Pam and Russ Martens — A Closer Look at Donald Trump’s Chief Strategist, Stephen K. Bannon

The Citizens United connection. More dots to connect.

Wall Street On Parade
A Closer Look at Donald Trump’s Chief Strategist, Stephen K. Bannon
Pam and Russ Martens

Pam and Russ Martens — The Right Wing Group Behind Donald Trump’s Rise Aims to Keep Fear Alive

Citizens United and the Koch Bros.

Donald Trump played a minor role by promoting birtherism.

The pieces are starting to fit together.  "Draining the swamp"?

Wall Street On Parade
The Right Wing Group Behind Donald Trump’s Rise Aims to Keep Fear Alive
Pam Martens and Russ Martens

See also

But let’s be clear. Trump is not a Keynesian. He is taking a page straight out of Reaganomics. When Reagan came to office, he embarked on a huge tax cut. At the same time, finance was given a free hand and business was deregulated aggressively. As Reagan’s advisers argued, lower tax rates and fewer regulations would create more incentives for business to invest and consumers to spend, and therefore the federal budget deficit will not rise significantly as incomes and tax receipts grow. But while GDP grew under Reagan, unions were undermined and the minimum wage, adjusted for inflation, was mostly allowed to sink. Above all, incomes became much more unequal, the beginning of an income gap, that has continued growing, with only a couple of interruptions until recently, and that has specifically hurt the white working class. The top 1 percent now earns 18 percent of all income—double what it did when Reagan entered office.

Like Reagan, Trump says he will undertake large tax cuts for businesses and individuals. According to the Tax Policy Center, these cuts could reduce tax revenues by $7 trillion over the next ten years. Yet he has offered few plans about how he might cut the budget to reduce the flow of red ink. To the contrary, he plans to raise military spending (like Reagan did), embark on a huge infrastructure program, and—encouragingly—promises not to cut Medicare or Social Security. Instead Trump—supported by one of his main economic advisers, Peter Navarro of the University of California at Irvine—is claiming, like Reagan before him, that the tax cuts will produce a huge pop in economic growth, and therefore that tax revenues will rise rapidly.

The New York Review of Books
Trump: What the Market Is Really Saying

Jeff Madrick

Jon Schwarz — Jimmy Carter: The U.S. Is an “Oligarchy With Unlimited Political Bribery”

Former president Jimmy Carter said Tuesday on the nationally syndicated radio show the Thom Hartmann Program that the United States is now an “oligarchy” in which “unlimited political bribery” has created “a complete subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors.” Both Democrats and Republicans, Carter said, “look upon this unlimited money as a great benefit to themselves.” 

Carter was responding to a question from Hartmann about recent Supreme Court decisions on campaign financing like Citizens United.

Transcript.

The Intercept
Jimmy Carter: The U.S. Is an “Oligarchy With Unlimited Political Bribery”

Jon Schwarz

Chuck Spinney reviews Mike Lofgren's The Deep State

While Lofgren does not say so, I would argue there are growing signs that the emerging American political economy combines many elements of classical fascism and corporatism with neoliberal laissez faire economics into something that is new and peculiarly American — a political economy that exhibits fascist tendencies, but unlike classical fascism, subordinates the state to neoliberal corporatist interests, while it exploits many of fascism’s authoritarian organizing principles to stabilize the emerging status quo. Don’t take my word for it. Read Lofgren’s book, then think about how you would check or redefine the boxes in Figure 2 and draw your own conclusions.

One of the most important aspects of Lofgren's analysis, at least to my thinking, lies in his frequent reminders that the structural aspects of this current state of affairs are not the results of a centrally guided conspiracy hashed out in a smoke filled room. The “structure” of the contemporary American Deep State is more an emergent property triggered by the incremental give and take by thousands of players, whose successes and failures are conditioned by an interplay of chance and necessity, in what is really a cultural evolution. To be sure, there are lots of smoke filled rooms conspiring invisibly to play this game of chance and necessity, but they are competing with each other as well as cooperating -- and it is the evolutionary character of the Deep State that enables it to survive, adapt, and grow on its own terms, and that emergent character is what makes the Deep State so dangerously resistant to change.

