Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, using the specter of rampant crime and the drug trade, won extensive support from the American government to build up highly trained state security forces. Now, those same forces are repressing democracy.
The post-election situation in Honduras continues to deteriorate as Hernández, a conservative leader and stalwart U.S. ally in Central America, has disputed the result of last week’s vote while working to crack down on protests sweeping the nation.
Initial results showed Salvador Nasralla, an ex-sportscaster chosen by an alliance of left-wing political parties as their candidate, leading the vote count after the November 26 presidential election. The lead was substantial enough that a magistrate on the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, or TSE, estimated victory by Nasralla, characterizing his lead as “irreversible.”
The next day the TSE announced that Hernández was closing the gap. Then it suddenly stopped publicizing the tally, alleging that its electronic system went down, prompting criticism from European Union election observers. Police and military flooded the streets in the hours of silence that followed. On Wednesday, the announcement that Hernández had overtaken Nasralla in the vote count was met with disbelief. In the words of Salvadoran journalist Carlos Dada, “There are only two possibilities: Either the TSE is of Olympic incompetence or it’s committing fraud.”
The turn of events led to chaos on the streets, and Hernández instituted a military-imposed curfew across the nation on Friday. At least one protester has been killed and scores of others have been injured and arrested in violent clashes with police.
For human rights observers, the curfew and delay of an official recount are steps to produce an inevitable Hernández victory, regardless of the vote tally.
“The delay has only served to fuel claims of mass fraud, confusion, and deep suspicion,” said Karen Spring, a human rights activist with the Honduras Solidarity Network. The demonstrators “went into the street because they know that being calm means allowing a cover-up to happen and what many call a dictator to illegally stay in power,” she added.
Several observers on the ground told The Intercept that they have seen elite military police from the TIGRES and Cobras units alongside the Honduran National Police involved in clashes with protesters in the capital, Tegucigalpa, and around the country. The three forces are increasingly coordinated as the violence soars, they say.
On the evening of Wednesday November 29, the three forces launched tear gas against an estimated 1,000 people who were gathered to wait for results outside the building where the TSE tabulated. Among the demonstrators was former Police Commissioner María Luisa Borjas, who wrote in an email statement to a group of journalists that the people gathered included many children and the elderly, along with opposition candidate Nasralla and his pregnant wife.
An American human rights observer also present said that when the coalition of police forces attacked the crowd, the gathering was peaceful. “People were singing and had a giant Honduran flag, they were running up and down the street. It was beautiful actually. People were angry — it was loud — but it was peaceful,” the observer, who asked for anonymity given the increasingly dangerous situation, told The Intercept in a phone interview.
On Friday evening, as police cleared demonstrators from the streets of the La Kennedy neighborhood of Tegucigalpa, officers adorned with visible TIGRES insignia were spotted by Spring. The TIGRES were accompanied by Cobras and Honduran National Police, or PNH, according to another human rights observer from the U.S., who also asked not to be named out of fear for her safety.
On Saturday night, Borjas received multiple emergency calls from the Cabañas neighborhood of San Pedro Sula, a city in northern Honduras. People were being forced out of their houses and into the streets when Honduran law enforcement, including the PNH, launched tear gas canisters into their homes. Police attacked because the neighbors had begun a “cacerolazo,” a common form of protest in Latin America, banging pots and pans when state repression makes anything else impossible. Upon forcing people out of their homes, the PNH arrested them, Borjas said. “This is happening as we speak,” she told The Intercept in a phone interview Saturday night, adding that the TIGRES and Cobras maintain a strong presence on the streets, especially around the building where the votes are being tallied.
The PNH receives extensive training by various branches of the U.S. government. The exact substance of U.S. training for foreign security forces is notoriously difficult to ascertain, but some light has been shed by new data provided by the Departments of State, Defense, Justice, and Homeland Security at the request of Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., and shared with The Intercept by John Lindsay-Poland, a Latin America expert who participated in making the request.
