RALPH NADER TALKS ABOUT 'CREDIT CARD' JOE BIDEN OF DELARE
The DISGUSTING SINS of Wall Street...
Poll: Joe Biden’s Approval Nearing Lowest Level of Presidency at 40%
President Joe Biden’s public approval rating is at 40 percent, which is nearing the lowest level of his presidency, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll.
The 40 percent comes from a three-day national Reuters/Ipsos poll that closed Sunday, with 1,035 adults and a three percent margin of error.
Biden’s recent poll comes after weeks of controversy and receiving criticism over the mishandling of classified documents.
Reports showed about 25 documents were found between Biden’s vice-presidential office at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in Washington, which is within close proximity to Capitol Hill, in addition to other places such as his home in Delaware.
The recent poll numbers are nearing the lowest approval levels (the mid to high 30s) he saw in the middle of last year.
During the first two years of his presidency, the president had numerous bad poll numbers after overcoming several problems. Some of the problems Biden saw in the first half of his presidency included the country going through a major supply chain crisis, a baby formula shortage, the botched Afghanistan withdrawal, and record-high inflation. The country also saw record-high gas prices in 2022.
As Breitbart News reported, Biden has yet to make an official announcement on whether or not he would run for a second term in 2024. But, he recently teased reporters while he was vacationing in the Virgin Islands with family members.
However, the Hill recently reported that Biden is getting close to announcing his intentions to run for reelection following his family vacation. After months of speculation, reports indicated that he had used his time to talk to his family about taking steps toward another White House bid.
Jacob Bliss is a reporter for Breitbart News. Write to him at jbliss@breitbart.com or follow him on Twitter @JacobMBliss.
Exclusive: Hunter Biden Lived in Wilmington House with Classified Documents While Bagging Millions Linked to the Highest Levels of Chinese Intelligence
While addicted to drugs, cavorting with prostitutes, and making deals with businessmen tied to the highest levels of Chinese intelligence, Hunter Biden lived in the house where Joe Biden stored classified documents.
On a background-check application dated July 2018, Hunter Biden claimed that he paid $49,910 per month in rent and that his “current residence” at that time was 1209 Barley Mill Road in Wilmington, Delaware, according to a document found on Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop.
Hunter also listed that Wilmington address as his primary residence on at least one form of identification (his Delaware driver’s license) and used the same address as his billing address for both his personal credit card and Apple account in 2018 and 2019, a review of files from Hunter’s abandoned laptop reveals.
According to the background check document, Hunter claimed that he paid rent from March 2017 until February 2018 (11 months) at the Wilmington address leading some to wonder if he was paying rent to his father, who has owned the home since 1996. But Hunter apparently filled out the form in error.
Contrary to some reporting, Hunter Biden was not paying his father $49,910 per month; rather, that figure represents the amount Hunter was paying to rent prime office space at the prestigious House of Sweden in Washington, D.C., materials in Hunter’s laptop show.
Nevertheless, the period that Hunter claimed he was living at 1209 Barley Mill Rd (the Wilmington house where classified documents were found) overlaps with the time multiple Biden family members were taking money from foreign businessmen linked to the highest levels of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) intelligence apparatus.
President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden in Johns Island, SC, on Aug. 13, 2022. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
Hunter claimed on various documents and financial statements that he lived at the Wilmington House between early 2017 and 2019—immediately following his father’s second term as vice president and as Joe Biden was gearing up for his presidential run.
Given the discovery of the classified documents at multiple unsecure locations, the timeline of the Bidens’ Chinese business deals paints a troubling picture.
Beginning in late 2015, while his father was still vice president, Hunter Biden began making plans to meet with officials from the Chinese energy company CEFC. CEFC and at least four of its principals and associates, Ye Jianming, Patrick Ho, Gongwen Dong and Jiaqi Bao, have been linked to the Chinese government and its military intelligence apparatus. Hunter once described Patrick Ho as “the fucking spy chief of China.”
Many observers viewed CEFC as a state-directed entity. CNN, for example reported in 2018:
From the yellow stars in its logo to the fact it had China in its name – a privilege normally reserved for state-owned companies – CEFC China Energy’s messaging strongly suggested state ties.
By early 2017, Hunter was directly corresponding with CEFC personnel and flew to Miami in February of that year to meet with CEFC Chairman Ye Jianming. During this trip, Ye Jianming gave Hunter a 3.16 carat diamond valued at approximately $80,000.
Photo from Hunter Biden’s laptop showing the diamond he received from the CEFC Chairman Ye Jianming.
When Hunter’s ex-wife discovered that he had obtained something of such immense value, she had her divorce attorney send an “Urgent” email seeking to determine the whereabouts of the diamond and secure the asset before Hunter could “dissipate” it. Hunter’s attorney offered a shady denial:
There is no diamond in Hunter’s possession. I don’t know where Kathleen is getting access to this information, but on this score, what your email purports below is inaccurate.
Metadata gleaned from photos of the diamond on the abandoned laptop indicate that Hunter lied about not having the diamond and he in fact had the diamond with him in Wilmington. The current location of the 3.16 carat diamond remains unknown.
After the fateful February 2017 meeting with Ye, and around the time Hunter claimed to have moved into the Wilmington house where classified documents were found, the Bidens’ business with CEFC exploded.
Nine days after Miami meeting, Hunter received two separate wire transfers of $3 million which the Department of Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network flagged as suspicious.
CEFC Chairman Ye Jianming (Photo: CEFC)
Between April 2017 and September 2018, CEFC and its affiliates funneled millions of dollars to the Bidens (mostly to Hunter, but some of that money flowed to Joe Biden’s brother and sister-in-law, James and Sara Biden). Joe Biden met with Hunter’s business partners during this time. All the while, top secret and sensitive compartmented information documents were just lying around in unsecured locations (such as the closet of the Penn Biden Center and the Wilmington garage), easily accessible by the Bidens and their associates.
