The Darrell McClain show
Independent media that won't reinforce tribalism. We have one Planet; nobody's leaving so let’s reason together!! Darrell, McClain is a Military veteran with an abnormal interest in politics, economics, religion, philosophy, science, and literature. He was born and raised in Jacksonville FL, and went to Edward H white High School where he wrestled Under Coach Jermy Smith and The Late Brian Gilbert. He was a team wrestling captain, District champion, and an NHSCA All-American in freestyle Wrestling. He received a wrestling scholarship from Waldorf University in Forest City, Iowa. After a short period, he decided he no longer wanted to cut weight which effectively ended his college wrestling journey. Darrell Mcclain is an Ordained Pastor under The Universal Life Church and is still in good standing, he's a Believer in The Doctrines of Grace Also Known as Calvinism. He joined the United States Navy in 2008 and was A Master At Arms (military police officer) He was awarded several awards while on active duty including an expeditionary combat medal, a Global War on Terror medal, a National Defense Medal, a Korean defense medal, and multiple Navy achievement medals. While In the Navy he was also the assistant wrestling coach at Robert E Lee High School. He's a Brown Belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu under six six-degree black belt Gustavo Machado, Darrell Trains At Gustavo Machado Norfolk under the 3rd-degree black belt, and Former Marine Professor Mark Sausser. He went to school for psychology at American Military University and for criminal justice at ECPI University.
The Darrell McClain show
Reshaping Democracy: Musk, Trump, and the Battle Over Corporate Influence in American Politics
Is Elon Musk reshaping the federal bureaucracy with a new Department of Government Efficiency, or is this an overreach of executive power? We're examining the controversial moves by Trump and Musk to close down USAID without congressional approval, raising critical legal questions about the constitutional boundaries of their actions. With legal experts weighing in, we'll explore the potential conflicts and implications, especially considering the Anti-Deficiency Act, and draw parallels to past administrations.
Our conversation ventures into the unsettling influence of billionaires on American politics. We scrutinize Elon Musk’s role and the OSHA violations linked to Tesla, questioning the impact of concentrated wealth on democratic processes. Through a compelling dialogue with friend Will on Instagram, we challenge the idea that local governance can effectively counterbalance corporate power and debunk the myth that Trump represents a break from traditional political corruption.
American society stands at a crossroads where corporate power and democracy collide. As we discuss bipartisan efforts, like the push to cap credit card interest rates, we reflect on the need for the Democratic Party to reconnect with its working-class roots. We're unpacking how the influence of billionaires has shaped policy and risked progress on critical issues, drawing stark contrasts between the U.S. and other developed nations. Join us for this urgent exploration of wealth's impact on American politics, governance, and the future trajectory of our society.
The many questions surrounding Musk's efforts and Doge's efforts. De facto closing of USAID is among Trump's administration moves that test legal boundaries took office. Legal observers were skeptical of his plans for an Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency to unilaterally shrink the size of the federal bureaucracy. Questions have grown in the weeks since he has been back in the White House and reached a new flashpoint with the administration de facto shutdown of US agencies for international development. So a rundown of several questions that issues that are in play Can the administration effectively shut down USAID or USAID or USAID Now? Usaid has carried out a foreign assistance program since 1961, and Congress in 1998 established it as an independent agency, though closely intertwined with the State Department. It is highly unlikely that Trump and Musk can formally wipe out the agency by merging it into the State Department without legislative approval. What happened in recent days is short of what leaves some of the administration's moves in a gray area. The agency headquarters was closed on Monday and many of its functions and communications were crippled. Doge officials sought access to the agency system over the weekend. Now the Trump administration sees USID as a place to start what they can, basically to see what they can do and who will stop them do and who will stop them Now? That came from Matthew Kavanaugh, who is a director of the Center of Global Health Policy and Politics at Georgetown University. Now USAID works heavily with government contractors and the administration has more flexibility in dealing with them than government employees. It also has some wiggle room to pause spending and put workers on temporary leaves.
