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VOA Misallocates Funds and Suppresses Negative Stories About Iran. This Lawmaker Wants To Investigate.
Voice of America (VOA), the taxpayer-funded government media network, is obstructing a congressional investigation into "waste, fraud, and abuse," including partisan advocacy in favor of President Joe Biden and misuse of a visa program to "onboard foreign nationals," according to a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Pop Goes the Presidency
Column: Biden gets desperate
A wise man once said: "When the economy is bad, people blame the party in power. When the economy is good, people look at other issues."
Well, the economy is bad. Nice-sounding growth, job, and wage numbers do not count for much when the American standard of living is in decline. Inflation has outpaced income gains since last year. It remains at a 40-year high. Gas costs more than four dollars per gallon—sometimes much more—in every state. Americans under 40 years old are experiencing consumer delays, shortages, and scarce necessities, including baby formula, for the first time in their lives. According to the Pew Research Center, 70 percent of Americans say that inflation is "a very big problem."
It's also a very big problem for the party in power. President Biden’s economic approval rating is 34 percent in the most recent CNN poll. His overall job approval rating is 41 percent in the FiveThirtyEight average of polls. Republicans have held a slight but durable lead in the congressional generic ballot since last October. The midterm election is less than six months away. To preserve their narrow majorities in Congress, Democrats need to change the trajectory of this campaign. Right now.
Their solution? Pretend that the election isn't a referendum on Biden's job performance but a choice between Biden and Donald Trump. Scare voters with references to the extremism of the right. Invoking Trump alone is not enough, however. Terry McAuliffe tried that approach during last year's Virginia gubernatorial campaign and it flopped. McAuliffe lost. Running against Trump and the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement doesn't work when Trump is neither president nor on the ballot. Democrats have convinced themselves that victory in the fall requires something scarier than MAGA. It requires Ultra-MAGA.
On May 10 Biden contrasted his policies with the "Ultra-MAGA Agenda." Haven't heard of it? According to Biden, it's the brainchild of Senator Rick Scott of Florida, head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. (In his remarks, Biden erroneously said Scott hails from Wisconsin.) Back in February, Scott released a policy document that remains controversial within the Republican Party and that few Republican candidates have endorsed in full.
Biden isn't subtle. He wants to use Scott's proposals as an electoral cudgel, just as Barack Obama campaigned against Paul Ryan's "Path to Prosperity" in 2012. Hence Biden's description of "the ultra-MAGA plan put forward by congressional Republicans to raise taxes on working families; lower the incomes of American workers; threaten the sacred programs American count on like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid; and give break after break to big corporations and billionaires." Biden says that his foes are not ordinary Republicans. They are not run-of-the-mill Trump voters. They are "Ultra-MAGA Republicans."
Someone has been spending too much time in focus groups. The Biden administration and congressional Democrats must think that the prefix "ultra" makes a noun sound spooky. But the president and his underlings will have to specify who really counts as an Ultra-MAGA Republican, what the Ultra-MAGA agenda entails, and when "ultra" should be capitalized before voters stop worrying about rising prices, violent crime, insecure borders, and craziness in schools. In its current usage, "ultra-MAGA" comes across as comical. It's a hackneyed slogan. Some people may even find it appealing.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters the other day that "ultra-MAGA" is the president's coinage for Republicans who support Rick Scott's plan, Justice Samuel Alito's draft opinion returning abortion law to the states, and Governor Ron DeSantis's (R., Fla.) fight with Disney. "And so," said Psaki, "to him, adding a little ‘ultra' to it, give it a little extra pop."
A little extra pop? What is Psaki talking about—a new flavor of Pringles?
The Democrats are unable or incapable of running on their accomplishments. Their economic agenda is discredited among voters grappling with inflation. Their traditional advantage on education has narrowed because of parental fury at school closures, mask rules, confusing COVID guidance, and politically correct school boards. They have fallen back on scaremongering and name-calling.