James Biden, Joe’s brother, was central to the Biden business dealings with CEFC. One of Hunter’s former business associates, Tony Bobulinski, messaged another associate, James Gilliar, on April 30, 2017, wondering “what is the deal [with] Jim Biden as he wasn’t part of the discussion and now seems a focal point.” Likely alluding to Hunter’s addictions, Gilliar replied:
[With Hunter’s] demons, [it] could be good to have [Jimmy as] a backup…he strengthens our U[nique] S[elling] P[roposition] to [the] Chinese as it looks like a truly family business. [Emphasis added]
Bobulinski met with Hunter, James, and Joe Biden for at least an hour on the evening of May 2, 2017, and he alleges that they discussed the Biden family business dealings in China with which the former vice president was “plainly familiar.”
James and Sara Biden arrive at the White House to attend the State Dinner for South Korea, on October 13, 2011. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari)
On May 13, 2017, Gilliar emailed Bobulinski an equity breakdown of a new business venture involving CEFC wherein Gilliar proposed Hunter will hold a 20 percent equity stake and 10 percent will be held by Hunter for “the big guy.” Tony Bobulinski alleges that Joe Biden is the big guy.
According to messages Bobulinski provided to congressional investigators, Hunter claimed he talked to Ye on a “regular basis” because “we have a standing once a week call as I am also his personal counsel (we signed an attorney client engagement letter) in the U.S.” Hunter also claimed he was advising Ye “on a number of his personal issues (staff visas and some more sensitive things).”
The chairman of CEFC, Ye Jianming, has been linked to the highest levels of Chinese intelligence and CNN reported that Ye was a suspected “princeling” of People’s Liberation Army top brass.
In their summer 2017 correspondences, Hunter sent “best wishes from the entire Biden family” and Ye concluded his reply “please accept my best regards to you and your family.”
Between February 9, 2017, and December 20,2018, tens of millions—perhaps more than $150 million—flowed between a dizzying web of CEFC-linked companies and shell corporations. And some of that money went directly into Biden family coffers.
On August 8, 2017, CEFC wired $5 million to an entity called Hudson West III. That same day, Hudson West began wiring payments that would ultimately total $4,790,375.25 to Hunter Biden’s Owasco LLC. The last payment was on September 25, 2018, according to congressional investigators. Between August 14, 2017, and August 3, 2018, Owasco sent 20 wires totaling $1,398,999 to James and his wife Sara Biden’s consulting firm.
The following photo retrieved from Hunter Biden’s hard drive appears to show a flow chart describing the ownership breakdown of Hudson West.
Throughout the summer of 2017, as the CEFC arrangements were being hashed out, Hunter talked with Ye Jianming about the impending legal troubles of another CEFC principal, Patrick Ho (the “spy chief”).
In September 2017, Hunter agreed to represent Ho and executed an agreement to provide “Counsel to matters related to US law and advice pertaining to the hiring and legal analysis of any US Law Firm or Lawyer.” Hunter was ultimately paid $1 million through his Owasco LLC (the wire transfer memo line read “Dr Patrick Ho Chi Ping Representation”) to represent Ho.
Patrick Ho was arrested on November 18, 2017 and he was convicted in December 2018 on international bribery and money laundering charges, according to the New York Times. Upon incarceration, Ho’s first phone call from jail was to James Biden. He was looking for Hunter and James Biden gave him Hunter’s contact information.
Notably, Hunter Biden had never been a serious attorney, so his receiving one million dollars to represent Ho is notable given that Hunter was apparently living in a house with classified documents at the time.
Patrick Ho, former Hong Kong home secretary and senior executive with CEFC Fund, poses during an interview in Hong Kong in July 2015. (AP Photo)
The same month that Hunter executed the representation agreement for the Patrick Ho matter, September 2017, CEFC-linked companies provided three separate credit cards for Hunter, James, and Sara Biden. These credit cards allowed the Bidens to go on extravagant shopping sprees and the racked up more than $100,000 in purchases.
Also in September 2017, Hunter Biden leased the plush office space at the House of Sweden for an entity called the Biden Foundation and for a CEFC branch. A September 2017 email shows Hunter requesting keys to the building for Joe Biden, Jill Biden, Jim Biden, and “Chairman Ye CEFC emissary.” It was here that he paid $49,910 per month. in rent.
And it was at this time that Hunter claimed 1209 Barley Mill Road as his residence. That home, owned by Joe and Jill Biden, is where Joe Biden kept the sensitive documents next to his Corvette in the garage (“so it’s not like [these classified documents] were just sitting in the street,” Biden said in his own defense last week).
By spring 2018, the business with CEFC was beginning to fall apart. Patrick Ho was tainted by his international bribery charges and Ye Jianming was under investigation in China for “suspected economic crimes,” and had essentially vanished after detention by CCP officials.
In a now famous January 2019 text message, Hunter complained to his daughter Naomi that Joe Biden (whom the family called “Pop”) had demanded half his (Hunter’s) salary for decades:
I hope you all can do what I did and pay for everything for this entire family [for] 30 years. It’s really hard. But don’t worry unlike Pop I won’t make you give me half your salary.
Joe Biden benefitted from Hunter’s business dealings which helped to finance father’s monthly bills, paid for repairs to the Barley Mill road estate in Wilmington, and bankrolled the office space for Joe and Jill Biden’s foundation at the pricey House of Sweden complex.
Hunter Biden (right) watches as his father Joe Biden is sworn in as the 46th president of the United States on Jan. 20, 2021. (Saul Loeb/Pool Photo via AP)
My colleague Peter Schweizer’s runaway bestseller, Red Handed: How American Elites Get Rich Helping China Win, first revealed that the Biden family received some $31 million from the highest levels of Chinese intelligence at the same time Hunter was paying the vice president’s bills. Schweizer believes that there is a slam dunk case to indict Hunter Biden.
The latest developments involving apparent mishandling of classified information underscore the gravity of the ongoing Biden corruption scandals.
Seamus Bruner is the director of research at the Government Accountability Institute and the author of Compromised: How Money & Politics Drive FBI Corruption and Fallout: Nuclear Bribes, Russia Spies, and D.C. Lies. Follow him @seamusbruner.