Speaker 1:But the wholesale refusal by Trump to spend agencies' foreign aid funds would run along into the Nixon-era federal law known as the Empowered Control Act of 1974, which requires the president to get permission from Congress to withhold any discretionary spending. So Brian Riddle, a former Republican Senate aide now at the conservative leaning Manhattan Institute, said he thinks the president's US ID overhaul has inventeda constitutional crisis. Quote the president can't take back the funding, he said. Some legal scholars say the president has more room to control spending on matters related to national security and foreign affairs, and US presidents, going back to Thomas Jefferson, who halted funding for gunboats to patrol the Mississippi River, have impounded and appropriated money. Trump's top lawyer at the Office of Management and Budget has argued that the 1974 impoundment law unconstitutionally limits the president's power to control and manage the executive branch, so a court showdown on the issue could be ahead.
Speaker 1:Now, what is Doge's actual authority and where did it come from? Now, trump created Doge through an executive order he signed the day he took office, establishing Musk's outfit as a temporary government organization. The president did so by renaming and reorganizing an already existing office in the executive branch. His order said Doge would help implement his agenda by modernizing federal technology and software and maximizing government efficiency and productivity. He instructed agency heads to cooperate with Doge. Productivity. He instructed agency heads to cooperate with Doge, but said the creation of a new organization didn't supplant the power of the executive departments or agencies Another order said that Doge would have a role in reshaping the federal workforce.
Speaker 1:Now, questions remain about who actually works for Doge, what their roles and responsibilities are and how it's funded.
Speaker 1:Now, before he took office, trump created the outfit as an advisory panel. Doge co-chair Vivek Ramaswamy has left, as has Bill McGinley, who Trump appointed as Doge's legal counsel in December. Now the White House on Monday said Musk had classified a special government employee, or was classified as a special government employee, which enables him to work at the White House for 130 days is about, without filing financial disclosure forms required for regular White House employees. But he also raises conflicts of interest questions because his Doge work could benefit his business interests, including Tesla and SpaceX. The other question is can Trump deputize Doge to slash the federal government? Now, recent past administrations, including under Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, have established advisory bodies aimed at cutting spending or making the government more effective, but their structures and mandates were different in character than Doge private sector figures with a mandate to drain the swamp in Washington. The group known as the Grace Commission made more than 2,400 recommendations, including proposals to rethink protections for government workers. Now, many of those recommendations were never implemented. Now Trump, by contrast, is working closely with Musk to engineer significant financial and structural changes in the government over the matter of weeks and months. The effort also received an unusual law enforcement backing Monday from the Trump appointment interim US attorney in Washington, ed Martin. Ed Martin said I ask that you utilize me and my staff to assist in protecting the Doge work and the Doge workers. Martin wrote in a public letter to Musk. Any threats, confrontation or other actions in any way that impact their work may break numerous laws, may break numerous laws.
Speaker 1:Now, legal observers said Trump was generally on solid legal ground in creating Doge and using it to input. So long as the must is functioning as an advisor and not as an actual decision maker, there isn't a problem with the president getting advice from people outside of the government, said the University of Virginia law professor Shartish Prakash, who studies executive powers and the president, and he said the president can direct agencies to cooperate with that advisor. Prakash said that though there could be privacy and national security and computer access rules that legally limit Musk and Doge's access to information. So what are the legal boundaries here that Doge is testing? Now?
Speaker 1:Putting aside questions of Doge's structure, some legal experts say it could have conduct that has so far violated federal laws. For example, acting on a Doge proposal, the Office of Personal and Management had offered a deferred resignation package to about 2 million federal employees, who were told that they would be paid through September 30th of 2025 if they agree to resign by February 6th. Now this offer might have violated the Administrative Leave Act of 2016, which limits how federal employees can be put on leave, said Nicholas Bender, a University of Minnesota law professor. Bender said another potential legal hurdle is the Anti-Deficiency Act, a law that says the federal government can't promise to spend money in excess of what Congress has made available. So Congress has actually only funded the government through March. So the offer to pay salaries through September appears to violate this statute through September appears to violate this statute, bender said.
Speaker 1:On Monday, a coalition of labor unions sued the Treasury Department, alleging he had unlawfully given Doge access to payment systems with the personal financial data of about millions of Americans. The plaintiffs said they were seeking a court order to halt systemic and continuous and ongoing violations of federal laws that protect the privacy of personal information contained in federal records. That imposes transparency requirements on advisory committees to the executive branch, including that they meet in public and have a fair and balanced viewpoints representative. So, now that Trump has formally made Doge part of the government, some legal experts have said that those cases may no longer be relevant. Cases may no longer be relevant, but Keel McClellan, a lawyer who brought on the cases, said that the litigation is still 100% valid and to a court determines that every single person purporting to work for Doge is actually an employee of the government entity described in President Trump's executive order. So, as the opposition party, the Democrats are somewhat in disarray, but the Senator from Massachusetts, senator Elizabeth Borman, said this.
