THE DEMOCRAT PARTY: TAX CUTS FOR THE RICH, PROTECTION AND IMPUNITY FROM PROSECUTION FOR WALL STREET CRIMINALS, AND A DOZEN ILLEGALS READY FOR EVERY JOB OUT THERE WITH MORE COMING!
DRIVING PEOPLE TO DRUGS
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Opioids, Inc. (full film) | FRONTLINE
Threat to fire striking Kellogg’s workers prompts nervous statement from Biden administration
President Biden issued a nervous written statement Friday criticizing the decision by Kellogg’s to begin hiring permanent replacements in its bid to smash the more than two-month-long strike by 1,400 cereal workers. The company announced the move after workers resoundingly rejected a concessions contract backed by the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers’ (BCTGM) union last weekend.
The short, eight-sentence statement is a clear sign of the nervousness within ruling circles that the move by Kellogg’s could trigger a social explosion within the working class. An initial indication of the level of support for the strikers against the move came earlier this week when Reddit users organized a protest online which brought down the servers Kellogg’s was using to hire replacements by flooding them with bogus job applications.
The statement was released the same day the government announced that the official US inflation rate had reached a whopping 6.8 percent in November, the highest rate in 40 years. The significant erosion of workers’ living standards by inflation, itself a consequence of the economic and social dislocation caused by the refusal of most of the world’s governments to contain and end the pandemic, is a primary factor in the tremendous growth of strikes and threatened strikes in recent months, of which the Kellogg’s strike itself is part.
However, Biden’s letter did not announce any executive order or other actions by the White House to block the move by Kellogg’s or to otherwise intervene directly. Instead, he called on the company and the BCTGM to come together to end the dispute: “My unyielding support for unions includes support for collective bargaining, and I will aggressively defend both. I urge employers and unions [to] commit fully to the challenging task of working out their differences at the bargaining table in a manner that fairly advances both parties’ interests.”
However, that Biden is not moved to speak out for concern for workers’ rights is underscored by the fact that he made no such statement when unions forced through sellout contracts at John Deere, Kaiser or among film production workers in the IATSE union over the past month. In fact, Biden joined United Auto Workers President Ray Curry for a photo-op only the day after the UAW “ratified” the Deere contract by forcing striking workers to vote again on a proposed agreement they had already rejected.
Nor did Biden make an issue of it several months ago when management at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Worcester, Massachusetts, also began hiring permanent replacements to break a months-long strike by nurses, or when bourbon maker Heaven Hill threatened to do the same to break a strike by distillery workers. In fact, the tardiness of Biden’s letter, coming three days after the announcement at Kellogg’s, suggests the administration was waiting to see whether a direct acknowledgment would be necessary.
Biden, a multimillionaire defender of the privileges of the corporate oligarchy, has no principled opposition to the smashing of workers’ resistance. In fact, he supports it. But throughout his presidency he has sought to enlist the services of the corrupt, pro-corporate trade unions in suppressing the class struggle. This is why he sent his Labor Secretary Marty Walsh, a former union official himself, to the Kellogg’s picket lines in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Biden vastly prefers a settlement involving a concessions contract forced through by the union, similar to what the BCTGM already accomplished at Nabisco and Frito-Lay earlier this year when it shut down strikes with deals that addressed none of the workers’ demands. Since the strike was ended at Nabisco, workers reported to the World Socialist Web Site that they are continuing to work 80 hours a week, exactly as before.
The difficulty in Biden’s strategy, however, is that anger is growing against these increasingly naked betrayals by the unions, which have failed to stem the tide of workers’ opposition. The contract which workers rejected last week at Kellogg’s would have included wage increases of only 3 percent, less than half of the rate of inflation, and eliminated restrictions on the number of lower paid second-tier “transitional” workers the company could hire. Workers denounced the contract, which was dishonestly presented to them as providing a “pathway” to the top tier for transitionals, as a “Trojan horse.”
Frustration continues to grow with the BCTGM among Kellogg’s workers. “We’re tired of being in the dark ‘hence the fact why we’re so divided,’” one worker said. Referring to the fact that some strikers have buckled under the pressure in recent days and crossed the picket line, he added, “You’re not losing people out of fear, you’re losing because they have half of the information and they’re ready to go back to work.”
A Kellogg’s worker from Battle Creek told the World Socialist Web Site, “With $105 a week [in strike pay], no unemployment, workers are forced to work elsewhere and or take money from their savings or 401k. You would think our international [BCTGM] would be able to contribute more. I also think it’s BS that we worked through the entire pandemic while most of America collected unemployment, and now we need it and do not qualify for it.”
