jason miyares Atty G VIRG

https://www.alternet.org/2022/01/jason-miyares/

horner foia herring

fired civil rights attys

merri ok

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GOT BEAT 11 25

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student ppr

2023-11-13

UPDATED: Virginia Attorney General responds, calls to remove international students supporting terror groups with letter citing SJPRepublican Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares signed a letter to the Biden Administration, asking to remove international students from university campuses in the U.S. who are in support of “foreign terrorist organizations.”

By Ananya Chetia

Nov. 13, 2023,

Republican Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares said in a press release today that international students endorsing terrorist organizations do not deserve opportunities provided to them in the U.S. Miyares signed a letter to the Biden Administration Nov. 8, asking to remove international students from university campuses in the U.S. who are in support of “foreign terrorist organizations.”

The letter called out the global student organization Students for Justice in Palestine, which has an existing chapter at the University of Richmond, with having links “to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.”

“SJP issued a ‘call to action’ asking its college chapters to demonstrate, and more than 20 chapters responded, spearheading anti-Israel activity on campuses across the country,” the letter wrote.

UR’s SJP has not held events or demonstrations since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.

“The terrorist attack on Israel cannot be justified or rationalized. Supporting or endorsing the terrorist organizations who committed the acts is not only immoral, but un-American and peddles dangerous misinformation. Foreign student visa holders endorsing or supporting terrorist organizations do not deserve the privilege and opportunity provided to them," Miyares said.

Tim Griffin, the Republican and attorney general of Arkansas, wrote on behalf of 20 state attorneys general to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, stating antisemitism has been on the rise since Oct. 7.

The letter cites the Immigration and Nationality Act, which states “[a]ny alien who … endorses or espouses terrorist activity or persuades others to endorse or espouse terrorist activity or support a terrorist organization” is “ineligible to receive [a visa] and ineligible to be admitted to the United States.”

International students who have already been studying in the United States are liable to deportation, the act reads.

The Office of International Education wrote in a newsletter that it will bring in Crystal Malik, immigration attorney at McCandlish Holton and UR School of Law graduate, to speak on what rights and responsibilities student visa holders have on Nov. 16 at the International Commons.

Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin issued Executive Directive Six** Oct. 31, which lists a set of plans for educational institutions, including UR, to coordinate with law enforcement to combat threats of violence against religious organizations following the Israel-Hamas War.

“The Secretary of Public Safety & Homeland Security shall designate a chief coordinating officer to oversee a ‘situation room’ focussed on enhancing our comprehensive efforts to protect houses of worship and religious-affiliated institutions in the Commonwealth of Virginia,” one of Youngkin’s measures read.

The Biden Administration told NBC News on Oct. 31 that the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security will partner with campus law enforcement to track hate-related threats.

Since the Israel-Hamas war started on Oct. 7, UR’s Jewish Life and Muslim Life chaplaincies have hosted numerous events, including vigils and prayers, for Palestinian and Israelis lives lost. Spiders Against Apartheid held a demonstration Oct. 25 during which pro-Israeli students attended and called demonstrators Nazis in a video obtained by The Collegian. Last week’s reports by The Collegian show that students of all backgrounds have expressed concerns of safety and wellbeing on campus.

UR’s SJP posted on its Instagram Nov. 8 to wear “black and other symbols of support” for the 10,000 Palestinian lives lost since the Israel Defense Forces set off airstrikes on Gaza, as reported by AP News.

A member from UR’s SJP declined to comment on the letter.

Approximately 1,400 Israelis have died since the start of the Israel-Hamas war. UR’s Alpha Kappa Psi chapter condemned Hamas’ actions in October and said it “stands in support of Israel” in an Instagram story. UR’s Kappa Kappa Gamma chapter wrote that it “stands in solidarity with Israel as they fight for peace” early October in an Instagram story. UR’s Delta Gamma Fraternity chapter wrote it condemned Hamas’ attacks on Israel, that it stands in solidarity with Jewish sisters and “grieves for our Palestinian sisters and all civilians suffering in the Gaza Strip” early October in an Instagram story.

Contact executive editor Ananya Chetia at ananya.chetia@richmond.edu.

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AN 11 25 ALL 3 WON PLUS PA SCOTUS

The November 4 elections found Democrats enjoying a mini-blue wave as their candidates enjoyed a long list of victories — including double-digit wins in Virginia's gubernatorial race (former Rep. Abigail Spanberger), New Jersey's gubernatorial race (Rep. Mikie Sherrill) and New York City's mayoral race (State Assemblyman Zohran Mandami). Those races were called by the Associated Press (AP) as well as CNN and ABC News.

