It appears likely that Russian oligarchs helped to fund Donald Trump's presidential campaign, as well as the campaigns of some other prominent Republicans.

Courtesy of Dallas News:  

Donald Trump and the political action committees for Mitch McConnell, Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, Lindsey Graham, John Kasich and John McCain accepted $7.35 million in contributions from a Ukrainian-born oligarch who is the business partner of two of Russian president Vladimir Putin's favorite oligarchs and a Russian government bank. 

During the 2015-2016 election season, Ukrainian-born billionaire Leonid "Len" Blavatnik contributed $6.35 million to leading Republican candidates and incumbent senators. Mitch McConnell was the top recipient of Blavatnik's donations, collecting $2.5 million for his GOP Senate Leadership Fund under the names of two of Blavatnik's holding companies, Access Industries and AI Altep Holdings, according to Federal Election Commission documents and OpenSecrets.org.

Marco Rubio's Conservative Solutions PAC and his Florida First Project received $1.5 million through Blavatnik's two holding companies. Other high dollar recipients of funding from Blavatnik were PACS representing Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker at $1.1 million, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham at $800,000, Ohio Governor John Kasich at $250,000 and Arizona Senator John McCain at $200,000. 

In January, Quartz reported that Blavatnik donated another $1 million to Trump's Inaugural Committee. Ironically, the shared address of Blavatnik's companies is directly across the street from Trump Tower on 5th Avenue in New York.

Right across the street huh? Well that's certainly handy.

The Dallas News also makes this rather astute point:

Blavatnik's relationships with Russian oligarchs close to Putin, particularly Oleg Deripaska, should be worrisome for Trump and the six GOP leaders who took Blavatnik's money during the 2016 presidential campaign. Lucky for them no one has noticed. Yet.

Well guess what? We've noticed. 

I should point out that this is not definitive proof that Russian oligarchs directed Blavatnik to donate any of this money, but of course they probably did.

And there is no proof that the donations have impacted the way that certain Republicans react to the news of Russian interference in our elections, but of course it certainly might.

And finally on its own this would probably not even seem like such a big deal, but when you add it to the pile of what we already know about the 2016 elections, well then it certainly does.

YouTube video from Counter Arguments explains why America is a secular nation and not a Christian one.

Ya gotta love it when Sarah Palin is used to demonstrate the wrong side of an argument.

As you can see the video is ten minutes long, but it is ten minutes well spent in complete undermining the argument from the Religious Right that this country was based on Christianity and therefore laws must be based on the Bible.

This is one of the videos that you favorite and send to that obnoxious family member who simply cannot accept the fact that the country they live in was not based on the teachings of the religion they practice.

(H/T to the Friendly Atheist.)

Former President Jimmy Carter says that America is no longer a democracy. Is now an oligarchy.

Courtesy of the Daily Mail: 

Former president Jimmy Carter says he would not be able to run for president today because the U.S. political system has warped into an 'oligarchy' which requires huge financial wealth. 

In a new interview, the 91-year-old said the need for massive financial backing excluded candidates and warned against the 'damaged' ethical standards of American politics. 

During an interview with Oprah for her upcoming episode of SuperSoul Sunday, he was asked if could become president today. 

He replied: 'Absolutely not. There's no way now for you to get a Democratic or Republican nomination without being able to raise $200 or $300million or more. 

'I would not be inclined to do that, and I would not be capable of doing it.' 

'We've become now an oligarchy instead of a democracy, and I think that's been the worst damage to the basic moral and ethical standards to the American political system that I've ever seen in my life.' 

Well...I think that pretty much sums it up. 

Think you live in a democratic America? Think again.

Courtesy of Business Insider:  

The U.S. government does not represent the interests of the majority of the country's citizens, but is instead ruled by those of the rich and powerful, a new study from Princeton and Northwestern universities has concluded. 

The report, "Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens" (PDF), used extensive policy data collected between 1981 and 2002 to empirically determine the state of the U.S. political system. 

After sifting through nearly 1,800 U.S. policies enacted in that period and comparing them to the expressed preferences of average Americans (50th percentile of income), affluent Americans (90th percentile), and large special interests groups, researchers concluded that the U.S. is dominated by its economic elite. 

The peer-reviewed study, which will be taught at these universities in September, says: "The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence." 

Researchers concluded that U.S. government policies rarely align with the preferences of the majority of Americans, but do favour special interests and lobbying organizations: "When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites and/or with organized interests, they generally lose. Moreover, because of the strong status quo bias built into the US political system, even when fairly large majorities of Americans favour policy change, they generally do not get it." 

Of course this accusation has been flying around for decades, but I think this is the first time that anybody launched a study which confirmed it.  

How to combat this is going to be incredibly challenging, and in the short run virtually impossible.

This realization does drive a number of grassroots organizations, but ultimately they have limited impact as the big money donors drive public policy in the directions that benefit them and their companies.

And of course all of this will now be exacerbated by the Citizens United and McClutchen Supreme Court decisions.

This does not bode well for the future of politics, or the future of this country, and it is definitely NOT what was envisioned by the Founding Fathers.

P.S. Before the Right Wing gets too excited about this, since they have been accusing President Obama of being an oligarch for years, they may want to pay attention to the fact that this study was based on data gathered from between 1981 and 2002.

You know, before the black guy made himself available to be blamed for everything.