TYSON HAS LONG BEEN IDENTIFED WITH THE DEMOCRAT PARTY FOR OBVIOUS REASONS.
Tyson Foods Faces Boycott After Firing 1,200 Americans, ‘Would Like to Employ’ 42,000 Migrants - AND BIDEN - MAYORKAS - SCHUMER HAVE USHERED OVER THE BORDER 15 MILLION TO PICK FROM.
The White House on Monday called an early afternoon lid on President Joe Biden’s public activities after an extended weekend at home in Delaware.
The president ended his schedule of public events at 1:48 p.m. EST — after about four hours of work.
The president and first lady traveled to their home in Wilmington, Delaware, on Saturday evening with plans to return Sunday night. But they ultimately scrapped their plans after President Biden spent Sunday afternoon golfing.
The president returned to the White House from Delaware at roughly 9:30 a.m. EST on Monday for a scheduled 9:50 a.m. meeting with his advisers for the presidential daily briefing.
At about 1:30 p.m. the president delivered a roughly 20-minute speech on the ongoing fight against the coronavirus.
After his speech, the president told reporters he would have a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu within the hour and even suggested he would update the press afterward.
But his staff called it day for Biden’s public appearances, despite multiple crises facing his administration.
The conflict between Israel and Palestine continues, as well as economic difficulties at home in the United States, such as high gas prices, high unemployment, and a rise in inflation.
Staff calling a “lid” does not mean the president is no longer working for the rest of the day, but it does send the message he will no longer publicly speak to the American people or address their concerns with the press.
Biden was repeatedly mocked by former President Donald Trump during the 2020 presidential campaign for calling early afternoon “lids,” as proof of his low-energy campaign style.
But Biden’s advisers appear comfortable with continuing his light public schedule, even though he is now in the White House.
President Biden has only held one press conference since he was inaugurated in January.
On Monday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Ingraham Angle,” Rep. and gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin (R-NY) said that the $5.1 million that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) is set to receive from his book about the coronavirus pandemic “is blood money, profiting off of the suffering physically, emotionally, financially of your constituents, of New Yorkers.”
Zeldin stated, “The nursing home order and cover up, you’re talking about the loss of life, you’re profiting off of — really, this is blood money, profiting off of the suffering physically, emotionally, financially of your constituents, of New Yorkers. What he should have done this time last year was show remorse, publicly apologize for the mistake of his order, be transparent with the public. He said he was too busy to provide that transparency. But he wasn’t too busy to go after this multimillion-dollar self-congratulatory book deal. So, it has New Yorkers outraged.”
Report shows CEOs in US cashed in during the pandemic as workers lost jobs, wages and lives
The Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) published a significant report on May 11 that details the rigging of executive compensation plans by corporate boards during the pandemic, so that vast sums could be funneled into the pockets of millionaire executives while workers suffered unemployment, reduced wages, exposure to COVID-19 and death.
Under the title “Pandemic Pay Plunder,” the top finding of the IPS’ 27th Annual Executive Excess report is that among the top US corporations with the lowest paid workforces, CEOs received a 29 percent increase in compensation, while workers’ wages fell by 2 percent on average last year.
The IPS research shows that 51 out of the 100 corporations on the S&P 500 list with the lowest median worker wages bent corporate rules during the pandemic to ensure that their CEOs increased their compensation by an average of $4 million, to a total of $15.3 million, while workers’ wages fell by more than $550 to $28,187. The CEO-to-worker pay ratio for these corporations reached 830 to 1.
In introducing the report, IPS authors Sarah Anderson, director of the Global Economy Project and co-editor of Inequality.org, and Sam Pizzigati, IPS associate fellow and co-editor of Inequality.org, write: “American families have been simply unable, on their own, to bear the COVID crisis. Meanwhile, corporate chief executives in the United States have continued to score the sorts of windfalls that have ballooned billionaire wealth.”
In explaining how corporate boards modified compensation rules to ensure a windfall for executives, the report says that the companies engaged “in various rigging maneuvers” such as (1) lowering the performance numbers so executives could meet their bonus targets, (2) awarding special “retention” bonuses, (3) excluding poor second-quarter (March-May 2020) results from performance evaluations and (4) replacing performance-based awards with time-based awards.