Support continues for striking Kellogg’s workers
Workers across the United States are continuing to send in statements of support for the Kellogg’s strike to the World Socialist Web Site. Tonya Osborne, a Southwest Airlines flight attendant who was recently interviewed by the WSWS about the impact of uniforms containing toxic chemicals, spoke against the strikebreaking measures by Kellogg’s. “I believe more workers throughout all industries, whether it is Kellogg’s, John Deere, the airlines, etc., should not have to endure threats of any kind. They should not have to fight or strike for what is owed to them for their hard work and commitment to the corporate giant.”
As to the union, she added, “Their union dues are deducted monthly from their paychecks. Ours is $50 a month ... and for WHAT, so they can blow smoke and throw us under the bus? Why would they throw out a tentative agreement and be forced to vote the same day? Bullying by your own union which you pay for? These threats to hire [second-tier] employees making lesser money and no benefits, to put that money in the corporate giant’s pockets is a slap in the face.”
A Deere worker in Des Moines, Iowa, said, “To all of my working brothers and sisters currently striking against Kellogg’s: Greetings from Iowa, my admiration, support, prayers, and love go to all of you. The fact that you were not willing to accept the sellout agreement despite the union push speaks volumes about your courage and determination.
“While I cannot speak about your situation with Kellogg’s, I can tell you what happened to us who work at John Deere. The company threatened us with their ‘Last, Best and Final Offer,’ and the union leadership at the local and international level did the same. They told us numerous times that if we don’t accept their offer, they will permanently replace us.
“The majority of the workers were not in favor of the contract, but they succumbed to the threats of losing their jobs and voted yes under very shady circumstances. ... The hope was to make history for all working men and women in the USA and the rest of the world. Now the eyes of working men and women throughout the USA are directed only at you in the hope that you will win what you rightfully deserve and set the standard for the rest of us so we can learn from your struggle. So be safe, be strong, stay united, and stay informed because that is your biggest strength right now.”
Poll: Most Americans Say Economy Is Getting Worse and Inflation Is a ‘Very Serious’ Problem
The majority of Americans say the U.S. is getting worse, a poll released Friday showed.
The Economist/YouGov poll taken prior to last week’s release of the Consumer Price Index showed that 53 percent of Americans say the economy is getting worse. Just 15 percent say the economy is getting better.
Inflation is a the heart of economic concerns. Fifty-six percent of Americans say inflation is a very serious problem. Another 27 percent say it is somewhat serious, while nine percent say it is only a mild problem and two percent say it is not a problem at all.
Income doesn’t change the perception of inflation. Americans earning less than $50,000 were just as likely to say inflation is a very serious problem as those earning between $50,000 and $100,000 or those earning more than $100,000.
There is, however, a partisan divide. Just 39 percent of Democrats say inflation is a very serious problem, while 76 percent of Republicans do. Sixty percent of independents say inflation is a serious problem.
Suburban and rural Americans are more likely to see inflation as a very serious problem, at 58 percent and 59 percent respectively. Fifty percent of city-dwellers say inflation is a very serious problem.
Inflation is closely linked to the health of the economy in the minds of Americans. Fifty-four percent ranked the prices of goods and services they buy as the best economic indicator, with jobs reports and the unemployment rate a distant second at 18 percent. The stock market was ranked number one by 5 percent and personal finances by 10 percent. Prices were the top ranked indicator by every income bracket, every age group, throughout the political spectrum, and across races. Urban, rural, and suburban voters also agreed.
This may explain why the White House attempts to change the subject from inflation to jobs and the decline in unemployment have been ineffective.
Forty-two percent of Americans say inflation is more important than unemployment right now. Forty-one percent say inflation and unemployment are equally important. Just nine percent say unemployment is more important.
Tucker: Real inflation is significantly worse than even the boldest headlines
Mainstream media outlets and Democrats can no longer ignore that inflation, one of the most terrifying economic events that can hit a country, is bad and getting worse. What’s most disturbing, though, is that the headlines seriously understate what’s really going on. Tucker Carlson, in a monologue that deserves wider attention than it received, reminds us that the feds changed their consumer price metrics in a way intended to obscure that inflation is actually worse than it was 40 years ago.
