Biden Adds Vampire Squid and Blackrock Creatures to his Cabinet


‘Like Obama, like Trump: Biden embraces Goldman Sachs bankers after Electoral College win’,
15 Dec, 2020, Helen Buyinski, RT.com (a few excerpts)

“Despite spending the campaign season painting himself as the anti-Trump, Democratic President-elect Joe Biden has further followed in his predecessor’s footsteps, appointing not one but two Goldman Sachs alums to his cabinet.

Ex-Goldman banker Eric Goldstein, who worked on the investment bank’s Merchant Banking division for nearly two decades, will join Biden’s Homeland Security Review Team, Politico revealed on Monday. His erstwhile colleague Monica Maher – currently vice president of cyber threat intelligence at Goldman Sachs – has been appointed to the National Security Council Review Team.” […]

Failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, for example, was eviscerated on the campaign trail in 2016 over her apparent coziness with Wall Street and Goldman in particular, slammed by Democratic socialist rival Bernie Sanders over her refusal to release the transcripts of several highly-paid speeches she gave to the bank. Supposed transcripts of the speeches released by WikiLeaks ahead of the vote had Clinton gushing that only Wall Street insiders were qualified to regulate Wall Street, suggesting the candidate planned to hand regulatory power to the same people who’d broken the economy in 2008.” […]

“The Democrat’s cabinet is populated almost entirely with second-stringers from the Obama years, from the then-Federal Reserve chief Janet Yellen (now tapped for Treasury secretary) to virulent anti-Sanders harpy Neera Tanden (poised to become head of the Office of Management and Budget) – and Goldman Sachs and its fellow investment banks aren’t even the most rapacious financial firms on the scene anymore.

That honor goes to BlackRock and its fellow private equity vulture capitalists. As usual, Biden’s people have their finger squarely on the nation’s pulse as they prepare to rip the still-beating heart out of the US’ economic corpse: BlackRock exec Brian Deese has been tapped to lead the cabinet’s National Economic Council.

It will be Deese’s job to shepherd the nation through the coming depression and Wall Street meltdown…  Save Wall Street & Sergeant Dow Jones, F Main Street!

“And even former President Barack Obama, under whom Biden served as vice president, was lambasted by progressive Democrats for essentially allowing investment bank Citigroup to appoint his cabinet in the wake of the almost half-a-trillion-dollar TARP bailout that put taxpayers on the hook for paying off Wall Street’s gambling debts. Citi exec Michael Froman, whom Obama appointed as US trade representative, sent out a list of nearly three dozen cabinet selections, most of which the incoming president filled as advised.

Buyinski then proceeds to narrate:

There’s been plenty of buzz afoot that Biden’ been ‘considering’ appointing Sam Power to head USAID, most mentions circling back to Axios, which coverage was a disgusting  homage to her and her qualifications for what Biden intends pretends  the job to be.


Why it matters: Installing Power — a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and author of a Pulitzer Prize-winning book about genocide — would signal the Biden administration plans to revitalize foreign assistance and use it as an instrument of soft power and to achieve humanitarian goals.” […]

The big picture: Power, currently a professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School, has been a leading advocate for using military force, when justified, to achieve humanitarian goals.

USAID is an independent government agency but works in tandem with the State Department. The administrator’s job requires Senate confirmation, but isn’t part of the Cabinet.” […]

Between the lines: Power’s husband, Cass Sunstein, who ran the highly influential Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in Obama’s first term, could return to government, as well.”

That she’s married to the O-so-nauseatingly brilliant Cass Sunstein is hilarious, but the couple would prove to be a Twofer, and dovetails so well with CIA whitleblower Philip Agee’s long credo that in the main, both the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and USAID are both CIA cut-outs.  There are likely a host of similar examples, but you may remember what was in the USAID convoysVenezuela’s Nicolas Maduro had refused to allow in: guns, barbed wire, and Special Operations forces dressed as Aid workers on behalf of the opposition government (Juan Guaido and friends).

I’d seen Ann Garrison’s earlier reaction to the buzz, citing her Aug. 2015 Africa’s problem from hell: Samantha Power ‘, and she’s up with a new one at Black Agenda Report: ‘‘The Planet’s Problem from Hell: Samantha Power’, Ann Garrison, blackagendareport.com, Dec. 16, 2020

“Having successfully advocated for US-led NATO wars in Libya and Syria, Power set her sights set on the tiny, impoverished East African nation of Burundi.”

Just when it seemed that Joe Biden’s coming administration couldn’t be more of a horror show, Axios reported  that he’s likely to appoint another monster from the deep, violent know-it-all Samantha Power, to head the US Agency for International Development (USAID). I rescheduled my piece on contact tracing’s potential to further empower the surveillance state for next year’s first Black Agenda Report and instead updated my 2015 piece “Samantha Power: Africa’s Problem from Hell.”

