All articles tagged with #conservative causes
Former President Barack Obama criticized Big Law firms for caving to pressure from the Trump administration, citing concerns about protecting careers and lifestyles over legal integrity, and also criticized universities for compromising academic independence under political pressure.
Former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has acquired an 8.37% stake in BuzzFeed and is advocating for significant changes, including staff cuts, board restructuring, and a shift towards creator-led video and audio content. Ramaswamy criticizes BuzzFeed's current strategy and calls for a focus on diverse political viewpoints. BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti acknowledges the brand's undervaluation but disagrees with Ramaswamy's proposed direction, emphasizing the company's commitment to its current strategy and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalism.
The G.D. Searle pharmaceutical company's family fortune, channeled through the Searle Freedom Trust, has quietly funded conservative causes, with over $200 million in grants distributed to conservative nonprofits over the last decade. The trust, set to close in 2025, has more than $59 million left to spend and has supported groups advocating for conservative policies, weakening child labor laws, stricter voting rules, gutting affirmative action policies, and climate change denial. The trust's influence reflects how generational wealth can shape political debates, and its endowment stems from the pharmaceutical company's development of common medicines and supplements, including the first birth control pill.
The Koch family, known for their conservative donations, is reportedly working to prevent Donald Trump from winning the 2024 Republican primary. Americans for Prosperity Action, a network of political organizations created by the Kochs, has raised over $70 million to fund races that aim to move the Republican party away from Trump. The group's goal is to have a new president in 2025 who represents a new chapter. Despite recent Supreme Court rulings against affirmative action and LGBT+ rights, President Biden believes expanding the Supreme Court would be a mistake. The court also ruled in favor of a wedding website designer who can refuse service to LGBT+ customers based on religious beliefs. Trump allegedly wanted his lawyers to retrieve classified documents and boxes seized from Mar-a-Lago, even as his lawyers prepared for a federal indictment. President Biden expressed reluctance to think about whether Trump would have tipped off Putin about a coup attempt. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a potential Republican presidential candidate, is accused of breaking the law by using a helicopter owned by the Texas Department of Public Safety during a border trip. Former Vice President Mike Pence visited Ukrainian President Zelensky in a show of support, despite waning Republican support for Ukraine. Trump celebrated the Supreme Court's rejection of affirmative action programs, calling it a great day for America. DeSantis saw a significant boost in earnings from a book advance, increasing his net worth.
Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. believes he knows who leaked his draft Supreme Court opinion that overturned Roe v. Wade last year, but neither he nor the court can prove it. Alito said he was sure the leak “was a part of an effort to prevent the Dobbs draft … from becoming the decision of the court. And that’s how it was used for those six weeks by people on the outside — as part of the campaign to try to intimidate the court.” Alito also defended the court’s willingness to overturn legal precedents, saying some cases, such as Roe and the court’s follow-up decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, “are so egregiously wrong, so clearly wrong, that that’s a very strong factor in support of overruling them.”