America Faces No Greater Threat Than Joe Biden and the Democrat Party. Their Assault to Our Borders Is As Great As Their Assault to Free Speech and Free Elections
Tuesday, January 24, 2023
REPARATIONS FOR BLACKS? WHY NOT REPARATIONS FOR VICTIMS OF BLACK CRIME? - MURDER, ASSAULT, STORE LOOTING CAR JACKINGS, DOPE DEALING???
At Least 21 Shot During Weekend in Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s Chicago
Tellingly, many of these fraud artists were fellow African Americans, often claiming a common religious affiliation and played on current issues of particular relevance to Blacks, notably support for theBlack Lives Matter movement.
The idea of reparations for African Americans due to slavery began during the Civil War when General William Tecumseh Sherman, on January 16, 1865, issued Special Field Order No. 15 that called for allocating up to 40 acres and lending mules to newly emancipated slaves. President Lincoln’s successor, Andrew Johnson, ignored the order but the idea has nevertheless lived on. Not much happened on reparations until 1988 when Representative John Conyers introduced HR 40, a bill to establish a national commission to study reparations, but this bill died in committee.
A major justification for reparations is to equalize the racial wealth divide. As the Brookings Institution, hardly a radical thinktank, put it, “Central to the idea of the American Dream lies an assumption that we all have an equal opportunity to generate the kind of wealth that brings meaning to the words ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’”
Will awarding large sums of money to Black people equalize the racial wealth gap? The answer is “no,” and the political damage that this effort will far outweigh its immense monetary cost.
This wealth gap is massive and enduring. According to recent Federal Reserve data, the average White family has eight times the wealth of the average Black family with the average Black family’s wealth being 15% of what the average White family possesses. Nineteen percent of Black families have zero or negative net wealth. The gap extends far beyond income differences though this is significant. Differences exist in inheritances, multiple savings and investment plans, plus how Whites gravitate toward investments that appreciate over time, especially home ownership and education.
Can reparations close or at least narrow this gulf? Much, naturally, depends on the size of this wealth transfer, and payment details while per person award figures have ranged from a about a quarter million to, in San Francisco, five million. Nevertheless, regardless of the final sum, given what we know about how people manage money, there is little cause for optimism.
Spending among Blacks will, for political reasons, likely be discretionary versus restricted to “good things.” Recipients also cannot be forced to heed advice from financial experts. Given this discretion, there can be no rule that money only goes towards diminishing gaps in assets. Conceivably, at least some Blacks will prefer spending reparations on short-term items that rapidly depreciate. This likelihood is hardly hypothetical. One study shows a distinct proclivity among affluent Blacks for spending to achieve “style” and social standing, notably designer luxury brands. Data also show that Blacks are less likely than Whites to save money -- half of all Blacks have no retirement accounts.
Meanwhile, studies of all-too-common bankruptcies among super-rich professional athletes (many of whom are African American) revealed a weakness for conspicuously showing off, for example, gifting exotic cars to families and friends, over-the-top personalized jewelry, and hosting big-time nightclub extravagances. Even a half-million-dollar windfall can vanish in a year or two, as these bankruptcies illustrate.
Similar evidence of misspending comes from those winning mega lotteries. A website even catalogues the worst disasters. Accounts often tell of winners being overgenerous to charities, extravagant vacations, ill-advised business ventures and otherwise acting foolishly. Particularly troublesome was the difficulty of saying “no” to friends and family. Eventually, everything ended thanks to going broke. Indeed, the tribulations of the new super-rich are sufficiently common that psychologists even have a name for it -- the sudden wealth syndrome.
It hardly helps that these recipients will often have limited experience managing large sums versus just paying monthly bills. Building a diversified stock portfolio and then patiently waiting years for it to double will not be easy. It might be too tempting to wait decades to pass wealth to progeny. The financially unsophisticated may also struggle with the ultimate safe investment for building wealth -- buying a house. Will those receiving a $250,000 check and then spending half on a down payment for a half million-dollar house be able to calculate the yearly maintenance expenses, property taxes, and insurance? When the federal government encouraged banks to offer mortgages to previously unqualified minorities, foreclosures skyrocketed, and this may occur again. Nor can there be any guarantee of increased value. Markets fluctuate and value can decline if nearby schools deteriorate, crime rises, and potential buyers find the house in ill repair. Home ownership hardly guarantees increased wealth.