Although I was a teen during inflation’s peak years in the mid-to-late 1970s, I got a front-row seat for watching how financially disastrous it was for lower-income people or retirees. My dad was a school teacher in a poor school district. Having started off the 1970s with a very low salary, over the next decade his raises never kept up with inflation. For that reason, to keep paying the bills, he did private tutoring during the school year—six to seven hours a day, seven days a week, in addition to his full classroom work. During the summer, he taught summer school and continued the punishing tutoring schedule.
My grandmother, who had once been a wealthy woman, was unable to help. Foolishly, she’d never invested in real estate but, instead, chose the convenience of renting. Thanks to inflation, she died a poor woman. Had she lived another half year, she would have been unable to pay her rent.
So when I see AP admit that inflation is real and extreme, that means something to me:
Prices for U.S. consumers jumped 6.8% in November compared with a year earlier as surging costs for food, energy, housing and other items left Americans enduring their highest annual inflation rate in 39 years.
The Labor Department also reported Friday that prices rose 0.8% from October to November — a substantial increase, though slightly less than 0.9% increase from September to October.
Inflation has been inflicting a heavy burden on consumers, especially lower-income households and particularly for everyday necessities. It has also negated the higher wages many workers have received, complicated the Federal Reserve’s plans to reduce its aid for the economy and coincided with flagging public support for President Joe Biden, who has been taking steps to try to ease inflation pressures.
Even this rare burst of actual news from the AP, though, is a lie, since the government no longer calculates inflation as it did during the 1970s and 1980s. In a compelling monologue, Tucker Carlson explains to Americans that we’re facing an inflationary rate that’s significantly more severe than it was a few decades ago:
Tucker walks viewers through the core changes to the Consumer Price Index and the gaslighting in which Democrats are engaging but the real kicker comes when he points out how specific prices in ordinary goods have increased dramatically:
In the last year, the price of a used car, for example, is going up by more than 30%. Beef prices have risen by 21%. Crude oil up 55%. Dimensional lumber, 35%. Wheat, 37%. Sugar, 33%. Corn, 39%. Palm Oil, 43%. Do you drink coffee in the morning, ever? Oh, too bad. The price of coffee has risen 108% in the last year. Do you like breakfast cereal? Oh, sorry. Oats are up 114%.
And those are just the numbers you see on the label at the grocery store. In addition to conventional inflation, consumers also face widespread shrinkflation. That's an informal term that economists use for the stealth shrinking of consumer products. So companies sell you less for the same price. Have you bought a Snickers bar recently? If it seems a lot smaller than it used to, that's because it is.
For me, the only good thing to come out of all of this is that my beloved Häagen-Dazs chocolate ice cream has finally priced itself out of my reach. I miss it terribly, but my overall health is probably better without it in my life.
Despite the ditzy good cheer that Democrats, from Biden on down, are showing about inflation’s “transitory” nature, Steve Rattner, who was counselor to the Treasury Secretary during the Obama administration, is more honest and less sanguine:
I think you have to recognize it’s a problem that was not created in two months, it was a problem created over the last two years. And so, it’s going to take multiple years, certainly, to work it out. I, in no way, want to predict that we’re going back to where we were in the late 70s, but I was sitting in the Washington Bureau of The New York Times when Paul Volcker announced his new inflation policy and I watched all that happen. And it took multiple, multiple years and a terrible recession to get it out of the system. So, it is going to be painful. And it’s going to be painful for growth. It’s going to be painful for jobs. And we do have an election coming next year, which is going to be complicated.
Biden’s appalling poll numbers show that Americans understand that this is all the fault of Biden’s policies, everything from shutting down the Keystone pipeline to printing money like Weimar Deutschmarks (another inflationary disaster my father experienced when he was a child), to continuing to use COVID as a cudgel against the middle and working classes. However, we’re stuck with Biden for another three years, and his fealty to China and Russia will only grow during that time. Rattner is right that there are dark days ahead.
“I think the Biden administration is going to be surprising to progressives in some ways and disappointing in others, and the agency review teams reflect that,” Dayen says. During the summer, the American Prospect published a lengthy exposé about Biden’s foreign policy advisers’ lucrative foray into corporate America. Many are set to return to the highest echelons of official Washington.
Chris Hedges | Neoliberalism is a DISASTER
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ll3YLuxJ8Mk
Chris Hedges: How Republicans, Democrats, and the Media Have Weakened US Democracy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2jyzp09_g8
Democrats Push ‘Racial Equity Audits’ To Cement Control of Tech Companies
Audits call for abolition of standards of 'merit'
Democrats want to subject tech companies to mandatory "racial equity audits" conducted by their political allies, a move which could cement the party's control of Silicon Valley.
