Earlier this month, President Trump tweeted the probe was a "soon to be $20,000,000 Witch Hunt, composed of 13 Angry and Heavily Conflicted Democrats and two people who have worked for Obama for 8 years, STOP!"
MUELLER INVESTIGATION COST ENOUGH TO FEED OVER 5 MILLION CHILDREN
June 1, 2018
Daniel Greenfield
Whenever the media dislikes a government program (usually involving weapons, because those are the only government programs that lefties dislike), it tells us what we could get for that money.
How many hungry children could you feed for the cost of one stealth bomber?
Okay. How many hungry children could you feed for the cost of the Mueller investigation. Turns out to be a whole lot.
The special counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election has cost nearly $17 million dollars so far, according to a new report from the Justice Department.
Correction, it's not an investigation of Russia, but of Trump.
When Mueller busts down the door of the Russian embassy or starts hanging around Moscow, I'll take the Russian part seriously. Or maybe revisits Uranium One.
Earlier this month, President Trump tweeted the probe was a "soon to be $20,000,000 Witch Hunt, composed of 13 Angry and Heavily Conflicted Democrats and two people who have worked for Obama for 8 years, STOP!"
$20 million here we come. And that's without a single indictment based on the actual central justification of this investigation.
But how many hungry children could you feed for the cost of feeding Team Coup?
In April 2008, USDA released its School Lunch and Breakfast Cost Study-II, which examined the cost of producing a school meal during school year 2005-06.The study found that, on average, the full cost to produce a reimbursable school lunch was $2.91, exceeding the free lunch subsidy, then $2.495.
5 million hungry kids.
GEORGE SOROS PARTNERS WITH BARACK OBAMA and ERIC HOLDER TO CREATE A GLOBALIST REGIME FOR THE BILLIONAIRE CLASS and CRONY BANKSTERS…. Open borders and endless hordes of illegals will make it happen!
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2018/04/monica-showalter-soros-banksters-and.html
YOU WONDERED WHY OBAMA-HOLDER WORKED SO HARD TO SABOTAGE AMERICAN VOTING FOR MORE ILLEGALS???
Those are the subliterate, low-skill, non-English-speaking indigents whose own societies are unable or unwilling to usefully educate and employ them. Bring these people here and they not only need a lot of services, they are putty in the hands of leftist demogogues as Hugo Chavez demonstrated - and they are very useful as leftist voters who will support the Soros agenda.
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."
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2018/05/matthew-vadum-spies-like-obama.html
Now the outlines of a Watergate-like conspiracy are emerging in which a sitting Democrat president apparently used the apparatus of the state to spy on a Republican presidential candidate. Watergate differed in that President Nixon didn’t get involved in the plot against the Democratic National Committee until later as an accomplice after the fact. Here Obama likely masterminded or oversaw someone like the diabolical Benghazi cover-up artist Ben Rhodes, masterminding the whole thing.
Democrats: The Party of the Super-Duper (Mostly White) Gazillionaires
BLOG: BELOW IS A WHO'S-WHO OF BILLIONAIRES FOR OPEN BORDERS, AMNESTY, NO E-VERIFY AND NO LEGAL NEED APPLY TO KEEP WAGES DEPRESSED!
It Pays to be Illegal in California
Report: Amazon Importing More Foreign Workers to Take Coveted Tech Industry Jobs than Facebook, Google Combined
Amazon, the multinational online retail conglomerate, is importing more foreign workers to the United States to take coveted tech industry jobs than Facebook and Google combined.
Data: Foreign-Born Workers Overwhelmingly Outnumber Americans in Silicon Valley Jobs | Breitbart
What we learn from Ben Rhodes: Obama believed he was entitled to rule and anyone thinking otherwise was a bitter clinger
Former White House Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes has his book out and you can tell which reporters got the free copies of it based on who has a review out about it now.
Still waiting for mine in the mail.
But there's much to learn about how the Obama administration was run, based on the points they zero in on, and what their take is on it.
In short, Rhodes conveys that Obama was convinced he was entitled to power, and completely believed that "progress" (read: leftwingery) was inevitable, because, you know, "history," just as classical Marxists do. He also maintained his lip-curdling contempt for America's voters. And Rhodes himself maintains his reputation as a "twerp."
Here are the money quotes nearly all of the reviewers cite, starting with his sense of entitlement to power, back on election night 2016, when the news of his repudiation by voters was sinking in. It begins with his court eunuchs fanning him with icky flattery:
His aides reassured him that he still would have won had he been able to run for another term and that the next generation had more in common with him than with Mr. Trump. Mr. Obama, the first black man elected president, did not seem convinced. "Sometimes I wonder whether I was 10 or 20 years too early," he said.
Here's his view showing his view that history dictates leftwingery as he practices it as inevitable:
Elsewhere in the book, Rhodes recounts how Obama openly questioned whether his presidency came "10 or 20 years too early" for the country.
Here's his lip-curdling contempt for America's voters - actually, it's two passages, the first, beginning with his disappointment after President Trump was elected:
"What if we were wrong?" he reportedly asked his aides in late November. "Maybe we pushed too far. Maybe people just want to fall back into their tribe.”
The old bitter clingers canard, in other words, still bitterly clinging to Obama's psyche after all these years.
Here's more of the same loathing for voters:
But days later, Mr. Obama seemed less sanguine. “I don’t know,” he told aides. “Maybe this is what people want. I’ve got the economy set up well for him. No facts. No consequences. They can just have a cartoon.”
As Salena Zito famously observed, leftists take President Trump literally, but not seriously. Voters take Trump seriously and not literally. Obama fits the former group to a T. And after eight years in the White House, guy hasn't changed a bit - and with all his views on his entitlement to rule, Rhodes's memoir presents a picture of a man who's 'learnt nothing and forgotten nothing' as Talleyrand said of the Bourbons.
Some of the reviews are worth reading, starting with a somewhat satisfying one from a former chief diplomatic correspondent of the Wall Street Journal, Carla Anne Robbins, who hates Trump even more than Rhodes. She writes in theWashington Post:
Rhodes also exhibits less self-knowledge than one might wish. He insists that Obama made the right decision to keep the United States out of Syria despite the many horrors President Bashar al-Assad inflicted on his own country. But he replays Syria so often — yo-yoing between his desire “to do something” and “world as it is” futility — that it’s clear (if not to Rhodes) he still has a lot to work through about Obama’s responsibilities and his own.
...and...
As Congress considered whether to authorize a military strike, Rhodes writes, he realized that the president “was comfortable with either outcome. If we won authorization, he’d be in a strong position to act in Syria. If we didn’t then we would potentially end the cycle of American wars of regime change in the Middle East.” I’ve heard a lot of explanations for why Obama backed away from his own red line, but never that it was supposed to be a teachable moment, to break Americans of their appetite for Middle East war.
...and...
At one point in the discussions, the younger Castro proposed that Cuba take back the U.S. naval base and prison at Guantanamo Bay, along with its remaining prisoners. “Cuba is very good at holding people securely,” he said. (Rhodes seems unaware of how creepy that statement is.) Obama rejected the offer.
What can we say about this? It conveys the basic loathing the press had for Rhodes, who was always considered a "twerp" and a "flimflam man" by the press corps. Now Rhodes is offering nothing we didn't already know from foreign policy maven Thomas Ricks, who wrote That Famous post for Foreign Policy, with an unprintable word describing Rhodes in the headline. According to Ricks:
Rhodes and others around Obama keep on talking about doing all this novel thinking, playing from a new playbook, bucking the establishment thinking. But if that is the case, why have they given so much foreign policy power to two career hacks who never have had an original thought? I mean, of course, Joe Biden and John Kerry. I guess the answer can only be that those two are puppets, and (as in Biden’s case) are given losing propositions like Iraq to handle.Fact check: Obama’s hasn’t been an original foreign policy as much as it has been a politicized foreign policy. And this Rhodes guy reminds me of the Kennedy smart guys who helped get us into the Vietnam War. Does he know how awful he sounds?
