Jack Cashill’s new book, Unmasking Obama: The Fight to Tell the True Story of a Failed Presidency, is widely available. See also www.cashill.com.
Obama lets the cat out of the bag: He's got plans to make Joe Biden his stooge
https://globalistbarackobama.blogspot.com/2020/12/barack-hussein-obama-will-joe-biden-be.html
Joe Biden, who couldn't even get President Obama's endorsement during the primaries, now has word that Obama may well use him as his marionette stooge for what's in fact a third Obama term.
He's not even trying to hide it.
OPERATION OBOMB: Barack Obama, Eric Holder and their bankster paymasters plan coup.
Barack Obama was famous not wanting to leave office when his term was done and well known for projecting a sense of entitlement to power.
https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2020/11/lawyer-barack-obama-and-his-attack-dog.html
Biden positions, after doing nothing, save for the end, at best, to help Biden's presidential campaign, suggesting that the hollow-victory Biden administration is just a placeholder for the return of an Obama third term. It's a sign that Obama éminence grise is more than a little active, behind the scenes as she always is.
“Obama’s new home in Washington has been described as the “nerve center” of the anti-Trump opposition. Former attorney general Eric Holder has said that Obama is “ready to roll” and has aligned himself with the “resistance.” Former high-level Obama campaign staffers now work with a variety of groups organizing direct action against Trump’s initiatives. “Resistance School,” for example, features lectures by former campaign executive Sara El-Amine, author of the Obama Organizing.”
Obamas spending Christmas in Hawaii and generate the best picture ever of the former first couple
It’s no surprise anymore when our ruling class travels for Christmas or any other reason that strikes their fancy, while the rest of us are told to give up family reunions, and even church services. So seeing Barack and Michelle Obama in Hawaii, able to jet around wherever their fancy takes them, enjoying their scores of millions of dollars earned from Netflix, books and other post-presidential activities is no surprise. Obviously, Barack has not reached the point he mentioned in 2010, when he said, “I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money.”
I am actually grateful they took the opportunity to go kayaking and generate the picture in the tweet below, which is to my eyes the best, most revealing view of the couple ever taken.
The Obamas traveled to Hawaii for a Christmas vacation as they told Americans to stay home. The Obamas are staying in their ‘winter White House’ in Hawaii for a ... https://t.co/AmlNhlIlKZ
— Conservative News Daily (@ConservNewsDly) December 24, 2020
JUDICIAL WATCH’S TEN MOST CORRUPT LIST
President Barack Obama: During his presidential campaign, President Obama promised to run an ethical and transparent administration. However, in his first year in office, the President has delivered corruption and secrecy, bringing Chicago-style political corruption to the White House. JUDICIAL WATCH
“Attorney General Eric Holder's tenure was a low point even within the disgraceful scandal-ridden Obama years.” DANIEL GREENFIELD / FRONTPAGE MAG
During his presidency, Obama bragged that his administration was “the only thing between [Wall Street] and the pitchforks.”
In fact, Obama handed the robber barons and outright criminals responsible for the 2008–09 financial crisis a multi-trillion-dollar bailout. His administration oversaw the largest redistribution of wealth in history from the bottom to the top one percent, spearheading the attack on the living standards of teachers and autoworkers.
The Republican staff of the US House Committee on Financial Services released a report Monday presenting its findings on why the Obama Justice Department and then-Attorney General Eric Holder chose not to prosecute the British-based HSBC bank for laundering billions of dollars for Mexican and Colombian drug cartels.
“This was not because of difficulties in securing indictments or convictions. On the contrary, Attorney General Eric Holder told a Senate committee in March of 2013 that the Obama administration chose not to prosecute the big banks or their CEOs because to do so might “have a negative impact on the national economy.”
“Judicial Watch’s records request is designed to expose how California state legislators are wasting tax dollars to take care of another corrupt politician – Eric Holder – under the guise of resisting the rule of law on immigration and other matters,” stated Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton. “His record at the Clinton and Obama Justice Departments demonstrates a willingness to bend the law in order to protect his political patrons.”