There is also the possibility of a renewed effort by swindlers to target the newly rich. Even without all the money that would flow from reparations, many Blacks, especially those with limited education, are often victimized by the lure of easy money. According to one study, 41% of African Americans say they were targeted by scammers, and this figure would undoubtedly soar after billions were distributed via reparations. Tellingly, many of these fraud artists were fellow African Americans, often claiming a common religious affiliation and played on current issues of particular relevance to Blacks, notably support for the Black Lives Matter movement.
The quest for reparations is a risky fool’s errand. The awaiting legal problems that derive from laws banning racial discrimination cannot be swept aside by appeals to historic White guilt. Nor are the administrative details, for example, who exactly qualifies and standards of proof of slave ancestry, similarly easily resolved. Moreover, reparations paid over decades can create dependency across multiple generations, a sure-fire recipe for yet more racial strife. Most of all, the public soundly rejects the entire idea of reparations and these sentiments are unlikely to soften, regardless of how many commissions are created. This public antipathy is also likely to increase as these commission devise ever and ever larger “payment due” bills for slavery -- $14 trillion in one case -- when hardly any Americans alive today have ancestors who owned slaves.
The reparations crusade can become an electoral disaster for the Democratic Party. Its candidates may be pressured to take stands on the issue, and the choice will be a difficult one. That Blacks comprise a significant voting bloc in several primary states might make it tempting to favor this massive wealth transfer even though the chance of it coming into being is nil (President Biden has already expressed his support). But this pandering may well alienate millions of opponents, many of whom believe that Whites have done more than enough to help Blacks. For them, the trillions spent on public welfare, the war on poverty, and education plus affirmative action are, in fact, reparations and since their impact is uncertain, why spend trillions more?
Yes, many Blacks will find pushing for reparations psychologically satisfying and there is always the hope of a massive windfall, but the pushback from opponents may well be costly. It is hard to imagine Democratic candidates winning majorities by embracing an unpopular policy with scant likelihood of achieving its goal while costing hundreds of billions if not trillions. There are better ways to overcome the tribulations of African Americans.
HOW MUCH OF CRIME IN AMERICA IS BLACK?
As the crime wave sweeps across President Joe Biden’s (D) America, citizens are “more likely now than at any time over the past five decades to say there is more crime in their local area than there was a year ago,” Gallup reported in October.
US Veteran takes down knife-wielding man in Walmart
As the crime wave sweeps across President Joe Biden’s (D) America, citizens are “more likely now than at any time over the past five decades to say there is more crime in their local area than there was a year ago,” Gallup reported in October.
At Least 21 Shot During Weekend in Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s Chicago
Illinois’s new SAFE-T Act is going lenient on criminals – and that’s bad news for our police officers
I’m really trying to figure out what Illinois officials are thinking when it comes to their newly passed SAFE-T act. SAFE-T stands for Safety, Accountability, Fairness and Equity-Today, and it has a number of provisions in place that make things a little more lenient in certain areas for defendants and criminals.
Here are a couple of examples. First off, defendants are no longer immediately considered flight risks, no matter what the crime may be. Furthermore, those that wear some sort of electronic monitoring have a 48-hour window in which they can leave home before they’re charged with a violation.
There are others as well – in fact, quite a few. Franklin County Sheriff Kyle Bacon actually went over quite a few of them, explaining to Fox News, "Trying to sift through a thousand pages to determine where our role is and what's going to change and how we can best serve the citizens that we protect has been first and foremost for us."
Think about that for a second. Illinois police are already going through a world of hell with their prolonged shifts and shortages in ranks, either by retirement, straight-up leaving or even suicide. But now, on top of that, this newly passed set of laws will have them reworking procedures almost entirely, all for the sake of giving defendants and would-be criminals more leniency.
“We’ve spent a lot of time trying to prepare for what’s coming,” Bacon noted at the time of the SAFE-T Act’s passing. But in order to do this, he’s had to go through "what feels like hundreds of hours of training and discussion” to figure things out. That could’ve been time better spent on, well, anything. Talking to your fellow officers about mental preparedness. Trying to figure out programs that can actually benefit citizens of the state. Anything but working your way, line by line, over these new provisions that seem like a gigantic pain.
