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Sad to say Pope Leo has his knickers in a knot. On May 8, 2025 he became the First American-born pope in the history of the Catholic Church. He hadn’t been on the job too long before he discovered that his most immediate job was saving his new kingdom, Vatican City, from the jaws of bankruptcy. As of 2024, the deficit had ballooned to $94 million. It’s way more complicated than simply running out of money. Leo wears many different hats (although when you’re the Pope hats are called miters). Not only is he the Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church estimated to consist of about 1.42 billion Catholic world-wide, he is also the absolute ruler of the world’s smallest independent nation-state with complete civil and political authority.

Instead of greeting dignitaries, holding services, and waving from his balcony at the adoring crowds as previous popes did in more affluent times, he has to figure out a way to keep the Catholic Church from going broke in the face of statutory limitations. A major one is his lack of taxing authority. Living in Vatican City is a cushy proposition where residents pay no taxes. To make matters worse the Pope is barred from issuing bonds or making loans. Before you start planning a sojourn in Vatican-city, be aware that Vatican citizenship is doled out only to those who work at the “Holy See” (the central governing body of the Catholic Church) or their families. The only exceptions to these regulations are at the discretion of the pope.

Although individual donations, the money church-going Catholics plunk down at weekly mass, only represent 30% of total revenues, it’s an important slice of the pie and it’s been dropping like a stone since 2006. The same is true of other sources of income including ticket sales to the Vatican Museum and its investment and real estate portfolios.

With the advent of Pope Leo’s reign, the great minds behind the Vatican’s fundraising operation made a historic decision that had apparently been in the works since 2005 when Leo who was then head of the Order of Saint Augustine made a very bizarre departure from the “buttoned down” style of the Vatican by appearing at Game 1 of the World Series in Chicago where his hometown team the Chicago White Sox were playing. Afterward to accentuate the Vatican’s departure from normal protocol, Leo made a public show of wearing a White Sox baseball cap while going about his normal duties at the Vatican.

Can we conclude that the Pope’s “sudden” appearance on social media in 2026 as a devotee of his hometown heroes was no one off but involved years of planning and was, in fact, a well-orchestrated event that began two decades ago in 2005?

It was a big gamble turning to social media to solve two problems in the Vatican’s major market, the U.S. The first being the dwindling number of Catholics who attend mass (precipitous decline from 50% attendance in the 1970s to 17-29% in recent years) and the consequent shortfall in total individual donations and second the accelerating rate of young Catholics (50% of those younger than 30 and raised Catholic) making for the exits. [Pew Research Report]

Were the geniuses behind this push to invade pop culture proven right? Undoubtedly. Leo became the first Pope Influencer (i.e. person, in this case the Pope who has the power to build a dedicated following on platforms like Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and X). He succeeded in heightening papal visibility with new user names, @Pontifex on X and @Pontifex – Pope Leo XIV or @pontifex (Latin name for bridge builder).

In 72 hours, he captured 13 million followers on Instagram. “It’s not just a social media account. It’s a global confession booth, a digital basilica, a space where millions are reaching out, hoping he’ll speak.” [Unnamed reporter]

Pope Leo’s debut on social media has achieved concrete results. U.S. Catholic churches are welcoming their highest numbers of new members in years. This past Easter, for example, some archdioceses recorded their highest number of new Catholics in two decades. Even more important and making his social media presence a game-changer has been its effect on young American Catholics. They call it “Leo Fever”, an answer to a prayer for a generation of young people who are looking for “community …for answers…a pope who speaks English—a polyglot pope, who can speak in a lot of different languages and who’s very straightforward in what he’s saying and what he’s inviting people to—is attractive.” [Katie McGrady, CNN Vatican Analyst].

America being America “Leo Fever” was seen as a heaven-sent opportunity to make some dough. The White Sox were quick to take advantage. On August 11, 2026 they welcomed a sold- out crowd of 41,000. Each fan was given a team-branded (of course) papal miter [tall, pointed, ceremonial hat with two short flaps hanging down the back]. In the fifth inning, fans paused for a collective “peace be with you” stadium greeting. A nun threw out the ceremonial first pitch and the band ChiTown Popes performed a musical tribute to the pope.  Covering all bases, the team later officially delivered a custom-made White Sox miter to Pope Leo at the Vatican.

But appearances can be, and in this case, may be deceiving. What his “new look” didn’t change and what he bought into was the hidebound policies of the Catholic Church like a male-only clergy and opposition to abortion.

How to come to terms with the contradictions that Pope Leo poses? On the one hand, he, apparently, with the blessing of his handlers in the Vatican, has openly criticized the “inhumane” treatment of immigrants under the Trump administration, calling the actions “inhuman” (and) “extremely disrespectful.”