Not for the first time. Nor for the last. Expect the alarm bells to ring louder as autumn approaches. By Election Day, Biden will have moved from "Ultra-MAGA" to "Mega-MAGA," "Super-Duper MAGA," "MAGA Deluxe XXL," and, in homage to his love of ice cream, "All-Out Triple Scoop Chunky Monkey MAGA with Extra Deplorables." Voters will respond as they usually do when Biden speaks. They will ignore him.
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Democrats fund Ukraine war at the expense of American workers
The overwhelming vote in the US House of Representatives Tuesday night for nearly $40 billion in military and financial aid to Ukraine is a watershed event. It demonstrates the commitment by the Biden administration to supply virtually unlimited resources to a war which threatens to unleash a nuclear holocaust upon the world. Having pushed the regime of Vladimir Putin relentlessly through two decades of NATO expansion to the east, and arming Ukraine to the teeth for a proxy war with Russia, American imperialism is rushing ahead recklessly, regardless of the danger of triggering World War III.
As the WSWS warned in an editorial board statement on April 27, “The aims of the war are now clear. The bloodshed in Ukraine was not provoked to defend its technical right to join NATO, but rather was prepared, instigated and massively escalated in order to destroy Russia as a significant military force and to overthrow its government. Ukraine is a pawn in this conflict, and its population is cannon fodder.”
It is not only gaining access to the vast resources of Russia—oil, gas, countless strategic minerals—that is the aim of the US-NATO intervention. Washington views the elimination of Moscow as a significant strategic obstacle as a decisive step towards the ultimate goal, which is a military confrontation with China to establish its domination over the entire Eurasian landmass.
No less historically important are the domestic implications of the Ukraine war for the working class in the United States. It is working people who will pay for this war, as they have paid for all the overseas acts of aggression by US imperialism.
The $40 billion bill approved by the House of Representatives, and expected to pass the Senate within days, brings the total allocated to the war in Ukraine in less than three months to a staggering $53 billion. This new spending is larger than the total budget for the US Marine Corps. It is greater than the entire budgets of five federal departments, or of all independent federal agencies combined. It is more than total federal spending on housing and homelessness, more than total state and federal spending on public health.
What would $53 billion buy, if this sum was devoted to the needs of working people? It could hire 500,000 teachers at $106,000 a year in salary and benefits, or a similar number of nurses. It could provide a $6,000 raise to every nurse, teacher and nursing home worker in America (9.25 million workers). It could provide a $1,000 raise to every worker in America making less than $15 an hour (52 million workers).
None of these things, of course, will happen because the American government operates not in the interests of working people but of the financial aristocracy.
Democrats in the House of Representatives voted unanimously for the Ukraine war funding, 219-0. This has colossal political significance. The Democratic Party has emerged as the war party of American imperialism. There is no distinction in that regard between the “CIA Democrats”—those who entered Congress in 2018 direct from the CIA, the Pentagon or the State Department—or those nominally adhering to the “left,” the Bernie Sanders wing of the party.
The four representatives who are members of the Democratic Socialists of America, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman, all voted for the Ukraine war funding. They represent, not socialism, but the “left” wing of the State Department and CIA. They do not speak for the working class but for the privileged sections of the upper middle class, where the war frenzy of the US ruling class has found firm support.
The unanimous Democratic vote underscores the real meaning of the Democratic “opposition” to Trump during his four years in the White House. The Democrats’ sole genuine objection to the policies of the Trump administration was his failure to pursue the anti-Russia campaign begun by Obama with the CIA-backed overthrow of the elected Ukrainian government in 2014 and the installation of a virulently anti-Russian regimes headed by Petro Poroshenko (2014-2019) and then Volodymyr Zelensky, who took office in 2019.