In 2015, for instance, the data shows that members of the PNH received courses titled “Advanced Close Quarter Combat,” “Tactical Safety and Survival,” “Communication and Electronic Intelligence,” among others, and received donations, including Toyota trucks and computers. “Multiple Honduran Military and Law Enforcement Units” also received trainings on “Special Forces Advanced Military Operations in Urban Terrain,” “Reconnaissance and Surveillance,” and other themes. “This will support [U.S. Southern Command] Theater Engagement strategy and will improve partner national [counternarcotics] units’ abilities to conduct unilateral and combined [counternarcotics] missions,” reads the text describing the purpose and objective of those courses, as reported by the Defense Department and U.S. Southern Command.
Courses listed for the year 2016 were similar. The instructors of the courses both years included federal agencies like the DEA, FBI, and the State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, along with other agencies such as the Chicago police force. The data does not include additional detail about course curriculum or identifying information of trainers or trainees.
Since the elections, the Honduran government has made no effort to conceal the role of the two elite military police units. In the run-up to the election, Secretary of Security Julián Pacheco Tinoco announced that TIGRES and Cobra forces would be among the 16,000 police officers deployed to monitor the election.
The Comando de Operaciones Especiales, or Cobras, are riot police trained by U.S. SWAT teams. The Tropa de Inteligencia de Respuesta Especial de Seguridad, or TIGRES, were formed to fight urban violence and organized crime in 2014 by Hernández as he took office promising to bring down the world’s highest peacetime murder rate.
The TIGRES are paid a higher salary than traditional Honduran police, and they have also benefited from close coordination with multiple U.S. military bases in Honduras. A video obtained by the Wall Street Journal shows Green Beret units training with the TIGRES in the mountains of Honduras.
The militarized units, known to operate at night with uniforms that disguise officers’ faces, have featured widely in Hernández’s political campaigns as the president has championed his war on crime.
But the TIGRES, Cobras, and PNH have all been denounced for human rights violations.
The TIGRES in particular are said to have been used to harass political opponents and simply rob the cartels they are designed to rein in. Shortly after the formation of the unit, TIGRES officers assigned to work with the U.S. Embassy on counternarcotics operations stole $1.3 million from cocaine traffickers targeted in a raid.
Most controversially, there have been allegations that TIGRES were involved in the harassment of Berta Cáceres, an internationally known and respected human rights and environmental activist who was assassinated last year.
Before her death, Cáceres, an outspoken critic of the Hernández administration, warned that commandos from the TIGRES had occupied her rural community, where Cáceres had led a protest movement against a planned hydroelectric dam. In a recording made just one month before her killing, she explicitly named the TIGRES, calling commandos from the force a “hostile and aggressive presence.”
There have been attempts to stem U.S. aid to Honduras since the environmentalist’s killing, either through enforcing existing statutes, such as the so-called Leahy Law, barring aid to military or police units with serious human rights violations, or passing new legislation. In the House of Representatives, 68 Democrats have sponsored H.R. 1299, the Berta Cáceres Human Rights in Honduras Act, to make Honduran foreign aid contingent on anti-corruption measures and a halt to the killing of journalists and activists in the country.
“The Honduran security forces are using our taxpayer dollars to repress peaceful demonstrations against stolen elections.”
The Republican majority in Congress has not scheduled a hearing for the bill, making its prospects unlikely. Now, Cáceres’s nephew Silvio Carrillo, who lives in the United States, tells The Intercept, “The Honduran security forces are using our taxpayer dollars to repress peaceful demonstrations against stolen elections. We are giving Juan Orlando Hernández money so he can get away with murder.”
The build-up of military police forces, ostensibly to combat the drug trade, comes as the Hernández administration faces increasing attention for its own role in drug cartels.
In March, Devis Leonel Rivera Maradiaga, the former leader of the Cachiros cartel, told a federal courtroom in New York that he had met with Hernández’s brother to steer government contracts to a company used to launder cartel money.
The revelation was made during the case of Fabio Lobo, who pleaded guilty for attempting to smuggle several tons of cocaine from Honduras to the United States. Lobo is the politically connected son of Porfirio Lobo Sosa, Hernández’s predecessor and ally in the right-wing National Party. Lobo was elected in 2009 following the coup d’etat that swept the left-wing President Manuel Zelaya out of office.
A separate and equally stunning revelation was made last year in a courtroom in South Florida, during a case involving two nephews of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro prosecuted for drug trafficking, as researcher Jake Johnston recently reported for The Intercept.
