A GOP-led government is shamefully, the best money can buy

American and global oligarchy

TAT readers,

My best wishes to all as we enter another week of defending democracy from tyranny. There’s not much that hasn’t been said about this administration, especially here at TAT. Nothing I’ve said has been complimentary and all of it well deserved and supported by credible sources. Today, I’ll be looking at what is going on behind the scenes of our current crisis and the robbery by oligarchs and billionaires, while that we are being distracted by all manner of cruelly sadistic acts, by the Republicans and their dear leader. The real threat comes from their financial network of billionaire and oligarchical enablers, who use the GOP and to some extent, the opposite side of the aisle, as mere expendable pawns. Congressmen and Senators are cheaply purchased and are the voices of the false narratives that keep us distracted from the purchase of the US government. Most know those false narratives as “culture wars.”

What most do not understand is that those culture wars are really what the military calls a “diversion” and magicians call, “directed energy.” They are intended to keep ones attention from from the primary culprits for the Trump administration and Republican onslaught against our constitution, our nation and the globe’s most powerful holders of wealth, who operate as oligarchical powers behind the scenes of our political landscape. Trump, the GOP and as noted, the DNC are also in bed with these oligarchs too, albeit with far less hostility and cruelty towards working Americans. I have often written about oligarchs and Chief Justice John Roberts’ anti-constitutional Citizens United decision, but today, I want to add a wider picture” look at the whole puzzle. There’s a lot to cover here… so let’s get at it.

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Onward

I’ve been researching and investigating the role of powerful, multinational corporations and financial institutions influencing congress, for a very long time. The picture isn’t pretty. While that honest Americans are rightly focused on removing Trump from office, the real focus, post-removal is to get to the bottom of the long list of enablers and in some cases, drivers of his and the Republican Party’s for-profit only agenda. Things like stock manipulation, where to focus coercion against nations that hold valuable resources such as Argentina, Nigeria, Venezuela, Panama, Greenland, Canada, etic., control of media etc. Argentina’s bailout was to ensure access to her abundant national resources, garnered pitifully via low wage workers exploited by the likes of Elon Musk and oil companies. The alleged “murdering Christians” in Nigeria, is really about their oil as well. Panama has the canal which is critical to global trade. Greenland also has large quantities of rare earth resources to be exploited, primarily by the tech sector and Canada, is a wealth of natural resources, just waiting to be exploited.

Then there are the crass and overtly dishonest domestic policy decisions like intentionally creating a break in the renewal opportunities of Americans buying health insurance through the ACA. This is the issue at the crux of the matter that prompted an already planned government shutdown. By shutting down the government, it created the opportunity to raise premiums, double, triple and occasionally more, for over 42 million Americans.

During the Iran-Contra scandal during the Reagan administration, the phrase, “follow the money” had a resurgence from its origin in All the President’s men, a powerful movie about Watergate and investigative reporting. I would suggest that we continue to follow this sage advice. This doesn’t require any particular brilliance regarding economics, economic theory or any other profession within the finance world. Heaven knows, these professions are not my expertise. On the other hand, research is solidly within my wheelhouse and thankfully, raised in the Midwest where common-sense is king, or at least was, mine is still intact. Any halfway knowledgeable American who understands credible sources, could easily see the smoke and mirrors by the globe’s largest financial or industrial, powerbrokers. I prefer the term, Powermongers, but that is another story for a different day.

Well, in this administration, It doesn’t take a genius to understand that powerful financial interests are driving the agenda for the GOP. I’m not letting the left off of the hook entirely either, because powerful donor institutions, always hedge their bets or at least did, until the last election, where there was a two-thirds to one-third advantage in donations to the GOP. Black Rock and Vanguard for example, are two of the world’s largest asset managers and have enormous and often controlling interests in most corporations and multi-national conglomerates. A handful of entities should with this much control over the global economy is a situation fraught with peril. Of course, there are the fossil fuel “super-majors,” like ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, Chevron, and so on.

The bottom line of all of this is that enormous donors are not giving dollars, they are investing in their profitability and expect to be not only repaid, but to profit wilding from buying influence. Now this dynamic is as old as time itself, but our constitutional republic was intended to break this cycle for Americans. This is why these dark money donors have purchased enough elected officials, to nibble away at our constitutional guarantees, in order to modify the intent of our founders and our laws. Again, the most overt assault on our values, laws and constitution, is by far, the Republican Party, at least at this point in our history. To be perfectly clear, our constitution is seen by some of our most prominent constitutional scholars, “the anti-oligarchy constitution.” These donors are in the simplest terms, denying us our birthright constitutional rights.

It’s not only congress and the super donors either. Don’t forget the egregious nature of Chief Justice John Roberts’ submission to these donors, in the Citizens United decision.

“In states with many powerful corporations and relatively low union membership, such as Texas, Mississippi, Idaho, and North and South Carolina, the Citizens United ruling appears to have increased Republican seat share by as much as twelve points. In states with high union membership, such as California, New York, Illinois, and Pennsylvania, the case has had no discernible effect on the partisan balance of legislatures.”

