#harlan — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #harlan, aggregated by home.social.
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Hype for the Future 122D: Cumberland Gap
Introduction In the modern context of the United States of America, the Cumberland Gap has traditionally been associated with Appalachian settlers and is situated at the western edge of the modern Commonwealth of Virginia, now traversed by United States Route 58 between the Ewing area of Virginia and Claiborne County, Tennessee. The Cumberland Gap National Historical Park also contains territory in Bell and Harlan Counties in the Commonwealth of Kentucky, largely within close proximity to […]https://novatopflex.wordpress.com/2026/03/02/hype-for-the-future-122d-cumberland-gap/
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Much to the consternation of his Federalist Society colleagues,
#Leonard #Leo had also begun
🔥cannibalizing the organization’s own deep-pocketed donors to help finance some of his more personal initiatives
— and those of his friends.In 2010, he co-founded along with Ginni Thomas an organization called "Liberty Central";
Thomas was the wife of his good friend Justice Clarence Thomas and they used a $500,000 donation from Dallas real estate billionaire #Harlan #Crow,
also a donor to the Federalist Society.The group billed itself as “America’s Public Square,” promising to preserve freedom and reaffirm the core principles of the Founding Fathers.
The following year, he joined the board of "Chicago Freedom Trust", which had been set up by manufacturing billionaire #Barre #Seid as a pass-through
to anonymously channel funds to initiatives he wished to support
and to take advantage of the recent #Citizens #United ruling shielding big donors from disclosure.Leo met Seid through #Eugene #Meyer, president of the Federalist Society, who envisioned the wealthy manufacturing tycoon as a potential donor to the law society.
Instead, Leo cultivated him as a funder of his own dark-money network.
The move brought Leo into contact with other central figures of the conservative dark-money world
— like #Whitney #Ball and #Adam #Meyerson,
the main actors behind #DonorsTrust, who were responsible for anonymously funneling hundreds of millions of dollars to various conservative grassroot groups,
including some linked to the far right.He also used his influence there to divert funds to Opus Dei, with the pass-through soon becoming a regular donor to the Oakcrest School.
As Leo’s access to the world of dark money grew, his Opus Dei friends the Corkerys became critical as a front for the tens of millions of dollars streaming through Leo’s hidden network of nonprofits.
Neil and Ann had provided crucial cover for him during the campaign to secure the confirmations of John Roberts and Samuel Alito in 2005,
hiding the hundreds of thousands of dollars spent to influence public opinion.
As more dark money poured in starting in 2010, they began to do the same again through various nonprofits such as the "Wellspring Committee" and the "Judicial Crisis Network".
Their importance only grew following Scalia’s death,
as Leo pumped his network for ever larger sums.In the weeks after Scalia’s death, the Corkerys began opening the purse strings in what would eventually become a 🔥$17 million campaign to stop Obama from replacing Scalia
and instead ensure a reliable conservative filled the vacancy.It was just the start.
Over the next five years, Leo and the Corkerys would oversee the transfer of almost 🔥$600 million of dark money to right-wing causes.
Their hidden ecosystem would eventually enable a conservative takeover of the Supreme Court that would disassemble
hard-won civil rights and turn back the clock on issues close to their hearts
— on abortion,
on affirmative action,
and on vast swathes of what they saw as a progressive agenda. -
Much to the consternation of his Federalist Society colleagues,
#Leonard #Leo had also begun
🔥cannibalizing the organization’s own deep-pocketed donors to help finance some of his more personal initiatives
— and those of his friends.In 2010, he co-founded along with Ginni Thomas an organization called "Liberty Central";
Thomas was the wife of his good friend Justice Clarence Thomas and they used a $500,000 donation from Dallas real estate billionaire #Harlan #Crow,
also a donor to the Federalist Society.The group billed itself as “America’s Public Square,” promising to preserve freedom and reaffirm the core principles of the Founding Fathers.
