Chris Hedges | Voting BIDEN was WRONG
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RjnohdjH5E
Joe Biden, the corrupt, unaccomplished 47-year career politician, with a reputation of having been a proud segregationist, an unabashed plagiarist and liar, a resolute tale-teller, and a serial flip-flopper, is pretending to head up a radical social-democratic ticket for President of the United States that includes as his running mate the ambitious, disagreeable junior senator from California: Kamala Harris.
Kroger installs anti-worker reactionary Elaine Chao on company board of directors
The Kroger Company announcement August 2 that arch-reactionary Elaine Chao, wife of Republican Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, had been elected to its board of directors has evoked widespread revulsion and anger.
Chao, Secretary of Transportation under Donald Trump, has a long record in the service of corporate interests, including eight full years as Secretary of Labor in the administration of George W. Bush, where she oversaw the further evisceration of workplace safety. She was the longest-serving Secretary of Labor since Frances Perkins, whose tenure spanned 1933 to 1945 under President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
The election of Chao is a crass example of the intertwining of US corporations and the very government “regulators” who are supposed to monitor them. In announcing the election of Chao, Kroger’s chairman and CEO Rodney McMullen could scarcely contain his enthusiasm.
“We are pleased to welcome Elaine to Kroger,” he said. “She’s an experienced national and global leader who brings to Kroger’s board deep knowledge of corporate governance, strategic and workforce management, and public-private partnerships as well as extensive experience at the highest levels of US government.” He added ominously, “Kroger’s board is committed to creating value for all of our stakeholders, including our shareholders, customers, associates, and communities.”
In a nod to identity politics, McCullen even tried to suggest that the appointment of Chao, an Asian American woman, was somehow progressive by creating a “diverse” board of directors.
Chao is currently at the center of a scandal involving claims by the Transportation Department that she improperly used her office to aid family members, who run a New York-based shipping business with assets of over $1 billion.
Kroger’s announcement sparked immediate outrage, as thousands took to Twitter opposing the installation of Chao, accompanying their Tweets with the following hashtag, #BoycottKroger. Many noted the provocative nature of the appointment, following close on the heels of the tragic suicide of 19-year Kroger employee Evan Seyfried, whose family says he faced vicious harassment for wearing a face mask from Kroger manager Shannon Frazee.
Criticizing the silence and inaction of the United Food and Commercial Workers, one person wrote on Twitter:
“@UFCW I ask that you investigate why #ShannonFrazee is still employed by @kroger & why your Union Reps failed to stand by #EvanSeyfried who was bullied to death for wearing a mask on the job. #boycottkroger #justiceforevan @justiceforevan #UFCW”
Another tweeted: “Yes, it’s me. I temp changed pic to highlight family’s fight [referring to Evan Seyfried] to hold Kroger accountable for loved one’s death. This plus their attitude re masking/vaccinated? And Elaine Chao? Kroger doesn’t care! #BoycottKroger”
And another: “Elaine Chao, eh? Oh, that reminds me, there’s this smaller, locally-owned grocery I’ve been wondering about. I think I’ll check them out next time I need groceries. Who knows? Might like them better. #BoycottKroger”
While elements around the Democratic Party have attempted to capitalize on anger over Chao’s installation on Kroger’s board, the fact is she was confirmed as Trump’s transportation secretary with overwhelming bipartisan support in a 93-6 vote.
A look at Chao’s political history puts light on the intentions of McMullen and fellow board members.
Throughout her career she has held numerous high-ranking government positions and posts with Fortune 500 companies. This includes as president and CEO of the United Way of America; chair of the Federal Maritime Commission; deputy Maritime administrator; director of the Peace Corps; board of directors for Wells Fargo; high-level positions with Citicorp and Bank of America.
As Peace Corps director in the administration of the senior Bush, Chao signed an agreement with acting Russian Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar in 1992 that established a program in the Russian Federation to promote and facilitate the restoration of capitalism.
