The strongest democracies fund journalism as a common good -- not a commodity. The US has been ranked as a "flawed democracy" for quite some time:

weforum.org/agenda/2017/02…

A hugely consequential case for the separation of church and state -- that is being pushed by the same legal outfits behind the overturn of Roe.

👉Oklahoma’s Catholic Charter School Asks U.S. Supreme Court for Review

@The74 the74million.org/article/oklaho… Oklahoma is also the place where Bibles -- a certain kind that might include royalties back to Trump -- are being mandated in all classrooms.

Reprising some of this reporting on the actors behind this case:

The Alliance Defending Freedom helped develop arguments that led to the end of Roe v. Wade. It is significantly funded by donor-advised funds that allow their patrons to keep their identities secret but which receive large amounts of money from Leonard Leo-aligned groups.

NEW: Leo-aligned groups attack D.C. attorney general who began investigating his network, a major funder of Project 2025.

👉The months-long offensive against DC AG Brian Schwalb includes:

🧵

politico.com/news/2024/03/2… 1. 12 of his Republican AG peers sent a letter warning Schwalb to stand down.
“I’ve never seen it in any context.”

2. GOP House chairs launched their own investigation of Schwalb’s investigation.

3. Conservative media wrote articles criticizing Schwalb on unrelated crime /

NEW: Trump allies plan to infuse ‘Christian nationalism’ in second administration

(docs obtained by @politico)
w @alexbward

🧵
politi.co/3OQoxqr Russ Vought, a former Trump official & potential chief of staff in a second Trump term, is president of The Center for Renewing America.

Freedom of religion would remain a protected right, but Vought and his ideological brethren would not shy from using their positions to /

There's a larger context here that is critical.

One of the most important & overlooked religious movements of our time is the New Apostolic Reformation -- and its adherents do believe Trump came from God.

https://twitter.com/MeidasTouch/status/1743316925885665449

"Lance Wallnau’s book, 'God’s Chaos Candidate' played a significant role in solidifying evangelical support" in 2016 (Salon.)

It promotes a belief Christians have a mandate to control the “seven mountains” (dominionism) of society in order for Christ to return to Earth.

NEW: Public Christian schools?
Leonard Leo’s allies and the family friends of Justice Amy Coney Barrett advance a new cause.

“If the (Supreme) court approves this, it changes everything” about public education.

via @politicopoliti.co/48eGIxS St. Isidore is represented by the Notre Dame Religious Liberty Initiative. Notre Dame law professor Nicolle Stelle Garnett, Barrett’s personal friend of 20 years, has been the effort’s biggest champion within Notre Dame and working with St. Isidore from the start.

NEW @POLITICO Investigation: most conservative briefs in high-profile cases have links to a small cadre of activists aligned with Leonard Leo.

A first-of-its-kind review confirming the following:
(THREAD)

Video:


Story:
politico.com/video/2023/11/…
politico.com/news/2023/12/0… 1. Leo and his network of nonprofits are either directly or indirectly connected to a majority of amicus briefs filed on behalf of conservative parties in 7 of the biggest recent cases.

2. Multiple instances of language in the amicus briefs appearing in the court’s opinions.

History on who's behind defunding the IRS:
👉Cleta Mitchell (who played a role in Trump's false election claims) helped Ginni Thomas set up her own advocacy nonprofit and championed the successful effort.

politi.co/3ExpGO9 Mitchell's allies were at the time erecting a vast network of Tea Party-aligned groups, and the IRS was scrutinizing the explosion.

Since then, Leo has built a vast network of advocacy around the Supreme Court using nonprofit tax laws.

The movement’s triumphs are now visible.

NEWS: 👇Leonard Leo, architect of Supreme Court majority, says he will not cooperate with D.C. Attorney General tax probe

THREAD

via @politicopoliti.co/3ZKda7J David Rivkin, Leo's attorney, says the AG doesn’t have authority to probe whether Leo, who reins over a multi-billion-dollar nonprofit empire, used tax laws governing “charitable” or “social welfare” groups for personal enrichment.

It's unclear whether IRS is also investigating.

We also break down the lack of evidence that Joe Biden benefited from Hunter's business deals.

There are no publicly available documents to support this.

👉What there is:
1. A text message Hunter sent while addicted to crack to his daughter during a fight over money that ...

https://twitter.com/washingtonweek/status/1702852994054656063

has no context. House R's have for months had access to Treasury's suspicious activity reports but, still, no docs.