Elizabeth Warren says she wants to get rid of corruption, but not once have I heard her complain about the massive corruption during the Obama years or at her precious CFPB, so she really doesn't care. JACK HELLNER
And it all got much, much worse after 2008, when the schemes collapsed and, as Lemann points out, Barack Obama did not aggressively rein in Wall Street as Roosevelt had done, instead restoring the status quo ante even when it meant ignoring a staggering white-collar crime spree. RYAN COOPER
The moral decay of the US comes in part from the media
By Jack Hellner
When President Obama was elected, he pledged
to remake America. It is a shame he did so
much damage to the fabric of America in eight
short years.
The Obama/Biden was the most corrupt, criminal
administration any of us has ever seen, yet the
media cheered or covered up all the abuse of
power, obstruction of Justice and other crimes.
Pollak: Barack Obama Himself Was the Threat to the Rule of Law
10 May 20203860
2:47
Former President Barack Obama warned Friday that the “rule of law is at risk” because former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn will no longer be prosecuted.
Obama’s remarks, leaked from a private conference call with members of something called the “Obama Alumni Association,” show a breathtaking lack of self-awareness.
Obama himself was the threat to the rule of law, both during his presidency and as it ended.
As Breitbart News has previously noted, Obama routinely violated the Constitution’s separation of powers, challenging America’s constitutional foundation in a way no president before him had done in peacetime.
“I’ve got a pen, and I’ve got a phone,” Obama said, threatening to use — and abuse — his executive power — rather than allow the constitutional process of legislation to proceed.
Here are just a few of Obama’s more egregious violations:
Refusing to submit the Iran deal to the Senate for ratification
Declaring the Senate in recess when it was not (struck down, later, in a 9-0 Supreme Court decision)
Defying the courts when told to renew oil and gas activity in the Gulf of Mexico, or to stop giving amnesty to illegal aliens
Threatening the Supreme Court after Citizens United, and before the Obamacare decision
Altering Obamacare’s statutory deadline unilaterally
Creating the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA) programs after admitting it was unconstitutional
Trying to wipe out the coal industry
Moreover, the Flynn investigation itself undermined the rule of law by targeting a man the government knew was innocent of any crime. Similarly, Obama’s own effort to protect Hillary Clinton, and his administration’s attempt to undermine Trump through false allegations of “Russia collusion,” also violated the rule of law.
Last week it emerged that it was Obama himself who told then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates about Flynn’s lawful conversation with the Russian ambassador, which set the investigative wheels in motion.
Obama’s phony protest suggests he is feeling desperate as attention turns, finally, to his own role in the affair.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). His new book, RED NOVEMBER, is available for pre-order. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
Equality vs. equity in Joe Biden's America
Equality means treating everyone with fairness. In a society governed by the principles of equality, every citizen has the same, or an equal, opportunity to achieve success regardless of age, gender, race, religion, political affiliation, or any other reason, save for the limitations of that individual's qualifications and abilities. Laws are to be applied the same to individuals whether they happen to be rich or poor, black or white, or Republican or Democrat. Is the United States a fair society, where everyone has more or less an equal opportunity to achieve success? Yes and no. Only these two examples are necessary to prove that the United States provides equal opportunities for literally anyone with initiative: Barack Obama and Richard Montanez.
Of course, we all know that Barack Obama came from humble origins in Hawaii to become the first black president in U.S. history. In spite of only having a brief career as a community organizer and a longer stint as a politician, Obama has managed to rake in tens of millions of dollars for “writing” an absurd number of memoirs for a man who has accomplished remarkably little in his life.
But who the heck is Richard Montanez? The former janitor mopping the floors at the Frito Lay factory in Rancho Cucamonga, California was only earning four bucks an hour plus benefits when he pitched the idea of Flaming Hot Cheetos to Pepsi CEO Roger Enrico, a marketing concept that earned billions of dollars in profits. Obama received his juris doctor degree from Harvard, while Montanez jokes that he earned a PhD from being poor, hungry, and determined. By seizing his opportunity for success, Richard Montanez achieved the American dream and, in the process, earned a lot of equity from the new brand he helped create. His net worth today is estimated between $14 and $15 million dollars, and Montanez is currently CEO of the Cheetos brand. Not bad for a former janitor, right?