Illinois State Capitol, where the Act was enacted into law
Now, there are some things that didn’t go through on the bill, including pre-trial release and bail reforms, both of which were shut down by the Supreme Court. But that didn’t stop city officials from passing the rest and creating a world of nuisance for those that wear the badge.
See, here’s the thing. SAFE-T may seem like it’s put in place to assist criminals, but in fact, it’s not giving them the proper time needed to learn their lesson. The big problem with this is, well, say you’ve got a drug addict. And he or she is arrested for doing something drug-related. Rather than taking the time to rehabilitate and attempt to get clean, the SAFE-T act allows them to be freed a lot quicker – and then it’s right back to the drugs, provided they don’t have any sort of counseling assigned at the time of their release.
Bacon noted, "there's not a drug offense other than one involving a firearm or a high-level drug offense that is detainable. Not to mention criminals that, thanks to the Act, can now conveniently fly out of the city if needed, or even “get away” for 48 hours without any retaliation. I don’t know about you, but there’s a lot I can do in 48 hours. Imagine what someone with a criminally based mind can do.
Honestly, I don’t think Illinois put enough thought into the SAFE-T act. There are some things that I can imagine would make sense, like making non-violent trespassing more of a minor offense than an arrestable one. But you never know when a situation like that will turn violent and when an officer will be ill-prepared for it.
We’ve already seen a number of lawsuits knock down some of the rules that Illinois was trying to pass with SAFE-T. But it’s concerning to see what more could come from it, especially as officers feel the strain from it. That’s something those officials should have taken into consideration.
18 Shot Friday into Saturday Night in Mayor Lightfoot’s Chicago
At least 18 people were shot, two of them fatally, Friday into Saturday night in Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s (D) Chicago.
A 35-year-old man was shot and killed just after 10:30 p.m. Friday, following an argument “in the 300 block of North Hamlin Avenue,” ABC 7 / Chicago Sun-Timesreported.
The person with whom the 35-year-old was arguing pulled a handgun and shot the 35-year-old in the chest.
A man was walking on the sidewalk in the “5300 block of West Altgeld Street” at 3:00 a.m. when a black sedan pulled up beside him and someone opened fire. The man was transported for medical attention and pronounced dead.
The Sun-Timesidentified the shooting victim as 32-year-old Ramiro Mendez.
The Sun-Times keeps a database of homicides occurring in Chicago and notes that 30 people were killed in the city January 1, 2023, through January 21, 2023.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. AWR Hawkins holds a Ph.D. in Military History, with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.
At Least 21 Shot During Weekend in Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s Chicago
At least 21 people were shot, four of them fatally, during the weekend in Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s (D) Chicago.
ABC 7 / Chicago Sun-Timesreports the weekend’s first fatal shooting occurred shortly before noon Saturday, when a 29-year-old man “in the South Austin neighborhood’s 5600-block of West Lake Street” was approached by three men, one of whom opened fire.
The victim was shot twice and pronounced dead after being taken to the hospital.
The weekend’s second fatal shooting was discovered about 11:40 a.m. Sunday, when officers found an unresponsive man with multiple gunshot wounds “in the 400-block of East 82nd Street.”
The man was transported to a hospital and pronounced dead.
The third fatal shooting took place at 5:30 p.m. Sunday, when a 41-year-old woman was shot “in the 6200-block of South Michigan Avenue.” The woman was shot in chest and the neck. She was taken to a hospital, where she died.
A 25-year-old man was shot and killed just minutes before that on Sunday. The man was in a car “in the 2600-block of West Fitch Avenue” when someone in a black vehicle opened fire.
The 25-year-old was shot twice and taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
The Sun-Timesnotes that 23 people were killed in Chicago during the first 15 days of 2023.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. AWR Hawkins holds a Ph.D. in Military History, with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.
MLK Day: Illegal Immigration Crushes Opportunities for Black American Men, Civil Rights Commission Finds
America’s working class — and specifically black men — have had their employment opportunities and wages crushed by waves of low-skilled illegal immigration, the United States Commission on Civil Rights finds.
In 2008, the Commission issued a briefing report following deep analysis and interviews with various experts across the political spectrum. The goal of the report was to determine the role that illegal immigration plays in the lives of the nation’s working class and, more precisely, black Americans.
