THE EXTENSIVE AND WEALTHY RIGHT-WING FUNDING NETWORK

There was a vast right-wing conspiracy in 1998 when Hillary Clinton called it out for attacking her and President Clinton. It’s only grown bigger and better funded since then, although it’s not so much of a conspiracy any more as it’s largely out in the open. It is getting more extreme and investigative journalists recently uncovered a piece of it that’s explicitly pushing right-wing Christian nationalism into U.S. politics, policies, and laws.

(Note: If you find my posts too long to read on occasion, please just skim the bolded portions. Thanks for reading my blog! Special Note: The new, more user-friendly website for my blog is here.)

You may remember First Lady Hillary Clinton using the phrase “vast right-wing conspiracy” in 1998 to describe the source of the attacks on her and President Clinton. Although she didn’t originate the phrase, she put it into the mainstream of American dialogue. Although the assertion that there is a “vast right-wing conspiracy” is pooh-poohed and mocked by Republicans to this day, there was and is a lot of truth to it. When Hillary Clinton was asked in 2016, when she was running for President, if she still believed in the “vast right-wing conspiracy,” she answered in the affirmative and added that it was even better funded then than in 1998. She also noted that it was probably no longer correct to call it a conspiracy as it was much more out in the open.

Today, it’s very much out in the open and its funding has grown dramatically. However, many of its big funders do go out of their way to hide their identities or at least their connections to specific activities. They contribute to right-wing activities through dark money, not-for-profit groups that do not have to report their donors. They use networks of organizations (including shell corporations) and super Political Action Committees (PACs), and transfer funds among them, sometimes in multiple steps, to launder contributions and obscure donors. All of this was, of course, enabled by the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United (and related) decisions that gave wealthy individuals and corporations the right, based on free speech claims, to spend unlimited sums of money for political purposes.

Perhaps the best known and largest piece of the right-wing funding network is the one establish by the billionaire Koch brothers. It funnels hundreds of millions of dollars through dozens of related entities every election cycle. A key entity is the Americans for Prosperity super PAC, founded in 2004, which has already spent over $70 million on 2024 campaigns. In addition to Koch contributions, it also receives large contributions from other wealthy Republican supporters such as the Walton family (owners of Walmart).

Paul Krugman in his 2005 book, The Great Unraveling, wrote about the network of wealthy individuals and foundations that fund the vast right-wing network. They fund a coordinated set of Republican and right-wing think tanks, advocacy groups, law firms, and media outlets (including Fox, founded in 1996, and talk radio). These organizations push their right-wing agenda, as well as attack Democrats and progressive policies. Krugman noted that this right-wing network of funders and organizations far surpasses in funding, size, coordination, and influence anything on the Democratic, left, or progressive political side. He also noted that those pushing the more extreme elements of the right-wing agenda were (and are) not conservatives but “radical, revolutionaries,” including members of President G. W. Bush’s administration. In hindsight, Krugman was clearly right, in that the goals and policies they were pushing were direct precursors of the undemocratic, authoritarian vision of the Trump / MAGA agenda today. (If you’re interested, the Trump / MAGA agenda has been written down in detail in Project 2025. I’ve previously posted about it here and here.)

Recently, ProPublica and an investigative journalism partner, Documented, uncovered a new piece of the vast, right-wing funding network. A charity (a 501(c)(3), non-profit, tax-exempt organization that does not have to reveal its donors) called Ziklag is planning to spend nearly $12 million to promote Christian nationalism in U.S. politics. It is funded by a network of very wealthy, radical, Christian donors, including the high-profile billionaire David Green, who founded and owns Hobby Lobby (a chain of arts and crafts stores). He has long been active in pushing his view of Christian-based policy, such as having the right to exclude abortion and morning-after pill coverage from the company’s health insurance for its 46,000 employees. He is a major financial supporter of evangelical organizations. Ziklag is also supported by the billionaire Uihlein family (owners of an office supply company and heir to the Schlitz brewing fortune) and the Wallers (owners of Jockey apparel). It claims to have 125 members and recruits new members who are conservative Christians with a net worth of over $25 million. [1]

Ziklag’s long-term goal is to embed its right-wing version of Christianity in all walks of American society. Its 2024 efforts are focused on using pastors and churches to turnout voters, motivating them around issues of “parents’ rights” (e.g., to ban books and content they don’t like from schools) and opposition to transgendered individuals and policies. It is also planning to use artificial intelligence software to drive challenges to hundreds of thousands of voters in swing states. In 2022, Ziklag gave $600,000 to the Conservative Partnership Institute which funds “election integrity” efforts led by Cleta Mitchell (one of the lawyers on Trump’s call to the Georgia Secretary of State in 2021 asking him to “find” enough votes to make Trump the election winner in Georgia). Ziklag is planning to give another $800,000 to these efforts for the 2024 election. Its stated goal is to remove 1 million supposedly ineligible voters from the voting rolls in swing states.

