and the impact on the industry, which of course is critical to Kentucky.”

That the racing legislation — versions of which the industry had debated for years — passed as part of the COVID-19 relief bill was of no particular mind, Waldrop said.

“It just developed this way over the last several weeks,” he said. “The only approach left to us was a federally sanctioned, independent, self-regulatory organization. It was our only viable option left, and this legislation accomplishes that.”

But the tax provisions — including extending a $2.5 billion break for race car tracks and allowing a $6.3 billion write-off for business meals, derided as the “three-martini lunch” expense — have prompted the most hand-wringing.

The bill also lowers some taxes on alcoholic beverages.

No break is bigger, however, than the deductions that will soon be permitted under the Paycheck Protection Program. Businesses had been lobbying the Treasury Department and the IRS since the spring to deduct spending from PPP loans, but Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin was firmly opposed, saying deducting expenditures from funds not considered taxable income violated “Tax 101.”

The PPP was the most visible part of the federal government’s coronavirus relief efforts in the spring to keep small businesses afloat. So far, the government has distributed more than $500 billion in loans, which could be forgiven and turned into permanent grants as long as the businesses use most of the money to pay workers and keep people employed.

In passing the law in the spring, Congress explicitly said that the PPP funds should not be included as taxable income — unlike, say, unemployment benefits.

Despite that largess, businesses wanted more. In May, the heads of the tax-writing committees — Sens. Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa, and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Rep. Richard E. Neal, D-Mass. — wrote Mnuchin urging him to reconsider his opposition.

“Small businesses need help maintaining their cash flow, not more strains on it,” they wrote.

But a Brookings Institution analysis said the change would help far more wealthy than mom-and-pop business owners.

“So there’s no cost on the way in and no cost on the way out — those two don’t add up,” said Richard L. Reinhold, the former chairman of the tax department at Willkie Farr & Gallagher and a professor at Cornell Law School. Congress could have simply expanded the PPP program, but instead it did it almost by stealth, through a tax deduction.

“That’s the part that is troublesome,” he said.

Although there had been discussion of limiting the deduction to PPP recipients below a certain income threshold, the final provision was made available to anyone, regardless of income.

The Small Business Administration this month released data showing that just 1% of the program’s 5.2 million borrowers had received more than a quarter of the $523 billion disbursed.

That 1% included high-priced law firms like Boies Schiller Flexner and the operator of New York’s biggest horse tracks, which received the maximum loan amount of $10 million.

“The year 2020 is going to be one of the most unequal years in modern history,” Looney said. “Part of the inequity is the effect of COVID, which hammered service sectors the most and allowed rich, educated people to work on Zoom. But the government totally compounded these inequities with their response.”

Yet in the end, only six senators, all Republicans, voted against the coronavirus relief package and spending bill, mostly citing fiscal concerns about runaway spending, while 85 House members — a mix of Democrats and Republicans — voted against its military provisions. The bill increased military spending by about $5 billion.

Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., opposed the military spending but voted for other aspects of the bill. He and his liberal colleagues had lobbied for direct payments for most Americans as part of a relief package, and he said he shared colleagues’ concerns about a lack of time to review the final piece of legislation.

“We need a better system to have members review online text as it is being drafted and have input,” Khanna said. “That said, leadership did keep us informed on almost daily calls about the essential aspects of the bills and the issues at stake.”

Sen. Joe Manchin III, D-W.Va., one of the leaders of the bipartisan group that pushed for a $900 billion stimulus, said leadership intentionally waited until the last minute to unveil final proposals.

“Leadership likes the process the way it is,” he said. “Wait until the deadline, and then there’s no input at all. They say, take this or not. I’m sick and tired of how this game has been played.”

That said, there was plenty for lawmakers to cheer for. They sent out news releases promoting preferred provisions like the ban on most surprise medical bills, the restoration of college financial aid for incarcerated people, and the restrictions on the use of powerful planet-warming chemicals that are commonly used in air conditioners and refrigerators. The bill also creates new museums honoring women and Latinos.

“What you see at the end of every Congress is a clearing of the decks,” said Josh Huder, a senior fellow at the Government Affairs Institute at Georgetown University. “It’s all the stuff we wanted to pass but couldn’t. Everybody would love for legislation to be passed individually, but that is really a function of a bygone era that is not coming back.”