Speaker 1:Let's be clear about what's happening right now. The Trump administration has allowed Elon Musk, an unelected billionaire, along with an unknown number of his unqualified flunkies, to access a critical federal payment system and illegally shut down government funding for certain department and programs. The system that he is now controlling is the same system that Americans rely on to receive Social Security payments, medicare support, federal salaries, government contract grants and tax refunds. This filing session. What happens now? Maybe you get paid, maybe you don't. It all depends on what Elon Musk thinks. He can now turn on funding for his friends and turn off funding for anyone he doesn't like. Now, as long as Musk has access, he can retrieve people's sensitive personal information social security numbers, bank account numbers, tax returns. Musk now has the power to extract the information for his own use, to boost his finances or strengthen his political power, to say the least, this is an extraordinarily dangerous situation. I'm working to get specific answers from Donald Trump's new Treasury Secretary on why Musk was given access to this information, and I have called the Secretary to lay out what safeguards are in place to protect the people's privacy and economic security of the American people On Twitter or X or whatever Musk wants us to call it.
Speaker 1:I made the point to say that no one elected his hand-picked Twitter CEO wasn't happy to hear that. She wrote back to me. Actually, over 77 million people for exactly that. Actually, no, and I can't believe I have to say this, but over 77 million people did not vote for Elon Musk. Over 77 million people voted for Donald Trump. Over 75 million people voted for Kamala Harris. Elon Musk was not on the ballot. Elon Musk did not win a single electoral vote. Elon Musk did not win an election.
Speaker 1:Elon Musk has not been confirmed by the US Senate to a position in the administration and the Constitution doesn't give him power any power to cut off funding that Congress has approved. He is in this position because he spent more than $290 million on the 2024 election and bought him an opportunity to be the co-president with Trump. This situation is alarming. When unelected billionaires start ransacking our government offices, we cannot act as business as usual. We are living in a nightmare created by Trump and Musk and we need to wake up to do something. I'll keep ringing every alarm bell I can and continue to do everything in my power to get this under control.
Speaker 1:Now I had a conversation today on the Darrell McLean Instagram page, which I do post things on there and I respond when people respond to me. So there was a Republican that introduced a bill to abolish the Occupational Safety and Healthy Administration, the federal agency that is dedicated to protecting the American workers' safety and health workers safety and health. Now Tesla is a 4% of US manufacturing, yet they made up 75% of OSHA violations. So the postulation is that this was something to do with Elon. Tesla has had three times as many OSHA violations as the largest US plants combined, and that was way back in 2019, you know when Tesla started getting those violations.
Speaker 1:So somebody replied to me publicly and said that it was all about his name as well, and he said this was just saying that this should be handled at the state level. Now I because I'm a disgruntled ex-Republican yada, yada, yada. I told him that that was code for, for it actually won't be handled at all because billionaires buy the government and they'll buy the state government just like they bought the federal government that I have seen this book play out before. If, for reference, take a look at uh, kent McConnell and how he destroyed the state of Kentucky and why it has been one of the poorest states as Mitch McConnell took charge, I went on to say that I don't have as much faith in politicians and as in billionaires, and this is about cheap labor and cheap unprotected labor as well. Now, if you want to learn about mitch mcconnell and what he did to kentucky, I suggest a book that I read called mitch please how mitch mcconnell sold out kentucky and american. Two by matt jones with chris tallman Sold Out Kentucky in America. 2 by Matt Jones with Chris Tallman, the founder of Kentucky Sports Radio, and it was an eye-opening book, very good read, and the book was called Mitch Please.
Speaker 1:Now Will responded to me and said he actually doesn't trust politicians and that's why he's for limited government, especially the federal government, and he's for the smallest federal government possible, and he believes that those types of decisions could be made at a local level so that individuals can vote for what they want or move to a state that better aligns with their ideals. That's why he says that's why you saw a large migration from california to texas during covid. Now I laid out my argument, which I've kind of do all the time as economic existentialists, that the size of the federal government, a local government, is irrelevant because politicians are bought by the donor class. Most donors are business people and they are buying is a way to manipulate the workforce. Deregulation is not going to go from the federal government to the states.