How to square this with his answer to a reporter’s question: “What do you love about America?” “What America stands for the sense of freedom, of opportunity the sense of having invited people for generations from around the world to be part of America.”

He reiterated this theme in a prayer celebrating America’s 250^th birthday. “I…ask God’s blessing upon America’s future… In these last 250 years for so many peoples throughout the world it was the firm resolve to achieve the noble vision of the nation’s founders that made America a byword for freedom as the country opens its doors to successive waves of immigrants enabling them and their children to play their part in shaping the future of the nation… The moral greatness of a nation is manifested above all in its capacity to support, protect and cherish the lives of all especially its most vulnerable…”

Although Pope Leo has the bipartisan respect and affection of the majority of American Catholics, his accession to the Papacy still leaves one unanswered question. Was his public relations coup on social media carefully engineered as part of a marketing effort to breathe new life into the Vatican’s survival? After all, U.S. Catholics are the Vatican’s biggest source of individual donations. What better way to keep American Catholics interested, particularly young American Catholics, than in creating a Pope influencer. Unknown is how much Pope Leo had to do with his debut as a media star or was the path brilliantly and artfully prepared for him?

Consider this: in Leo the Vatican has a leader whom the overwhelming majority (8 out of 10) of Catholics world-wide revere. On the other hand, he poses no threat to the Vatican hierarchy and whole heartedly supports old fashioned and outmoded doctrines like a male-only clergy, an unwavering anti-abortion stance, a refusal to become more inclusive by clinging to the definition of marriage which only includes the union of a man and woman.

Does the Vatican have a deep state making the decisions? Judge for yourself.

It’s the silly season again. Aspiring candidates from both parties in hot pursuit of the “golden goose,” in this case a chance to snag one of the congressional seats (435 house seats and 35 senate seats) up for grabs in November. With the election about two months away and hotly contested primaries taking place right now, promises from hopeful candidates festoon the airwaves. These promises come in all shapes and sizes—”I am fighting for you” “I will ban congressional stock trading, lower the cost of housing and healthcare, make the wealthy pay their fair share, refuse corporate PAC money” are oft-repeated promises from democratic candidates. When the campaigns end, so do the promises. Case in point: Zohran Mamdani, who became New York’s mayor partly on his promise to enact a wealth tax. He was barely installed when he walked back that promise substituting the lame resolve to tax only the second homes of rich residents (“pied-a-terre” tax).

Running for congress is no walk in the park. Making promises you have no intention of keeping (Obama is the poster boy for that little scam) is the easiest part of the job. Fundraising is the hardest. In between are the endless “rubber chicken” dinners, the never-ending “meet and greets,” and all the other excruciating public performances that come with the territory. Which begs the question —what’s in it for the winners?

How would you like to have a “job” that suggests (not requires) you to show up less than half the yearly work days (48% or 119 days of 250 yearly work days). Pretty cushy yes? That applies if you are one of the 435 members of the House of Representatives. The downside is a two-year election cycle so that as soon as you win, you must start running again You have to work a little (not much) harder if you are a senator. The Senate is open 158 days (63% of the yearly work days). To compensate for such a shocking level of activity, their term extends six years.

Compare that with the average American working stiff, blue or white collar, who is required (not optional) to work 235-240 days every year. Of course, there are exceptions. Public and private school teachers work around 190 days, the length of the average school year.  But they pay for it with low-ball average salaries of $60,000 to $67,000. For members of Congress whose work schedule is one-third to one quarter shorter, the base salary ix $174,000. If you happen to be in what Congress considers the leadership elite, your salary is bumped up to $193,000 or even a ludicrous $223,500 (Speaker of the House). In a grand gesture of virtue signaling, since 2009, Congress has declined cost of living increases (although it is worth noting that unlike working Americans mired in the capitalist economy, Congress sets its own salaries.) Keep in mind that since 73% of senators and almost of half of representatives (49%) have a net worth of $1 million+, foregoing a raise does not have a measurable effect on their comfortable lives. Contrast that with the plight of over one-third of Americans (37%) who can’t afford an emergency expense over $400.

With these facts in mind, how to explain those current (and former) members of congress who have filed suit for damages arguing that without the cost of living (COLA) yearly increases that since 2009 the congress has voted to decline, their salaries are unconstitutionally suppressed One of the plaintiffs, Steny Hoyer, has a net worth of $4 million. If they win, guess who is on the hook for retroactive pay raises, including for former members and also higher pension benefits? The total could easily exceed $100 million. Once again, the “servants of the people” look to their constituents to take on this added burden. Does greed ever take a holiday? Not in the U.S. Congress.