As I said then, when Power was serving the second of her four years as President Obama’s US Ambassador to the UN, she was on a mission to save Africans from African savagery, but her largesse extends to all those who need American bombs to calm ethnic strife. She wants you to call 1-800-GENOCIDE , so she can alert the president to send in the Marines or other US Special Forces. As head of USAID, she’ll be in perfect position to wield foreign aid as a cudgel for beating foreign heads of state till they line up behind US empire, which she understands as a never-ending campaign to stop genocide and defend human rights.

Indeed, Power actually seems to believe this, unlike those who shamelessly invoke human rights but know full well that US foreign policy is about economic exploitation and/or domination of any non-NATO nation that dares to raise an independent head. In ‘The  Education of an Idealist: A Memoir’ published in 2019, she writes of how she all but immolated in her own burning self-righteousness while reporting from Bosnia in the 1990s:

I had never been without opinions, but my certitude previously had to do with seemingly trivial issues like an umpire’s bad call in a baseball game. Now, as I researched and reflected on real‐world events, I seemed unable to contain my emotions or modulate my judgments. If the subject of Bosnia came up and someone innocently described the conflict as a civil war, I would erupt: It is genocide!”

Antiwar activist and writer David Swanson wrote one of my favorite headlines of 2017: Samantha Power Can See Russia from Her Padded Cell . In the Counterpunch piece, he shared highlights of Power’s overwrought performance  at the Atlantic Council where she railed at Russia for aggression threatening the US and the global rule of law, in Ukraine, Syria, France, Germany, Montenegro and beyond, and demanded that NATO be on hair-trigger alert.”
The rest is here.

(cross-posted from Café Babylon)

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wendy davis's picture

Pete Buttigieg as Secretary of transportation, Laguna Pueblo Rep. Deb Haaland (D-N.M.) as Interior Secretary, former EPA head Gina McCarthy as climate czar (what happened to Kerry?), Katherine Tai, Nominee for United States Trade Representative, Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm to serve as secretary of energy, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, MD, and of course we knew DecDef Lloyd 'Rayethon' Austin already.

lots of diversity, as promised! wasn't andrew yang appointed to some post?

Attorney General yet to come. Will he and obomba choose... Hellary?

on edit: arrrrgh! i'd forgotten he/they'd nominated Tom ‘Mr. Monsanto/dicamba’ Vilsack, Secretary of Agriculture. boy howdy: feed the nation with round-up ready GMO foods!

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The Liberal Moonbat's picture

There's at least a couple of possible answers, and it would help to know:

Do they at all really believe this is the right thing to do?

Is this open, deliberate sadism?

What happens in 4 years when "Someone Worse Than Trump(TM)" beats them in a landslide?

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In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.

Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!

wendy davis's picture

@The Liberal Moonbat

answered your own Qs, but who's to say this administration won't be worse than Trump's? they'll all just smile those affable smiles....

hadn't some folks here been hoping that First American Deb Haaland would get tipped for Interior? maybe it's a good thing that she fit the diversity/ID politics bill.

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Shahryar's picture

It would be unfortunate if we fell into the "maybe he'll be ok" trap.

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wendy davis's picture

@Shahryar

US 'papers of record (WaPo and CIA Times) will cover nicely for biden/camel/obomba rule. we'll see how the alternative indy press does, won't we?

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snoopydawg's picture

Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, who voted for President Donald Trump's deficit-exploding tax cuts for the rich in 2017, blocked fellow Republican Sen. Josh Hawley's attempt Friday to pass legislation that would provide $1,200 direct payments to U.S. adults and $500 to children amid a devastating pandemic and ongoing economic collapse.

So Hawley the next move is yours. You now BLOCK this turd from passing and if you need help with it tell Bernie to stand with you. This kabuki BS has been exposed for what it is. A ploy that apparently on the GOP can use to make sure nothing gets passed that helps the working class. I see so many folks only blaming the GoP or more McConnell for what's happening, but remember Pelosi could have said OK on the bill and put the pressure on Mitch. SHE is now OK with a much smaller bill after saying that $2.2 TRILLION didn;t go far enough. I see through you too you old bat. Just sick that everyone can't see through their lies and games they play with OUR lives.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

wendy davis's picture

@snoopydawg

the other day re: sanders having the ability to shut down (whatever it was)?

Negotiators are also racing to avert a government shutdown, which will occur Friday night without passage of a sprawling funding bill or a stop-gap measure. Hawley and Sanders have both threatened to hold up an extension of government funding in order to push through direct payments.

you'll get a chuckle from this:

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Shahryar's picture

@wendy davis

it's all "let's do it by 2050" which means nobody will remember we said that, half the people who care will be dead, the others will, by 2050, look forward to getting it done by 2080. Single payer, climate change...all of which could be done in January 2021, will be postponed because even if the Dems win the 2 Georgia seats it will be politically "damaging" to do anything good and besides, Manchin or whoever.

Anyway, come on, San Francisco! Vote her out in 2022.

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wendy davis's picture

@Shahryar

the way i read jayapal's bill, it will take 2 years to kick in After it passes.

i'm pretty much in the camp with those cynics/realists(?) who believe it's too late to reverse/mitigate climate chaos. even if the world had listened to the indigenous at the rio+20 sustainability conference in 2012 there might have been a glimmer of hope. (one of two i wrote up back in the day.)

yes, vote her out! too bad shahid buttar (sp) dinnae beat her, eh?