While Biden was championing that idea, though, “dark money” groups were mobilizing to see him elected president. As Breitbart News reported in October 2020, a super PAC backed by Silicon Valley donors and boosted by “dark money” spent substantially to run attack ads against Trump in the final weeks of the White House contest.
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.”
Then, after he leaves the White House he and his family can profit to their hearts' content, unfettered by the real conflicts of interest that come and should be prosecuted when merchants in misery like the Clintons (and others) milk public charities. illegally. CHARLES ORTEL
In 2018 and 2020, Schweizer published Secret Empires and Profiles in Corruption. Each book hit #1 on the New York Times bestseller list and exposed how Hunter and his father flew to China aboard Air Force Two in 2013 before Hunter’s firm inked a $1.5 billion deal with a subsidiary of the Chinese government’s Bank of China, which transpired less than two weeks after the trip. Schweizer’s work also uncovered the Biden family’s other vast and lucrative foreign deals and cronyism.
CLINTON – OBAMA – TRUMPERNOMICS:
STEAL FROM THE AMERICAN MIDDLE-CLASS and
HAND IT TO THE SUPER RICH ON A SILVER
PLATTER!
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2018/05/clinton-obama-trumpernomics-rich-get.html
"The Wealth-X report shows that the world’s billionaire population has grown by 15 percent, to 2,754 people, since 2016, and that the wealth of these billionaires “surged by 24 percent to a record level of $9.2 trillion,” equivalent to 12 percent of the gross domestic product of the entire planet."
CUT AND PASTE YOUTUBE LINKS
Elon Musk Just Exposed All Barack Obama And Joe Biden's Corruption! In 2022
WHO LONG EMPLOYED A CHINESE SPY, HAS SERVED RED CHINA TO THE
PROFITABLE DEGREE THE BIDEN CRIME FAMILY HAS.
ALL HERE IN THIS VIDEO (CUT AND PASTE LINK OF
YOUTUBE VIDEO).
Watters: Sam Bankman-Fried had 'full access' to Biden White House
“Protect and enrich.” This is a perfect encapsulation of the Clinton Foundation (TWO GAMER LAWYERS) and the Obama (TWO GAMER LAWYERS) book and television deals. Then there is the Biden family (THREE GAMER LAWYERS) corruption, followed closely behind by similar abuses of power and office by the Warren (GAMER LAWYER) and Sanders families, as Peter Schweizer described in his recent book “Profiles in Corruption.” These names just scratch the surface of government corruption (ADD GAMER LAWYER KAMALA HARRIS AND HER LAWYER HUSBAND AND THE BANKSTERS’ RENT BOY, LAWYER CHUCK SCHUMER). BRIAN C JOONDEPH
Soft on Crime: Biden Admin To Eliminate Charges for Corporations That Self-Report Misconduct
Change comes as Democratic megadonor Sam Bankman-Fried faces charges of money laundering, securities fraud
Watters: Sam Bankman-Fried had 'full access' to Biden White House
The Biden administration announced on Tuesday that it will eliminate or reduce charges against corporations if they self-report crimes.
The Department of Justice is offering companies "additional incentives" to come forward about wrongdoing so that "companies that do the right thing when learning about possible misconduct" can be rewarded. Corporations can expect repercussions if they do not fully cooperate, the agency said.
"Failing to self-report, failing to fully cooperate, failing to remediate, can lead to dire consequences," Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Polite said in the policy announcement.
The change comes as Democratic megadonor Sam Bankman-Fried faces charges including money laundering and securities fraud during his time as CEO of cryptocurrency firm FTX. Bankman-Fried last year visited the White House on multiple occasions, the Washington Free Beacon reported.
The change shows an easing of pressure on big corporations by the Biden administration, which last year levied a tax on stock buybacks and imposed a minimum tax rate of 15 percent on companies making more than $1 billion a year.
Companies must come forward immediately, already have internal accounting systems in place, and engage in "extraordinary" cooperation with the investigation to lessen or avoid punishments.
Polite added that even if fines or jail time are still pursued, cooperating companies can receive 50 to 75 percent off the lowest suggested sentencing guidelines.
"The policy is sending an undeniable message: come forward, cooperate, and remediate," Polite said.
Companies that fail to come forward may see increased "criminal exposure and monetary penalties," the department said.
A new Gilded Age has emerged in America — a 21st century version.
The wealth of the top 1% of Americans has grown dramatically in the past four decades, squeezing both the middle class and the poor. This is in sharp contrast to Europe and Asia, where the wealth of the 1% has grown at a more constrained pace.
Yang: ‘Return to the Obama Years’ Not Enough for Biden — They Were Left Behind in Those Years,’ ‘They’re Pissed Off’
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.”
GLOBALIST DEMOCRATS: PARTY OF BILLIONAIRES, BANKSTERS and open BORDERS. I was reminded after reading that 131 billionaires who are pouring millions into Joe Biden’s campaign in their mindless obsession to defeat Trump in November. Among the prominent are Jeff Skoll, of eBay who has contributed $4.5 million; Laurene Powell Jobs of Apple and owner of The Atlantic magazine has donated $1.2 million, and Josh Bekenstein, of Bain Capital (co-founded by Mitt Romney), $5 million. STEVE McCANN
Tucker Carlson on Biden’s coming corporatocracy
A corporatocracy is a government that represents a fusion of the state and corporations. Once upon a time, the left feared the notion. However, now that the left controls corporate America, it is embracing that fusion. Biden’s presidency will represent the apex of the left’s desire to create the perfect government-corporate partnership.
Tucker Carlson’s opening monologue describes the way in which the Biden government is inextricably intertwined with woke corporations (all of which are staffed entirely with graduates of American’s hard left colleges and universities):
Tucker paints a terrifying vision of what lies ahead if Trump’s legal teams cannot prove that the Democrats used technological means to force a completely fraudulent election result in Biden’s favor.
I’ve long had a name for this partnership between government and corporations: It’s called fascism.