The Blaster
Inside the Deep State

Chuck Spinney

I don't know whether Chuck Spinney realizes it, but he is making a strong argument against modern managerial and financial capitalism.

See also

American elites want to conquer every corner of the globe and make capitalism the one true faith.

Ever since the end of WWII there has been fearful speculation and warnings of a possible Third World War that always seemed just over the horizon; but what people didn’t realize is that WW3 had already begun. An ideological war was fought between the US-led capitalist camp and the USSR-led socialist and anti-imperialist alliance.

Much of this war was waged in secret by the CIA through use of propaganda, psychological warfare, economic sanctions, sabotage, funding and manipulation of political parties, assassinations and coups. This silent Cold War would from time to time break out into major “hot wars” (revolutions and counterrevolutions).

In 1991 WW3 came to an end with the defeat of the Soviet Union and the socialist bloc in eastern Europe. Following Soviet capitulation and defeat, the end of history was declared and President Bush I announced that there would be a new world order – the US would now be the world’s sole “superpower” and usher in a golden era of global capitalism with America at the helm.

WW3 had only just ended when World War 4 took over. The USSR had been defeated, but there was still a lot of work to do. A lot of territory, ideological and geographical, was left unconquered or had to now be consolidated and managed. For one thing, Red China remained, as well as other socialist countries such as Yugoslavia, Cuba and North Korea. The geostrategically and economically vital Middle East was also yet to be fully subdued.…

The Greanville Post
World War IV is Happening Now
Joseph Waters | Proletarian Center for Research, Education and Culture (Prole Center)


The National Interest
Great Power Pivot: U.S. Shifts Focus to War With China and Russia
Dave Majumdar

Makenzie Murphy — 78% of Americans Want Citizens United Overturned—So Why Does the Media Never Cover It?

A recent Bloomberg poll showing 78 percent of Americans in favor of overturning the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling received no coverage on national nightly news programs for ABC, CBS, NBC or PBS, nor Sunday morning political talk shows on ABC, FOX, or NBC. The court decision is once again having an enormous impact on the presidential election, with hundreds of millions of dollars expected to be raised and funneled into political super PACs through 2016.…

That makes 21% either crazy or out to lunch. The 1% have an interest in it. Bernie should be hitting this hard. Will Trump?

AlterNet
78% of Americans Want Citizens United Overturned—So Why Does the Media Never Cover It?
Makenzie Murphy, Media Matters

Nadia Prupis — "I'm In": Lawrence Lessig Confirms White House Run

Some good people stepping up. It will make the debate more interesting and potentially shift the Overton window leftward. Lessig will get a lot of bipartisan support on campaign finance reform as an anti-corruption and anti-cronyism candidate. Policy won't change without it, since both parties are the pocket of the wealthy donors.

Common Dreams
"I'm In": Lawrence Lessig Confirms White House Run
Nadia Prupis, staff writer

Doris Kearns Goodwin and Jeff Clements — When the Supreme Court is this wrong, it’s time to overrule them

Surveys show that a large majority of American citizens across the political spectrum oppose the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision that opened the door to unlimited political spending by global corporations and powerful unions. Yet when asked about the prospect of passing a constitutional amendment to reverse the decision, too many people argue that it would be “too hard,” even “impossible.” 

This argument lacks historical perspective. Every step on the path to fulfill the promise of the American Revolution was “too hard,” but Americans did it anyway. Hard, yes; yet constitutional amendments have come in waves during times of challenge — and Supreme Court obstinacy — much like our own....

To hope that the current court will fix things is folly. That is why the 28th amendment is necessary to overturn Citizens United, just as Americans have used the amendment process to overturn the Supreme Court six times before. 

Reuters
When the Supreme Court is this wrong, it’s time to overrule them
Doris Kearns Goodwin, presidential historian, and Jeff Clements, attorney

Bill Moyers & Co. — Morning Reads: Clinton Cash, Montana’s New Dark Money Law, Adelson Primary Update

More links on money in politics.

