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“Dark Money” by Jane Mayer was extremely enlightening. The influence of the Koch family on politics and public opinion has been devastating. The Federalist So

“Dark Money” by Jane Mayer was extremely enlightening. The influence of the Koch family on politics and public opinion has been devastating. The Federalist Society is a conspiracy against democracy.

Pirgo 6y ago
Essential reading.
chub500 6y ago
Can you give a brief synopsis about how the federalist society is a conspiracy against democracy? I thought it was about originalism which seems to me to be pro-democracy by maintaining proper separation of powers etc.
- extra88 6y ago
  The Federalist Society finds, indoctrinates, and advances conservative lawyers and judges. That's not inherently anti-democratic though their level of success and influence on judges selection processes may be considered so. The problem is they also tend to be highly partisan (pro-Republican) which undermines the separation of powers. Often their picks ignore their "originalist" approach when it would be counter to their desired outcome. I'm no expert, this is from my general understanding and skimming Wikipedia.
  - chub500 6y ago
    I believe for the last 30 years or so (after the late Antonin Scalia) 'conservative' judge is almost synonymous with originalist. I think you may be falling victim to correlation is not causation? IE there are no liberal originalists by definition (above). If I'm wrong, could you give me an example of a liberal originalist? I would be very happy to be wrong about this. The correlation here is that conservative presidents pick justices who object to rulings like Roe v Wade. The mistaken 'cause' is that it is Conservatism that leads to this objection when in fact it could also be that originalists object to legislation from the bench. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Rj_MhS2u-Pk https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Rj_MhS2u-Pk
    - extra88 6y ago
      Conservative judges have no problem with legislation from the bench when they're the ones doing it. Again, they pretend to use an impartial "originalist" principle when decision-making but cherry-pick the "original" texts they use or ignore them when they would lead to ruling in a way conservatives don't like. How is it "originalist" to take the 2nd Amendment, which refers to "well regulated Militia," and using it to say there's a Constitutional right to owning a handgun for personal protection (without safety requirements like a trigger lock or safe)? It's not, yet that's what conservatives decided, specifically Scalia in his majority opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller.
      - chub500 6y ago
        https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_j6lRdktscE https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_j6lRdktscE Do you seriously think Scalia cared about protecting people's rights to bear arms beyond the text of the 2nd amendment? Again, what constitutes a true liberal originalist? These justices are not pursuing power but trying to interpret law - and they get accused of undermining democracy...
        extra88 6y ago
        > Do you seriously think Scalia cared about protecting people's rights to bear arms beyond the text of the 2nd amendment? Whatever rights to bear arms there are, they come from the 2nd Amendment. It is absurd to stretch an Amendment about "well regulated Militia" to mean D.C. can't require people to store a handgun with a trigger lock because it would impinge on their ability to use it for personal protection. Yet that's what Scalia in the majority decided. > what constitutes a true liberal originalist? You keep missing my point; if anyone was actually an originalist, some of their decisions would seem conservative, some would seem liberal, because they would just obediently be following what the text says. No judge actually does that and that alone, I'm only aware of conservative judges that claim they do. The term "originalist" was invented by conservatives so that's not surprising. I am not saying all conservative judges make wrong decisions and liberal judges make right ones. I'm saying conservatives attack outcomes they don't like as not being "originalist" instead of being honest that it's an outcome they don't like. They're hypocrites. But this is not really relevant to the original claim of the Federalist Society undermining democracy; I think it would go to far to say to be conservative is to be anti-democratic. If the Federalist Society is anti-democratic, it's more in their means than in their ends.
  - jonstewart 6y ago
    Indeed. To illustrate Samuel Alito just gave a keynote address to the Federalist Society a few days ago. The NY Times and NPR have recaps: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/13/us/samuel-alito-religious-liberty-free-speech.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/13/us/samuel-alito-religious... https://www.npr.org/2020/11/13/934666499/justice-alito-pandemic-has-brought-unimaginable-restrictions-on-freedoms https://www.npr.org/2020/11/13/934666499/justice-alito-pande... You can watch the whole thing for yourself here: https://youtu.be/tYLZL4GZVbA https://youtu.be/tYLZL4GZVbA The speech is an attack on science, expertise, and common sense. It’s a MAGA hat with a thin veneer of respectability. It’s not clear to me to what extent such judges believe in this ideology, or whether they’re simply craven and exercising a will to power, but the Federalist Society has spent the past several decades working to place lawyers with fringe jurisprudence into the judiciary, and the Koch brothers wrote the checks.
    - dane-pgp 6y ago
      > It’s a MAGA hat with a thin veneer of respectability. So like a MAGA fedora?
    - akudha 6y ago
      I saw parts of the speech and it was crazy. This is why appointing judges for life makes zero sense to me. If I become a supreme court judge at 45 and live to 75, I have a full three decades to change the direction of the country forever. This is very very scary. There should be a term limit for everyone in government like presidents do - mayors, congressmen, senators, judges...
      - jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
        Not to mention it'd make the majority of turnovers in the supreme court an orderly scheduled event fair between parties.
        erik_seaberg 6y ago
        They are meant to be appointing an independent judiciary applying precedent and law as written, not delegates whose votes are pledged to parties. Activists belong in Congress where the voters have some say.
- hackeraccount 6y ago
  conspiracy against democracy = people pursuing political ends I don't like Grassroots democratic action = people pursuing political ends I do like
  - bitwize 6y ago
    "$TYCOON_I_DISAGREE_WITH is a shadowy oligarch undermining democracy with dark money" = facts "$TYCOON_I_AGREE_WITH is a shadowy oligarch undermining democracy with dark money" = unfounded conspiracy theory
- gamblor956 6y ago
  See a transcript of Alito's speech this week. It's a hour of ranting against democracy. He didn't even hide the fact that he doesn't care that gay marriage or other issues were approved by voters; he would judicially end gay marriage in the name of "religious freedom." But this freedom only extends to particular forms of Christianity, as Alito is quite comfortable with restricting the religious practices of Muslims and Wiccans.
  - catawbasam 6y ago
    There is genuine work to be done reconciling gay marriage with the first amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" Unfortunately Alito is more likely to add to the problem than to help resolve it.
    - kemiller 6y ago
      Hogwash. No religion is forced to perform marriages they don’t believe in.
    - ceejayoz 6y ago
      > There is genuine work to be done reconciling gay marriage with the first amendment... Why? Catholics (as an example) don't perform or internally honor Jewish (as an example) weddings, either, without it being any sort of First Amendment issue.
      - voltaireodactyl 6y ago
        First Amendment protects you from government. Catholics are not the government. That’s why Catholic discussion of Jewish marriages is not a First Amendment issue, while Supreme Court Justice Alito advocating against gay marriage is.
        ceejayoz 6y ago
        > First Amendment protects you from government. Catholics are not the government. Right. That's my point; there's no need to reconcile the First Amendment with permitting gay marriage. There's nothing to reconcile. The common "allowing gay marriage is an infringement of religious freedom" argument is bunk for that reason.
andrewmg 6y ago
(Longtime HN lurker and FedSoc member/leader, although speaking for just myself here.) The Federalist Society's entire annual convention was just broadcast online this past week,[0] and it's pretty typical of the Society's activities: hosting panels, debates, and speeches on the law featuring a wide breadth of views. If the Federalist Society is some kind of "conspiracy"—one that you can join today, for fifty bucks!—then so is pretty much every other civic organization in existence. [0] https://fedsoc.org/conferences/2020-national-lawyers-convention https://fedsoc.org/conferences/2020-national-lawyers-convent...
- jswizzy 6y ago
  I don't know what you mean by voters. Since the gay marriage issue was decided by the courts instead of legislatures.
  - pnw_hazor 6y ago
    Not in free states like Washington. The voters decided.
  - stevenwoo 6y ago
    To be generous and read between the lines, the Supreme Court eventually comes around to opinions that agree with a majority of Americans.The idea of it as an apolitical organization is to ignore reality.
  - jjeaff 6y ago
    Technically, the courts interpreted the legislation that was already passed as allowing gay marriage. If there was a political, legislative will, "the people" could pass an amendment to the law specifying that gay marriage is not allowed or protected.
- colinmhayes 6y ago
  It isn't a conspiracy. It is the organization most at fault for mitch's anti-democratic actions regarding the supreme court that I honestly believe has the potential to completely undermine our government. The supreme court's move to a completely partisan institution is a huge step toward a populist dictatorship. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/supreme-revenge/ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/supreme-revenge/
riazrizvi 6y ago
The essence of economic conservatism is about preserving power for those already in power, reducing opportunity. Of course it’s dressed up as libertarian freedom but that’s just the doublespeak. For example, in a laissez-faire, libertarian education system, kids who are born into wealth get a great education, kids who are not start adulthood with lots of disadvantages, which obviously conserves the status quo, and starves an economy by reducing its potential intellectual capital without benefit to the system as a whole. American prosperity is a direct result of our unusual democratic institutions that push in the direction of economic opportunity, through laws that enforce a more even economic playing field relative to other economies around the world, but it is always being attacked by monopoly oriented interests, and the inherited wealth class. This is the primary political axis of Democrat vs Republican. It's an argument especially relevant to the startup community because great startups disrupt the economic status quo. Take away the system that enables that and you are left with top-down/autocratic economic systems. They have their benefits, efficient use of resources, so long as it benefits the regime, but over time, since autocratic regimes are optimized to keep people in power, they can't innovate as well. The highest profile example recently, was Jack Ma's attempted IPO that got shut down because he offended Xi in a speech. Loyalty to the top trumps all.