The IPS report says that “an army of ‘independent’ compensation consultants” was retained by the corporate boards in order to “give all this rule-rigging a veneer of legitimacy.” For example, Carnival—the largest international cruise line company—paid Frederick W. Cook & Co. $423,274 to give its CEO bonus “a stamp of fiscal probity as the company’s profits cratered and workers suffered.”
In relation to the Carnival compensation scam, the report notes that the company stranded employees at sea for months while it scrambled to get customers back home. But after securing $6 billion in low-cost financing from the US Federal Reserve, it gave CEO Arnold Donald special pandemic “retention and incentive” stock grants valued at more than $5 million. “Arnold’s total 2020 compensation came to $13.3 million, 490 times the company’s $27,151 median worker pay” the report states.
The IPS study does not mention reports that nearly a dozen cruise line workers died in suicides committed during the lengthy period of forced isolation without pay on ships, or as a result of mental health problems after they came ashore.
Other specific examples given by IPS of corporate manipulation of executive compensation in the midst of the pandemic include the meatpacking, poultry and automotive industries. In the case of $30 billion Arkansas-based Tyson Foods, the report says that “executives didn’t meet their cash bonus targets last year,” but the board “gave them stock awards to make up the difference.”
Tyson CEO Noel White earned $11 million, which is 294 times Tyson’s $37,444 median worker pay. The report states, “Another recipient of those special stock awards was company chair John Tyson, a billionaire hardly in dire need of special support. The heir and grandson of the company founder, Tyson has watched his personal wealth increase 72 percent during the pandemic—to $2.6 billion.”
Tyson workers, like all poultry and meatpacking employees, were declared essential workers during the pandemic and forced to stay on the job. The report says the Tyson workers suffered the most COVID-19 infections and deaths in the industry, noting: “As of February 2021, more than 12,000 Tyson workers had been infected by the virus and at least 38 had lost their lives to it.”
The automotive supplier Aptiv—one of the spin-offs from Delphi Automotive, itself a spin-off from GM—has the widest pay gap (5,294 to 1) on the IPS list of 51 low wage corporations. Aptiv CEO Kevin Clark was paid $31.3 million while the median wage earner made $5,906 in 2020. The report says, “The Aptiv board inflated Clark’s paycheck by moving bonus goalposts and excluding 2020 results from the 2018-2020 performance period for long-term executive incentive awards.”
The report also explains that the company justified the massive payout to Clark—totaling an additional $18 million—“as nothing more than the product of ‘accounting adjustments’ related to 2019 and 2020 stock awards.”
Aptiv operates in 44 countries and did not disclose to IPS where the workers earning a median wage of a little less than $6,000 are employed. The global corporation—which specializes in automotive cooling systems—was the product of the multi-billion-dollar July 2015 merger of Delphi Thermal with the German-based Mahle-Behr GmbH and British-based HellermannTyton.
Some of the other companies highlighted in the IPS report for extreme CEO-worker pay ratios in 2020 are:
*Apparel corporation Under Armour, where half the workforce earns less than $6,669 per year. There, the company board “altered bonus metrics and replaced performance-based with time-based stock awards” for CEO Patrik Frisk, so as to pay him $7.4 million.
* Chipotle Mexican Grill, where CEO Brian Niccol “received $38 million in 2020 compensation, 2,898 times the restaurant chain’s median worker pay.” The firm’s board of directors inflated his bonus by tossing out the company’s poor financial results from the peak shutdown period and excluding COVID-related costs.
While the political conclusions of the IPS editors are for tax reform that will force companies to pay increased taxes for CEO-worker wage gaps of more than 50-1—which is itself a defense of social inequality—the facts and figures presented in the report are a devastating exposure of the criminality of the ruling class under conditions of the worst public health crisis in a century.
The IPS report was published just as the US political establishment was launching a campaign to eliminate weekly supplemental unemployment benefits for millions of workers who remain unemployed as a result of the economic crisis and deadly health conditions caused by the response of the corporate and financial elite to the pandemic.
Already more than half of US states have revived their work search requirements in an effort to force workers back to work at low-paying jobs. As reported by the New York Times on Sunday, Arkansas and Louisiana brought back these requirements months ago and others such as Vermont and Kentucky have done so in the last few weeks.
Laying bare the economic interests that lie behind the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention decision to lift the mask requirement for “anyone who is fully vaccinated” last Thursday, President Biden ordered the Labor Department four days before to pressure state governments to put the job search requirements back into place.
