The new best seller by Fox News contributor and former Utah Congressman Jason Chaffetz will keep you spell-bound from the first page to the last. But, The Puppeteers isn’t a Grisham-type whodunnit. No, it’s actually nonfiction. And, that’s the scariest part of all. To make matters worse, we’re all playing a part – as the victims of a vast scheme of conspirators and collaborators who want to siphon away our God-given rights one freedom at a time. I keep trying to put the book down, but, it keeps calling me back, like hundreds of drivers slowing down at a grisly accident scene on I-15 gawking at all the carnage. I had already heard of the infamous investment firm of BlackRock and read rumors that it was up to no good. There is no adjective that can accurately describe what harm they are inflicting on the American people. As Chaffetz’s former Congressional colleague Rob Bishop describes it in his book, The Things I Learned in Congress They Never Taught In School, many politicians and power brokers of the Left hide behind the good intentions, sustaining power and influence of what Bishop describes as The Nanny State. Bishop explains that the people pulling the strings in a Nanny State are convinced that normal, everyday American citizens – AKA you and me – are just not wise enough to govern themselves.

Like President Woodrow Wilson more than a hundred years ago, the enlightened management of the powers that be, like BlackRock, for example, are convinced that they simply know better than we do about how to run our lives. We continue to buy gasoline to run our cars, we live in houses far larger than we need, we spend too much on consumer goods and we are warming up the planet unnecessarily. We’re not responsible enough to use the Earth’s resources wisely. We’re just not up to the task of having so much personal freedom. Thank goodness BlackRock and their allies on the Left are protecting us from ourselves! Chaffetz digs into the details of this “vast, Left-wing conspiracy.” He exposes the hypocrisy of the Left. In Chapter 4, “The End of the World Justifies Any Sacrifice,” he exposes many of the wicked and deceitful methods employed by power-hungry Leftists to circumvent the will of the people to get what they want. In many cases, the “End of the World” is represented by climate change. Chaffetz notes that “The Federal government says it will do anything to pay for climate change. What that actually means is that it can do anything, thanks to climate change. Existential threats are great for government. They give it license to justify any sacrifice from taxpayers.” Then, he explains that “printing money and raising taxes aren’t the only way” they accomplish their goals. One way has been to burden the people by slyly tapping into their retirement funds using the Trojan horse of “Net Zero by 2050.” This so-called goal has been used to squeeze compliance from pension funds managers to use retirement funds to invest in various renewable energy and other “Green New Deal” projects through their rules to “remove barriers to considering environmental, social, governance factors.” Rather than focusing on their stated goal of maximizing returns for pensioners, the fund managers toe the line by complying with the puppeteers’ edicts. Chaffetz clarifies what this brand of neo-capitalism ISN’T: “A capitalism that subjugates prosperity to ideology is not capitalism. And a democracy that substitutes the judgment of elite oligarchs for the will of the people is not democracy.”

He explains that elections alone cannot fix the damage that these oligarchs are inflicting upon the people. Towards the end of Chapter 2, Chaffetz uses their own words to indict them: “In this new utopia of stakeholder capitalism, markets are not free, they are manipulated. Compliance is not voluntary – it is forced. Capital does not flow – it is diverted. BlackRock CEO Larry Fink famously boasted in 2017 of his ability to force change on the American economy. ‘Behaviors are going to have to change, and this is one thing we are asking companies, you have to force behaviors and at BlackRock, we are forcing behaviors.” By putting like-minded people on the boards of large corporations with huge pension funds, people like Fink are spreading their tentacles throughout the corporate world. Chaffetz reveals that “Fink preaches as gospel truth the highly speculative notion that only decarbonization by 2050 can save mankind. ‘Every company nd every industry will be transformed by the transition to a net-zero world…the question is, will you lead or will you be lead.’”

When I bought Chaffetz’s e-book, I thought I was going to discover all about the puppeteers who were pulling Joe Biden’s and Kamala Harris’ strings, and to my horror, he exposes that we are all dancing to the tune of oligarchs like Larry Fink.

Now what? 

By GM Jarrard, editor/publisher of “THE THINGS I LEARNED IN CONGRESS THEY NEVER TAUGHT IN SCHOOL