Pirgo 6y ago

Essential reading.

chub500 6y ago

Can you give a brief synopsis about how the federalist society is a conspiracy against democracy? I thought it was about originalism which seems to me to be pro-democracy by maintaining proper separation of powers etc.

extra88 6y ago
The Federalist Society finds, indoctrinates, and advances conservative lawyers and judges. That's not inherently anti-democratic though their level of success and influence on judges selection processes may be considered so. The problem is they also tend to be highly partisan (pro-Republican) which undermines the separation of powers. Often their picks ignore their "originalist" approach when it would be counter to their desired outcome. I'm no expert, this is from my general understanding and skimming Wikipedia.
- chub500 6y ago
  I believe for the last 30 years or so (after the late Antonin Scalia) 'conservative' judge is almost synonymous with originalist. I think you may be falling victim to correlation is not causation? IE there are no liberal originalists by definition (above). If I'm wrong, could you give me an example of a liberal originalist? I would be very happy to be wrong about this. The correlation here is that conservative presidents pick justices who object to rulings like Roe v Wade. The mistaken 'cause' is that it is Conservatism that leads to this objection when in fact it could also be that originalists object to legislation from the bench. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Rj_MhS2u-Pk https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Rj_MhS2u-Pk
  - extra88 6y ago
    Conservative judges have no problem with legislation from the bench when they're the ones doing it. Again, they pretend to use an impartial "originalist" principle when decision-making but cherry-pick the "original" texts they use or ignore them when they would lead to ruling in a way conservatives don't like. How is it "originalist" to take the 2nd Amendment, which refers to "well regulated Militia," and using it to say there's a Constitutional right to owning a handgun for personal protection (without safety requirements like a trigger lock or safe)? It's not, yet that's what conservatives decided, specifically Scalia in his majority opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller.
    - chub500 6y ago
      https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_j6lRdktscE https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_j6lRdktscE Do you seriously think Scalia cared about protecting people's rights to bear arms beyond the text of the 2nd amendment? Again, what constitutes a true liberal originalist? These justices are not pursuing power but trying to interpret law - and they get accused of undermining democracy...
      - extra88 6y ago
        > Do you seriously think Scalia cared about protecting people's rights to bear arms beyond the text of the 2nd amendment? Whatever rights to bear arms there are, they come from the 2nd Amendment. It is absurd to stretch an Amendment about "well regulated Militia" to mean D.C. can't require people to store a handgun with a trigger lock because it would impinge on their ability to use it for personal protection. Yet that's what Scalia in the majority decided. > what constitutes a true liberal originalist? You keep missing my point; if anyone was actually an originalist, some of their decisions would seem conservative, some would seem liberal, because they would just obediently be following what the text says. No judge actually does that and that alone, I'm only aware of conservative judges that claim they do. The term "originalist" was invented by conservatives so that's not surprising. I am not saying all conservative judges make wrong decisions and liberal judges make right ones. I'm saying conservatives attack outcomes they don't like as not being "originalist" instead of being honest that it's an outcome they don't like. They're hypocrites. But this is not really relevant to the original claim of the Federalist Society undermining democracy; I think it would go to far to say to be conservative is to be anti-democratic. If the Federalist Society is anti-democratic, it's more in their means than in their ends.
- jonstewart 6y ago
  Indeed. To illustrate Samuel Alito just gave a keynote address to the Federalist Society a few days ago. The NY Times and NPR have recaps: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/13/us/samuel-alito-religious-liberty-free-speech.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/13/us/samuel-alito-religious... https://www.npr.org/2020/11/13/934666499/justice-alito-pandemic-has-brought-unimaginable-restrictions-on-freedoms https://www.npr.org/2020/11/13/934666499/justice-alito-pande... You can watch the whole thing for yourself here: https://youtu.be/tYLZL4GZVbA https://youtu.be/tYLZL4GZVbA The speech is an attack on science, expertise, and common sense. It’s a MAGA hat with a thin veneer of respectability. It’s not clear to me to what extent such judges believe in this ideology, or whether they’re simply craven and exercising a will to power, but the Federalist Society has spent the past several decades working to place lawyers with fringe jurisprudence into the judiciary, and the Koch brothers wrote the checks.
  - dane-pgp 6y ago
    > It’s a MAGA hat with a thin veneer of respectability. So like a MAGA fedora?
  - akudha 6y ago
    I saw parts of the speech and it was crazy. This is why appointing judges for life makes zero sense to me. If I become a supreme court judge at 45 and live to 75, I have a full three decades to change the direction of the country forever. This is very very scary. There should be a term limit for everyone in government like presidents do - mayors, congressmen, senators, judges...
    - jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
      Not to mention it'd make the majority of turnovers in the supreme court an orderly scheduled event fair between parties.
      - erik_seaberg 6y ago
        They are meant to be appointing an independent judiciary applying precedent and law as written, not delegates whose votes are pledged to parties. Activists belong in Congress where the voters have some say.
hackeraccount 6y ago
conspiracy against democracy = people pursuing political ends I don't like Grassroots democratic action = people pursuing political ends I do like
- bitwize 6y ago
  "$TYCOON_I_DISAGREE_WITH is a shadowy oligarch undermining democracy with dark money" = facts "$TYCOON_I_AGREE_WITH is a shadowy oligarch undermining democracy with dark money" = unfounded conspiracy theory
gamblor956 6y ago
See a transcript of Alito's speech this week. It's a hour of ranting against democracy. He didn't even hide the fact that he doesn't care that gay marriage or other issues were approved by voters; he would judicially end gay marriage in the name of "religious freedom." But this freedom only extends to particular forms of Christianity, as Alito is quite comfortable with restricting the religious practices of Muslims and Wiccans.
- catawbasam 6y ago
  There is genuine work to be done reconciling gay marriage with the first amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" Unfortunately Alito is more likely to add to the problem than to help resolve it.
  - kemiller 6y ago
    Hogwash. No religion is forced to perform marriages they don’t believe in.
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
    > There is genuine work to be done reconciling gay marriage with the first amendment... Why? Catholics (as an example) don't perform or internally honor Jewish (as an example) weddings, either, without it being any sort of First Amendment issue.
    - voltaireodactyl 6y ago
      First Amendment protects you from government. Catholics are not the government. That’s why Catholic discussion of Jewish marriages is not a First Amendment issue, while Supreme Court Justice Alito advocating against gay marriage is.
      - ceejayoz 6y ago
        > First Amendment protects you from government. Catholics are not the government. Right. That's my point; there's no need to reconcile the First Amendment with permitting gay marriage. There's nothing to reconcile. The common "allowing gay marriage is an infringement of religious freedom" argument is bunk for that reason.