Spanberger, according to AP, defeated her GOP opponent, Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, by roughly 13 percent. But according to GOP pollster Frank Luntz, the size of Spanberger's victory is reflected by not only the total numbers, but the individual counties.

On X, formerly Twitter, Luntz posted, "Every single county in Virginia shifted blueward tonight."

Luntz posted a county-by-county breakdown for Virginia, a key swing state. And even in the counties that Earle-Sears won, Spanberger posted far larger numbers compared to Democratic candidates of the past.

For example, Earle-Sears carried Salem County by 12 percent, but according to Luntz, that's a 6.9 percent improvement for the Democratic Party in that red county.

IFrame Content

Spanberger, according to Luntz, won Portsmouth County by 47 percent (an 8.1 percent swing for Democrats) and Prince William County by 34 percent (a 16 percent blue shift).

In Virginia's House of Delegates, Democrats built on their current majority, now holding 64 seats to Republicans' 36. This means that Virginia Democrats' goal of passing a redistricting map to counter Republican mid-decade redistricting in Texas and elsewhere is likely to pass, with Spanberger giving Democrats a trifecta.

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defectors?

an 10 25

President Donald Trump is now finding fewer support from Republican state attorneys general (AGs) over his controversial deployment of National Guard troops to Chicago, Illinois.

Newsweek reported Thursday that while Trump had 22 Republican AGs sign onto an amicus (meaning "friend of the court") brief in support of deploying the National Guard to Washington D.C. filed in September, a new amicus brief has just 18 signatures from his own party's top law enforcement officials. The D.C. amicus brief had the backing of AGs from Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas and West Virginia.

But according to Newsweek's Robert Alexander, the Illinois amicus brief is missing the signatures of AGs from North Dakota's Drew Wrigley, Ohio's Dave Yost and Virginia's Jason Miyares. Alexander wrote that the absence of their names may signal the "first visible crack" in what had typically been a "united GOP front" backing Trump's "expansive view of presidential power."

"While the two filings use nearly identical legal arguments, the smaller roster suggests that some Republican legal officers are unwilling to endorse federal troops entering a state that didn’t request them, exposing quiet unease within the party’s legal ranks over the limits of Trump’s authority," he wrote.

Typically, a president can only deploy National Guard troops to a state if that state's governor explicitly requests it. 10 U.S.C. §12406 gives the president the power to do so in order to "execute the laws of the United States." But since Illinois Governor JB Pritzker never made such a request of Trump, that presidential power does not apply. Trump's deployment of National Guard troops to Memphis, Tennessee was not challenged despite opposition from Mayor Paul Young (D), as Governor Bill Lee (R) made the request.

IFrame Content

The governor's legal team made a similar argument before a federal court earlier this week after Trump sent the Texas National Guard to Chicago, and said in September that he planned to take the administration to court in the event Trump sent the guard to the Prairie State against his wishes.

The Department of Justice is expected to soon file its response to Illinois' challenge. And regardless of how U.S. District Judge April Perry (appointed by former President Joe Biden) rules in the case, either side could appeal the decision to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Click here to read Newsweek's full report.

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12 24

andrew ferguson

clarence clerk

mcconnell mafia liar

solic genl virginia AG disinfo bd

rICHMOND, Va. ( abc 7News) — Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares is leading a group of 20 State Attorneys General who are preparing to take legal action against President Joe Biden’s new Disinformation Governance Board, which was unveiled at a time when Elon Musk announced he was trying to purchase Twitter.

“It seems like some people in the Biden administration probably took George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Fourand they thought the Ministry of Truth was somehow a model when in reality, it was a warning to all of us, which is one of the bedrock principles of this country is your first amendment, and it should be protected and the federal government has such broad power that it shouldn't be in the position of a policing speech,” Miyares told 7News.

“I think it could have a chilling effect on what I call the marketplace of ideas. And the one thing about Americans is we feel like we have the freedom to debate and discuss and that's healthy for democracy. The federal government shouldn't be weighing in and possibly having a chilling effect on free speech. And the second is, there's no authority statutorily for them to create this new governing board.”

The Virginia Attorney General is also concerned about the credibility of President Biden’s appointee who is leading the board, Nina Jankowicz, a Virginia resident.

Miyares is calling her a far-left activist who isn’t neutral, and in a letter to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Miyares went as far as calling Jankowicz the “Mary Poppins of disinformation” referring to a TikTok video she published of herself singing a Poppins’ styled song.

