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These Billionaire Donors Spent The Most Money On The 2020 Election

They collectively shelled out $2.3 billion, more than twice as much as Joe Biden’s entire campaign.

Forbes reports:

Billionaires played a bigger role in the 2020 election than ever before. Three of them—Donald Trump, Michael Bloomberg and Tom Steyer—ran for president. A fourth, Howard Schultz, flirted with the idea.

They donated money, too. Lots of it. More than 200 chipped in to support their favorite presidential candidates. The top 20 collectively spent $2.3 billion. Or a little more than twice as much as Joe Biden’s campaign. And just one person donated more than half that sum.

Even still, the donations won’t make much of a dent in the billionaires’ fortunes, which are growing at a faster rate than campaigns’ expenditures. In fact, a number of the donations are relatively modest in comparison to their outsize fortunes.

“Buying influence, for a regular American, would be incredibly expensive,” says Robert Maguire, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington research director. “[Billionaires] get an outsize influence at what is—to them—just an incredibly affordable rate.”

To drive home this point, we compared what these billionaires spent to what the equivalent would be for someone with the median American household net worth, which was $121,700 in 2019, according to the Federal Reserve Board’s Survey of Consumer Finances.

Here are the donors Forbes found, ranked in order of how much they spent and listed with their donation converted to an equivalent sum based on the median household income.

Our analysis tallies itemized contributions of at least $100 made by individual billionaire donors and their known spouses to federal candidates and political action committees tracked by the Federal Election Commission during the 2019–20 election cycle, through December 31, 2020.

1. Michael Bloomberg

Net worth: $54.9 billion

Contributions: $1.2 billion

Equivalent donation for median American household: $2,677

The former New York City mayor spent more of his own money running for president than anyone in history. But even if you don’t count the billion-plus dollars that went to his own campaign, Bloomberg still would have donated more than all but two billionaires to the 2020 election. Bloomberg poured about $150 million into other Democratic campaigns and causes, including $67 million that went into his own super-PAC, which spent more than three quarters of its funds supporting Joe Biden.

2. Tom Steyer & Kat Taylor

Net worth: $1.4 billion

Contributions: $414.9 million

Equivalent donation for median American household: $36,023

The hedge fund billionaire spent $342 million on his own presidential campaign, plus another $73 million supporting left-leaning causes and voter-registration efforts. Never mind that he lost the Democratic primary—Steyer is still taking a victory lap. “For over a decade, I’ve spent all my time, energy and resources trying to address the big systemic problems we have in this country,” he said in a statement. “In particular, I have tried to do my part to address climate change, support economic and environmental justice and mobilize young voters. This cycle, those issues were front and center.”

3. Sheldon & Miriam Adelson

Net worth: $29.8 billion*

Contributions: $218.4 million

Equivalent donation for median American household: $888

Covid-19 hasn’t been kind to the gambling business, but you wouldn’t know that looking at the Adelsons’ 2020 donations. Sheldon, who died in January, broke his own spending records, doling out $120 million to GOP congressional super-PACs, $90 million to a pro-Trump super-PAC and about another $8 million to other conservative causes and candidates.

*As of The Forbes 400 for 2020

4. Ken Griffin

Net worth: $15 billion

Contributions: $67.6 million

Equivalent donation for median American household: $548

Hedge fund heavyweight Griffin, a Mitt Romney supporter in 2012, didn’t donate directly to Donald Trump’s campaigns in 2016 or 2020. Instead, he focused on Congress, dumping $37 million into a super-PAC supporting Senate Republicans and another $10 million to a group backing House Republicans over the last two years.

5. Dustin Moskovitz & Cari Tuna

Net worth: $18.1 billion

Contributions: $51.8 million

Equivalent donation for median American household: $353

At 36, Facebook cofounder Moskovitz is the youngest megadonor on this list. He and his wife, Cari Tuna, spent $25 million in 2016, then doubled down with a $47 million donation to a pro-Biden super-PAC in 2020, helping fuel an advertising blitz in the final months of the campaign.

6. Stephen & Christine Schwarzman

Net worth: $22.5 billion

Contributions: $48 million

Equivalent donation for median American household: $256

The richest man in private equity, Schwarzman put $35 million into a super-PAC called the Senate Leadership Fund supporting Republican senators. He also gave $2 million to a group supporting one particular Republican senator, Susan Collins of Maine. Former President Trump got some love, too, with committees that support him receiving $3.7 million.

7. Jim & Marilyn Simons

Net worth: $23.5 billion

Contributions: $25.9 million

Equivalent donation for median American household: $134

A math professor who started his own hedge fund, Simons has long been a Democratic kingmaker. For years, he has reaped huge returns through his quant firm, Renaissance Technologies—also the source of wealth for Republican donor Robert Mercer and Democratic supporter Henry Laufer (No. 18). Simons stepped down as chairman last month but remains invested in the firm’s funds. He and his wife, Marilyn, gave $10 million to SMP, the super-PAC supporting Democrats in the Senate. They also funneled more than $8 million into committees supporting Joe Biden.

8. Bernard & Billi Marcus

Net worth: $7.3 billion

Contributions: $24.8 million

Equivalent donation for median American household: $414

The Georgia megadonor donated $10 million to a super-PAC that ran a slew of anti-Biden ads in the run-up to the election, and put $5.8 million toward a super-PAC focused on GOP Senate races. Marcus’ cofounder from Home Depot, Arthur Blank, supported Biden in 2020, but Marcus spent more than 30 times as much on Trump as Blank did on Biden.

9. Isaac & Laura Perlmutter

Net worth: $6.1 billion

Contributions: $24.3 million

Equivalent donation for median American household: $487

Marvel Entertainment chairman Perlmutter has long been loyal to Trump, a neighbor in Palm Beach, Fla. About 95% of the Perlmutters’ contributions went to committees vying to reelect the president. Trump has been good to Perlmutter, too—reportedly giving him vast influence in the Department of Veterans Affairs, even though the comic book tycoon never had an official position in the administration.