During the trial, José Santos Peña, a Mexican drug trafficker-turned-informant, confided that he had met with Pacheco, Hernández’s chief of security and head of the TIGRES forces, to discuss plans to move cocaine from Colombia through Honduras to the United States. Santos said he was introduced to Pacheco by Fabio Lobo.
Johnston notes that despite the disclosures, “Pacheco remains a close U.S. ally, whose ties to the US military span decades.” Now, Johnston adds, “Pacheco is overseeing the same security forces that are repressing election protesters in the streets.”
Additionally, two 2017 reports, one from Global Witness and the other from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, uncovered damning evidence of systematic corruption, especially as concerns the National Party, to which Hernández belongs.
The increasing scrutiny, as well as the cascading corruption scandal involving millions of dollars stolen from the Honduran social security program in part to fund campaigns for the National Party, has prompted a bonanza of D.C. lobbying by the Honduran government.
Since 2014, Honduras has retained four lobbying firms to reach out to lawmakers, members of the Trump administration, and the American media.
Records show that one lobbyist, Gus K. West, has reached out to Florida’s Republican Sen. Marco Rubio and Democratic Rep. Ted Deutch, among others on Capitol Hill, to tout Honduran efforts to combat crime and wrote to the New York Times on the assassination of Cáceres. Another lobbying shop on government retainer, Keybridge Communications, has boosted Hernández’s re-election effort, sending press releases to U.S. media boasting about the president’s commitment to confronting corruption and the integrity of the presidential election.
In a December 1 statement distributed by Keybridge, the government of Honduras said that it is “deeply sad that violence has erupted on the streets of Honduras and that our nation’s democratic institutions have come under attack ” — violence it goes on to blame on ousted President Mel Zelaya for “inciting” Nasralla’s supporters to engage in violence.
Hernández has also traveled to Washington to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, both of whom warmly welcomed the leader. He is also close to White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, who referred to the president this year as a “great guy” and a “good friend.”
Cultivating powerful friends in Washington has worked so far, as Hernández has weathered criticism over his handling of the Cáceres slaying, the social security scandal, and his administration’s reported ties to drug traffickers.
The crackdown by security forces only further impresses the need to reconsider their U.S. funding, experts say. “U.S.-funded police and military are engaged in violent repression of Honduran protesters, using munitions marked as made in the USA,” said Dana Frank, a history professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
“For years, members of Congress have called for an immediate suspension of police and military aid to Honduras, because of ongoing human rights abuses like this, committed with impunity,” said Frank. “Now those forces are being used to repress the basic right of the Honduran people to protest. The Honduran elections offer a chance to declare which side the U.S. is on: democratic processes and the rule of law or the ongoing dance with a dangerous dictator, further consolidating his power.”
Correction: Dec. 8, 2017, 9:53 a.m.
An earlier version of this piece mischaracterized the restrictions on foreign aid imposed by the Leahy Law. It bars assistance to particular units alleged to have committed a serious human rights violation, not entire regimes.
Top photo: Supporters of Honduran presidential candidate for the Opposition Alliance against the Dictatorship party Salvador Nasralla, are affected by tear gas during a protest outside the Electoral Supreme Court to demand the announcement of the election final results in Tegucigalpa, on Nov. 30, 2017.
They need to build a big wall alright. To keep us away. CIA driven civil unrest in Tegucigalpa drives refugees north. NAFTA reversed direction of Mexican workers. Our policies are cancelling each other.
This article is completely flawed, it seems you didn’t do your research. I do live here in Honduras and have people in the inside of each party. Signs of fraud are aparent with some “actas” being tampered with in favor of Juan Orlando. The problem is that the people outside of TSE were there for a reason, and not to protest. The problem with the candidate of opposing party ,Salvador Nasralla, Is the puppet of former socialist expresident Manuel “mel” Zelaya. Igual you can recall he tried to edit the Constitution, making him able to run for president again. Juan Orlando Is closset socialist, therefore we are on a lose lose situación.
So an anonymous self-described ‘Honduran’ who admittedly is against “socialism”, by which he apparently means even minimal limits on capitalist devastation of the working class and peasantry, admits that there is clearly fraud being committed on behalf of the anti-socialist current President.
