Date: Friday, 30 October 2026
https://ericzuesse.substack.com/p/the-us-is-terminally-corrupt-bottom
https://theduran.com/the-u-s-is-terminally-corrupt-bottom-of-the-barrel-corrupt-at-the
The U.S. is terminally corrupt — bottom-of-the-barrel corrupt — at the very top.
30 October 2026, by Eric Zuesse. (All of my recent articles can be seen here.)
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DfFQgc7RbRL/?
Earlier this year, we uncovered a stunning confession.
The former CEO of a defense contractor, Martin Kao,
told the FBI about how he bribed members of Congress
in exchange for government contracts.
One of the things that he told them about
was a steak dinner with Lindsey Graham.
The scene that Kao gave the FBI
was straight out of a movie.
Kao said that he walked into the dinner
with an envelope containing checks
that were contributions to Graham's campaign.
He gave the checks to someone he identified as Graham's money man.
And only after he handed over this envelope, Graham entered the private dining room.
Kao was asking Graham to use his powerful position on the Appropriations Committee.
I hate to talk about appropriations in the Appropriations Committee, but I will.
in order to steer contracts to Navatek, the defense contractor that he owned.
According to Kao, Graham offered a $10 million contract
in exchange for $100,000 in campaign contributions.
A few days after the dinner, a senior official in Graham's office, a man named Craig Abilay,
spoke with the Navy and made sure that Navatek got a government contract in partnership with
the University of South Carolina. Kao said that he struck similar deals with both Jim Clyburn
and Joe Wilson. Clyburn, a Democrat, is arguably one of the most
powerful Democrats in the country.
Joe Wilson holds a powerful position
on the Armed Services Committee,
which is helpful in getting military contracts.
Martin Kau is a convicted felon.
He was facing decades in prison
and kind of had every incentive to give the FBI everything.
Two FBI agents were seriously investigating the claims that Kao made against Graham and other lawmakers.
That investigation went away after the agents were pushed out of the FBI as part of Trump's political purge of the agency.
Lindsey Graham died earlier this year in July.
Lindsey Graham's sister, Darlene, was appointed to his seat in the Senate and is running for a full six-year term this year.
Darlene kept many of her brother's staff, including Craig Abilay, who interfaced with Navatek.
You can read our full investigation into powerful lawmakers in South Carolina on ProPublica.org.
[That’s “How Trump’s FBI Purge Saved Lindsey Graham and James Clyburn From a Bribery Investigation”.]
——
MY COMMENTS:
“How America’s Military-Industrial Complex Wins All of Its Wars Against America’s Taxpayers”
And it’s not only in regard to the military, but everything. Here’s Max Blumenthal, on October 29th, talking about Trump’s utter corruptness regarding Venezuela:
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>> Uh let's move uh over to this hemisphere. What is the significance in your view of this uh very highly publicized almost monumental return uh of Maria Machado to um Venezuela? And could this possibly have happened without the approval of the US
15:57
government and intelligence services? >> MAX BLUMENTHAL: I’ve got to mentally reset here. Although uh it's kind of a, you know, there's kind of a crossover. So, Maria Corina Machado was being set up to be the successor to Nicholas Maduro following regime change. But then Marco Rubio and his mentor, um
16:24
whose whose name I'm forgetting right now, who is kind of like fashioning himself — oh it’s Mauricio Claver Corone — as the Jared Kushner of Venezuela. Uh they came up with this bright plan. And it actually was a pretty clever plan to keep Chavistas in charge at gunpoint, at
16:44
least uh ostensible Chavistas like Delci Rodriguez and her brother Jorge, and have them basically sign every deal that the US would want at gunpoint without replacing them and replacing the entire security infrastructure uh presided over by Diosdado Cabello. Uh
17:06
that would mean you know you don't have instability, you don't have bloodshed, you just have to spirit Maduro out. This is what's raised so many suspicions about a potential deal within the Chavista world to within the Chavista elite to remove Maduro. Okay, so they
17:24
got that done, but all of this pressure starts coming down from Machado and her people who are so powerful within the uh South Florida Gusano world of the Cuban mafia, the Venezuelan immigrant population. There is so much >> Rubio's world, is it not?
17:42
>> And it's Rubio's world, but it's also the world and it's the world of Rick Scott. Uh it's the world of DeSantis. It's the world of Trump who's in Mara Lago, but it's also the world of Democrats, Debbie Wasserman, Schultz. It's the world of Democrats on the Senate Foreign
17:58
Relations Committee, who, they believe in promoting democracy. And so what they wanted — so, so, the pressure bipartisan on Rubio to have Venezuela appear democratic. So they get the big oil deal done where Venezuela agrees, Deli Rodriguez agrees at gunpoint to
18:18
sell oil at below market value, one-fifth of Venezuela's oil reserves for like eternity, to the US, and then they then the call for elections comes um from um Tim Kaine from the Democrats and [Republican] Bernie Moreno, who is himself I think Cuban from Ohio. So, it's a bipartisan call. Rubio
18:44
admits that he sent Maria Corina Machado back [to Venezuela] even though Donald Trump has said he doesn't like her because he considers her to be like a possible, to provide a possible recipe for instability. Trump would prefer a regime in Venezuela that gives him whatever he wants. And so now there's
19:04
this call for Venezuela to hold elections by 2027. Uh but not just that, to replace the entire Supreme Court, and the central election council. It's another brazen neocolonial demand, and this has sent Delci Rodriguez into an uncomfortable situation
19:24
where uh she's had to go into campaign mode. She held a rally in the city of Carabobo which is significant because the battle of Carabobo was where Simon Bolivar uh defeated the Spanish colonial forces for a decisive, in a decisive battle. So it was sort of symbolic but the
19:47
Chavistas bussed in a lot of their supporters from the outside, which created a lot of negative media. Delci Rodriguez was on stage dancing, which was an unusual uh sort of unusual theater for her. It didn't look like she was actually enjoying herself as authentically as
20:02
Maduro did when he was dancing at big rallies. Uh she's much more comfortable being a communicator behind a desk, a shot caller, someone who's in control of the economic levers and being the boss lady. And today she delivered another speech which was clearly aimed at the US
20:22
basically promising elections. Uh the optics were significant, again. She was wearing an all-white suit. That is Maria Corina Machado's trademark outfit. And Delci Rodriguez, uh here's what she said, which I found really significant and and and somewhat disturbing. Um she said “A
20:40
transformation of this magnitude, if it's not led by someone with experience and the real capacity to carry it out, remains just on paper. I come from the system that we are transforming and changing. I don't hide it. I turn that background into a strength.” So she's
20:56
saying, I'm Maria Corina Machado, but I know how to do what you want her to do better than her, which is to basically transform Venezuela from a kind of nationalist, socialist-oriented economic system that would channel oil sales into kind of a uh, you know, to to to spread social
21:18
democracy, transfer transfer transition it from that, to a neoliberal system where the US is basically able to get whatever it wants as it's doing in Argentina. That's her appeal and that's extremely disturbing. And it also doesn't bode well for her if there are
21:36
elections, because the Chavista base doesn't want neoliberalism. They want Chavismo. And so what does she have to offer them? >>
21:43
…
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It is gangsterism, under the cover of ‘democracy’. That’s the collective “The West” — the U.S. empire: the U.S. regime and its colonies (‘allies’), run by its stooges, all of whom must stay in its good graces as ‘democracies’.
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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s latest book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.