That statement, and this analysis from Diplopundit, following the suck-up profilethe New York Times did of Rhodes as President Obama's "mind meld" pretty well are verified by this new book put out by America's most famous creative writing major.
BARACK OBAMA: CLOSET MUSLIM REPUBLICAN and SERVANT OF HIS CRONY BANKSTERS
May 30, 2018
Haven't the Obamas Made Enough Money?
For a guy who said, “at some point, you’ve made enough money,” and a gal who said, “someone is going to have to give up a piece of their pie so that someone else can have more" the Obamas sure rake in plenty of dough.
Unless installing an in-ground pool in the yard of an $8.2-million home located in a fancy Washington, DC neighborhood is considered spreading the wealth? Since, leaving the White House the duo seems to be gathering, not “spreading, the wealth.”
Fresh out of the White House, Michelle and Barack began “leveling their playing field” with a joint book deal in excess of $65-million penned with Penguin Random House. Let’s face it, $65-million is not a bad payday for people who earn oodles of capital reiterating the same hardscrabble story about impoverished childhoods, suffering racial injustice, and how understanding gender inequity and the plight of poor people is something only they can do.
The $65-million the Obamas will earn on their books will trickle into the couple’s bank accounts in dribs and drabs, first for Michelle, whose long-awaited memoir is due out in November and is entitled: “Becoming.”
While the Mrs. is busy showing up angry on book tours, hubby will be pleasantly giving speeches at $400,000 a pop where he can pontificate about community organizing and commiserate with the problems poverty-stricken Americans suffer. And while payroll is processing Barack's speaking stipend, the former president can continue to bide his time with extemporaneous musings about American prejudice, minority mistreatment, and how Trump-style capitalism is a global blight.
Just recently, the Obama $65-million+pie expanded, receiving a fresh infusion of cash from internet entertainment company Netflix. Netflix is perfect for the Obamas because the network’s programming includes liberal topics that cover subjects such as sexual awareness in children and normalizing abortion.
It was a top Obama campaign contributor named Ted Sarandos that provided the Obamas the opportunity to community organize 125-million Netflix subscribers in 190 nations worldwide. Sarandos is the chief content officer and manager of the $8-billion Netflix budget who brokered a deal that industry sources say could be worth more than $50-million for Mr. and Mrs. “You Didn’t Build That.”
Any way you look at it, the Obama creative production deal with Netflix is an impressive promotion from the church basement on the Southside of Chicago where Barry Soetoro strategized Marxist troop formation on a chalkboard.
More importantly, at Netflix, the opportunities presented are endless for the Obamas to bring their unique brand of hostility to a much broader audience – which is always the pair's underlying objective.
According to the multiyear contract, when not out inspiring dissatisfaction at live appearances and college commencement ceremonies, the twosome, will be called on “to produce a diverse mix of content, including the potential for scripted series, unscripted series, docu-series, documentaries and features.”
The whole thing works out beautifully because by signing on with Netflix, the Obamas get to assist their good friend George Soros in his quest to ‘slow the rising oceans’ of freedom and ‘heal the planet’ from the ravages of democracy. Soros and the Soros Fund Management own about 71,500 shares of Netflix stock.
Barack Obama recently said that the original deal at Netflix provides an opportunity for him and his wife to communicate inspiring stories about individuals who’ve made a difference. But, in reality, and based on what both Obamas consider inspirational difference making, Netflix will most definitely double as a high-tech training ground to prepare legions of socialist-leaning youth to converge on democratic nations transforming the whole planet into one big Arab Spring.
Ted Sarandos had this to say about his friends, Barack and Michelle:
Barack and Michelle Obama are among the world’s most respected and highly recognized public figures and are uniquely positioned to discover and highlight stories of people who make a difference in their communities and strive to change the world for the better. We are incredibly proud they have chosen to make Netflix the home for their formidable storytelling abilities.
And so thanks to Netflix the community organizer and his sullen spouse are going global with their “formidable storytelling abilities,” or what is more accurately described as going global with the Obamas unique ability to twist the truth, incite discontent, and drive the naïve toward total ruin.
Rest assured, regardless of what Barack and Michelle say, the Obama Storytelling Show likely will be multiyear streaming of left-wing churlishness presented to the world on brightly colored sound stages complete with progressive guests, distorted tales of woe and radical rants. Both Obamas will be front and center infusing the conversation with manipulative mind control tactics and jazzing it up with aerobic dance routines choreographed by Bruno Mars.
In addition to all that obnoxiousness, the Raconteurs probably will feature rhetoric interspersed with pleas for a more significant piece of the pie. Likewise, there will also be admonishments that at some point enough money has been made, exhortations to spread the wealth around, and constant reminders that, regardless of what Americans think, “they didn’t build that.”
But most importantly, Barack and Michelle will have an international platform to counterpoint President Trump’s policies and do it from a $50-million podium where they will be paid handsomely to undermine Trump’s accomplishments with lies and distortions from the left.
Jeannie hosts a blog at www.jeannie-ology.com
GEORGE SOROS PARTNERS WITH BARACK OBAMA and ERIC HOLDER TO CREATE A GLOBALIST REGIME FOR THE BILLIONAIRE CLASS and CRONY BANKSTERS…. Open borders and endless hordes of illegals will make it happen!
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2018/04/monica-showalter-soros-banksters-and.html
YOU WONDERED WHY OBAMA-HOLDER WORKED SO HARD TO SABOTAGE AMERICAN VOTING FOR MORE ILLEGALS???
Those are the subliterate, low-skill, non-English-speaking indigents whose own societies are unable or unwilling to usefully educate and employ them. Bring these people here and they not only need a lot of services, they are putty in the hands of leftist demogogues as Hugo Chavez demonstrated - and they are very useful as leftist voters who will support the Soros agenda.
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."
THE BANKSTERS’ RENT BOYS & GIRLS IN CONGRESS GATHER ROUND TO UNLEASH THE WHOLESALE LOOTING OF THEIR BANKSTER PAYMASTERS EVEN MORE….
BOTTOMLESS BAILOUTS AROUND THE CORNER WAITING!
After eight years of the Dodd-Frank bank “reform,” the American financial oligarchy exercises its dictatorship over society and the government more firmly than ever. This unaccountable elite will not tolerate even the most minimal limits on its ability to plunder the economy for its own personal gain.
*
This was not because of difficulties in securing indictments or convictions. On the contrary, Attorney General Eric Holder told a Senate committee in March of 2013 that the Obama administration chose not to prosecute the big banks or their CEOs because to do so might “have a negative impact on the national economy.”
OBAMA’S CRONY BANKSTERISM destroyed a 11 TRILLION DOLLARS in home equity… and they’re still plundering us!
Barack Obama created more debt for the middle class than any president in US
history, and also had the only huge QE programs: $4.2 Trillion.
OXFAM reported that during Obama’s terms, 95% of the wealth created went to the top 1% of the world’s wealthy.
OBAMA: FUNDED BY HIS CRONY CRIMINAL BANKSTERS and ELECTED
BY MEXICO – THE FIRST BLACK MAN OR THE FIRST SPY ELECTED TO THE PRESIDENCY???
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2018/05/matthew-vadum-spies-like-obama.html
Now the outlines of a Watergate-like conspiracy are emerging in which a sitting Democrat president apparently used the apparatus of the state to spy on a Republican presidential candidate. Watergate differed in that President Nixon didn’t get involved in the plot against the Democratic National Committee until later as an accomplice after the fact. Here Obama likely masterminded or oversaw someone like the diabolical Benghazi cover-up artist Ben Rhodes, masterminding the whole thing.
