Likewise, the Biden-Harris plan for national immigration policy — which seeks to drive up legal and illegal immigration levels to their highest levels in decades — offers a flooded labor market with low wages for U.S. workers and increased bargaining power for big business that has long been supported by Wall Street. JOHN BINDER
Anti-labor Amazon clinches a massive government contract despite Biden’s pro-worker pledge
Since its founding, Amazon has been accused of exploiting its workforce. Reports reveal that Amazon workers are injured on the job at a much higher rate than the average US worker. Amazon is notorious for imposing inhuman time schedules on their workers such that they aren't given sufficient time for bathroom breaks. Amazon also has a record of wrongfully terminating employees and incorrectly distributing benefits.
Amazon has aggressively prevented its warehouse workers across the United States from unionizing. Last year, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) found that Amazon had violated labor laws in preventing its warehouse workers from unionizing in Bessemer, Alabama.
Recently, the Amazon labor union held a successful union vote at an Amazon facility in New York City to join the Amazon Labor Union that advocates for higher wages and job security.
Christian Smalls, who heads the Amazon Labor Union, recently met with Biden shortly after Smalls harshly criticized Amazon’s labor practices during the Senate hearing.
Last month, Biden drew applause at a labor event when said that the “choice to join a union belongs to workers alone" and called out Amazon by name proclaiming that "Amazon here we come. Watch. Watch,” Biden said.
During his campaign, Biden had promised to “ensure federal contracts only go to employers who sign neutrality agreements committing not to run anti-union campaigns.”
So how do Biden’s utterances measure against his actions?
Nextgov reported that Biden’s National Security Agency (NSA) signed a $10 billion contract with Amazon. The federal contract is in addition to another massive Pentagon contract on which Amazon is also currently bidding.
Days after Amazon signed the NSA contract, the Amazon Labor Union lost its second union election bid by a two to one margin at another Staten Island warehouse. The Observer reported that Amazon had funded a prolonged and aggressive campaign to block organizing efforts on the part of workers.
Meanwhile, Lever News reported that Congress is moving legislation to give Amazon new tax breaks and give $10 billion to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s space company. Democrat senators recently also voted to reject a measure from Sen. Bernie Sanders demanding that tech companies that receive government subsidies remain neutral in union elections.
Amazon has used loopholes to avoid paying federal income taxes for years. In 2020, Amazon paid federal income taxes for the first time since 2016. The amount paid by Amazon was $162 million last year, a small fraction of its $13.9 billion pre-tax reported income in 2019. Tax filings show that Jeff Bezos didn't pay any income taxes for at least two years between 2006 and 2018.
So why does Amazon continues to get a pass, despite such a poor record on taxes and labor human rights?
The answer is that Amazon donated $13.1 million to Democrats from 2020 to 2021 and $13.1 million from 2018 to 2019. Amazon has been donating to the Democrats since 1998. Their donations to the GOP have been comparatively lower. This was reported by Open Secrets, a nonpartisan group that tracks money in U.S. politics.
Amazon’s top recipient in donations was Joe Biden, who received $1.7 million for his presidential campaign. Amazon also hired the brother of Biden’s top aide as a lobbyist mere days after the 2020 presidential election. Amazon donated $800,000 to Bernie Sanders and $13,216 to AOC.
In addition to campaign contributions, there are myriad other ways for Amazon to buy influence without being detected. There could be paid speaking assignments or rewarding book deals or lucrative employment for relatives or cronies or post-retirement employment for the politician himself.
There could also be favorable coverage from the Washington Post which Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns or a content deal on Amazon’s streaming services.
The Democrats once claimed to be the party of the working class, but those days are over.
In recent times, Democrats have passed legislation that is against the interests of organized labor. The Democrats have also signed trade deals that send American jobs offshore, which cut costs for big corporations such as Amazon.
This isn't a recent phenomenon, Democrat abandonment of the labor movement began in the late '70s under President Carter, and it continued under President Clinton and President Obama.
Biden and the current group of Democrats are merely continuing that ignominious tradition.
Biden's open borders have caused an influx of poor migrants who work for less than minimum wage, pay no taxes, and obtain no benefits. Consequently, the citizen laborer is either rendered unemployed or witnesses a sharp decline in wages. The 40-year high inflation under Biden has hit the working class, as they see their savings deplete. All of this contributes to income inequality, an issue that the Democrats claim to care about dearly.
