Sometimes, cosmic oddities come together in comic ways. For example, Google positions the biography of right-wing Texas governor Greg Abbott right under the one for yesteryear's slapstick comedians, Abbott and Costello.

It's almost cruel for Gov. Greg to be juxtaposed with that quick-witted duo, for he's a dour, slow-witted, plutocratic pol, with no perceptible sense of humor. As governor, he has focused on demonizing poor people, rigging elections and doing favors for moneyed elites. Unsurprisingly, only four out of 10 Texas voters now support him. Yet — don't laugh — in a move of burlesque absurdity, Abbott now says he might choose to become president. Yes, of the United States!

Filled with pomposity, he recently proclaimed, "I will be guided by God." Well, maybe so, since the god he faithfully follows is Mammon. Indeed, his major credential for becoming the GOP nominee for president is that he is a pro at the Pay-to-Play game of using taxpayer money to entice special interests to fund his political career. "You pay me, then I pay you" is his corrupt game plan, which he has used to amass a whopping $87 million for his next election.

For example, watchdog group Public Citizen has documented some $3 million that Abbott got from executives of eight corporations. In turn, those eight were given nearly a billion dollars in no-bid state contracts — a 33,000% profit on their donations to Abbott!

For high rollers, Abbott is better than a winning Powerball lottery ticket. Buy him, and the Pay-to-Play merry-go-round keeps spinning at taxpayer expense. To fight such big money corruption, go to Public Citizen: citizen.org.

WHILE WE TOUT AMERICA'S DEMOCRACY, PLUTOCRACY IS TAKING OVER

Washington's MAGA government is shoveling massive giveaways of public money to corporate elites. Worse, though, are its takeaways of people's power to battle the abuse of those same plutocratic corporations. Consider just three recent examples:

Travel: Perhaps your family plans a holiday flight to visit grandma. Flying itself has become dicey, but at least the government is requiring airlines that cause long delays or cancellations to compensate us passengers for our loss. Uh ... no, no more. President Donald Trump's transportation secretary (who was previously a LOBBYIST for the big airlines!) is "loosening" the rules so that monopolistic airlines owe nothing to abused customers.

Job opportunities: One of the nastiest wage suppression tactics of corporate bosses has been their collusion to make employees sign "noncompete" contracts. These amount to indentured servitude, preventing workers from quitting to take a better job with a competing firm. This corporate lockdown costs American workers some $40 billion a year in wages they could get in an open job market. The FTC was finally moving to ban these noncompete gimmicks — but Trump installed a corporate lackey at the FTC to snuff out this spark of workplace liberty.

Pollution: Corporate lobbyists and MAGA lawmakers are rigging the rules to let industrial giants escape responsibility for their massive environmental contamination. For example, the profiteering greed heads who've deceptively caused tons of deadly "forever chemicals" to be spread on our land, water, communities and families are to be let off the hook by the new, corporate-hugging EPA honcho. He says we taxpayers must pay for the toxic cleanup, not the polluters.

If you're unclear about the meaning of "plutocracy,' there it is: government by and for the despotic rich.

To find out more about Jim Hightower and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators webpage at www.creators.com.

Photo credit: Timon Studler at Unsplash