Here are some of the other Congressional perks taxpayers are on the hook for. A particularly galling one goes by the innocuous name of death gratuity payments. This nifty little scheme gives the heirs of members who die while in office a tax-free gift of one year of the member’s salary. Since one-third of the senate (36 members) is age 70 or older with one Senator (Chuck Grassley) aged 91 and 20% of the House 70+ (24 members of both houses are 80 or older), no doubt that perk will be used frequently. A recent example — Senator Lindsay Graham died July 11. Although his net worth was $1.4 million, his heirs will still get his year’s salary —$174,000 tax free. For the last 25 years since 2000 that boondoggle has cost taxpayers a stunning $7 million.

Hard as it is to believe, that’s peanuts compared to the perks living members of Congress are “entitled to” as “servants of the people.” One biggie is the “franking privilege” (a real boon at election time when lawmakers can mail anything to the people they represent or anyone else without paying postage) There’s lots more. Read and weep—insurance: both health and life. You pay for 75% of their health insurance (when they’re not getting it for $54 per month from the Office of the Attending Physician (the OAP cost taxpayers $5 million per year). For Congress people who have been living large on the taxpayers’ dime for decades (think Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Grassley), their luxurious life is chock full of free limousine rides, to die for choice parking spots on Capitol Hill and at the airport. At taxpayers’ expense they can take junkets to far-flung locations (as long as it can be considered “official” congressional travel which it always is). It goes without saying that travel to their home districts is another perk— considered a must for “hard-working” members of Congress. Lest we forget to mention it, members have their own private, palatial health club complete with gym facilities and a wide range of taxpayer-funded fine (aka expensive) furnishings to spruce up their various offices.

Right about now you might be scratching your head, doing finger math trying to figure out how much this is costing you. Get ready for it: the total taxpayers are going to be soaked to fund Congress in 2026 is $7.1billion — $7.3 billion.

What do we get for trudging to the polls every two years besides lightening our wallets by over $7 billion? Has either house of Congress proposed a bill for the problems most Americans agree need fixing like U.S. aggression against Iran (a possible war crime) and its consequences: the U.S. economy in crisis. Skyrocketing prices (gas now over $4 per gallon) and rising inflation which has outpaced wage growth. Americans daily feel the pain of economic inequality, healthcare costs out of control leaving almost 3 million without health insurance, higher education that most Americans cannot afford (total student debt is almost $2 trillion), and lack of affordable housing.

Maybe we’re being too critical. Maybe the 48% of the yearly work days that the House is in session and the 63% that the Senate works has made a difference. Let’s hear how a perennial cheerleader for the political morass in Washington sees it. The 119th U.S. Congress had a historically low legislative output during its initial session in 2025, passing fewer than 40 substantive bills into law… [The Washington Post].   Despite that less than rave review, Congress is not totally bereft of ideas. A perennial favorite — reducing the deficit by cutting various benefits and services for the American people.

What can the people do about it? Here’s an idea. Make Congress a part time job. When you add up their accomplishments over the years, what do you get? A part-time level of activity masquerading as a full-time gig.  There is a precedent for making the U.S. legislative body part-time.  From the first Congressional session in 1789 through the 1930s, the House and Senate usually convened in December and adjourned in the spring. [“…There were years in the 1800s where Congress ran budget surpluses because they didn’t have anything to spend money on.” Jason Roberts, University of North Carolina.]

There’s an idea with wings.

All great world-historic facts and personages appear… twice…the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.” [Marx and Hegel]

The Obama cabal has done it again! Almost two decades after their first stroke of marketing genius, in 2008, when they catapulted Barack Obama, a lowly first term senator into the first black president of the U.S, they (and he as leader) did it again. This time building a monument to himself following in the tradition of FDR who was the first U.S. president to indulge in self-glorification. FDR’s successors including Obama took their cue and built their own vanity projects which evolved into the presidential library system. A classic example of putting lipstick on a whole collection of pigs.

Exploiting his bona fides as the ex-leader of a powerful but declining hegemon, he commissioned the monstrosity known as the Barack Obama Presidential Center —the most expensive presidential library or museum ever constructed, surpassing all others by a wide margin.  The George W Bush library came in second at a paltry $500 million. Bill Clinton, on the other hand, was a real piker—his library tipped the scales at a mere $165 million. Maybe he’ll ask for a do-over.

About that $850 million which the Obama lackeys announced had been totally funded by private donations. What they “forgot” to mention was the $123 million Illinois taxpayer money that Chicago and Illinois government leaders ponied up and “donated” to the Obama Foundation to beautify the surrounding area. Millions in upgrades it must be added that were not available when “ordinary folks” lived, worked and played in the same space.

Before deciding whether this billion-dollar spectacle of pomp and circumstance bears the slightest resemblance to the achievements of the honoree, let’s go back to November 4, 2008 in Grant Park, Chicago when Obama, using his genius for inspirational rhetoric, made a lot of big promises to the people as he became the 44^th president of the U.S. “This is our time, to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to … promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American dream and reaffirm…that while we breathe, we hope.

