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Thursday, May 06, 2021

A delayed post. Delayed over an item Breitbart published and what to make of it. From days ago last month, Breitbart was critical of "Koch network" actions.

The guess here is that watching Breitbart bias may be informative about power plays within our friends in the various segments of the GOP. 

This

Koch Network Begs Joe Biden to Import More Foreign Workers to Take U.S. Jobs
By: John Binder26 Apr 2021
The Koch brothers’ network of donor class organizations is begging President Joe Biden to import more foreign workers whom United States businesses can hire instead of jobless Americans.


Last week, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced that businesses would be allowed to hire an additional 22,000 foreign H-2B visa workers to take non-agricultural U.S. jobs, 6,000 of which will go to nationals in Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala.

In a letter to Biden, the Koch network’s Americans for Prosperity and the Libre Initiative urge the White House to bring in tens of thousands more foreign workers to take U.S. jobs.

[...] Despite the claims of labor shortages, about 16.6 million Americans remain jobless today. Of the roughly 9.7 million Americans classified as unemployed, 13 percent are teenagers looking for entry-level jobs, 9.6 percent are black Americans, 7.9 percent are Hispanic, six percent are Asian Americans, and 5.4 percent are white Americans.

Roughly 6.9 million Americans are out of the labor force entirely, but all want full-time employment. Another 5.8 million Americans are underemployed, working part-time jobs but wanting full-time employment.

In the fields in which working class Americans are forced to compete with foreign H-2B visa workers, unemployment rates remain high:

 -   Construction unemployment rate: 8.6 percent
 -   Hospitality industry unemployment rate: 19.9 percent
 -   Restaurant industry unemployment rate: 11.8 percent
 -   Food processing unemployment rate: 7.9 percent

Fox News’s Adam Shaw reported last week that Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Dick Durbin (D-IL) criticized the Biden administration for allowing businesses to bring in thousands more foriegn H-2B visa workers when unemployment rates remain high.

[links in original omitted]

Breitbart's recent commentary [called by them "reporting"] has cast a somewhat unkind light on both Mitch McConnell and Liz Cheney.

Now an unkind light upon "the Koch network."

The pattern trending within Breitbart output seems: not all GOP propaganda is good propaganda, while what motivations/characteristics distinguish good prop. from bad is unclear. It makes me want to keep an eye on the outlet's output, however, a very skeptical eye, given the outlet's history of gross bias. 

Are they still Mercer family funded? In large measure if not totally?

________UPDATE________     

While arguably unrelated, three overlapping websearches re Josh Hawley; here, here and here; and a site examining Josh Hawley: https://whofundshawley.com/ 

Whether caring or not about Josh Hawley; himself; his karma might rub-off on others, or vice-versa; and interrelationships may be interesting of themselves; or for noting bloc development and composition. Among those on the dark side of the aisle.

_______FURTHER UPDATE_______

Backup materials. First, the letter, as online per Breitbart.

click the image to enlarge and read

Links: here, here, here, here, here, and a websearch. Readers following the background links might guess at Breitbart's prejudices and orientation, but everything circumstantial is a guess with only perps knowing motivational fact.

Another link.

_______FURTHER UPDATE______

Breitbart earlier reporting on Hawley campaign funding policy - Hawley arguing against too much Republican candidate reliance upon big donor money. Arguing such a reliance exerts force to bend away from populism; and gives an arguable appearance of such bending; when reform legislation gets stymied. If you talk populist, gotta walk populist. Something like that.

FURTHER: Breitbart items tagged - "Hawley"

See Also, "Hawley: ‘Time to Ditch the Patriot Act’.

Libertarian? Dove? Isolationist? Populist? What other litmus tests does he chase?

________FURTHER UPDATE_________

In a Guardian op-ed, "Pro-worker’ Republicans are status-quo toadies cloaked as populists, author Bhaskar Sunkara writes mid-item:

While elite donations roll in, Vance is playing up his rightwing-populist credentials to the Republican base, praising Tucker Carlson as “the only powerful figure who consistently challenges elite dogma” and complaining about corporations who have opposed state voter suppression efforts. But Vance has a secret he doesn’t want voters to find out about: in form, and substance, he’s a 1990s Clintonite.

Okay. Table is set to show a phony approach and value set; "Clintonian" in reach. That bad and evil.

 In the ending of the Guardian item,

Vance lauds a plan, proposed by Hawley, to give a tax credit to married parents with children under the age of 13. Not exactly transformative, New Deal-style reform to aid struggling Americans; if anything, it’s the kind of tepid, wonkish program that the New Democrats could have very well dreamt up 30 years ago.

Recall the words of the then candidate Bill Clinton, who in 1992 pined for “an America in which the doors of colleges are thrown open once again to the sons and daughters of stenographers and steelworkers. We will say: everybody can borrow money to go to college. But you must do your part. You must pay it back.”

Like the Clintonites, Republicans such as Hawley and Vance are trying to find a way to balance pro-working class appeals popular with voters with the enduring fact that their party is largely funded by rich donors and powerful business interests. Their solution is to offer Americans rhetoric about elites and the importance of hard work, but not to actually take power away from those elites or, say, enact job programs.

It took decades, but millions of voters came to see the New Democrats as frauds. The same, I hope, will be true of the New Republicans.

Before shouting, "Amen, brother," consider the greater millions of voters still lulled by politicians shoveling rhetoric inconsistent with actions, as in the Clintons still being strong negative, conservative status-quo forces in the Democratic party; Trump similarly situated among Republicans. 

Bill Clinton and Donald Trump is each an effective grifter. Both parties need housecleaning - which does NOT mean dump Bernie and Liz Cheney, but instead, drive out the liars and frauds - Gaetz coming to mind for driving himself out via bizarre conduct being more scrutinized than his amateur rhetoric. Hawley next? Does Hawley live a lie so openly that he'll hit the shoals, or can he weasel his way up the ladder several rungs without a crash and burn? Passing up Cancun Cruz perhaps? Getting in tight with the Mercers?