Tuesday, March 23, 2021

BARACK OBAMA'S THIRD TERM - HE HAS BEEN PLANNING IT FOR YEARS!

 Does this amount to a third term for Obama?  It definitely looks like it.  And that's creepy, given that not only was Joe Biden not elected freely and fairly, given his fraudulent election, but neither was Obama.  Bad as Joe is, he got some votes, though, and Obama got none.  Obama's not allowed a third term, but we can recall how much he talked about one.  Here's another thing: he doesn't even like Joe.  His contempt for the dotard is legendary.


Obama taking his third term at the Biden White House?

Is former president Obama giving orders to doddering Joe Biden about how to run America over the phone?

Sure sounds like it, if the word of Jen Psaki is to be believed.  Yes, I know that sounds funny.  But according to the Daily Caller:

President Joe Biden and his policy teams have been in "regular touch" with President Barack Obama on "a range of issues," White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Monday.

A reporter questioned Psaki on if and how frequently Biden has consulted with Obama since gaining office. Psaki said Biden and Obama are close friends and have spoken over the phone several times. She also said Biden expects to continue consulting with Obama on healthcare issues as he works to improve upon the Affordable Care Act.

"I expect given former President Obama's work on the Affordable Care Act and President Biden's commitment to expanding access to healthcare throughout his presidency that, yeah it's an issue they'll talk about," Psaki said.

The reporter then asks how many times Biden and Obama have spoken since January 20.

"I don't have an exact number for you," Psaki responded. "They keep in regular touch and our teams are in regular touch about a range of issues."

Let's parse this a little, first for the bee ess. 

Psaki said they talked a lot and that it was "a number of issues."  Then she said they talked about Obamacare, which is hardly a number of issues; it's just one — one that has Obama's name in it — so it doesn't seem controversial.

What's more, Obamacare hasn't been in the news, and no action to cut its costs has been bruited by leftists.  Leftists, and certainly Obama, don't care about the cost.  If anything, they like the idea of raising the costs, the better to tax all those Trump voters who have no choice but to buy it.  In their minds, not even Trump could get rid of it, so they're home free.  They're more likely to talk about how to make it more horrible since there's no threat to the basic structure, and certainly none now.  Heard anything about Obamacare lately?

Somehow, it doesn't seem as though that's what Obama and Biden would have talked about.  More likely, they talked about what's in the news and what might threaten Democrat power: the human-wave border crisis, the failed summit with red China, the ways to misuse troops to intimidate Republicans, the ways to hunt their political enemies down.  They probably discussed a cooked up narrative about anti-Asian racism that casts all blame on President Trump.  They likely decided how to bail out blue-city governments and fill their bloated pension plans through stimulus so that those critical political allies at election time counting can keep expanding as usual.  Those are the topics that sound like Obama playing consigliere to Biden.  Obamacare is a non-issue.

And who says it was all over the phone?  It's worth noting that the Biden White House has refused to release its White House logs of virtual meetings and meetings off the White House grounds where Biden and his aides travel, according to Politico.  They're hiding something, and it might be Obama.

All signs point to Biden's ineptness for the presidency.  He's senile.  He's doddering.  He's enfeebled.  And he's making a lot of mistakes.  That he doesn't seem to be in charge at all seems to be a given.  Rep. Ronny Jackson, former physician to several presidents, said "something's not right" with Biden's health.  Andrew Malcolm, now writing at RedState, amassed a first-rate pile of evidence of Joe's insentience, which includes a lot of incidents that didn't make much news.

Biden, in fact, is so out of it that I found reason to compare him to former Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev — and after me, others did, too.  But Brezhnev was different in that he held a lot of power for many, many years.  He was sort of doddering in his late years, but he didn't arrive senile.  The Soviet character most comparable to Joe is the transitory Konstantin Chernenko, who doddered through his Soviet presidency and was promptly replaced after about a year.

Here's what the Soviets went through in the mid-1980s with Chernenko, according to Wikipedia:

Historian John Lewis Gaddis describes him as "an enfeebled geriatric so zombie-like as to be beyond assessing intelligence reports, alarming or not" when he succeeded Andropov in 1984.