andrewmg 6y ago

(Longtime HN lurker and FedSoc member/leader, although speaking for just myself here.) The Federalist Society's entire annual convention was just broadcast online this past week,[0] and it's pretty typical of the Society's activities: hosting panels, debates, and speeches on the law featuring a wide breadth of views. If the Federalist Society is some kind of "conspiracy"—one that you can join today, for fifty bucks!—then so is pretty much every other civic organization in existence. [0] https://fedsoc.org/conferences/2020-national-lawyers-convention https://fedsoc.org/conferences/2020-national-lawyers-convent...

jswizzy 6y ago
I don't know what you mean by voters. Since the gay marriage issue was decided by the courts instead of legislatures.
- pnw_hazor 6y ago
  Not in free states like Washington. The voters decided.
- stevenwoo 6y ago
  To be generous and read between the lines, the Supreme Court eventually comes around to opinions that agree with a majority of Americans.The idea of it as an apolitical organization is to ignore reality.
- jjeaff 6y ago
  Technically, the courts interpreted the legislation that was already passed as allowing gay marriage. If there was a political, legislative will, "the people" could pass an amendment to the law specifying that gay marriage is not allowed or protected.
colinmhayes 6y ago
It isn't a conspiracy. It is the organization most at fault for mitch's anti-democratic actions regarding the supreme court that I honestly believe has the potential to completely undermine our government. The supreme court's move to a completely partisan institution is a huge step toward a populist dictatorship. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/supreme-revenge/ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/supreme-revenge/

riazrizvi 6y ago

The essence of economic conservatism is about preserving power for those already in power, reducing opportunity. Of course it’s dressed up as libertarian freedom but that’s just the doublespeak. For example, in a laissez-faire, libertarian education system, kids who are born into wealth get a great education, kids who are not start adulthood with lots of disadvantages, which obviously conserves the status quo, and starves an economy by reducing its potential intellectual capital without benefit to the system as a whole. American prosperity is a direct result of our unusual democratic institutions that push in the direction of economic opportunity, through laws that enforce a more even economic playing field relative to other economies around the world, but it is always being attacked by monopoly oriented interests, and the inherited wealth class. This is the primary political axis of Democrat vs Republican. It's an argument especially relevant to the startup community because great startups disrupt the economic status quo. Take away the system that enables that and you are left with top-down/autocratic economic systems. They have their benefits, efficient use of resources, so long as it benefits the regime, but over time, since autocratic regimes are optimized to keep people in power, they can't innovate as well. The highest profile example recently, was Jack Ma's attempted IPO that got shut down because he offended Xi in a speech. Loyalty to the top trumps all.