They order lockdowns that hurt the working class. They order vaccine mandates, which causes working-class people such as truckers and firefighters, who are unsure of the merits of the vaccine, to quit their jobs. Their call to defund the police causes lawlessness in poor neighborhoods. Their focus is on issues such as climate change and gender pronouns that are irrelevant to the working class. Regular people who stand against them politically are called extremists and domestic terrorists.
The Democrat mentality has the unmistakable stench of snobbery and elitism. They attend events where the working class who serve them suffocate under masks while they pose before cameras in designer outfits.
Their focus and loyalty are solely towards their very wealthy donors. Hence while Amazon engaged in union-busting and subjected its workers to sub-human conditions, Democrats awarded them massive contracts.
The modern Democrat only has empty words during campaign rallies for the working class and nothing more.
They may express compassion for workers, support unions, and attack big corporations. They may even invite union leaders to events and shake hands with them before cameras. They may slam capitalism. They may excoriate Republicans for being the party of the rich. But after they received their accolades and favorable press, they return back to their offices and act solely in favor of the big corporations who exploit workers.
Corporations, big and small have a vital role to play in a nation’s economy. These are wealth creators who also generate employment. They must be encouraged by governments and even given benefits. But that cannot occur at the cost of the rights and dignity of workers who toil for the corporation.
On the issue of the working class and several other historic constituencies, the Democrats are like actors who say their lines from a prepared script with all the right emotions before the cameras. However, once cameras are turned off they return back to reality -- i.e., focusing solely on their self-interests.
It's time for the workers to now focus on their self-interest and vote the Democrats out during the midterms and in 2024.
The Richest Billionaires’ $5,000,000,000 Homes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_o47OOgXik
Inside Jeff Bezos’ $1 Billion Fleet of Luxury Superyachts
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrrYro65IPQ
Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, And Why Everything You Know About Billionaires Is Wrong
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8S4nnZCPPqI
Biden Grants Amazon $10B Contract Despite Pledge to Oppose Union-Busting
President Joe Biden has given Amazon, for which billionaire Jeff Bezos serves as chairman of the board, a $10 billion federal contract despite having pledged to American union workers not to reward corporations accused of union-busting tactics.
For years, Amazon has been accused of trying to prevent its warehouse workers across the United States from unionizing amid reports that the corporation has put its workforce in dangerous scenarios under ruthless shipping quotas.
In August 2021, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) found that Amazon had violated labor laws preventing its warehouse workers from unionizing when they tried to do so in Bessemer, Alabama. In February, Amazon was again accused of trying to prevent the warehouse workers from unionizing at the Alabama facility.
Last month warehouse workers at one of Amazon’s facilities in Staten Island, New York, voted to form the corporation’s first labor union. Amazon is now challenging the vote to unionize. Following the vote, Amazon has reportedly fired more than six of the Staten Island warehouse managers who fought to form the union.
A report from the Lever reveals that the Biden administration, despite Amazon’s history of interfering in unionization efforts, has rewarded the corporation with a massive federal contract after having vowed not to do so.
The Lever reports:
A day later, Nextgov reported that Biden’s National Security Agency (NSA) ratified a $10 billion cloud computing contract for Amazon, which hired the brother of Biden’s top aide as a lobbyist days after the 2020 presidential election. The contract for the company’s web services division is codenamed “Wild and Stormy,” and is distinct from another massive Pentagon cloud contract on which Amazon is also currently bidding. [Emphasis added]
A few days after Amazon received the NSA contract, the Amazon Labor Union lost its second union election bid by a 2-to-1 margin at another Staten Island warehouse, after Amazon mounted a furious campaign to halt the organizing drive. [Emphasis added]
In effect, while Amazon was doubling down on its union busting, the Biden administration was delivering a massive federal contract to the company, signaling to Amazon executives that he is so far not interested in fulfilling his pledge to use the government’s purchasing power to be “the most pro-union president.” [Emphasis added]
As part of his campaign promises, Biden laid out a plan to prevent corporations like Amazon from receiving lucrative federal contracts after having been accused of union-busting tactics.
He promised to “ensure federal dollars do not flow to employers who engage in union-busting activities, participate in wage theft, or violate labor law.”