Now is as good a time as any for a quick lesson about fascism. To start, here is what fascism is not: It is not American conservativism. That’s a misnomer the communists started after WWII when they declared that Hitler’s defeated fascism – which is a subset of leftist socialism – was “right wing.” Communists applied that misnomer solely to smear American Republicans.
There are only two types of government: Big government and small government. Everything exists on a continuum that runs from totalitarianism (big government) to anarchy (government so small it doesn’t exist). Anarchy usually turns into totalitarianism because it’s unsustainable, and a “strong man” will end it.
Totalitarianism goes by lots of different names: Socialism, communism, fascism, theocracy, oligarchy, military junta, absolute monarchy, etc. No matter the name, the point is the same: Government controls every aspect of people’s lives.
If you move far away from totalitarianism, but still keep a healthy distance from anarchy, you end up with American constitutionalism. This envisions a small federal government with limited responsibilities (foreign policy, trade, national security, etc.) and a multiplicity of smaller governments (states, counties, cities, etc.) that are immediately responsive to the people under their control. People in this system have inalienable rights with which government cannot interfere, and government exists to serve the people, not control them.
In modern American politics, Trump supporters hew to American constitutionalism. The Republican party, sadly, does not. It too craves power and control, which is why it’s only weakly supporting Trump’s fight against the corrupt election.
Meanwhile, where are the Democrats on this government continuum? The Democrats want total government control, without the inconvenience of the Bill of Rights, which puts them squarely in the totalitarian category.
The next question, then, is what type of totalitarians they are. Given their fealty to the Church of Climate Change (complete with their first saint, Greta Thunberg), it would be amusing to say that Democrats want a theocracy, but that’s not quite accurate.
As Tucker pointed out, Democrats envision control coming from a government partnership with corporations, with each working to benefit the other. The government funnels money (which it seizes from taxpayers) and power to corporations. Corporations, in turn, use cancel culture to benefit the government, ensuring that it maintains unlimited and permanent control. The closest political cognate is fascism.
Fascism is soft communism, because it does not nationalize all private property, instead limiting itself to nationalizing a few major industries, especially fuel and transportation. However, there is no freedom in a fascist country. Mussolini provided the ultimate definition of fascism: “All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.” As corporations and politicians gain wealth and power, the people suffer.
You’ll notice I’m careful not to say that this American fascism is Hitlerian, although the Democrats are continually moving closer to institutionalized anti-Semitism. Hitlerian wars for world domination are not a fascist prerequisite. (Fascists, though, do like some sort of war because wars mean power and profit – and you’ve surely noticed the monoparty resistance to ending the very profitable war in Afghanistan.)
All that matters to fascists is government control over the people, which they achieve with help from corporations. Donald Trump is fighting this. He believes in individual liberty, both from the government and from the most powerful corporate entities in the history of the world. No wonder, then, that the Deep State, the corporate media, the tech corporations, and corporate Republicans have joined together to defeat him.
Trump’s still fighting, though, and we can help him by contributing in any way we can. Everyone must contribute in his own way. Some fight with words, some with their presence, and some with their money. Do what you can, or America will finally experience under the Democrats the fascism they’ve spent 75 years accusing Republicans of desiring.
Report: Fortune 500 CEOs Will Intervene if Joe Biden Isn’t Inaugurated by January 20
Executives from Fortune 500 corporations say they are planning to intervene if Democrat Joe Biden is not inaugurated into office by January 20, 2021.
A report by CBS News states that in a conference call late last week, Fortune 500 executives were planning to step in on behalf of Biden to pressure Republican lawmakers if President Trump holds up the former vice president’s transition.
CBS News reports:
But if Mr. Trump tries to undo the legal process or disrupts a peaceful transition to Biden, the CEOs discussed making public statements and pressuring GOP legislators in their states who may try to redirect Electoral College votes from Biden to Trump, said Yale Management Professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, who convened the meeting. [Emphasis added]
“They’re all fine with him taking an appeal to the court, to a judicial process. They didn’t want to deny him that. But that doesn’t stop the transition,” said Sonnenfeld. “They said if that makes people feel better, it doesn’t hurt anything to let that grind through.” [Emphasis added]
…
The CEOs decided to wait for the November 20 certification of votes in Georgia before meeting to decide their next moves. Action could include threats to stop donations to political action committees or even corporate relocations, Sonnenfeld said. [Emphasis added]
The big business lobby and Wall Street have been looking to undermine Trump’s economic nationalist agenda for years. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable — both representing some of the nation’s largest multinational corporations and fighting Trump — congratulated Biden and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) days after the November 3 election.
“The U.S. Chamber stands ready to work with the Biden administration and leaders on both sides of the aisle to restore public health, revitalize our economy, and help rebuild American lives and communities,” the Chamber’s statement reads.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
ALL BILLIONAIRES ARE GLOBALIST DEMOCRATS. ALL BILLIONAIRES WANT AMNESTY AND WIDER OPEN BORDERS. ALL BILLIONAIRES WANT NO CAPS ON IMPORTING CHEAPER FOREIGN WORKER.
Further, the dubious choice of Kamala Harris as the vice presidential nominee was made solely to placate and reassure Wall Street and the wealthy, as she was viewed by them as being very deferential to the mega-rich class based on her days in California.
Report: Joe Biden Promises Wall Street Donors the Status Quo in Private Calls
OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images
8 Sep 2020343
3:50
Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden is promising Wall Street donors the economic status quo that they became used to before President Donald Trump’s administration, according to a report.
An investment banker on Wall Street told the Washington Post that in private calls with financial executives two months ago, Biden’s campaign assured them that talk of populist reforms on the campaign trail was nothing more than talking points.