Is this a great country, or what?
The word equity simply means “ownership.” Consider this simplistic example as an illustration of how the concept of equity applies to a real-world scenario: If investor “A” and investor “B” decided to start a business together and each invested $1,000, each would own fifty percent of the equity in the company. But if “A” invested $1,000 and “B” only put in $100, in theory (and most likely reality) “B” would only own ten percent equity in the company. Isn’t that fair?
If “A” has more capital at stake, shouldn’t the percentage of ownership reflect the disproportionate risk “A” is taking in this new business? Of course, it’s fair, if everything else is equal. Nothing is stopping “B” from investing his or her time and labor to earn stock grants and increase the percentage of equity in the company, or to open his or her own business with other capital without using any money from “A.”
Please note that nothing in this scenario is being given for free: ownership in the company can either be bought or earned.
What is not fair is for investor “A” and investor “B” to put in equal amounts of capital and work for the company, and investor “B” to claim more than fifty percent ownership in the company simply because investor “A” and investor “B” happen to have differing degrees of melanin, or because “A” is a Republican and “B” is a Democrat.
That is discriminatory, and patently unfair. And why has the concept of equality versus equity suddenly become important?
Liberals are trying to exploit the fact that the words sound similar to push their agenda calling for the redistribution of wealth in an attempt to guarantee every American an equal outcome instead of ensuring they have an equal opportunity to succeed.
As proof, simply listen to what they say in these “educational” cartoon videos like this one from Maine’s Rising Tide Center and count how many times the word “give” is being used instead of “earned”, which isn’t mentioned at all. Nor is the word “merit.” The problem with this sort of gift exchange is the donor isn’t willing, and the recipient isn’t necessarily deserving. It’s all discriminatory and based on perceptions. If you want a haughty and much more verbose explanation using the same basic analogy of three kids standing on boxes to look over a fence, you might prefer this longer explanation from Carneades.org.
The problem with these examples is that they assume society as a whole ought to be giving these three kids trying to look over a fence to see a baseball game anything. What gives them the right to look over the fence without paying for the privilege? Why should they be allowed to watch the baseball game without buying a ticket? Why is it “fair” to take something of value from one individual without compensation so it can be given to another individual as a “free” gift?
If individual “A” gives his property to individual “B” by choice, it is called charity. If individual “B” takes the property of “A” by stealth or force, it is a crime either called theft or robbery. But to some liberals, the second scenario becomes perfectly legal when a group calling itself government robs or steals from individual “A”. The question then becomes, are government’s motives altruistic in nature, or self-serving?
The answer to that question can be found in a message from Joe Biden to a collection of black civil rights leaders in this leaked conference call from early December. Please, ignore the racist, incoherent nature of this rant beginning at 1:14 for a moment and think about what Joe is really trying to say:
“But my over-arching objective (is) if we cannot make significant progress on racial equity this country is doomed. It is doomed not just because of African Americans, but because by 2040 this country is going to be minority white European. You hear me? Minority white European. And you guys are going to have to start working more with Hispanics, who make up a larger portion of the population than y’all do in terms of raw numbers. We’re gonna have to be working with a whole group of people that are in fact the single most diverse democracy in American history and anywhere the world. And we’ve got to figure out how to unify this country. And you’ve been the leaders who are being able to do that. Not a joke.”
BLOG EDITOR: THE BANKSTER REGIME OF LAWYER BARACK OBAMA, LAWYER JOE BIDEN AND LAWYER ERIC HOLDER DID ABSOLUTELY NADA FOR BLACK AMERICA. THEY WERE TO BUSY SURRENDERING OUR BORDERS TO MEXICO AND COUNTING THEIR BANKSTERS' BRIBES!
Joe claimed that the country is doomed, but what he really meant is that the Democratic Party’s strategy of divide-and-conquer identity politics is doomed because black liberals aren’t going to be able to blame white conservatives for their own lack of initiative forever. They only have until 2040 to figure out how to buy enough votes to win future elections.