"Cold War historian Paul Kengor goes deeply into Obama's communist background in an article in American Spectator, "Our First Red Diaper Baby President," and in an excellent Mark Levin interview. Another Kengor article describes the Chicago communists whose younger generation include David Axelrod, Valerie Jarrett, and Barack Hussein Obama. Add the openly Marxist, pro-communist Ayers, and you have many of the key players who put Obama into power." Karin Mc
THE PLUNDERING BARONESS PELOSI:
Nancy Pelosi triples her loot since the banksters nearly destroyed America’s economy and demands endless hordes of illegals to keep wages depressed!
MAKES YOU WONDER HOW MANY ILLEGALS SHE EMPLOYS AT HER ST. HELENA, NAPA WINERY …. The same county where an ILLEGAL started a fire that killed dozens and did millions of dollars in property damage!
"Today, each of the top 5 billionaires owns as much as 750 million people, more than the total population of Latin America and double the population of the US."
OBAMA’S CRONY BANKSTERISM destroyed a 11 TRILLION DOLLARS in home equity… and they’re still plundering us!
Barack Obama created more debt for the middle class than any president in US
history, and also had the only huge QE programs: $4.2 Trillion.
OXFAM reported that during Obama’s terms, 95% of the wealth created went to the top 1% of the world’s wealthy.
April 5, 2018
Democrats: The Party of the Super-Duper (Mostly White) Gazillionaires
Though there are numerous questions I could ask to determine if a fellow American gets his "news" from the DMIC (Democrat Media Industrial Complex), I usually lead with this one: "What political party is the party of the wealthy?"
If the answer is "the Republican Party," I know that the individual is a regular consumer of DMIC propaganda. It's tempting to get angered at the individual, but I know that two of the ways the DMIC lies are by distorting and withholding.
The Democratic Party is the party of the mega-, mega-wealthy. This is one of the dangerous cover-ups of the DMIC. Let's go to the tale of the tape.
BLOG: BELOW IS A WHO'S-WHO OF BILLIONAIRES FOR OPEN BORDERS, AMNESTY, NO E-VERIFY AND NO LEGAL NEED APPLY TO KEEP WAGES DEPRESSED!
1. Bill Gates, $86 billion
2. Warren Buffet, $75.6
3. Jeff Bezos, $72.8
4. Mark Zuckerberg, $56.0
5. Larry Ellison, $52.2
6. Charles Koch, $48.3
7. David Koch, $48.3
8. Michael Bloomberg, $47.5
9. Larry Page, $40.7
10. Sergey Brin, $39.8
Well, well, well – look at all that wealth that could be redistributed! The above wealth totals $567 billion. The Ds above outnumber the Rs 7-3 (I counted the Kochs twice, even though they could be counted as one; the third is Ellison), with 74% of the wealth owned by the Democrats.
Oh, the hypocrisy, the hypocrisy! Perhaps you're asking yourself: What's my fair share of all those billions?
Democrats spread their wealth to other Democrats
Make no mistake: in addition to campaign contributions, which can be viewed at OpenSecrets.org (I have no affiliation), the Democrat billionaires do believe in wealth redistribution, which is why they've invested their monies across every Democrat-friendly industry – from media to technology to anti-Second Amendment groups. It's the Democrats' (legal) version of a Madoff scheme.
In 2016, the Kochs – favorite targets of Democrats – spent over $31 million ($11 million to candidates and political action committees and $20 million on lobbying). These big bucks certainly are not chump change, but they're ranked 39 among all donors to candidates and PACs and 27 among all lobbyist spending.
Whatever one's opinion of money in politics, in all its forms – soft, hard, dark, by individual, by family – it's indisputable that it is a wide and deep hole that both major parties have leveraged.
But why stop at the Democrat gazillionaires? Let's take a look at other Democrat 1-Percenters.
I checked dollar amounts at the Federal Election Commission, where campaign contributions are tabulated (keep in mind that there is usually a lag in tabulations – sometimes up to a year due to off-year election years). Here's a 2014 graph; there's some crossover, but the D contributions outnumber R by almost half a billion dollars, and this is over the last 25 years.
For 2016 federal contributions to organizations, seven of the top 10 (including number 1) went to Democrats, totaling over $300 million.
For 2016 federal contributions to individuals, six of the top 10 (including number 1) went to Democrats, totaling nearly $250 million.
In the 2016 Presidential election, President Trump spent $325 million; Clinton spent $563 million.
The Democrat myth of publicly financed elections
Does one really think Democrats want campaign finance reform, or publicly financed elections, or higher taxes for the wealthy? The Democrats' counter is always well, those are the rules of the game, and we're playing the game. Money in politics is a legitimately concerning issue, but Democrats need to spare us the sanctimonious moralizing that they give mucho dinero out of the sheer kindness of their hearts.
Democrats love money in politics as much as Republicans, and they keep their sheep voters occupied with hating the 2010 U.S. Supreme Court ruling inCitizens United v. FEC, which had nothing to do with campaign contributions; it had to do with the constitutionality of airing on television a Citizens United-produced documentary about Hillary Clinton before the 2008 Democratic Party primary.
Marxist warfare
Money in politics is more ammo in the Democrats' Marxist war of economic hate and envy. President Trump's election, in large part, stemmed from small business owners and dirty-fingernails workers who have grown tired of the condescending "you didn't build that" remarks made famous by President Obama and U.S. senator Elizabeth Warren. The super-rich do well no matter who's president, and they did extraordinarily well under Obama. (Obama's net worth, it should be noted, is approximately $8 million; his net worth was around $1.7 million when first elected president, and his 2015 tax return showed an effective tax rate of around 19% – lower than Warren Buffett's secretary's!). It's estimated that 90% of income gains went to the top 1% under Obama, who spent a cool $1.9 billion in his 2008 and 2012 campaigns.
Let's give "honorable mention" to Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, who is the fourth wealthiest billionaire in the world and a majority stakeholder in The New York Times Company. Over the years, Slim, both personally and through his company, Telmex, has contributed millions to the Clinton Foundation. All this means that Mr. Slim, a Mexican citizen, has heavily involved himself in American politics. Sounds an awful lot like collusion, doesn't it?
The DMIC (of which Mr. Slim is a member) has carefully, and effectively, crafted a narrative that the GOP is the party of wealthy whites. As usual with anything Democrat, the opposite is true: wealthy whites predominantly vote for and fund Democrats, and the top ten most expensive cities in America are populated by mostly white, limousine liberal Democrats.
But your Democrat friends and relatives knew all this from Bill Gates, Rachel Maddow, and Media Matters for America, right?
Rich Logis is the host of The Rich Logis Show, at TheRichLogisShow.com, and author of the upcoming book 10 Warning Signs Your Child is Becoming a Democrat. He can be found on Twitter at @RichLogis.
It Pays to be Illegal in California
It certainly is a good time to be an illegal alien in California. Democratic State Sen. Ricardo Lara last week pitched a bill to permit illegal immigrants to serve on all state and local boards and commissions. This week, lawmakers unveiled a $1 billion health care plan that would include spending $250 million to extend health care coverage to all illegal alien adults.
“Currently, undocumented adults are explicitly and unjustly locked out of healthcare due to their immigration status. In a matter of weeks, California legislators will have a decisive opportunity to reverse that cruel and counterproductive fact,” Assemblyman Joaquin Arambula said in Monday’s Sacramento Bee.
His legislation, Assembly Bill 2965, would give as many as 114,000 uninsured illegal aliens access to Medi-Cal programs. A companion bill has been sponsored by State Sen. Richard Lara.
But that could just be a drop in the bucket. The Democrats’ plan covers more than 100,000 illegal aliens with annual incomes bless than $25,000, however an estimated 1.3 million might be eligible based on their earnings.
In addition, it is estimated that 20 percent of those living in California illegally are uninsured – the $250 million covers just 11 percent.