The Post reports:
When Joe Biden released economic recommendations two months ago, they included a few ideas that worried some powerful bankers: allowing banking at the post office, for example, and having the Federal Reserve guarantee all Americans a bank account. [Emphasis added]
But in private calls with Wall Street leaders, the Biden campaign made it clear those proposals would not be central to Biden’s agenda. [Emphasis added]
“They basically said, ‘Listen, this is just an exercise to keep the Warren people happy, and don’t read too much into it,’” said one investment banker, referring to liberal supporters of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). The banker, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private talks, said that message was conveyed on multiple calls. [Emphasis added]
In a statement to the Post, Biden’s campaign downplayed the influence of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) — left populists on trade and economic policy — on the former vice president’s agenda.
“The Biden-Sanders task forces made recommendations to Vice President Biden and to the [Democrat National Committee] platform drafting committee,” Biden spokesperson TJ Ducklo said. “This anonymous source appears to be confused and uninformed about this very basic distinction.”
The report comes as Biden told AFL-CIO members on Labor Day that he will be the “strongest labor president” union workers “have ever had.”
“You can be sure you’ll be hearing that word, ‘union,’ plenty of times when I’m in the White House,” Biden pitched. “The words of a president matter. Union. We’re going to empower workers and empower unions.”
In the Democrat presidential primary, Biden told a group of rich Manhattan donors at a private fundraiser that “nothing would change” for them or their wealthy lifestyles if elected.
“I mean, we may not want to demonize anybody who has made money,” Biden said at the June 2019 fundraiser.
“The truth of the matter is, you all, you all know, you all know in your gut what has to be done. We can disagree in the margins but the truth of the matter is it’s all within our wheelhouse and nobody has to be punished,” Biden said. “No one’s standard of living will change, nothing would fundamentally change.”
Like failed Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, Biden has enjoyed a cozy relationship with Wall Street executives, along with his running mate Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA).
Most recently, Biden touted Wall Street’s support for his plan to abolish America’s suburbs by seizing control of local zoning laws to construct housing developments and multi-family buildings in neighborhoods. Likewise, Wall Street is fully behind Biden’s plan to hugely expand legal immigration levels, beyond already historical highs at 1.2 million green cards and 1.4 million visa workers a year.
The Biden-Harris ticket has elated Wall Street so much that for the first time in a decade, more financial executives are donating to the Democrat candidates than Republicans, the latest Center for Responsive Politics analysis reveals.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
Biden’s Billionaires
By Steve McCann
Many years ago, while participating in a voter registration drive, I came upon a grizzled and disheveled old man sitting in the overgrown and weed-infested yard of his paint-starved house calming smoking his pipe. Despite his gruff demeanor, Ully (Ulysses) was very pleasant and loquacious as we talked for over an hour on topics ranging from the weather to the innate foibles of mankind. It turned out that he had to leave school after the fourth grade in order to work in the fields to help support his family and had toiled in a variety of menial and labor-intensive jobs ever since. Yet, he had a deep and thorough insight into human nature. Among his comments about the rich and ostensibly well-educated was: “All the money in the world cain’t buy a fool a lick of common sense.”
I was reminded of that observation after reading an article describing the 131 billionaires who are pouring millions into the coffers of the Democrat party and Joe Biden’s campaign in their mindless obsession to defeat President Trump in November. Among the prominent names are Jeff Skoll, a founder of eBay who has contributed $4.5 million; Laurene Powell Jobs of Apple and owner of The Atlantic magazine has donated $1.2 million, and Josh Bekenstein, Chairman of Bain Capital (co-founded by Mitt Romney), $5 million.
Far more Wall Street financers have also jumped on the Biden/Democrat party bandwagon than are supporting Donald Trump, whose policies have overwhelmingly revived the economy after the stagnation of the Obama-Biden years. The tech billionaires, not content to simply cough up untold millions in direct political contributions, are also funding massive voter drives, promoting mail-in balloting, creating divisive partisan news sites, aiding and designing the Democrat party’s digital campaigns and unabashedly censoring the social media accounts of the Trump campaign and innumerable conservatives.
The political party they are gleefully underwriting in order to oust Trump is no longer the party of the middle and working class (which is now one and the same) but a two-tier assemblage in which the prey is sleeping with the predator. The witless wealthy and socially aware are in bed with the avowed socialists and militant Marxists. What is holding this marriage of convenience together is a mutual hatred of Donald Trump and the undoable promises made by Joe Biden and the Democrat party hierarchy.
In a 2019 meeting with 100 super-wealthy potential donors, Biden assured the gathering that he would not demonize the rich and would only increase their taxes slightly while ensuring that their standard of living would not be affected by any of his policies. He also stated: “I’m not Bernie Sanders. I don’t think 500 Billionaires are the reason why we are in trouble”. Further, he unabashedly emphasized that the wealthy are not the reason for income inequality and “If I win this nomination. I won’t let you down. I promise you.”
Further, the dubious choice of Kamala Harris as the vice presidential nominee was made solely to placate and reassure Wall Street and the wealthy, as she was viewed by them as being very deferential to the mega-rich class based on her days in California.
When the time came to deal with the Marxist/socialist wing of the Democrat party’s anti-Trump coalition, policy commitments, many diametrically opposite of what was promised the wealthy donors, were also guaranteed with a non-verbal pledge of we won’t let you down.
The first step was a de facto party platform. The 110-page Biden-Sanders Manifesto which includes, among other commitments, a massive job killing $2+ trillion climate agenda to phase out fossil fuel usage within 15 years, the elimination of cash bail, redirecting (i.e. cutting) funding for the police, dismantling all border protections, legalizing virtually all illegal immigrants and massively raising corporate and individual tax rates on the wealthy. This manifesto is a socialist screed that would destroy the middle class and permanently neuter the economy and nation.
An effusive Bernie Sanders proclaimed to the world that Biden and the Democrats have embraced his socialist agenda and that Biden would be the most progressive president since FDR. Sanders exposed not only the behind the scenes reality of today’s Democrat party but Biden’s figurehead role.
Further confirmation of the radicalization of the Party came about unexpectedly as the militant Marxist faction of the Sanders coalition forced the issue. Impatient and unwilling to wait until after the 3rd of November, Antifa and Black Lives Matter used the death of George Floyd as a pretext to take to the streets and begin their long-hoped for revolution. They claimed that rioting, looting, committing arson and attacking law enforcement was a necessity as this was a systemically racist country. Yet, they openly demanded immediate changes rooted in their radical Marxist ideology of class warfare not so-called systemic racism. As two of their preferred chants and graffiti slogans “eat the rich” and “abolish capitalism now” confirms.
