From the shameless hypocrite files: Republican politicians blast government spending but take credit for the cash

In addition to being corrupt, mendacious authoritarians (fascists IMO), a central marker of the modern Republican politician is shameless hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is now so meaningless to Republicans that it is irrelevant. No Republican is fazed by being a hypocrite. No political blowback against hypocrisy arises. The New York Times describes some of this moral sleaze:

At her annual budget address this month, Gov. Kristi Noem, Republican of South Dakota, blamed President Biden’s economic policies for rising prices, derided the “giant handout” of federal stimulus funds and suggested that she had considered refusing the money over ideological objections.

But like many Republican officials, Ms. Noem has found it hard to say no to her state’s share of the $1.9 trillion pandemic relief aid that Democrats passed along party lines in March.

Ms. Noem explained to fellow legislators how critical those federal funds were to South Dakota and outlined how she would use some of the nearly $1 billion slated for her state to invest in local water projects, make housing more affordable and build new day care centers. [That sounds like socialism - LOCK HER UP!! LOCK HER UP!! LOCK HER UP!!] For those questioning her choice to take the money, Ms. Noem, who has opposed Covid restrictions including shutdowns and mask mandates, said any pandemic-relief funds she rejected would have just gone to other states.

“It would be spent somewhere other than South Dakota,” Ms. Noem said. “The debt would still be incurred by the country, and our people would still suffer the consequences of that spending.” No state has declined the relief money, and if any had it would go back to the Treasury Department, not to other states. [Note: See Ms. Noem’s lie here?]

Republican leaders across the country have been engaged in a similarly awkward dance over the past few months as they accept — and often champion — money from the $350 billion bucket of state and local aid included in the stimulus bill, which passed Congress without a single Republican vote. In some states, like Ohio and Arizona, Republican governors are spending the funds while attempting to undercut the law that allowed the money to flow. Other governors are faulting Congress for not giving their state enough money. [Hm. That sounds like more Republican socialists, LOCK 'EM UP!! LOCK 'EM UP!! LOCK 'EM UP!!]

And, like their counterparts in Congress, many Republicans have blasted Mr. Biden’s stimulus bill for fueling inflation, even as they take the funds, and criticized Democrats for pushing for additional government spending plans.

“I urge President Biden and Democrats in D.C. to turn off the spigot of out-of-control spending and get inflation under control,” said Gov. Greg Gianforte, Republican of Montana, whose state has used some of its $906 million in stimulus money to invest in nursing homes and return-to-work bonuses. [That is more Republican communist socialism or whatever, LOCK HIM UP!! LOCK HIM UP!! LOCK HIM UP!!]

The NYT goes on to report that Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), complained that the federal allocation of money to states based on their jobless rate penalized Florida for not imposing lockdowns and allowing businesses to remain open during the pandemic. Hypocrite DeSantis snarked: “I think you’d have to acknowledge that we got the short end of the stick compared to these other states.” But in fact, Florida, was allotted $8.8 billion, and so far received ~$3.4 billion. DeSantis is spending that on infrastructure, transportation and work force retention. He justifies keeping the money, arguing that the federal government fueled economic disruption with shutdowns and vaccine and mask mandates that he opposed. 

And, it gets worse in Florida. Despite self-righteous Republican complaints, the federal cash will help Florida accumulate ~$17 billion in reserves by the end of next year. Florida can then pay for priorities that are unrelated to the pandemic such as a gas tax holiday and an $8 million program to remove “unauthorized aliens” from of the state. So here, the snarky, corrupt hypocrite DeSantis is using fungible taxpayer COVID relief dollars to pay for things that will help him get re-elected in part by lambasting Democrats as big-spending, corrupt, socialist-communist tyrants and pedophiles. 

Republican hypocrisy is just staggering. However, hypocrisy is easy, fun, legal and painless, so why not?

Question: Why not be a hypocrite if it (i) helps bamboozle the base and the public generally, and (ii) that helps with election or re-election, while costing the politician or candidate nothing economically, politically, morally, socially or in any other way?