 “Promote the cause of peace?”  Admittedly a biggie. How did he do? Aside from the two wars he inherited (Iraq and Afghanistan) and continued, his administration initiated five more military campaigns including Libya and Syria and significantly expanded the use of drone strikes as killing machines. Along the way he also managed to kill two American citizens, one a teenager. His excuse? Without even a hint of due process, he deemed them terrorists at his “Terror Tuesday” hoe downs.

He did much better with a second set of promises which his team made sure didn’t receive the publicity of the ones he had no intention of keeping. These he made to his billionaire buddies promising them, among other guarantees, the freedom to rip off ordinary Americans’ healthcare— “Healthcare is a desirable industry for PE investment, given its potential for high revenue which leads to significant returns on investment for the firms.” [University of Chicago Business Law Review].

The people who get their phone calls returned are the same ones who are the beneficiaries of a grateful administration. They more often than not are the owners of private equity criminal organizations (aka shadow banks). Under Obama the flood gates of money and power swelled their bank accounts and produced 935 American billionaires. Borrowing a page from the Mafia time-honored system of reciprocity where mob bosses return favors, protection, or loyalty to individuals who have aided their operations, these gangsters showed their appreciation by pouring almost a billion dollars into Obama’s Presidential Center aka the “beacon of hope.”

Here’s Michelle Obama explaining to those of us too dim to get how mightily Obama labored for one segment of Americans, the folks who would bankroll his retirement while they were bankrupting the rest of us: “The Obama Presidential Center was created as a beacon of hope…aa monument to our unshakeable values, the ones my husband has exemplified his entire life—equality, honesty, empathy, inclusion, fairness…

For fact checking purposes, let’s look at two of his greatest “achievements—” the ACA which helped pave the way for private equity’s increased role in healthcare and Americans’ steady decline in longevity. This disaster was reflected in his response to the foreclosure crisis once again rewarding his billionaire bros at the expense of everyone else by helping private equity buy the nation’s private homes for peanuts then turn around and rent them back to their former owners. Ironic isn’t it that the hope in that silly “beacon of hope” metaphor turns out to be the same hope (partnered with change) that Obama used to convince the American people that his agenda was different from his predecessors when it wasn’t No surprise that the three living former presidents — Bush, Clinton and Biden attended the goings on. It must have been a real meeting of the minds for these would-be members of the “shared values club.” The question we should all ponder is: shared with whom. Ask Jeff Bezos or Oprah Winfrey or a gaggle of CEOS who lead some of the world’s wealthiest corporations why they are willing to part with millions (for Bezos it was $100 million, admittedly chump change for him) to express their gratitude for the president whose policies made them billionaires.

Ten years ago in 2016 as Obama was wrapping up his second term, Suspicious Angels published a piece (“Legacy: Obama and Ours”) documenting Obama’s care and feeding of the people most important to him — the parasites who populate the American oligarchic class.

For those of you who might not have been able to vote in 2017 and especially for those of you who even today cannot believe how those “hopey, changey” promises melted before the ink was even dry on his presidential seal, click on the link below to read the whole shameful story of Obama’s time in office. Like the Wizard Oz who hid his fakery behind a curtain, Obama hid his duplicity behind slogans and catch phrases like “because of what we did… in this election…change has come to America”…, it’s that we cannot have a thriving Wall Street while Main Street suffers… the true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity and unyielding hope. It still sounded good until we discovered that all the happy talk was just that. The real winners of the Obama presidency were the folks he cared most about —his campaign donors aka the lifeline of the Obama presidency

The metaphorical curtain has now been lifted to reveal the crony capitalism that like some killer parasite has invaded all of our “democratic” institutions —the American healthcare system which puts profit far ahead of patient care, an education system which doesn’t educate and a financial system that leaves forty percent of Americans unable to afford a car repair.

Where does that leave us?

Back at Michelle Obama’s “beacon of hope” trope and those “unshakeable values.” The ones she attributed to her husband—the ones my husband has exemplified his entire life—equality, honesty, empathy, inclusion, fairness” Unfortunately too late the American people learned it was all part of an elaborate scam: first to get the scammer-in-chief elected, second to keep him in the oval office long enough to change the face of America and finally to insure a wildly profitable retirement. Check, check, and check again. Obama’s holds first place in the pantheon of fakes, frauds and phonies. His real unshakeable values — dishonesty, lack of empathy, unfairness of treatment in all parts of the fading American dream, soaring inequality, and zero inclusion in the era of “haves” and “have nots” aren’t really worth celebrating at all.

Will America ever be ready to elect a president who won’t be coopted by big money hooligans?

Click here to read the story of the Obama presidency 2009 —2017