“In the midst of public debate over immigration reform, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights voted to examine the possible effects of illegal immigration on particularly vulnerable segments of the U.S. working population, specifically low-skill black workers,” the report states.
The Commission ultimately found that illegal immigration — on a scale ranging from 11 to 22 million illegal aliens living in the U.S., with millions of these illegal aliens holding jobs — has “tended to increase the supply of low-skilled, low-wage labor” that favors employers’ profit margins.
Black American men, with education rates lower than the average American, “are disproportionately employed in the low-skilled labor market, where they are more likely to be in labor competition with immigrants,” the Commission report states:
Illegal immigration to the United States in recent decades has tended to depress both wages and employment rates for low-skilled American citizens, a disproportionate number of whom are black men. Expert economic opinions concerning the negative effects range from modest to significant. Those panelists that found modest effects overall nonetheless found significant effects in industry sectors such as meatpacking and construction. [Emphasis added]
The Commission described the impact of illegal immigration on working-class Americans as a “piece of the puzzle that must be considered by policymakers in formulating sound immigration policy,” though recent proposals by Republicans and Democrats have focused almost exclusively on benefitting foreign nationals not yet in the U.S. rather than Americans harmed by decades-long mass immigration.
As a recommendation, the Commission suggested that the Bureau of Labor Statistics collect monthly figures on the number of illegal alien workers in the U.S. and compile data on how their employment is impacting jobs and wages for low-skilled Americans.
To date, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has refused to collect and compile such data.
Peter Kirsanow, the longest-serving member of the Commission, writes in the report that “there is ample evidence to suggest that at a minimum, [illegal immigration] has had an aggravating effect on both the displacement of low-skilled American workers and the racial divide in employment.”
“This is because illegal immigration tends to increase the supply of low-skilled, low-wage labor already available in the U.S. labor market,” Kirsanow writes.
Kirsanow, mirroring the Commission’s findings, proposes that immigration legislation in Congress should start studying how mass immigration worsens “both the displacement of low-skilled American workers and the racial divide in employment.”
In years following the Commission’s report, working-class Americans have seen few remedies from Washington, DC aimed at cutting overall immigration to boost their quality of life and employment opportunities.
Black Americans, in many cases, have seen their circumstances get worse. In a recent example, a group of black Americans lost their agricultural jobs to imported South African visa workers along the Mississippi Delta. The black Americans settled their discrimination claims against their former employers.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
“Obama gave his own personal seal of ethical approval, telling deep-pocketed donors this week: "I appreciate his strong sense of advocacy for ordinary Americans. You can trust him -- you can count on him." Uh-huh. And I've got a bridge to Hope and Change to sell you.”
* Why nepotism beneficiaries First Lady Michelle Obama and Vice President Joe Biden are Team Obama's biggest liberal hypocrites--bashing the corporate world and influence-peddling industries from which they and their relatives have benefited mightily
BARACK OBAMA, LA RAZA FASCISM and the CULTURE of DEM CORRUPTION
They Destroyed Our Country
“They knew Obama was an unqualified crook; yet they promoted him. They knew Obama was a train wreck waiting to happen; yet they made him president, to the great injury of America and the world. They understood he was only a figurehead, an egomaniac, and a liar; yet they made him king, doing great harm to our republic (perhaps irreparable.)”
The larger fear is that Obama might be just another corporatist, punking voters much as the Republicans do when they claim to be all for the common guy.
CRONY CAPITALISM ...the rise of Barack Obama and the fall of America!
OBAMA'S ASSAULT ON AMERICA -WHY WALL STREET, ILLEGALS, CRIMINAL BANKSTERS and the 1% LOVE HIM, AND THE MIDDLE CLASS GETS THE SHAFT TO PAY FOR HIS CRONY CAPITALISM
CEO pay is higher than ever, as is the chasm separating the rich and super-rich from everyone else. The incomes of the top 1 percent grew more than 11 percent between 2009 and 2011—the first two years of the Obama “recovery”—while the incomes of the bottom 99 percent actually shrank.