The Democrats instigated the Mueller investigation over bogus claims that Russia was responsible for Trump’s election victory in 2016 and that Trump was a Russian stooge. This was followed by the first impeachment of Trump, in 2019, based on his brief delay of US military aid to Ukraine in an effort to pressure Zelensky to assist his reelection campaign by digging up dirt on Biden.
The Democratic Party support for the war in Ukraine is across the board. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, the “democratic socialist” and one-time advocate of “political revolution,” issued a statement urging immediate action to provide arms and money to Kiev. “We should always have a debate,” he said, “but the problem is that Ukraine is in the middle of a very intense war right now. I think every day counts, and I think we have to respond as strongly and vigorously as we can.”
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, representing the party establishment, declared during the debate over the legislation, “When you’re home thinking about what [$40 billion to Ukraine] is all about, just think about ‘When I was hungry, you fed me’ from the Gospel of Matthew.”
Actually, the proper response from working people to the gospel of Pelosi would be, “When I was hungry, you spent the money on guns, not butter.”
In remarks delivered from the White House before the House vote, President Biden declared that fighting inflation is his “most important domestic priority.” In other words, it is secondary to the overriding national security priority, which is to defeat Russia in Ukraine, setting the stage for the US and NATO to press their offensive to install a puppet regime in Moscow or break up the country outright.
Inflation is devastating the living standards of working people. By one analysis, the average American household will pay nearly $2,000 more for gasoline in 2022 and an additional $1,000 extra for food, to say nothing of rising rents, increased mortgage payments as interest rates are hiked by the Federal Reserve and other soaring costs.
Prices are being driven up not by the evil demon Vladimir Putin, as Biden claims, but by the policies of the Trump and Biden administrations and the measures undertaken by the Federal Reserve to defend the wealth and income of the financial aristocracy.
In particular, the Fed’s decision to pump $4 trillion into the financial markets in March 2020, when trading in Treasury bonds “froze” under conditions of panic over the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, is the driving force of the explosion in prices. This was the culmination of a long-term Fed policy, going back to the 2008 Wall Street crash, to prop up the financial system and save the fortunes of the super-rich, regardless of the impact on the working people who comprise the vast majority of the population.
There is an intrinsic connection between the war abroad and the assault on the working class at home. The ruling class cannot carry out one without the other. Workers must recognize that fact as they come into struggle over the impact of inflation on their living standards.
The rising militancy among workers is expressed in such actions as the powerful rejection vote by autoworkers of the contract at Detroit Diesel promoted by the UAW and the series of strikes by health care workers in California. This class movement must be connected to a class opposition to imperialist war.
Only the working class can provide the basis for the building of a powerful anti-war movement against American imperialism. The WSWS urges workers to take up this political struggle, on the basis of a socialist and internationalist program.
Bidenflation Sent Prices for Trucking, Freight Trains, Air Freight and Warehousing Soaring in April
It is getting much more expensive to transport and store goods around the United States, a signal that the economy may not yet have hit the peak of inflation.
The government on Thursday released the Producer Price Indexes (PPI) for April showing that “final demand” prices for transportation and warehousing jumped 3.7 percent compared with a month earlier. Compared with a year ago, prices in the sector are up 20.8 percent.
The skyrocketing prices for transportation also call into question the effectiveness of the policies of President Joe Biden and Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg. President Biden said on Tuesday that fighting inflation was his top priority.
The PPIs contain data on prices for the full set of goods and services produced in the U.S.—including prices charged by businesses to other businesses, foreign customers, and government agencies—while the more familiar Consumer Price Index covers only prices paid by the U.S. household sector.
The data include information on “final demand” prices, which are sold the end-users of products and services, including households, businesses, government, and capital investment. They also include prices for different stages of “intermediate demand,” which track production through the supply chain.
Transportation costs are up no matter how things are shipped. Rail freight prices rose 2.6 percent in April and are up 9.7 percent from a year ago. Truck transportation prices jumped 5.1 percent in March and 4.4 percent in April. Compared with a year ago, they are up 27.4 percent. Prices for air freight rose 3.5 percent in April for a 12-month gain of 12.8. Shipping by waterways jumped 5.7 percent for an annual rise of 21.2 percent.