“When Rudy Guiliani shared bad intel from Ukraine,” she said. “Or win TikTok influencers say COVID can’t cause pain. They’re laundering disinfo and we really should take note. And not support their lies with our wallet, voice, or voice. Oh!”

Nina Jankowicz on TikTok

Miyares is also concerned with what she said about some parents in Loudoun County, labeling some as dis-informers.

"Critical Race Theory has become one of those hot button issues that the Republicans and other dis-informers who are engaged in disinformation for-profit frankly, there are plenty of media outlets that are making off of it too,” said Jankowicz. “I live in Virginia. In Loudoun County, that's one of the areas where people have really honed in on this topic.”

“The third issue of concern on this is the fact that they claim this is going to be somehow an even-handed review of communications out in the public sphere, and then they appoint the person that's going to be, by all accounts, the referee of what’s fair, an individual that has directly attacked Virginians,” said Miyares. “She went after and criticized heavily concerned parents that were attending school board meetings bringing up a variety of different concerns, including in Loudoun and she was calling them peddlers of misinformation.”

DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is defending the work the Disinformation board is doing.

"What it will do is gather together best practices in addressing the threat of disinformation from foreign state adversaries from the cartels and disseminate that information to the operators,” said Mayorkas.

DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on CNN

And Mayorkas is defending Jankowicz.

“They say she is not neutral,” said CNN’s Dana Bash. “Your response?”

Read the letter from AG Miyares to DHS Secretary Mayorkas:

AG Miyares to DHS Secretary Mayorkas by Don Parker on Scribd

“Imminently qualified,” Mayorkas replied. "A renowned expert in the field of disinformation.”

“And neutral?” asked Bash.

“Absolutely so,” replied Mayorkas.

AG-Miyares-to-DHS-Secretary-Mayorkas#from_embed

rokita morrisey etc etc yost wilson reyes paxton landry schmidt marshall rutledge...brnovich NOT bailey?

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mma 8 24

republican state officials are investigating ActBlue after right-wing media used inaccurate information to claim the fundraising platform was laundering money

Right-wing media homed in on a Virginia donor, but FEC data shows the vast majority of donations were to WinRed and Republican PACs rather than ActBlue

Written by Kayla Gogarty

Research contributions from Alex Kaplan

:{Published 08/07/24

Amid Kamala Harris’ surging fundraising, right-wing media are alleging that Democratic PAC ActBlue is laundering money through a Virginia donor, claiming there were more than 22,000 donations listed for that individual, totaling over $800,000. But according to data from the Federal Election Commission, the alleged donor actually gave hundreds of thousands to WinRed and other Republican PACs.

Regardless, the claim spread — including to former President Donald Trump — and right-wing media figures called on attorneys general to investigate. At least two Republican attorneys general have announced they are looking into it.

After President Joe Biden announced that he was dropping out of the 2024 presidential race and endorsed his vice president, Kamala Harris, fundraising for her campaign surged. Amid that surge, right-wing personalities accused ActBlue of engaging in a money laundering scheme.

As part of these accusations, some right-wing media figures and social media accounts amplified data from a website for a tax-exempt organization, Election Watch, reportedly founded by serial election denier Peter Bernegger, which provides “smurfing data by state.” (“Smurf” apparently refers to “an individual whose ID may have been used to launder money into political campaigns.”) Users can click on a state to see the so-called “smurf” donors, which are apparently identified by “numbers and patterns of transactions” in FEC data “that indeed appear to be highly questionable.”

Right-wing media have seemingly latched onto the first Virginia entry, which the website claims made 22,619 transactions, totaling $839,466. According to FEC data for an individual of the same name living in the same zip code (or at the affiliated address), that individual has made nearly 25,000 transactions since 2019, totaling more than $765,000. Nearly half of the transactions were with WinRed — totaling nearly $380,000. Additional hundreds of thousands went to other Republican PACs. Only four transactions were apparently made with ActBlue — totaling just $66. (Previously, Republican donors have reportedly been “steered … into unwitting donations,” unknowingly signing up for weekly recurring contributions when contributing through WinRed.)

Despite the FEC data, right-wing media figures and social media accounts alleged that the Virginia donor data showed “money laundering” through ActBlue, urged others to use Election Watch's data to find more “smurfs,” and called for attorneys general to investigate.

03/07/24

Republic PAC the Virginia Project claimed there was a “ghost donor problem” and made an allegation about one Virginia donor.