A small group of organizations with close ties to Democratic politicians and progressive donors conducts the majority of these audits, which advocates say are needed to promote racial justice. But in practice, equity auditors often push companies to hire more left-wing activists and former Democratic party officials, often from the auditing organizations themselves. The audits also call for the abolition of standards of "merit" and the ability for a special executive to veto any company project.
Racial equity audits are the chief service offered by "diversity, equity, and inclusion" consultants, a cottage industry connected by a revolving door of Democratic staffers and funded by liberal donors. Equity auditors have made a killing from school districts that pay handsomely for consultants to revamp curricula, the Washington Free Beacon has reported. Now, racial equity auditors are setting their sights on corporate America.
Democratic officials have called for audits of major companies. One proposal from House Democrats would fine companies $20,000 a day for not completing biennial, independent "racial equity audits." In June, five Democratic senators called on Google parent company Alphabet to conduct an audit. The Democratic letter cited Color of Change, a left-wing nonprofit pushing for audits.
Last week, Color of Change president Rashad Robinson was invited to testify to Congress and called for "independent auditors" to vet new products from tech companies before they’re released. Robinson did not mention that the "independent auditors" are closely affiliated with Color of Change.
In that hearing, Sen. Cory Booker (D., N.J.) said Alphabet should "work with civil rights groups who have developed a framework to guide tech companies on how to conduct racial equity audits."
Booker's call appears to be a veiled reference to Color of Change, which released a "tech framework" explaining how companies should conduct audits. The framework calls for the destruction of an "objective definition of merit" in order to "attract Black talent." It also requires that every tech company employ an executive with power to veto any product they believe has a disparate effect on black users. Among other powers, the executive should have "hiring and firing power, power over promotions, and power over the flow of people, product, and money."
Color of Change also calls on tech companies to evaluate every employee in "anti-discrimination accountability systems" in performance reviews. According to Color of Change, tech companies should be required to avoid the use of any dataset that "is the product of real-world prejudice or further perpetuates discrimination," a vague definition that could be used to shut down almost any machine-learning research.
Beyond "hiring underrepresented groups," says Color of Change, organizations need to increase the "awareness" of all employees through "comprehensive racial justice trainings and initiatives." These trainings from outside groups will create "a critical mass of employees that are aware of the origins and effects of white supremacy and anti-Blackness across all vertical and horizontal work streams."
Color of Change has already succeeded in using racial equity audits to shape big tech policy. In 2018, it successfully pushed Facebook into completing an audit that called for more restrictions on Trump's posts. Color of Change itself pushed for Trump to be permanently banned from the platform. After the audit was released, Facebook hired an Obama administration Justice Department official to lead the company's civil rights strategy.
The audits fit within a broader push from Biden administration officials to promote racial justice goals in government policy. The Securities and Exchange Commission is pushing companies to include audit proposals from shareholders in their proxy statements. Federal Trade Commissioner Kelly Slaughter has argued her department has a mandate to tackle "structural and systemic racism."
Democratic officials and lawmakers have close personal and professional relationships with activist auditors. Laura Murphy, who pioneered corporate racial equity audits, was invited to conduct her first audit in 2016 by Vanita Gupta, a close friend who now serves as associate attorney general.
Before joining the Biden Justice Department, Gupta led the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a nonprofit that has called for tech companies to "reduce online activities and disinformation" that harm minority groups. The conference commissioned a report by Murphy on "Key Elements of a Civil Rights Audit." That report received input from powerful liberal groups, including the ACLU, Color of Change, Human Rights Campaign, NAACP, SEIU, and Voto Latino.
Color of Change is one of the most prominent members of Democracy Alliance, a network largely funded by Democratic megadonor George Soros. It also partners with two other Soros-funded groups, SOC Investment Group and the SEIU, to pressure public companies to comply with audits.
Supporters say racial equity audits are also good for business. Ford Foundation president Darren Walker claims audits can help "the nation’s most successful businesses to become better businesses," and that implementing the recommendations of audits could increase the United States' GDP by up to 20 percent.
The pressure campaigns on major companies have already paid off. Airbnb, Facebook, and Starbucks all conducted audits in the last three years. BlackRock is conducting one, and Citi announced its commitment to "becoming an antiracist institution" and retained Covington & Burling for a racial equity audit after pressure from SOC Investment Group. And Amazon and Facebook have already hired former Democratic officials for senior roles.