So, will politicians soon be asking California taxpayers once again to dip into their pockets to pay for the remaining 9 percent?
Before they ask for more, Democrats have to win the approval of Gov. Jerry Brown, who cautioned against spending away the state’s surplus when he introduced his $190 billion budget proposal in January.
Given Brown’s openness to expanding Medi-Cal expansions in recent years, not to mention his proclivity for blindly supporting any measure benefitting lawbreaking immigrants, the latest fiscal irresponsibility may win approval.
And if he takes a pass, the two Democrats most likely to succeed Brown – Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa – favor excessive social spending and are actively courting illegal immigrant support.
Adios, Sanctuary La Raza Welfare State of California
A fifth-generation Californian laments his state’s ongoing economic collapse.
By Steve Baldwin
American Spectator, October 19, 2017
What’s clear is that the producers are leaving the state and the takers are coming in. Many of the takers are illegal aliens, now estimated to number over 2.6 million. The Federation for American Immigration Reform estimates that California spends $22 billion on government services for illegal aliens, including welfare, education, Medicaid, and criminal justice system costs.
By Steve Baldwin
American Spectator, October 19, 2017
What’s clear is that the producers are leaving the state and the takers are coming in. Many of the takers are illegal aliens, now estimated to number over 2.6 million. The Federation for American Immigration Reform estimates that California spends $22 billion on government services for illegal aliens, including welfare, education, Medicaid, and criminal justice system costs.
BLOG: MANY DISPUTE CALIFORNIA’S EXPENDITURES FOR THE LA RAZA WELFARE STATE IN MEXIFORNIA JUST AS THEY DISPUTE THE NUMBER OF ILLEGALS. APPROXIMATELY HALF THE POPULATION OF CA IS NOW MEXICAN AND BREEDING ANCHOR BABIES FOR WELFARE LIKE BUNNIES. THE $22 BILLION IS STATE EXPENDITURE ONLY. COUNTIES PAY OUT MORE WITH LOS ANGELES COUNTY LEADING AT OVER A BILLION DOLLARS PAID OUT YEARLY TO MEXICO’S ANCHOR BABY BREEDERS. NOW MULTIPLY THAT BY THE NUMBER OF COUNTIES IN CA AND YOU START TO GET AN IDEA OF THE STAGGERING WELFARE STATE MEXICO AND THE DEMOCRAT PARTY HAVE ERECTED SANS ANY LEGALS VOTES. ADD TO THIS THE FREE ENTERPRISE HOSPITAL AND CLINIC COST FOR LA RAZA’S “FREE” MEDICAL WHICH IS ESTIMATED TO BE ABOUT $1.5 BILLION PER YEAR.
Liberals claim they more than make that up with taxes paid, but that’s simply not true. It’s not even close. FAIR estimates illegal aliens in California contribute only $1.21 billion in tax revenue, which means they cost California $20.6 billion, or at least $1,800 per household.
Nonetheless, open border advocates, such as Facebook Chairman Mark Zuckerberg, claim illegal aliens are a net benefit to California with little evidence to support such an assertion. As the Center for Immigration Studies has documented, the vast majority of illegals are poor, uneducated, and with few skills. How does accepting millions of illegal aliens and then granting them access to dozens of welfare programs benefit California’s economy? If illegal aliens were contributing to the economy in any meaningful way, California, with its 2.6 million illegal aliens, would be booming.
Furthermore, the complexion of illegal aliens has changed with far more on welfare and committing crimes than those who entered the country in the 1980s. Heather Mac Donald of the Manhattan Institute has testified before a Congressional committee that in 2004, 95% of all outstanding warrants for murder in Los Angeles were for illegal aliens; in 2000, 23% of all Los Angeles County jail inmates were illegal aliens and that in 1995, 60% of Los Angeles’s largest street gang, the 18th Street gang, were illegal aliens. Granted, those statistics are old, but if you talk to any California law enforcement officer, they will tell you it’s much worse today. The problem is that the Brown administration will not release any statewide data on illegal alien crimes. That would be insensitive. And now that California has declared itself a “sanctuary state,” there is little doubt this sends a message south of the border that will further escalate illegal immigration into the state.
Nonetheless, open border advocates, such as Facebook Chairman Mark Zuckerberg, claim illegal aliens are a net benefit to California with little evidence to support such an assertion. As the Center for Immigration Studies has documented, the vast majority of illegals are poor, uneducated, and with few skills. How does accepting millions of illegal aliens and then granting them access to dozens of welfare programs benefit California’s economy? If illegal aliens were contributing to the economy in any meaningful way, California, with its 2.6 million illegal aliens, would be booming.
Furthermore, the complexion of illegal aliens has changed with far more on welfare and committing crimes than those who entered the country in the 1980s. Heather Mac Donald of the Manhattan Institute has testified before a Congressional committee that in 2004, 95% of all outstanding warrants for murder in Los Angeles were for illegal aliens; in 2000, 23% of all Los Angeles County jail inmates were illegal aliens and that in 1995, 60% of Los Angeles’s largest street gang, the 18th Street gang, were illegal aliens. Granted, those statistics are old, but if you talk to any California law enforcement officer, they will tell you it’s much worse today. The problem is that the Brown administration will not release any statewide data on illegal alien crimes. That would be insensitive. And now that California has declared itself a “sanctuary state,” there is little doubt this sends a message south of the border that will further escalate illegal immigration into the state.
"If the racist "Sensenbrenner Legislation" passes the US Senate, there is no doubt that a massive civil disobedience movement will emerge. Eventually labor union power can merge with the immigrant civil rights and "Immigrant Sanctuary" movements to enable us to either form a new political party or to do heavy duty reforming of the existing Democratic Party. The next and final steps would follow and that is to elect our own governors of all the states within Aztlan."
Indeed, California goes out of its way to attract illegal aliens. The state has even created government programs that cater exclusively to illegal aliens. For example, the State Department of Motor Vehicles has offices that only process driver licenses for illegal aliens. With over a million illegal aliens now driving in California, the state felt compelled to help them avoid the long lines the rest of us must endure at the DMV. And just recently, the state-funded University of California system announced it will spend $27 million on financial aid for illegal aliens. They’ve even taken out radio spots on stations all along the border, just to make sure other potential illegal border crossers hear about this program. I can’t afford college education for all my four sons, but my taxes will pay for illegals to get a college education.
Indeed, California goes out of its way to attract illegal aliens. The state has even created government programs that cater exclusively to illegal aliens. For example, the State Department of Motor Vehicles has offices that only process driver licenses for illegal aliens. With over a million illegal aliens now driving in California, the state felt compelled to help them avoid the long lines the rest of us must endure at the DMV. And just recently, the state-funded University of California system announced it will spend $27 million on financial aid for illegal aliens. They’ve even taken out radio spots on stations all along the border, just to make sure other potential illegal border crossers hear about this program. I can’t afford college education for all my four sons, but my taxes will pay for illegals to get a college education.
If Immigration Creates Wealth, Why Is California America's Poverty Capital?
California used to be home to America's largest and most affluent middle class. Today, it is America's poverty capital. What went wrong? In a word: immigration. According to the U.S. Census Bureau'...: The Golden State is peddling fool's gold lately.
California used to be home to America's largest and most affluent middle class. Today, it is America's poverty capital. What went wrong? In a word: immigration.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau's Official Poverty Measure, California's poverty rate hovers around 15 percent. But this figure is misleading: the Census Bureau measures poverty relative to a uniform national standard, which doesn't account for differences in living costs between states – the cost of taxes, housing, and health care are higher in California than in Oklahoma, for example. Accounting for these differences reveals that California's real poverty rate is 20.6 percent – the highest in America, and nearly twice the national average of 12.7 percent.