10. J. Joe & Marlene Ricketts

Net worth: $3.7 billion

Contributions: $22.3 million

Equivalent donation for median American household: $730

Ricketts, who founded a stock brokerage firm that grew into TD Ameritrade, and his wife, Marlene, spent millions supporting Trump and GOP senators ahead of the 2020 election. They also bankrolled a super-PAC called Citizens for Free Enterprise with $7.8 million in contributions. That group spent big on congressional races in New Mexico, Virginia, California and Oklahoma. One of their sons, Todd, serves as finance chairman of the Republican National Committee, while another, Pete, is the governor of Nebraska.

11. Charles & Helen Schwab

Net worth: $10.5 billion

Contributions: $21.2 million

Equivalent donation for median American household: $243

The brokerage king and his wife, Helen, shied away from supporting Trump directly, while donating millions to committees and super-PACs supporting Republicans running for Congress. They also gave about $1 million to the Republican National Committee; its records show those funds went into accounts used for putting on the RNC convention and paying for lawyers.

12. Linda McMahon, wife of Vince McMahon

Spouse’s net worth: $1.9 billion

Contributions: $18.4 million

Equivalent donation for median American household: $1,180

In 2017 former World Wrestling Entertainment CEO Linda McMahon took a cabinet position in the Trump White House, serving as head of the Small Business Administration. She left that gig in 2019 to lead the pro-Trump super-PAC America First Action and ended up pouring $15.7 million into the group.

13. Stephen & Susan Mandel

Net worth: $2.8 billion

Contributions: $18.2 million

Equivalent donation for median American household: $791

Connecticut hedge fund mogul Mandel and his wife, Susan, poured millions into supporting Joe Biden’s election, directly and through super-PACs. They got associates to join them as well, making them official Biden bundlers. Susan Mandel also donated $1.3 million to Planned Parenthood’s super-PAC.

14. Warren & Harriet Stephens

Net worth: $2.7 billion

Contributions: $18.1 million

Equivalent donation for median American household: $815

Arkansas banker Stephens is a longtime Republican donor. He put $3.5 million into two pro-Trump super-PACs and $6 million into the Senate Leadership Fund. He also dumped money into super-PACs that supported Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). His family founded Stephens Inc., the Little Rock investment bank, which underwrote Walmart’s public offering in 1970.

15. Paul Singer

Net worth: $3.6 billion

Contributions: $16.8 million

Equivalent donation for median American household: $572

The often-pugnacious hedge fund titan, who has a history of supporting both conservative and LGBTQ political causes, staunchly opposed Donald Trump in 2016. Singer ended up donating $1 million to the former president’s inaugural committee anyway, but he didn’t spend much more to help Trump. The investor’s largest expenditure ahead of the 2020 election was the $6.5 million he gave to the pro-GOP Senate Leadership Fund.

16. Patrick & Shirley Ryan

Net worth: $3.4 billion

Contributions: $16.2 million

Equivalent donation for median American household: $584

The founder and CEO of Chicago insurance firm Ryan Specialty Group avoided donating to Trump. Instead, he and his wife Shirley put the bulk of their contributions into super-PACs that were spending big in key GOP Senate races. Among their largest contributions: $10.5 million to the Senate Leadership Fund (which in turn spent $92 million opposing Jon Ossoff), $1.75 million to Americans For Prosperity Action (which spent $13 million supporting David Perdue) and $1.5 million to Better Future MI Fund (which spent $11 million opposing Gary Peters).

17. Reid Hoffman & Michelle Yee

Net worth: $2 billion

Contributions: $15.1 million

Equivalent donation for median American household: $919

Besides pouring millions into super-PACs supporting Joe Biden and other Democrats, LinkedIn cofounder Hoffman took a slightly different approach to his political spending. He spent $4.5 million to team up with a group of media firms and the Lincoln Project to produce digital ads criticizing Trump.

18. Henry & Marsha Laufer

Net worth: $2.1 billion

Contributions: $14.8 million

Equivalent donation for median American household: $852

After working as a professor with Jim Simons (No. 7) at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, Laufer joined his colleague at Renaissance Technologies, the hedge fund Simons founded. Both are now big Democratic donors. Laufer and his wife, Marsha, put $2.5 million into a super-PAC supporting Biden and another $1.8 million into a group backing Democrats in the Senate.

19. Steve & Andrea Wynn

Net worth: $3 billion

Contributions: $14.8 million

Equivalent donation for median American household: $596

Las Vegas mogul Wynn stepped down as finance chair of the Republican National Committee and CEO of Wynn Resorts amid sexual misconduct allegations in 2018. Wynn, who has denied the allegations, is still spending big for Republicans. He and his wife, Andrea, put more money into the 2020 election than ever before, funneling over $10 million into super-PACs that spent big on the Georgia Senate race.

20. Kelcy & Amy Warren

Net worth: $3.2 billion

Contributions: $14 million

Equivalent donation for median American household: $535

Donald Trump cleared the way for Warren’s Dakota Access Pipeline, then appointed the oil billionaire to the board of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. No wonder Warren was willing to spend more than $10 million to get Trump reelected. Over the summer, Warren told Forbesthatthe 2020 election would be “the most important in a generation.”

WATCH: Rand Paul likens child sex-change procedures to ‘genital mutilation’

Rand Paul likens child sex-change procedures to ‘genital mutilation’ while grilling Biden’s transgender HHS nominee.

The Blaze reports:

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Thursday pressed President Joe Biden’s nominee for assistant secretary of health on whether the government should override a parent’s consent to allow a gender-dysphoric child to begin taking hormones or pursue sex-change surgery.

Paul asked Dr. Rachel Levine, who identifies as a transgender woman, whether minors are capable of making life-altering decisions to undergo irreversible medical procedures that permanently change their bodies. In his question, Paul compared sex-change operations for minors to genital mutilation.

“Genital mutilation has been nearly universally condemned. … Genital mutilation is considered particularly egregious because, as the WHO notes, it is nearly always carried out on minors and is a violation of the rights of children,” Paul said.