Meanwhile, Obama is pressing forward with his proposal, outlined in his budget for the next fiscal year, to slash $400 billion from Medicare and $130 billion from Social Security… AS WELL AS WIDER OPEN BORDERS, NO E-VERIFY, NO LEGAL NEED APPLY TO KEEP WAGES DEPRESSED
To my surprise, Jack Cashill's new book, Unmasking Obama, couldn't be more relevant to the political struggle facing us today. In 2020, as in 2008 (and throughout the two Obama presidential terms), the key to political power is what must be called "information warfare" (my term, not Jack's) between the mighty establishment media and the feisty conservative alternative media, which Jack likens to the samizdat underground commentary in the old Soviet Union. It is the process of the unmasking of the phony propaganda peddled by the all-powerful establishment by the resource- and prestige-poor "Lilliputians" (an appropriation of Jonathan Swift's work that the satirist surely would approve of) that is the heart of the book. The narrative history presented in Unmasking Obama is captivating. Jack takes readers along with him as he was both a participant in the warfare and a historian of it, digging up parts of the elusive truth about the real Barack Obama in the face of derision and obstruction that came his way. But Jack is far from the sole hero of the story of the warfare. Because of his literary detective work, proving beyond a reasonable doubt that Bill Ayers wrote the autobiographical book, Dreams from My Father, that first established Obama as a serious intellect, Jack enjoyed access to many of the most formidable truth-tellers about Obama. The book's prologue, in fact, begins with a phone call Jack received in 2011 from a then little-known lawyer named Michael Cohen, acting as a lawyer for Donald Trump. Unmasking Obama takes the reader through the major aspects of the fraudulent picture of Obama that was painted by the media and political establishments and details how the truth was uncovered and often partially suppressed by the retaliatory efforts launched in response. It often resembles detective fiction in the drama of the struggle to get at the truth and the struggle to prevent that. I hesitate to call it beach reading, for it is not in any sense fluff, intended to while away time. But it is vastly entertaining and thought-provoking, and the 218 pages fly by rapidly. Today, exactly the same struggle is underway between the Lilliputians seeking to uncover who really is running the front-man candidacy of Joe Biden and the shadowy movement that is looting and destroying our cities and the coordinated might of the mass media that spends 95% of its time pushing a party line that Trump is an unprecedented threat to human civilization and Joe Biden an amiable and pragmatic centrist. Future historians, if there are any left still interested and able to dispassionately understand how America came to the current point of crisis, will find the story told in Unmasking Obama a very helpful guide. If journalism is the "first draft of history," Unmasking Obama is a well considered second draft, adding crucial perspective and assessment of the consequences of the real-time reports. You don't have to wait that long, though. It went on sale last week, and is well worth your time.
PRITZKER - OBAMA ADDS TO HIS HAREM OF CORRUPT BANKSTERS
THE BANKSTER-OWNED PRESIDENT
(THE LIST BELOW, WHICH DOESN’T MENTION TIM GEITHNER IS ONLY A DROP ON THE BOTTOMLESS BUCKET OF BANKSTER CRIMINALS EMPLOYED BY BARACK OBAMA)
If confirmed, Pritzker will join a cabinet that includes Kerry and Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew, who earned millions of dollars as an executive at Citigroup by betting against the housing market as it collapsed. Mary Jo White, Obama’s chairman of the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC)—the federal agency tasked with regulating the exchange of stocks and other securities—made millions as an attorney for banks including Bank of America and JP Morganduring the financial crash
OBAMA’S CRONY CAPITALISM – A NATION RULED BY CRIMINAL WALL STREET BANKSTERS AND OBAMA DONORS
Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies
by Michelle Malkin
Editorial Reviews
In her shocking new book, Malkin digs deep into the records of President Obama's staff, revealing corrupt dealings, questionable pasts, and abuses of power throughout his administration.
OBAMA HAS ALWAYS SERVED THE BILLIONAIRES AND BANKSTERS CLASS. It’s the rest of us who get the tax bills for their crimes, bailouts and handouts!
Senators forgive Penny Pritzker’s $80 million “mistake”
By Zac Corrigan
On the eve of her confirmation hearing, President Obama’s nominee for commerce secretary, Penny Pritzker, admitted that she had underreported her 2012 income to the tune of $80 million, blaming a clerical error. Pritzker is worth an estimated $1.85 billion and would become the wealthiest US cabinet member in history. Her nomination underscores the increasingly plutocratic character of the Obama administration and the US government at large.