Likewise, income inequality in California is the second-highest in America, behind only New York. In fact, if California were an independent country, it would be the 17th most unequal country on Earth, nestled comfortably between Honduras and Guatemala. Mexico is slightly more egalitarian. California is far more unequal than the "social democracies" it emulates: Canada is the 111th most unequal nation, while Norway is far down the list at number 153 (out of 176 countries). In terms of income inequality, California has more in common with banana republics than other "social democracies."
More Government, More Poverty
High taxes, excessive regulations, and a lavish welfare state – these are the standard explanations for California's poverty epidemic. They have some merit. For example, California has both the highest personal income tax rate and the highest sales tax in America, according to Politifact.
Not only are California's taxes high, but successive "progressive" governments have swamped the state in a sea of red tape. Onerous regulations cripple small businesses and retard economic growth. Kerry Jackson, a fellow with the Pacific Research Institute, gives a few specific examples of how excessive government regulation hurts California's poor. He writes in a recent op-ed for the Los Angeles Times:
Extensive environmental regulations aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions make energy more expensive, also hurting the poor. By some estimates, California energy costs are as much as 50% higher than the national average. Jonathan A. Lesser of Continental Economics ... found that "in 2012, nearly 1 million California households faced ... energy expenditures exceeding 10% of household income."
Some government regulation is necessary and desirable, but most of California's is not. There is virtue in governing with a "light touch."
Finally, California's welfare state is, perhaps paradoxically, a source of poverty in the state. The Orange Country Register reports that California's social safety net is comparable in scale to those found in Europe:
In California a mother with two children under the age of 5 who participates in these major welfare programs – Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps), housing assistance, home energy assistance, Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children – would receive a benefits package worth $30,828 per year.
... [Similar] benefits in Europe ranged from $38,588 per year in Denmark to just $1,112 in Romania. The California benefits package is higher than in well-known welfare states as France ($17,324), Germany ($23,257) and even Sweden ($22,111).
Although welfare states ideally help the poor, reality is messy. There are three main problems with the welfare state. First, it incentivizes poverty by rewardingthe poor with government handouts that are often far more valuable than a job. This can be ameliorated to some degree by imposing work requirements on welfare recipients, but in practice, such requirements are rarely imposed. Second, welfare states are expensive. This means higher taxes and therefore slower economic growth and fewer job opportunities for everyone – including the poor.
Finally, welfare states are magnets for the poor. Whether through domestic migration or foreign immigration, poor people flock to places with generous welfare states. This is logical from the immigrant's perspective, but it makes little sense from the taxpayer's. This fact is why socialism and open borders arefundamentally incompatible.
Why Big Government?
Since 1960, California's population exploded from 15.9 to 39 million people. The growth was almost entirely due to immigration – many people came from other states, but the majority came from abroad. The Public Policy Institute of California estimates that 10 million immigrants currently reside in California. This works out to 26 percent of the state's population.
BLOG: COME TO MEXIFORNIA! HALF OF LOS ANGELES 15 MILLION ARE ILLEGALS!
This figure includes 2.4 million illegal aliens, although a recent study from Yale University suggests that the true number of aliens is at least double that. Modifying the initial figure implies that nearly one in three Californians is an immigrant. This is not to disparage California's immigrant population, but it is madness to deny that such a large influx of people has changed California's society and economy.
Importantly, immigrants vote Democrat by a ratio higher than 2:1, according to a report from the Center for Immigration Studies. In California, immigration has increased the pool of likely Democrat voters by nearly 5 million people, compared to just 2.4 million additional likely Republican voters. Not only does this almost guarantee Democratic victories, but it also shifts California's political midpoint to the left. This means that to remain competitive in elections, the Republicans must abandon or soften many conservative positions so as to cater to the center.
California became a Democratic stronghold not because Californians became socialists, but because millions of socialists moved there. Immigration turned California blue, and immigration is ultimately to blame for California's high poverty level.
Report: Amazon Importing More Foreign Workers to Take Coveted Tech Industry Jobs than Facebook, Google Combined
HINDUSTAN TIMES/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
Amazon, the multinational online retail conglomerate, is importing more foreign workers to the United States to take coveted tech industry jobs than Facebook and Google combined.
Every year, more than 100,000 foreign workers are brought to the U.S. on the H-1B visa and are allowed to stay for up to six years. There are about 650,000 H-1B visa foreign workers in the U.S. at any given moment. Americans are often laid off in the process and forced to train their foreign replacements, as highlighted by Breitbart News.
Data reported by Statista reveals that Amazon requested to import 2,515 foreign H-1B workers in 2017, more than the 720 foreign workers that Facebook asked for and the 1,213 foreign workers Google has attempted to bring to the U.S.
In 2017, Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Intel, and Apple all requested more foreign workers to take U.S. jobs than the year before. In 2016, Amazon was one of the top 20 corporations demanding foreign workers to take jobs.
As Breitbart News reported, tech conglomerates like Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple hide their H-1B foreign worker hires through outsourcing firms like Cognizant, Tata, and Infosys. The practice allows the corporations to claim they are not undercutting or replacing American workers at extraordinary rates, as they simply contract the foreign workers through the outsourcing firms.
Meanwhile, the H-1B visa program and importation of foreign workers has crowded out American young people and STEM graduates from high-paying jobs in Silicon Valley, the tech hub of the world, Breitbart News reported.
Data: Foreign-Born Workers Overwhelmingly Outnumber Americans in Silicon Valley Jobs http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/01/18/data-foreign-born-workers-overwhelmingly-outnumber-americans-in-silicon-valley-jobs/ …
Data: Foreign-Born Workers Overwhelmingly Outnumber Americans in Silicon Valley Jobs | Breitbart
Data analyzed by the Seattle Times revealed that 71 percent of tech workers in Silicon Valley are foreign-born, while the tech industry in the San Francisco, Oakland, and Hayward area is made up of 50 percent foreign-born tech workers.
Though not specified in the analysis, a wide number of the tech industry’s foreign tech workers are imported to the United States through the H-1B visa, which brings more than 100,000 foreign workers to the U.S. every year.
Oftentimes, importing a foreign worker on the H-1B visa is the first step in a multinational corporations’ effort to outsource the American job, as the foreign worker arrives in the U.S., is trained in the job, and then is eventually sent back overseas with the job.
The growing foreign-born population dominating the workforce in Silicon Valley comes as nearly 500,000 Americans graduate in the STEM fields every year. Those American graduates are forced to compete with a booming foreign-born population in the U.S. and foreign workers who are imported by outsourcing firms and major tech conglomerates.
The foreign-born population in Silicon Valley is likely heavily weighted and biased to male Indian nationals, as they make up nearly 70 percent of all imported foreign workers on the H-1B visa, as cited by the Center for Immigration Studies.
JEFF BEZOS, BILL GATES AND WARREN BUFFET and SWAMP KEEPER TWITTER TRUMPER….
THE ROAD TO REVOLUTION II WILL IS PAVED BY THE LOOTING BILLIONAIRE CLASS AND WILL TRAMPLE THE POLS THAT GROVEL AT THEIR FEET FOR BRIBES!
"Today, each of the top 5 billionaires owns as much as 750 million people, more than the total population of Latin America and double the population of the US."
"Amazon is a massive wrecking machine consuming American retail. It's looting the economy and leaving behind rubble. " --- DANIEL GREENFIELD FRONTPAGE MAG
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Obama Officials Spied on Trump Campaign Using at Least Five Methods
May 31, 2018 5:26 pm Last Updated: May 31, 2018 10:53 pm
During the heat of the 2016 presidential elections, officials within the Obama administration, including cabinet-level officials who answered to Obama directly, extensively spied on the campaign of then-candidate Donald Trump.
Both the Department of Justice inspector general and the House intelligence committee are currently probing the actions of the Obama officials and their motivations.
So far, at least five different ways that the officials spied on the Trump campaign have been uncovered.