One month after Chao’s appointment as labor secretary in February 2001, President Bush and Congress repealed the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s Ergonomics Standard. The following month on March 6, 2001 Chao issued a statement justifying the change, cynically claiming, “[I]f we really are going to protect workers, we must put more emphasis than ever before on prevention and compliance assistance—rather than just after-the-fact enforcement.”
In 2003, as more than 11 million workers in the US remained jobless, Chao placed emphasis on the blue-collar job sectors, saying that job-retraining programs could convert white collar workers, such as software developers, into plumbers and carpenters.
In 2005, as part of a crackdown on immigrants, the Bush administration granted the Department of Homeland Security $31 billion in an appropriations bill, wherein $7.5 billion was allocated to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), $90 million to construct new prisons with a capacity of over 20,000 and spare resources to employ an additional 1,000 US-Mexico Border Patrol agents.
In an October 18, 2005 hearing, Chao lent her support to the escalating war against immigrants, saying undocumented immigrants that were already (without legal residence) in the US would need to pay a fee to enter the guest worker program—failing to clarify that it would not represent an amnesty for the undocumented—and obtain a temporary three-year visa. Furthermore, the undocumented, after the first visa application, would be eligible to renew for a second three-year visa, which would be their last but then subject to being forcibly removed from the country.
In addition to the extreme limitations placed on undocumented immigrants, those applying for the three-year visa would need the blessing of an American employer willing to sponsor them and attest that no US citizens would take any job offered by said American employer. “At a minimum, those who come forward will not be offered an automatic pass to citizenship and should be expected to pay a substantial fine or penalty to take part in the temporary program,” said Chao.
There is no record of Chao opposing Trump during his entire term notwithstanding the president’s repeated fascist threats. Later, in an attempt to slightly distance herself from Trump, she resigned her cabinet post on the Monday following the January 6 coup attempt by Trump as part of an effort by some top administration officials to feign concern over the actions of the would-be Führer.
One voice that has been markedly silent on Chao’s election to the Kroger board is the UFCW, which has been silent on the tragedy of Evan Seyfried. The union failed to act on complaints of harassment and even failed to send a representative to Seyfried’s memorial.
In the wake of Seyfried’s death Kroger has only now belatedly made changes to its mask policy, recently recommending customers wear masks as the Delta variant of COVID-19 spreads unchecked.
Thanks to services of the UFCW, which has helped suppress demands for the prioritization of worker safety during pandemic, Kroger sales surged 8.4 percent to $132.5 billion in 2020. The company reported a $2.6 billion profit for the year, up 5.4 percent.
While Kroger awarded McMullen a $22.4 million pay package, the average income for Kroger’s employee fell 8 percent to $24,617. Meanwhile, 3,000 grocery workers employed by Kroger in the state of Arkansas have worked a year without a new contract with the UFCW refusing to call for strike action.
Chao’s appoint underscores what German Marxist Clara Zetkin wrote in 1896 about the Elaine Chaos of her day: “… the liberation struggle of the proletarian woman cannot be similar to the struggle that the bourgeois woman wages against the male of her class. On the contrary, it must be a joint struggle with the male of her class against the entire class of capitalists.”
In the midst of the resurgence of the pandemic and escalating attacks on workers, the call by the World Socialist Web Site and the Socialist Equality Party for the building of independent rank-and-file committees is more urgent than ever. Workers must build their own democratic workplace organizations to defend the right to safe and healthy working conditions and decent compensation. The silence of the UFCW on the appointment of Chao is not accidental. It is a further demonstration of the complete identification of the union apparatus with corporate management.
Six months of the Biden administration—A balance sheet
Six months ago, Joseph Biden was inaugurated president of the United States, under conditions of unprecedented crisis of US capitalism and the entire social and political order.