The Virginia Project, which has an “election integrity program,” posted about a “Ghost donor problem,” specifically citing alleged data from Bernegger’s Election Watch site. The PAC claimed, “One Virginia donor. 22,619 transactions totaling $839,466.00. $37.11 average donation.” Virginia Project, accessed [7/30/24; Twitter/X, 3/7/24]

07/23/24

Social media account NoVA_Campaigns amplified the Virginia Project’s claims about the Virginia donor multiple times.

NoVA_Campaigns, a social media account which seemingly pushes right-wing narratives and election conspiracy theories, amplified Virginia Project’s March post multiple times, saying, “Massive @actblue fraud. How @TheDemocrats launder💰in billions,” and specifically claiming that the Virginia donor “made 22,619 Fed donations since ‘19, totaling $839,466 in 592 days.” In a second post, the account repeated the claim about the donations, calling on “AGs like @JasonMiyaresVA 🦗.” Twitter/X, [7/23/24, 7/23/24, 7/23/24, accessed 8/5/24]

07/23/24

Bernegger amplified the claims about the Virginia donor and called on his followers to use his organization’s website to find “smurfs.”

Bernegger responded to the Virginia Project’s social media post about the Virginia donor and called on people to “Check your state out” on his organization’s website, telling them to “scroll down to the USA map, click on any state, let it load, listing of Smurfs.” Twitter/X, [7/23/24]

07/24/24

Newsmax host Carl Higbie amplified Election Watch’s site on his show and claimed “smurfs” or “money mules” are used to funnel money “through the Democrats’ fundraising platform, called ActBlue.”

During the July 24 edition of his Newsmax show, Higbie claimed that “a bunch of people” found “a bunch of stuff that appears to not add up,” crediting Bernegger’s organization, which he said “compiled millions … of data points from the Federal Election Commission.” According to Higbie, “We were able to find out that in the past few years, over $200 million of political donations have been funneled through the Democrats’ fundraising platform, called ActBlue. … And from our research, it appears that these people, most of them, don't even know these donations are being made in their name. It's not their money. They call these people ‘smurfs’ or ‘money mules.’” Twitter/X, [7/24/24]

07/26/24

Right-wing personality Charlie Kirk called on state attorneys general to get involved: “When will one of them take action?”

Kirk alleged that there are “massive, repeated donations to ActBlue that use stolen identities and, quite possibly, stolen credit card,” specifically noting that “one person in Virginia has been named in 22,619 separate donations since 2019, totaling more than $800,000.” Kirk went on to claim that “obviously, she's being exploited for some kind of money-laundering operation,” and he called on state AGs to get involved: “ActBlue raises from all fifty states. We have fifty state AGs. When will one of them take action?” Twitter/X, [7/26/24]

07/26/24

Right-wing social media personality DC Draino specifically called out Virginia’s Republican AG Jason Miyares, asking if he will “prosecute this ActBlue money laundering and protect VA’s exploited citizens.”

DC Draino amplified Kirk’s social media post, adding, “Didn’t Virginia elect a Republican AG? Will @JasonMiyaresVA prosecute this ActBlue money laundering and protect VA’s exploited citizens? Or will he be a 1 term politician?” Twitter/X, [7/26/24]

07/29/24

On Truth Social, Trump amplified Kirk’s and DC Draino’s allegations about ActBlue and their calls for AGs to investigate.

07/29/24

Just over an hour after Trump made his post, Virginia’s Jason Miyares said his office was “looking into” the claims about ActBlue and money laundering.

On social media, Miyares responded to Kirk and said, “My office is aware of these allegations and rest assured, we are looking into it.” The same day, Dan Bishops — the Republican candidate for North Carolina AG — suggested he would take action against ActBlue on “January 1” after being elected. Twitter/X, [7/29/24, 7/29/24]

07/30/24

Wyoming Republican Secretary of State Chuck Gray announced an “investigation into ActBlue,” citing “nationwide money laundering and identity theft allegations.”

In a press release, which he posted on social media, Gray encouraged “any Wyoming citizen who has reason to believe a political action committee stole their identity or falsely reported a donation using their name” to report it to his office. Wyoming Secretary of State media release, [7/30/24]

08/01/24

Right-wing activist James O’Keefe said he would “personally pay” $3,000 to people who confront potential “smurfs” in their neighborhoods.

