Julia Hahn reporting via Breitbart
* * *
* *
Hedge-fund billionaire Paul Singer’s decision to throw
his financial weight behind the donor-class 2016 favorite Senator Marco Rubio
has sparked fresh questions about Rubio’s coziness with the financial
interests funding his career.
Singer was a major financial force behind the Rubio-Obama
amnesty and immigration expansion push in 2013.
As Politico reported at the time, Singer “quietly got
involved in the fight for immigration reform, making a six-figure donation...
to the National Immigration Forum”... a George Soros-backed organization that
lobbied for Rubio’s legislation to issue 33 million green cards to foreign
nationals in the span of a single decade."
There is a growing chasm between the more than nine in ten
GOP voters who want to see future immigration rates cut versus GOP donors
that are desperately seeking to install [pawns] in the White House and Congress
who will further expand the nation’s already record breaking immigration rates
that are transforming the country’s economy and electorate.
Throughout his brief time in Washington - noted primarily
for pushing the La Raza and Obama-backed amnesty bill through the Senate - Rubio
has co-authored two pieces of legislation that would massively expand the
wage-depressing H-1B visa program used to replace American workers in
white-collar jobs.
Rubio's most recent bill - known as I-Squared - would
triple the number of H-1B visas imported into the United States despite the
fact that the U.S. Census Bureau reports three in four Americans trained in Science,
Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) are not employed in those fields.
The Walt Disney Company used H-1Bs to lay off hundreds of
American workers and forced them to train their low-wage foreign H-1B
replacements. Disney’s CEO has endorsed Rubio’s I-Squared bill.
Donald Trump, who has called on Disney to hire back all of
Rubio’s laid-off constituents, thundered: "Lobbyists write the rules to
benefit the rich and powerful. They buy off Senators like Marco Rubio to help
them get rich at the expense of working Americans by using H-1B visas – so
called 'high tech' visas – to replace American workers in all sorts of solid
middle class jobs... Senator Rubio works for the lobbyists, not for Americans.
That is why he is receiving more money from Silicon Valley than any other
candidate in this race. He is their puppet."
* PUPPET OR NOT... RUBIO'S RECORD IS CLEAR. FRANKLY...
"WHY" HE DOES WHAT HE DOES IS SECONDARY TO THE FACT HE DOES INDEED DO
IT.
According to "Open-Secrets," Goldman Sachs has
been one of Rubio’s biggest financial boosters.
Since 2011, Goldman Sachs was the top donor to Rubio’s
campaign committee, contributing $53,200.
Interestingly, Goldman Sachs is also among the top 50
corporate users of the H-1B visa, which labor experts call an “indentured
servitude” program. According to USCIS data analyzed by Computerworld’s Patrick
Thibodeau, Goldman Sachs is the ranked number 33 among the biggest users of the
program.
Behind Goldman Sachs, Microsoft is the second largest
contributor to Rubio’s campaign committee since 2011, donating $33,100. Microsoft is the 12th biggest user of the H-1B program,
having brought in 1,048 foreign workers on H-1Bs in 2013.
Last year, Microsoft announced its plans to lay off
18,000 workers at the same time the company was lobbying to increase the H-1B
program, prompting strong condemnation from U.S. Senator Sen. Jeff Sessions
(R-AL), a top opponent of Rubio’s H-1B expansion plan.
Larry Ellison, the founder and executive chairman of the
Oracle Corporation, has been another one of Rubio’s financial boosters. In
July, the WSJ reported that Ellison gave $3 million to the pro-Rubio super PAC.
In June, Ellison hosted a $2,700
per-person fundraiser for Rubio. Oracle is the 20th biggest users of H-1B and
has endorsed Rubio’s Gang of Eight and I-Squared immigration bills.
Beyond the controversial H-1B expansions, however,
critics allege that Rubio’s donors have benefited in other ways from his
immigration legislation. For instance, according to "Open Secrets,"
Carnival Corporation is one of the top 20 contributors to Rubio’s campaign
committee since 2011, having donated $14,500.
According to the Federation for American Immigration
Reform, Section 4606 of the Rubio-Obama immigration bill included a “backroom
deal” that “creates a new non-immigrant "Z Visa" to admit individuals who possess "specialized knowledge" to perform maintenance on airlines and cruise ships in
place of American labor.
* AM I THE ONLY ONE WHOSE THOUGHTS IMMEDIATELY TURN TO THE POTENTIAL NEW VULNERABILITIES TO TERRORISM THIS WOULD OPEN AMERICAN AIRLINE AND CRUISE-LINE PASSENGERS TO?
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD IN DISGUST*)
Rubio’s top immigration lawyer during the Gang of Eight
push was Enrique Gonzalez. Prior to working for Rubio, Gonzalez had formerly
made his living, in part, by bringing foreign workers into the country on
behalf of large corporations. Gonzalez had been a partner at the nation’s
largest immigration firm, Fragomen, where, as Bloomberg reports, “he helped
Carnival, Viacom, and other companies obtain visas for their foreign workers.”
Reports document how Rubio’s donors may have shaped many
more of his policy platforms.
For instance, according to "Open Secrets,"
Fanjul Corporation is the fourth biggest contributor to Rubio’s campaign
committee since 2011, donating $25,200. The Fanjul family has boosted Rubio
throughout his career. As Yahoo Finance reports, the Fanjul’s sugar empire
“includes Domino and Florida Crystals... Donors associated with Florida
Crystals have given Rubio at least $81,100 since 2009.”
The Washington Post has described Jose “Pepe” Fanjul as
part of Rubio’s “inner circle”: “Over the years, Fanjul has played a key role
in raising money for Rubio and introducing him to well-heeled donors.” In
April, the Fanjuls hosted a fundraiser in Palm Beach for Rubio. The cost of
attending the reception and lunch was $2,700. Rubio’s closeness with the family
has been well-documented. As the Daily Caller notes, “It’s been reported that
one of the first people Rubio greeted after making his presidential campaign
announcement was Pepe Fanjul, Sr.”
The Fanjul family benefits from the federal government’s
policies that protect of the sugar industry. The Daily Caller writes these
protections have come at a cost to Americans: "While the Fanjul family has
reaped the benefits of a protected sugar industry, other Americans have paid a
price in lost jobs... What we have is a special interest group with lots of
political muscle to protect its industry – to the detriment of 120,000 U.S.
jobs lost over the past fifteen years."
As CNN reports, “The Fanjuls might be considered the
First Family of Corporate Welfare... they benefit from federal policies that
compel American consumers to pay artificially high prices for sugar.”
(*NOD*)
* FOLKS... HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I BROUGHT RUBIO'S SUPPORT
FOR SUGAR SUBSIDIES TO YOUR ATTENTION?
(*SIGH*)
While Rubio’s campaign rhetoric decries corporate
welfare, he does not seem to mind it when it comes to the Fanjuls. As the
Washington Examiner has observed, “In June 13, 2012, Rubio cast a very odd
vote: he voted to save the indefensible federal sugar program... It’s relevant
that the biggest sugar family in Florida, the Fanjuls, was supporting Rubio
early in his long shot Senate race in 2010.”
In a recent piece in New York Magazine, Jonathan Chait
writes that Rubio is the candidate best positioned to enact the donor-class
agenda. Chait writes: “Rubio has carved out a valuable niche in the Republican
field as the candidate who will carry out the agenda of the party’s donor base,
but who has the identity and communication skills to sell that agenda more
effectively.”
Rush Limbaugh has similarly warned that “the donor-class
push” is to “get rid of Trump, and have Rubio or Jeb win the White House.”
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