Brodner’s Cartoon du Jour: Bopp Go the (5) Weasles

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Thursday’s Supreme Court decision striking down limits on corporate spending in elections marks the latest in a remarkable string of victories for a Republican lawyer in Terre Haute, Indiana. James Bopp Jr. did not argue Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission before the high court, but the case was entirely his brainchild.

Bopp, the longtime counsel to the anti-abortion group National Right to Life, has now almost single-handedly obliterated many of the nation’s relatively modest restrictions on corporate election spending, including the landmark McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform legislation. And he’s done it all in the name of the First Amendment. In 2007, Bopp persuaded the Supreme Court to eliminate limits on corporate funding of television ads in Federal Election Commission v. Wisconsin Right to Life, arguing that the rules were an unconstitutional infringement on free speech. A few months later, he represented Citizens United in its battle with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) over its efforts to air a critical documentary about Hillary Clinton on television during the election season—the case that led to Thursday’s major Supreme Court decision.

As with so many of Bopp’s cases, few people took the Citizens United challenge seriously in the beginning. During one hearing in early 2008, US District Court Judge Royce Lamberth actually laughed at Bopp for comparing the Citizens United film—which portrayed Hillary Clinton as a European socialist—to investigative news shows like 60 Minutes. Since then, judges, good government groups, and various other political actors have learned that Bopp is not to be laughed at. After the Supreme Court decided to take the case, Citizens United hired renowned high court litigator Ted Olson to handle the oral arguments, but the case bears all the trademarks of Bopp’s handiwork.

From Mother Jones

Fist Pounding

What happened yesterday at the Supreme Court profoundly changes America. Now corporations will have completely unfettered ability to crush any candidacy they don’t like. More than ever, we can see who owns this country. We see what the pillars of the Court have become: a continuation of the pinstripes on the big corporate sleeve. Our ability to fight them is now simply whisked away by five reactionary justices, all appointed by Republicans. It is time to be direct. The influence of the Republican party and any Democrat who thinks of his sponsors first and the people second is a cancer on this country. And now that will be everyone in Congress. It is already a corporate arm, but this makes it more overwhelmingly and grotesquely so. We must realize that this is complete Orwellian control on an obscene level. If we can take this back, it will require everyone’s seeing this as the emergency it is. As Lincoln said, “We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.”

TAKE ACTION: Rep. Alan Grayson’s site

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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