The $80 million in earnings that had been omitted were related to Pritzker’s role managing trust funds—financial instruments used by wealthy families to control vast sums of money across generations—and $54 million of it was related to an offshore fund based in the Bahamas. This admission comes in the wake of a recent study showing that as of 2012, wealthy Americans are hoarding up to $32 trillion in offshore accounts to avoid paying taxes.
Pritzker has played an important role in the Democratic Party’s own finances for years. She was the chair of Obama’s 2008 campaign finance team, which raised over $778 million, a record at the time. She went on to co-chair—along with Chicago Mayor and former Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel—the president’s 2012 re-election campaign, which raised over $1 billion. She contributed $250,000 to Obama’s 2013 inauguration festivities. She is also a member of Obama’s Jobs Council, which advises the president on economic matters.
Pritzker’s record shows that Obama could hardly have picked someone more versed in the intricacies of modern financial swindling, nor more deeply immersed in the opulent world of the global elite, to “foster, promote, and develop the foreign and domestic commerce”—such is the stated mission of the US Department of Commerce which she will head, pending congressional approval.
To begin with, Pritzker’s family is one of the wealthiest in Chicago. She is heiress to the Hyatt hotels fortune. She is a director of Hyatt Hotels Corp, which operates the luxury hotel chain and nursing homes, and whose profits are based on low-wage service work. A 53-year-old Hyatt hotel housekeeper who attended the hearing told the Chicago Tribune that she cleans 16 rooms a day for $14.60 an hour with no paid lunch break, and is working under an expired contract.
Especially scandalous is Pritzker’s involvement in the 2001 collapse of Superior Bank of Chicago, where as CEO she pioneered the predatory subprime lending practices that would lead to the financial crash of 2008. In May of 2001, Pritzker told bank employees in a written letter, “Our commitment to subprime lending has never been stronger and we are fully expecting to participate in restoring the bank’s presence.”
Two months later, Superior was closed and its $1.1 billion in paper assets were sold for $52 million to Charter One Financial, Inc. Depositors collectively lost millions of dollars that will never be repaid, while Pritzker and family nonetheless pocketed close to $200 million during their ownership of the bank.
When Senator John Thune (R-South Dakota) broached the subject of Superior at Thursday’s confirmation hearing, Pritzker’s crocodile tears seemed to satisfy. “I regret the failure of Superior Bank,” she said, calling it a situation she felt “very badly about.” Thune later commented, “I’m very impressed with her qualifications,” and told reporters he expected the committee to vote in favor of her nomination.
Pritzker was treated with kid gloves by senators at the hearing. When Illinois senators Dick Durbin (D) and Mark Kirk (R ) introduced her to the committee before the hearing, Kirk called her “a vibrant part of the Jewish world,” and Durbin noted admiringly that not only had she “inherited a few dollars,” but also she had “made a few dollars in her life.” Other senators who praised Pritzker during and after the hearing include Ted Cruz (R-Texas) who called her an “enthusiastic and unapologetic advocate of free trade,” and Roy Blunt (R-Missouri) who told the hotel heiress, “You know more about [foreign tourism] than most anyone else in this room.”
It is no mystery why senators from both parties are so enamored. Over half of them are millionaires, some many times over. In 2011, the median net worth of the Senate was $2.63 million. The chair of the Senate committee reviewing her nomination is Jay Rockefeller (D-West Virginia), great-grandson of Standard Oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller, net worth $86 million. John Kerry, who left the senate in February to become Obama’s new secretary of state, is worth many hundreds of millions through his wife’s inheritance of the Heinz Foods fortune.
This is a government of and for the rich. In an epoch of historic and ever-increasing levels of social inequality, profit is more and more acquired through risky financial speculation increasingly divorced from the production of real value. In politics, the ruling elite no longer feels it necessary to give lip service to government “of, by and for the people,” and multimillionaires and billionaires take on direct responsibility for running the government, setting policy and making and enforcing regulations.