“There’s a lot of good stuff,” he said, “but something definitely gets snuck in.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

© 2020 The New York Times Company

JOE BIDEN UP RED CHINA'S ASS BIG TIME - HE WAS ONLY LOOKING FOR HUNTER AND DIANNE FEINSTEIN

 

GLOBAL BANKSTER CRIME TIDAL WAVE

 

Chinese Intermediaries Launder Cartels' Drug Proceeds in the United States - From the U.S. to China to the cartels

https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2020/12/chinese-launder-drug-cartel-money-sen.html

“The other banks on the top 10 list are JPMorgan Chase (whose CEO Jamie Dimon was once known as Obama's "favorite banker"), New York Mellon, Standard Chartered, Barclays, HSBC, Bank of China, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Citibank.”

Beijing Biden

For the Delaware Democrat, PRC Communists were “not bad folks” from the start.

  

Last June, on the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, Joe Biden called for “recommitting to the universal struggle for human dignity.” Biden used the occasion to attack President Trump but offered no direct criticism of China’s Communist regime, which during the campaign he described as “not bad folks, folks.” With the PRC, that was Biden’s essential message from the start.

When Joe Biden was elected to the Senate in 1972, Chairman Mao still headed the Communist dictatorship.  His Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution claimed countless millions of lives but did not kill off the Chinese people’s desire for freedom. The chairman passed away in 1976, about 80 years too late, and in 1985 and 1986 Chinese students mounted pro-democracy protests in Beijing and Shanghai.

By the end of May, 1989, more than one million pro-democracy protesters had gathered in Tiananmen Square. On June 4, Chinese soldiers stormed the square, gunning down thousands of protesters and arresting 10,000. Sen. Joe Biden voted against strong sanctions on Communist China as a response to the massacre. In 1998, the United States again proposed sanctions on the PRC, including visa restrictions. Biden was part of a group of ten senators opposed to the measures.

In 2001, Sen. Biden, then head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, supported China’s entry to the World Trade Organization. As he explained, “the United States welcomes the emergence of a prosperous, integrated China on the global stage, because we expect this is going to be a China that plays by the rules.”

China admits to performing more than 330 million abortions and 196 million sterilizations as part of the regime’s one-child policy. Joe Biden is a Roman Catholic but has kept rather quiet side about China’s forced abortions. In 2011, he told a group at Sichuan University “Your policy has been one which I fully understand — I’m not second-guessing — of one child per family.”

In May of 2011, Reuters ran a report headlined “Biden, Clinton bluntly press China on rights.” Biden said “President Obama and I believe strongly, as does the secretary, that protecting fundamental rights and freedoms such as those enshrined in China’s international commitments as well as in China’s own constitution is the best way to promote long term stability and prosperity – of any society.”

Biden did not specify the “fundamental rights and freedoms” in China’s constitution, and his “blunt” statement included no criticism of the Communist regime. Contrast fellow Democrat Bill Clinton, who in 1992 referred to the “butchers of Beijing” without the slightest embarrassment.

In 2009 Biden senior adviser Anita Dunn called Mao Zedong “one of my favorite political philosophers.” When he announced his pick of Kamala Harris, Biden said “as that old expression goes, ‘women hold up half the sky.’” That is a quote from Chairman Mao, dating  from the Great Leap Forward, so the Chairman is something of a favorite with Biden.

On a visit to Beijing in 2013, vice president Biden called on those Chinese seeking residency in the United States to “challenge the government, challenge your teachers, challenge religious leaders.” That was “Biden’s Important Message for Human Rights in China,” as The Atlantic headlined the story.

Letting China into the WTO was supposed to make the regime more democratic and favorable to human rights. By the time Joe Biden became vice-president, China was more repressive than ever. During the 2020 campaign, Biden famously said the Chinese are “not bad folks, folks. But guess what? They’re not competition for us.” On the other hand, the Chinese are okay with collusion. Joe’s son Hunter has leveraged his father’s influence to cut lucrative deals with China.

In 2017, Hunter Biden extended “best wishes from the entire Biden family,” as he sought $10 million to “properly fund and operate” a Biden joint venture with the company. Hunter Biden had keys made for his father and uncle at an office shared with an “emissary” of a Chinese energy company.  Attorney General William Barr knew about two federal investigations into Hunter Biden for months but kept them from public knowledge in advance of the election.

Aside from Sen. Dianne Feinstein, (D-PRC) who compared Tiananmen Square with Kent State, maintained a Chinese spy on her staff for 20 years, and openly praises the regime, it’s hard to think of a more pro-China American politician than Joe Biden. That marks a departure from other American officials in their dealings with Communist dictatorships.

Back in the 1980s, for example, Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov told UN Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick “Your name is known in every cell in the Gulag.” In 2020, Joe Biden’s name is known to every Communist Party official in China.