They are not just protesters, they are criminals,terrorists and communist that they don’t care and don’t rwpet the other people property, if you own a business they Will break in and rob everything that belongs to you and kill you if you try to protect your property.
FRONT & CENTER Fang & Mackey! great revelations here. Move this to the top all week, pretty plz w/cream & sugar.
The CIA has been running drugs into the US since the vietnam war. The CIA slush fund is a major source of income for them. Crooked Hillary is on board with this criminal enterprise since Mena. (see Clinton Chronicles).
WHY IS PRESIDENT TRUMP ALLOWING THIS?
President Oranguturd is probably hoping that the people running drugs will launder their money through his real estate business, as other international criminals have.
Where once there was the Cold War as smokescreen for supporting “National Security Doctrine” policy in Latin America, now there is the Drug War.
Of course, there’s also the ‘War on Poverty’ angle, where we bring right-minded economic policies (at gunpoint if necessary) to help the poor, misled people better themselves through the undisputed equality, freedom and dignity offered by aggressive neoliberal capitalism.
Thank you the intercept for telling the true when every other media is just doing the opposite, here in Honduras is absolutely outrageous the fraud that is being commited, Hernández has violated several laws but no one in Honduras can do a thing because he controls everything, not even the military that is the one called to stop any violation to the constitution, because he also controls that, the US organizations here are doing nothing, wich only makes you think that they’re supporting the fraud, we still hope tha t the US help us but to be honest thats very unlikely…
As some other commentators note, this article is ridiculously one-sided. Not one mention of Obama-era policies? The only hint is here:
Since 2014, Honduras has retained four lobbying firms to reach out to lawmakers, members of the Trump administration and the American media.
Hum dee dum, let’s do a Google News archive search for Obama Hernandez Honduras from late 2013 to early 2015. . . Here’s a nice one:
http://www.chron.com/opinion/outlook/article/Frank-Hern-ndez-s-election-was-built-on-5174987.php
Whose decision was it to leave all that out of the article? Editorial staff?
This is probably a dumb question, but how do you search the archives of Google News?
Many protesters have been killed, even with the imposed curfew, we have protested peaceably inside our houses and neighborhoods and the military forces have trespassed many houses a injured a lot people.
presidente hijuelagran mil putas
US trained terrorists in Argentina, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria, Nazis in Ukraine……so what is the surprise here. They work with repressive regimes, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Ukraine, UAE, Bahrain……..its all for the mighty dollar. Some fools still think they are spreading democracy. Even The Intercept has supported the US regime change agendas, such as those in Libya, Syria and Ukraine. That anti-Russia sentiment goes a long way to falling in line and covering up the truth.
For what I have read, here are two actors making sure that, despide computer systems crashes, the results are clean: The European Union Commission and the OAS. Every party has a copy of Voting Acts so there is little chance for rigging.
Queue in The School of the Americans a/k/a The School of Assassins.
Since the beginning of time, the US has used Latin America as its own private outhouse. They have meddled, intervened, installed regimes, toppled regimes and sowed chaos and destruction at will. This should be of no surprise to anyone since paramilitaries in most countries have been trained, financed and unleashed on civilian populations by the USG. The War of Drugs that is devastating entire countries is brought to you by the same sources and for the same purposes. The US was f***cking up Latin America since way before they discovered the Middle East.
One interesting revelation from the Chelsea Manning cables is the extent to which Israel plays a role in Central and South America, even to the point of clashing with the US, for example in Columbia:
That might have pushed up tensions with Israel and accounted for some of Nuttin’yahoo’s anger at Obama. But it looks like Trump is going to be even more loyal to Israel than Obama, the whole Eric Flynn story looks like an attempt to get a quid pro deal with Russia in which sanctions would be dropped if Russia would veto the UN effort to condemn the Israeli settlement program. Not that US corporate media is giving that much attention!
The military regime in Honduras is more securely in the US pocket, though:
Obama & Clinton in Central America, Reagan & Bush in Central America – hard to see any difference.
“…Nuttin’yahoo…”
Please don’t. You’re too generally-respectable a commentator here to do the schoolyard-names thing.