In early 1984, Chernenko was hospitalised for over a month but kept working by sending the Politburo notes and letters. During the summer, his doctors sent him to Kislovodsk for the mineral spas, but on the day of his arrival at the resort Chernenko's health deteriorated, and he contracted pneumonia. Chernenko did not return to the Kremlin until later in 1984. He awarded Orders to cosmonauts and writers in his office, but was unable to walk through the corridors of his office and was driven in a wheelchair.

By the end of 1984, Chernenko could hardly leave the Central Clinical Hospital, a heavily guarded facility in west Moscow, and the Politburo was affixing a facsimile of his signature to all letters, as Chernenko had done with Andropov's when he was dying. Chernenko's illness was first acknowledged publicly on 22 February 1985 during a televised election rally in Kuibyshev Borough of northeast Moscow, where the General Secretary stood as candidate for the Supreme Soviet of the Russian SFSR, when Politburo member Viktor Grishin revealed that the General Secretary was absent in accordance with doctors' advice. Two days later, in a televised scene that shocked the nation, Grishin dragged the terminally ill Chernenko from his hospital bed to a ballot box to vote. On 28 February 1985, Chernenko appeared once more on television to receive parliamentary credentials and read out a brief statement on his electoral victory: "the election campaign is over and now it is time to carry out the tasks set for us by the voters and the Communists who have spoken out".

Emphysema and the associated lung and heart damage worsened significantly for Chernenko in the last three weeks of February 1985. According to the Chief Kremlin doctor, Yevgeny I. Chazov, Chernenko had also developed both chronic hepatitis and cirrhosis of the liver. On 10 March at 15:00, Chernenko fell into a coma and died later that evening at 19:20. He was 73 years old. An autopsy revealed the cause of death to be a combination of chronic emphysema, an enlarged and damaged heart, congestive heart failure and liver cirrhosis.

The whole Joe senile-a-thon has given way to speculation about puppetmasters, same as happened in the enfeebled Soviet power void desperate to cling to power.

In Joe's case, who are they?  Maybe hedge fund guys, or Jill Biden playing Edith Wilson, or the California political machine of Gavin Newsom, Nancy Pelosi, Kamala Harris, and that bunch, or moneybags like George Soros.  But Obama is particularly salient in the mix, given his greed for power, desire to defend his sorry legacy, and actual experience in the job.  If anyone is telling Joe what to do, it's probably Obama, who, unlike Joe, still has popularity and charisma.

Does this amount to a third term for Obama?  It definitely looks like it.  And that's creepy, given that not only was Joe Biden not elected freely and fairly, given his fraudulent election, but neither was Obama.  Bad as Joe is, he got some votes, though, and Obama got none.  Obama's not allowed a third term, but we can recall how much he talked about one.  Here's another thing: he doesn't even like Joe.  His contempt for the dotard is legendary.

It appears that despite all these factors, Obama seems to be taking charge.  Joe's out of commission, and this is sorry stuff.  Just don't call it "democracy."

Image credit: Ari Levinson via WikipediaCC BY-SA 3.0.  Image filtered with Graphite by BeCasso.


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.

Need a reason not to vote for Biden/Harris? Here are 50

By Gary M. Wilmott

The modern left must be stopped and thoroughly discredited before it destroys America.  Is it too late?

Consider that the modern left and the godless Marxists stand for, actively promote, and/or have accomplished the following:

1. Legalized murder in the womb, AKA abortion

2. Legalized many street drugs

3. Encourage releasing prisoners into the cities

4. Renaming streets and places in the name of cancel culture

5. Renamed sports teams

6. Tearing down monuments and memorials

7. Rioting

8. Looting

9. Arson

10. Murder

11. Mayhem

12. Revisionist history

13. Atheism

14. Marxism

15. Communism

16. Socialism

17. Activist judges

18. Spying on American citizens

19. Race-baiting

20. War on cops and disrespect for rule of law

21. Spying on a presidential candidate

22. Spying on a sitting president

23. Weaponizing intelligence agencies

24. Weaponizing the IRS

25. Sanctuary cities

26. Sanctuary states

27. Leaking of classified information

28. Co-opting the media for partisan propaganda purposes

29. Ballot-harvesting

30. Entitlement programs for illegals

31. Open borders

32. No cash bail

33. Usurping the presidency in 2008 and 2012

34. Green New Deal

35. AOC and the squad

36. Shredding the Constitution

37. Redefining marriage

38. Destruction of the family unit

39. Embrace of BLM and Antifa

40. Disrespecting the flag, the Pledge of Allegiance, and the National Anthem

41. Boys participating in girls' activities and vice versa

42. Destruction of the Boy Scouts

43. Bogus and destructive climate change policies

44. Climate Change fear-mongering based on lies and bogus scientific  claims

45. Clinton pay-for-play corruption

46. Biden pay-for-play corruption

47. Destruction of evidence

48. Russia collusion hoax

49. Phony impeachment

50. Barack Hussein Obama and Joe Biden: the most corrupt administration in American history

This list was amazingly easy to compile and nowhere near dispositive.  I can come up with many, many more items to add to this list of shame.  But this list should be persuasive enough to give anyone pause and provide a clear indication of the threat the modern left poses to the American way of life and our future as a free, secure, and prosperous society.

The unprincipled progressive politicians, the Marxist academics, the race-baiters, the anti-Trumpers, and the despicable media propagandists who constitute the modern left are selfishly pursuing a radical agenda intent on destroying America and its founding principles.  This anti-American leftist agenda must be stopped and thoroughly discredited before real and irrevocable harm is done.

Left unchecked, the modern radical left is an existential threat to our safety, our prosperity, and our freedom.  That means that the Wicked Witch of the West, Kamala Harris, and Swampy Joe, running as a "proud Democrat," must be defeated on November 3.  Anything less and America as we know it is finished.

 

The Great Pretender

By T.L. Hesse

Who’s really running the show? Just imagine the following scenario: President Joe spends an evening – actually, more like an afternoon -- watching old classic films, one of which, perhaps, is a Cold War-era action movie about a Russian invasion. When not dozing off he thoroughly enjoys the film. He has his early-bird supper and shuffles off to bed. Later that night, about 3:00 am, Joe wakes up and locks himself in the bathroom with the nuclear football.

Jill suddenly wakes up and tries to check on Joe, but the bathroom door is locked. While she calls his name and tries to get him to open the door, Joe is busy typing in the nuclear codes he has scrawled on the palm of his hand. In his confusion, he blends reality with fiction and believes the movie was real life.

By the time Jill gets a Secret Service agent to help break down the door, old Joe has already started the launch sequences to annihilate Russia, and North Korea for good measure. Once entered, these codes can’t be canceled. Russia and North Korea are alerted to the strike and launch retaliatory nuclear missiles. World War Three has started or perhaps the end of the world as we know it.

Don’t think this could happen? Some Democrats are not so sure. Why else do they want to wrestle these codes away from this senile old man? They didn’t even try this with their nemesis, President Trump, but they’re doing it for their own man. They know the reality of his condition. He’s a danger to everyone, even the world. Shame on all those who put him in this position, including wife Jill and former boss Obama.

These two of all people should have known Joe was not capable of fulfilling the duties of this office. But their greed and lust for power and, in Jill’s case, status, drove them to ignore that obvious and nuclear disaster could be the result or any number of other terrible things damaging to the world or country.

All evidence points to Obama pulling the strings behind the curtain. In a circumstance such as the one played out above, though, even Obama can’t predict what a man in mental decline might do. It’s apparent that Joe won’t be in office much longer judging by his recent gaffs and infrequent appearances, but it only takes one time for something like this to happen. Is tomorrow that day?

I believe the idea to take the codes from Joe and give them to a committee will also benefit control over his successor, Harris. Obama and his time don’t trust her with the codes, and they won’t trust any who follow her either. However, one knows a committee rarely agrees on anything so, by the time the codes would actually be entered, it probably would be too late for response or surprise.

The more likely setting would be for Obama to have the football again, even if the Democrat operatives put out smoke and mirrors about a team making the decision to launch. Because in truth, what we actually have is a behind-the-scenes dictatorship and that dictator is Barrack Hussein Obama. Joe is just a cover, using his phony affable charm and well-practiced wide smile to gain office for the sham by hook or crook and slip Obama’s real choice of Harris through the back door.