His predecessor, Donald Trump, did not attend the ceremony, signaling his refusal to accept the outcome of the 2020 election. Only two weeks before, on January 6, Trump’s supporters had stormed the Capitol and temporarily halted the congressional certification of state electoral votes. The aim of the attempted coup was to stop the transfer of power and establish a personalist dictatorship. In the words of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, it was Trump’s “Reichstag moment.”
When Biden took office, 400,000 people were dead from the COVID-19 pandemic, while millions were unemployed. Just months earlier, every city, town, and village in America had seen protests in opposition to police violence.
Biden marked the six-month anniversary with brief remarks presenting American society in glowing terms. “For all those predictions of doom and gloom six months in, here’s where things stand,” he said. “Record growth, record job creation, workers getting hard-earned breaks.” He added, “Put simply: Our economy is on the move, and we have COVID-19 on the run.”
Summing up his prognosis, the US president proclaimed: “It turns out capitalism is alive and very well.” The truth is that the policies of the Biden administration have entirely failed to resolve the social crisis in America and they cannot, because they are based on the framework of American capitalism.
The pandemic, far from being “on the run,” is undergoing a new resurgence. Since Biden took office, an additional 225,000 people have died from the pandemic. All indications are that by the winter, with the new surge accompanying the spread of the Delta variant, the death toll under Biden will have exceeded that under Trump.
The policies of the Biden administration have been driven by the interests of Wall Street and the super-rich. This is why, despite occasional criticisms of Trump’s callous and anti-scientific response to the coronavirus pandemic, Biden has pursued the same policy of restoring corporate profit-making by forcing workers back to work and children back to school as quickly as possible, regardless of the dangers to their lives and health.
Trump’s response to the economic depression that accompanied the onset of the pandemic was to pour trillions into bolstering the banks, hedge funds and corporations, with bipartisan bills like the CARES Act. Biden pursues essentially the same policy, although with less support from the Republicans than the Democrats gave Trump. He boasts of success on the economic front, although seven million fewer workers have jobs today than before the pandemic began, and millions face wage cuts, poverty, eviction and foreclosure.
Only in foreign policy is there a significant shift from Trump to Biden, and this in tactics only, not strategy. Biden has placed more emphasis on the US utilization of NATO and the “Quad,” a de facto alliance with Japan, Australia and India. Significant sections of the military-intelligence apparatus backed Biden against Trump because they sought a more effective mobilization of US power against Russia and China.
And if Biden’s statement that “capitalism is alive and very well” were true, it begs the question: Why is there a mounting fascist threat to American democracy?
In the six months since Biden’s inauguration, the Republican Party has maintained its intransigent opposition to any serious investigation into the events of January 6. Half-hearted Democratic proposals, first for an “independent” bipartisan commission to investigate the attack, then for a bipartisan congressional investigation, have been blocked outright or endlessly delayed.
Meanwhile, evidence continues to emerge of the central role played by Trump and his allies in Congress in seeking to carry out a political coup d’état to overturn the results of the election and maintain himself in office. But neither Trump nor his accomplices have even been questioned, let alone tried, convicted and jailed.
Instead, Trump has renewed his agitation against the election, seeking to transform the Republican Party into an openly fascistic movement subordinated to his personal authority. And his supporters in the Republican Party are using their control of state legislatures to enact unprecedented and sweeping attacks on the right to vote.
Biden himself acknowledged something of the reality of the crisis of American capitalism in a speech last week in Philadelphia, when he declared “We are facing the most significant test of our democracy since the Civil War.” But he offered no way forward, except to appeal to “my Republican friends in the Congress, states and cities and counties to stand up” against this assault—although they are the very ones carrying it out.
In an effort to prop up illusions in the Democratic Party, the representatives of its “left” wing, portray Biden’s policies in extravagant terms. Last week Senator Bernie Sanders claimed that Biden’s “reconciliation” bill on social spending amounted to “the most consequential piece of legislation for working families since the 1930s.” Or, like Bhaskar Sunkara of Jacobin, affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America, they express disappointment in what has been achieved so far, but express the hope that “Biden has shown a willingness to think big,” and that additional pressure should be brought to bear on congressional Democrats.