These include the use of national security letters, a FISA warrant, an undercover informant, the unmasking of identities in intelligence reports, and spying conducted by foreign intelligence agencies.
These include the use of national security letters, a FISA warrant, an undercover informant, the unmasking of identities in intelligence reports, and spying conducted by foreign intelligence agencies.
Each of these methods provided the officials with sensitive information on the Trump campaign that could have been used for political purposes.
Private communications between FBI officials involved in the agency’s investigation on the Trump campaign, reveal its links to the White House.
In one of the text messages obtained by the DOJ inspector general, and since released publicly, the lead FBI agent on the case, Peter Strzok, wrote in a Sept. 2, 2016, message to FBI lawyer Lisa Page that “potus [president of the United States] wants to know everything we’re doing.” Page was serving as counsel to then-Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe.
There have also been direct ties between the spying and the campaign of then-Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
The FBI and DOJ relied heavily on unverified allegations contained in the so-called Trump dossier, paid for by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC), to obtain a FISA warrant to spy on Trump campaign volunteer Carter Page.
1. National Security Letters
The FBI, which at the time was headed by FBI Director James Comey and Deputy Director McCabe, used counterintelligence tools known as national security letters to spy on the Trump campaign.
Marc Ruskin, a 27-year veteran of the FBI, told The Epoch Times that the agency has strict guidelines regulating the use of different types of investigations, such as national security, criminal, and terrorism investigations. Launching a foreign counterintelligence investigation (FCI), which falls under the FBI’s national security guidelines, must meet a lower bar of probable cause than do criminal investigations.
Using an FCI to investigate the Trump campaign, the FBI was able to gather intelligence—not necessarily evidence—which it would likely not have been able to do using a criminal investigation, given the lack of probable cause.
However, the FBI appears to have used the FCI tools—potentially illegally—to launch a subsequent criminal investigation.
Comey told Congress under oath in June 2017 that the investigation did not target Trump, even though it had spied on his campaign.
Similarly, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who oversees the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller, said in April that Trump is not a target of Mueller’s investigation.
2. FISA Warrant
The FBI and DOJ obtained a FISA spy warrant on Carter Page, a volunteer adviser to the Trump campaign, on Oct. 21, 2016. Under the so-called “two-hop” rule, the FISA warrant could have been used to spy on anyone with two layers of separation from Page himself. This means that both of the people Page was in contact with himself at the campaign could have had their communications surveilled, which is the first hop, as well as anyone who was in contact with the campaign officials, the second hop.
This means that even though Carter Page never talked to Trump himself, as said by Page in a Feb. 6 ABC News interview, Trump could still be spied on, because Page had contact with one of his campaign officials.
Because Page is a U.S. citizen, the application had to be certified by the FBI director or deputy director. Comey signed off on three of the applications, which include renewals, and McCabe signed one.
Deputy attorney generals Sally Yates, Dana Boente, and Rosenstein each signed one or more applications on behalf of the DOJ.
A FISA warrant is among the most intrusive ways to spy on an individual. It includes access to data collected under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
This data includes all digital communications—such as internet browsing histories, phone conversations, emails, chat logs, personal images, and GPS locations—that are transferred over the internet and captured by the NSA using so-called upstream data, which is all internet data traveling through key internet backbone carriers.
The FBI itself has access to 702 collected data collected by the NSA. A declassified top-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) reportreleased in April 2017 detailed numerous violations by the FBI in handling this data.
Among the violations were the FBI’s providing of access to raw FISA data to private contractors, in violation of policies intended to safeguard the data. The contractors were also found to have maintained access to the sensitive data, which includes communications of Americans, after the contractors’ work for the FBI was concluded.
The FBI also provided 702 data to a private entity that did not have the legal right to it. According to the FISC, the FBI also did not give oversight or supervision on how the data was used. It is unclear which private entity the FBI provided the information to.
It is unclear at this point in time whether the communications of Trump and his campaign were provided to outside private entities.
In addition to the FBI’s mishandling of Section 702-acquired data, the declassified FISC report shows numerous violations under the Obama administration of procedures intended to safeguard Americans’ personal data and communications. For example, the NSA had an 85 percent noncompliance rate with guidelines for when it came to searches involving American citizens.
3. Unmasking
Top Obama officials made hundreds of so-called unmasking requests for the identities of members of the Trump campaign in intelligence reports.
Unmasking refers to the practice of requesting that an intelligence agency, in most cases the NSA, unmask the name of an American citizen, which by default is concealed in intelligence reports to protect identities.
Obama’s national security adviser, Susan Rice, Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power, and CIA Director John Brennan have so far been identified by the House intelligence committee as having filed such requests.
Power testified before the House oversight committee in October last year that even though unmasking requests were made in her name, they were in fact made by another undisclosed official.
The communications obtained by Rice and Brennan could have been provided to Obama during the daily intelligence briefings he received from them.
4. Undercover Informant
The FBI used an undercover agent to infiltrate the Trump campaign.
Stefan Halper, a Cambridge professor with ties to the CIA and British intelligence agency MI6, reached out to Carter Page; George Papadopoulos, a volunteer foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign; and Sam Clovis, a senior Trump campaign official.
Halper received over $1 million from a Defense Department think tank between 2012 and 2017.
In the same month that Halper reached out to Papadopoulos, in September 2016, the Office of Net Assessment—a strategy think thank that falls directly under the Defense Secretary, exercised an option to extend Halper’s contract for nearly $412,000. Government records show Halper’s work was marked as “special studies/analysis – foreign/national security policy.”
According to media reports, Halper met with Carter Page as early as July 2016, the same month the FBI opened its counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign.
On May 20, the DOJ, under the direction of Trump, ordered its inspector general to look into the actions of the FBI informant.
“If anyone did infiltrate or surveil participants in a presidential campaign for inappropriate purposes, we need to know about it and take appropriate action,” Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said in a statement.
It expands the scope of the investigation by Inspector General Michael Horowitz, whose office is already investigating the FBI’s use of a FISA warrant to spy on the Trump campaign.
5. Foreign Intelligence
British Intelligence agency GCHQ provided officials within the CIA, both members of the “Five Eyes” intelligence alliance, information on the Trump campaign as early as late 2015, The Guardian reported.
According to the publication, then-head of GCHQ Robert Hannigan provided then-CIA Director John Brennan with sensitive information on the Trump campaign on a “director level” in the summer of 2016.
Brennan subsequently prepared an “eyes only” report for Obama and three senior aides. Brennan also provided briefings to the members of the “Gang of Eight” (the House and Senate majority and minority leaders, as well as the chairmen and ranking members on the House and Senate intelligence committees).
That GCHQ’s Hannigan provided Brennan with the information on the Trump campaign is highly unusual, as the House Intelligence Committee has found that no official Five Eyes intelligence product exists.
“We are not supposed to spy on each other’s citizens, and it’s worked well. And it continues to work well. And we know it’s working well because there was no intelligence that passed through the Five Eyes channels to our government,” Chairman of the House intelligence committee Devin Nunes told Maria Bartiromo on Sunday Morning Futures on April 22.
The Five Eyes alliance uses strict guidelines to make sure that participating intelligence agencies in the United States, UK Canada, Australia, and New Zealand don’t spy on each other’s citizens. The guidelines aim to prevent, for example, the U.S. government from using intelligence obtained by the Five Eyes to gain communications of Americans—which the government is not allowed to monitor without a warrant.
However, Hannigan and Brennan appear to have done exactly that by circumventing official channels, thus explaining why no official intelligence product exists.
The fact that no official intelligence exists that was used to open the investigation into the alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia means that those involved went around the official system.
Hannigan unexpectedly announced he was resigning from his post just three days after Trump was inaugurated.
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 U.S. SUPREME COURT IS LOADED WITH THE
BIGGEST WHORES ANY PRESIDENT COULD LOAD
IT WITH!