O’Keefe, the ousted founder of Project Veritas who is now trying to build up O’Keefe Media Group, posted on social media: “Uncover ActBlue Smurfs and get paid like our Citizen Journalists,” urging people to go to Election Watch’s site, “ choose your state, enter your zip code, and start investigating. Not comfortable going door-to-door? … Submit potential Smurfs and links to your FEC findings through our X DMs or Signal.” The post included a video showing how to use Bernegger’s Election Watch site and instructing people to “knock on these people’s doors,” tell them they “seem to be a victim of a money laundering scheme,” and get bank statements from them. Rolling Stone, [6/20/24; Twitter/X, 8/1/24]

Video

CitationFrom an August 1, 2024, video from James O'Keefe

08/02/24

Virginia’s Republican AG, Jason Miyares, posted that he sent a letter to ActBlue “demanding answers.”

Miyares posted the letter on social media and said, “The integrity of our election is at stake.” The letter claims that his office “has become aware of multiple serious allegations that ActBlue, ActBlue Civics, Inc., and ActBlue Charities, Inc. (together ‘ActBlue’) have engaged in fraudulent, deceptive, and/or otherwise illegal activities in the Commonwealth of Virginia and/or aided and abetted others in doing so.” Twitter/X, [8/2/24]

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cei bs

A Circuit Court in Richmond, VA on Tuesday ordered the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) of Virginia to conduct a proper search for emails and other records requested by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) and attorney Christopher Horner three and a half years ago under the state’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

The court ruled that CEI and Horner presented evidence that the OAG failed to properly search for official documents responsive to FOIA requests made in September and October of 2018, when former VA Attorney General Mark Herring was in office. CEI and Horner requested the documents while investigating a legally and ethically suspect agreement between Herring’s OAG and a nonprofit housed at the New York University (NYU) Law School to place donor-funded attorneys on Herring’s staff to prosecute cases related to climate change.

Much of the evidence prompting the court’s ruling was obtained when, following threads exposed during discovery in this litigation, Horner made other requests, yielding other emails from the same Office showing that it indeed improperly withheld documents, as a result of its conducting a curiously limited search of email accounts.

Horner revealed the nation-wide scheme to place donor-funded NYU law school attorneys in OAGs including Virginia, Massachusetts, Oregon, California and other states in an August 2018 report for CEI titled *Law Enforcement for Rent: How Special Interests Fund Climate Policy through State Attorneys General*. In 2019 and 2021, the Virginia legislature restricted funds appropriated to OAG, precluding the attempt by NYU Law School and Herring’s OAG to hire donor-funded attorneys to pursue a partisan agenda.

“Virginians should be grateful to the court for holding the Office of the Attorney General accountable for its obligations under the Freedom of Information Act and we look forward to receiving and reviewing the documents. We hope Attorney General Jason Miyares will ensure Virginians know the extent to which his predecessor empowered partisan interests to use OAG to further a political agenda,” said Horner. “Virginians and all Americans should expect their prosecutors to uphold and comply with the law and former AG Herring and other attorneys general were wrong to bring partisan politics into prosecutors’ offices.”

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an 1 24 no lnx thom

Why Trump wants a country where everything is for sale

Thom Hartmann

January 09, 2024

Donald Trump and his fellow rightwing billionaires have a plan for America. They want to turn the United States from a prosperous, middle-class nation into a country of paupers, where bribery is common and the wealthy can get away with anything.

The latest example of this comes from the House Oversight Committee’s report last week documenting how Donald Trump took at least $7 million in bribes in exchange for changes to US foreign policy when he was president.

Most of the world already operates the way Republicans are pushing our country: no social safety net, corrupt regulatory and police agencies, politicians and legislation for sale, and absolute immunity for the morbidly rich.

It was 1980 when I first really discovered what it’s like doing business or just living life in countries that are the models for how this nation’s rightwing billionaires are trying to remake America.

I was a volunteer on behalf of an international relief organization out of Germany and had flown into Kenya, on my way to Uganda. Tanzania had recently evicted the murderous dictator Idi Amin (who was welcomed, along with his bevy of wives, by Saudi Arabia, where he lived like a king in his own palace to the day he died). Famine was creeping across the northern part of the country. (I wrote about this trip in The Prophet’s Wayand published that chapter on my website.)

Three days in a row I’d gone to the Ugandan embassy to try to get an entry visa into the country; each time I was told, after waiting a few hours and without explanation, to come back the next day.