Biden, the Democrat party hierarchy as well as virtually all Democrat elected officials refused to address the violence and those responsible. Thus, they tacitly approved of the lawlessness and by doing so flashed a green light to continue the riots. When forced to acknowledge the reality on the streets of the nation’s cities, they instead blamed Trump, the police, white supremacists and even the Russians. Due to their spinelessness, the armies of anarchy and revolution Biden and the Democrats unleashed will never be defeated or mollified by them.
Considering the vast dichotomy in the litany of promises made and actions taken, it is inevitable that either the moneyed elite or the mob of passionate true believers will be betrayed. There is no middle ground. Who will prevail?
Will it be the elites whose only weapon is money and fleeting political influence or the passionate mob whose weapons are unconstrained violence and intimidation? Will it be those who believe a revolution could never happen here or those who are currently inciting revolution with the implicit blessing of a major political party? Will it be those who believe that Biden and the Democrats, if elected, will be able to forcefully deal with the insurgents or the insurgents who now know that riots and extortion causes Democrat politicians to cower in the corner?
Beginning with the French Revolution and throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, history has recorded that passionate mobs always prevail when dealing with a feckless ruling class or party. And the first casualties have inevitably been the wealthy elites.
I can envision sitting with my old friend, Ully, and asking him if he thought the wealthy elites, indiscriminately tossing money at the Democrats for the sole purpose of defeating President Trump, understood the pitfalls involved. He would lean back, slowly exhale a puff of smoke from his well-worn pipe and with uncontrollable anger in his eyes would say: “Nope. Those damn fools ain’t got a lick of common sense.”
Joe Biden Kills Office Protecting Job Rights of U.S. Graduates
The Biden administration is eliminating an office that was recently created to protect many millions of American graduates — including Biden’s young voters — from government-fueled corporate discrimination in hiring, pay, and workplace rights.
The worker-rights office was announced January 13 by President Donald Trump’s deputies and canceled January 26 by Biden’s deputies.
The short-lived office was intended to document and expose the corporate discrimination against Americans that is fueled by the huge Occupational Practical Training (OPT) program.
In 2019, the OPT program provided work permits to 400,000 foreign graduates so they can take the jobs and opportunities needed by graduates — including Biden’s voters — under rules that make foreign workers much cheaper to hire and easier to manage than American graduates are. OPT workers are foreign, temporary, contract workers — not immigrants.
The Biden cancellation is bad news for the many college students and graduates who pulled the lever for Biden in November 2020, said Kevin Lynn, founder of U.S. Tech Workers, which fights the replacement of American graduates. “Biden was selected by the corporatocracy [which sees] no role for American graduates,” he said. American graduates “are not needed” by employers who can import many compliant, cheap, and disposable foreign workers, he said.
Correspondingly, the cancellation was celebrated by the immigration lawyers who help Fortune 500 CEOs import foreigners to take the jobs needed by young Americans, including many debt-burdened black and Latino graduates.
Thx @MDVisas for passing along some good news for F-1 students. Good example of how rolling back obscure Trumpy immigration changes will look. pic.twitter.com/6EHuRoqgGV
— Greg Siskind (@gsiskind) January 26, 2021
On the same day, the administration canceled another graduate protection plan leftover from the Trump administration.
The plan — which was blocked by corporate insiders in Trump’s White House — was to halt the award of work permits to the spouses of the almost one million H-1B foreign contract workers who have jobs in the United States. This H4EAD program was created by President Barack Obama — not by Congress — and it added another 250,000 foreign contract workers who compete for jobs against American graduates.
The cancellation was celebrated by Aaron Reichlin-Melnick. He is a Twitter spokesman for the investor-backed American Immigration Council, which is a spinoff of the American Immigration Lawyers Association:
Great news! DHS has formally withdrawn the Trump administration's attempt to strip work authorization from spouses of individuals on H-1B visas, as well as a planned proposed rule on provision waivers of unlawful presence. https://t.co/GztUv3w8Aj
— Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@ReichlinMelnick) January 26, 2021
Biden’s officials have also canceled a recent move by the Department of Labor to limit the outsourcing of U.S. jobs via the huge H-1B program. They are also expected to undermine other Trump regulations that help protect American graduates from the H-1B program.
The administration’s actions match the demands of its corporate donors and cheerleaders, such as the major universities that help deliver the OPT work permit to fee-paying foreign graduates.
Biden’s team is also backed by many corporate employers of OPT and H-1B workers, including Google, Facebook, Salesforce, Apple, Amazon, Deloitte, Microsoft, and their trade groups. For example, Mark Zuckerberg’s FWD.us advocacy group praised the preservation of the H4EAD program, which has helped keep married H-1B contract workers from leaving the United States:
We commend the Biden-Harris Administration for taking immediate action to turn the page from the Trump-Pence Administration’s disastrous immigration policies, and to do right by more than 100,000 hardworking immigrants who are contributing to the United States every single day in the midst of a deadly pandemic.
The FWD.us group also praised the Biden team for dropping a draft “unlawful presence” rule that would require the foreign student to go home after they get credentials from U.S. colleges. Without the rule, many foreign graduates overstay their visas and work as white-collar illegal aliens in the jobs needed by American graduates.
The Trump administration announced the OPT office on January 13.
The agency “is currently unable to evaluate the impact OPT has had on U.S. workers and foreign students who have obtained work authorization through the programs,” said the January 13 message from the Student and Exchange Visitor Program within the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.
“To remedy this, SEVP is announcing the development of a new unit — the OPT Employment Compliance Unit — that will be dedicated full-time to compliance matters involving wage, hours, and compensation … the first report will be published on ICE.gov by July 31, 2021,” said the statement. It continued:
For example, if the unit were to detect evidence that an employer is using OPT in a discriminatory manner (e.g., as a means to hire only foreign nationals, or only individuals of certain nationalities to the exclusion of others), or in a manner that negatively impacts wages, this unit may notify DOL and the U.S. Department of Justice of such evidence, where HSI is unable to address such matters, so that the evidence can be investigated further.