Now Joe might be senile, but he isn’t stupid. He looked at the election returns from Florida and saw that Latino voters were repelled by Democratic plans for the redistribution of wealth. Joe may have offended Al Sharpton with his blunt assessment of reality, but his audience was largely comprised of people accustomed to receiving something for nothing, so mostly everyone stayed quiet and listened.
And they all heard Joe say the Democratic Party is running out of white people to rob.
John Leonard is a freelance writer and author of Always a Next One, a collection of short stories about animal rescue, as well as the paranormal suspense thriller Secondhand Sight. He may be contacted via his website at southernprose.com
A new Gilded Age has emerged in America — a 21st century version.
The wealth of the top 1% of Americans has grown dramatically in the past four decades, squeezing both the middle class and the poor. This is in sharp contrast to Europe and Asia, where the wealth of the 1% has grown at a more constrained pace.
Yang: ‘Return to the Obama Years’ Not Enough for Biden — They Were Left Behind in Those Years,’ ‘They’re Pissed Off’
Late Tuesday on CNN, former Democratic presidential hopeful Andrew Yang, now a CNN contributor, warned that his old opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden could not defeat Trump with just a pledge to return to the years of former President Barack Obama alone.
According to Yang, it needed to start with an understanding of what problems facing the country led to Trump’s presidency.
“Donald Trump needs to be defeated,” he explained. “Forty-two percent of my supporters said they would not support the Democratic nominee in the general, in large part because when I ran, I ran for the problems that predated Trump. Like, Donald Trump would never be our president today if things were going well for a lot of people around the country. Bernie Sanders would not have almost been the nominee last time if things were going well for people around the country. So even as Joe Biden saying, ‘Hey, we need to defeat Donald Trump,’ he also has to say, ‘Look, things have not been working for millions of Americans, and after we defeat Donald Trump,’ we need to get deep into these problems, get our hands dirty and solve them. This can’t be a, ‘Hey, I’m better than Trump’ race. It has to be, ‘Hey. I understand how Trump became our president.'”
Yang told a CNN panel people were left behind in the Obama-Biden years, and they were not happy about it. He called on Biden to recognize that situation and address it, which he said would better his chances in the 2020 general election.
“I think he’s been talking about restoring a culture, tone and a soul of the country,” Yang added. “I was talking about putting more money in Americans’ hands because I saw we decimated entire ways of life in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin. And because I was talking in those terms about the real problems these people have experienced, again, 42% of my supporters were not going to support the Democratic nominee. I’m hoping that we can get some of those people to support Joe. But it would be helpful if Joe acknowledged it because one of the weaknesses of saying, ‘Hey, return to Obama years’ is that there are many Americans who were getting behind in those years, too, and they’re pissed off. And so, if you say, I’m going to revert, that loses to that group of people. There are so many Americans who just don’t think their institutions are working for him at all, and Joe Biden’s’s weakness is he represents those institutions. I’m endorsing Joe. We need Joe to beat Trump. But we’ll have a much better chance of that if Joe recognizes that our institutions have been failing many Americans for a long time.”
Obama’s State of Delusion ... OR JUST ANOTHER "Hope & Change" HOAX?
”The delusional character of Obama’s State of the Union address on Tuesday—presenting an America of rising living standards and a booming economy, capped by his declaration that the “shadow of crisis has passed”—is perhaps matched only in its presentation by the media and supporters of the Democratic Party.”
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2015/01/oxfam-richest-one-percent-set-to.html
“The general tone was set by the New York Times in its lead editorial on Wednesday, which described the speech as a “simple, dramatic message about economic fairness, about the fact that the well-off—the top earners, the big banks, Silicon Valley—have done just great, while middle and working classes remain dead in the water.”
OBAMANOMICS:
The report observes that while the wealth of the world’s 80 richest people doubled between 2009 and 2014, the wealth of the poorest half of the world’s population (3.5 billion people) was lower in 2014 than it was in 2009.
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2015/01/oxfam-richest-one-percent-set-to.html
In 2010, it took 388 billionaires to match the wealth of the bottom half of the earth’s population; by 2013, the figure had fallen to just 92 billionaires. It fell to 80 in 2014.