“Most genital mutilation is not typically performed by force, but as WHO notes, by social convention. Social norm. The social pressure to conform. To do what others do and have been doing as well as the need to be accepted socially and the fear of being rejected by the community,” he continued.

“American culture is now normalizing the idea that minors can be given hormones to prevent their biological development of their secondary sexual characteristics. Dr. Levine, you have supported both allowing minors to be given hormone blockers to prevent them from going through puberty, as well as surgical destruction of a minor’s genitalia. Like surgical mutilation, hormonal interruption of puberty can permanently alter and prevent secondary sexual characteristics. The American College of Pediatricians reports that 80-95% of prepubertal children with gender dysphoria will experience resolution by late adolescence if not exposed to medical intervention and social affirmation,” he continued.

“Dr. Levine, do you believe minors are capable of making such a life-changing decision as changing one’s sex?” Paul asked.

Levine replied, “Transgender medicine is a very complex and nuanced field with robust research and standards of care that have been developed and if I am fortunate enough to be confirmed as the assistant secretary of health, I’ll look forward to working with you and your office and coming to your office and discussing the particulars of the standards of care for transgender medicine.”

Unsatisfied, Paul accused Levine of evading his question.

“Do you support the government intervening to override the parent’s consent to give a child puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and/or amputation surgery of breasts and genitalia? You have said that you’re willing to accelerate the protocols for street kids. I’m alarmed that poor kids with no parents, who are homeless and distraught — you would just go through this and allow that to happen to a minor,” he said.

Paul shared the story of Keira Bell, a 23-year-old U.K. woman who is taking legal action against the NHS, claiming that she should have been challenged by medical staff on her decision as a teenager to undergo a sex-change operation to appear male. She now regrets that decision.

“What I am alarmed at is that you’re not willing to say absolutely minors shouldn’t be making decisions to amputate their breasts or to amputate their genitalia,” Paul told Levine.

Levine responded that “transgender medicine is a very complex and nuanced field and if confirmed to the position of assistant secretary of health, I would certainly be pleased to come to your office and talk with you and your staff about the standards of care and the complexity of this field.”

Paul again accused Levine of refusing to answer his question.

“You’re willing to let a minor take things that prevent their puberty, and you think they get that back? You give a woman testosterone enough that she grows a beard, do you think she’s going to go back to looking like a woman when she stops the testosterone? You have permanently changed them,” Paul said.

He continued: “Infertility is another problem. None of these drugs have been approved for this, they’re all being used off-label. I find it ironic that the left that went nuts over hydroxychloroquine being used possibly for COVID are not alarmed that these hormones are being used off-label. There’s no long-term studies. We don’t know what happens to them. We do know that there are dozens and dozens of people who’ve been through this who regret that this happened. And a permanent change happened to them. And if you’ve ever been around children, 14-year-olds can’t make this decision.”

“In the gender dysphoria clinic in England, 10% of the kids are between the ages of 3 and 10. We should be outraged that someone’s talking to a 3-year-old about changing their sex!” Paul exclaimed.

Biden holding over 700 at border custody, criticized Trump for doing the same

Breitbart reports:

The Biden Administration faces increasing criticism for holding unaccompanied migrant children in Border Patrol custody–some longer than the legal 72-hour limit.

Axios reported from a leaked Customs and Border Protection document that the Biden Administration held more than 700 Unaccompanied Alien Children in Border Patrol custody as of Sunday. At least 200 of those children were held by Border Patrol for more than 48 hours — nine were held more than the legal 72-hour limit.

On Tuesday night, Breitbart Texas reported that by Monday, the number had grown to 800 minors in Border Patrol custody with more than 200 held beyond the statutory 72-hour limit, according to National Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki blamed the issue on multiple causes. She blamed last week’s winter storm in Texas and tried to say the Biden Administration’s holding of children without parents at the border was different than what happened during the Trump administration.

According to Axios:

“We have a couple of options: We can send them back home … We can quickly transfer them from CPB to these HHS-run facilities … We can put them with families and sponsors without any vetting,” Psaki said. “We’ve chosen the middle option.”

This means the Biden Administration is choosing to hold children by themselves in Border Patrol facilities that are not designed to hold children and families and where social distancing cannot be maintained, Judd explained on Tuesday.

“She (Psaki) went to great lengths to explain that due to the pandemic and social distancing, [the Office of Refugee Resettlement] only has capacity for a certain number of children,” Judd said.

“What she didn’t explain is that the children that ORR doesn’t have that capacity to take are left in facilities far worse than those of HHS,” Judd continued. “In fact, they are being held in the same locations they accused the Trump administration of inhuman acts when they said he was holding ‘kids in cages.’”

Axios reported that more than 400 unaccompanied minors were referred to Health and Human Services shelters on Tuesday.

“That’s an eye-catching number, especially compared to the 30-day referral average at the peak of the 2019 crisis — which was 294,” Axios wrote. Some experts point out the Biden Administration’s reversal of applying the Title 42 coronavirus protection protocols to children as a “part of the reason for the recent increase in unaccompanied children arriving at the border.”

The number of Unaccompanied Alien Children illegally crossing the border from Mexico into the U.S. is increasing from month to month, according to reports from U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials. In January 2021, Border Patrol agents apprehended 5,871 unaccompanied minors. This is up from 4,995 in December 2020 and 3,076 in January 2020.

Breitbart Texas reached out to U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Border Patrol for confirmation of the numbers of migrants being held in custody by Border Patrol and how long they are being held. A response has not yet been received.

Federal judge indefinitely blocks enforcement of Biden administration’s 100-day deportation freeze

Texas sued to block the ban on Biden’s third day in office. Federal Judge Drew Tipton had already temporarily paused it twice prior to Tuesday night’s order.

The Texas Tribune reports:

A federal judge in Texas has put an indefinite halt to President Joe Biden’s 100-day ban on deportations after issuing a preliminary injunction late Tuesday.

The ruling by Judge Drew Tipton comes after he had already temporarily paused the moratorium twice. The ban is nationwide and is in place as the case continues to play out in courts.

