If our children still studied Civics, Ken Silverstein's book would be a perfect textEarlier today, we looked at how Wall Street banksters and their lobbyists have bought off the entire Republican Party and the influential Republican wing of the Democratic Party-- the New Dems and Blue Dogs.
To be one of the 50 richest Members of Congress last year, you would have had to have a net worth north of $7.47 million. Everyone knows longtime criminal and former car thief Darrell Issa is the richest Member of Congress- worth between $300 and $400 million dollars. Less well-known is that at least a third of Congress are millionaires (including half the senators).
Joel Kotkin ends his essay for The Guardian on the rise of Wall Street under Obama with a plaintive call that many grassroots types on both sides of the partisan divide would recognize: "In caving in to Wall Street and its economic priorities, members of both parties have demonstrated where their primary loyalties lie.
Saturday morning I woke up bright and early and feeling chipper. I tweeted an upbeat statement about Bernie Sanders' likely presidential run: Just once before we pass on, shouldn't we have a president NOT owned by Big Business & Wall St.? It's still up to us http://bit.ly/1rr7eOe.
Too big to fireMy favorite part of the on-going Korean Air scandal is how it exposed the relationship between the plutocracy and the working class. First, meet Cho Hyun-ah, an heiress-- daughter of Korean Air chairman Cho Yang-ho.
Many of the Democrats who lost their seats-- or nearly lost their seats-- Tuesday had nothing to offer voters, which helps explain why voters stayed away. DCCC Chair Steve Israel had a purposeful "mystery meat" strategy for his collection of lousy candidates-- almost all of whom lost. That excuse for a strategy calls for candidates to say nothing controversial that might make someone (like a Republican) not want to vote for them.
Mark Warner, not really homelessThe two richest Members of Congress are both House Republicans, career criminal Darrell Isis (net worth: $357 million) and Texas wing nut Michael McCaul, who got rich by marrying th
Thursday evening we saw how Ro Khanna, a corporate shill posing as a Democrat while willing to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits, is being bankrolled by some of the most insidious anti-democracy forces in America.
In the video above, Bernie Sanders was addressing the Culinary Workers Union at their convention in Las Vegas yesterday. He made a powerful speech about how the right wing oligarchs and plutocrats divide working people up so that they can dominate American politics. “We are not living in a democracy when 60 percent of Americans are not voting, while billionaires like the Koch brothers are spending hundreds of millions to buy the United States Senate. That's called oligarchy, not democracy… The Koch Brothers are trying to buy the Senate. This is not what democracy is supposed to be about.
Yesterday I linked to a post at Salon by Tim Donovan, to help get a clearer picture of the next generation of Republicans, Clueless rich kids on the rise: How millennial aristocrats will destroy our future.