2. The Bidens appeared to be on a family cell phone plan.

3. There is substantial evidence about Hunter's personal enrichment.

A much under-reported explanation of GOP U-turn back to defending Trump after Jan. 6:

"A new, more existential brand of cowardice had emerged.... he wanted to vote for Trump’s second impeachment, but chose not to out of fear for his family’s safety."

theatlantic.com/magazine/archi… The congressman reasoned that Trump would be impeached by House Democrats with or without him—why put his wife and children at risk if it wouldn’t change the outcome? Later, during the Senate trial, Romney heard the same calculation while talking with a small group of Republican

Nice breakdown by @rachaelmbade
👇👇

5 key questions about McCarthy’s impeachment push via @politicopoliti.co/46e1CvL What are Republicans trying to prove?

That Biden was on the take.

It’s well documented that his son, Hunter, was paid millions by foreign companies while his dad was vice president. But Republicans have not turned up any evidence showing that the elder Biden personally

JUST IN: White House Issues Memo to U.S. Media Leaders

"It’s time for the media to ramp up its scrutiny of House Republicans for opening an impeachment inquiry based on lies."

Impeachment is grave, rare, and historic. The Constitution requires “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”
But House Republicans are publicly stating they have uncovered none of these things.

"After nearly 9 months of investigating, House Republicans haven’t been able to turn up any evidence of the President doing anything wrong."

NEW: Dem secretaries of state throw cold water on 14th Amendment push to disqualify Trump from the ballot

“Not even appropriate for a state to give the secretary of state authority to do it.”
@JocelynBenson (MI) to @politico

w @ZachMontellaro
politi.co/48g2RMw they are in unison that this issue must be resolved in the courts, not by unilateral action by political appointees or electeds.

“We are not the eligibility police"
@MNSteveSimon (MN)

“the court has to make those determinations and likely will.” (Jena Griswold, COLO)

NEW: How Leonard Leo and Ginni Thomas gamed Citizens’ United

@politico's months-long investigation shows Thomas' early involvement with Leo in the weeks before the ruling & raises questions about how much money he may have directed to her.

@politicopoliti.co/3ExpGO9 👉5 IRS nonprofit experts who reviewed tax filings at POLITICO’s request say they deserve scrutiny.

1. Just weeks before the Supreme Court handed down its ruling, Thomas collaborated with Leo to create a nonprofit (Liberty Central) that would benefit from the ruling &

For folks who primarily consume right-wing media funded by billionaires, let me help on the Hunter issue and what's not been proven:

1. The committee has not found any direct evidence that President Biden personally benefited from any of his son’s biz dealings.

2. This follows a 5-years-long investigation by a Trump-appointed U.S. attorney that failed to produce such evidence andcnn.com/2023/08/09/pol…

NEW👉: Leonard Leo, Trump’s Supreme Court “whisperer,” & his nonprofit network are under investigation by the D.C. Attorney General.

Also just in: weeks ago, a pillar of his empire moved to Texas from the Capitol area (home for nearly 20 years).



THREAD:politico.com/news/2023/08/2… The probe follows @politico's reporting that the tax-exempt "charitable" group paid his for-profit tens of millions over 2 years, with little indication of what services were rendered.

The nonprofit had been using a UPS drop box in DC's Georgetown as its mailing address.

It's a small world, a very small world -- of religious conservatives winning hugely consequential cases before the @USSupremeCourt.

Because I believe most Americans probably don't realize how small, I'll try to write about it more in this space.

Bite size for now.

1/ Leonard Leo is the longtime friend of Justice Thomas.
Leo helped advise and/or assist in placing Roberts, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett.

He runs a major nonprofit spending network &, after Scalia died, facilitated spending of millions of dollars on blocking Garland.

NEW: Leonard Leo, who helped to choose judicial nominees for Trump, obtained a historic $1.6 billion gift for his conservative legal network via an introduction through the Federalist Society, whose tax status forbids political activism.

politi.co/3Vnyq0U via @politico Leo’s business empire and his leadership position at the society “easily gets blurred,” creating “a public relations problem,”

(Prof. Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer, an expert on nonprofit organization advocacy at the University of Notre Dame.)

As sport hunting waned, in 2005 gun makers saw a consumer marketing opportunity.

“We made it look cool,” Luth said. “The same reason you buy a Corvette.”

washingtonpost.com/nation/interac… Eugene Stoner, a World War II veteran who invented the AR-15 in the late 1950s ... had no interest in civilians using his invention.

Stoner would have been horrified by that “he invented the tool of all this carnage in the schools.”

NEW: “Fox News irrevocably changed my life when they force fed lies about me to tens of millions of their viewers”

👉For the first time, Nina Jankowicz details a year of intense "harassment" spurred by serving as former Biden ‘disinfo’ chief.

politi.co/3mufqAx @politico “In addition to the deferral of my dream of serving my country, I’ve lost something irreplaceable: peace with my son during his first year in the world,” she says in a new video:



On Mon Rep. Jordan issued a subpoena for her to sit for a deposition