Category: Legal Affairs
Hard Right Billionaires are Spending Lavishly to Reshape State and Federal Courts
by Lisa Graves, Evan Vorpahl and Caitlin Mahoney | Oct 26, 2023 | Legal AffairsAmerican democracy has a billionaire problem. It’s not just that they’re not paying their fair share of taxes: they’re trying to buy our highest courts to advance their personal agendas, bending the law to their will. Pennsylvania is the latest target of this new brand of billionaire ambition, which used to be focused on acquiring […]
Not the Donald, But the Don – Indicting a Career Racketeer
by Jonathan M. Winer | Aug 15, 2023 | Legal AffairsBefore the indictment of criminal defendant Donald John Trump under the racketeering statute in the State of Georgia, Godfather references were already a cliché. Former New Jersey Governor and Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie recently described Trump and his associates at Mar-a-Largo as “acting like the Corleones with no experience,” in their efforts to hide […]
Moore v. Harper and the Fire Next Time
by Jonathan M. Winer | Jun 30, 2023 | Legal AffairsThe Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision in Moore v. Harper may well be one of the most consequential Constitutional cases affecting the future of American democracy. But its political meaning is as significant as its legal implications. Its wider context is the current court’s crisis of legitimacy, Donald Trump’s attempted coup to overthrow the result of […]
Backgrounder on Barre Seid, the Billionaire Extremist who Enabled Leonard Leo to Stack the Court and Overturn Roe
by Lisa Graves | Oct 31, 2022 | Legal Affairs, PoliticsOn August 22nd of this year, the New York Times reported that a secretive Chicago industrialist named Barre Seid had transferred more than $1.6 billion into the control of Leonard Leo, to whom Donald Trump outsourced the packing of the U.S. Supreme Court. (For more on that court-packing, check out Jim Hightower’s piercing series on Leo.) That story by […]
Racial Disparities, Cowboy D.A.s, Prosecutorial Impunity, Hanging Judges, and Above All—Texas; the Death Penalty’s Time is Up
by Barbara Koeppel | Sep 3, 2021 | Legal Affairs, PoliticsSome 4,000-year-old dogmas, like the Bible’s “eye for an eye,” never die. State-sponsored killings have morphed over millennia (from stonings, beheadings, burning at stakes, firing squads, gas chambers, lynchings, and electric chairs to lethal injections) but continue apace. In the United States, the federal government and the 27 states that still impose the death penalty […]
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Editor’s Picks
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Dancing in the Dark: Steps to Avoid a Constitutional Coup in the 2024 Election
By Mark Medish and Joel McCleary
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The Wide Angle: Is a UFO Hoax a Ticking Time-bomb for Biden?
By Dave Troy
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How Christian Nationalists, Big Oil and the Big Lie Seized the Speaker’s Gavel
By Anne Nelson
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By Art Levine
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Listen to “Paranoia on Parade”, a 3-part audio podcast with commentary from author Dave Troy, Jack Bryan, director of the 2018 film “Active Measures," and Hamilton Fish, Editor of The Washington Spectator.