The IPS report is a further confirmation of the analysis made by the World Socialist Web Site that the capitalist ruling class lives by the motto, “Never let a good crisis go to waste,” and has used the pandemic to intensify the exploitation of the working class, further enrich itself and expand social inequality to unprecedented levels.
De Blasio Rips Cuomo After Reports Show How Much Governor Made From Book Deal
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio criticized Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Monday when asked about reports the Democrat received a staggering $5.1 million for his book deal about his leadership during the pandemic.
Details about how much Cuomo earned from the book, “American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the Covid-19 Pandemic," come amid various investigations, including one looking into whether he used state resources to write and promote the title.
After The Times reported that aides to the governor had assisted in the writing and promotion of the book, the state attorney general, Letitia James, opened an investigation into Mr. Cuomo’s use of state resources on the project. The Times reported at the time that the deal had been worth at least $4 million.
The governor received permission to work on his book from the state’s Joint Commission on Public Ethics, which is tasked with enforcing New York’s public officers law. The commission required that Mr. Cuomo not use state resources, such as staff time, to work on the book project. The governor has denied any wrongdoing and has said that any staff members who worked on the book did so voluntarily. (NYT)
“Was it improper, in your opinion,” one reporter asked de Blasio, referring to the governor's earnings as well as the investigation.
“I think it was state-sponsored literature,” the mayor responded, according to Mediaite. “This guy clearly depended upon public employees to do a lot of the work, and that’s not acceptable.”Katie Pavlich
“You don’t need a lot of ethics training to figure out that’s not acceptable,” de Blasio added.
Cuomo is also facing other investigations into his nursing home directive, which put COVID-19-positive patients back into long-term care facilities, killing nearly 13,000 New Yorkers, and sexual harassment allegations.
In March, Crown Publishing Group announced it had "no plans" to reprint or reissue Cuomo's book, citing "the ongoing investigation into N.Y.S. reporting of Covid-related fatalities in nursing homes."
In April, Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Alex Padilla (D-CA), a co-sponsor of the amnesty bill, wrote to Biden asking him to include the plan in any economic recovery package, calling illegal aliens “American heroes.”....WHAT ABOUT A WORD FOR ALL THOSE MURDERED BY ILLEGALS OR FOR THE HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS IN WELFARE PAID TO THE INVADERS AND THE NARCOMEX CARTELS?!?
NYTimes: Biden Opens U.S. Border to the Globe’s Economic Migrants
President Joe Biden and his deputies have opened the nation’s southern border to a growing wave of economic migrants from Brazil, India, Cuba, Venezuela, and many other countries, according to a report Sunday in the New York Times.
“Agents have stopped people from more than 160 countries,” the newspaper reported, adding:
More than 12,500 Ecuadoreans were encountered in March, up from 3,568 in January. Nearly 4,000 Brazilians and more than 3,500 Venezuelans were intercepted, up from just 300 and 284, respectively, in January. The numbers in coming months are expected to be higher.
“Most are simply being released to nonprofit aid centers, where they spend a day or two before traveling to join friends and relatives elsewhere in the United States,” the New York Times admitted.
Breitbart News reported on May 12 almost 34,000 people from countries other than Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, or El Salvador, arrived in April. The numbers were based on data released by the Department of Homeland Security.
The migrants are driven by economic factors, the Times acknowledged:
… large numbers of migrants have been driven to the U.S. border by economic hardship in their home countries, and now the pandemic has widened that circle. Though no records are kept at the border on the reasons people have cited in choosing to move, interviews with many of those arriving at the border, along with Border Patrol officials, shelter operators and immigration scholars, suggested that the job collapse brought about by the coronavirus — coupled with the Biden administration’s more welcoming policies — is driving much of the new surge.
The migrants are being allowed into the country by Biden’s deputies, even though the federal government has the Title 42 legal authority to block all migrants — including juvenile migrants — during the coronavirus emergency.
Moreover, federal law only provides asylum to groups fleeing political and religious persecution — not to people fleeing poverty. This rule means border agents can deny them access to U.S. asylum courts.
Biden also has the political clout to challenge many of the open-border decisions made by judges, including the Flores decision, which limits the detention of migrants who bring their children.
In March, the chairman and CEO of the Gallup polling company warned Biden some 42 million people in Central and South America want to migrant into the United States. Nine years ago, Gallup warned that 150 million people worldwide want to move to the United States.