For his part, Biden uses every possible occasion to make clear he has no intention of implementing any measures that challenge the interests of the financial oligarchy, declaring last weekend, “Communism is a failed system, universally failed system. I don’t see socialism as a very useful substitute.”
The truth is that the Biden administration is based on Wall Street and the military, mobilizing behind it sections of the upper middle class through the utilization of identity politics. Well aware of the explosive social conditions developing in America, moreover, the administration supports the union “organization” campaign at Amazon and the PRO Act, to make it easier to install unions at work locations where they otherwise would have difficulty convincing workers to pay dues for the privilege of having their wages and benefits cut.
It is telling that when workers engage in genuine anti-corporate struggles, like the strikes waged by autoworkers against Volvo Trucks in Dublin, Virginia, the supposedly “pro-labor” president falls completely silent. Biden is for the unions, not for the workers, because he correctly sees the unions as an instrument of the US ruling class in policing the working class.
Workers must draw the lessons of six months of the Biden administration. None of the problems confronting the working class, from the disastrous pandemic response to unparalleled levels of social inequality, to the danger of imperialist world war and fascist dictatorship, can be addressed without breaking the grip of the financial oligarchy over every aspect of society.
Richard Wolff | The HISTORICAL ROOT of "Post-Modernism" & "Neo-Marxism"
Chris Hedges | Biden CANNOT HELP US —will cause FASCISM!
Chris Hedges WARNS OF Creeping Authoritarianism
Chris Hedges | The HORRIFIC State of the American Empire
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXYsGuBdzM4
Chris Hedges | NAFTA, Clinton, and Obama BETRAYED Americans
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qryblALiqOI
Chris Hedges | Wall Street Gambling
ALL LAWYERS ARE TRAINED LIARS!
“This is jaw-dropping. It’s just so brazen. Just like the Obama administration, the Biden administration is a lawless administration. He’s not faithfully executing the laws. He’s got an open border. He’s ignoring the Supreme Court ruling. He’s ignoring the Constitution. And yes … there’s the other side of the equation when it comes to rent. It’s called the person who owns the property, that has to keep it up, that has all the expenses of maintaining it. You know, they deserve rent payments, and of course, we have such levels of low unemployment in so many areas that have opened, that have remained opened up, money is sloshing around in this economy.”
Johnson said the decision to extend the moratorium is “jaw-dropping.” He added the Biden administration is “lawless” in the same way as former President Barack Obama’s administration by “ignoring the Constitution.
Time to impeach Biden
After having appointed a special counsel, or in place of it, under 5 U.S. Code §1212 — Powers and functions of the Office of Special Counsel, specifically under (a) (aB), (a3), Congress must act to impeach this president for high crimes and misdemeanors, gross mismanagement, violating the nation's laws, and endangering the public health and safety of citizens.
(a) The Office of Special Counsel shall—
(1)
in accordance with section 1214(a) and other applicable provisions of this subchapter…
(B)
file a complaint or make recommendations for disciplinary action under section 1215;
(3)
receive, review, and, where appropriate, forward to the Attorney General or an agency head under section 1213, disclosures of violations of any law, rule, or regulation, or gross mismanagement ... an abuse of authority, or a substantial and specific danger to public health or safety[.]
Congress must begin impeachment proceedings against President Joe Biden, V.P. Kamala Harris, Attorney General Merrick B. Garland, and his deputies, who likely have knowledge of the events that squashed investigations into the nation's murderous governors.
The investigations should include the governors, secretaries of state, and attorneys general of New York and Michigan. Charges include, but are not limited to, obstruction of justice, abuse of authority, abuse of power, abuse of office, covering up criminal activity, conspiracy, and criminal self-dealing. Considering allegations of potential collusion among these individuals and associates to cover up crimes that resulted in the deaths of citizens, provisions of the RICO Act for fraud and conspiracy to commit fraud shall be attached.