Joe Biden spent eight years as vice president of the “composite character” biographer David Garrow described in Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama. During the campaign, the former Barry Soetoro said “Listen, can you imagine if I had had a secret Chinese bank account when I was running for re-election? You think Fox News might have been a little concerned about that? They would have called me Beijing Barry.”

The composite character president, formerly known as Barry Soetoro, whose Dreams from My Father is a novel, has passed the torch to Beijing Biden. The addled serial plagiarist puts truth over facts and openly celebrates voter fraud. As President Trump says, we’ll see what happens.

Video: OOPS! China Brags About Deals With Biden Family

Meet the puppet heading to the White House.

 

 

In this new video, "Man in America's" Seth Holehouse explains how Joe Biden is the perfect puppet in the deep state plot to steal America, with influence from the DC swamp, the “wolves of Wall Street” and China. Don't miss it!


Schweizer: Joe Biden ‘a Direct Beneficiary’ of Hunter Biden’s Foreign Deals

2:33

During an appearance on this week’s “Sunday Morning Futures” on Fox News Channel, Breitbart News senior contributor Peter Schweizer discussed the controversy involving President-elect Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, and his foreign business dealings.

Schweizer advised that the elder Biden is a “direct beneficiary” of Hunter Biden’s dealings. He noted Hunter Biden had no “expertise” or “connections” to the deals he made overseas other than the fact that his father was serving as vice president at the time.

“[T]his is not just a Hunter Biden story … because of what Hunter Biden himself has communicated,” Schweizer told host Maria Bartiromo. “In the emails that have come out as well, Hunter Biden is quite explicit. In one particular communication with his daughter, he’s basically complaining that he pays half of the entire family’s bills. And he includes his mother and father in that and makes reference to pops. So, the point is, is that all this enrichment that has been taking place is also flowing to Joe Biden indirectly through his son, but the fact of the matter is, he’s still a beneficiary, a direct beneficiary, of these foreign deals.”

Bartiromo brought up an email from Hunter Biden about wanting a set of keys to have an office in Washington, D.C. to be shared among the Biden family and Gongwen Dong. Schweizer explained this shows how “cozy the Bidens have been with the Chinese.”

“That is a great example, symbolic example, of how the Bidens basically have blurred their political activities and their commercial activities, and how close and chummy they are,” he argued. “Let’s keep in mind, CEFC and Chairman Ye, who is the head of that company, is linked directly to the PLA. The chairman was brought up on corruption charges. There was sort of an internal purge, as it were, in China. Some of the directors of that company have direct ties to President Xi. So this is not some random Chinese company on the fringes of Chinese political life. It’s at the center of it.”

Schweizer continued, “And this is the same entity upon which Joe Biden, the so-called big guy, was going to get 10 percent. They were literally going to share office space. They were going to House the Biden Foundation and a CEFC office in the exact same office space. So, it’s very troubling. And it speaks to the fact of how cozy the Bidens have been with the Chinese.”

Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent

From China, With Love

In an incautious moment during a November 28 panel presentation in Shanghai, Professor Di Dongsheng, Vice Dean of the School of International Relations at Renmin University, the school for children of the party elite, officially spilled the beans that the China Communist Party (CCP) controls people at the top of the American government.

Dongsheng’s remarks were delivered with nationalistic pride. He mused over the narcissism endemic to Western aristocracy and the ease to which they are brought under the spell of the People’s Republic.

At first, Dongsheng’s depiction of the ease of conscripting prominent Americans and institutions to work against the interests of their own country astonished his young audience. They soon relaxed, chortling and applauding as the professor related his own triumphs as a CCP operative in recruiting new and useful American “friends.” America’s blue bloods fell easily to China’s leveraging of insatiable Western appetites for power, influence, and money.

Dongsheng exposed the liberal apparatchiks of the Fourth Estate, especially the social media moguls intent on shaping a pro-China political discourse.

Sinophiles at the New York Times and the Washington Post quickly panned the video and scrubbed all search results for Di Dongsheng off their homepages. Sinophobes at the New York PostWashington TimesAxios, and Epoch Times, however, put banner headlines on the story and got the attention of Fox’s Tucker Carlson, who highlighted the story on December 8 in his opening monologue. You can find the longer seven-minute version of Dongsheng’s presentation on Parler.

Although Guan Video Global quickly deleted the original video post, it didn’t stop China opposition and expat blogsites, such as Himalaya Global, from posting their own copies. Himalaya Global, co-founded by wealthy Chinese émigré Guo Wengui along with Steven Bannon, has been suspended by Twitter.

