APPLAUSE FOR JOE BIDEN'S WALL STREET CABINET AND SCREWING THE AMERICAN PEOPLE TO KEEP WAGES DEPRESSED

 

Chamber of Commerce Backs Biden’s OMB Nominee with Ties to Soros, Wall Street, Big Tech

LEIGH VOGEL/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

JOHN BINDER

10 Feb 202146

6:45

The United States Chamber of Commerce is backing President Joe Biden’s nominee to lead the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Neera Tanden, who has deep financial ties to billionaire George Soros, Wall Street firms, and Silicon Valley’s biggest tech corporations.

In a letter to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, the Chamber’s senior vice president of public affairs, Jack Howard, wrote that the business group supports Tanden’s nomination and called her a “well-qualified” candidate for the job with “an established track record of engagement with the business community.”

“Ms. Tanden has had a distinguished career,” the Chamber’s letter to Senators states:

She has served as President and CEO of the Center for American Progress think tank for the past ten years. She also served in various roles in the Clinton and Obama Administrations and in the United States Senate. Her broad perspective and experience will be essential given the vast portfolio of the Office of Management and Budget. Ms. Tanden has proven a frequent partner and collaborator, particularly on international trade issues. Her willingness to consider different perspectives will be important as she shapes the budget and policy proposals for the Biden Administration. While we may not always agree with Ms. Tanden, we anticipate that she will have an open door and an open mind as Director. [Emphasis added]

The Chamber and Tanden’s views supporting deficit reduction and free trade have largely aligned.

In June 2016, when Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) presidential primary campaign sought to include official opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade deal in the Democrat Party platform, liberals blamed Tanden for ensuring the language was not included.

Common Dreams reported at the time:

Members of the Democratic National Convention Platform Committee shot down an attempt to include specific opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal in the platform, despite the fact that both Democratic presidential candidates have taken positions against the TPP. [Emphasis added]

The attempt failed because members appointed by Hillary Clinton and DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz claimed it was improper to oppose the TPP when President Barack Obama fervently believes in the agreement. However, by putting party unity before taking a firm stand against the trade agreement, the door was left open for Clinton to go back to supporting the TPP, which was the case when she was secretary of state. [Emphasis added]

…

On top of that, Center for American Progress president Neera Tanden, appointed by Clinton, patronizingly addressed all the Sanders appointees upset with the craven members of the committee. [Emphasis added]

Likewise, Tanden has criticized the use of U.S. tariffs on foreign imports.

Tanden, as Breitbart News reported, has financial ties to the nation’s biggest corporate players. During testimony before the Senate this week, Tanden defended those ties, saying she would “always uphold the highest ethical standards” as OMB director.

As president of the Center for American Progress, Tanden solicited donations ranging from $5,000 to more than $1 million from the likes of Soros’ Open Society Foundation, Apple, the Microsoft Corporation, hedge fund billionaires, Amazon, Bank of America, Facebook, JP Morgan Chase, Google, and Wells Fargo, among others.

Tanden, during the Senate hearing, was forced to apologize for a series of online posts where she attacked elected Republican lawmakers from whom she would need to support her confirmation.

“I’m concerned that your personal attacks about specific senators will make it more difficult for you to work with them,” Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) said at the hearing. “Just to mention a few of the thousands of negative public statements, you wrote that [Sen.] Susan Collins [R-ME] is the worst, that [Sen.] Tom Cotton [R-AR] is a fraud, that vampires have more heart than [Sen.] Ted Cruz [R-TX]. You called [then-Senate Majority] Leader [Mitch] McConnell: Moscow Mitch and Voldemort, and on and on.”

Sanders joined some Senate Republicans, telling Tanden that her “attacks were not just made against Republicans. There were vicious attacks made against progressives. People I have worked with.”

Sanders’ former presidential primary campaign press secretary also blasted Tanden, calling her “everything toxic about the corporate Democrat Party” in an online post:

Everything toxic about the corporate Democratic Party is embodied in Neera Tanden. https://t.co/kWHcUK2VZ5

— Briahna Joy Gray (@briebriejoy) November 30, 2020

Tanden, as chronicled by independent journalist Glenn Greenwald, suggested after the 2016 presidential election a conspiracy that Russian hackers had flipped votes in favor of former President Donald Trump against Clinton.

Greenwald wrote:

But what really distinguished Tanden when it came to unhinged and toxic behavior was her repeated (and obviously baseless) claims that Hillary only lost because Russian hackers invaded the U.S. voting system and clandestinely changed Hillary’s votes to Trump’s, costing the real winner — Hillary — her rightful place on the throne, behind the Resolute Desk.