I’m reminded of a children’s fable “The Emperor’s New Clothes” by Hans Christian Andersen, written in 1837. In it, all the vain Emperor’s supporters admire his alleged new clothing while the rest of the populace (like certain female Secret Service agents poolside) see only a naked old man. In truth, his supporters see the same but they are pretending otherwise. For the moment, anyway.

Joe is what is called in the business world a hatchet man, someone who is brought in to do unpopular things, change procedures, fire people, cut salaries and, when his task is done, he is usually fired himself. Joe’s good at it because this nasty-by-nature man has no empathy for the thousands he puts out of work.

Soon Joe’s time will be up, the Executive Orders all filed, and the leftist congressional crap signed on the dotted line. He'll then be moved out to pasture. He may not even be aware it happened and might believe he’s still the man.

The only opposition to his removal will be from Jill and the rest of the Biden family that is used to the money train Joe engineered over the years. They know, as Hillary Clinton has discovered, that once the power and influence are gone, so is the money tree.

So, when Joe is removed and Harris is elevated, who will be the vice president? Schumer, Pelosi, Sanders, Michelle Obama? How about Adam Schiff or Gretchen Whitmer, maybe Newsom? Is your stomach churning yet? What if they reach across the aisle “in the spirit of unity” and get a “Republican” like Romney or Collins? How about Kasich? Does that make you feel better?

It’s quite frightening how much damage has been done in just a few months. What horrors await us in the next few years? We are flooded with people across the southern border, bringing all manner of problems with them, the least of which is COVID, all at this old man’s invitation. They even get a Tee Shirt.

We are now the second-class citizens who are not supposed to exist in our country, with no hope, only devastating change on the horizon. We remain for the most part under lockdown, unemployed, without insurance or welfare. Is this what the Obama/Biden campaign slogan of “hope and change” really meant?

However, the new people (read: population) are greeted with everything under the sun, even a free ticket to wherever they care to go, much to the chagrin of the Greyhound Bus Lines CEO. No COVID passport needed (not even a test); no ID needed to vote or seek medical treatment; food and lodging and, of course, money are provided, all on the taxpayer’s dime.

What a paradise, the USA! Who wouldn’t come to such a place? The land of the freebie? It’s similar to what happened centuries ago, when marauders would reach a distant shore and the locals thought they were gods of some sort, usually to their ultimate demise.

Another slice of the American pie gobbled up is when a business hires a replacement (usually a foreigner on an HB visa working for less money) for your job and you are instructed to train him before you are let go. And make no mistake about it, you are being let go. Our country and our population are being replaced through this leftist osmosis right before our very eyes. But don’t worry: Joe is Building Back Better.


Meet the New President of the United States....Barack Obama

Back to finish the job with his third term.

Thu Feb 25, 2021 

Wayne Allyn Root

 

 

 

I've written thousands of columns and commentaries. This is the most important I've ever written.

This is my chance to play the modern-day Paul Revere. "The commies are coming. The commies are coming." Yes, I am reporting a communist takeover. But the leader of this attack is not who it appears to be.

Republicans, conservatives and capitalists are sick right about now. We're in shock. We can't believe Donald Trump is no longer president. We can't believe Americans voted against the greatest economy — perhaps in history — the greatest jobs picture ever, the greatest improvement in middle-class incomes ever and the greatest economic comeback ever, which Trump produced after the COVID-19 lockdown and economic collapse. Remember 33% gross domestic product in Q3 2020? That was the biggest number in history. Who would vote against all that? You'd have to be self-hating and suicidal.

We also can't believe America voted for a feeble old man with dementia who mumbles, who clearly signs executive orders without knowing what he's signing and who says "we didn't have" a vaccine before he became president, even though he got his two vaccine shots before he became president. 

We all believe the election was rigged and stolen. We all know the feeble old man now called "president" would be more at home in an assisted living home than the White House. That man can't be our new president.

I have news for my fellow conservatives, Republicans, capitalists and patriots: Joe Biden is not president. He's a puppet. Yes, we have a new president. His name is ...