THE OBAMA ASSAULT ON THE AMERICAN MIDDLE-CLASS
“The goal of the Obama administration, working with the Republicans and local governments, is to roll back the living conditions of the vast majority of the population to levels not seen since the 19th century, prior to the advent of the eight-hour day, child labor laws, comprehensive public education, pensions, health benefits, workplace health and safety regulations, etc.”
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2015/01/oxfam-richest-one-percent-set-to.html
“In response to the ruthless assault of the financial oligarchy, spearheaded by Obama, the working class must advance, no less ruthlessly, its own policy.”
New Federal Reserve report
US median income has plunged, inequality has grown in Obama “recovery”
The yearly income of a typical US household dropped by a massive 12 percent, or $6,400, in the six years between 2007 and 2013. This is just one of the findings of the 2013 Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances released Thursday, which documents a sharp decline in working class living standards and a further concentration of wealth in the hands of the rich and the super-rich.
New Federal Reserve report
US median income has plunged, inequality has grown in Obama “recovery”
The yearly income of a typical US household dropped by a massive 12 percent, or $6,400, in the six years between 2007 and 2013. This is just one of the findings of the 2013 Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances released Thursday, which documents a sharp decline in working class living standards and a further concentration of wealth in the hands of the rich and the super-rich.
The report makes clear that the drop in a typical household’s income was not merely the result of what is referred to as the 2008 recession, which officially lasted only 18 months, through June 2009. Much of the decline in workers’ incomes occurred during the so-called “economic recovery” presided over by the Obama administration.
In the three years between 2010 and 2013, the annual income of a typical household actually fell by 5 percent.
The Fed report exposes as a fraud the efforts of the Obama administration to present itself as a defender of the “middle class”. It has systematically pursued policies to redistribute wealth from the bottom to the very top of the income ladder. These include the multi-trillion-dollar bailout of the banks, near-zero interest rates to drive up the stock market, and austerity measures and wage cutting to lift corporate profits and CEO pay to record highs.
The Federal Reserve data, based on in-person interviews, show a far larger decline in the median income of American households than indicated by earlier figures from the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey.
In line with the figures on household income, the report shows an ever-growing concentration of wealth among the richest households. The Fed’s summary of its data notes that “the wealth share of the top 3 percent climbed from 44.8 percent in 1989 to 51.8 percent in 2007 and 54.4 percent in 2013,” while the wealth of the “next 7 highest percent of families changed very little.”
The report states that “the rising wealth share of the top 3 percent of families is mirrored by the declining share of wealth held by the bottom 90 percent,” which fell from 33.2 percent in 1989 to 24.7 percent in 2013.
The ongoing impoverishment of the population is an indictment of capitalism. There has been no genuine recovery from the Wall Street crash of 2008, only a further plundering of the economy by the financial aristocracy. The crisis precipitated by the rapacious, criminal practices of the bankers and hedge fund speculators has been used to restructure the economy to the benefit of the rich at the expense of everyone else.
Decent-paying jobs have been wiped out and replaced by low-wage, part-time and temporary jobs, with little or no benefits. Pensions and health benefits have come under savage attack, as seen in the bankruptcy of Detroit.
Not surprisingly, the Fed report has been buried by the American media, confined to the inside pages of the major newspapers.
Measured in 2013 dollars, a typical household received an income of $53,100 in 2007. By 2010, this had fallen to $49,000. It hit $46,700 by 2013. At the same time, the average income for the wealthiest tenth of families grew by ten percent.
While median income fell between 2010 and 2013, mean (average) income grew, from $84,100 to $87,200. The report noted that, “the decline in median income coupled with the rise in mean income is consistent with a widening income distribution during this period.”
For the poorest households, the drop in income has been even more dramatic. Among the bottom quarter of households, mean income fell a full 10 percent between 2010 and 2013.
The report reveals other aspects of the social crisis. The share of young families burdened by education debt nearly doubled, from 22.4 percent to 38.8 percent, between 2001 and 2013. The share of young families with more than $100,000 in debt has grown nearly tenfold, from 0.6 percent to 5.6 percent.