However, Biden nominated — and the Senate confirmed — Alejandro Mayorkas, a pro-migration zealot, to run the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Mayorkas’ appointment was cheered by the ethnic lobbies, pro-migration groups, and investor groups that have so much clout in Biden’s party.
Mayorkas is now encouraging mass migration by opening many small side-doors in the nation’s immigration laws and by clearing away rules and policies that would slow the award of green cards and citizenship to the economic migrants. Mayorkas has frequently claimed that Americans’ homeland is actually a “Nation of Immigrants” and that migration is central to the nation’s values and economic health.
For example, on April 28, Mayorkas tweeted “small immigrant-owned businesses … are the backbone of our communities — and of our country.” On March 4, Mayorkas declared “our highest priority” is to fly lawfully deported migrants into the United States to reunite them with the children they left behind so the children could also ask judges for green cards.
Biden’s political allies have persuaded him to restart the federal extraction of low-wage workers, government-aided consumers, and high-occupancy renters from foreign countries. Even foreign children and sick retirees are sought as an economic stimulus because they inflate rents and stimulate federal, state, and local spending, for example, on K-12 education programs and healthcare spending.
Business leaders are especially eager to import more foreign college graduates for white-collar jobs and more people to drive up real estate prices in coastal cities.
The lax border policies encourage economic migration, Andrew Selee, the pro-migration president of the Migration Policy Institute, admitted to the New York Times. “Many people around the world saw their standard of living slide backward, it’s no surprise that they would jump at the chance to get into the U.S. when they hear that others have managed to cross from Mexico successfully,” Selee said.
At least one Democratic Senator suggested that Biden would not police the borders until the GOP agrees to an amnesty that would create millions of new Democratic voters.
“So far, for our Republican colleagues, the focus has been all about the border,” Sen.Bob Menendez, F-NJ), told RollCall.com for a May 12 report. “We certainly are willing to deal with questions about the border — but the question is much broader: What do we get for that?” he added.
GOP legislators, such as Rep. Jody Hice (R-TX), have begun to spotlight the international migration:
However, GOP politicians and state parties rely heavily on donations from investors who want more migration. So far, the GOP legislators have complained about border chaos and illegal immigration but have not campaigned against the labor migration that is the biggest concern of their base and of the non-political swing voters.
The voter opposition to elite-backed economic migration coexists with support for legal immigrants and some sympathy for illegal migrants. But only a minority of Americans — mostly leftists — embrace the many skewed polls and articles pushing the 1950’s corporate “Nation of Immigrants” claim.
The deep public opposition to labor migration is built on the widespread recognition that legal and illegal migration moves money away from most Americans’ pocketbooks and families.
The Congressional Hispanic Caucus is eyeing a big legislative push for amnesty for millions of illegal aliens living in the United States, hoping to ride a wave of momentum after President Joe Biden met with illegal aliens at the White House.
Last week, Biden met with illegal aliens enrolled and eligible for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program who urged him to help pass a series of amnesty bills — including one that would put the roughly 11 to 22 million illegal aliens living in the U.S. on a path to obtaining American citizenship while doubling legal immigration levels.
The Congressional Hispanic Caucus, with 38 members, has officially endorsed an amnesty bill that would give amnesty to at least 5.2 million illegal aliens deemed “essential.”
Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-CA) said in a statement:
Immigrant essential workers have been on the frontlines working to keep us safe, healthy, and fed during the pandemic. The Department of Homeland Security designated these immigrant workers as essential and part of our country’s infrastructure. Supporting essential workers means supporting economic growth and productivity for our nation.
In April, Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Alex Padilla (D-CA), a co-sponsor of the amnesty bill, wrote to Biden asking him to include the plan in any economic recovery package, calling illegal aliens “American heroes.”
Likewise, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus is requesting that the U.S. Senate and the Biden administration prioritize an amnesty for about 4.4 million illegal aliens.
Ruiz said in a statement following Biden’s meeting with DACA illegal aliens:
I am incredibly proud of each Dreamer who met with President Biden today, including United Farm Workers’ Leydy Rangel from my hometown of Coachella, California. As Chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, I thank President Biden for his commitment to securing a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers.
Also part of the amnesty push are corporate interests such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Koch brothers’ network of donor class organizations, as well as former President George W. Bush.