Barack Obama. 

Admit it. Now that I've said it out loud, it all makes sense. Obama is the real president, back to finish the job with his third term.

Biden's job was to stand there and look moderate and credible and reasonable, so as not to scare voters. But Biden isn't the real president. Obama is the man with the power. 

Look at the radical executive orders Biden has signed. They all sound like Obama wrote them. This third term is "Obama Unmasked." With Biden as the front man, Obama can finally be himself. Obama is able to do all the radical things he never dared do as president. 

Look at the executive orders and new laws and policies proposed:

— Open borders. No more border wall. Everyone gets in — during a pandemic. Halt certain deportations. Legalize millions of illegal aliens. Include illegal aliens in the U.S. census. Once into the country, give them the right to bring all their relatives in, too, with no requirement for education, skills or background checks. Ban the use of the word "alien." Folks, this isn't Biden talking. This insanity is 100% Obama. 

— Make actions and economic policy about "racism" "social justice" and "racial equity." Even climate change is about "racism." 

— Restart the Iran nuclear treaty. Give mullahs everything they ever dreamed of and then some. Endanger our best friend Israel's existence and get absolutely nothing in return. And, for good measure, wait over a month into your presidency to call Israel's prime minister so the whole world knows we no longer have Israel's back. 

— Kill the lucrative U.S. energy industry and make us dependent on foreign oil from our enemies again. Kill the Keystone XL pipeline. Kill oil, coal, natural gas, fracking and even permits for drilling. Reenter the Paris climate agreement while allowing China to pollute all it wants. This will no doubt decimate our economy, kill millions of high-paying fossil fuel jobs and make us dependent on green energy. 

— Ban the use of the term "China virus." End the trade war with China. Give China access to the U.S. energy grid. 

Even the players in Biden's Cabinet and staff

are all Obama retreads. 

Trust me, I was Obama's classmate at Columbia University. I know how he thinks. I understand his plan. This has Obama's fingerprints all over it. This is the Cloward-Piven plan we learned about at Columbia almost 40 years ago. 

This isn't Biden. This is the third term of Obama. In his first two terms, Obama tried his best to destroy the economy, high-paying jobs, health care, the U.S. energy industry, the great American middle class, our relationship with Israel, American exceptionalism and capitalism itself. He damaged us badly, but he fell short. 

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.”

Obama Has 'HOPE' for a Third Term Through Joe

Obama stayed in D.C. because he’s a political whore like no other. BOSCH FAWSTIN

https://globalistbarackobama.blogspot.com/2020/11/barack-hussein-obama-continues-to-plot.html

“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.”

 

THE LOOTING OF AMERICA:

BARACK OBAMA AND HIS CRONY BANKSTERS set themselves on America’s pensions next! http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2015/04/obamanomics-assault-on-american-middle.html

The new aristocrats, like the lords of old, are not bound by the laws that apply to the lower orders. Voluminous reports have been issued by Congress and government panels documenting systematic fraud and law breaking carried out by the biggest banks both before and after the Wall Street crash of 2008.

Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and every other major US bank have been implicated in a web of scandals, including the sale of toxic mortgage securities on false pretenses, the rigging of international interest rates and global foreign exchange markets, the laundering of Mexican drug money, accounting fraud and lying to bank regulators, illegally foreclosing on the homes of delinquent borrowers, credit card fraud, illegal debt-collection practices, rigging of energy markets, and complicity in the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme.

 

 

Judicial Watch: Only Crimes in Russia Scandal Are from ‘Obama Gang’

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/03/06/judicial-watch-only-crimes-in-russia-scandal-are-from-obama-gang/

 

Katie Pavlich's Latest Books, Fast and Furious: Barack Obama's Bloodiest Scandal and the Shameless Cover-Up are available on Amazon

“One of the most disgusting things to come out of the Obama administration was "Operation Fast and Furious," where members of the Department of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) allowed illegal gun sales to go through – commonly referred to as "gun walking" – in order to track buyers and sellers they believed were connected to the Mexican drug cartels. Nearly 2,000 firearms were sold and were eventually found throughout the United States and Mexico. Two of them were used to k ill Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.”   BETH BAUMANN

Now he's back to finish the job.