These statistics reflect both a historic and insoluble crisis of the profit system and the brutal policies of the American ruling class, which is carrying out a relentless assault on working people and preparing to go even further by dismantling bedrock social programs such as Medicare and Social Security. The data undercuts the endless talk of “partisan gridlock” in Washington and the media presentation of a political system paralyzed by irreconcilable differences between the Democratic and Republican parties.
There has, in fact, been a seamless continuity between the Bush and Obama administrations in the pursuit of reactionary policies of war abroad and class war at home. The two parties have worked hand in glove to make the working class pay for the crisis of the capitalist system.
The Federal Reserve has itself played a critical role in the growth of social inequality in the US. The bailout of the banks, estimated at $7 trillion, has been followed by six years of virtually free money for the banks.
Every facet of American life is dominated by the immense concentration of wealth at the very top of society. The grotesque levels of wealth amassed by the parasites and criminals who dominate American business, and the flaunting of their fortunes before tens of millions struggling to pay their bills and keep from falling into destitution, are fueling the growth of social anger. This anger will increasingly be directed against the entire economic and political system.
The figures released by the Fed reflect a society riven by class divisions that must inevitably trigger social upheavals. The explosive state of social relations is itself a major factor in the endless recourse by the Obama administration to military aggression and war, which serve to deflect internal tensions outward.
The growth of inequality likewise underlies the relentless attack on democratic rights in the US, including the massive domestic spying exposed by Edward Snowden and the use of militarized police to crack down on social opposition, as seen most recently in Ferguson, Missouri.
Democrats unite with Trump to enact massive corporate bailout
In a celebration of bipartisan unity, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives on Friday approved by voice vote an unprecedented $2.2 trillion bill to bail out the nation’s corporations and banks, while providing limited and temporary aid to workers hit by the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
The House vote followed Wednesday night's 96-0 approval of the measure by the Republican-controlled Senate. President Trump, who had lobbied furiously for the bill, signed it into law only a few hours after it passed the House just after 1:30 p.m.
The $2.2 trillion estimated cost of the bill, equal to more than half of the entire federal budget and far in excess of the $700 billion bank bailout bill passed in 2008, substantially underestimates the actual scale of the government handout to big business. The biggest single slice of the bill, $454 billion to finance guaranteed loans to big corporations, is designed to be leveraged by the Federal Reserve Board into some $4.5 trillion in loans and subsidies.
This amounts to a virtually unlimited backstop for the country's corporate and financial aristocracy, with no real strings attached. The provisions that provide stop-gap assistance to workers who are being laid off in the millions or being ordered to work without any protection against the deadly virus are designed to head off an eruption of class conflict in the short-term, so that the ruling class can buy time and prepare a counteroffensive to place the full cost of the corporate bailout on the backs of the working class. The bill's passage coincides with Trump's push to “open up” the country and force workers back into the plants and workplaces to resume pumping out profits for big business.
The Senate bill was supported by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, one of the two remaining candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination, who shelved his “socialist” pretensions to praise the measure as a boon to working people. There was no effort by the “progressive” allies of Sanders in the House, including Democratic Socialists of America members Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib, to actually oppose the bill.
Ocasio-Cortez railed against the bill during a four-hour floor debate Friday morning, but she failed to follow through with a threat to stall passage of the measure by demanding a roll-call vote. It was a right-wing Republican, Thomas Massie of Kentucky, a member of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus, who sought to delay passage by opposing a voice vote and formally demanding a recorded vote.
With the House in recess, the White House, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy had agreed that they would avoid requiring House members to appear in person to cast votes, under conditions of lockdowns and travel restrictions in large parts of the country and the rapid spread of COVID-19, and seek instead to get the bill approved by unanimous consent. That would have required only a few representatives to be in attendance.
Massie, however, refused to back down, forcing a quorum call to determine whether more than half of the chamber's 435 members were on hand—as they were. He was, however, unable to get a single House member to back his demand for a roll-call vote, allowing the House leadership to push the bill through on a voice vote. There were only a few scattered “nays” amidst the overwhelming chorus of “ayes.”