Speaker 1:The large amount of power corporations have for politicians will actually make sure that those regulations don't see the light of day when it comes to local government. 60 years of labor history has shown that corporations on its own will not do right by the consumer, nor by the customer. They will knowingly poison your food, they will knowingly poison your water. They will knowingly go to war, to false pretenses, to make money. It is not about the government in and of itself. It's about the government that has been taken over by corporate power and a company is the least democratic place that exists. By design, corporations do what they are allowed to do, because the united states system is nothing more than organized bribery and there is no political answer for that problem.
Speaker 1:I said as well that I think that, uh, he labored under the assumption that local politicians make decisions, when what actually happens is politicians listen to people who pay them and not the people who vote for them. The regulation has always been a scam. Business people use to make working places less safe, while making sure workers have no recourse to complain. Of course, billionaires want small government, because the smaller it is, the easier it is for them to gain monopoly power. Smaller it is, the easier it is for them to gain monopoly power. So you know then, I got the. Well, it's great that Trump is not a politician, so at least we'll have a reprieve for four years. Hopefully we can both agree on that, and I kind of said I know that is a line that people have been saying for a while about president trump, but once trump left the trump organization and ran for president, he became a politician.
Speaker 1:The president of the united states is a political position and trump has shown zero interest in stopping the corporate takeover of the country. If anything, trump will be more likely to accelerate the problem because Trump surrounds himself with millionaires and billionaires. Most of them are just going to make America more technocratic than it already is. They aren't hanging around Trump because they like him. They are hanging around Trump because they are trying to extract something from him for their individual business interests. So Will then asked me, or said that he's, you know, postulated that he's sure that they don't care about the US. It's just a bunch of millionaires and billionaires spending 20 plus hours a day working when they could be easily living on a golf course. Some people just have to hate. I've seen so many great things in the past few weeks. Now, when I told him it's not about hate or being mad, it's about the fact that multinational corporations have no loyalty to a country, dollars have no loyalty to a country, have no loyalty to a country. Dollars have no loyalty to a country, and that even trump advisor steve bannon has said that elon musk is in the tank for the chinese communist government. Now. Elon literally killed a provision. We know this. He killed the provision in the bill because it put regulations on chinese chips that would have affected Tesla's manufacturing.
Speaker 1:I accused him of thinking way too small and I said you have to think about globalization and the continued destruction of the American workforce and that if you think, because the government is small, it'll solve all of life's problems and all the problems are going to go away. That is a bit naive. You will either be ruled by the government or you'll be ruled by corporate power. The people in DC are there. The billionaires that showed up are not there because they're good people that love America. They are there because they're trying to curry favor with the people in power for their own business interests. So of course he asked me who should we send to DC? And I told him what I probably have told you before that I believe DC is fundamentally broken and unreformable and at this point I think the governor for each individual state should be the representative for that state. In the District of Columbia, uncle Roro, uncle Roland Martin, went viral as he had a message for black Americans, short but poignant and stark stark. I'll just say that.
Speaker 2:MJ and LeBron debates on who's the goat. There is literally, as we speak, an entire focus to gut every single civil right and economic gain that we have had since 1964, because they are pissed with those three acts. They're pissed with the Browns board of education act. You have voucher bills that are being pushed in texas and tennessee and other places to gut public education. What we have to understand is there is a vicious assault to completely defund black america.
Speaker 1:Uh, a very stark warning from roland martin, from Roland Martin Live, something that we should think about Strange bedfellows when it comes to politics. Because there was a bill introduced by Republican Senator Josh Hawley and Democratic Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders. Senator Sanders and Hawley introduced legislation to cap credit card interest at 10%. So Senator Sanders, the independent from Vermont, Josh Hawley, the Republican from Montana, introduced a bipartisan legislation aimed at capping credit card interest rates at 10 percent. Now this initiative comes in response to the financial struggles faced by many working class families aimed at rising costs for essential goods like groceries, gas and rent.
Speaker 1:The bill seeks to alleviate the burden of high interest rates, which have been a long-standing issue for consumers. So I'm going to say this, and maybe I'll do more on this on the next episode but the us economy has outperformed most of his rivals in terms of uh productivity and might and innovation, but the success has not led to rapidly rising living standards for most americans. By many other measures, the well-being of us affairs worse than many other rich countries and has fallen further behind since the 1990, and that is in life expectancy, prevalence of depression, income inequality and life satisfaction. Now, when it is, it is challenging, you know, to promote the benefits of big government with individuals lack the financial safety net, such as a $500 for emergencies, and 62% of Americans rely on paycheck to paycheck for a living. To further foster the trust in the United States government, you're going to have to deliver tangible results and if you don't, you will fall into the hands of some of these technocrats, autocrats, kleptocrats, etc.