The ruling is a victory for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who sued to block Biden’s order three days into the Biden administration. Paxton’s office argued the state would face financial harm if undocumented immigrants were released into the state because of costs associated with health care and education, and said the moratorium would also lure others to come to Texas.

Tipton, a Trump appointee to the federal bench, wrote in his order that Texas would also incur costs for detaining immigrants within its state. “Texas claimed injury from unanticipated detention costs is sufficiently concrete and imminent. The harm is concrete or de facto because Texas incurs real financial costs in detaining criminal aliens,” he wrote.

It’s unclear whether the Biden administration will appeal the ruling to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which has jurisdiction over Texas’ federal benches.

Biden’s moratorium was announced as part a review of enforcement policies within Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agencies as the administration developed its final priorities, according to the Biden administration. Tipton’s order does not affect the rest of that review.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which intervened in the case, said the ruling only means an extension of former President Trump’s hardline policies.

“Allowing these deportations to continue means that families will be torn apart and that people who have the opportunity to seek relief in the United States will be returned to danger,” Kate Huddleston, attorney with the ACLU of Texas, said in a statement. “At the same time that Texans face a long recovery from a deadly winter storm, Paxton is inflicting yet another trauma on our communities by creating fear and uncertainty.”

Days after Tipton issued the first order, a witness to the El Paso Walmart shooting was deported after being pulled over during a traffic stop. Her attorney said the woman, who was cooperating with prosecutors in El Paso, would not have been sent back to Mexico had Paxton not filed the lawsuit.

Biden’s HHS pick advocates sex changes for kids

Dr. Rachel Levine’s commitment to imposing a radical gender ideology on our nation’s children should perhaps be of even greater concern to the Senate HELP Committee.

The National Pulse reports:

On Thursday, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee will hold a nomination hearing for Dr. Rachel Levine, President Joe Biden’s pick for Assistant Secretary of Health at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). There are plenty of reasons for the committee to be concerned about placing Dr. Levine in such an influential and powerful role.

COVID-Overkill.

During Levine’s time as Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Health, Levine and Pennsylvania’s Governor Tom Wolf drew headlines by engaging in a draconian campaign of threats against counties that questioned state COVID-19 guidelines and wished to reopen their local economies as local businesses fell further into despair.

Additionally, Levine infamously forced COVID-19 patients out of hospitals and into nursing homes and long-term care facilities, exacerbating the spread of the virus to the elderly and infirm, among whom it proved to be most lethal. Levine repeatedly downplayed this criticism, arguing it was a necessary part of the state’s coronavirus response, and that COVID-19 was already present in those facilities.

Watch:

While Levine was actively putting these elderly residents at grave risk, Levine chose to personally play by a different set of rules by quietly removing a parent from a nursing home facility early on in the pandemic.

But while the draconian treatment of local Pennsylvania governments and the COVID-19 nursing home scandal should be enough to call Dr. Levine’s nomination into question, Levine’s commitment to imposing a radical gender ideology on our nation’s children should perhaps be of even greater concern to the Senate HELP Committee.

Transitions for Kids.

Most alarmingly, Dr. Levine has advocated for sex changes for pre-pubertal people, otherwise known as “children.”

A professor of Pediatrics and Psychiatry at the Penn State College of Medicine, Levine has given lectures in various settings since at least 2012 on how to perform sex changes and gender conversion therapy on children.

According to Levine, children ought to be given the latitude to choose their own gender. Levine has advised adults to “try not to force them one way or other [sic]” and instead to follow the child’s lead.

“For prepubertal children,” Levine said in a 2017 speech at Franklin & Marshall College, “they might present in different ways. They might present at school in the gender they were identified at birth, or they might present as the other gender, or they might be more gender-fluid.” Levine has described children as young as five or six as “knowing” which gender they wanted to be.

Once, however, the child reaches the “young adolescent” stage, Dr. Levine recommends puberty blockers, a practice which Dr. Levine apparently followed at Penn State Hershey Medical Center as Chief of the Division of Adolescent Medicine and Eating Disorders. In speeches, Levine describes prescribing puberty blockers and cross-gender hormone injections to children who expressed anxiety about the natural process of puberty.

Additionally, Levine has expressed doubts about the “controversial” requirement in some standards of medical ethics that patients receive psychological evaluations before undergoing such drastic medical regimens.

The current protocols for gender-dysphoric youth, Levine stated in a 2017 speech, outline a two-step process: the prescription of puberty-blockers during the first stages of puberty, and then, after continued counselling, the introduction of cross-gender hormones between the ages of 14 and 16. Then, around age 18, the patient may undergo surgery. But, as Levine noted, there are sometimes exceptions. In certain instances, Levine has said, surgical procedures may be performed on patients under the age of 18.

Levine, however, has noted that doctors may discard the protocol and significantly “accelerate” the process when dealing with “street kids,” who do not come into clinics with their parents, and who may be tempted to buy hormones off the street. In such cases, Levine said, doctors may skip the blockers altogether and go straight to cross-gender hormones, presumably at ages even younger than the 14-16 range described above. Though common in the past, the practice of foisting experimental medical treatments on vulnerable populations, especially minors, is condemned by most medical ethicists.

Unfit.

In addition to the Pennsylvania nursing home scandal, Levine has previously come under fire for other questionable judgments, including an order requiring that two-year-olds wear masks in public, a one-night suspension of alcohol sales in restaurants on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and a state recommendation that Pennsylvanians take up sexting or subscribe to a pornography service like OnlyFans in order to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

It is unclear whether any senators will question Levine on these judgments, or on Levine’s radical transgender ideology. Thus far, opposition to Levine’s nomination has been muted at best. Meanwhile, polls have shown large majorities of voters oppose subjecting minors to sex changes and gender conversion therapy. Senators on the HELP Committee may want to press Levine, and other Biden nominees to HHS, about their support for such radical proposals.

Newsmax reports:

President Joe Biden’s choice for Assistant Secretary for Health has come under fire for supporting hormone treatment and gender reassignment surgery for pre-pubescent children with gender dysphoria.