Biden’s campaign pledge states:
Biden will institute a multi-year federal debarment for all employers who illegally oppose unions, building on debarment efforts pursued in the Obama-Biden administration. [Emphasis added]
…
[Biden] will ensure federal contracts only go to employers who sign neutrality agreements committing not to run anti-union campaigns. He also will only award contracts to employers who support their workers, including those who pay a $15 per hour minimum wage and family sustaining benefits. The tax dollars of hard-working families should not be used to damage the standard of living of those same families. [Emphasis added]
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) spoke at a union rally for the warehouse workers late last month but has been silent on Biden’s billion dollar contract for Amazon.
Meanwhile, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) lobbied Biden to not reward Amazon with a federal contract, stating that the corporation has “time and time again” deployed union-busting tactics to stop warehouse workers from organizing.
“Mr. President: It is abundantly clear that time and time again Amazon has engaged in illegal anti-union activity,” Sanders wrote. “Amazon may be a large and profitable corporation, it may be owned by one of the wealthiest people in America, but it cannot be allowed to continue to violate the law and the rights of its employees. The time has come to tell Amazon that if it wants another federal contract it must obey the law.”
Amazon has notoriously skated by for years without paying federal income taxes. In 2020, the corporation paid federal income taxes for the first time since 2016. The amount paid by Amazon was just $162 million last year, a fraction of its 2019 $13.9 billion pre-tax reported income. For context, Amazon paid in federal income taxes just 1.2% of its pre-tax reported income last year.
Likewise, recent tax filings made public show Bezos paid an average federal income tax rate of less than 24 percent. In many cases, Bezos paid far less in taxes than millionaires earning a sixth of his income.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
MAYORKAS LIES OPEN BORDERS
Congressman Tells DHS Secretary Mayorkas During Testimony: ‘You Have Repeatedly Lied’…
HE’S A LAWYER. HE IS INCAPABLE OF BEING HONEST IF YOU BRIBED HIM!
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, the Biden administration's oilest, slipperiest, most mendacious cabinet member, was put through the congressional wringer Wednesday and Thursday, over his "turnstyle" border policies as he well should have been.
Former Vice President Joe Biden will nominate Alejandro Mayorkas to run the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), despite his role in creating huge Latin American migration and his involvement in several visas-for-sale scandals.
WashPost Says Mayorkas’s ‘Prompt Deportation’ Claim Is ‘Mostly False’
The Washington Post‘s fact-checker has finally recognized a clear public deception by Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who frequently claims illegal migrants he allows into the United States are promptly deported.
Writer Glenn Kessler deemed Mayorkas’ claim as containing “significant factual error and/or obvious contradictions … “mostly false.”
The criticism by the establishment news outlet will do little to change Mayorkas’s policies, which imported at least 1.5 million wage-cutting, rent-boosting migrants over the southern border in 2021. Those numbers are set to rise in 2022 as Mayorkas minimizes his use of Title 42.
But the Washington Post‘s criticism may encourage D.C. editors and reporters to show more skepticism about Mayorkas’s pro-migration policies and claims.
The fact-checker focused on Mayorkas’ May 1 claim to Fox News Sunday:
You know what happens to these individuals? They are either expelled under the Title 42 of the CDC, or they are placed into immigration enforcement proceedings. They make their claims under the law. If those claims don’t prevail, they are promptly removed from the United States.
Kessler noted that more than one million illegals have been exempted from Mayorkas’s “promptly” promise:
Mayorkas, in his remarks, gave the impression of a smooth-running machine: Noncitizens who illegally entered the United States are given their day in court and, if they lose, they promptly are deported. But the reality is much different. Certain nationalities, such as Mexicans, appear on a faster track to deportation. But others are not.
Indeed, more than 1 million people who entered the country without proper documents have been given deportation orders — and still have not left. Others have disappeared — a problem that may have gotten worse as tens of thousands of undocumented immigrants are released in the country each month.
There are at least one million migrants with final orders of deportation from judges — plus at least 11 million more who are either hiding in the long, complex, loopholed deportation process or else are hiding from the federal government.
But Mayorkas’ deception goes far deeper than his use of “promptly.”
For example, Kessler did not describe Mayorkas’ effort to convert the U.S. immigration system from a protective guard for Americans’ families into an aid program for poor and unlucky foreigners.