Speaker 1:When playing the game Monopoly, it was intended to illustrate that when people end up owning everything normally a monopoly of one person they inevitably price everyone out. So I personally fail to comprehend why individuals who grew up playing this game believe that billionaires purchasing governmental influence will have a favorable outcome for them. Governmental influence will have a favorable outcome for them. It was the late president Franklin Delano Roosevelt who said you will either have a government by organized money or by organized mob. And that has been my, my biggest critique of why people fall for these types of things. You can't get people to believe the government is working and everything is efficient and everything is great when they don't have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of.
Speaker 4:For years now, you have had an administration which, instead of pulling its thumbs, has rolled up its sleeves, and I can assure you that we will keep our sleeves rolled up of peace, business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking class antagonism, sectionalism, war, profiteering. They had begun to consider the government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs, and we know now that government by organized money is just as dangerous as government by organized mob.
Speaker 1:I think that's a lesson that has been lost on us Government with organized money is as dangerous as government with an organized mob. This goes back to what I was telling my dear friend Will, that when these billionaires show up to DC and when these billionaires and millionaires give money to politicians, they're not doing it because they're altruistic, because there's some humble billionaires who care about the well-being of the country. They're doing it because they're trying to extract something from the federal government, and normally what they are trying to extract are favorable business practices that usually end up screwing over the American workers.
Speaker 4:Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me, and I welcome their hatred, thank you. I should like to have it said of my first administration that, in it, the forces of selfishness and of lust for power met their match. I should like to have it said Wait a minute. I should like to have it said wait a minute. I should like to have it said of my second administration that, in it, these forces met their master.
Speaker 1:But the way the United States government works we have opposition parties, george Washington didn't agree with it, etc. But while the Democrats are in disarray and it seems like the Republican Party, at least at this point, has decided to give away the country to their chosen billionaire, elon the Democratic Party is going to have to pull back the spirit of what made them the party of the working class, or they were the party of the working class. They're going to have to abandon neoliberalism. They're going to have to abandon the technocratic. We have the good billionaires let's bring out Warren Buffett, let's bring out Mark Cuban and they're going to have to get back to the economic populism of an FDR. And that's where the real fight is going to happen.
Speaker 1:All of American international debate is a debate between Eisenhower and let's just say, we'll say Reagan, somebody who said don't get involved in these foreign affairs, don't get enrolled, be afraid of the military industrial complex, as important as that is. I'll also say the most important continuous debate in America is debate between Reagan and FDR. Are we the era of big government? Are we the era of small government?
Speaker 3:If you're going to be the era of big government, as a lot of the Democratic Party wants to be you need to be the big government era of FDR hands and dump it on our military and senators and representatives failure to challenge him. This is how kingdoms operate, rule by decree. It proves that we're asking the wrong question. Plug can American democracy survive Trump? Into a search engine and you'll find thousands of websites, blogs, articles, podcasts devoted to that one single question. But American democracy was kneecapped by five Republicans on the Supreme Court years ago when they ruled that money was the same thing as free speech, the corporations were persons with rights under the Bill of Human Rights and that political operatives could engage in virtually unlimited purges of voting rolls, accompanied by racially and gender-targeted laws to make it harder to vote. The correct question is can the American system, now that it's become flooded with dark money and the right to vote has become a mere privilege in red states, ever again represent the interests of average citizens? Can we ever return to democracy?
Speaker 3:In an open call on Axe yesterday with Republican senators Joni Ernst and Mike Lee, apartheid billionaire Elon Musk, whose father says he was chauffeured to school in a white-run South Africa in a Rolls Royce, lit into the regulations that created and protect the American middle class and our democracy. Regulations, he said basically should be default gone. No default there, default gone. And if it turns out that we missed the mark on a regulation, we can always add it back in. And then, in a childlike echo of Ayn Rand, musk added these regulations are added willy-nilly all the time, so we just do a wholesale spring cleaning of regulation and get the government off the backs of everyday Americans so people can get things done. If the government has millions of regulations holding everyone back, well, it's not freedom. We've got to restore freedom. End quote. Both capitalism and democracy could be likened to, ideally played to benefit the largest number of people by creating and guaranteeing life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But imagine if the NFL were to suspend their regulations just before this Sunday's Super Bowl and the Chiefs, like most elected Democrats, chose to continue playing by the old regulations. But the Eagles, after giving cash bribes to the refs to keep quiet, started gut-punching, face-mask-pulling and even threw five extra players out of the field. The only team that would ever win would be the one most willing to play dirty or buy off the refs. And increasingly that's where we are today, both with our democracy and our economy.