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was mammoth and memorable.

USAID led at that time by someone named Rajiv Khan, I think it was, and directed by Hill, comandeered the few landing spots at the airport for themselves preventing planes carrying Actual Aid----you know, food, clothing, meds-----from landing and unloading.

Then Bill was named "Ambassador to Haiti" and the situation Never improved.

I have friends who lived in Haiti at the time and years after the disaster only 6 new residences had been built and the promised factories? As far as I know, never did get built.

USAID seems to be about anything but AID.

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NYCVG

wendy davis's picture

@NYCVG

good example! I vote Power and Sunstein to head USAID! i was a bit more than surprised that ann garrison never mentioned it's a CIA cut-out, to say the truth.

on edit: ach; you'd meant Bill Fuck over haiti Clinton!

'F*cking the Haitian 99%: Another Clinton Family Project', October 27, 2015 by wendyedavis (longish, but this key excerpt)

"Sure, Bill and Hill love sweatshop industrial complexes (from nacla.org) more than houses for Haiti, and love HELP™ (comically ironic acronym):

“On September 20, Haitian prime minister Jean-Marc Bellerive, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation announced their partnership with the South Korean garment firm Sae-A Trading Company to establish an industrial park that will create 10,000 garment assembly jobs in Haiti. Without a doubt, earthquake-ravaged Haiti needs jobs, mainly to provide the country’s 1.3 million homeless with the means necessary to rebuild their destroyed homes.

While little progress has been made on Haiti’s immense housing needs since the January 12 earthquake, Clinton assured the investing public that factory development was moving full steam ahead. These 10,000 jobs, she assured critics “are not just any jobs. These are good jobs with fair pay that adhere to international labor standards, . . . Haiti is open for business again.”

Well, sure; at a $3.09 daily minimum wage (upped later to $5, but almost no one actually gets paid at that rate), what’s not to love?

“When pressed about the lack of progress made in the (housing) rebuilding efforts, including inabilities to provide shelter, Secretary of State Clinton said “Those who expect progress immediately are unrealistic and doing a disservice to the many people who are working so hard.”

Bill Clinton, UN Special Envoy to Haiti, has been equally optimistic about Haiti’s cheap labor prospects, especially since the passing of the Haitian Economic Lift Program (HELP) in May. The bill would increase the amount of Haitian assembled goods that could be imported into the United States duty free. “This important step,” Clinton said, “responds to the needs of the Haitian people for more tools to lift themselves from poverty, while standing to benefit U.S. consumers.”

But my, oh, my; the Big Dog loves high-end resort tourism, too. The Marriott opening was well-attended by toffs, including Senn Penn, as I remember it.

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wendy davis's picture

Ruh-roh, hello Jens: ‘Majority in Swedish parliament backs 'NATO option' after Sweden Democrats shift’, dec. 9, 2020

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The Liberal Moonbat's picture

@wendy davis This was how I remember a hopeful Jon Stewart characterizing a honeymoon-era Obama Administration specifically in contrast to how Bush had treated us. This goes deeper than I can say, and it's hard for me even to talk about, because the basic premise that being "treated like a child" is a bad thing - like you're stupid/untrustworthy/property/an empty vessel only good for filling - is anathema to how my parents raised me. It's bad enough that the COG* treats us all like wicked-step-parents-for-life, but that very idea that they should, at any point or in any way, view themselves as our "parents" is fundamentally sickening; this is straight-up Plantation Mentality.

This was one of Marx's (and hence much of "The Left's") biggest screw-ups: The "dialectical" assumption that feudalism was dead and the Big Bad now was the "bourgeoisie" that had replaced them. No.

America has been fighting the exact same war since 1776: Feudalism VS Liberal Democracy. As Tim Curry would say, communism is just a red herring (whether you're against OR for it!). Contrary to the historical revisionism that's become popular recently, the answers we seek STILL lie in the 18th Century. The Industrial Revolution did NOT change politics. We must abandon the 19th-Century conceit of "social science"; Smith was wrong, Marx and Engels were wrong, and therefore so are all of their ideological descendants.

Voltaire.

Paine.

The Founding Fathers (the original "progressives" who knew they were bad, but pledged their lives to giving posterity the opportunity to be better than they).

Keynes (AKA 'the Anti-Economist').

Einstein (for my money, at least as great a social thinker as a physicist - and that's saying A LOT!).

Dr. Benjamin Spock (arguably the most underrated revolutionary of the 20th Century).

Mr. Fred Rogers (rival to the above title).

Bruce Lee ("more American than most Americans", as an Australian sociologist I used to know once observed - he meant it in the best way).

Gene Roddenberry (he who set the Guiding Star in the heavens).

These are some of the people we should be listening to now more than ever.

_____

* = 'Corporatist Occupation Government', in my tip-of-the-hat adaptation of the more reality-based fragment of the neo-Nazi worldview. If we refuse to acknowledge what they're right about, there'll be no stopping them.

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4 users have voted.

In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.

Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!