I was staying at the New Stanley Hotel in Nairobi, and they had an outdoor bar called the Thorn Tree Café, where Ernest Hemmingway used to stay and where he popularized the Swahili word “safari” and wrote The Snows of Kilimanjaro. I’d gotten to know an old British expat who lived in the hotel and we shared a couple of gin-and-tonics every afternoon in the café. When I told him about my frustration, he said:

“When you go in tomorrow, slip a $20 bill into your passport when you hand it to the official. You’ll get your visa.”

There were a couple of other regulars sitting with us and they all agreed, so the next day, with some trepidation, I tried the bribe. It worked: the Ugandan diplomat lifted the bill out of my passport, it vanished into the top drawer of his desk, and I had the visa stamp in my passport in thirty seconds.

When I got to the airport and the Ugandan Airlines’ check-in desk, I was told that my plane reservation, which I’d booked and paid for over the phone, “Can’t be found.” The agent shrugged, like it was an everyday occurrence. I slid another twenty across the counter and he broke into a huge smile, scratched out a line on the flight manifest with his pencil, and said, “Give me your name again?” I did and he wrote it in and an hour later I was on the plane to Entebbe.

A few months later I was in Haiti, meeting with the government official in charge of licensing foreign charities to operate in the country. He was less subtle than the Ugandans; he told me right up-front that I’d have to give him a substantial cash down-payment (I’m remembering $5,000, but could be in error) and an annual smaller payment, all in cash and all handed over directly to him.

While I was successful in starting a program in Uganda that’s still running to this day (among others), when the level of bribery got as high and as naked as it was in Haiti, we chose to pull the plug on our plans to operate in that Caribbean country.

Later that year I was pulled over by a Mexican police officer while driving with a Vice President of Scientific Atlanta from the Acapulco airport to our hotel; the cop told me — even though I’d been traveling the same speed as every other car on the highway — that I’d have to stay in town for a week to show up in court unless I gave him $50 cash on the spot. He got his bribe, and, on reflection of some legal peril, I listed it as such on my expense report.

You may be shaking your head right now, thinking all of this bribery to do business or even travel in foreign countries is terrible. America would never tolerate such corruption, right?

Wrong.

We’re already there on one level; it’s just that there’s only one class of Americans who can legally bribe the system to get what they want, and they blow through every obstacle in front of them by simply paying people off.

That group is America’s rightwing billionaires. And they damn well want to keep things that way. As long as they can bribe their way into or out of things, they’re very happy with the status quo and will continue to fund efforts to keep things this way.

Look at, for example, how they spiffed Clarence Thomas to get him to agree to be the deciding vote in Citizens United, which legalized bribery of both American politicians and Supreme Court justices. Multiple rightwing billionaires spent literally millions of dollars buying Thomas’ and his wife’s loyalty and rewarding their behavior on the billionaires’ behalf.

The fossil fuel industry showers millions every year on Republican politicians, both in direct bribes campaign contributions and through the political cover they get from the rightwing media and think-tanks they underwrite. As a result, you won’t find a single Republican politician who’s willing to do anything whatsoever about climate change, and most won’t even acknowledge it exists so long has the money keeps flowing.

Ditto for Big Pharma, Big Insurance, and Big Banks: all three routinely rip off Americans, and the Republican answer is to gut the regulatory agencies that might hold them to account.

While Uganda was in chaos in 1980 and the people I paid off were probably just freelancing because they weren’t even getting paid, when I was in Haiti I heard from other people operating in the country that part of the bribe money they’d paid was going all the way to the top: “Baby Doc” Jean-Claude Duvalier ran that country like his own personal corrupt little fiefdom until he was deposed in 1986.

Donald Trump aspires to Baby Doc (or even “Papa Doc”) status, and showed us — during the one-term presidency that Vladimir Putin helped him secure — how he and his billionaire buddies want to reshape our country in Duvalier’s image. This is how a country travels the path from functioning democracy to corrupt oligarchy.

Trump came into office echoing a widespread public freak-out about the 20 million or so jobs that had been offshored to China by Reaganomics. Trash-talking China worked really well on the campaign trail for Trump, but when he became president he began acting like that Mexican cop who’d pulled over me and my client.

— The Chinese embassy and one of the country’s largest banks (that helps North Korea evade US sanctions) shoveled $5.5 million into Trump’s corporate checking accounts; within months he hopped on a plane, flew to China, and told Chinese dictator Xi “my feeling toward you is an incredibly warm one.”