According to a 2015 study, workers prevail in only 20 percent of all claims brought to arbitration and win an average of just $23,548. By comparison, workers win 57 percent of cases in state court, with an average compensation of $328,008.
US Supreme Court eliminates workers’ right to collectively sue corporations
By Eric London
Viking Economics by George Lakey
by Melville House
CLINTON – OBAMA – TRUMPERNOICS: 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."
THE U.S. SUPREME COURT IS LOADED WITH THE
BIGGEST WHORES ANY PRESIDENT COULD LOAD
IT WITH!
According to a 2015 study, workers prevail in only 20 percent of all claims brought to arbitration and win an average of just $23,548. By comparison, workers win 57 percent of cases in state court, with an average compensation of $328,008.
US Supreme Court eliminates workers’ right to collectively sue corporations
By Eric London
23 May 2018
The United States Supreme Court’s 5–4 decision in Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis eliminates the right of tens of millions of workers to bring class action lawsuits against their employers. With the bang of a gavel, the Supreme Court has effectively stripped workers of their legal rights and guaranteed the flow of even greater fortunes to the corporate and financial oligarchy, which controls America’s legal and political system.
The majority opinion, written by Trump nominee Neil Gorsuch, upholds the legality of mandatory arbitration clauses that bar workers from filing lawsuits. This locks the courtroom doors for coal miners suffering from black lung, construction workers with mesothelioma, fast food workers cheated of overtime pay, farmworkers denied the minimum wage, waitresses sexually harassed by their bosses, and countless other workers suffering forms of workplace abuse and exploitation. It announces “open season” for intensified corporate exploitation at tens of thousands of workplaces across the country.
The decision revives the legal doctrine of the Gilded Age elaborated by the Supreme Court’s 1905 decision Lochner v. New York, which overturned a state law limiting the workday to 10 hours on the absurd grounds that the regulations violated workers’ “right” to work as long as they want. In reality, that ruling safeguarded the power of corporations to exploit workers without recourse.
Today’s Supreme Court followed a similar logic, justifying its decision to eliminate workers’ right to sue with the lie that workers are always free to negotiate better contracts with their corporate bosses.
According to the Economic Policy Institute, roughly 60 million workers—56 percent of all private-sector nonunion workers—now no longer have access to the courts.
Arbitration is a sham process set up by the corporations to deprive workers of even the minimal protections afforded by the courts and to spare businesses the cost of litigation.
Arbitration is a sham process set up by the corporations to deprive workers of even the minimal protections afforded by the courts and to spare businesses the cost of litigation.
Arbitration forces workers to take their grievances to a private tribunal. Sixty percent of all arbitrators are lawyers who formerly represented corporations. Arbitrators develop corrupt relationships with corporate lawyers who regularly appear before their tribunals and almost always rule against workers. Due process is severely limited as the rules of the arbitration are written by the corporations themselves.
According to a 2015 study, workers prevail in only 20 percent of all claims brought to arbitration and win an average of just $23,548. By comparison, workers win 57 percent of cases in state court, with an average compensation of $328,008.
The majority opinion ruled that forcing workers to raise claims in this setting does not violate the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, even though Section 7 of the act guarantees, alongside collective bargaining and the right to strike, the right “to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection.”
In her dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg noted with concern that the ruling would bring the US back to the Lochner era. “The end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th was a tumultuous era in the history of our nation’s labor relations,” she wrote.
The National Labor Relations Act, also known as the “Wagner Act” for its architect, New York Senator Robert Wagner, was passed in 1935 in an effort by the Democratic Party and the Roosevelt administration to control the Depression-era strike wave and direct it away from the prospect of socialist revolution and into a legal framework that the government and corporations could regulate and control. Section 7, the hallmark of the bill, prevented employers from forcing workers—ostensibly under the “freedom of contract”—to sign “yellow dog contracts,” which were pledges that they would not join a union.
The trade unions are terrified that the Supreme Court decision so nakedly exposes the courts as instruments of capitalist rule that workers will be encouraged to fight in defense of their interests outside of the legal system. A “friend of the court” supplemental brief was filed before the ruling by the AFL-CIO, the American Federation of Teachers, the National Education Association, the United Auto Workers and other unions.
In it, the unions jointly begged the Supreme Court:
“[I]f employers are allowed to impose contract terms that prohibit workers from challenging unlawful employer conduct except on an individual, one-on-one basis, Congress’s statutory goals of minimizing industrial strife and maintaining labor peace will be set back more than a century.”
The union brief continues by arguing that the New Deal-era labor laws like the Wagner Act were passed “not to further union organizing or collective bargaining for their own sake, but as instruments to further the broader statutory goal of reducing industrial strife and achieving economic stability.”
Furthermore, the trade unions state, “When an employer engages in wrongful discrimination or violates other workplace statutory obligations, it is far less disruptive to allow the injured workers to pursue concerted legal action before a neutral decisionmaker than to force the workers to challenge that unlawful conduct through less effective and potentially more contentious form of group protest, such as strikes, that pit workers and employers directly against each other without the intermediary of a neutral pledged to apply the law fairly and impartially.”
Such statements expose the chief role of unions as police arms of the corporations that work to prevent the working class from advancing their interests and threatening the profits of the corporations through “group protests, such as strikes.” Contrary to what the unions’ lawyers write, the methods of the class struggle are the only effective way to challenge the dictatorship of the union-corporate alliance.
This term, the Supreme Court will also rule on another case, Janus v. AFSCME, related to whether unions can require workers to pay an “agency” or “union security” fee to fund the union even if they opt out of joining. During oral arguments before the Supreme Court in February, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) lawyer David Frederick argued, “The key thing that has been bargained for in this contract for agency fees is a limitation on striking. And that is true in many collective bargaining agreements.”
Fredrick continued, “Union security is the tradeoff for no strikes.” If the court makes the decision to overturn prior precedent that allows states to mandate agency fees, he warned, “You can raise an untold specter of labor unrest throughout the country.”
These are the statements of a labor police force. The union lawyers have good reason to fear the revolutionary implications of dismantling the long-established structure to suppress the class struggle and, with its most recent ruling, the exposure of the Supreme Court as a brazen instrument of class war.
SOCIALISM AS THEY ENJOY IN SWEDEN, NORWAY and DENMARK WILL SAVE AMERICA FROM WALL STREET'S CRONY CAPITALISM!
"ALARMING?" HOW MUCH MORE CAN WALL STREET AND THE SUPER RICH PLUNDER FROM US????
PRINCETON REPORT:
American middle-class is addicted, poor, jobless and suicidal…. Thank the corrupt government for surrendering our borders to 40 million looting Mexicans and then handing the bills to middle America?
"The most alarming result, according to [George] Barna, was that four out of every ten adults say they prefer socialism to capitalism," the ACFI noted in its commentary on the poll. "That is a large minority," Barna said, "and it includes a majority of the liberals – who will be pushing for a completely different economic model to dominate our nation. That is the stuff of civil wars. It ought to set off alarm bells among more traditionally-oriented leaders across the nation.'" That 40 percent of Americans now prefer socialism to capitalism could spell major change to the policies advanced by legislators and political leaders and to the interpretations of judges ruling on the application of new and pre-existing laws.”
OBAMA’S CRONY BANKSTERISM destroyed a 11 TRILLION DOLLARS in home equity… and they’re still plundering us!
Barack Obama created more debt for the middle class than any president in US history, and also had the only huge QE programs: $4.2 Trillion.
OXFAM reported that during Obama’s terms, 95% of the wealth created went to the top 1% of the world’s wealthy.
HAS AMERICA DESTROYED ITSELF MERELY TO MAKE THE RICH SUPER RICH?