Bill Moyers & Co.
Morning Reads: Clinton Cash, Montana’s New Dark Money Law, Adelson Primary Update

Bill Moyers & Co. Morning Reads: The Koch Five, SEC Faces Pressure on Disclosure, Tech Lobby Spending Explodes

More links on money in politics and pushback against it: "Democracy is at stake."

Bill Moyers & Co.
Morning Reads: The Koch Five, SEC Faces Pressure on Disclosure, Tech Lobby Spending Explodes

Bill Allison and Sarah Harkins — Fixed Fortunes: Biggest corporate political interests spend billions, get trillions

Between 2007 and 2012, 200 of America’s most politically active corporations spent a combined $5.8 billion on federal lobbying and campaign contributions. A year-long analysis by the Sunlight Foundation suggests, however, that what they gave pales compared to what those same corporations got: $4.4 trillion in federal business and support. 

That figure, more than the $4.3 trillion the federal government paid the nation’s 50 million Social Security recipients over the same period, is the result of an unprecedented effort to quantify the less-examined side of the campaign finance equation: Do political donors get something in return for what they give? 

Four years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court suggested the answer to that question was no. Corporate spending to influence federal elections would not “give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption,” the majority wrote in the landmark Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision. 

Sunlight decided to test that premise....

In its Citizens United decision, the court took for granted that “favoritism and influence” are inherent in electoral democracy and that “democracy is premised on responsiveness” of politicians to those who support them. We found ample evidence of that.

“The appearance of influence or access,” the court said, “will not cause the electorate to lose faith in our democracy.”

It appears that the electorate — who stayed away from the polls this year in droves — might not agree.

Banana republic.

Sunlight Foundation
Fixed Fortunes: Biggest corporate political interests spend billions, get trillions
Bill Allison and Sarah Harkins

Andrew Prokop — Jeb Bush, to donors: Stop giving me so much money so quickly

Money certainly won't be sufficient to hand Bush the nomination — questions about his appeal to the conservative base and actual voters remain — but this fundraising will certainly allow Bush to get his message out, and seems to position him as the man to beat.

Vox
Jeb Bush, to donors: Stop giving me so much money so quickly
Andrew Prokop

Cory Doctorow — Nuanced view of corruption: money doesn't buy elections, it buys influence

Jonathan Soros, son of George Soros and heavy donor to campaigns to get money out of politics, writes a nuanced account of what huge, open campaign contributions do to electoral politics. 

After a certain point, spending doesn't make a huge difference in electoral outcomes (one study says that doubling funding shifts the needle by one percent), but because politicians are entirely beholden to their funders to reach that certain point, the electoral agenda becomes about their donors' priorities. And once in office, every argument is couched in terms that are set by those donors (as Barney Frank quipped, "[Congress are not] the only people in the history of the world who, on a regular basis, took money from perfect strangers and made sure it had no effect on them." 

Soros points out that money was corrupting politics -- albeit less openly -- long beforeCitizens United, and calls for a radical campaign-spending reform to minimize the reach of large campaign donors' priorities on political discourse.… 

Boing Boing

Nuanced view of corruption: money doesn't buy elections, it buys influence
Cory Doctorow

Michael Hiltzik — Five Years After Citizens United Ruling, Big Money Reigns

A new study by the public policy think tank Demos and the public interest group U.S. PIRG calculates that U.S. Senate candidates will have to raise an average $3,300 every day for six years to match the campaign chests of the median 2014 winner. As an unsuccessful challenger for a New York congressional seat told the authors, "You find out very quickly that this is not about who has the best ideas; this is about who has the most money."

Demos
Five Years After Citizens United Ruling, Big Money Reigns

Michael Hiltzik | Los Angeles Times

Move to Amend Wins Big at the Ballot: Americans Ready to Amend the Constitution

In Massachusetts, Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Florida, citizens voted overwhelmingly yesterday for their legislators to pass a constitutional amendment to overturn the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling and declare that only human beings – not corporations – are entitled to constitutional rights and that money is not speech and campaign spending can be regulated. 

Residents in dozens of cities had the opportunity to vote on measures calling for an end to the doctrines of corporate constitutional rights and money as free speech, and in every single town the vote was supportive. Often by an overwhelming margin.