The National Pulse reported this week that Dr. Rachel Levine, the Pennsylvania Secretary of Health, supports young gender-dysphoric adolescents receiving puberty blockers, cross-gender hormone injections, and eventually surgery as part of the transition process.

“For prepubertal children,” Levine said in 2017 during a speech at Franklin & Marshall College, “they might present in different ways. They might present at school in the gender they were identified at birth, or they might present as the other gender, or they might be more gender-fluid.”

She tweeted last month: “A new study has found that #Transgender youth with access to a puberty blocker have decline in chances of suicide + #mentalhealth problems now and in the future. This study is important because it’s the first to show this specific association.”

Levine is a transgender woman herself, and would be the first openly transgender federal official to be confirmed by the Senate.

The National Pulse said that “Levine’s radical transgender ideology,” makes her “unfit” for the position.

“It is unclear whether any senators will question Levine on these judgments, or on Levine’s radical transgender ideology,” writes the National Pulse’s Jon Schweppe. “Thus far, opposition to Levine’s nomination has been muted at best. Meanwhile, polls have shown large majorities of voters oppose subjecting minors to sex changes and gender conversion therapy. Senators on the HELP Committee may want to press Levine, and other Biden nominees to HHS, about their support for such radical proposals.”

Also see Breitbart’s “Twitter Suspends Christian Group for Accurately Describing Biden’s Transgendered Health Official Dr. Levine’s Biological Sex.”

From The Blaze: “Joe Biden chooses transgender Rachel Levine for assistant secretary of health”

Biden’s Stimulus Bill Is a $1.9 Trillion Clunker (WSJ)

Senate Republicans are eager to get aid where it’s needed, reopen schools and encourage work.

Democrats are anxious for any excuse to blow up the Senate filibuster, the last procedural hurdle to one-party government. Their latest is that Republicans oppose the president’s $1.9 trillion stimulus package. Despite having passed five bipartisan Covid-19 relief bills to date—including one barely seven weeks ago—they claim our opposition demonstrates historic intransigence.

No, it demonstrates that the $1.9 trillion bill is a clunker. It would waste hundreds of billions of dollars, do nothing meaningful to get kids back to school, and enact policies that work against job creation. The Congressional Budget Office’s recent analysis of the plan found that more than a third of the proposed funding—$700 billion—wouldn’t be spent until 2022 or later, undermining the administration’s claim that the massive price tag is justified for urgent pandemic-related needs.

The Biden stimulus is unsound economic policy. High unemployment isn’t the result of too little money in American pockets; it’s because of the pandemic. Sending out checks won’t get consumers back into restaurants, bars, salons, malls, hotels or airplanes. Near-record levels of savings are evidence that consumers are able to spend. When Covid is finally in the rearview mirror, they will come roaring back. Congress should target assistance to those who need it and help speed the delivery of vaccines—not borrow hundreds of billions more to check items off a political wish list, deepening the nation’s debt and risking inflation.

The bill is also filled with bad policies and sloppy math. It calls for $350 billion for states and localities. If you live in New York, you might think that sounds about right because the pandemic severely exacerbated your state’s existing financial woes. But New York is the exception. Florida hasn’t even had to dip into its rainy-day fund. California has a multibillion-dollar surplus. Utah’s revenues rose by double digits.

JP Morgan found that 21 states had revenue increases in 2020. Other states drew on rainy-day funds—which is what they are there for. Only a few are in severe financial distress. The same is true of cities and counties: Some are hurting, but the great majority aren’t. Most local tax revenue comes from property taxes, which are far less volatile than sales or income taxes. Sending out hundreds of billions of dollars to states and localities regardless of need is both wasteful and harmful. It would create incentives for the mismanagement that got some states into fiscal trouble in the first place.

Read the full article here.

Is There Wasteful Spending In The New $1.9 Trillion Coronavirus Stimulus Bill? (Forbes)

Over the weekend, the U.S. House posted a first draft version of the “American Rescue Plan Act of 2021” – a $1.9 trillion emergency aid package to help America recover from the coronavirus pandemic.

Previous legislation has already provided at least $4 trillion in funds for testing, paid family leave, small business relief, direct payments to individuals and families, the Kennedy Center, and a plethora of non-related Covid-19 “relief.”

Since House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s leadership team essentially wrote the bill, our auditors at OpenTheBooks.com found what House Democrats consider coronavirus-recovery “essential” spending:

  • $1.5 million earmarked for the Seaway International Bridge, which connects New York to Canada. Senate Leader Chuck Schumer hails from New York.
  • $50 million for “family planning” – going to non-profits, i.e. Planned Parenthood, or public entities, including for “services for adolescents[.]”
  • $852 million for AmeriCorps, AmeriCorps Vista, and the National Senior Service Corps – the Corporation for National and Community Service – civic volunteer agencies. This includes $9 million for the AmeriCorp inspector general to conduct oversight and audits of the largess. AmeriCorps received a $1.1 billion FY2020 appropriation.

People of goodwill can debate each of these goals, but is it truly emergency spending or funding related to Covid-19?

For example, what is the public purpose for a hike in the minimum wage to $15 per hour – which the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) says will cost the economy 1.4 million jobs?

Certainly, the coronavirus stimulus bill does provide $473 billion in payments to individuals, $75 billion in cash for vaccines, $26 billion to restaurants, $15 billion to help fund airline payrolls, and another $7.2 billion in Paycheck Protection Program funding for small businesses.

However, The Wall Street Journal editorial board estimated that only $825 billion was directly related to Covid-19 relief and $1 trillion was “expansions of progressive programs, pork, and unrelated policy changes.”

For example, separately, our auditors found that $470 million in the bill doubles the budgets of The Institute of Museum and Library Services and the National Endowment of the Arts and the Humanities.

  • $200 million in the bill to The Institute of Museum and Library Services (FY2019 budget: $230 million). This agency is so small that it doesn’t even employ an inspector general.
  • $270 million funds the National Endowment of the Arts and the Humanities (FY2019 budget: $253 million) – In 2017, our study showed eighty-percent of all non-profit grant making flowed to well-heeled organizations with over $1 million in assets.