Rep. Banks Introduces GOP Bill to Curb Fortune 500’s Use of Visa Workers
GOP centrists in the House have introduced legislation to shut down the visa worker pipelines which stall innovation by feeding hundreds of thousands of subservient foreign graduates into the Fortune 500 careers needed by U.S. professionals.
“Big Tech is setting aside some of the most lucrative and valuable career opportunities in America and giving them exclusively to foreign guest workers,” said Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN), who chairs the conservative Republican Study Committee. He continued:
They’re cutting out Americans to save a few bucks. It’s domestic outsourcing. This shocking disregard for American workers and their role in our nation’s future is unpatriotic. We must fix Big Tech’s incentives, so they begin putting Americans first.
The American Tech Workforce Act would end President George W. Bush’s “Optional Practical Training” (OPT) pipeline, and curb the similar H-1B program.
The two programs keep roughly 1 million foreign graduates, mostly Indians, in U.S. white-collar jobs. This imported workforce shoves at least one million Americans out of upwardly mobile careers, decent homes, and security for their families.
The pro-American bill will be opposed by business groups, universities, and by many Republicans and Democrats. Already, top Democrats have included a huge expansion of the visa worker programs in their Build Back Better bill.
But the visa programs are so unpopular that even President Joe Biden’s pro-migration deputy has called for reforms.
However, the donor-dependent GOP leadership prefers to downplay the pocketbook damage caused by migration and to instead focus public attention on border chaos. This silence continues despite the GOP’s growing need to win more swing-voting suburban Americans, many of whom are losing careers and homes to the Fortune 500’s visa workers.
The Banks bill is backed by several immigration reform groups.
“The American Tech Workforce Act of 2021 would end OPT and put American workers and the rule of law first,” said Rosemary Jenks, the director of government relations at NumbersUSA. She continued:
Chairman Banks’ legislation would help ensure that Big Tech companies can no longer use the H-1B program as a cheaper alternative to hiring American workers, which would also protect foreign workers who are too often exploited by unscrupulous employers. This bill is an opportunity for all Representatives to make clear that they stand with American workers.
The first wave of co-sponsors for the bill include Reps. Mary E. Miller (R-IL), Madison Cawthorn (R-NC), Eric Crawford (r-AR), Steven M. Palazzo (R-MS), Kevin Hern (R-OK), Austin Scott (R-GA), Michael Burgess (R-TX), Joe Wilson (R-SC), Dan Meuser (R-PA), Beth Van Duyne (R-TX), Doug LaMalfa (R-CA).
A statement from Banks’ office described the bill’s contents:
- Creates a wage floor for [85,000 annual] H-1B visas set at the higher of the annual wage last paid to an American worker who filled the position or $110,000 (adjusted for inflation).
- Creates a true marketplace where eligible visa applications are awarded based on the highest bidder.
- Eliminates the Optional Practical Training program that allows [annually at least 200,000] foreigners that came to the U.S. under a student visa and have graduated to work in the U.S. for up to three years if they have a STEM degree and allows their employers to avoid paying payroll taxes on the visa-holder’s wages.
- Limits the ability of Big Tech firms to contract with third-party companies to fill spots with H-1B recipients sponsored by the third-party company by limiting the maximum validity period of the visas to 1 year.
The visa programs are widely used by many Fortune 500 companies and their tiers of Indian-run outsourcing firms. The companies which use the most H-1Bs and OPTs include banks, insurance companies, airlines, retailers, healthcare providers, manufacturers, and especially, technology companies.
Imported Indian visa workers “have influence in the entire [information technology] market in America,” said Aabha, an Indian in North Carolina, adding:
Every position that is a manager position or at least senior president position in every company that I’ve interviewed, it’s an Indian. For sure it’s an Indian, and they do not take the people that are qualified now, they are taking people who they can get [faked] reference [and] … get some sort of kickback from.
The Fortune 500 lobbies strongly favor the visa programs, which provide them with a huge flood of subservient gig-workers.
Companies often favor foreign workers over U.S. graduates because the foreign graduates are working to win government-supplied green cards. This means they are cheaper to hire, can be fired and sent home without appeal, and are utterly subservient to U.S. managers. So the foreign graduates are willing to work long hours, cannot quit to join a rival company, rarely testify in courts, and cannot act like the U.S. graduates who are professionally required to argue against cost-cutting managers in favor of raising product innovation, safety, quality, and security.
