Jackie DeAngelis on Biden, ‘dark money’ Wall Street corporations made a record $2.9 billion in total political contributions over the course of the 2019–2020 election cycle, a new analysis shows. Firms spent about $4 million per day over the course of two years on campaign contributions and lobbying efforts, spending nearly $1 billion more than the $2 billion spent during the 2015–2016 cycle, the progressive nonprofit Americans for Financial Reform (AFR) found in its “Wall Street Money in Washington” report released Thursday.“The enormous sums that Wall Street has at its disposal, combined with a broken campaign finance system, means there is little practical …
www.foxbusiness.com/politics/wall-street-political-contributions-2019-2020
Labor leader: Union workers buying new cars, ‘remodeling their homes’ after Biden pension bailout
The $86 billion bailout for failing union-managed, multiemployer pensions was part of Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus stimulus bill
Alabor leader said he is “amazed at how much money” union workers are spending on new cars and remodeling their homes after President Joe Biden’s $86 billion bailout for failing union-managed multi-employer pensions.
The bailout funds for the pensions was part of the $1.9 trillion coronavirus stimulus bill Biden signed on March 11. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh, leaders in the labor movement, and some Ohio Democratic lawmakers held a virtual event to celebrate the bill’s support for the struggling pensions.
Mike Walden, a former member of Teamsters who has long been advocating for taxpayer assistance for the union pensions, joined Walsh during the discussion. According to a February 2020 Roll Call article, Walden’s current organization is a “Teamsters-created group whose members in their black T-shirts with yellow lettering frequent the halls of House and Senate office buildings.”
“We were better off when the mob was running things,” said Walden, president of the National United Committee to Protect Pensions, according to the report about his labor-related advocacy.
Walden was referring to the Teamsters’ history involving past president Jimmy Hoffa’s connections to the mob. According to the New York Times, Hoffa and six others were accused of “fraudulently arranging $25 million in loans” from the Teamstes’ pension fund in 1964. Hoffa was found guilty of “mail and wire fraud and conspiracy,” according to the report.