A quick spotlight on agencies and entities receiving “coronavirus recovery” money in the bill includes:

  • $350 billion to bailout the 50 States and the District of Columbia. The allocation formula uses the unemployment rate in the fourth quarter of 2020. Therefore, states like New York and California –who had strict economic lockdown policies and high unemployment – will get bailout money. States like Florida and South Dakota – who were open for business – will get less.
  • $128.5 billion to fund K-12 education. The CBO determined that most of the money in education will be distributed in 2022 through 2028, when the pandemic is over.
  • $86 billion to save nearly 200 pension plans insured by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. There are no reforms mandated while these badly managed pensions are bailed-out. Many of these pension plans are co-managed by unions.
  • $50 billion goes to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). A portion of these funds is earmarked to reimburse up to $7,000 for funeral and burial costs related to Covid-19 deaths.
  • $39.6 billion to higher education. This amount is three times the money – $12.5 billion – that higher ed received with the massive CARES Act funding from last March.  
  • $1.5 billion for Amtrak – the National Railroad Passenger Corporation. In FY2020, Congress appropriated $3 billion for Amtrak ($2 billion in annual appropriations, plus an additional $1 billion in the CARES Act COVID relief bill). In the three years before the pandemic, AMTRAK lost $392 million – even after a $5 billion taxpayer subsidy (FY2017-FY2019).

We reached out to Speaker Pelosi for comment and will update the piece if there is a response.

During the past three years, Republicans and Democrats have helped drain the U.S. Treasury from the left and the right. Our national debt increased from $10 trillion (2008) to $19.6 trillion (2016) to $23.6 trillion (2020) and stands at $28 trillion today.

Continuing coronavirus responses and bloated legislation will drive the national debt much higher.

The dangerous cult of neo-segregation

“The racial messaging is loud and clear: if you’re not the right hue, there’s obviously something wrong with you.”

The Christian Post reports:

We see it everywhere. Thanks to Corporate America, mainstream media, so-called civil rights groups, academia and a relevance-worshipping Church, we are a nation increasingly judging one another and separating ourselves by the color of our skin. We’re surrounded by marketing that elevates one group while excoriating another. It’s okay, we’re told. It’s all in a day’s work toward “diversity” and “inclusion.”

Funny thing how so many get excluded in those pursuits.

Racism is evil. Exploiting it, marketing it, and expanding it is too.

The racial messaging is loud and clear: if you’re not the right hue, there’s obviously something wrong with you. And those reminders are relentless. From Hollywood babble to pandering politicians to Big Tech Tyrants to Institutions of Higher Mislearning to euphemistic bridges to nowhere in woke churches, we’re barraged by an unending stream of color conscious craziness that demands society sees hue before they see you.

As with all things rooted in human frailty, today’s celebrated form of segregation is immensely profitable, especially for those peddling the victimhood. There’s no scarcity of New York Times bestselling authors reminding us to define ourselves by our “whiteness” or “blackness,” and to assess every situation, every word, every interaction with others through the broken narratives of Critical Race Theory. It’s exhausting. That’s not living.

At every turn we’re being commanded to check our color, check our privilege, check our to-do-lists of guilt-oriented tasks. Corporate America has taken genuflection to a whole new low. Remember when Chick-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy got on his knees and started shining hip-hop artist Lecrae’s shoes in a seriously cringey display of reconciliation-gone-wrong? He told other white people to do the same. If you ever try to shine my shoes, I will kick you. I repeat. I. Will. Kick. You. This doesn’t erase racism. This doesn’t change the past. This just makes someone feel really uncomfortable.

Guilt is a powerful thing. And when it’s coupled with racism, it’s a cash cow, especially for the groups that rely on victim evangelism. The Black Lives Matter movement raked in millions while cities and businesses burned last summer. The NAACP, in full denial of the massive violence and destruction wrought by many #BLM “peaceful protests,” was the recipient of millions more in pledges from Corporate America. 

Apple has turned up the volume on its social justice rhetoric with its Racial Equity and Justice Initiative and its “Black Unity” branded watch. Why not a “Unity” collection that celebrates us all? Never mind these same corporations closed and boarded up their businesses to protect their assets during BLM protests. They sent out press releases that sounded like an abused spouse making excuses for the abuser.

Taxpayers get to be force-fed the Cult of Neo-Segregation even in our museums. Remember when the Smithsonian posted an infographic about “whiteness” and “white culture” claiming that having a “protestant work ethic” was a “white thing.” So, as someone with brown skin, I don’t believe in working hard? The Smithsonian got fierce pushback and removed the infographic, but (of course) kept the racist “whiteness” section on their website.

We’re siloing, and it’s toxic. I’m all about expressions of diversity and learning others’ cultures. We are a beautifully diverse nation, and that diversity exists even within the same shades of pigmentation. But we don’t make up for the suppression of some cultures by demonizing everyone else. We don’t bring people together by constantly obsessing over our hues, our past, and our assumed “privileges.”

I’m all about addressing inequality…real inequality. I’m all about taking steps to dismantle systemic racism where and when it actually occurs (let’s start with Planned Parenthood  —the leading killer of black lives). I’m all about criminal justice reform and law enforcement accountability, but I won’t embrace a lie (BLM, CRT, DNC) to achieve it. I’m all about more healthy dialogue, more relationships and more unity around the fact that we’re one human race.

Church, can you help me out on this? Acts 17:26 if you’ve forgotten.

I’m not about living in the past. I’m not about mainstream media’s and academia’s revisions of the past. And I’m not about a mindset that certain people can never escape the past. Thank goodness this doesn’t apply to us in the spiritual sense. We’re forgiven by a God who loves us and redeems our past. But a broken worldview wants us to hold someone responsible for something they may or may not have done. Some want perpetual penance for wrongs someone’s ancestors have committed.

Are we responsible for the crimes of even our parents? Am I responsible for the crime of my biological father because I was conceived in rape?

Too many times the past is weaponized and used to justify present behavior. If African-Americans, who lived in the horrific oppression of slavery, could forgive and move forward, what’s holding our modern society back?