— Trump was trash-talking Qatar, calling them a “funder of terrorism,” so, as Mary Trump notes in her excellent newsletter:

“[I]n April of 2018, the Qatari Permanent Mission to the United Nations bought a fourth apartment at Trump World Tower for $6.5 million, and then in the SAME MONTH, Donald welcomed its monarch to the Oval Office and labeled Qatar as a partner in ‘stopping the funding of terrorism.’”

Not only that, Qatar went on to backstop a billion-dollar buyout of Jared Kushner’s terrible 666 Fifth Avenue building purchase.

— Trump was ignoring Kuwait’s desire to buy an air-force-worth of F18 Hornet fighter jets, so, like my sticking a $20 bill into my passport in Nairobi, they moved their Christmas Party to his DC hotel, putting hundreds of thousands of dollars in Trump’s pocket; he promptly approved the sale of the weapons systems.

— Saudi Arabia was reeling under international condemnation for murdering and dismembering Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, so they gave Trump well over a half-million dollars cash by renting entire floors in his properties; he immediately went against his own policy advisors’ advice and began selling them billions of dollars’ worth of high-tech weapons without congressional authorization.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg, the little bit that Democrats on the House Oversight Committee were able to discover before Republicans took control of the House and put Trump toady James Comer in charge of the committee; Comer immediately ended the investigations into the Trump family and redirected their efforts to investigating Hunter Biden. (There’s a great summary of the House Democrat’s report, with a link to the report itself, here.)

This is the America that our country’s rightwing billionaires want. Where everything is for sale, but the price is usually so high that only the morbidly rich can afford it.

— Want $600 billion a year in fossil fuel subsidies that help destroy our children’s future? Give Republican politicians a few hundred million over the years.

— Want to own a private island and run an underage sex ring? Just buy off or blackmail enough politicians and a guy who ends up in Trump’s cabinet will, himself, arrange sweetheart deals for you to avoid prison or liability (until it all comes unraveled years later).

— Want such massive tax cuts that they will leave the nation $34 trillion in debt and siphon a full $50 trillion out of the homes and savings of working class people, reducing the middle class income from two-thirds of us to 43 percent? Just recycle a few billion of those trillions to fund a few hundred Republicans’ campaigns.

America has become a nation increasingly run by rightwing grifters and greedy corporations:

— Want to sell pesticides that are neurotoxic to children?

— Dump toxic waste from mining operations into our rivers where it will poison downstream water supplies?

— Gut workers’ rights?

— Sell off and ruin public parklands for pennies on the dollar?

— Steal from working people’s retirement plans without consequence?

Every one of those five things (and more) happened in the first months of Trump’s administration, and in every case there was big money paying off Trump and congressional Republicans for taking those actions.

We’re seeing a similar embrace of corruption in Republican-controlled states across the country. Texas’ Attorney General Ken Paxton, for example, has been facing securities fraud charges for eight years now; the trial is finally scheduled for next year, but don’t hold your breath. Meanwhile, he’s suing to prevent women with crisis pregnancies from getting life-saving abortions.

In Virginia, that state’s Republican Attorney General went after “good government” as soon as he took office. As Radley Balko notes in his Substack newsletter, The Watch:

“Jason Miyares made his priorities clear the moment he took office. Shortly after the Virginia Republican was sworn in as the state’s new attorney general in 2022, he abruptly fired everyone in the conviction integrity unit (CIU), the office charged with investigating and rectifying wrongful convictions. …

“Miyares fired 17 attorneys and 30 total employees, including many attorneys in the civil rights division, as well as the general counsel for the University of Virginia — who at the time had taken leave to serve as lead investigator for the special congressional committee investigating January 6th. Miyares insisted the attorney’s termination had nothing to do with his work on the attempted insurrection.”

And it’s not just American billionaires who are paying off Republican politicians (and apparently one Democrat in the Senate). A foreign billionaire who may be the richest man in the world controls a massive social media operation that can build up or tear down any Republican who doesn’t dance to his tune.

Vladimir Putin, a billionaire who makes his friends into billionaires, has invested heavily in social media troll farms, now that billionaires Zuckerberg and Musk have dialed back on content moderation, leaving Nazis, Russian agents, and their Republican fellow travelers to flourish on their platforms.

Putin’s social media operations have been so successful that he’s managed to bring a few dozen Republican politicians under his control, most notably Tommy Tuberville and Marjorie Taylor Greene. As the Byline Supplement Substack newsletter noted last week:

“Among Republican politicians, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia has led the way in normalizing extremist pro-Russian propaganda, making a public appearance at a pro-Putin rally and floating Putin’s peace plan which cedes all occupied territory to Russia. Greene calls the defense of Ukraine a corrupt scheme, citing as her source a Russian propaganda outlet that was sanctioned by the US Treasury Department over alleged interference in the 2020 presidential elections.