Common Dreams
Move to Amend Wins Big at the Ballot: Americans Ready to Amend the Constitution

Move To Amend

Jay Riestenberg — Seven Disturbing Quotes From the Koch Summit Speeches

Today, The Nation and The Huffington Post published speeches from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and three other GOP Senate candidates, Rep. Tom Cotton (AR), state Sen. Joni Ernst (IA), and Rep. Cory Gardner (CO), at a secretive donor summit hosted in June by billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch.

The candidates make the case for overturning Citizens United and getting big money out of politics better than we ever could.

Truthout | Op-Ed

Seven Disturbing Quotes From the Koch Summit Speeches

Jay Riestenberg, Common Cause

Mike Lofgren — Can't We Just Say the Roberts Court Is Corrupt?

Even in the absence of what Justice Roberts narrowly defines as "quid pro quo corruption," a court that consistently decides all relevant cases on behalf of corporate interests - most recently McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission - undermines its own legitimacy as well as the Constitution....

In like manner, McCutcheon and Citizens United are not cases about campaign finance laws, nor are they, despite the artful smokescreen about free speech on the part of the court's majority, cases about free speech and whether money constitutes speech. They are cases about upholding the superior political privileges of rich interests in society as opposed to poorer ones.

We now have an algorithm to crack the Enigma Code of the Supreme Court. Once there are five members of the court who accept as self-evidently valid the 19th century concept of "freedom of contract," other issues become subsidiary. This framework explains hundreds of cases before the court and clarifies the seeming anomalies like ACA....

As Oliver Wendell Holmes stated in his dissenting opinion on the 1902 Lochner case, which established as virtual court theology the freedom of contract notion (without government restrictions), from which many subsequent pro-corporation decisions have flowed, the court's majority was basing its decision on economic ideology rather than constitutional interpretation. Roberts is wise enough to know that and is wise enough to conceal his hand with occasional strategic references to the free speech or free exercise clauses in the first amendment. 

Truthout | Op-Ed
Can't We Just Say the Roberts Court Is Corrupt?
Mike Lofgren

Marge Baker — First Things First: Until We Fix Our Democracy Problem, It's Hard to Fix Any Problem

In the four years since the Supreme Court’s infamous Citizens United v. FEC ruling, two things have become abundantly clear.

First, we have a major democracy problem. Citizens United paved the way for unlimited corporate spending to distort our elections. Staggering amounts of money have poured into our political system since the Court handed down that decision.

Second, and just as importantly, it’s become clear that until we fix that democracyproblem, it’s hard to fix any problem. In other words, until we fix the funding of our political campaigns, we can’t fix the individual issues that matter most to everyday Americans.

This has proven true across the board. Whether the issue you’re most concerned about is making your community safer, guaranteeing that your family has access to clean water, or ensuring that workers get a fair minimum wage, when wealthy special interests can buy their way into the hearts, minds, and votes of elected officials, progress on these issues will continue to stall.

Clearly, when moneyed interests can spend virtually without limitation to influence our elections, they can set the political agenda.

Truthout | OpEd
First Things First: Until We Fix Our Democracy Problem, It's Hard to Fix Any Problem
Marge Baker, OtherWords

Paul Blumenthal — Here's The Real Reason We Aren't Done With Shutdowns

The Huffington Post

Here's The Real Reason We Aren't Done With Shutdowns

Paul Blumenthal

Travis Gettys — Bernie Sanders: ‘Citizens United’ ruling led to the government shutdown

Bernie Sanders: ‘Citizens United’ ruling led to the government shutdown (via Raw Story )

The Senate’s lone independent said Monday that a controversial Supreme Court ruling on campaign financing indirectly led to the government shutdown, which he said was engineered by an influential group of billionaires led by the Koch brothers. Sen…

---

Joshua Holland — Corruption Watch: Here Comes Citizens United 2.0

Corruption Watch: Here Comes Citizens United 2.0 (via Moyers & Company)

Mark October 8 on your calendar – that’s when the Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case that’s being called Citizens United 2.0. The case, McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, will test the constitutionality of limits on individual…

---