…
The loss of employment many U.S. workers have faced since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic as employers lay off significant portions of their workforce (while still, in some cases, seeking to hire more foreign workers), makes this work particularly timely.
On January 26, Biden’s deputies announced they would cancel the transparency program:
After conducting an additional review of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s optional practical training (OPT) compliance effort, the program determined that it is already performing much of the work outlined in the Broadcast Message. As such, the creation of the new unit is not necessary at this time.
Before Trump’s arrival, the federal government released minimal information about the huge OPT program. In 2018, Trump’s deputies released some limited information, allowing Breitbart News and the FBI to expose widespread fraud.
But the federal government provides little information about the jobs and wages lost to the OPT program. The federal website provides some basic data about annual numbers, the major OPT employers, that the universities which profit from the OPT program. But the agency provides little data about the operation of the program, the wages paid to OPT, workers, the many small companies that use OPTs to fill Fortune 500 outsourcing contracts, or about reported hiring discrimination against Americans.
However, many foreign and American workers tell Breitbart News that the OPT program — and its sister program, the Curricular Practical Training (CPT) program — provides the workforce for the lowest level of the Fortune 500’s labor pyramid.
The OPT and CPT workers — plus many white-collar illegal aliens and overstays — work long hours at meager pay because they hope to get promoted into full-time jobs and then into the H-1B program. They want to get into the H-1B program because it allows them to eventually get green cards.
The one million-plus foreign workers in this Green Card Workforce displace many American graduates from vital gateway jobs in science, software, accountancy, or health care. The flood of labor in this hidden pyramid also cuts salaries for college graduates — and boosts stock prices for investors and older Americans — including the parents and teachers of the American graduates.
For example, a group of economists estimated in January that Trump’s recent curbs on corporate use of H-1B contract workers nicked the stock market value of Fortune 500 companies “by about 0.45% — representing a total loss of around $100 billion.”
Other evidence suggests that the Fortune 500’s reliance on many foreign contract workers is sidelining qualified Americans, damaging corporate innovation, helping China, and also diverting investment, jobs, and wealth from central states to the coastal states.
But this hidden labor market is rarely covered in corporate media, such a Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post, or in the pro-migration New York Times.
However, Lynn and his member of American professionals are trying to raise awareness of how the OPT program pushes young Americans out of good careers.
“The OPT work permit masquerades workers as ‘students,’ so employers are under no obligation to pay them fair market wages,” Lynn noted, adding:
The Biden Administration is under the false delusion that these international students are the best and brightest in the world, so deserve to stay here permanently. Research by the [left-wing] Economic Policy Institute shows that the majority of these students are not the best and brightest, and are entering low-ranked US universities with low entrance requirements [to get work permit]. Universities profit because international students pay full freight tuition, while American students are graduating with immense student loan debt and having to now compete with OPT work-permit holders.
The ICE data shows that the OPT program delivers many foreign workers into Fortune 500 jobs, where managers have a lot of freedom to hire within their own ethnic networks. For example, since 2003, Amazon has hired 12,173 people via the program, while Deloitte has hired 5,799 foreign graduates, and Apple has hired 2,667 people.
For years, a wide variety of pollsters have shown deep and broad opposition to labor migration — or the inflow of temporary contract workers into jobs sought by young U.S. graduates.
The multiracial, cross-sex, nonracist, class-based, and solidarity-themed opposition to labor migration coexists with generally favorable personal feelings toward legal immigrants and toward immigration in theory — despite the media magnification of many skewed polls and articles that still push the 1950’s “Nation of Immigrants” claim.
Migration allows investors and CEOs to skimp on labor-saving technology, sideline U.S. minorities, ignore disabled people, exploit stoop labor in the fields, shortchange labor in the cities, and impose tight control pay cuts on American professionals.
Migration also helps corral technological innovation by minimizing the employment of American graduates, undermine Americans’ labor rights, and redirect progressive journalists to cheerlead for Wall Street’s priorities and claims.
Wall St. & CEOs are waving skewed polls (& checks) to urge politicians to jump back into the amnesty waters.
Polls show (& pols know) that voters strongly prefer economic policies to help blue/white-collar Americans get good jobs
IOW, pocketbook politicshttps://t.co/fMtpvV1GYW
— Neil Munro (@NeilMunroDC) January 23, 2021
Report: Biden’s Campaign Benefited from Record Amount of ‘Dark Money’
President Joe Biden’s successful 2020 White House bid benefited from an extensive record-breaking amount of “dark money,” according to a new report.
Bloomberg News noted earlier this week that outside political groups—not officially associated with Biden’s campaign, but working to support his chances at victory—spent and raised more than $145 million from anonymous donors.
“That amount of dark money dwarfs the $28.4 million spent on behalf of his rival, former President Donald Trump,” Bloomberg reported. “And it tops the previous record of $113 million in anonymous donations backing Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney in 2012.”
The money, while significant, was only a fraction of the $1.5 billion spent on Biden’s behalf this last cycle. The president, himself, raised more than $1 billion through his own campaign committee, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
A further $578 million was raised by Super PACs and other political groups. This figure includes the $145 million in “dark money” that was raised by political non-profits that are not required by law to disclose their donors.
Generally, such non-profits either raise the money and spend it themselves or transfer it to larger Super PACs working on a candidate’s behalf. Although Super PACs are not allowed to coordinate directly with the campaigns of specific candidates, there is no limit to how much they can raise on that candidate’s behalf, provided they disclose every donor. Political non-profits, however, often act as a shield since they too can raise unlimited amounts of money without having to disclose their donors.
During the 2020 election cycle, such practices heavily benefited Democrats. The Center for Responsive Politics notes that more than $326 million in “dark money” was spent to aid Democrats this last cycle. Meanwhile, only $148 million was used to support Republican groups.