The Civil Rights Act of 1871 (aka the Ku Klux Klan Act) was a piece of legislation that addressed the horrific KKK violence that terrorized black Americans and their white allies. No surprise, but zero Democrats in the House and Senate voted for the bill. A group of African-American Congressman (they were all Republicans) had a profound take on the legislation which alarmingly allowed pardons for former Confederates. The trailblazer legislators were Senator Hiram Revels and Representatives Robert Elliott, Robert De Large, Benjamin Turner and Joseph Rainey — all born into slavery. They proclaimed: “We have open and frank hearts toward those who were our oppressors and taskmasters. We foster no enmity now, and we desire to foster none for their act in the past to us, nor to the Government we love so well.”

We have a lot to learn from our past. But the most powerful lesson that benefits all of us, regardless of our beautiful hues, is how (especially as Christians) we can choose to have a more loving, more forgiving and more unified future.

Only 9% of Democrat-led coronavirus stimulus bill goes to COVID relief, redistributes U.S. wealth

Most of the $1.9 trillion House bill has little to do with the virus and is being called “little more than a wishlist for the radical left masquerading as a COVID relief package.”

Fox News reports:

House Democrats’ $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill is a socialist “wish list” that will also subsidize blue states that have mismanaged their budgets for years, Sean Hannity told viewers Monday.

“No Democrat spending bill is complete without subsidies for illegal immigrants, federal money for abortions. If [ths bill is] passed … Planned Parenthood will now qualify for PPP small business loans, which then become grants and bridges to Canada and environmental justice equity commissions for farmers, health care in other countries,” the “Hannity” host said.

“[It’s] also a budget bailout … for New York, for Andrew Cuomo, and Gavin Newsom in California. This is not a serious, thoughtful COVID relief package. What this really is, is a massive federal payout to everyone and every state who donated to and supported Democrat candidates in 2020.”

“Even during a global crisis,” Hannity added, “the left is constantly playing political games.”

The host added that Democrats have shown that are not taking coronavirus relief as seriously as they should be, pointing to a bill from Rep. Linda Sanchez, D-Calif., that would ban former President Donald Trump from being buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.

“In the middle of a pandemic, when over 100,000 Americans [have] died during Joe Biden’s time in the White House, raging against President Trump is still the Democratic Party and the media mob’s top priority,” he said.

“Clearly the same Democrats have been in no particular rush to pass a COVID relief package and get money into the hands of Americans who actually need it,” Hannity concluded. “The bulk of spending [in the COVID bill] is unrelated to getting immediate assistance to our fellow Americans in need through no fault of their own. In fact, nearly $700 billion won’t be spent until after 2022, including billions not spent until after 2024.”

“So we must ask ourselves tonight, how is that COVID relief?”

Forbes reports:

Over the weekend, the U.S. House posted a first draft version of the “American Rescue Plan Act of 2021” – a $1.9 trillion emergency aid package to help America recover from the coronavirus pandemic.

Previous legislation has already provided at least $4 trillion in funds for testing, paid family leave, small business relief, direct payments to individuals and families, the Kennedy Center, and a plethora of non-related COVID “relief.”

Since House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s leadership team essentially wrote the bill, our auditors at OpenTheBooks.com found what House Democrats consider coronavirus-recovery “essential” spending:

  • $1.5 million earmarked for the Seaway International Bridge, which connects New York to Canada. Senate Leader Chuck Schumer hails from New York.
  • $50 million for “family planning” – going to non-profits, i.e. Planned Parenthood, or public entities, including for “services for adolescents[.]”
  • $852 million for AmeriCorps, AmeriCorps Vista, and the National Senior Service Corps – the Corporation for National and Community Service – civic volunteer agencies. This includes $9 million for the AmeriCorp inspector general to conduct oversight and audits of the largess. AmeriCorps received a $1.1 billion FY2020 appropriation.

People of goodwill can debate each of these goals, but is it truly emergency spending or funding related to COVID?

For example, what is the public purpose for a hike in the minimum wage to $15 per hour – which the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) says will cost the economy 1.4 million jobs?

Certainly, the coronavirus stimulus bill does provide $473 billion in payments to individuals, $75 billion in cash for vaccines, $26 billion to restaurants, $15 billion to help fund airline payrolls, and another $7.2 billion in Paycheck Protection Program funding for small businesses.

However, The Wall Street Journal editorial board estimated that only $825 billion was directly related to COVID-relief and $1 trillion was “expansions of progressive programs, pork, and unrelated policy changes.”

For example, separately, our auditors found that $470 million in the bill doubles the budgets of The Institute of Museum and Library Services and the National Endowment of the Arts and the Humanities.

  • $200 million in the bill to The Institute of Museum and Library Services (FY2019 budget: $230 million). This agency is so small that it doesn’t even employ an inspector general.
  • $270 million funds the National Endowment of the Arts and the Humanities (FY2019 budget: $253 million) – In 2017, our study showed eighty-percent of all non-profit grant making flowed to well-heeled organizations with over $1 million in assets.

A quick spotlight on agencies and entities receiving “coronavirus recovery” money in the bill includes:

  • $350 billion to bailout the 50 States and the District of Columbia. The allocation formula uses the unemployment rate in the fourth quarter of 2020. Therefore, states like New York and California –who had strict economic lockdown policies and high unemployment – will get bailout money. States like Florida and South Dakota – who were open for business – will get less.
  • $128.5 billion to fund K-12 education. The CBO determined that most of the money in education will be distributed in 2022 through 2028, when the pandemic is over.
  • $86 billion to save nearly 200 pension plans insured by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. There are no reforms mandated while these badly managed pensions are bailed-out. Many of these pension plans are co-managed by unions.
  • $50 billion goes to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). A portion of these funds is earmarked to reimburse up to $7,000 for funeral and burial costs related to COVID deaths.
  • $39.6 billion to higher education. This amount is three times the money – $12.5 billion – that higher ed received with the massive CARES Act funding from last March.
  • $1.5 billion for Amtrak – the National Railroad Passenger Corporation. In FY2020, Congress appropriated $3 billion for Amtrak ($2 billion in annual appropriations, plus an additional $1 billion in the CARES Act COVID relief bill). In the three years before the pandemic, AMTRAK lost $392 million – even after a $5 billion taxpayer subsidy (FY2017-FY2019).