Thursday, March 18, 2021

OBAMA'S DEDICATION TO CORRUPTION - HIS WAS A LAWYER'S LAWLESS BANKSTER REGIME THAT DID UNTOLD DAMAGE TO AMERICA ... EXCEPT TO HIS PLUNDERING BANKSTERS

 The late Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) hated earmarks, and made them an issue in the 2008 presidential campaign. Then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) originally defended earmarks, saying, “Pork is in the eye of the beholder.”

That was how business was done in Chicago; his political adviser, David Axelrod, even wrote an op-ed in the Chicago Tribune defending the practice of greasing political palms with public money. Trading money and favors, he said, made government a “well-oiled machine.”


Pollak: Secret Republican Vote to Restore Earmarks Is a Betrayal of the Voters

Pig (ryan harvey / Flickr / CC / Cropped)
ryan harvey / Flickr / CC / Cropped
4:01

The House Republican Conference vote on Wednesday to restore earmarks was a betrayal of the voters, and undermined one of the remaining legacies of the Tea Party.

The vote was close, 102-84, but that is no consolation, especially as it was by secret ballot, preventing voters from holding their representatives accountable.

If Republicans do not hold a revote, they can expect conservatives to stay home in 2022. They will have blown their chance to retake the House — and will deserve to lose.

Earmarks are, or were, spending provisions that Senators and Representatives attach to bills that are likely to pass and be signed into law. The Congressional Research Service defines them as a benefit to “a specific entity or state, locality, or congressional district other than through a statutory or administrative formula or competitive award process.” They allow members of Congress to shower “pork” projects on their districts — or to reward favored donors and special interests.

The typical argument for earmarks is that they can help to relieve partisan gridlock. A politician might agree to break ranks with his or her party if there is something in it for the folks back home (or the campaign coffers).

That was why President Donald Trump suggested bringing back earmarks in 2018 — albeit with ” better controls” than in the past– as a way to break through Democratic “resistance” on legislative priorities, such as infrastructure, where there was potential for cooperation.

But if that argument made sense when Republicans controlled both chambers of Congress and the White House, it makes no sense for Republicans when they are in the minority. Earmarks are a tool for Democrats to break the unity of the opposition by bribing the few votes they need to provide “bipartisan” cover for left-wing legislation. While impatient Republicans may want to show their constituents they can achieve something in the minority, they would undermine the opposition as a whole.

Earmarks are also wasteful. No, they are not a significant contributor to the budget deficit or the debt; they are merely a drop in the sea of red ink. But they often pour money into dead-end initiatives or vanity projects. The main beneficiaries are the K Street firms, who can charge exorbitant fees to clients to make sure a particular project is funded.

Bringing back earmarks means bringing back the market for pork in Washington. Instead of “draining the swamp,” Republicans would be flooding it.

The late Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) hated earmarks, and made them an issue in the 2008 presidential campaign. Then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) originally defended earmarks, saying, “Pork is in the eye of the beholder.”

That was how business was done in Chicago; his political adviser, David Axelrod, even wrote an op-ed in the Chicago Tribune defending the practice of greasing political palms with public money. Trading money and favors, he said, made government a “well-oiled machine.”

The Tea Party hated earmarks. And though he clashed with the party base, House Republican leader John Boehner, who had never taken an earmark himself, ended the practice shortly after the 2010 election.

“Earmarks have become a symbol of a Congress that has broken faith with the people,” the Speaker-of-the-House-to-be said in a statement. “This earmark ban shows the American people we are listening and we are dead serious about ending business as usual in Washington.”

When Democrats signaled in December that they would re-introduce earmarks, Republicans had an opportunity to show that they were the only party that was serious about ending waste and corruption.

Instead, they have joined the Democrats back at the trough. They broke the promise that Boehner made in 2010, which they honored for more than a decade — even when it might have helped Trump politically for them to change their minds.

Why should conservative voters ever trust them again?


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

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/09/the_moral_decay_of_the_us_comes_in_part_from_the_media.html

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

AP Photo/Hassan Ammar

JOEL B. POLLAK

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’

JEFF POOR

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.