The Truly Scary Part of the $1.6 Billion Conservative Donation

[Nevilledog]

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Norman Ornstein
@NormOrnstein
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If you read only one thing this week, make it this devastating and frightening peace by the incomparable @Dahlialithwick and @rickhasen Our fundamental values and our democratic republic are being undermined by radical authoritarians like Leonard Leo.

slate.com
The Truly Scary Part of the $1.6 Billion Conservative Donation
It’s not about the amount.
6:04 PM · Aug 23, 2022

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/08/leonard-leo-billion-donation-real-problem.html


On Monday, the New York Times broke the news that last year conservative mastermind Leonard Leo had obtained control over $1.6 billion through something called the “Marble Freedom Trust” to further his deeply conservative political and legal agenda. While much of the follow up reporting so far has focused on the unusual but apparently legal means by which the donor of the money—an elderly electronics magnate named Barre Seid—structured the transaction to avoid paying at least $400 million in taxes, the longer-term implications for a democracy as we understand it in America are far more dire.

Over the last three decades, Leo brilliantly created an interconnected series of institutions and firms designed to fundamentally reshape the American judiciary and in turn American society. This new infusion of over one billion dollars is going to solidify this effort in a way that will be hard for anyone to counter, in part thanks to new election law rules created by the Leo-shaped judiciary.

The success of Leo’s empire has long depended upon compartmentalizing and bootstrapping. It begins with the Federalist Society, an idea factory and conservative farm team which Leo led for a long time and where he continues to exert influence. He remains co-Chairman of its board of directors. The Federalist Society—which styled itself a “debate society” long after it ceased to be anything of the sort—has been the incubator for conservative ideas championed by the late Justice Antonin Scalia and others to create jurisprudential theories such as originalism and textualism that, at least in the hands of ideologically conservative people, often leads to deeply conservative results. Even though the organization’s leadership has been deeply conservative if not reactionary, it maintains that it is simply a neutral forum for airing competing ideas. This ostensible neutrality provides cover so that sitting judges and Supreme Court Justices can speak at Federalist Society events and use the network to recruit judicial clerks who can come into the pipeline to help further conservative ideas ever without running afoul of rules barring judges from engaging in partisan political activities. It’s also a showcase to vet and prep future judges.

But an idea factory alone would not have been enough to make fundamental changes in society. Which is why Leo also has run an extensive political operation to elevate conservative judges and justices onto the bench and to block liberal nominees whenever possible. This includes the organization that used to be known as the “Judicial Crisis Network” (now called the Concord Fund) headed by former Clarence Thomas clerk Carrie Severino. The Concord Fund runs advertising and essentially operates as a political entity that, among other things, defends FedSoc judicial nominees such as Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett. The same operation, which does not disclose its donors, also uses its platform to successfully oppose Democratic appointees such as Merrick Garland, whom Barack Obama nominated to fill Justice Scalia’s Supreme Court seat after Scalia’s death, and whose nomination was successfully scuttled.

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[Brainfodder]

1. He too will die some day.

He too will be forgotten, who?

[FoxNewsSucks]

2. Yes, but the problem is the assholes he gave the $1.6 billion to

They are not dying anytime soon. They will use that money to ruin the lives of the rest of us.

[Brainfodder]

3. Yup, those organizations need investigated too!

Dark money is so gross and is it really a great investment when climate change is not going to wait for you stooges!

A wipe out is possible during my little slice of time on Earth, seriously, I may get the fucked up twisted pleasure of the end?

A few reasonable changes in the past could have completely avoided this?



The history in school that bored me into C/Ds in it, I just saw greed sprinkled in all of it, I was 10 and this was the 70s!
Nothing has changed except that it is more in your face!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 24/7/365?



We have been over paying for things for a long time, I recall trips to the mall and high prices in the huge end stores I never shopped at except for sales.

But inflation, yeah candy hit real hard, shrink it and 6-8x the price?
How can that much inflation be good, and 6-8x now price in 40 more years?

Housing seems to have gone that 6-8x too in 40 years too?

I don't recall increasing my pay that 6-8x in that span either.

[PortTack]

4. President Biden has appointed more judges I believe than anyone in recent history, and will

Continue…..this is our best defense