We reached out to Speaker Pelosi for comment and will update the piece if there is a response.

During the past three years, Republicans and Democrats have helped drain the U.S. Treasury from the left and the right. Our national debt increased from $10 trillion (2008) to $19.6 trillion (2016) to $23.6 trillion (2020) and stands at $28 trillion today.

Continuing coronavirus responses and bloated legislation will drive the national debt much higher.

The Wall Street Journal reports:

The Biden White House is pointing to polls showing that its $1.9 trillion spending bill is popular, and the press corps is cheering. Yet we wonder how much public support there’d be if Americans understood that most of the blowout is a list of longtime Democratic spending priorities flying under the false flag of Covid-19 relief.

Let’s dig into the various House committee bills to separate the Covid from the chaff. The Covid cash includes some $75 billion for vaccinations, treatments, testing and medical supplies. There’s also $19 billion for “public health,” primarily for state health departments and community health centers. One might even count the $6 billion to the Indian Health Service, or $4 billion for mental health.

The package also hands more to businesses and individuals most hit by lockdowns. That includes $7.2 billion more for the Paycheck Protection Program, $15 billion for economic injury disaster loans, $26 billion for restaurants, bars and live venues, and $15 billion in payroll support for airlines. The recipients of this taxpayer money will at least be required to prove economic harm, and in some cases repay loans.

Not so the recipients of the $413 billion in checks Democrats intend to send to households far and wide, at $1,400 per man, woman and dependent, that begins phasing out at $75,000 of individual income. The Congressional Budget Office says the bill’s unemployment provisions will increase deficits by $246 billion, and that its $400 a week in federal “enhanced” unemployment benefits through August “could increase the unemployment rate as well as decrease labor force participation.” So much for economic stimulus.

All told, this generous definition of Covid-related provisions tallies some $825 billion. The rest of the bill—more than $1 trillion—is a combination of bailouts for Democratic constituencies, expansions of progressive programs, pork, and unrelated policy changes.

McDonald’s executives will lose bonuses if they hire too many white people to ‘senior leadership roles’

McDonald’s Corp on Thursday said it will tie executive bonuses to new goals for diversifying the company and for the first time publicly release demographic details of its workforce (Reuters).

Reuters reports:

Under the new rules, CEO Chris Kempczinski stands to lose 15% of his approximately $2.25 million annual bonus if he fails to meet goals to increase the portion of women and Blacks, Hispanics, Asians and other minorities in senior leadership roles.

More organizations are seeking to increase opportunities for Black workers, women and other disenfranchised and underpaid groups, after a nationwide reckoning with racism sparked by the May killing of George Floyd, a Black man, by Minneapolis police.

As activists have called for more transparency, companies are increasingly reporting demographic data for their workforces and tying executive pay to diversification goals.

Coffee seller Starbucks Corp in October linked compensation to diversity goals but did not provide details of how those goals would be weighted in performance reviews.

McDonald’s said in July that it would launch initiatives to increase diversity, but it had not yet developed exact mechanisms to do that.

The BL reports:

McDonald’s announced that hiring too many white men would cause senior executives who did so to lose bonuses and instead they should prioritize women and “historically underrepresented groups” for top corporate positions.

For her part, HumanEvents.com writer Celine Ryan questioned this system and called it “McQuotas,” according to her Feb. 19 article.

“But even those who place value in the concepts of ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ have repeatedly pointed out that these types of hiring quotas are misguided at best, and empty performances at worst, with unintended negative consequences,” Ryan wrote.

This well-known multinational company increased the percentages of employees it now prioritizes when hiring, without parameters such as demographic proportionality in each country, for example.

Likewise, the founder and editor of The Gateway Pundit, Jim Hoft, maintains that “the company will focus on hiring women and minorities for top positions, regardless of their talent and abilities.”

Coca-Cola also generated a strong reaction when it was discovered that in its employee training instructions, it included a rule that participants “try to be less white” in their behavior, according to alternative media outlet The Scoop.

The Twitter user identified as @DrKarlynB denounced these indications in one of her tweets.

“Coca-Cola is forcing employees to complete online training telling them to “try to be less white. These images are from an internal whistleblower,” she wrote.

After this tweet, Coca-Cola denied the fact, but @DrKarlynB replied in another of her messages that the company’s institutional icon could be seen in the didactic material used for the training.

“For people asking to verify this, the course is publicly available on @LinkedIn,” the netizen confirmed.

She added: “You can see for yourself. The Coca-Cola icon is in the top right-hand corner on some of the images because they’re using LinkedIn content for their internal platform.”

The True Reporter reports:

McDonald’s has a perfect strategy for financial success and human resources management. They are based upon strict rules, turning the back towards the American First standards.

McDonald’s company executives’ bonuses will be shortened if they hire white people for better places.

The company’s politics allows them to include every type of person and have employees from minority groups and immigrants. This company will have employees from all races and types in the future.

Besides. they will eliminate all the stereotypes.

“From 2021, the Company incorporates quantitative human capital management-related metrics to annual incentive compensation for its Executive Vice Presidents.”

When 2025 ends, 35% of the workers in higher positions will include minority groups. This metric in 2020 was 29%.

In a Washington Examiner report for this theme, the company said they would add up to a 15% bonus for applying and reaching this goal.

“Inclusion Index” is the metric for these targets! McDonald promotes EQUALITY!

Of course, haters are around. Some people don’t agree with this decision.

Some people doubt in this program. For example, Celine Ryan suggested renaming the company in “McQuotas.”, other people also commented.

On Twitter she wrote:

“But even those who place value in the concepts of ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ have repeatedly pointed out that these types of hiring quotas are misguided at best, and empty performances at worst, with unintended negative consequences.”

I am asking myself:

Promoting diversity and starting discrimination to the home nation, can you see the difference?

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