Although the $12 million Ziklag plans on spending is a tiny amount compared to the hundreds of millions of dollars flowing through the vast right-wing network of funders, it’s significant because it highlights the growing extremism of these efforts. It’s explicitly pushing right-wing Christian nationalism into U.S. politics, policies, and laws. It has given funding to the Alliance Defending Freedom, the right-wing Christian legal group that led the effort to overturn the right to an abortion (i.e., Roe v. Wade). It has also provided funding to Turning Point USA, a charity working to promote right-wing student activism, and many other right-wing advocacy groups. It claims to have organized a coalition that played a major role in getting Amy Coney Barrett confirmed to the Supreme Court in 2020.

As a charity, receiving donations that are tax deductible, Ziklag is prohibited by IRS regulations from engaging in political campaigns on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate. Therefore, many of Ziklag’s activities appear to be illegal. Unfortunately, the IRS has been lax in enforcing regulations prohibiting or limiting political activity by tax-exempt organizations, so some of them, like Ziklag, appear to be flagrantly violating the law.

[1] Kroll, A., (ProPublica) & Surgey, N., (Documented), 7/13/24, “Inside Ziklag, the secret organization of wealthy Christians trying to sway the election and change the country,” (https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-ziklag-secret-christian-charity-2024-election)

SHORT TAKES #11: CORPORATIONS AND THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

Here are short takes on three important stories that have gotten little attention in the mainstream media. Each provides a quick summary of the story, a hint as to why it’s important, and a link to more information. These three highlight the relationships between corporations and the federal government.

STORY #1: In 2023, $2,974 of the average taxpayer’s federal taxes went to the Defense Department. Of that amount, $705 went to salaries for the troops, while 2 ½ times that, over $1,700, went to for-profit corporate defense contractors. Among others, $87 went to Boeing, whose V-22 Osprey military aircraft has crashed multiple times, most recently last November, killing eight service members. The $2,974 to Defense is more than two months of rent for the average renter with well over a month’s rent going to defense contractors. Another $112 from the average taxpayer went to support for foreign militaries.

For the sake of comparison, the federal government spent, from the average taxpayer, $516 for food assistance for low-income Americans, $346 for K-12 education, $110 for the Child Tax Credit which lifts poor children out of poverty, and $58 for diplomacy. These data come from the Institute for Policy Studies’ annual receipt for the American taxpayer.

STORY #2: To penalize the greed of large corporations that have made record profits by increasing prices, the Ending Corporate Greed Act has been introduced in Congress. It would put a 95% tax on the profits of large corporations (over $500 million in yearly revenue) that exceed their average profits in 2015 – 2019. The goal is to heavily tax the windfall profits large corporations have made in the pandemic and post-pandemic years by hiking prices on gas, food, rent, drugs, and other products. Large corporations have used the smoke screen of supply chain problems and other effects of the pandemic to create price “inflation” that did not reflect increased costs but was simply greed, using a catastrophe as a pretext for raising prices and profits. [1]

In 2023, corporate profits rose to record highs due to price gouging. If the 95% windfall profits tax had been in place in 2023, just ten large corporations would have had to pay $300 billion on their excess profits. For example, Amazon’s profits were $37.6 billion, a 444% increase from its average profits from 2015 to 2019. It would have paid $19 billion if a 95% windfall profits tax had been in place. Other notable increases in profits occurred at Marathon Petroleum (up 325%), Chevron (up 289%), Exxon Mobil (up 165%), Google (up 195%), and Microsoft (up 190%).