“On the US Senate side, Tommy Tuberville of Alabama blames Democrats, claiming Democrats “created” the war in Ukraine — exactly parroting the Kremlin influence operation as reported by the declassified US intelligence assessment. Tuberville has gone so far as to green-light a Russian takeover of Ukraine, opining against all contrary evidence that he sees no risk of further Russian aggression once Ukraine is subdued. Tuberville is a close ally of Donald Trump, who claims he has a plan for an immediate end to the war.”

And, of course, Putin was able to buy Trump’s loyalty by running an online influence operation, outed by Robert Mueller’s investigation, that helped Trump win the electoral college and occupy the White House even though he lost to Hillary Clinton by about 3 million votes.

This is the America our rightwing billionaires have been working to create ever since the Reagan Revolution: a nation where everything’s for sale and everyone’s on the take.

After all, when everybody’s a criminal, nobody’s a criminal.

And it all really started in a big way when five corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court legalized political bribery by billionaires (1976) and corporations (1978), most recently overturning hundreds of good government laws nationwide with their bizarre Citizens United (2010) decision declaring that corporations are persons and money is “First Amendment-protected ‘free speech.’”

For two decades now, we’ve had Republican justices who’ve been put on the bench through millions of dollars from a handful of rightwing billionaires and the institutions they fund. They’re then groomed with first class and private jet travel, homes, travel trailers, speaking gigs, entrance to billionaire-only private events, and millions in “pay” opportunities for justices’ spouses.

They’re backstopped by billionaires who own media operations like Fox “News” and the CEOs of industries that want to continue making money while exploiting or even killing us and our children.

The simple reality is that today in America rightwing billionaires can buy just about anything, including tax breaks, new laws that protect them and their businesses, and immunity from prosecution for anything they say or do. They can even buy henchmen who will take down university presidents who offend them.

Widespread Republican victories this November will make the situation far worse, and, if Trump keeps his promises, will finish the job Reagan began of gutting the middle class and fully handing control of America over to the GOP’s billionaire overlords.

Then Ken Paxton, Clarence Thomas, and Ron DeSantis types of politicians will rule the nation, always bowing to the demands of their rich benefactors.

Democrats (Senator Menendez notwithstanding) have been fighting this corruption and promise to end the culture of bribery and impunity that Citizens United established. They tried with the For The People Act, but the GOP filibuster prevailed.

The choice has never been starker: do we want America to sink farther into the GOP‘s version of Uganda or Mexico? Or do we want to become a nation where we all have opportunity and prosperity, and all Americans are both bound and protected equally by the law?

What kind of country do we want to leave to our children? A functioning democracy or a corrupt kleptocracy run by the toadies of a handful of rightwing billionaires?

The stakes this November are huge. Pass it along.

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11/21

In an extremely tight attorney general race, Republican Jason Miyares defeated Democrat incumbent Attorney General Mark Herring. Miyares’s experience as a prosecutor and commitment to defending the rule of law helped him win this election. Attorney General-elect Miyares will be Virginia’s first Latino elected to statewide office. Herring also makes history tonight, as the first Virginia Attorney General to lose re-election since Francis Blair lost in 1885.

Miyares’s victory was aided in part by a $2.6 million investment from the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA), which was used by the Miyares campaign to supplement television ad buys.

RAGA Chairman South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson released the following statement congratulating Jason Miyares on his victory.

“I appreciate Jason stepping up to the plate and running a campaign focused on public safety and respect for our guiding principles, the Constitution and rule of law. Jason will be a welcome addition within our organization and I am looking forward to working with him to ensure that America continues to be safe and prosperous.”

RAGA Executive Director Peter Bisbee echoed Chairman Wilson’s remarks.

“Jason Miyares tirelessly made his case to Virginia voters as he campaigned across the Commonwealth in recent months. Miyares’s hard work, aided by financial support from RAGA, paid off and Virginia will have an attorney general who won’t back down from tough fights to protect the Constitution and rule of law. I look forward to having Miyares join our ranks and be a part of the coalition that is pushing back against the administrative state. After eight years of failed Democrat leadership in the AG’s office, Virginians had enough. I view Virginia as a bellwether and am confident voters across the country will vote out a number of incumbent Democrat attorneys general in 2022. I look forward to continuing to expand the majority next year.”

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