Viking Economics by George Lakey
by Melville House
This week, we’re excited to be publishing Viking Economics, George Lakey’s look at how the Nordic countries, in a very short span of time, managed to move past many of the problems faced by nations like the US and UK today — problems with inequality, infrastructural weakness, the cost of education, and personal freedom. Today, the people of Denmark, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden enjoy widely-shared prosperity, low crime rates, reliable infrastructure, affordable education, great personal freedoms — some of the highest standards of living in the world.
Particularly as both the US and the UK face some of our biggest challenges in a generation — and, in both cases, under new leadership — Viking Economicsoffers some crucial examples of how we might get some things right.
Here’s a brief excerpt to read on the longship ride over to your local bookstore to buy a copy; please try not to get herring on it.
Like most Americans today, Norwegians a century ago didn’t like the results of a wealth gap: the hunger and poverty, the crime, elderly friends warehoused or left in isolation, young people without hope of a good job. Norwegians also didn’t like the attitudes that went with inequality: an inclination toward arrogance among higher-income people and the feeling among lower-income people that they were losers, defeated by the system.
Early in the twentieth century, Norway had the formal institutions of parliamentary democracy, but ordinary people were not empowered: they did not set the direction of their society. The direction was set, instead, by the economic elite, through the political parties they dominated and the businesses they ran. Career options were limited, and there was little social mobility.
The differences between then and now are striking: If you’re a Norwegian teenager today and the job you’re interested in pursuing doesn’t require higher education, you can choose among good public vocational courses. If you learn better in a hands-on apprenticeship mode, publicly supported programs help you do that. If, instead, you prefer to develop a talent in art or music, or follow a career at sea or in engineering, you can attend a free post-secondary school.
Paid maternity and paternity leave (including for adoptive parents) is built into the system, and your job is held until you return. After the leave is over, child support is increased if you choose to be a full-time parent. If your choice is to go back to work, affordable childcare is available.
Extensive, subsidized public transport means that you probably won’t need a car to get to work. High educational standards prevail in big-city schools, as well as in the suburbs. Small towns receive subsidies to make them attractive for people who might otherwise feel forced to live in a city for cultural amenities, again increasing your options. The economy subsidizes family farming both for its own sake and for food security, so farmers can earn a reasonable income, another freedom denied in many industrialized countries.
The government offers free vocational counseling, education, and job-training resources for people seeking a career change, and entrepreneurialism is encouraged through free health care and a public pension for all: In Norway, you have the freedom to fail without becoming a failure.
Money doesn’t dominate the political system, so citizens are freer to participate meaningfully in political life—and they’re more likely to be exposed to newspapers with a variety of points of view, because journalism is subsidized to avoid a narrowing of perspective. According to Freedom House, in 2013, Norway was tied with Sweden at number one in the world for freedom of the press. Denmark was sixth, and Iceland was tenth. (The United States was twenty-sixth.) Indeed, this approach to public life has a long lineage in the region: Sweden was the first country in the world to establish freedom of the press—in 1766.
The Nordics are among the longest-living people in the world, and older citizens continue to benefit from an economy designed for personal freedom. The Global Watch Index studied ninety-six countries and rated Norway as the best place to grow old, followed closely by Sweden. The pension system enables you to live at home with health aides or in a senior living facility. You don’t need to fear hunger or lack of medicines or of health care. Every small town has a music and culture center where you can enjoy the arts and pursue your hobbies.
The crime rate is very low, partly because societies with high equality tend to experience less crime. Even in their largest city, Norwegians enjoy a remarkable degree of freedom from fear about personal safety.
Designing an economy that supports freedom and equality pays off in happiness, judging from the Vikings’ descendants making the top ten in the UN’s International Happiness Index. In 2015, the ratings showed Denmark, Iceland, and Norway sharing first place with Switzerland, while Sweden was close to its cousins.
The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), composed of thirty-four of the most-developed nations, compared life satisfaction experienced by the people in each country in 2013. The OECD found Norway second, Iceland third, Sweden fourth, and Denmark fifth.
And yet in spite of all this security and support, the Nordic yen for adventure has not disappeared. Americans, too, have a strong yearning for both freedom and equality, so the Nordic desire for both isn’t surprising. What is surprising, though, is that they went ahead and built an economy to serve those values. That’s the story in this book.
Like their Viking ancestors, the moderns made mistakes in their explorations. Iceland’s financial collapse of 2008 was a spectacular error, and, as I’ll describe, back in the 1980s, the Norwegians and Swedes made a series of serious economic mistakes. The Nordics haven’t built a utopia: Norwegians see themselves as “a nation of complainers,” and this book doesn’t shy away from the challenges that face them and their Nordic cousins.
Still, it’s useful for us as outsiders to observe the Nordics’ expeditions and to use them to reflect on our own situations. There are many important lessons to be learned.
Socialist-Backed Candidates Sweep Pennsylvania State House Primaries
Nationwide, the Democratic Socialists of America has grown exponentially since Donald Trump’s election.
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Four Pennsylvania state House candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) won their Democratic primaries, marking another milestone in the radical left’s march into electoral politics.
The wins by the four candidates ― all women unseating men ― were the product of a variety of political forces and groups. But in a country where “socialist” remains an epithet in certain quarters, the growing electoral success of a once-marginal socialist organization is an especially notable political development.
According to Arielle Cohen, co-chair of Pittsburgh DSA, it reflects a revival of the socialist-leaning economic left in the wake of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) 2016 presidential bid.
“It feels like a monumental shift,” Cohen said. “We won on popular demands that were deemed impossible. We won on health care for all; we won on free education.”
“We’re turning the state the right shade of red tonight,” she added.
Pittsburgh DSA campaigned heavily for two Democrats: Summer Lee, an African-American attorney and labor organizer running in Pennsylvania House District 34, and Sara Innamorato, a founder of the women’s advocacy group She Runs Southwestern PA running in Pennsylvania House District 21.
Lee and Innamorato, who are dues-paying members of DSA, defeated veteran Pittsburgh-area state representatives ― and cousins ― Paul Costa and Dom Costa, respectively. Both women lack a Republican opponent in the general election (though Innamorato’s opponent, Dom Costa, solicited Republican write-in votes as a last-ditch attempt at survival in the primary).
On the other side of the state, Philly DSA worked hard to elect Democrats Elizabeth Fiedler, running in the 184th House District, and Kristin Seale, running in the 168th District. Fiedler, a former public radio reporter, defeated Jonathan Rowan and lacks a Republican opponent in the general election. Seale, an executive at an energy conservation nonprofit, is due to challenge incumbent Rep. Christopher Quinn.
Pittsburgh DSA, which swelled from about 50 members before the 2016 election to some 500 now, already has a record of success at the ballot box. In November, the group helped elect Mik Pappas as a Pittsburgh district judge and Anita Prizio to the Allegheny County Council. Pappas defeated Ron Costa, a two-decade veteran and member of the same vaunted Pittsburgh political family as defeated state representatives Paul and Dom.
Nationwide, DSA has grown since the 2016 election and now has upwards of 35,000 dues-paying members in chapters all across the country.
Although Sanders identifies as a Democratic Socialist and shares DSA’s staunch support for Medicare-for-all and other benefits, the typical DSA member favors a more dramatic restructuring of the economy. For example, Virginia Delegate Lee Carter, a Democrat and member of Metro D.C. DSA, envisions transforming corporations into worker-owned cooperatives.
The group is nonetheless committed to enacting a progressive agenda, one local office at a time, and its success has already had serious policy implications. For example, Pappas has virtually abolished the use of cash bail, which earned him criticism in some circles and praise from criminal justice reform advocates. And Innamorato, a staunch reproductive rights proponent, replaced a state legislator in Dom Costa, who once voted for a 20-week abortion ban.
“As someone who’s had an abortion, it really means a lot to me that Sara is standing up and making clear that she will fight for full comprehensive reproductive justice,” Cohen said.
Clarification: Language in this story has been amended to describe Dom Costa’s opponent consistently.
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