Truck trailer prices have skyrocketed. These rose 2.6 percent in April are are up 39.9 percent for the year. Diesel fuel prices rose 8.1 percent in April and are up a jaw-dropping 81.6 percent from a year ago.
Warehousing prices for goods jumped 4,5 percent in April and they are up 15.1 percent since the month a year prior.
The price hikes are similar throughout the chain of production and to all sorts of users. Prices of transportation and warehousing of goods for personal consumption rose 3.9 percent in April and are up 23.3 percent for the year. Capital goods transportation and warehousing prices climbed 4.2 percent month-to-month and 24.9 percent over the previous 12 months.
Worse Than Expected Again: Producer Prices Up 11%
Prices charged by U.S. businesses were up 11 percent in April compared with a year ago, the fifth straight month of the government’s producer price inflation gauge running at or above 10 percent.
The Department of Labor said Thursday that its Producer Price Index for final demand rose 0.5 percent in April compared with a month earlier, in line with expectations. But there the results for earlier months were revised up, bringing the 12-month figure above economists’ expectations for a 10.7 percent rise.
The report for March was revised up to show a 1.6 percent gain from February and the February report was revised up from a 0.9 percent gain to 1.1 percent. This indicates that inflation has been running even hotter than the earlier reports indicated.
The index for core final demand PPI—which excludes food, energy, and trade services (a category measured by markups rather than prices)—rose 0.6 for the month. Compared with a year ago, this is up 6.9 percent, down just two-tenths of a point from the March reading, which was revised up from 7.0 to 7.1 percent.
Producer prices for goods rose 1.3 percent in April compared with March and were up . The March figure was left unchanged at 2.4 percent and the February figure was revised up to 2.2 percent to 2.3 percent. This slow down in price gains, however, was due to a slow down in the rise in energy prices and food prices. Excluding food and energy, goods prices rose one percent, down only a tick from March’s 1.1 percent.
Producer prices for final demand services were flat with the prior month. The February figure was revised up to show a 0.5 percent gain, up from 0.3 percent. The March figure was revised up to 1.2 percent from 0.9. Trade services margins fell 0.5 percent.
The Producer Price Index (PPI) is sometimes inaccurately described as an inflation index for wholesale prices. Although it was once called the wholesale price index, it has never been focused on wholesale prices. Instead, it is constructed by looking at what businesses that produce goods and services in the U.S. were paid for goods and services, while the better-known Consumer Price Index measures what consumers paid and includes both imports and a stand-in for home ownership called owners-equivalent of rent that isn’t counted in PPI.
“The Wholesale Price Index (WPI) was the name of the program from its inception in 1902 until 1978, when it was renamed the Producer Price Index,” the Bureau of Labor Statistics explains on its website. It explains that: “the term Wholesale Price Index was misleading in that the index never measured price change in the wholesale market.”
The PPI measures prices both for various stages of intermediate demand, businesses selling to other businesses, and final demand, which measures domestic producers selling goods and services to domestic end-users, typically government agencies, consumers, or businesses. The widely reported headline number for PPI is the final demand figure.
The PPI excludes imports and doesn’t count sales taxes, since those are paid to foreign producers and governments. It also includes export prices, which are excluded from CPI because they are paid by non-U.S. consumers.
The target set of goods and services included in the PPI is the entire marketed output of U.S. producers. This includes goods, services, and construction products purchased by other producers as inputs to their operations or as capital investment, goods and services purchased by consumers either directly from the service producer or indirectly from a retailer, and products sold as export and to government. The CPI looks at the set of goods and services purchased for consumption purposes by urban U.S. households, excluding business purchases, government purchases, and exports. The CPI also excludes prices not paid directly by consumers, such as medical bills paid for by government programs or insurers, that are included in PPI.
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