THE BANKSTER-OWNED PRESIDENT
If confirmed, Pritzker will join a cabinet that includes Kerry and Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew, who earned millions of dollars as an executive at Citigroup by betting against the housing market as it collapsed. Mary Jo White, Obama’s chairman of the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC)—the federal agency tasked with regulating the exchange of stocks and other securities—made millions as an attorney for banks including Bank of America and JP Morganduring the financial crash
Pritzker of the 1% serving Obama serve the 1%. THE INCEST OF OBAMA AND HIS CRONY CAPITALIST
“Pritzker has garnered broad support from Democrats and groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable.”... these entities endorse Obama's assault on the American worker, our borders for more illegals, the Obama amnesty hoax to keep wages depressed and NO E-VERIFY!
PRITZKER IS ALL THE ABOVE!
“Pritzker has garnered broad support from Democrats and groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable.”
OBAMA’S BILLIONAIRE NOMINEE FOR COMMERCE, PENNY PRITZKER… BILLION$$$$ MADE OFF HIRING CHEAP ILLEGAL LABOR??? show me even one dem billionaire that does not push for Obama’s agenda of OPEN BORDERS, NO E-VERIFY and NO ENFORCEMENT of LAWS PROHIBITING THE EMPLOYMENT of ILLEGALS…even one!
Based in Chicago, Pritzker operates an international empire based on low-wage service work in Hyatt-operated hotels and nursing homes, along with several investment firms.
Pritzker has garnered broad support from Democrats and groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable.”... these entities endorse Obama's assault on the American worker, our borders for more illegals, the Obama amnesty hoax to keep wages depressed and NO E-VERIFY!
PRITZKER IS ALL THE ABOVE!
ARE AMAZED AT HOW UTTERLY BRAZEN THESE CORPORATE OWNED POLITICIANS ARE?
GET THIS BOOK!
Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies
by Michelle Malkin
Editorial Reviews
In her shocking new book, Malkin digs deep into the records of President Obama's staff, revealing corrupt dealings, questionable pasts, and abuses of power throughout his administration.
From the Inside Flap
The era of hope and change is dead....and it only took six months in office to kill it.
Never has an administration taken office with more inflated expectations of turning Washington around. Never have a media-anointed American Idol and his entourage fallen so fast and hard. In her latest investigative tour de force, New York Times bestselling author Michelle Malkin delivers a powerful, damning, and comprehensive indictment of the culture of corruption that surrounds Team Obama's brazen tax evaders, Wall Street cronies, petty crooks, slum lords, and business-as-usual influence peddlers. In Culture of Corruption, Malkin reveals:
* Why nepotism beneficiaries First Lady Michelle Obama and Vice President Joe Biden are Team Obama's biggest liberal hypocrites--bashing the corporate world and influence-peddling industries from which they and their relatives have benefited mightily
* What secrets the ethics-deficient members of Obama's cabinet--including Hillary Clinton--are trying to hide
* Why the Obama White House has more power-hungry, unaccountable "czars" than any other administration
* How Team Obama's first one hundred days of appointments became a litany of embarrassments as would-be appointee after would-be appointee was exposed as a tax cheat or had to withdraw for other reasons
* How Obama's old ACORN and union cronies have squandered millions of taxpayer dollars and dues money to enrich themselves and expand their power
* How Obama's Wall Street money men and corporate lobbyists are ruining the economy and helping their friends In Culture of Corruption, Michelle Malkin lays bare the Obama administration's seamy underside that the liberal media would rather keep hidden.
• ISBN-10: 1596981091
• ISBN-13: 978-1596981096
Michelle Malkin
No Shady Banking Buddy Left Behind
First Lady Michelle Obama's latest overseas jaunt is getting all the headlines. But President Obama's money-grubbing junket to Chicago may cost taxpayers far more in the long run. With his Gaultier-clad wife sashaying around the Spanish seaside, the lonely fundraiser-in-chief returned to Illinois to take care of some birthday-week business. Job One: Filling the Senate campaign coffers of his corruption-tainted political protege Alexi Giannoulias.
Mission accomplished. Obama's Thursday afternoon campaign event for Giannoulias, the beleaguered state treasurer of Illinois, reportedly raked in $1 million. Lagging behind his GOP opponent, liberal Republican Rep. Mark Kirk, Giannoulias has coveted one-on-one, grip-and-grin time with Obama for months. In addition to the cash, photo-ops and video of the Obama fundraising event that Giannoulias will milk from now until Election Day, the White House has dispatched Vice President Joe Biden, White House senior adviser David Axelrod and White House campaign management guru David Plouffe to boost Giannoulias' bid. Plouffe proclaimed Democrats "all in" for Giannoulias, whom he described as "a great progressive champion."