Speaker 3:Every state in the union has put into place an agency to regulate insurance companies because that very industry has a long horrible history of ripping people off and refusing to pay claims unless the power of the state is invoked against them. The same reason when we deregulated them in the 1920s and the late 1990s, the result was huge rip-offs that produced the Republican Great Depression and the Bush crash of 2008. We regulate automobile manufacturers because they have a history of putting profits over the lives of their customers before Pinto, 900 dead. Gm trucks, 2,000 dead, etc. We regulate refineries because their emissions cause cancer and asthma. We regulate drugs because unscrupulous manufacturers killed people in previous eras. Workplace safety after the Triangle shirt waste fire killed 146 young women voting because corrupt politicians rigged elections. We regulate traffic with signs and stoplights to keep order and reduce accidents. We regulate police to prevent them from abusing innocent people. We regulate building codes so people's homes don't collapse or catch on fire from faulty cheap wiring.
Speaker 3:And there was a time in America when we regulated money and politics and guaranteed the right to vote. Those two types of regulations were passed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries after multiple scandals, like in 1899 when William Cooper, now the nation's second richest man, openly bribed Montana legislators by standing outside the legislative chamber passing out brand new thousand dollar bills to the men who voted his way, or when, state after state, most all former Confederate states repeatedly refused to allow black people to vote. We passed regulations guaranteeing a minimum wage, unemployment insurance and the right to unionize to create the world's first large-scale middle class. And we regulated the morbidly rich with a 90% income tax rate to prevent them from amassing so much wealth that their financial power could become a threat to our democratic republic. And of course, it's those regulations, money and politics, the right to vote and preventing the accumulation of dangerous levels of wealth to which today's prologuarchs most strenuously object.
Speaker 3:In each case, it was five republicans on the us supreme court who gutted our protective regulations and put america on a direct collision course with today's oligarchic, neo-fascist takeover. They ruled that billionaires could buy politicians, because giving money in exchange for votes isn't bribery but merely an expression of First Amendment-protected free speech. They claimed that corporations aren't soulless creations of the law but are persons with the same right to share their free speech with politicians who do their bidding. And they ruled that voting is not a right in America, an open defiance of US law, but a mere privilege. No-transcript responsive to the voters was in the 1960s, when Medicare, medicaid and food stamps were created and the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts were passed, and in the early 70s, when we outlawed big money in politics. Then in 1978, five Republicans on the Supreme Court ruled in the Malati decision, written by Lewis Powell himself, that corporations are persons and money is merely free speech. Two years later, reagan floated into the White House on a river of oil money and systematically began gutting the protective regulations that had built the largest and most successful middle class the world had ever seen.
Speaker 3:Since then, big money has frozen us like a mosquito in amber. Even Obama's big effort to establish a national health care system with an option for Medicare had to kneel before the throne of right-wing billionaires in the insurance industry. Every developed country in the world has some variation on a free or low-cost national health care system and free or even subsidized higher education. In most developed countries, homelessness is not a crisis. Nobody goes bankrupt because somebody in their family got sick and jobs pay well enough and have union pensions. So people can retire after 30 or 40 years in the workplace and live comfortably for the rest of their lives.
Speaker 3:But not in America Since the Reagan Revolution, right-wing billionaires have blocked any of these things from happening because they'd be paid for with taxes, and there's nothing right-wing billionaires hate more than paying taxes. Dark money has destroyed the notion of one person per vote. Monopoly, allowed because corporations can now buy politicians, has destroyed the small businesses that once filled America's malls and downtowns, and voter suppression and voterless purges handed the 2024 election to Trump, as reporter Greg Palast documented in a recent shocking report. So yeah, let's do away with all the regulations, like wannabe kings Elon and Donald say, and make the United States look and operate more like Somalia and its failed state relatives than anything Americans would recognize After all, freedom.