Odd…but you just took the words out of mouth. As I was reviewing the comments to see if TI had dignified itself to post mine, I read your comment and immediately thought about Isreal’s meddling in Latin America. So you’re right on point, it’s not enough that they’ve utterly f**cked up the Middle East, now they’re doing the same to Latin America. I wonder if people are even remotely aware of this and how they’re being manipulated into more conflict by a handful of greedy, opportunist, warmongering ZioNazis.
Also, there’s well documented activity in Mexico where they’re running rampant and shamelessly in the open. Then there is the whooplah in their embassy in Argentina which they blamed on Iran but meh thinks was a false flag. Interestingly enough, Argentina is said to be a hotbed of Nazis as many of them sought refuge in that country at the end of WWII, yet look who’s making all the trouble there: the ZioNazis. And not necessarily in Latin America but there’s Haiti as well; during the earthquake back in 2010, they were one of the first countries to have troops on the ground. Apparently, they didn’t find the place too palatable of profitable because they took off fast, tail between their legs.
“…won extensive support from the American government to build up highly trained state security forces. Now, those same forces are repressing democracy.”
That’s a feature not a glitch.
I don’t understand this article? Previously the Intercept was fine about Obama arming and training jihadists to overthrow Assad. They also memory-holed the fact that Obama also armed Nazis to overthrow the Ukraine … yet now arming foreign thugs is bad? Is that because Dear Leader Obama isn’t doing the arming?
“Assad Must Go!”
– Dear Leader Obama
The Intercept’s selective amnesia applies more selectively when it is a republican administration. The dems seem to get a free pass for the same crimes that the republicans commit. Thus, it seems The Intercept simply exists to get us to swing into a wall of lies every four years. Like Malcolm X once said “an honest enemy is always better than a friend that stabs you in the back”. Pay less attention to what people say, and more attention to what they do. Dems and Repubes are two sides of the same coin. Hegelian Dialectic is the main tool of the global elite and their corrupt puppets.
The U.S. Government has always sided with compliant dictators, rather than going to the trouble to support noisy democracies, despite their BS about the blessings of freedom.
The Chelsea Manning archive of State Department cables has some very interesting details on what might have motivated Clinton to ardently support the coup:
Another cable has this tidbit:
There’s plenty more – corrupt dam & electricity deals, conversion of Honduran agriculture to plantation-style export agriculture, etc. It’s classic shock doctrine, neocolonialism run by the US State Department in coordination with multinational corporations. The cables also describe the propaganda methods being used to try to win popular support for the coup:
A real full-court press – never mind the assassinations and disappearances, it’s all good here. . . ‘Democracy has been restored!’ FFS.
Very informative. Thank you
Just goes to show that the neoliberal Democrats are just as happy to support a coup (Obama/Hillary in 2009) as the Republicans. The two wings of the American Capitalist Party are more than happy to let blood flow so long as it appeases their corporate donors. Never vote R or D. Ever.
In a country with a history of corruption, Juan Robando may be the most corrupt president they’ve ever had. Anyone interested in this should read the book written by Sarah Chayes. It’s eye-opening.
I cannot believe the US is making this happen – Honduras wants to be free of the corrupt Government of Juan Orlando Hernandez – he became rich after entering politics how did you think that happened US? and you are having him continue being an ally when he is causing caos. What democracy?
Libya, TPP, Honduras .. legacies of Mdme Secretary, the lost prize we might have won.
Yes, Pres Zelaya was deposed because he wanted to raise the minimum wage to a living wage and remove most tuitions and fees from education.
The US CANNOT let that happen— @nywhere. Even in the US.
Now the US is defunding education and making sure wages do not go increase.
So we have to. Up everything from China.
China is now running electric ships— ensuring outsourcing!!!
This is ABSOLUTLY NOT TRUE,,I am Honduran and live in HONDURAS!!! This article is the typical Socialist media Press!! BS , made to wrongly infor the US citizens!!! in HONDURAS WE DONT WANT TO BECOME VENEZUELA…Period
Which statements of fact are not true?
We saw your type come out after the initial coup, excusing brutality and the destruction of democracy. Nobody buys your crap anymore.
He’s just a guy send by the Hernández government to clean his image, here in Honduras he has companies that create false profiles to talk only good things about him in every post, so that way people outside Honduras think that everything is a lie.