Democrats, including Biden, accepted the help from “dark money” groups, even as they argued in favor of tighter regulations on campaign spending. Biden, in particular, unveiled a proposal last year that specifically called for an “end [to] dark money groups.”
While Biden was championing that idea, though, “dark money” groups were mobilizing to see him elected president. As Breitbart News reported in October 2020, a super PAC backed by Silicon Valley donors and boosted by “dark money” spent substantially to run attack ads against Trump in the final weeks of the White House contest.
Big tech employees rally behind Biden campaign
By Krystal Hur
Employees at big tech companies, including Google parent Alphabet and Facebook, funneled millions of dollars into Democrats’ campaigns during the 2020 election cycle — a move that could pay off for conglomerates hoping to stymie the implementation of internet regulation.
President-elect Joe Biden has yet to propose any tech-related legislation. But Biden previously took a staunch stance on the issue, calling for reform measures including revoking Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which stipulates that big tech companies are not responsible for their users’ content. President Donald Trump has repeatedly called for repeal of that section in his continuing dispute with social media companies.
Employees at big tech giants, including Alphabet, Amazon, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft, donated millions to various Democrats’ campaigns in the 2020 election cycle. Employees at the five companies shelled out a combined $12.3 million to Biden’s campaign and millions more to Democrats in high-profile Senate contests, such as recently-elected Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) and Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.). Employees of big tech firms ranked among the top donors to each of those Democrats.
With most donations coming from company employees, Alphabet contributed around $21 million to Democrats in the 2020 election cycle, with Amazon contributing around $9.4 million. Facebook, Microsoft and Apple contributed about $6 million, $12.7 million and $6.6 million to Democrats, respectively. The majority of each of the big tech firm’s contributions went to Democratic candidates, and excluding Microsoft, the Biden campaign was the top recipient with Ossoff and Warnock ranking in the top 10. Microsoft’s top recipient for contributions was the Senate Majority PAC, the super PAC affiliated with Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer. The Democratic National Committee ranked in the top three recipients for all of the companies.
Erik Gordon, a professor at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, said that while the Biden administration and new Congress won’t be completely “lax” with big tech firms, they will likely drag their heels over instituting big tech regulation so as to not alienate their biggest donors.
“The classic move is you slow stuff down, maybe you’ll hold the hearings later but you have people working on reports,” Gordon said. “And you hope something else moves into the news cycle so that slowing it down can mean you never get to it.”
He also said that despite the Democrats’ control of the Senate, they’re “barely in power.”
“If there’s much of a swing, even a tiny swing … they could be out of power again,” Gordon said. “They want the money, they want the favorable comments — they don’t want two years from now to lose the Senate again.”
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has expressed support for reforming Section 230, suggesting measures such as enhancing transparency surrounding content moderation. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has also said he supports reforming Section 230, similarly emphasizing the need for increased transparency as well as user autonomy over content algorithms.
While key figures in Biden’s party such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) support legislation to regulate big tech companies, Biden has remained mum on the subject. Matt Hill, a spokesperson for Biden’s campaign, declined to comment on the Biden administration’s plans regarding the antitrust cases filed during the Trump administration, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle have also confronted big tech firms on issues such as antitrust and allegedly holding anti-conservative biases, a claim that has been refuted by non-partisan groups. On Oct. 6, the House Judiciary subcommittee on antitrust released a report of recommendations to reign in big tech companies’ control following a 16-month investigation into competition in the internet industry, honing in on Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook.
Gordon said he expects the Biden administration and Congress to settle antitrust lawsuits filed against companies like Google and Facebook — but with compromises to avoid upsetting big tech donors without looking “softer on big business than the Republicans.” Legislation that’s more difficult to compromise on will likely move more slowly, he said.
“I think where you’re going to see the slow down is Section 230, because there isn’t a way of compromising your way out of that like there is in the antitrust thing where you compromise your way out [and] you look like you’re still tough on them, even though you’ve settled maybe for easier terms,” Gordon said.
On Nov. 30, a coalition of 33 consumer and advocacy groups urged Biden “to exclude Big Tech executives, lobbyists, lawyers and consultants” from his administration.
“Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft once promised innovation and opportunity, and while they continue to provide many remarkable products, they now represent serious threats to privacy, democracy, innovation, and Americans’ economic well-being,” the letter, signed by groups including Public Citizen and Progressive Democrats of America, said.
According to Reuters, some big tech executives are angling for senior roles in the Biden administration, including spots in the Commerce Department. Some of these firms’ employees already hold positions in Biden’s campaign. According to the New York Times, “one of Biden’s closest aides” worked at Apple prior to joining the campaign, and Biden’s Innovation Policy Committee “includes at least eight people who work for Facebook, Amazon, Google and Apple.”
Despite this, Hill said in a statement to the New York Times that Biden remains committed to holding big tech firms accountable.
“Many technology giants and their executives have not only abused their power but misled the American people, damaged our democracy and evaded any form of responsibility,” Hill told the Times. “Anyone who thinks that campaign volunteers or advisers will change Joe Biden’s fundamental commitment to stopping the abuse of power and stepping up for the middle class doesn’t know Joe Biden.”
While Congress hasn’t passed a bill regulating big tech, big tech firms recently doubled down on moderating user content, resulting in public outcry from Republicans and sentiment from Democrats that such action was long overdue. After a pro-Trump mob violently stormed the Capitol building on Jan. 6, Twitter suspended Trump’s account for 12 hours, making the suspension permanent on Jan. 8. Facebook also suspended Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts indefinitely, at least until he exits office.
Other tech companies such as Twitch and Snapchat have since followed suit and disabled Trump’s accounts. Apple and Google shut down Parler, a social media platform notable for use among conservatives, on their mobile platforms while Amazon kicked the platform off their cloud storage. Facebook also said on Jan. 11 that it will ban the phrase “stop the steal” from its platform while Twitter announced a day later that it has permanently suspended over 70,000 accounts associated with QAnon content since Friday.
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