Backed by a cabal of wealthy conservative patrons like industrialist #David #Koch,
banker #Richard #Mellon #Scaife,
and the devout Catholic entrepreneur #Frank #Hanna,
the Federalist Society under Leo became a breeding ground for conservative judges who were recruited at law school,
groomed through the society’s program of events and talks,
and then bound together through their careers.

“The key was to figure out how to develop what I call a ‘pipeline’
— basically, where you recruit students in law school,
you get them through law school,
they come out of law school,
and then you find ways of continuing to involve them in legal policy,” Leo later explained.

In 2005, the Federalist Society began openly advocating for #John #Roberts
— a former member
— to be nominated to fill a vacant seat at the Supreme Court,
the first time it had campaigned publicly for a particular candidate.

A few months later, its sway had grown so much that it torpedoed President George W. Bush’s own preferred candidate for another vacant seat on the Supreme Court
— #Harriet #Miers, a judge and close friend of the president who wasn’t a member of the Federalist Society
— and pressured him to nominate #Samuel #Alito, one of its members, in her place.

Leo worked closely with the "Judicial Confirmation Network",
a new nonprofit organization set up using funds from #Robin #Arkley, a California businessman known as the
“foreclosure king,” who had made billions buying up mortgages of people in financial difficulties.

The idea for #JCN had been hatched at a dinner in Washington attended by Leo and Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia shortly after Bush’s reelection in late 2004.

JCN spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on radio and online advertisement to shape public opinion.

It was run by #Neil and #Ann #Corkery, a couple who had been members of #Opus #Dei since at least the eighties.

Neil had been a critical figure in getting a new residence for male, celibate members of the Catholic movement built in Reston, Virginia.

“Opus Dei members preach their faith through their work as well as the friendships they develop,” Ann explained.

She and her husband would later preach their faith by becoming central figures in a series of nonprofits that would channel dark money for Leo’s efforts.

Six Billionaire Fortunes Bankrolling #Project2025

More than $120 million from a few ultra-wealthy families has powered the #HeritageFoundation and other groups that created the plan to remake American government.

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/six-billionaire-fortunes-bankrolling-project-2025/

#Coors #Uihlein #Uline #KochBrothers #CharlesKoch #Scaife #BarreSeid #BradleyFamily #BradleyFoundation

Gravy Train to Oligarchy:

Historian Nancy MacLean explains that Virginia’s white elite and the pro-corporate president of the University of Virginia, Colgate #Darden, who had married into the #DuPont family, found James #Buchanan’s ideas to be spot on.

In nurturing a new intelligentsia to commit to his values, Buchanan stated that he needed a “#gravy #train,” and with backers like Charles #Koch and conservative foundations like the #Scaife Family Charitable Trusts, others hopped aboard.

#Money, Buchanan knew, can be a persuasive tool in academia. His circle of influence began to widen.

MacLean observes that the #Virginia #school, as Buchanan’s brand of economic and political thinking is known, is a kind of cousin to the better-known, market-oriented #Chicago and #Austrian schools — proponents of all three were members of the #Mont #Pelerin #Society, an international neoliberal organization which included Milton #Friedman and Friedrich #Hayek.

But the Virginia school’s focus and career missions were distinct. In an interview with the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET), MacLean described Friedman and Buchanan as yin and yang:
“Friedman was this genial, personable character who loved to be in the limelight and made a sunny case for the free market and the freedom to choose and so forth.
"Buchanan was the dark side of this: he thought, ok, fine, they can make a case for the free market, but everybody knows that free markets have externalities and other problems. So he wanted to keep people from believing that government could be the alternative to those problems.”

The Virginia school also differs from other economic schools in a marked reliance on #abstract #theory rather than #mathematics or empirical #evidence.

That a Nobel Prize was awarded in 1986 to an economist who so determinedly bucked the academic trends of his day was nothing short of stunning, MacLean observes. But, then, it was the peak of the #Reagan era, an administration several Buchanan students joined.

Buchanan’s school focused on *public choice theory*, later adding constitutional economics and the new field of law and economics to its core research and advocacy.

The economist saw that his vision would never come to fruition by focusing on *who rules. It was much better to focus on the rules themselves, and that required a “#constitutional #revolution.”

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/533763/democracy-in-chains-by-nancy-maclean/9781101980972/