Big investment funds are attacking the middle class and winning

Neoliberalism: a political approach that favors free-market capitalism, deregulation, and reduction in government spending; neoliberalism is a political development of capitalism and a political and economic ideology that seeks to (i) maximize the freedom of the market by removing barriers to the private accumulation of wealth, and (ii) become a power over and above the state directed to the ends of profit without government interference; neoliberalism opposes regulation over which it has no control; the controlling ethic of capitalism is prudence which leads to wealth, but the ethic of neoliberalism is the accumulation of wealth for its own sake which leads to political power; neoliberalism, as the de facto only available political and economic option has had catastrophic effects on society and the environment



The Pandora Papers is an investigation based on about 11.9 million leaked confidential documents that show flows of money, property and other assets hidden in the global offshore financial system and some American states such as South Dakota. The Washington Post and other news organizations exposed the involvement of political leaders in this system of wealth flow. In the United States, secrecy hides assets from local, state and federal governments, creditors and people abused or exploited by wealthy and powerful people and interests. This confidential information leak is the largest of its kind made public so far. The documents were obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, which organized the investigation.

The Washington Post reports on the activities of a huge investment fund called Progress Residential. The venture buys single family homes and other residential properties based on computer analysis. It makes cash offers to quickly obtain property. It then rents out the property and makes profit. The WaPo writes:

The venture, Progress Residential, acquires as many as 2,000 houses a month through the use of a computerized property-search algorithm and swift all-cash offers. Progress executives boast that the company’s efficient management practices have been a boon to their tenants who cannot afford to buy one of the “entry level” homes.

But according to previously undisclosed documents and dozens of interviews with renters and former employees, Progress Residential has been ringing up substantial profits for wealthy investors around the world while outbidding middle-class home buyers and subjecting tenants to what they allege are unfair rent hikes, shoddy maintenance and excessive fees.

“There’s just no human decency,” said Victoria Bates, an Amazon warehouse worker who lives on Tammy Sue Lane with her husband and 10-year-old daughter. Bates said the company regularly failed to fulfill ordinary maintenance requests. While the company said it “addressed” within five days most of the 37 work orders she submitted, Bates said most of the time it didn’t fix what was needed: It took several months for the company to repair a leaky water heater, she said.

Meanwhile, Bates said, the firm levies a profusion of fees that “take advantage of regular people working paycheck to paycheck.” 

In a statement, Progress Residential defended its operations, including the treatment of tenants, saying that its rents and fees are in line with industry standards and market rates.

“All of our entities conduct business according to the highest ethical and legal standards,” the company said.

Behind Progress Residential is Pretium Partners, a New York-based investment firm whose business plan and investors are revealed in the Pandora Papers, a trove of offshore financial records obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and shared with The Washington Post. 

The plan sought to exploit the 2008 U.S. housing crash, which forced millions of homeowners into foreclosure and left a glut of cheap houses for sale. The financiers’ plan called for buying up tens of thousands of these properties at depressed prices and renting them to families who had lost their homes or, because of tightened lending practices, could no longer qualify for a mortgage.

To raise money for the project, Pretium Partners sent confidential invitations to people wealthy enough to put up at least $2 million. Executives projected annualized returns of 15 to 20 percent, according to a 238-page solicitation to investors in 2012. In total, Pretium Partners raised more than $1 billion, and the resulting real estate venture became Progress Residential.

Unfortunately, both the Democratic and Republican Parties are heavily influenced by neoliberalism and the corrupting money it puts into our pay-to-play system of politics. By not being able to buy a home, middle class families cannot accumulate intergenerational wealth by that means. Living paycheck to paycheck hollows out the middle class. In time, the middle class will shrink to a small and politically unimportant force in American politics. 

Neoliberal capitalists love this. They feast on the middle class. There’s just so damn much money to be made by just squeezing the middle class for all its has.

Questions: Progress Residential claims to operate according to high ethical and legal standards, and from the company's point of view, they arguably do, but do they from the average person’s point of view? Why is home ownership out of reach for so many average Americans, many of whom live paycheck to paycheck[1]? 