- How “Citizens United” Changed Our Politics | 
- Columbia Magazine
- David J. Craig
- 2017

In our 2024 election, only 65% of 174,000,000 American voters went to the polls. We had but a fraction of the influence that enormous donors had. This is the antithesis of American Values as thoroughly expressed in our founding documents, despite Chief Justice Roberts’ ridiculous Citizens United opinion. Roberts, like AJs/ Associate Justices, Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and sometimes Coney-Barrett, have rejected our founders’ wishes and given extraordinary support to corporate entities, despite their claims to be “originalists.” There will come a time when these names will be on or near par, with other national embarrassments, like Benedict Arnold, the Rosenbergs, Joseph R. McCarthy, Aaron Burr, Timothy McVeigh, etc.

Then there are the lobbyists who spend money with lawmakers, influencing them in ways that dramatically distort our democracy. In 2024 alone, lobbyists spent $4.44 billion to achieve their objectives in Congress. Some of these lobbyists come from some of the industries represented by the primary oligarchs, both US and global. Our founders’ vision for our constitution never would have supported this level of influence in our government. Still, all parties, individuals, special interests, etc. pour money into elections, candidates and issues. This must come to a halt.

Well, my friends and fellow citizens, this essay must be wrapped up before it becomes a book. What I’ve presented today is a thumbnail sketch of the role of financial influence in our republic. In my opinion, we are holding onto our republic, by a thread. Money, power mongering and corporate agendas are behind our lack of affordability, twisted tax laws and the significant undermining of our founders’ intentions. No, we the people do not benefit from those whose only agenda is power supported by money. All else, including our well-being is irrelevant to these corrupted powerful men and a small handful of women.

A while back, Luigi Mangione took matters into his own hands, and if we don’t wish to see more similar violence, we must do our job as citizens and demand that our parties put forth candidates that will; 1. Overturn Citizens United, 2. Apply stringent limits on lobbying or eliminate them altogether, 3. Ensure that everyone is equal before the law, rather than rewarding the rich and powerful with a dominant say in our government. The anger in America against the 1%, is palpable and risks boiling over. It’s long overdue that we must all honor the old and now vacant phrase that we proudly claimed before the Trump era, “that everyone is equal before the law.” Accountability is absent in DC, so long as only oligarchs control our government. This is what galls most of America. The law applies to us, but not those 1%ers, robbing us blind. Like Luigi, working Americans are fed up with our second-class citizenship.

Founders thoughts on threats to our system of government

ABSTRACT 
Many articles have explored the Founders’ intentions regarding the 
constitutional text.  Much less attention has focused on the Founders’ ideas 
regarding the traits needed of the leaders in a constitutional republic.  The 
Constitution focuses on governing structures, many of which relate to the 
electoral process.  The Constitution does not spell out the ideal traits of the 
leaders elected pursuant to those processes.  Nonetheless, the Founders possessed clear views about the virtues and qualifications that ideal political 
leaders required.  Indeed, the Founders issued warnings about certain archetypal political figures who, because of their flagrant disregard of the 
ideal virtues and qualifications, threatened the nation’s political health.  
This article examines the warnings issued by the Founders about four types 
of political figures who threatened the integrity of our republic: partisans, 
demagogues, ambitious, and tyrants.  After exploring the Founders’ warn
ings about these dangerous leadership traits, this article looks at contempo
rary political culture and actors to consider how those very archetypes are 
manifesting.  Finally, the article turns to a consideration of how ignoring the 
Founders’ warnings to allow these dangerous archetypes to take root can 
undermine the health of the American republic.”

- “Politicians the Founders Warned You About”
-  UC Law Constitutional Quarterly
- Volume 51, Number 3, Article 4
- NEIL FULTON
- 2024

Trump and his party are expendable pawns in this game. Either they vote as demanded by the 1% or be “primaried.” We cannot do this so long as this version of our Supreme Court rewards the elite wealth class exclusively. Their claimed originalism is nothing but hogwash and the excuse to enforce the letter of the law, with complete disregard for the spirit of the law. We are a nation of principles, not financial tyrants. Don’t get me wrong, there are some in this class that do a great deal of good and help us keep the scavengers at bay. They are not enough. We must do our part and as our founders expected us to do, live, breath and defend our founding principles, or lose them.

I know that this essay is a lot and yet, it’s not nearly enough to tell a complete story well. Please consider today’s essays and begin tomorrow to pound on your elected representatives’ door, with your demands to clean up congress, the cabinet or otherwise. We’ve had successes and this should empower us. The Jimmy Kimmel fiasco was a great example of pinning the media oligarch’s ears back and getting them to back down promptly, when the administration demanded that Nexstar, Disney and Sinclair Broadcasting violate his and our First Amendment Rights. We can do this one at a time or we can take on a few industries at a time. Regardless, we must get off the sofa and become, as our founders expected, well and accurately informed citizens that were active in support of our founding principles. After all, we no longer have a republic if we continue to stay home. Media is a great place to start though, because this administration wields the industry against us in dramatic and dishonest ways. I’m not even sure that there are any longer, any ethics in business or journalism. We won’t have either unless we act, and there’s not a minute to waste.

My very best,

Paul