The resulting damage is exemplified by Boeing’s cost-cutting executives, who boost the company’s short-term profits by discarding U.S. professionals and hiring Indian contractors to perform core engineering tasks. The short-term policy contributed to the Boeing 737 Max air crashes in 2019 that slashed roughly $100 billion from Boeing’s stock market value.
Similarly, U.S. tech firms boosted profits by hiring Indian and Chinese visa workers — and allowed Chinese firms to take the lead in critical 5G communications technology.
Because the value of the dangled green cards is so huge, most of the Indian visa workers accept jobs in a U.S.-based, Indian-run, unregulated, isolated, sweatshop economy of subcontractor kickbacks, cliques, fraud, backstabbing, and blame-shifting, according to numerous Indian sources who speak to Breitbart News. “There are very few honest Indian managers — maybe one in a million,” an Indian visa worker told Breitbart News.
Many polls show that labor migration is deeply unpopular because it damages ordinary Americans’ career opportunities, cuts their wages, and raises their rents.
Migration also curbs Americans’ productivity, shrinks their political clout, widens regional wealth gaps, radicalizes their democratic, compromise-promoting civic culture, and allows elites to ignore despairing Americans at the bottom of society.
For many years, a wide variety of pollsters have shown deep and broad opposition to labor migration and the inflow of temporary contract workers into jobs sought by young U.S. graduates. This opposition is multiracial, cross-sex, non-racist, class-based, bipartisan, rational, persistent, and recognizes the solidarity Americans owe to each other.
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90% OF THE EMPLOYEES OF BIDEN'S CRONY MARK ZUCKERBERG'S FACEBOOK WERE BORN IN INDIA!
Joe Biden Seeks Indian Votes with Amnesty, Work Permits for India’s Graduates
AP Photo/Mahesh Kumar A.
Joe Biden is promising to deliver more of India’s contract workers — plus an unlimited supply of tech graduates — to the small but growing Indian community in the United States.
“He will increase the number of visas offered for permanent, work-based immigration based on macroeconomic conditions and exempt from any cap recent graduates of Ph.D. programs in STEM fields,” says a new page on Biden’s campaign website. The page is titled “Joe Biden’s Agenda for the Indian American [sic] Community.”
The document touts his choice for Vice President, Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif. Her mother was Indian, and he promises to put Indian visa workers on a fast track to green cards:
Sold Out: How High-Tech Billionaires & Bipartisan Beltway Crapweasels Are ScrewingAmerica's Best & Brightest
By Michelle Malkin and John Miano
Analysis conducted in 2018 discovered that 71 percent of tech workers in Silicon Valley, California, 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. Up to 99 percent of H-1B visa workers imported by the top eight outsourcing firms are from India.
Joe Biden’s Donor List Includes More than 30 Executives Tied to Wall Street
Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden has more than 30 business executives on his donor list that have connections to Wall Street.
Analysis of Biden’s more than 800 big donors, those who have bundled contributions for his presidential bid against President Trump, found that more than 30 of the executives listed have ties to Wall Street.
CNBC reports:
CNBC reviewed a new list of more than 800 Biden bundlers who raised at least $100,000 for the campaign, and found that several of them had links to financial firms. A few had been mentioned on the initial list of Biden fundraisers that was released in 2019 during the Democratic primary contests. [Emphasis added]
…
Beyond those from Wall Street, Biden’s campaign saw fundraising help from leaders in Silicon Valley, including LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and venture capitalist Ron Conway. [Emphasis added]
Those executives with ties to Wall Street funding Biden’s campaign include:
Frank Baker, Brett Barth, Jim Chanos, Mark Chorazak, David Clunie, William Derrough, Roger Altman, Blair Effron, Jon Feigelson, Mark Gallogly, John Rogers, Jon Gray, Tony James, Jon Henes, Sonny Kalsi, Orin Kramer, Brad Krap, Brian Kreiter, Marc Lasry, Nate Loewenthall, Eric Mindich, Kara Moore, Charles Myers, Alan Patricof, Deven Parekh, Robert Rubin, Evan Roth, Faiza Saeed, Rajen Shah, Jay Snyder, Rob Stavis, and Jeff Zients.
As Breitbart News reported, Biden’s campaign is being backed by nearly “all the big banks” on Wall Street, according to CNN analysis, and Wall Street executives and employees have donated more than $74 million to elect the former vice president.
Trump, on the other hand, has accepted far less money from Wall Street — taking just a little over $18 million dollars from financial firms. This is a whopping $56 million less than what Biden has accepted from Wall Street.