Following the vote, Pelosi and McCarthy appeared side by side to hail the passage of the bill, cynically casting it as a humanitarian lifeline to ordinary Americans. Pelosi quoted Pope Francis in praising the measure.
The bill includes two main provisions providing aid to workers. It allocates $300 billion for direct cash payments to more than 150 million households. Those eligible, who do not include undocumented workers, will receive $1,200 per adult or $2,400 per couple, plus an additional $500 for each child. This is a one-time subsidy.
In addition, the bill allocates $250 billion to extend unemployment benefits by 13 weeks and add $600 per week to the benefits provided by the states. This federal supplement is to end in early August for workers filing claims this week. The bill also makes freelance and gig workers eligible for the same unemployment benefits.
Some $500 billion is to be distributed to defray the costs of fighting the coronavirus epidemic and other social needs. That sum includes $207 billion for state, local and tribal governments, school districts and public transit agencies; $130 billion for hospitals and public health facilities and $45 billion for the Disaster Relief Fund of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Only $16 billion is set aside for hospitals to procure personal protective equipment and ventilators.
The vast bulk of the bill is a massive handout to business, with most of the money by far going to big corporations. In addition to the $454 billion Treasury backstop for Fed loans and grants to corporations, the bill provides $46 billion in targeted loans from the Treasury Department, mainly to the commercial airline industry, with $17 billion carved out for Boeing.
It sets aside $350 billion in loans and aid to small businesses, which are defined as enterprises with up to 500 employees. This could include multi-billion-dollar hedge funds and other financial firms.
There is also $50 billion for an “employee retention tax credit” to companies that keep their employees on the payroll.
There are other windfalls to business buried in the more than 800 pages of the legislation. One that could directly benefit Trump or his associates is the full restoration to the real estate sector of a huge tax break for interest costs and operating losses that was limited by the 2017 tax overhaul.
Restrictions imposed on corporations receiving government aid are largely nullified by caveats. There is a provision barring businesses receiving loans from cutting their employment levels until September 30. However, this is hedged with the phrase “to the extent practicable.”
Corporate recipients are also barred from raising dividends or carrying out stock buybacks to further enrich executives and big investors. This provision, however, can be waived by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, a multi-millionaire and former CEO of OneWest Bank, where he was sued for illegal home foreclosures.
The bill sets the precedent for the unlimited plundering of social resources to prop up the corporate oligarchy, while providing entirely inadequate assistance to working people devastated by the health and economic impact of a pandemic that could have been either minimized or stopped in its tracks. Multiple advance warnings by health experts were ignored, no preparations for such a crisis were made, and the virus was not taken seriously by the government when it erupted in China.
The bipartisan bill does nothing to mobilize the immense power of technology and industry in a planned and coordinated manner to quickly produce and distribute the ventilators, masks and PPE material needed to save lives, and to construct the ICU units and hospitals and train the staff needed to prevent the health care system from being completely inundated.
It does not provide for the mass testing, contact tracing and extended social distancing needed to contain and defeat the disease. Nor does it order the shutdown of all workplaces and factories not providing essential services, with no loss in income for the workers, and safe conditions under medical supervision for those required to work.
These are demands that workers must raise, along with free and equal care for all those affected by the virus and a moratorium on rent, mortgage payments and personal loan payments for the duration of the crisis.
These critical needs at every point collide with the priorities of the profit system and private ownership of the means of production. The coronavirus pandemic has demonstrated all over the world the life-and-death need for the working class to put an end to capitalism and replace it with socialism.
Eight million plunged into poverty since US coronavirus aid ended
Patrick Martin
The cutoff of federal supplemental unemployment benefits in July has driven eight million Americans into poverty in the ensuing five months, according to a study published Wednesday by the University of Chicago and the University of Notre Dame.
The increase of 2.4 percentage points in the poverty rate, in the space of only five months, is the fastest increase since the US government began collecting figures on poverty in 1960. It is twice the size of the worst previous increase, during the 1979–1980 oil crisis.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, speaks to the media after the Republican’s weekly Senate luncheon, Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2020 at the Capitol in Washington. (Kevin Dietsch/Pool via AP)
The increase in poverty is greater for African Americans (3.1 percentage points) and for those with only a high school education or less (5.1 percentage points). The biggest increases in poverty were found in those states with the most primitive unemployment compensation systems, such as Florida.