This post-American progressive policy also serves to accelerate the bipartisan, pro-investor Extraction Migration economic policy. That policy pulls foreign consumers and workers from many foreign countries — through many legal, quasi-legal, and illegal avenues — into Americans’ economy and society.
This colonialism-like extraction policy has drastically changed Americans’ society and economy since 1990. For example, taking inflation into account, median wages have barely grown while the stock market has grown at least tenfold.
Moreover, Kessler also allowed himself to be manipulated when he posted a deeply misleading statement from Mayorkas’s agency:
The statement noted that DHS and the Justice Department in March issued a new regulation to “conclude certain asylum cases in months instead of years, meaning that those deemed ineligible for asylum can be removed more quickly.”
On May 4, Sen. Robert Portman (R-OH) rebutted Mayorkas’s claims of a fast-track asylum process:
Portman: …. [S]hould [we] be removing more people who did not qualify [for asylum]?”
Secretary Mayorkas: We should be able to remove individuals who have made a claim for relief, who have had that claim heard by an immigration court and the immigration court denied that claim. Those individuals do not have a legal basis to remain in the United States and therefore should not be permitted to do so.”
Portman: But you and the administration have a policy not to do that. That’s the point.
Secretary Mayorkas: Ranking Member Portman, that is precisely why we promulgated the asylum officer rule to more expeditiously be able to remove individuals.
Portman: Well, we can talk about that later, but the asylum officer rule says that [if] you are at the border [you] get a quick adjudication. But if the adjudication is that you do not qualify because you’re an economic refugee … [you] are then allowed to appeal that decision to the regular immigration court judge.
Kessler is also late to the game.
For example, on May 4, Mayorkas repeated the “promptly” claim in a Senate hearing with Democrat and GOP legislators:
After Title 42 is lifted, non-citizens will be processed pursuant to Title 8, which provides that individuals who cross the border without legal authorization and are unable to establish a legal basis to remain in the United States, are promptly removed from the country.
In response, many GOP Senators said they do not trust Mayorkas or believe his statements.
“People around my state, they don’t believe at all the border is under control,” said Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL). “I don’t believe you’re doing anything to make the border secure. … I don’t think there’s any question you’re not enforcing the law.”
“When you say that we have operational control of the border, is that actually disinformation?” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), the GOP leader of the Senate’s homeland defense appropriations committee, asked. “We don’t believe that is true,” she added.
Extraction Migration
Since at least 1990, the D.C. establishment has extracted tens of millions of migrants and visa workers from poor countries to serve as legal or illegal workers, temporary workers, consumers, and renters for various United States investors and CEOs.
This economic strategy of Extraction Migration has no stopping point. It is brutal to ordinary Americans because it cuts their career opportunities, shrinks their salaries and wages, raises their housing costs, and has shoved at least ten million American men out of the labor force.
Extraction migration also distorts the economy and curbs Americans’ productivity, partly because it allows employers to use stoop labor instead of machines. Migration also reduces voters’ political clout, undermines employees’ workplace rights, and widens the regional wealth gaps between the Democrats’ coastal states and the Republicans’ Heartland and southern states.
An economy built on extraction migration also alienates young people and radicalizes Americans’ democratic, compromise-promoting civic culture because it allows wealthy elites to ignore despairing Americans at the bottom of society.
The policy is hidden behind a wide variety of excuses and explanations, such as the claim that the U.S. is a “Nation of Immigrants” or that Americans have a moral duty to accept foreign refugees. But the economic strategy also kills many migrants, exploits poor people, splits foreign families, and extracts human resources from the poor home countries.
The economic policy is backed by progressives who wish to transform the U.S. from a society governed by European-origin democratic culture into a progressive-led empire of competing identity groups. “We’re trying to become the first multiracial, multi-ethnic superpower in the world,” Rep. Rohit Khanna (D-CA), told the New York Times on March 21. “It will be an extraordinary achievement … we will ultimately triumph.”
Not surprisingly, the wealth-shifting extraction migration policy is very unpopular, according to a wide variety of polls. The polls show deep and broad public opposition to labor migration and the inflow of foreign contract workers into jobs sought by young U.S. graduates.
The opposition is growing, anti-establishment, multiracial, cross-sex, non-racist, class-based, bipartisan, rational, persistent, and recognizes the solidarity that Americans owe to one another.
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