Yesterday, Virginia U.S. Senator Tim Kaine issued the following letter to his supporters:

“Throughout my ten years in the U.S. Senate, I’ve fought to end the decades-long 1991 and 2002 authorizations of military force.

“Presidents of both parties have misused this policy to justify military action without consulting Congress. And today, I’m proud to announce that the U.S. Senate has passed my bipartisan legislation to end the unnecessary and outdated Iraq Authorizations for Use of Military Force.

“It’s been a long time coming. And I’m thankful to my colleagues in the Senate, especially Indiana Senator Todd Young, who has helped spearhead this legislation with me.

“Most importantly, I’m thankful to the men and women who bravely served our nation in the Gulf War of 1991, the Iraq War in the 2000s, and all of our service members who have and continue to proudly wear the uniform of our nation.

“Thank you for standing with me in the fight to restore Constitutional checks and balances — and ending these Authorizations of Military Force once and for all. When President Biden signs this legislation into law, it will be thanks in no small part to your support.”

Ah,  Tim Kaine! Remember him? It’s genuinely painful to think about how he, as the Democratic Vice Presidential candidate, and Hillary Clinton were robbed of the White House in 2016 thanks to that horrible announcement by then FBI Director James Comey a week before the election.

In perhaps the most egregious abuse of the power by the FBI aimed at interfering in the outcome of a major election in U.S. history, Comey threw the outcome of that election, which until that moment had become a lock for Clinton over Trump, into complete chaos and disarray. Eight days later Trump won the election despite coming in short by two million popular votes.

Of course, Comey completely changed his tune when it became clear to him, and it didn’t take long after Trump was installed, what an evil SOB that Trump actually was.

The FBI’s role, including its lack of reaction to the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the Capitol, has been nefarious at best in recent years, given a deep divide within the agency, and other U.S. intelligence agencies, between a marked majority of those who are honest law enforcement professionals and those who’ve clearly been noodling, engaging in acts on behalf of Trump and his ongoing effort to overthrow the U.S. Constitutional government.

Trump’s rally in Waco, Texas, last weekend evoked images of Armageddon,  which is not only his personal reaction to the imminent criminal charges about to rain down on him, but is also his 2024 campaign theme, a desperate, last-ditch call to arms for a movement that is actually religious in nature.

But lest anyone think that this is about Trump alone, it is far from it. Sadly, there is still a large component of the super-rich in the U.S. that wish him the best, even if they are too afraid to take the lead in any public way.

These are the one percent of the one percent of the nation’s richest, made that way through policies in the last 40 years that have sharply tilted the nation in their favor, and who can now operate politically in the dark thanks to the Citizens United ruling.

Yes, it is wrong completely to judge the political environment in the U.S. in terms of Democrats versus Republicans, or “Maga Republicans.” It needs to be measured in dollars, and achieved political clout (such as in the Supreme Court’s most distorted political slant since before the Civil War).

No matter what the polls show, it is where the money is coming from that will determine our electoral outcomes from now on, and by that measure, our nation’s future is dire.

Now we must turn to the Israeli public’s response for hope. Just as millions of Americans in cities all across the U.S. turned out the day after Trump’s inauguration in January 2017, so they are going to need to do so in the coming period if our democracy is going to have any shot at surviving.