Even these figures grossly understate the colossal impact of the coronavirus pandemic on working-class living standards. The official US poverty line stands at $26,200 for a family of four, an income that would leave such a family homeless or near starvation in most major US metropolitan areas.
The study confirms that driving workers and their families into poverty is the deliberate policy of the US government and the two corporate-controlled political parties. The bipartisan CARES Act, adopted in March, led to a significant decline in poverty during the first three months of the pandemic.
The $600-a-week federal supplemental benefit and other subsidies, such as the one-time $1,200-per-person check from the Treasury, were more than many workers had received in low-paying jobs which they lost because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Once the back-to-work drive began in May, employers began to complain that workers would not go back to their jobs, mainly out of fear of contracting coronavirus, but in part because they would actually lose money. Senate Republicans and the Trump administration blocked any extension of the federal benefit past the July 31 deadline which they had agreed on with the Democrats, and the federal supplement expired, leaving most workers with nothing more than state unemployment compensation.
US state-paid unemployment insurance is among the worst of any industrialized country and expires after six months in most states, and even sooner in some. In many European countries, by contrast, unemployment benefits can last for as long as two years and pay 80 percent of lost wages, while US jobless benefits average only 20 percent.
With workers reduced to benefits as low as $100 a week, the poverty rate accordingly began to increase significantly. As the study details: “Poverty rose by 2.4 percentage points from 9.3 percent in June to 11.7 percent in November, adding 7.8 million to the ranks of the poor.” The increase comes despite the decline in the official unemployment rate from 11.1 percent to 6.7 percent during this period. This latter figure is a dubious one, since millions of workers dropped out of the labor force and are no longer being counted.
The unbridgeable class divisions which have been laid bare during the COVID-19 pandemic are documented in another study made public Wednesday. The Washington Post analyzed the financial reports of the 50 largest US companies, and found that while 45 were profitable during the pandemic, 27 nonetheless carried out layoffs, cutting a combined total of 100,000 workers. At the same time, they delivered $240 billion to shareholders through buybacks and dividends between April and September.
The Post report observed: “The data reveals a split screen inside many big companies this year. On one side, corporate leaders are touting their success and casting themselves as leaders on the road to economic recovery. On the other, many of their firms have put Americans out of work and used their profits to increase the wealth of shareholders.”
One of those “shareholders,” of course, was Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon and owner of the Washington Post, the richest man in the world, whose personal wealth increased by more than $80 billion while countless small businesses closed their doors permanently—and 300,000 Americans died.
This social catastrophe is set to worsen imminently. Twelve million more workers face a final cutoff of all benefits on December 26, barely a week from now, when special pandemic-related unemployment relief expires for “gig” and other self-employed workers, who are not eligible for state-paid unemployment compensation. Many of these are among the five million renters for whom a moratorium on evictions will expire December 31.
America is headed into a winter of homelessness, hunger, sickness and mass death without any parallel in the country’s history, with not the slightest hint of serious action to forestall it, from either the Trump administration or its Democratic Party replacement under Joe Biden.
The two capitalist parties are wrangling over “stimulus” legislation that is barely even a fig leaf to disguise their indifference to the coming calamities. The latest version of the bill, outlined Wednesday morning, would provide extended benefits of only $300-a-week for a smaller number of unemployed workers, plus a one-time check of $600 per person. Both amounts are half those provided in the CARES Act, although the social need is greater.
The largest chunk of funding would go to various business groups, including $300 billion for the misnamed Paycheck Protection Program, which was heavily skimmed by large corporations, not small businesses, and provides windfall fees for major banks. There will be no money for state and local governments to avert impending mass layoffs of public employees.
Only the intervention of the working class, through protests, strikes and establishment of new and independent forms of mass organization, can provide an alternative. The working class must put forward a revolutionary socialist program based on taking hold of the resources of society, created by the labor of working people, and putting them to use to save lives and prevent mass immiseration.
