If it wasn’t clear before, by now there should be no doubt. The attempt to block President Obama’s appointment of the next Supreme Court Justice is being spearheaded for the most part by two Billionaires who have never held elective office or performed a day of public service in their lives.
The Republican-controlled Senate has consciously and deliberately abdicated its Constitutional duty—a duty each member of the Republican-controlled Judiciary Committee responsible for the confirmation process swore an oath to uphold upon attaining office—having been ordered to do so by its largest political donors, most prominently the “dark money” political action network of oil, gas and energy magnates Charles and David Koch.
Jane Mayer, writing for the New Yorker:
The Kochs are intent...on preventing President Obama from appointing a Supreme Court Justice who could be at odds with their views. There are multiple ties between the Koch network and two dark-money “social-welfare” groups that have already mobilized against any Supreme Court nominee that Obama might choose—America Rising Squared, which is digging for dirt on potential nominees, and the Judicial Crisis Network, which has started airing ads aimed at intimidating Democrats who would push for confirmation hearings.
There is nothing more powerful in politics than money, and no one has used it to warp our political process more than Charles and David Koch. They know that they stand to lose hundreds of millions—even billions, if the Supreme Court upholds this President’s—or any future Democratic President’s-- attempts to regulate or curtail their industries’ fossil fuel pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, all accelerating the planet’s warming at an unheard-of rate of speed. The ideological orientation of the next Justice means more to the Koch brothers’ bottom line than most Americans could imagine in their wildest dreams. And the recipients of their dark money, the Republican Party, and every Republican member of the House and Senate, knows it as well.
In this case it’s apparent that every Republican Senator — each of whom lives in abject fear of a primary challenge funded by the Kochs — has decided to cravenly kneel before these unelected billionaires and allow them to assume control of the entire process, effectively ceding all duty and responsibility they owe by virtue of their office to the American public, and instead giving the Kochs and their ilk free rein to intrude and manipulate our government for their interests alone. From the Washington Post:
[W]here the Senate itself would typically take the lead role in vetting a Supreme Court nominee, there are no plans this time for the Judiciary Committee to hire its usual complement of additional staffers to conduct such checks. Beth Levine, a spokeswoman for the panel’s Republicans, confirmed Wednesday there are no plans to hire additional investigators to probe Garland.
That has given outside groups a central role in the coming fight, especially on the Republican side. Most prominent among them is the Judicial Crisis Network, which has coordinated the conservative response to the Scalia vacancy and has pledged to run millions of dollars in television ads to derail Obama’s nominee.
The group issued talking points Tuesday that said Garland would support “a laundry list of extreme liberal priorities, like gutting the Second Amendment, legalizing partial-birth abortion, and unleashing unaccountable bureaucratic agencies like the EPA and the IRS.”
The “Judicial Crisis Network” is a secretive right-wing organization which exists primarily to defeat judges that it perceives are unfriendly to the interests of its funders. It is the brainchild of lawyer Ann Corkery and a California real estate magnate named Robin Arkley II, the President and CEO of Security National Corp. With the substantial assistance of Charles and David Koch around the time of the 2008 election, it has drastically expanded its influence, particularly in state judicial elections, and has operated as a primary channel for Republican “dark money:”
To fill its own coffers, JCN has increasingly relied on funding—to the tune of nearly $4 million, according to IRS documents—from another non-disclosing group, the Wellspring Committee, that’s run by Corkery and was founded seven years ago with the help of conservative donors in the network led by billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch.
Corkery's organization overlaps with other conservative Billionaires not directly responsive to the Kochs (such as hedge fund manager Paul Singer and little-known Pennsylvania “philanthropist,” John Templeton), but there is no doubt that the JCN owes its existence in large part to Koch largesse:
Corkery had a breakthrough year in 2008. Koch operatives gave her the reins to their fledgling Wellspring Committee, a dark money conduit that began pumping funds to other dark money Koch-backed groups like Americans for Prosperity. At the same time, Corkery served as a finance vice chair for Mitt Romney’s 2008 presidential campaign.
The other Koch-tied organization that Mayer mentions--one that Americans would not know or recognize-- is “America Rising Squared.” This is an “Opposition Research” organization that exists primarily to “dig up dirt” and smear any judicial nominee who is perceived to be unfriendly to “conservative,” i.e, corporate interests. America Rising Squared was formed by a longtime aide to John McCain named Brian Rogers.
America Rising Squared, a GOP-aligned opposition research organization, has been working with the Judicial Crisis Network and the Republican National Committee to investigate potential nominees. Brian Rogers, the firm’s executive director, said Wednesday that he had about a dozen researchers digging into Garland’s background; some will be deployed across the country to vet the judge.
Here are the joint talking points issued on Tuesday by these two Koch-tied groups, which are being carefully parroted by Republican Senators asked about their opposition to the the appointment of Judge Merrick Garland, the President’s proposed appointee. The Kochs’ (and other billionaires affiliated with these groups) strategy is to portray Garland as an “anti-gun zealot.” For example, the groups urge Republicans to say that Judge Garland will “gut the Second Amendment”. And here is just one of their puppets, Republican Senator from Wisconsin, Ron Johnson, yesterday:
I’ll meet with the guy, but trust me: We’re not going to let the Supreme Court flip,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said. “And this nominee obviously would flip the court, particularly on an issue that is pretty important in Wisconsin — the right to keep and bear arms.”
The “anti-gun” trope has been repeated over and over through various conservative outlets in the last 48 hours. It will likely be the primary talking point for the GOP over the weekend, as they line up, one by one, reciting the Koch line chapter and verse.
The relationship of the Republican Party to the interests of these oil billionaires is now so established they are for all intents and purposes indistinguishable. Perhaps the best known Koch Front group, Americans for Prosperity, has already cemented its master/servant relationship with the Republican Party. As Mayer notes:
On issue after issue, Republican candidates have sworn fealty to the Kochs’ ultra-free-market positions. The study calculates that Republican members of the House and Senate largely voted as Americans for Prosperity told them to eighty-eight per cent of the time last year, up from seventy-three per cent of the time in 2007.
Americans have a right to know who is really responsible for hijacking their Democracy.