Our visible public sytem of govt, is three separate branches of govt supposedly balancing each other. The reality, is that this system disappeared decades ago, replaced by the influence and greed and dominance of multi-national gigantic US corporations. They got too big for their pants starting post WW-II, and have grown too large to be controlled by laws, fines, sentences. They continue to buy the influence of Congress(most members of whom enter poor and leave rich) to change the anti-trust laws and overseas operating laws, and tax laws, to the point where our system is now completely broken. The last US Senator to attempt to investigate and corral this corrupt rise of the multi-nationals, was Idaho Senator Frank Church, wait for it, FIFTY years ago. He chose the Church Committee, as authorized and assigned by Sen. Mansfield, over running for the presidency. Our military budget has been out of control ever since, and is out of all size to our actual needs. It's larger than the next 25 or so military budgets in the world combined, most of whom are our allies. The CIA has never been controlled by any administration, its budget remains secret, never-scrutinized, and has been that way since inception in 1947, against all the rules of internal controls and federal Fraud, Waste, and Abuse laws.

 Right now we live in the United Corporations of America. Congress exists only to keep the facade of a representative republic going. Voting results do not matter. JFK was the last president allowed to think and operate on his own, and for that, and his brother's relentless attacks on the Mob that put him in the WH, he was killed by the conservatives in govt in cahoots with the Mob. Remember he wanted nuclear dis-armament, withdrawal from Vietnam, and for all of us to share this single planet. Not one single president since, has been allowed to do his own thinking and decision-making. The strings are now always pulled by their Corporate Masters, who absolutely own Congress, whether we like to think this, or not. 

Sen. Church sensed the direction we were headed in and brought the CIA and the FBI onto the Senate carpet to answer his many questions. In so doing, for months, Sen Church made many Senate enemies, the Old Guard who liked the way things were.  Sen Church was known for his battle against our developing into the imperialistic military war engine we have become. He, and this country, founded on such lofty principles, lost this battle.

We are a militaristic imperialistic country run by billionaires, and we are fading.