STORY #3: Large chemical corporations, such as ones that produce pesticides, routinely work to influence the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). For example, the EPA recently proposed easing restrictions on the pesticide, acephate. The European Union banned this pesticide over 20 years ago. It’s a type of chemical called an organophosphate. These chemicals are linked to detrimental effects on children’s brains including autism, hyperactivity, and poorer cognitive performance. [2]

Several studies suggest that even at currently allowable levels acephate may be causing learning disabilities in children exposed to it while in utero or during their first years of life. In 2017, researchers found that children of Californians who, while pregnant, lived within 1 kilometer of where the pesticide was applied had lower IQ scores and worse verbal comprehension on average than children of people who lived further away. Two years later, another group of scientists reported that mothers who lived near areas where acephate was used during their pregnancies had children who were at increased risk for autism.

In 2021, the EPA effectively banned another organophosphate pesticide, chlorpyrifos, based in part on evidence linking it to detrimental effects on children’s brains. (Based on a lawsuit by a company that sells chlorpyrifos and several agricultural groups, a court blocked the ban. This allows the use of chlorpyrifos on some crops, including cherries, strawberries, and wheat.) While some health and farmworker groups are petitioning the EPA to ban all organophosphate pesticides, the EPA is arguing that it can adequately protect children by limiting the amounts farmers can use.

The U.S. regulation of pesticides (and other chemicals) is weaker than in other well-off countries because it’s particularly vulnerable to industry influence in multiple ways. The chemical corporations are responsible for paying for research to establish the safety of their chemicals (because the U.S. government doesn’t want to pay for the testing itself). This, of course, creates huge conflicts of interest. There’s a lot of evidence that the testing research is biased in favor of the corporations and the (supposed) safety of their chemicals.

Furthermore, the corporations are pushing the EPA to allow a new type of toxicity testing that is quicker and cheaper. Rather than relying on the traditional animal testing, the industry wants to do testing just on disembodied cells. This type of testing is not as sensitive and, therefore, tends to find more chemicals and higher levels of chemicals to be safe. Scientists have warned the EPA not to use these new tests to loosen regulations.

In addition to doing the testing, the corporations also work to influence the EPA through lobbying, campaign contributions to elected officials, and the revolving door for personnel. People move back and forth between the chemical corporations and the EPA division that regulates them. If an EPA employee wants to get a job with a chemical corporation when they leave the EPA, they have an incentive to act in ways that don’t alienate prospective future employers.

The EPA’s Office of Pesticide Programs has been criticized for allowing pesticides to be sold without required toxicity testing. In 2018, staff members celebrated having waived 1,000 legally required tests for pesticides! It was noted that this had saved the chemical corporations more than $6 million.

[1] Johnson, J., 6/21/24, “Bowman, Sanders propose 95% tax on corporations exploiting inflation to jack up prices,” Common Dreams (https://www.commondreams.org/news/windfall-tax-inflation)

[2] Lerner, S., 4/24/24, “10 times as much of this toxic pesticide could end up on your tomatoes and celery under a new EPA proposal,” ProPublica (https://www.propublica.org/article/epa-acephate-pesticide-adhd-autism-regulations)

THE SUPREME COURT’S THREATS TO OUR DEMOCRACY AND HOW TO FIGHT BACK

Based on the recent decisions by the Supreme Court’s six radical, reactionary justices, we should all be in the streets protesting. Their decisions undermine the Constitution and our system of government. For those of us who want to keep our democracy, we need to fight back and protest in whatever ways we can, starting with getting out to vote and voting for every office on your ballot in every election.

(If you find my posts too long to read on occasion, please just skim the bolded portions. Thanks for reading my blog! Note: The new, more user-friendly website for my blog is here.)

Based on the recent decisions by the Supreme Court’s six radical, reactionary justices, we should all be in the streets protesting. Their recent decisions undermine the Constitution and our system of government. Their presidential immunity decision violates the principle that everyone is subject to the rule of law (see this previous post for more details).

In addition, in late June, the Supreme Court’s six radical, reactionary justices, in their Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo decision, overturned a 40-year-old Supreme Court precedent and over 200 years of precedent in practice. They ruled that the courts should not defer to the expertise of federal executive branch agencies on the details of the implementation of laws. [1]

The authority of executive branch agencies to make the detailed decisions necessary to implement laws had been the practice and core of our system of government for over 200 years. It was upheld and formalized by the Supreme Court in 1984 in a case that established the so-called “Chevron doctrine,” which said that the court system should defer to executive branch agencies’ expertise in interpreting and implementing laws. That decision reflected the Court’s belief and understanding from the Constitution that policy decisions should be responsive to the voters and their elected representatives, not made by unelected federal judges with lifetime appointments. Therefore, policy decisions should be in the hands of the president, the head of the executive branch and its agencies, and Congress, which writes the laws.