Despite his Wall Street, big business, Big Tech, and billionaire donations, Biden has attempted to portray himself as a small-town fighter from Scranton, Pennsylvania.
In a post on Sunday, Biden wrote that “Donald Trump sees the world from Park Avenue,” whereas he sees the world “from where I came from: Scranton, Pennsylvania.” In fact, Biden has raised over $1 million from wealthy Park Avenue donors, more than eight times the less than $130,000 that Trump has taken from Park Avenue residents.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter
Big Tech and Big Law dominate Biden transition teams, tempering progressive hopes
Alexander Nazaryan administration takes office in January.
WASHINGTON — For six years, Brandon Belford worked as an economic policy adviser to President Barack Obama in the White House and federal agencies. He moved to the Bay Area when Donald Trump became president, part of a massive flight of Obama officials from Washington to Silicon Valley, Wall Street and Hollywood. He took high-ranking positions with Apple and then Lyft, where he is currently the ride-sharing company’s chief of staff.
Now Belford is back, as part of one of the “transition teams” named by President-elect Joe Biden to restock a federal government that has been battered after four years of Trump by hiring new officials and advising the incoming administration on what its first governing steps should be.
Those steps could be timid, judging by the composition of those teams, where Obama-era centrism prevails. That has some progressives worried that Biden represents nothing more than a return to normal, at a time when many of them believe the nation is ready to embrace policy ideas well to the left of center.
“The status quo is killing us,” says former Bernie Sanders press secretary Briahna Joy Gray, who now hosts a podcast called “Bad Faith.”
Belford is joined by dozens of other Democratic operatives who have spent the past four years working at prestigious law firms and think tanks. On these “agency review teams” are high-ranking executives from Amazon, partners at white-shoe law firms like Covington & Burling and enough experts from D.C. center-left think tanks — including six from the Brookings Institution alone — to fill a center-left think tank.
Progressives knew this was coming. “I am very concerned about the role Uber executives would play in this administration,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez D-N.Y., told Yahoo News. Even though she also effusively praised the appointment of Ron Klain as the incoming White House chief of staff, Ocasio-Cortez vowed that corporate America would not “pull the wool over our eyes” when it came to crafting the Biden presidency.
Some have put it less bluntly. “Biden’s transition team is full of wealthy corporate executives who are completely disconnected from the struggles of the working class,” complains left-leaning activist Ryan Knight, whose Twitter handle is @ProudSocialist.
App-based drivers from Uber and Lyft protest in a caravan in front of City Hall in Los Angeles on October 22, 2020 where elected leaders hold a conference urging voters to reject on the November 3 election, Proposition 22, that would classify app-based drivers as independent contractors and not employees or agents. (Photo by Frederic J. BROWN / AFP) (Photo by FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images)More
He was presumably referring to the two dozen agency review team officials who come from law firms like Arnold & Porter. Or to the 40 or so members of the Biden transition who are current or recent lobbyists.
The agency review teams are not exactly settling into their cubicles just yet. For one, President Trump has not yet conceded the election, and the transition has been hindered in part by Republican operatives at the General Services Administration. And agency review is an enormously complex process, one that actually began months ago. The transition teams are supposed to ensure a “smooth transfer of power,” in large part by making sure that capable officials are ready to get to work in their respective agencies the moment Biden lifts his hand from the Lincoln Bible.
Speaking on the condition of anonymity, one member of the Biden campaign working on agency-related matters says teams were primarily tasked with surveying the landscape of the federal bureaucracy. She says that the transition teams would make some hiring recommendations, but only as a secondary function.
With a single exception, the agency review team members mentioned in this article did not respond to requests for comment.
One with a typically impressive biography is that of Aneesh Chopra, who served as the U.S. chief technology officer for Obama before starting his own medical data logistics company, CareJourney. Now he is on the transition team for the U.S. Postal Service, where he will presumably work to undo the alleged damage by another logistics maven: Trump appointee Louis DeJoy.
Of course, most progressives are glad that there’s a Biden transition to speak of, instead of a second Trump term. But they also recognize their own role in the Democratic candidate’s victory.
“Everyone fell into line and did everything they could to get Joe Biden elected,” says Max Berger, a progressive activist who worked for Elizabeth Warren’s presidential campaign and Justice Democrats, the group that helped elect Ocasio-Cortez to the House in 2018.
Berger recognizes that progressives will be a “junior partner” to the establishment Democrats with whom Biden has been ideologically and temperamentally aligned for a good half-century. They want to be partners all the same, not just the loyal opposition.