As proudly as Dongsheng spoke of his country’s cultivating prominent Americans, he did not touch the third rail of CCP’s campaign of espionage, the use of attractive young women to honeytrap high-value political targets. Spoken in Mandarin as meiren ji, or, beautiful person plan, it is a program largely run out of China’s main spy agency, the Ministry of State Security. It has been famously effective in the United States and Europe, entrapping, among others, the Deputy Mayor of London and the Dutch ambassador to Beijing.

China has been a feedbag for American corporatists and Beltway insiders for decades. In 2017, according to the professor, the font began to dry up with a new American president. In the eyes of Donald Trump, cozying up to China was a deal absent a return on investment. The CCP began tugging on the sleeves of their friends on Wall Street, in Congress, and in the media, but got nowhere with the White House. In three short years, Donald Trump was on track to retake the high ground, imposing tariffs, luring back American industry, and forcing concessions on unfair trade practices that had created a Great Firewall between the Chinese economy and the rest of the world.

China’s gambit at blackmail and sexploitation will play out in the outcome of America’s presidential race, largely thanks to the family’s bad boy, Hunter.  Operating through the storefront of a large Chinese energy company, CEFC, the CCP bankrolled Hunter’s numerous and lucrative business deals in China and on the European continent. They finished off the kompromat by accommodating and filming his drugs and sex sprees during business trips abroad.

While the CCP was putting the finishing touches on Hunter, China spies continued in the marbled halls of Congress.

Congressman Eric Swalwell is a rather dull California politico more widely known for stepping on a frog during a televised news interview. After years of slandering Donald Trump as a Russian patsy, his own goings on with a dishy Chinese spy, Fang Fang were revealed. She had plied her trade bundling and bedding Democrat lawmakers with ambitions for higher office.  Starting out in 2011 as a Chinese national student at a Bay Area University, her work for Asian community organizations allowed her to infiltrate the offices of many upwardly mobile northern California politicians and officials. The scope of her contacts with the Chinese consulate in San Francisco and involvement in Democrat political circles across the country brought her to the attention of federal authorities.

The FBI tells us that Fang traded sexual favors with more federal, state, and local lawmakers than we have been given names, at least one of which was videotaped during a counterintelligence probe. With the feds closing in, she somehow slipped the net in 2015 and fled back to Beijing. Her sudden escape, in the midst of an intense spy investigation, was a blunder all too common to federal probes linked to the Democrats. Perhaps we’ll never know the extent of the pillow talk between her and a smitten 40-year old Congressman who remains a member of the House Intelligence Committee.

The extent to which China has carried out honeytraps against legislators and policy wonks within the United States is not fully known. Intelligence officials familiar with these operations suggest that the number of extortionate plots may number in the thousands.

The depth to which the CCP may influence the foreign policy of Joe Biden has been difficult to plumb. He has been duplicitous towards China, perhaps symptomatic of his mental decay, offering stiff criticism at times, then appearing misinformed and dismissive on other occasions.

Biden has repeatedly denied any involvement in Hunter’s business dealings. Seized emails from his son’s computer tell a different story. Ironically, one month after the presidential election, it comes to light that federal law enforcement, intelligence agencies, and the media were in cahoots to withhold knowledge of a federal tax probe and other China allegations -- perhaps so as not to damage their preferred candidate, or for fear of interfering with a Deep State plot to overturn a fair election.

The minute Biden walks into the Oval Office, America will take a back seat to China. If past is prologue, there is reason to believe that Biden family investigations involving China will be shelved. If necessary, pardons may be issued to family and friends against whom evidence has already been brought. The Durham report and any other investigations into the Machiavellian escapades of 2016 will end up in the dustbin, branded by a compliant media as delusions from the Trump era. Wall Street will be licking its chops as trade barriers and tariffs are dropped with Beijing. Millions of deaths later, China will get a free pass on culpability for the spread of COVID, perhaps even adulation over its domestic handling of the pandemic and economic recovery.

Sexspionage, graft, and influence peddling may once again put the CCP inside the Oval Office. Conspiring with Wall Street, media, and Hollywood to bring about a Trump defeat, along with the strong possibility that Joe Biden wet his beak on his son’s China dealings, China now appears on a solid footing to achieve global dominance in the next four years.

Image: Pixabay


JOE BIDEN AND RED CHINA…. Has ol’ Joe served them more than Senator Dianne Feinstein?

https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2020/12/joe-biden-i-saw-how-much-sen-dianne.html

The segment ends with an assertion that Joe Biden has been compromised, and that’s exactly correct. There hasn’t been a more China-friendly politician in the last 30 years than Biden. TUCKER CARLSON