Based on the Court’s Loper Bright ruling, federal judges now have the power to determine the interpretation and implementation of laws. This means that agencies’ expertise and process in establishing rules and regulations can now be superseded by the courts. This takes crucial decision making out of the hands of experts and scientists at federal agencies and hands it to federal judges. Judges don’t have the expertise to make these decisions. The roughly 800 judges that make up the federal judicial system have widely varied philosophical and ideological views that mean there will be contradictory rulings that will create confusion and even chaos in the court system and in our economy and society. Furthermore, the workload of reviewing challenges to the thousands of decisions that executive branch agencies make in implementing laws is likely to bog down and maybe overwhelm the court system. Even Congress does not have the capacity to micromanage the implementation of the laws it passes, so it leaves this work to the fourteen executive branch agencies, their over 1 million employees, and their expertise. (The Department of Defense is the fifteenth executive branch agency and has over 3 million employees, but has less of a role in establishing rules and regulations that affect civilian society.)

The door is now open for court challenges to rules and regulations on, for example, public safety, public health, and environmental protection, such as protecting the public from pollution, unsafe and contaminated food, and unsafe working conditions. The approval of drugs and the regulation of drug prices are now susceptible to court challenges. The details of safety standards for aircraft construction and air travel, as well as the detailed regulations of financial instruments and institutions are now subject to court review. The federal requirements for services for children with special needs can now be challenged in the courts. And on and on and on. Some expert legal observers are worried that a likely plethora of challenges to rules and regulations could lead to legal and administrative chaos in the federal judiciary and regulatory agencies.

An important effect of these recent Supreme Court decisions by the six radical, reactionary justices is that more power has been arrogated to the court system and ultimately to the Supreme Court. In the Loper Bright case it’s power over rules and regulations and in the presidential immunity case, the courts will now decide which presidential acts are immune official acts, which aren’t, and what evidence can be used in a trial. Note that these rulings have created a strong president at the head of the executive branch but weak executive branch agencies. This is just another contradiction in the dramatic lack of coherence in the Court’s decisions.

The six radical, reactionary Supreme Court justices are not behaving as good-faith players in a constitutional democracy. They have overturned the balance of power among the three branches of government established by the Constitution, undermined its checks and balances, and made the courts (i.e., themselves) the supreme rulers and the ultimate arbiters of all legislative and executive branch decisions.

For those of us who want a democracy, with government of, by, and for the people, operating under the rule of law, rather than an authoritarian government overseen by an imperial president and an all-powerful cadre of six radical Supreme Court justices, we need to fight back and protest in whatever ways we can: [2]

Write letters to the editor, post on social media, call in to talk shows on the radio, etc.,
Talk with family, friends, colleagues, and neighbors,
Participate in local events and demonstrations,
Donate money to good organizations and candidates,
Volunteer in local government and local organizations,
Engage in local government and politics, perhaps even run for an elected position, and
Most of all, get out and vote and get everyone you know to do so as well.

On this last point, getting out to vote, I encourage you to vote for every office on your ballot in every election. In addition to federal offices, state and local elections and offices matter greatly. They affect your everyday life, your local schools, and the well-being of everyone in your local community. They also are the proving ground and pipeline for candidates for higher offices. I painfully note (as someone who was a proud independent until the days of President Reagan and who viewed local elections as non-partisan until 20 years ago) that the Republican Party, at least everywhere that I can see, has become the party of Trump and authoritarianism, of the wealthy, and of the large corporations. Therefore, I encourage you to scrutinize any Republican you might vote for very carefully, and, when in doubt, to vote for Democrats – all the way down the ballot to your local offices. (For more on the importance of “down ballot” races, see this blog post from Robert Hubbell.)

Democrats need to be in control of Congress and the presidency so the Supreme Court can be reformed. It clearly needs enforceable ethics rules. Perhaps most importantly, the Court needs to be expanded to counteract the two seats that were stolen by Republicans and have given the radical, reactionary justices control. There are other reforms that should be considered, such as term limits. See this previous post for some options for reforming the Supreme Court.