Four days after the 2016 election, Tanden began strongly implying, if not outright stating, that Russian hackers changed the vote totals, and that this is why “Trump was as surprised as everyone else” by his victory. When I highlighted her conspiratorial claims, she did not deny their obvious meaning, but rationalized them by insisting that her conspiracies were not as bad as Trump’s refusal, in advance of the election, to acknowledge the legitimacy of an election that had not yet taken place:

….

If Joe Biden succeeds in empowering someone like Neera Tanden without extreme opposition from supposedly adversarial journalists, not only Democrats but also these media outlets will lose whatever lingering credibility they have to denounce conspiracy theories and to defend the legitimacy of U.S. elections. And they will deserve that fate. You can’t run around expecting people will take you seriously when you warn of the dangers of toxic, moronic conspiracy theories when you yourself embrace, elevate and promote the most prolific and reckless purveyors of them.

Tanden needs approval from the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee as well as the Senate Budget Committee before the full U.S. Senate can vote on her confirmation.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com.

THESE ARE THE BIGGEST CORPORATE MONSTERS PLUNDERING AMERICA TODAY!

 Tanden’s financial ties, as head of the Center for American Progress, include $5,000 to $499,999 donations from Apple, AT&T, BlackRock, CVS Health, Comcast NBCUniversal, Goldman Sachs, Lyft, Verizon, Uber, Walmart, the Bank of America, Amazon, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Facebook, Google, JP Morgan Chase, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the Microsoft Corporation, and Wells Fargo.

Watch: Biden OMB Nominee Neera Tanden Grilled for Taking Millions from Wall Street, Big Tech

Senator Josh Hawley / YouTube

Volume 90%

JOHN BINDER

9 Feb 20217

5:09

President Joe Biden’s nominee to lead the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Neera Tanden, was grilled by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) for her financial ties to Wall Street firms and tech corporations.

Tanden, currently the CEO of the left-wing Center for American Progress and a longtime ally of failed Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, was questioned by Hawley for the organization’s donor list, which includes Wall Street investors, Big Tech, and foreign governments.

“Do you think that Wall Street and Big Tech companies have too much influence in our economy and society today,” Hawley asked Tanden to which she responded “Yes.”

Hawley then asked Tanden to explain how she would “advocate for working people given this history of soliciting tens of millions of dollars from the biggest and most powerful corporations on the planet?”

The exchange went as follows:

HAWLEY: I also … I am glad you say that, I agree with you and I’ve talked for years now about these concentrations of power, how they stifle small business owners, and ultimately hurt working people. I want to ask you about a report from the New York Times and other outlets suggesting that you solicited tens of millions of dollars in donations from Wall Street and Silicon Valley companies as president of the Center for American Progress, including very large contributions from Mark Zuckerberg.

I understand that in early 2019, Sen. Sanders actually wrote to your organization, suggesting that these corporate interests may be inappropriately influencing your work. Can you just give a sense of how you will, if you’re confirmed as OMB Director, how you will advocate for working people given this history of soliciting tens of millions of dollars from the biggest and most powerful corporations on the planet?

TANDEN: Senator, if the role of OMB is to serve the public and I am 100 percent committed to that role, and let me say that just to be clear, I believe that the Center for American Progress took funding from the Chan Zuckerberg Foundation, not Mark Zuckerberg directly. But I completely take the point about concerns about funding. I can commit to you that I will always uphold the highest ethical standards, I will work with career folks at OMB to do so but I will also say that no policy position I have taken has been determined by the financial interest of any single person.

HAWLEY: $665,000 from the personal foundation of Mr. Zuckerberg. Millions of dollars from Wall Street financiers, big banks, foreign governments, Silicon Valley, a million dollars from the managing partner at Bain Capital, $2.5 million from the UAE. That was between 2016 and 2018, given this record, how can you assure us that you’ll work to see that these Silicon Valley and Wall Street firms don’t exercise undue influence — frankly, influence that they’ve already got in the making of government policy and control of our economy.

How can you assure us that you’re going to be an independent actor when you’ve been so close to them and raised so much money over all these years.

TANDEN: I really appreciate that question and I would say that I and the Center for American Progress aggressively … take on the role of Facebook and tech companies, I’ve called for higher taxes on companies, regulations of Wall Street, financial transaction tax. I’m proud of the record of the Center for American Progress and policies that will limit the power of Wall Street, limit the power of tech companies. I would welcome the opportunity to work with you on those ideas because I do agree with you that corporate special interests have too much power in our discourse.

So whether it’s a financial transaction tax or other proposals, obviously I would take my role as OMB Director as one in which I follow the tax policy of the president, but it’s my orientation that we need to rebalance power in our economy and I hope we can work together in those areas.

HAWLEY: Good. I’ll hold you to that.