Many are cheered by some of the agency review teams. For one, they are notably more diverse, a stark contrast to Trump’s reliance on white males for so much of his advice. On the transition team for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration is Jedidah Isler, the Dartmouth professor who in 2014 became the first Black woman to earn a doctorate in astrophysics from Yale. The transition team for the Small Business Administration includes Jorge Silva Puras, a political leader in Puerto Rico who also teaches entrepreneurship at a community college in the Bronx.
“The presence of labor officials throughout many of the groups is notable,” says David Dayen, executive editor of the American Prospect. In the Department of Education team, for example, are several executives from the American Federation of Teachers.
He called the Federal Reserve and Treasury teams “all-stars,” a sentiment shared by other progressives interviewed for this article. On the Treasury team is Mehrsa Baradaran, a progressive economist who has written on the racial wealth gap. She is also on the Federal Reserve team, along with Reena Aggarwal, a corporate governance expert.
Progressive strategist Elizabeth Spiers says the finance-related teams are not “not quite Elizabeth Warren levels of aggressiveness but also not stuffed with finance people.” Biden’s advisers appear to have learned the lessons of his former boss. During Obama’s first year, he relied on banking executives to help quell the financial crisis. They did so in ways that steered the new president away from progressive proposals, such as nationalizing those very same banks.
There is not a single current executive from Citibank or Goldman Sachs on any of the transition teams. Bank of America has also been shut out. JPMorgan can boast a single toehold in the agency review process: Lisa Sawyer of the Pentagon team. A spokesman for JPMorgan told Yahoo News that the bank was “following the appropriate election laws” and that Sawyer was “not on an agency review team that will touch any banking issues.”
“I think the Biden administration is going to be surprising to progressives in some ways and disappointing in others, and the agency review teams reflect that,” Dayen says. During the summer, the American Prospect published a lengthy exposé about Biden’s foreign policy advisers’ lucrative foray into corporate America. Many are set to return to the highest echelons of official Washington.
“I have to be cautiously optimistic,” says Waleed Shahid, communications director for the Justice Democrats.
Relatively young progressives like Shahid are less likely to wax romantic about the way things were in Washington. They are less interested in experience than conviction. But for many in Biden’s camp, a lack of experience was among the several fatal flaws of the Trump years.
“Everyone — right or left — has made the mistaken assumption for years that governing is easy,” says “The Death of Expertise” author Tom Nichols, who teaches at the Naval War College and is an ardently anti-Trump Republican.
“After having a bunch of nitwits and cronies loose in the government,” Nichols wrote in an email, “I think a lot of people on the left are really giving in to the assumption that as long as you’re not Trump, or not a complete idiot, anyone can do it.”
Given the title and theme of his book, Nicholas cautioned against that approach. “It’s a childish and silly approach to government, but it’s a bipartisan problem,” he told Yahoo News.
While progressive may not see their stars like Sens. Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren occupying the Treasury Department, they do very much hope that a Biden presidency amounts to more than a third Obama term. It was unaddressed economic inequality, they believe, that bred the populist resentment that gave Trump an opening in 2016. The coronavirus has only made that inequality worse. That will only increase populist resentment, they worry, to be exploited by a Trump acolyte — or perhaps Trump himself, again — in 2024.
Addressing that inequality, for now, falls to transition team officials like Mark Schwartz of Amazon and Ted Dean of Dropbox, as well as Arun Venkataraman of Visa and David Holmes of defense contractor Rebellion Defense, in which Eric Schmidt of Google is an investor. Many of these officials are veterans of the Obama administration or Democratic offices on the Hill.
“There is a lot of corporate influence there,” says Maurice Weeks, co-founder of the Action Center on Race and the Economy. “And that is troubling.” But he is encouraged by the presence of “hard-core progressives” like Sarah Miller, a former Treasury deputy who is both an anti-Facebook activist and the executive of the American Economic Liberties Project, which seeks to curb corporate power. She is now on the Treasury transition team.
In some ways, the difference is between former Obama officials who, like Miller, went on to become activists and those who moved on to become rich. The latter did only what many government officials had done before them. But at a time of mass unemployment, a stint at the corporate law firm Latham & Watkins (three transition team members) may not seem as impressive as it may have when Obama was president.
“We don’t just want to rewind the clock by four years,” Weeks says.
For many progressives, Trump was a singular threat to important institutions of the federal government, but rebuilding those institutions is simply not as important as rebuilding entire communities shattered by economic, social and racial inequalities.
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