Obama gave his own personal seal of ethical approval, telling deep-pocketed donors this week: "I appreciate his strong sense of advocacy for ordinary Americans. You can trust him -- you can count on him." Uh-huh. And I've got a bridge to Hope and Change to sell you.
What would Giannoulias know about "ordinary Americans"? Giannoulias, 34, befriended Obama during pickup basketball games with an elite group that also included Michelle Obama's brother, Craig; Chicago edu-crat Arne Duncan (now Education Secretary); and hedge fund manager John Rogers (the ex-husband of the Obamas' ex-White House social secretary, Desiree Rogers). He spread his wealth and influence around early and often to support Obama's fledgling political career. He pitched in $7,000 in 2003-2004 to Obama's Illinois State Senate bids. He hosted fundraisers for Obama's U.S. Senate campaign in 2004 and for his presidential campaign in 2007.
Where'd the cash come from? Giannoulias' Greek immigrant family founded Chicago-based Broadway Bank, a now-defunct financial institution that loaned tens of millions of dollars to convicted mafia felons and faced bankruptcy after decades of engaging in risky, high-flying behavior. It's the place where Obama parked his 2004 U.S. Senate campaign funds. And it's the same place where a mutual friend of Obama and Giannoulias -- convicted Obama fundraiser/slum lord Tony Rezko -- used to bounce nearly $500,000 in bad checks written to Las Vegas casinos. This week, the Chicago Sun-Times revealed an additional $22.75 million Broadway Bank loan to a Rezko-owned business in 2006. Giannoulias held an ownership stake in the bank at the time.
Giannoulias served as Broadway Bank vice president and senior loan officer for four years. According to the Chicago Tribune, during Giannoulias' tenure, some $27 million of Broadway Bank's funny money went to mob crooks Michael "Jaws" Giorango and Demitri Stavropoulos. Giorango is a hustler who fronted a nationwide prostitution ring and was sentenced to six months in prison; Stavropoulos is behind bars for operating a multistate bookmaking ring. Giorango ran the $400-an-hour call girl operation out of high-rise luxury apartments in Chicago with the infamous "Gold Coast Madam," Rose Laws. Giorango and Stavropoulos used their Broadway Bank loans to start their own risky lending business for nontraditional borrowers unable to secure traditional bank financing.
Despite Giorango's criminal record exposed by the Tribune in 2004, Broadway Bank approved massive mortgages for him. Giannoulias' brother, Demetris, explained that as a "relationship bank," Broadway wouldn't just throw someone under the bus because of a "bad article." Instead, the bank went ahead and rubber-stamped a September 2005 loan for $3.4 million to buy a 32-unit Los Angeles apartment complex. The application falsely stated that the borrower, Giorango, had "not been convicted of a felony." Giannoulias oversaw the servicing of such shady loans totaling $11 million. Remember: He was no low-level staffer. He was, as he reminded supporters when he needed to deflect attention away from his youth, top management at Broadway Bank.
In January 2010, the bank entered a consent decree with federal and Illinois state regulators. It required Broadway Bank "to raise tens of millions in capital, stop paying dividends to the family without regulatory approval, and hire an outside party to evaluate the bank's senior management." The city's former inspector general blasted Giannoulias and his family for tapping $70 million worth of dividends in 2007 and 2008 as the real estate crash loomed. Broadway Bank was sitting on an estimated $250 million in bad loans. In late April, federal regulators shut it down. Cost to taxpayers: an estimated $390 million. Giannoulias refused to drop out of the race -- and instead used the company failure to argue that it made him (SET ITAL) more (END ITAL) qualified to serve in office: "I have a renewed vigor and a new perspective on just how horrible it is out there for so many people."
President Obama agrees: Abysmal failure should be rewarded with promotion. He's leaving no shady banking buddy behind.
Meanwhile, studies of all-too-common bankruptcies among super-rich professional athletes (many of whom are African American) revealed a weakness for conspicuously showing off, for example, gifting exotic cars to families and friends, over-the-top personalized jewelry, and hosting big-time nightclub extravagances. Even a half-million-dollar windfall can vanish in a year or two, as these bankruptcies illustrate.
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