Footnote: 

1. The middle and lower classes are under severe financial stress. Once source comments: About 54% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. And nearly 40% of high earners — those making more than $100,000 annually — said they live that way. 

Another source: According to Nielsen data, the American Payroll Association, CareerBuilder and the National Endowment for Financial Education, somewhere between 50 percent and 78 percent of employees earn just enough money to pay their bills each month. Should they miss a paycheck, some of those bills would go unpaid. Almost 3 in 10 adults have no emergency savings at all, according to Bankrate’s July 2019 Financial Security Index, while the January 2020 Financial Security Index survey showed that 4 in 10 U.S. adults would cover the cost of a $1,000 car repair or emergency room visit using savings. In a 2019 report on the economic well-being of U.S. households, the Federal Reserve Bank determined that nearly 40 percent of U.S. adults wouldn’t be able to cover a $400 emergency with cash, savings or a credit card charge that they could quickly pay off. 

From the liar files: Chinese companies that tells us they don't do the Chinese government tells them to do

The Washington Post has analyzed public marketing presentations by the computer hardware and internet company Huawei, now taken offline to hide them. Not surprisingly, the presentations had evidence that the company was involved in Chinese government spying on the Chinese people. 

The marketing presentations had been posted on a publicly accessible Huawei website, but the company removed them last year. They show Huawei touting the use of its technologies to help government authorities identify individuals by voice, monitor individuals of political interest, manage ideological reeducation and labor schedules for prisoners, and help retailers track shoppers using facial recognition.

Huawei technology: Monitoring people by voiceprint

Also not surprising, the company denies everything. A company statement comments: “Huawei has no knowledge of the projects mentioned in the Washington Post report. Like all other major service providers, Huawei provides cloud platform services that comply with common industry standards.” What a bunch of liars.

Huawei claims to be just an innocent maker of computer and cloud hardware and software. The company says it would never cooperate with the Chinese government in China to do anything nefarious. At this point, it is worth noting that the Chinese government is brutal, authoritarian and it is the law, regardless of what the written laws may say. So, if Huawei did refuse to do what it was told to do in China or anywhere else on the planet, some Huawei heads would roll, maybe literally.

Huawei publicly claims that it doesn’t know how its technology is used by customers. But the detailed accounts of surveillance operations on the company’s slides accords with long-standing concerns about lack of transparency. Huawei is the world’s largest vendor of telecommunications gear. For years, Huawei has been criticized that it is opaque and closer to the Chinese government than it claims. 

WaPo comments: “A number of Western governments have blocked Huawei gear from their new 5G telecom networks out of concern that the company may assist Beijing with intelligence-gathering, which Huawei denies. .... The new details on Huawei’s surveillance products come amid growing concerns in China, and around the world, about the consequences of pervasive facial recognition and other biometric tracking. Even as the Chinese Communist Party continues to rely on such tools to root out dissent and maintain its one-party rule, it has warned against the technologies’ misuse in the private sector.”

Question: Is it credible to believe that, just like it does with all other Chinese companies, the Chinese government doesn't tell Huawei what to do and the company does it, or is Huawei just plain lying?

From the grossly excessive nails in the coffin files: The 2020 election was not stolen

According to the AP, a detailed analysis of all the fraudulent votes in the 2020 election indicates that Biden won fair and  square. An article, Far too little vote fraud to tip election to Trump, AP finds, lays the evidence out.

The AP notes that its review of every potential case of voter fraud in the six battleground states disputed by the fascist Republican Party and our treasonous ex-president found fewer than 475 instances. That would have made no difference in the 2020 presidential election even if all those 475 votes went to Biden. Some of the fraudulent votes were for the traitor and most of the fraudulent votes were caught and not actually counted.

The AP commented that its review of the evidence that took months and included more than 300 local election offices. That makes it one the most comprehensive examinations so far of suspected voter fraud in 2020 presidential election.

Questions: Should the ex-president and the Republican Party be called out as domestic terrorists? Or, is the AP lying and millions of fraudulent votes were cast and counted, making Biden an illegitimate president as the ex-president and many or most Republicans still claim?