Investigative subpoenas to the staffs of these politicians must be prepared immediately to protect the integrity of the nation's justice and political systems, primarily its national security to protect America's citizens from harm.
This administration's corruption of Department of Justice investigations into the COVID deaths of thousands of innocent Americans at the hands of negligent and profiteering Democrat governors is an unconscionable violation of the standards and norms of governance. The EOs and fraudulent reports signed by these governors were designed to keep them, and other Democrats allied with them, in power. These COVID deaths are the documented results of the official malfeasance, mismanagement, and self-aggrandizement of the Democrat politicians who had control of and misgoverned their respective health care systems. They placed their political interests first, the health, welfare, and lives of their citizens last.
Behind mismanaging their respective health care systems that wasted billions of taxpayer dollars while killing, rather than curing patients, these politicians opportunistically used the tragedy of the pandemic to campaign for themselves seeking higher office (the same assisted by partisan media soft money). Negligently having created the health care debacle to begin with, they avoided accountability for their lethal decisions.
These Democrats not only were committing criminal fraud against the people, but have blood on their hands.
Blocking investigations across several blue states is a criminal shirking of presidential responsibility and duty worthy of impeachment. Biden covered up for self-dealing Democrats Gretchen Whitmer and Andrew Cuomo, who deliberately, solely for political advantage, made choices to endanger their state's citizens, and then filed deceitful, fraudulent reports on the number of deaths. All for political advantage.
The civil rights of American citizens were first violated by Cuomo and Whitmer, whose negligence took their lives, and their survivor's civil rights were violated again by Biden's blocking the only path to accountability and justice.
Did these two governors actually murder their respective state's citizens?
RES IPSA LIQUITUR: The Facts Speak for Themselves.
Democrats involved in this scheme to cover up their associates' high crimes have faced no accountability for misdeeds that are real (as opposed to the fake impeachment of Donald Trump for Joe Biden's crimes in Ukraine and China).
This abuse of power, by and for Democrats only, sets double-standards as precedents for politicians on the public dole to freely continue their persistent criminal corruption and self-dealing.
18 USC §1503 OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE (REFERENCE)
Obstruction of Justice occurs when an investigation in process is obstructed by withholding information from ... or [having] ordered a subordinate to not proceed or dismiss a case.
Definition
18 USC §1503 defines "obstruction of justice" as an act that "corruptly or by threats or force, or by any threatening ... communication, influences, obstructs, or impedes, or endeavors to influence, obstruct, or impede, the due administration of justice."
Overview
Someone obstructs justice when that person has a specific intent to obstruct or interfere with a judicial proceeding. For a person to be convicted of obstructing justice, that person must not only have the specific intent to obstruct the proceeding, but that person must know (1) that a proceeding was actually pending at the time; and (2) there must be a connection between the endeavor to obstruct justice and the proceeding, and the person must have knowledge of this connection.
§ 1503 applies ... to federal judicial proceedings. Under 18 USC §1505 a defendant can be convicted of obstruction of justice by obstructing a pending proceeding before Congress or a federal administrative agency.
This president, as well as the former president who enacted a coup to save his broken legacy and destroy the pro-American legacy of his successor, has been corrupting the justice bureaucracy to benefit himself and his agenda of malfeasance and corruption.
ABUSE OF POWER/ABUSE OF OFFICE (REFERENCE)
§11.448 Abuse of office.
A person acting or purporting to act in an official capacity or taking advantage of such actual or purported capacity commits a misdemeanor if, knowing that his or her conduct is illegal, he or she denies or impedes another in the exercise of an investigation or enjoyment of any right, privilege, power or immunity.
Congress, state attorneys general, federal judges, America-first organizations with the resources to influence, GOP, take note: you have an obligation. You know what to do. Do it now!
Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.
No comments:
Post a Comment