If there was any doubt that we’ve gone from a democracy to oligarchy . . . Elon Musk — whose wealth has increased by 350% to a trillion dollars since he bought the 2024 election for Donald Trump — is working hard to buy the Texas Senate seat for Ken Paxton. Musk spent 158 million dollars in September on Paxton’s campaign. Elon got a tremendous return on his investment in Trump and he no doubt expects his investment in Paxton will pay dividends as well. Ken Paxton is a well documented sleaze-bag — impeached, wife divorcing him on biblical grounds, ratted out for corruption by members of his own staff — who is fortunate to be a Republican where immorality and illegality don’t matter. As an example of the kind of man Ken Paxton is, and as I’ve mentioned before, Paxton and his mistress celebrated New Years in Dubai with Anosh Ahmed and Sameer Suhail who were both on the FBI’s fugitive list. Shortly after partying with Paxton, Ahmed fled to Serbia where he was arrested and returned to the United States. While it’s a drop in the bucket compared to Elon’s 158 million dollars, Ahmed has given at least 190 thousand dollars to Paxton. Ahmed owned a 16 million dollar house in Houston that is now owned by the attorney who represented Paxton during his impeachment. And speaking of corruption, the Washington Post had a story yesterday on the 330 million dollars donated for Trump’s ballroom by wealthy individuals and big corporations who in turn got federal investigations quashed, favorable regulatory action, government contracts, and in one case a pardon. As they say, money is speech and Donald Trump loves the sound of its voice. In a bit of encouraging news, in a Fox News poll, the number one issue for voters heading into the midterms is government corruption, which was cited as a concern by 88 percent of the respondents, ahead of inflation and high prices (85 percent) and healthcare (80 percent).