[1] Turrentine, J., 6/28/24, “The Supreme Court ends Chevron deference – What now?” Natural Resources Defense Council (https://www.nrdc.org/stories/what-happens-if-supreme-court-ends-chevron-deference)

[2] Pepper, D., 2023, “Saving democracy: A user’s manual for every American,” St. Helena Press, Cincinnati, Ohio.

THE SUPREME COURT IS A THREAT TO OUR DEMOCRACY

Abortion rights activists rally outside of the US Supreme Court after the overturning of Roe Vs. Wade, in Washington, DC, on June 24, 2022. (Photo by Mandel NGAN / AFP) (Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)

Based on the Supreme Court’s decisions of the last few weeks, we should all be in the streets protesting and storming the Supreme Court. Its decisions undermine the Constitution and our system of government, while giving the president king-like status.

Based on the Supreme Court’s decisions of the last few weeks, we should all be in the streets protesting and storming the Supreme Court. Their decisions undermine the Constitution and our system of government as it’s worked for over 200 years. I won’t go into the details of the decisions because you’ve probably read or heard about them. I’ll just state that this is a radical, reactionary Court – not a conservative one by any stretch of the imagination. (See this previous post for details.)

The six radical, reactionary justices on the Court totally disregard precedents both in content and procedure to make rulings that are political and ideological, not grounded in law or the Constitution. Their claim of being true to the original text and intent of the Constitution is a blatant lie – a smoke screen for making rulings out of thin air that suit their political purposes. This is judicial activism in the extreme, which conservatives used to decry (and still would if they were true conservatives).

Moreover, the six radical, activist justices stated in their congressional confirmation hearings that they would respect precedents; they would call balls and strikes but not change the rules of the game. It’s now clear they were lying and committing perjury.

With its recent decision on presidential immunity from criminal prosecution, the Court puts the president above the rule of law. The decision exempts the president from the rule of law for all official acts (and probably for many unofficial acts as well). This grants the president king-like status.

This is in blatant contradiction to what the Founding Fathers intended in the Constitution and made clear in their writings. The Constitution does mention immunity – for citizens, for witnesses to crimes, and for legislators in limited cases (for speech or debate in congressional chambers). Clearly, the writers of the Constitution thought carefully about immunity and did NOT grant it to the president. The supposed constitutional originalists on the Supreme Court invented presidential immunity out of thin air, presumably for political reasons.

Historian Heather Cox Richardson has a clear and concise interview (6 mins.) on the immunity issue and has written about it in her Letters from an American blog. Her blog post includes quotes from the confirmation hearings of Justices Roberts, Alito, and Kavanaugh where they stated that no one is above the law. Therefore, they have, very specifically, shown that their congressional testimony was a lie and that they committed perjury.

Retired lawyer Robert Hubbell states that the Court’s presidential immunity decision (and others) by the six radical justices shows that the “Supreme Court is lawless.” The immunity decision “overthrew the American Revolution and anointed the US president as a modern-day king.” He succinctly outlines what the decision does and gives examples of what a president can now do without fear of criminal prosecution, including accept a bribe in exchange for a pardon and direct the Justice Department to target political enemies. With this immunity in place, what President Nixon did during Watergate would presumably have been completely legal. [1]

Moreover, the Supreme Court’s decision leaves it to the courts (i.e., ultimately itself) to decide what are “official” (immune from prosecution) and “unofficial” presidential acts, and also to decide what evidence can be used in a prosecution. Therefore, the Court has arrogated substantial power to itself over the implementation of its presidential immunity ruling – a real power grab.

The hypocrisy of the six radical Supreme Court justices who claim to be constitutional “originalists” is laid bare by their decisions. For example, they have ruled:

For very strong presidential immunity, which is not only nowhere in the Constitution, but contradicts the Constitution and its writers. This ruling’s lack of a constitutional basis is made clear by provisions for other immunities that ARE in the Constitution and by the expressed sentiments of the writers of the Constitution that the president should NOT be above the law and have king-like powers.
Against banning an insurrectionist from the ballot, despite clear language in the Constitution that an insurrectionist cannot hold elected office without 2/3 approval from Congress.

My next post will discuss the Supreme Court’s decimation of the power of executive branch agencies to implement laws and protect workers, consumers, and residents through rules and regulations.

[1] Hubbell, R., 7/2/24, “The Supreme Court is the biggest threat to democracy we face,” Today’s Edition Newsletter (https://roberthubbell.substack.com/p/the-supreme-court-is-the-biggest)