46th U.S. President Joe Biden took his seat in the White House in January. His selected advisors have taken their newly granted positions in the cabinet. Though Biden has ended America’s dark chapter under Donald Trump, Biden is just as corrupt. Here I go through the most corrupt members in the new administration. . 

Antony Blinken: Secretary of State

As Secretary of State, Antony Blinken is America’s top forgein policy official. He’ll oversee our entanglements from Iraq to Afghanistan and relations with other forgein powers. Knowing his record we can brace for a further deterioration of relationship and hawkishness.

Blinken was a huge supporter of the Iraq War and advised Senator Biden’s support for the war itself as his chief of staff . Even after almost 20 years of conflict in the region, Blinken assures our intervention was just. He says the execution of the invasion itself was the problem. The reasons being “bad intelligence, misguided strategy and inadequate planning for the day after,” He buys into the delusions that if these problems were rectified we would have won. This is not only extremely ignorant but his eagerness to engage in illegal wars shows his evilness as well. 

In relations with Russia, Blinken does no better. While the Warsaw Pact was dissolved almost 30 years ago , Blinken is eager for thought of  NATO expansion, arguing it’s the only deterrent to Russia aggression. Without NATO Blinken wonders “where would Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic be?” Again time has proven his wrong Russian aggression into Ukraine and other countries has been done without any sort of conventional invasion and has largely been in response to being surrounded by the West. If Russia or Iran stationed troops in Mexico we would attack in the hour. Yet Blinken assures we must do the same to Russia, classic American exceptionalism. Lastly, the pretense that Russia would invade the Baltic states is absurdly false, it would be an extremely costly invasion and threatened Russia’s business deals with all of Europe. To understand forgein policy you have to look through the other sides perspective and that is something Blinken truly lacks. 

Neera Tanden: Office of Management and Budget 

The Office of Management and Budget is responsible for the creation and implementation of the president’s budget. It is a central role in the administration. To head it is Neera Tanden, who is most notable for leading the Center for American progress (CAP), a liberal think tank for many years. 

As an essential  player in the Center for American progress, she has backed a litany of rightist reforms. Since 2010, she has backed Social Security cuts within the Obama administration. This  proposal of embracing chained CPI instead of the normal Consumer price index  would have reduced the rate of benefits for the elderly over time, approximately $10 billion for the next 10 years . Then Tanden defended these views on television under the guise of deficit reduction. To her the logical choice to reduce the US’s debt was not to increase taxes on the wealthy but to gut government benefits.  Within the CAP her record has been just as demonstrable as a union buster. Entirely firing groups writers for the heinous thought of organizing. 

As well as advising domestic policy, CAP advises  about forgein policy. She takes a largely hawkish stance. CAP has received millions from the UAE (a longtime Saudi ally) and paid millions to senior CAP officials. In turn CAP didn’t consider punishment  for the murder of Jamal Kashoggi. She fueled American imperialist hegemony by backing bombing Syria, baningthe drums of war against Assad. Then invited Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister to speak for CAP in his campaign against the Iranian Nuclear deal.  Lastly, one of her most nefarious acts involved backing a plan to steal oil from the LIbyan government after backing intervention in the very same region. 

Janet Yellen: Secretary of Treasury 

Janet Yellen is no stranger to Wall Street, as the former chair of the Federal Reserve and a member of the board of governors for many years. In the past few years, she’s received millions from Wall Street for doing corporate speeches. 

In just two years she received $7.2 million dollars from Wall Street to speak at firms and coporatirations. The most concerning of these organizations is $810,000 dollars from Citadel, a hedge fund that just bailed out Melvin capital to the tune of $2.75 billion dollars. Citadel also has their own bottom line to protect because of millions of investments in shorting gamestops position. . Now as Secretary of the Treasury these legalized bribes succeded. . Because lets be honest nobody’s economic advice is worth that much money, it’s merely a front. s

Robinhood, a popular stock selling app, is currently facing a lawsuit over market manipulation after they limited the sales of stock in Gamestop to protect its hedge fund investors. The White House is “monitoring the situation” but have not come to a decision. Now with the country’s top financial advisor on the their payroll, Citadel and wall street will benefit greatly instead of ordinary Americans. 

Pete Buttigieg: Secretary of Transportation

Despite having no experience in this field whatsoever Pete Buttigeg is responsible for salvaging our crumbling transportation infrastructure. Although I’m hopeful lack of commitment to funding or instant concession to Republicans by the Biden admin may doom our infrastructure, this position represents a stepping stone for Buttigieg to exploit in a future Presidential run. 

As South Bend mayor, he was seen as a progressive new option for Indiana. Young, smart, and gay, he became the media darling of the Democrtic media machine. For him his most newsworthy segments were his failures. They largely have to do with racial tensions when Darly Boykins, South Bend’s black police chief, exposed members of his own police force for using slurs against him and others. No action was taken against them. Instead Pete demoted Darly Boykins and still refuses to release the footage. Rather than  standing up to racist culture in his police department, he tried to cover it up. So when in 2019 African American Erlic Logan was gunned down by police, Buttieg had to return from the presidential  campaign trail. His answer to the outrage was ”we have tried everything we could think of”  but that’s clearly not the case. 

The  most corrupt aspect of his political career was his attempted presidential run. In 2018 he declared his support for Medicare for all, but a year later he threw those beliefs right out the window. During his run he received the most donations from billionaires out of any candidate . He solicited them them from opulent but degrant wine caves to closed doors fundraisers. Desperate to hide this corruption he refused to release his campaign donation numbers. .  Everything about Mayor Pete is manufactured, his appearance, his speech and his beliefs. And he still manages to be one of the most charismatic politicians out there. 

In conclusion, while Biden and the Democratic consensus ramble at Trump for his nepotism, dodging taxes and general corruption they’re not wrong. But it’s clear due to Biden’s broken of immediate 2,000$ checks and his cabinet, the next four years will be very good for the rich and powerful.