As Breitbart News reported, Bush, joined by the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity, the refugee lobby, the Chamber, and the Business Roundtable, is lobbying Congress to increase legal immigration levels and give amnesty to illegal aliens, claiming it will end illegal immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border.
While Biden, Democrats, corporate interests, and Bush call for passage of the expansive amnesty bills, about 16.4 million Americans remain jobless and another 5.2 million are underemployed but want full-time jobs.
A flooded U.S. labor market has been well documented for its wage-crushing side effects, so much so that economist George Borjas has called mass immigration the “largest anti-poverty program” at the expense of America’s working and lower-middle class. The biggest winners are corporations and investors who can keep the cost of labor low and have a steady stream of consumers to buy their products and services.
Other research finds current legal immigration to the U.S. results in more than $530 billion worth of lost wages for Americans.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO), likewise, has repeatedly noted mass immigration cuts Americans’ wages.
In 2013, CBO analysis stated that the “Gang of Eight” amnesty plan would “slightly” push down wages for the American workers. A 2020 CBO analysis stated “immigration has exerted downward pressure on the wages of relatively low-skilled workers who are already in the country, regardless of their birthplace.”
Every year, about 1.2 million legal immigrants receive green cards to permanently resettle in the U.S. In addition, 1.4 million foreign nationals get temporary visas to fill U.S. jobs that would otherwise go to Americans. Hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens, as well, enter the U.S. annually.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
Padilla: ‘Increasingly Clear’ among Dems We Might Not Have Free and Fair Elections without For the People Act
On Tuesday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “The ReidOut,” Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) stated that it’s “increasingly clear” among Democrats that if they don’t pass the For the People Act, there may never be another free and fair election in America.
Host Joy Reid asked, “Do you think that your fellow Democratic colleagues understand that if they don’t pass this bill we may never get another free and fair election again? Does Joe Manchin — do they — do Democrats understand that?”
Padilla responded, “I think that’s increasingly clear, absolutely. A lot of issues that we’re passionate about, that, as President Johnson once upon said, voting rights is the right that protects all other rights. If our democracy, the bedrock of our democracy is undermined, we’re in a whole world of hurt, and that’s what we’re fighting for with S. 1.”
A law enforcement source within Customs and Border Protection revealed the number of migrants escaping apprehension has reached 200,000 this fiscal year. The source, speaking on a condition of anonymity, says more than 45,000 of those avoided capture in the last 30 days.
As Breitbart Texas reported previously, the got-away total had reached more than 185,000, frustrating Border Patrol leadership. Last year, 69,000 migrants managed to avoid apprehension. In just over seven months of this fiscal year, the number has nearly tripled over last year’s figures. Sources report the sharpest increase has occurred since January.
The metric is usually not released by the Department of Homeland Security. It is achieved by counting illegal immigrants who ultimately escape Border Patrol apprehension after being observed by aircraft platforms and camera systems. In addition, Border Patrol agents using traditional sign-cutting techniques identify footprints crossing the border and count those that elude apprehension.
“That’s where it gets tricky,” says one Border Patrol agent who did not wish to be identified. “On a small trail, dozens can walk all over each other’s footprints, so you just do your best. Often, they’ll glue carpet to the soles of their shoes making detection even harder.”
Sources report for these reasons, the “got-away” count is usually lower than reality. How much so is debatable as the latter method of counting is not scientific. The increasing “got-away” numbers come as CBP reports its highest apprehension totals since 2006.
Despite the current administration’s refusal to call the immigration situation on the border a crisis, the recent surges are concerning. The increasing number of unaccompanied migrant children crossing the border has Health and Human Services struggling to find sponsors within the United States. Many believe the impetus for the surges in illegal entries is being fueled by the promise of amnesty legislation. The Biden administration’s new policies regarding lax interior enforcement and a reduction in removals are also believed to be contributing to the surge in activity along the border.
Recent reports concerning the reduced patrols being conducted by the Border Patrol are likely contributing to the surge in the “got-away” count. Addressing the humanitarian needs of thousands of migrants crossing the border directly impacts the Border Patrol’s ability to patrol many remote areas. This situation is likely to worsen as the crisis develops.
Randy Clark is a 32-year veteran of the United States Border Patrol. Prior to his retirement, he served as the Division Chief for Law Enforcement Operations, directing operations for nine Border Patrol Stations within the Del Rio, Texas, Sector. Follow him on Twitter @RandyClarkBBTX.