Tanden’s financial ties, as head of the Center for American Progress, include $5,000 to $499,999 donations from Apple, AT&T, BlackRock, CVS Health, Comcast NBCUniversal, Goldman Sachs, Lyft, Verizon, Uber, Walmart, the Bank of America, Amazon, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Facebook, Google, JP Morgan Chase, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the Microsoft Corporation, and Wells Fargo.

Some of the Center for American Progress’ biggest donors in 2019 — ranging from $1 million or more and $500,000 to $999,999 donations — came from billionaire George Soros’ Open Society Foundation, hedge fund billionaire John Arnold’s Arnold Ventures LLC, and the Ford Foundation.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com.

Megadonors Pour Record Amount of Money Into ‘Get Out the Vote’ Effort for Dems

 
 
 

Hayden Ludwig - FEBRUARY 2, 2021 5:00 AM

A rapidly growing $800 million dark money network helped anonymous donors pour a record amount of money into voter registration groups focused on increasing Democratic Party turnout ahead of the 2020 election.

The Tides Foundation, an organization that allows left-wing donors to fund political activism anonymously, raised over $800 million across its nonprofit network in 2019, a dramatic rise over previous figures.

Much of that money went to "Get Out the Vote" (GOTV) campaigns in the 2020 election cycle, including the Voter Registration Project, Rock the Vote, and the Voter Participation Center, which exploit IRS nonprofit rules to register new voters in Democratic-leaning areas that helped deliver key battleground states to President Joe Biden. The IRS considers voter registration a "charitable" activity for 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) nonprofits, provided it isn’t explicitly partisan.

But when self-identified progressive organizations target Democratic-leaning constituencies in battleground states during election years the effect is anything but nonpartisan. Their tax-deductible funding comes from undisclosed sources on the left and is passed through Tides, which caters strictly to left-wing political groups, and voter registration groups on the left vastly outnumber similar groups on the right. The vast sums poured into these efforts also run counter to the narrative on the left that it abhors dark money in politics.

Anna Massoglia, an investigative researcher for the Center for Responsive Politics, told the Washington Free Beacon that the "key issue is the 501(c)(3) nonprofit’s intent." 

"It may raise questions if a 501(c)(3) nonprofit attempted to determine a potential voter's candidate preference or political party affiliation before encouraging them to vote," Massoglia said. But whether a nonprofit’s voter registration efforts were entirely nonpartisan is difficult to verify, unless it opts to publicly release that information.

The Voter Registration Project (VRP), which received $850,000 from Tides, targets African-American, Latino, Native American, low-income, and other likely left-leaning constituencies for mobilization. VRP also channels grants to state-based allies doing similar drives, including One Arizona, New Florida Majority, and New Georgia Project, founded by Stacey Abrams, a 2018 gubernatorial candidate and influential Democratic activist.

The Tides Foundation granted another $206,000 to Rock the Vote and its lobbying arm, Rock the Vote Action Fund, which turn out young and far-left voters. Despite claiming to be nonpartisan, Rock the Vote has accused Republicans of fueling "dangerous conspiracy theories and hate." The group also supports abolishing the Electoral College. Tides has channeled at least $2 million to Rock the Vote since 2006.

Tides also gave $180,000 to the Voter Participation Center (VPC), a GOTV group that targets "unmarried women, millennials, [and] minorities" and spent at least $582,000 on pro-Democratic independent expenditures in the 2020 election. VPC has received roughly $2.1 million from Tides since 2008.

Other Tides grants in 2019 went to ACRONYM, whose data app Shadow Inc. infamously bungled the Iowa Democratic caucuses in February 2020; Catalist, a leading data company formed by Clinton family operatives that’s been accused of illegally offering left-wing groups services below market rates; and the Black Voters Matter Fund, a far-left GOTV group aligned with the socialist-led movement Black Lives Matter. The Tides Center, a branch responsible for spawning new advocacy organizations, took control of a top Black Lives Matter group (the BLM Global Network Foundation) last July, putting the far-left movement squarely in the middle of Tides’ professional activist network.

Since 2007, the Tides network has spent over $4.3 billion this way, almost all of it to the benefit of left-wing political groups.

Few of Tides’ donors are known. Previously identified donors to the network include the Ford Foundation, George Soros’s Open Society Foundations, and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, all major donors to left-leaning causes and politically active nonprofits. But because Tides isn’t required to publicly disclose its donors—only its own grant recipients—the ultimate source of these grants is virtually impossible to identify, making the pass-through network one of the largest "dark money" donors on the left and a valuable service to liberal donors looking to support political causes anonymously.

The flow of "dark" dollars from anonymous donors to activists using a pass-through is a hallmark of the professional left, which boasts hundreds of such groups that form an outer web surrounding the Democratic Party. This echo chamber pushes the party further to the left on issues ranging from abortion on demand to gun control and campaign finance. Just how much Tides raised in 2020—which won’t be released until early next year—is expected to be even higher.