‘This Is Just the Traceable Money’: $2 Billion Pumped Into 2024 Election by Billionaire Families

[Graphic: $1 Billion in $100 bills (Bilbo’s Random Thoughts)]

By Julia Conley
Source: CommonDreams

Editor's Note

The graphic above shows what $1 billion looks like. It is a stunning amount of money. More than twice that much has been pumped into this year’s elections but the super-rich alone. With the late entry of Musk to the Trump campaign this outrageous sum will jump considerably. It is too late this time around, but we must have significant campaign reform that brings campaign spending under control. Right now our democracy is at risk by a narcissistic demagogue and those who want to profit from his becoming president again. There is no doubt that the United States is facing an existential threat. Further, even if Trump loses we are in for decades of effort and vigilance to pull back from the fascist cliff on which we hang.

Category: 2024, 2024 Elections, Autocracy, Guest, The .01% | Comments Off

13 October 2024

Long Road Ahead – Trump and Beyond

[Photo: Long Road Ahead (Death Valley, Ca. by Jon Rawlinson. ]

By Rowan Wolf

I was recently given a terminal diagnosis and told that I have about 6 months to live. As you might imagine, this has set off a firestorm of emotions and a lengthy evaluation of my life and what to do with the time I have left whether that be the estimated six months or hopefully longer. But even before this, especially with the election of Trump in 2016, was the deep sadness of decades of effort by millions of people to advance the causes dear to my heart – justice, equality, and protecting our beautiful planet – was being deliberately destroyed. Now I look forward and see not only how much of my personal goals have been left incomplete, but how much has been undone by forces with a far different agenda than mine. Even worse, we are running backward and cherished gains and dreams are being ripped up and thrown aside. I wanted to save the world (or at least make it better). Instead, I’m leaving it in even worse shape.

Category: Activists, Democracy, Dictatorship, Futurescape, New Right, Rowan Wolf - UTJ Editor, Save Democracy, The .01%, White Nationalism | Comments Off

4 September 2023

Project 2025: A 5-Alarm Fire Bell for Our Republic

[Photo: ‘If U.S. Land was Divided Like U.S. Wealth” by Randy Coffey.]

By Thom Hartmann
Source: CommonDreams

Editor's Note

We are on the downhill slide into a fascist oligarchy controlled by the wealthiest at the expense of people, nation, world, and planet. In the following article, Thom Hartmann does an exceptional job presenting the political-historical context for Project 2025 – the right-wing think tank Heritage Fund’s new plan to fully control the levers of power in the United States. Or in their own words:

It is not enough for conservatives to win elections. If we are going to rescue the country from the grip of the radical Left, we need both a governing agenda and the right people in place, ready to carry this agenda out on day one of the next conservative administration.

Category: Corporate - Corporatization, Corruption, Guest, Hegemony, History and Patterns, The .01% | Comments Off

19 January 2023

‘Every Billionaire Is a Policy Failure,’ Says Oxfam as Global Elite Gather in Davos

[Photo: Extreme poverty in the US (News Junkie]

By Jake Johnson
Source: CommonDreams

Editor's Note

Inequality is out of control. Three men, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffet, hold more wealth than the bottom 50% of the U.S. population combined. While globally the richest 10% hold over 50%nof total wealth, it is much higher n the US. where that 10% own 76% of the wealth. And how do they get (and keep increasing) their hold on wealth? According to Fatema Sumar’s excellent discussion of increasing inequality:

Economists who study global inequality have found that the rich in large English-speaking countries, along with India and China, have seen a dramatic rise in their earnings since the 1980s. Inequality boomed as deregulation, economic liberalization programs and other policies created opportunities for the rich to get richer.

Category: Guest, Hegemony, Policy, Social (In)Justice, The .01% | Comments Off

31 October 2022

You, Poor Voter, Must Stand Back and Watch as Billionaire Plutocrats Purchase Democracy

[Photo: From the Facebook page of Arteide – International Catalogue of Contemporary Art. ]

By Sam Pizzigatia
Source: Inequality.Org

Editor's Note

Both Democrats and Republicans believe that democracy is in the balance in this election. When I heard this, I went “Huh?!”. A beat after that I heard the chants about Democrats from various Trump camp meetings. This brought me (as an aside) to the continuously renewed awareness that Trump’s lies are often truth – at least as at least half of what he is saying is true about him. The ‘Big Lie’ is one example of this. Yes, there is a massive fraud going on about the 2020 vote – by Trump and the GOP. So people of both parties are concerned about democracy, but only one party is fighting to overthrow democracy (and the rule of law) and that should give the acolytes of Trump pause because the Republican people may wake up at some point and realize that it is NOT democracy they are working so hard to install.

Category: Classism, dark money, Democracy, Guest, Health - Medical, Hegemony, The .01% | Comments Off

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‘This Is Just the Traceable Money’: $2 Billion Pumped Into 2024 Election by Billionaire Families

Long Road Ahead – Trump and Beyond

Project 2025: A 5-Alarm Fire Bell for Our Republic

You, Poor Voter, Must Stand Back and Watch as Billionaire Plutocrats Purchase Democracy