I am from Honduras as well, and, besides a couple of little inaccurate facts, the article is, nevertheless, true. I do not sympathize with the left wing, either, but the level of corruption in Honduras has reached unprecedented levels. The whole post election process was full of dubious incidents that point to a shameless fraud on the part of the party currently in power.
We have friends and support an orphanage in the country. The current President, Hernandez, has done better over the past few years, versus Zelaya. Crime was much worse under Zelaya. Drug cartels were running the show in most of the country. Yes, it isn’t great there, but it is getting better. But most of the posters here are pro-socialist, anti-American on almost any aspect. They would prefer one-party rule by a leftist dictator (Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua) to contested elections.
SOS, HELP, as of today 12/3/17. Is not one dead is actually several including pregnant woman -kids, and 2 police officers, and many are mostly students ages from 16-19 years old, they are using the us-military trained forces called Pm, cobras and tigres. Long and military killing machine. R-15s, ak-47. And gas this will be their third night, out of ten. 7 more to go after tonight. From 6pm to 6am they go inside peoples home and kill civillians with no mercy and also kill anything that moves outside. The honduran people is not armed the people is literally just hungry of food and justice. 80% population voted againts the actual president who is running illegally. He controls every institution and have the army trained to kill who ever goes againts his rules.! Help tell the usa government authorities to stop funding and supporting this evil president.!
Your numbers are off any report by news media. According to the EU and the OAS each candidate received about 41-42%
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/12/02/americas/honduras-unrest-post-election/index.html
As for weapons, AK-47s is only used by narcos and street gangs, which are present in the process, because a candidate offered to release its leaders from prison.
Thank you for telling the truth about Honduras. People feel alone because many international media are not telling the whole truth. Hondurans votes against reelection because it’s illegal. A week after the election and no results. This is the most embarrassing and outrageous fraud ever seen in the region.
This is excellent reporting and a link in a much greater chain. In 2009, a month before the coup, there was a meeting of the Joint Summit Working Group in Washington. And considering US military involvement in Honduras and the lack of response in ceasing military aid and assistance–which has gone on since after the coup–there may well be a deeper backstory.
“Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton met today with the member institutions of the Joint Summit Working Group (JSWG) in Washington, D.C. Secretary Clinton pledged the support of the United States Government to work with the members of the JSWG to implement initiatives announced at the April 17-19 Summit of the Americas. The discussion focused on concrete, coordinated actions in the following areas: economic recovery, the Inter-American Social Protection Network, the Microfinance Growth Fund, the Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas, citizen safety, and democratic governance.” https://2009-2017.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2009/05/123781.htm
Thanks The Intercept for informing the American public about what’s happening in Honduras. At least there is someone who really cares about what true democracy is all about.
This is the most important article in TI this weekend. Very good job pointing out US involvement with this. The only thing I might add is that the 2009 coup should be described as a “kidnapping” of the elected president instead of simply an “ousting.” At least, that is how Zelaya describes it:
http://articles.latimes.com/2009/jun/29/world/fg-honduras-coup29
Of course, thank the CrookdClintObama three musketeers for this.
The function of the Drug Wars throughout South, Central and North America was/is to place armed forces in countries to use for political repression…giving that those governments don’t intend to stop the drug trade, but to get a cut of the illicit profits in competition with the cartels.
2nd, the word is a cover.
So, let’s see, the same folks who removed Zelaya on the grounds that a Honduran President couldn’t run for reelection, not because he was, but because they claimed he was trying to change things so he could, are now shooting at the same population to keep a Honduran President who did run for reelection in power.
And if they succeed, the US State department that held the removal of a President was ‘not a coup’ will, almost certainly hold that a President refusing to step down is also ‘not a coup’.
Americans may want to believe that the President sending out his officials to state blatant lies are the truth, and self evident truths the lie, started with Trump, or is a Republican thing, but that’s because they are desperately trying to avoid being embarrassed about what drives America’s foreign policy.
Honduras is a U. S. client state and stopped being any kind of democracy when Zelaya was illegitimately overthrown. This situation just shows that it’s getting harder for Honduras to pretend to be a democracy.
WRONG…You had it worst with Obama
When you become a client state to a republic in name only, even if things are bad they are about to get worse. The model of governance “money is speech” and “corporations are people.”
Amen