Well now, two Pakistani men lobbied both sides of the aisle to the tune of two million dollars, and they were working on behalf of ISI, the Pakistani intelligence service.
This stuff was happening before Harlan Crow bought the Citizens United decision. I guess it never occurred to them that by turning our elections into auctions they’d be inviting everyone to play.
So … we’re giving Pakistan $800 million annually and only 0.25% of it flows back to purchase influence here. At least that’s all we’ve found so far …
I hate to beat a dead, stinking pile of offal that used to be a horse, but here goes.
Citizens United turned elections into auctions
Corporations of any size are often transnational in nature
Transnational corporations, not under American control, can now purchase politicians here for a pittance
This ain’t rocket science. You throw open the doors to anyone who can write a check, the return on investment is 400:1 in the case of this Pakistani business, and who wouldn’t take that bet? Since Citizens United it would be foolish to not assume that hostile foreign powers are picking out which Representatives and Senators need to go so they can ensure their safety.
Lemme draw a little picture for you if this still isn’t clear.
Israel, worried about Iran, can simply purchase some Congressmen and get themselves in position for a nice reverse proxy war.
Iran, fearing that Israel is setting up to drag the U.S. into a conflict with them, can buy their own set of proponents. They have to be a bit sneaky about it, due to trade restrictions and all, but if you’re a nation state it doesn’t take that long to figure out how to slip a couple of million across the border and start running radio ads against hawkish pro-Israeli legislators, or maybe redirect policy so that the U.S. has problems elsewhere.
So, the net result of this? Israel gets their proxy war eventually, but our military is starved and spread too thin due to meddling from Iran. A bunch of our guys get hustled over there, maybe pulled in from Afghanistan or Iraq, and we bleed out even worse than the Soviet Union did when it made the mistake of wandering into Afghanistan thirty years ago.
Is this clear enough? Empowering corporations through the one dollar/one vote foolishness that is Citizens United is a de facto open border policy for any well heeled meddler that chooses to play.
The most amazing thing of all to me is that the Tea Party, so worried about border security, hasn’t caught on that those hard working Mexican migrant workers aren’t even in the top hundred border problems we face …