The following year, he joined the board of "Chicago Freedom Trust", which had been set up by manufacturing billionaire #Barre #Seid as a pass-through
to anonymously channel funds to initiatives he wished to support
and to take advantage of the recent #Citizens #United ruling shielding big donors from disclosure.Leo met Seid through #Eugene #Meyer, president of the Federalist Society, who envisioned the wealthy manufacturing tycoon as a potential donor to the law society.
Instead, Leo cultivated him as a funder of his own dark-money network.
The move brought Leo into contact with other central figures of the conservative dark-money world
— like #Whitney #Ball and #Adam #Meyerson,
the main actors behind #DonorsTrust, who were responsible for anonymously funneling hundreds of millions of dollars to various conservative grassroot groups,
including some linked to the far right.He also used his influence there to divert funds to Opus Dei, with the pass-through soon becoming a regular donor to the Oakcrest School.
As Leo’s access to the world of dark money grew, his Opus Dei friends the Corkerys became critical as a front for the tens of millions of dollars streaming through Leo’s hidden network of nonprofits.
Neil and Ann had provided crucial cover for him during the campaign to secure the confirmations of John Roberts and Samuel Alito in 2005,
hiding the hundreds of thousands of dollars spent to influence public opinion.
As more dark money poured in starting in 2010, they began to do the same again through various nonprofits such as the "Wellspring Committee" and the "Judicial Crisis Network".
Their importance only grew following Scalia’s death,
as Leo pumped his network for ever larger sums.In the weeks after Scalia’s death, the Corkerys began opening the purse strings in what would eventually become a 🔥$17 million campaign to stop Obama from replacing Scalia
and instead ensure a reliable conservative filled the vacancy.It was just the start.
Over the next five years, Leo and the Corkerys would oversee the transfer of almost 🔥$600 million of dark money to right-wing causes.
Their hidden ecosystem would eventually enable a conservative takeover of the Supreme Court that would disassemble
hard-won civil rights and turn back the clock on issues close to their hearts
— on abortion,
on affirmative action,
and on vast swathes of what they saw as a progressive agenda. -
HERE IT IS, w FOOTNOTES! (link is to their PDF) Citizens for Ethics (CREW; Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Washington), who has argued before SCOTUS,
today asks for Supreme Court Justice *Samuel Alito's resignation*, huzzah.
#compromised #SCOTUS #kangaroo #SupremeCourt #purchased #packed #stacked #millionaire #folly #Alito #Thomas #impeach #remove #recuse #Jan6 #cases #court #traitor #Ginny #ClearanceThomas #Clarence #Harlan #Crow #HarlanCrow #owns a #justice https://www.citizensforethics.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/CREW-Alito-Resignation-Letter.pdf -
HERE IT IS, w FOOTNOTES! (link is to their PDF) Citizens for Ethics (CREW; Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Washington), who has argued before SCOTUS,
today asks for Supreme Court Justice *Samuel Alito's resignation*, huzzah.
#compromised #SCOTUS #kangaroo #SupremeCourt #purchased #packed #stacked #millionaire #folly #Alito #Thomas #impeach #remove #recuse #Jan6 #cases #court #traitor #Ginny #ClearanceThomas #Clarence #Harlan #Crow #HarlanCrow #owns a #justice https://www.citizensforethics.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/CREW-Alito-Resignation-Letter.pdf -
HERE IT IS, w FOOTNOTES! (link is to their PDF) Citizens for Ethics (CREW; Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Washington), who has argued before SCOTUS,
today asks for Supreme Court Justice *Samuel Alito's resignation*, huzzah.
#compromised #SCOTUS #kangaroo #SupremeCourt #purchased #packed #stacked #millionaire #folly #Alito #Thomas #impeach #remove #recuse #Jan6 #cases #court #traitor #Ginny #ClearanceThomas #Clarence #Harlan #Crow #HarlanCrow #owns a #justice https://www.citizensforethics.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/CREW-Alito-Resignation-Letter.pdf -
HERE IT IS, w FOOTNOTES! (link is to their PDF) Citizens for Ethics (CREW; Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Washington), who has argued before SCOTUS,
today asks for Supreme Court Justice *Samuel Alito's resignation*, huzzah.
#compromised #SCOTUS #kangaroo #SupremeCourt #purchased #packed #stacked #millionaire #folly #Alito #Thomas #impeach #remove #recuse #Jan6 #cases #court #traitor #Ginny #ClearanceThomas #Clarence #Harlan #Crow #HarlanCrow #owns a #justice https://www.citizensforethics.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/CREW-Alito-Resignation-Letter.pdf -
Democratic Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jamie Raskin
are introducing a new piece of legislation aimed at 🔸putting a cap on the number and value of gifts U.S. Supreme Court justices can receive.🔸The "High Court Gift Ban Act", unveiled Tuesday, would prohibit justices from receiving gifts valued at more than $50 at a time, or more than $100 total per year.
The bill would also put an $18,000 cap on gifts of personal hospitality, which are currently unregulated.Justice #Clarence #Thomas has been under intense scrutiny after an investigation by the Senate Judiciary Committee found that he failed to include luxury vacations paid for by Republican megadonor #Harlan #Crow on his financial disclosure forms.
Thomas has been subject to several other complaints, including that he never paid back a loan on his R.V. and that he cavorted with the #Koch brothers while ruling on cases they’d brought to the Supreme Court.
Earlier this month, a report from a judicial watchdog found that Supreme Court justices had received close to a total of
⭐️$3 million in gifts⭐️ over the last 20 years
—with 🌟more than $2.4 million of those gifts being directed solely to Thomas. 🌟
Through gifts, Thomas has roughly doubled his official published income from the last 20 years.
Justice #Samuel #Alito has similarly come under fire for accepting lavish gifts from Republican billionaires, including over-the-top, all-expenses-paid vacations.It seems, however, that little can be done to rein in the court’s high-ranking members over mounting concerns about their ethics.
Raskin and Ocasio-Cortez wrote to Chief Justice #John #Roberts late last week, seeking answers on
what he planned to do about Thomas, as well as Alito, whose recent flag scandal has also called into question whether he has conflicts of interest in cases before the court.
Roberts has not yet responded.
♦️“The Supreme Court is the highest court in the land but has the lowest ethical standards, which means pay-to-play billionaires, right-wing dark money groups and carbon-emitting special interests have freedom to purchase the best justice money can buy,” ♦️said Raskin in a statement Tuesday.Ocasio-Cortez called their bill “a commonsense solution to address the deeply troubling and unethical influence dark money is having on our nation’s highest judicial body.”
“This is not about politics
—it’s about safeguarding the strength and integrity of our democracy,” she said.
It’s unlikely, though, that such a bill would pass in a brutally indifferent Republican-led House.https://newrepublic.com/post/183099/aoc-raskin-rein-alito-thomas-gifts
https://raskin.house.gov/press-releases?id=243B1819-3D3A-4D6F-B104-C2B5513545F1
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Clarence Thomas accused of accepting luxury trips from billionaire Republican donor
For over twenty years, #Clarence #Thomas has accepted multiple luxury trips from #Harlan #Crow, a Republican real estate developer and #megadonor, according to a new ProPublica investigation.
Despite accepting these luxury trips for over two decades, Thomas has **not listed them on his financial disclosures**, according to the report
The report found that the conservative justice frequently travels internationally on Crow’s luxury 162ft yacht, often wearing custom polo shirts gifted by Crow to commemorate the trips which included scuba diving in Indonesia and a cruise in New Zealand.
The justice also frequently visits Crow’s private resort in the Adirondacks known as Camp Topridge. In addition to being served by private chefs, Thomas has mingled with top Republican executives at these retreats. In July 2017, Thomas was accompanied by “major #Republican #donors and one of the #leaders of the #American #Enterprise #Institute, a pro-business conservative think tank,” the investigation found.
